EUTROPIO the PRESBYTER. — Theologian, who lived in the 4th–5th centuries, mentioned by Gennadius (De vir. ill., 49). He was probably Spanish and carried out his activity in northern Spain.
Only recently has his literary personality been fully identified and appreciated. He wrote three “letters,” treatises of an ascetic-theological character against the Manichaeans: De contemnendo haereditate; De vera circumcisione; De similitudine carnis peccati. The last of these had been falsely attributed to Paciano of Barcelona by Dom Morin.
BIBL.: The first two letters published in PL 30, 45–50; 188, 210. The last in G. Morin, Études, textes et découvertes, Paris 1913, pp. 107–50; J. Madoz, Heracicia literaria del presbitero E., in Études eclésiastiques, 16 (1912), pp. 27–54; F. Cavallera, L'héritage littéraire et spirituel du prêtre E., in Bull. de littér. ecclésiastique, 49 (1948), pp. 60–71. Giuseppe Madoz