ON ST. ZACCHAEUS OR ZACHARIAS,
BISHOP OF JERUSALEM.
Not long after the year of Christ CXI.
The ancient memory of the Saint in the Martyrologies, the time
of the beginning of his episcopate, and the uncertain year of his death.
Zacchaeus or Zacharias, bishop of Jerusalem (St.)
BY G. C.
To this Saint I have assigned a twofold name in the title, because St. Epiphanius, in the Greek-Latin edition of our Petavius, Heresy 66, chapter 20, Besides the immemorial cultus, and St. Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople, in his compendious Chronography, name this fourth prelate of Jerusalem Zacharias; who nevertheless is everywhere else called Zacchaeus by others, and under this name is recorded in the ancient Martyrologies, as we shall presently see: for the old Roman Martyrology, which our Rosweyde published, on this XXIII day of August only briefly indicates the annual memory of Zacchaeus the bishop, omitting the place and the time of his episcopal chair. But Ado and Usuard on the same day announce this holy Prelate more distinctly in these words: Of blessed Zacchaeus the bishop, who, fourth from James, ruled the church of Jerusalem most illustriously. The more recent hagiologists imitate the same phrase; and there is no need to heap them up here, since the testimonies of the ancient Martyrologists already reported suffice to establish the immemorial cultus of this Saint.
[2] The above-praised Nicephorus attributes to this holy Prelate four years of government, and the Jerusalem episcopate of this Saint and even determines the time of his predecessors and successors. But in this matter he followed the uncertain tradition of his own age, or simply transcribed the interpolated documents of the Greeks, since Eusebius of Caesarea, so many centuries more ancient, and a neighboring bishop in Palestine, in his Ecclesiastical History, book 4, chapter 5, writes thus: But the times of those bishops who presided at Jerusalem I have nowhere been able to find. For all are reported to have sat for a very short time indeed. This only have I learned from the monuments of ancient writers: that down to that siege of the Jews which happened under the emperor Hadrian, fifteen bishops in continuous succession presided over that church… The first therefore was James, he who was called the brother of the Lord; the second Symeon; the third Justus; the fourth Zacchaeus; the fifth Tobias; the sixth Benjamin; the seventh John; the eighth Matthias; the ninth Philip; tenth was substituted Seneca, whom the eleventh, Justus, succeeded. Then followed Ephres; after these, Joseph. Last of all was Judas, fifteenth in order. From these things the learned reader easily gathers that no certain years are ascribed by Eusebius to the episcopate of those prelates, because that diligent investigator of antiquity, who died before the middle of the fourth century, had not been able to find them, as he himself testifies above.
[3] Whence Valesius, in his notes on this text of Eusebius, page 59, observes what follows: we know almost nothing of him For the rest, it is not without cause that one is moved to wonder whence Nicephorus took those years which he assigns to the several bishops of Jerusalem, since Eusebius, who dwelt in Palestine, and who had read through all the lists of the bishops of that church, testifies that he had read nothing concerning their years. Wherefore also our Papebroch, in the chronological History of the bishops of Jerusalem, which he prefixed to the third volume of May, page x, thus admonishes the reader concerning those successors of Saints James and Symeon: And hence it is clearer than the noonday light that those who have presumed either to define the number of years for each, or to determine the day of death, or to write anything in particular about their virtues and miracles, have done it out of the private fancy of their own head; and therefore in those things, however plausibly devised, there is no foundation to be had for any solid conclusion in historical matter. Nothing therefore remains to us here, save that we investigate the year in which St. Zacchaeus ascended the chair of Jerusalem, and, that being found, somehow draw out the time about which that Saint departed to the heavenly places.
[4] although from Eusebius of Caesarea we conjecture In the two hundred and twenty-second Olympiad, in the fourteenth year of the emperor Trajan, Piso and Bolanus being consuls, after Justus, Zacchaeus fourth undertook the episcopate of the church of Jerusalem, as Eusebius, St. Jerome being his interpreter, says in his Greek Chronicle. These chronological marks and consuls answer to the year of Christ one hundred and eleven, as Labbe, Papebroch, Tillemont, Pagi, and most of the consular Fasti agree. Probably therefore we have the year in which St. Zacchaeus began to govern the church of Jerusalem. But from this we do not yet know how long our Saint presided over that church, or in what year, dying, he left this chair to his successor. Nevertheless let us investigate whether we cannot at least approximately draw out the time of his death from some certain epoch of the prelates who succeeded our Saint.
[5] that he died not long after the year of Christ CXI. Among those successors of St. Zacchaeus whose certain or at least most probable epoch we seek, there occurs first in the praised Chronicle of Eusebius Seneca, the tenth bishop of Jerusalem, whose beginning is there placed in the two hundred and twenty-fifth Olympiad, in the eighth year of the emperor Hadrian, under the consulate of Glabrio and Torquatus. Now this eighth year of the emperor, and the consulate of Glabrio and Torquatus joined to it, designate, by the common opinion of chronologers, the year of Christ one hundred and twenty-four, in which Seneca began to sit in the chair of Jerusalem. From these chronological notes it is plain that St. Zacchaeus and his five successors named above by Eusebius, down to Seneca, did not hold the chair of Jerusalem long: for if from the year of Christ CXI, in which St. Zacchaeus by what has been said above began to rule, we grant to him and to each of his successors two years and as many months of government, we shall come to the year of Christ CXXIV, in which Seneca was raised to the chair of Jerusalem, as Eusebius testifies in the Chronicle. Since nevertheless of these six predecessors of Seneca one doubtless presided over the church of Jerusalem longer than another, we are still ignorant of the year of our Saint's death, and therefore we have indicated above in the margin that he lived not long after the year of Christ CXI.