ON ST. ZOILUS (ZELUS) AND COMPANIONS.
From the Martyrology of St. Jerome.
CommentaryZelus or Zoëlus, Martyr in Mesopotamia (S.) Six other Martyrs in Mesopotamia. Orion (S.) Eight others. 264 or 268 other Martyrs (SS.)
J. B. S.
I here join several handfuls of Martyrs, although perhaps differing in time, fatherland, and wrestling-place, lest the same thing have to be said again in several articles. First Zelus, or as the Corbie codex reads, Zoëlus, in all the Hieronymian apographs in Florentinius, Various classes is distinctly placed: In Mesopotamia. Six companions are equally clearly expressed in the Lucca, Corbie, and Blume codices: In Mesopotamia, of Zelus with six others. We saw above that the antiquarian writer of the most ancient Epternach codex wrongly subjoined Zelus to the Roman Martyrs: Likewise at Rome, of Isicus … Victor, of Zelus with eight others; in which also a new hallucination occurs, that the companions of Orion are transferred to Zelus, and joined with him as the anonymous 262; for thus it follows: Of Orion and 262 others. The Lucca codices stray further, which, Orion and his companions being passed over, so couple all things that they seem to ascribe also the 264 others to Zelus and Mesopotamia. They are better distinguished in the Corbie codex, whose text is this: In Mesopotamia, of Zoëlus with six others: Orion with eight others and 268 others.
[2] These things, I say, are there indeed rightly distinguished, the number of the companions of Zelus and Orion well expressed; not everywhere sufficiently distinct. but which number at last must be selected of those several anonymous ones, which is variously reported by all? Aid cannot be sought from the lesser Hieronymian codices, for the single Barberini one, which makes mention of them in the Usuardine preface number 36, and in the supplements of Bede on this day, increases the difficulty rather, writing thus: In Mesopotamia, of Zelus with 6 others, of Orion with 9 others (not 8 as Papebroch reads) and 274 others. I should believe that in the Roman numbers an X was easily added, and so for sixty crept in seventy, whence I thought that middle number 264 should plainly be preserved in the title. In the Roswide appendix of Ado are placed Zelus with six companions, and Orion with eight; but Notker seems to have confused those three troops, by this single announcement: In Mesopotamia, of Zoëlus with very many others. There is nothing that can be added to what has been said, until elsewhere the Acts be dug out, for distinguishing the classes.