ÉON OF STELLA

Founder of the heretical Eonites (known also as Eons, Eudo, Euno, Evus); b. probably Loudéac, Brittany, 12th century; d. Reims, c. 1148. According to william of newburgh, Éon was a simpleton who claimed that in the formula per eum qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos, the word eum designated himself as sovereign judge and Son of God. After recruiting numerous followers, he was cited to appear before eugene iii at the Synod of Reims (1148). He arrived armed with a forked staff. "When I raise this staff with its two prongs in the air," he explained, "God governs two-thirds of the world. When I turn it down, I command these two-thirds and God the remainder." Éon was condemned to prison and died soon after. He seems to have professed neither manichaeism nor the doctrines of the cathari. His opposition to the Church, especially to its wealth, his claim to divine filiation, and his advocacy of communism gained him a tremendous success among the destitute. The arrest and punishment of his followers—for their crimes rather than for their beliefs—in Brittany and Gascony marked the end of the "Eonite" heresy.

Bibliography: a. de la borderie Histoire de Bretagne, 6 v. (Rennes 1905–14) v.3. t. de cauzons, Histoire de l'Inquisition en France, 2 v. (Paris 1909–12) v.1. n. r. c. cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (London 1957). h. tÜchle, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche ² 3:1169–70. e. jarry, Catholicisme 4:278–279.

[j. daoust]