He was forced to flee to the great Padan forest known as the Selva Cornea, where he and numerous followers were beheaded by pagan, or alternatively by Arian enemies, in the area of what is now Casale Monferrato.

[3] According to the Historia e vita di Sant'Evasio Vescovo e Martire by the Augustinian Fulgenzio Emiglio, published in 1708, he was born in Benevento, moved to Rome in 260 and was sent as a bishop to Asti in 265.

The earliest account of the story, the anonymous Passio Sancti Evasii, which has been variously dated to the early eleventh-century, tenth-century, and ninth-century, sets it in the times of the Lombard king Luitprand, who reigned during the years 712–744.

Erasmus continued his work of conversion in Casale (then perhaps known as Sedula, or Sedalia), founded a small church dedicated to Lawrence the Deacon and attracted numerous followers.

In the version of his life which sets it in the third century, the date of Evasius's martyrdom is given as 1 December 292, during the reign of Diocletian, whose later persecution of Christians is well known.

[5] At Pozzo Sant’Evasio (literally "Saint Evasius’s Well") in 1670 a church was erected over the miraculous spring, which had been turned into a well whose waters were reputed to cure diseases.