Zama

ON ST. ZAMA, BISHOP OF BOLOGNA IN ITALY.

Third century.

Zama, Bishop of Bologna in Italy (St.)

[1] At Bologna on the 24th of January the feast is celebrated of St. Zama, the first Bishop of that city, who, having been ordained by Dionysius the Roman Pontiff, wonderfully propagated the Christian faith there. The feast of St. Zama. So reads the Roman Martyrology. Baronius judges in volume 2, year 272, no. 22, that he was the first Bishop of the Church of Bologna of whom a certain and attested memory exists, but that because the ancient ecclesiastical records were burned in the persecution of Diocletian, In what sense he is called the first Bishop of Bologna: no mention is had of any other Bishop of Bologna who preceded Zama. Since, he says, I can by no means persuade myself that a most noble city of Italy, always crowded with a vast population, should have lacked a Church and a Bishop to preside over it for nearly three centuries after the coming of Christ; when it is established that certain other cities of Italy, far inferior in dignity and population, had already long been graced with episcopal Sees. Philip Ferrari holds the same view regarding the faith previously disseminated there. Cherubino Ghirardacci traces the origins of the Christian religion among the Bolognese to the times of St. Apollinaris, the Apostle of Ravenna and Emilia.

[2] Carlo Sigonio encompassed the history of the Bishops of Bologna in five books, which Baronius testifies he read before they were published. Concerning St. Zama he writes this: Under the reign of Gallienus, in the year of Christ 270, Zama, ordained by Pope St. Dionysius, came to Bologna first of all, and having been kindly received by the Christians who were then there, having established his See in the suburb, at the place, it is reported, where the church of St. Felix was afterwards built, he propagated the discipline and faith of Christ among the pagans by whatever means he could. When he died; He is believed to have died before the year 300, since he is called a Confessor: because if he had prolonged his life to the year 300, he would without doubt have been tortured among the first in the persecution of Diocletian and would have been honored with the sacred title of Martyr. He was certainly buried in the same place where he had established his See. Where he was buried. His feast day is celebrated by the Church on the 9th before the Kalends of February.

[3] Pope St. Dionysius held the See, as we shall say in his life on December 26, from the consulship of Aemilianus and Bassus, that is in the year of Christ 259, until the consulship of Claudius Augustus II and Paternus in the year 269. From which it is clear that Zama was not consecrated by him in the year 270. Ferrari says the homeland of Zama is unknown: some make him a Greek by nationality, as Ghirardacci testifies in book 1 of the History of Bologna, who reports that the cathedral church was built by him outside the walls and dedicated to St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and that other priests were established there to administer the sacred mysteries to the people: that his body was buried for approximately 1,235 years near the church of St. Felix, The body translated. in a stone sepulcher: but was translated to the Cathedral in the city in the year 1585.