RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Zend Folk. Zeno of Verona
Italy, and so leaned toward a settlement of the schism, which in 519 came to an end. (K. J. NruMANN.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY: The sources are discussed by Bury in his ed. of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, ef. the historical account in Gibbon’s chap. xxxix. Consult: the monograph on Zeno in W. Barth’s dissertation, Basel, 1894; the notes in K. Ahrens and G. Kriiger’s ed. of the ‘‘ Church History ” of Zacharias Rhetor, Leipsic, 1899; Schaff, Christian Church, iii. 765; and the literature under the articles named in the text, especially under MonopnysiteEs.
ZENO OF VERONA: Bishop and patron saint of that city. As early as 1692 Jean Mabillon (Traité des études monastiques, pp. 503, 554, Brussels, 1692) raised the question whether there was toward the end of the third century a bishop of that name and
title, and whether the works attrib- Evidence of uted to him were his. The repeated his Reality. asking of this question since has gone
to the returning of an affirmative answer and to the establishment of the ninety tractates attributed to Zeno as both genuine and worthful. Visitors to that city will recall the memorials to him in the shape of church, square, and portal (cf. K. Baedeker, Northern Italy, p. 235, Leipsic, 1906); the earliest part of the church was built in the sixth century, and from an early date Verona has honored this saint in these and other places. The oldest testimony to this fact is an address delivered at the invitation of the clergy of the city on the occasion of the celebration of a festival to him, which is to be dated about the year 412; it may have been by Bishop Petronius of Bologna (d. between 425 and 450). This address calls Zeno not a martyr but “‘ most holy confessor.’”? A second testimony to the existence of Zeno is the story of a miracle said to have occurred at the time of a flooding of the city about the year 588 in which the saint saved his basilica (cf. Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardarum, III., xxiii., Eng. transl., Philadelphia, 1907). Moreover, practically all the churches of Verona profess to possess relics of the patron saint of the city. His celebrity traveled over the Alps to Germany, to Ulm, Reichenhall, and even into Belgium through Bishop Ratherius of Verona (q.v.). This bishop cited frequently the tractates of Zeno, and brought a manuscript to Lobbes containing a rhythmic description of Verona (De laudibus Verone, dated about 790), which deals with the first eight bishops, of whom the eighth was Zeno. Older than this manuscript, however, is the chief codex of the tractates (Codex Remensis), which Hincmar of Reims (q.v.) presented to the Benedictine library at Reims. It contains the ninetythree tractates (or fragments of them), and is especially interesting because of the marginal glosses which relate to the use of collections of sermons in divine worship, and show further that this manuscript had been used in worship at Verona. To the short tract concerning the three men in the fiery furnace the remark is annexed that it was to be used at the festivals of Firmus and Rusticus (who were honored at Verona about 765). The same tractates are preserved in numerous other manuscripts under the name of Zeno.
The question arises whether these tractates are a unity, or whether, as Tillemont said of the 105
first printed under the name of Zeno, they are a collection from various authors. In the older collection there were pieces which are to Unity of the be credited to Cwsarius of Arles, the Tractates. letter of Bishop Vigilius of Trent to Chrysostom, three tracts by Bishop Potamius of Olisipo (MPL, viii. 1411 sqq.), five expositions of psalms by Hilary of Poitiers, and four sermons of Basil of Caesarea in the Latin translation of Rufinus. Since in the ninety-three tractates there are considerable parts which go back to Lactantius and Hilary of Poitiers, the appearance is presented of a collection; and this is enhanced by the fact that Zeno has been supposed to belong to the third century, not to the fourth. In spite of this, there are very decided indications of the unity of the collection. As in the works of Tertullian, Cyprian, and others, many citations are taken verbally from Seneca, apocryphal writings, and even from Apuleius, but these are worked into the texture. Hilary was very popular (Jerome, Epist., xxxiv. ad Marcellam, MPL, xxii. 448); but the style of Zeno betrays a far stronger influence of the Asian school and is richer in use of figures and in rhythm. The proof of unity has been well worked out by Weyman, Giuliari, and Bigelmair (see bibliography). Especially indicative of this is the employment of a pre-Hieronymian Bible-text, in which the agreement with the text of Cyprian is particularly noticeable. Even though the unity of the tractates be conceded, it still does not follow that Zeno is the author, for it is a possible supposition that they had been attributed to the patron saint of the place through veneration of him. This hypothesis is hardly tenable, however, if it be granted that Zeno lived in the time of the Emperor Gallienus (260- 268); for it is a desperate rather than sane conclusion that the tractates were used by Lactantius and Hilary rather than the reverse. Equally beside the mark is the hypothesis of Baronius that there were in Verona two Zenos, one living in the third and another in the fourth century. And it is not good exegesis to explain polemics against Photinians, Audians, and Arians by a polemic against Origen and Origenists.
Reasons for putting the work back into the third century are: that Christian women appear frequently as marrying heathen husbands; that sacrifices to heathen deities are yet in evidence, which were for-
bidden after Constantine and Con-
The stantius; that coins are mentioned Evidence bearing the heads of the emperors and Concerning not the cross; that the Christian the Date. churches are small and simple in construction in comparison with the
heathen temples; and that the influence of the Jews is one of the objects of attack. In addition to this it is to be remarked that the dogmatic conceptions are those of the third century. It has been brought to notice that in Zeno neither the Greek homoousios nor the Latin consubstantialis is found, and in their place are older formulas that have their origin in Tertullianistic expressions. This distinguishes the author from Pheebadius (q.v.), who, though as a dogmatician he was inclined to archaisms, yet wrote | of the ‘ divinity and consubstantiality of the Son.”
Zeno of Verona