Saint Eustace and the Stag

 Saint Eustace, also known as Eustachius or Eustathius in Latin^[1] or St. Esthak in India, is revered as a Christian martyr and soldier saint. Legend places him in the 2nd century AD. A martyr of that name is venerated as a saint in the Anglican Church.^[2] He is commemorated by the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church on September 20.

According to legend,^[3] prior to his conversion to Christianity, Eustace was a Roman general named Placidus, who served the emperor Trajan. While hunting a stag in Tivoli near Rome, Placidus saw a vision of a crucifix lodged between the stag's antlers.^[4] He was immediately converted, had himself and his family baptized, and changed his name to Eustace (Greek: Ευστάθιος (Eustáthios), "well stable", or Ευστάχιος (Eustáchios), "fruitful/rich grain").
A series of calamities followed to test his faith: his wealth was stolen; his servants died of a plague; when the family took a sea-voyage, the ship's captain kidnapped Eustace's wife Theopista; and as Eustace crossed a river with his two sons Agapius and Theopistus, the children were taken away by a wolf and a lion. Like Job, Eustace lamented but did not lose his faith.
He was then quickly restored to his former prestige and reunited with his family. There is a tradition that when he demonstrated his new faith by refusing to make a pagan sacrifice, the emperor Hadrian condemned Eustace, his wife, and his sons to be roasted to death inside a bronze statue of a bull or an ox,^[5] in the year AD 118. However, the Catholic Church rejects this story as "completely false" ^[6]