St. Pothinus

Feastday: June 2
Birth: 87
Death: 177

Also called Photinus, leader of a group of Christian martyrs in the city of Lyons, in Roman Gaul, including Alexander, Attalus, Espagathus, Maturus, and Sanctius. Their martyrdom was recorded in an extant and authentic letter sent from the Christian communities of Lyons and Vienne to their brethren in the Roman province of Asia. It is possible that the author of the letter may have been St. Irenaeus. The very graphic letter includes details about the martyrdoms. Pothinus was the ninety year old bishop of the city. With his fellow Christians, he was seized by a mob which brought them before the magistrate for trial on the charge of being Christians. Pothinus died from the cruelties inflicted upon him in the prison, while the others were murdered by wild beasts in the local amphitheater. One of the most famous martyrs in the group was a slave girl named Blandina, who was caught in a net and thrown to her death by a wild bull; another was a boy named Ponticus who was one of the last to die.

2nd century French bishop and saint

Saint Pothinus (French: Saint Pothin) was the first bishop of Lyon and the first bishop of Gaul. He is first mentioned in a letter attributed to Irenaeus of Lyon. The letter was sent from the Christian communities of Lyon and Vienne to the Roman province of Asia.

History

According to Alban Butler, by 177, a large number of the Christians in the area of Vienne and Lyons were Greeks from Asia. A violent persecution was there against them while Pothinus was bishop of Lyons, and Irenæus, who had been sent there by Polycarp out of Asia, was a priest of that city.

Church of Saint-Pothinus in Lyon.

Irenaeus, in asserting his own authority as bishop of Lyon, says that Pothinus had been his predecessor in the position, and the first holder of that office; in Irenaeus' account, Pothinus was born around the year 87, and died at the age of ninety, in about 177 AD.

According to the letter, Pothinus was martyred along with Alexander, Attalus, Espagathus, Maturus, and Sanctius, during persecutions by Marcus Aurelius, a Roman Emperor known for his great tolerance of faiths other than Christianity. Pothinus and several companions were seized by a mob and taken to the magistrate; Pothinus is believed to have died from the abuse he suffered in prison, while the others were killed by wild beasts in the local amphitheater.

The similarity of the name Pothinus and the Old French verb foutre lead to syncretic amalgamation of Pothinus and Priapus, under the assimilated name Saint Foutin.