THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
It is natural to refer to Hilary and other conservative Westerners; but it does not appear from the tractates of Zeno that the West without dogmatic controversies felt itself to be in possession of Catholic verity. In fact Zeno appears to be even more naive than Hilary himself before his contact with the East. The expression “ Catholic verity ” is not found, and the word ‘ Catholic” seldom appears in Zeno. The tractates know nothing of a hierarchically governed Church guaranteeing the truth. The highly interesting first tractate does not countenance the suggestion that the faith has come under subjection to a legal formulary; it indeed says that we are not under the law but under grace. The faith is the form of religious possession and is under private control (“‘ the law is something in common, faith is a private matter ’’). The teaching concerning the Church savors of Novatianism. This institution is indeed founded upon Peter, who has, however, no precedence over the other apostles, but appears as the representative of the rest though in a sense the first of them. There is no discussion as to the position of Rome. While it is noticeable how considerable is the dependence upon Cyprian, it is curious that the bishops receive little attention. If, as the common idea has it, Zeno was African in origin, it is very remarkable that there is not a trace in the tractates of the violent Donatistic controversy. The great question which troubled men there was concerned with the consecration of bishops, but in the tractates the matter of ordination is dealt with entirely without passion. Similarly in the doctrine of the Trinity, as in the doctrine of the Church, the treatises might have been written not only before there was an Arian, but before there was a Donatistic strife, while Novatian ideas seem to be in the air.
These suggestions are so indicative that the disposition is to attribute the unity to a single editor who is responsible for the contact with Hilary by way of interpolations and a working over or else
through a common source. Before the
The Work middle of the fourth century the candiof the dates for baptism were never called Editor. competentes, but in tractate ii. 27, 46,
50 the expression is found. There are
indications of change from the original text. In this category there come up for consideration the suggestions involved in the marginal glosses, which show that in the eighth century the tractates were employed liturgically. But liturgical use involves considerable change. Tractate ii. 50 sqq. was used later in the monastery at Verona, “ being recited in the presence of the priest before the station,” and this suggests a procession. Still stranger is the marginal note on the Reims codex at ii. 42, which directs the tractate to be read by the deacon at the chief monastery when on Easter Sunday the bishop takes his place there and at the kiss of peace “ according to custom” distributes apples to the brethren. The original Easter sermon on the four seasons is aptly chosen for this use, but the usage can hardly have been original. Whoever reads the later, formladen, and repetitious tractates (cf. ii. 39-40 with 41 and ii. 47 with the preceding) receives the impression of a liturgical piece which has been lopped
out of sermons, probably Zeno’s. Again, Tractate I., v. 4 gives the time of the inditing of the Pauline epistles as “‘ nearly 400 years ago or a little more.” The number 200 which appears in the second edition of Verona in 1586 has no support in any of the manuscripts, where the number 400 is written out. The Ballerini have taken much pains to prove that the Church Fathers reckon at times very inexactly. But Bigelmair shows that 400 is used as a round number, and sees in the expression the hand of a redactor who was active about 450. That would explain how Jerome in his De viris illustribus passes by Zeno, for at that time no publications of Zeno were in circulation. Bigelmair concludes that Zeno was dead in 370, the year in which the commentary of Hilary on the Psalms was issued. Hilary is used often in the tractates. Bigelmair supposes that the commentary as a whole was issued then, though in its parts it had earlier seen the light; but this is merely a possibility. So that a working in of the Hilary passages is within the bounds of possibility. But all these difficulties come seriously into consideration if that Zeno, to whom were attributed according to a very early tradition the tractates which are essentially unitary in composition and were used at a very early date at
Traditions Verona, lived in the third and not in Concerning the fourth century. The church of Zeno’s Verona had a double interest in carry- Period. ing back as far as possible Zeno’s dates. Its earliest bishops had Greek names,
and tradition made the first bishop one of the seventy disciples. If Zeno was the eighth in sequence, he could not have lived in the fourth century. Gregory the Great (Dialogus, iii. 19) several times calls Zeno amartyr; to be sure it was Bishop Lippomanus in the sixteenth century who first changed the form of veneration offered from that of a confessor to that of a martyr, which then became popular. That Zeno suffered martyrdom in the fourth century through the Emperor Julian or the Arians is improbable; the report of martyrdom would fit better in the third century. The Reims codex contains a life of Zeno by the notary Coronatus, which must have been written before 807 (when the relics of Zeno were transferred). This tells how the bishop healed Galla the daughter of Emperor Gallienus (260-268) and with the help of the grateful father Christianized Verona. While the fact of such a daughter is not assallable, the ‘‘ Life’? abounds so in impossibilities that it has been pronounced unhistorical; yet to the martyrdom it gives no support, indeed (chap. vill.) it reports: “‘ not much later he passed away in peace.” The miracle of healing passed into the later reports, as in the poem De laudibus Verone, where it takes the form of saving from an evil spirit. In spite of the improbabilities this account of the life has been influential, and has made its mark on hymns, ritual, and hagiologies. It is not strange that Gallienus is brought into connection with the legend when it is remembered that the city was a colony under Pompey, endowed with citizenship rights by Cesar, was the birthplace of Catullus, and finally was refortified by Gallienus and called itself Gallieneia after him (F. Ughelli, Italia sacra, v. 655, 10 vols,, Venice, 1717-22), Bigelmair derives