ON ST. ZOILUS.
From the Martyrology of St. Jerome.
CommentaryZoilus or Zoëlus, Martyr at Nicomedia (S.)
J. B. S.
Among the Saints under the name of Zoilus, two are famous beyond the rest; one a Martyr with his Cordoban companions, of whose cult, deeds, and finding of relics Henschenius treated more fully on XXVII June, and we too made mention in the Usuardine observation on the same day. Other Zoili are honored on [other days,] The other an Aquileian presbyter, mentioned in the Acts of St. Anastasia on XXV December in Surius chapter 7, as to whom there the illustrious Martyr Chrysogonus is said to have appeared. And these two Zoili are known in Peter's Catalogue, book 6 chapters 16 and 17, to which rather the present Zoilus of Nicomedia would pertain, if the Prelate Equilino had anywhere found anything which he might bring to memory concerning his deeds, hitherto plainly hidden. But there is on this day in the Hieronymian list not one Zoilus, unless one think the appellations Zoilus, Zoëlus, and Zelus must be distinguished; which in the various tables of the cited Martyrology are almost confused, as commonly happens there, so that through the unskillfulness of the writers the names of the Martyrs are generally dislocated or deformed. For the rest, whether you call the name the same or different, it seems certain that three different Martyrs come on this day under a similar nomenclature. The first, of whom we now speak, at Nicomedia, the second in Mesopotamia, the third finally at Antioch; the first sole and single, the others joined to companions, as we shall soon show more clearly.
[2] and on this day perhaps several. Florentinius on this day studiously observes that the older Martyrology abounds in many heavenly ones above the corrected Roman: As if indeed this were new, and not most usual in that most evident discrepancy of both Martyrologies, since the revisers of the Roman Martyrology, following chiefly the Usuard of Belin, never saw the Hieronymian. He further adds that in it (the Hieronymian Martyrology) Zoilus is referred to first, of whom also the most ancient Antwerp codex thus makes mention: On the Kalends of July. At Nicomedia, of Zoilus. Only the Corbie codex adds the title of Martyr. The text of Florentinius from the Lucca apograph reads Zoëlus, with which agree almost the lesser Hieronymian codices of Rheinau, Reichenau, and others, whose lists for this first of July we have reported in order in the Usuardine preface from number 27; where you will note that the Augsburg, Gellone, and Labbe codices are somewhat depraved; in others, the texts too contracted; but in the codex of the Queen of Sweden, or of St. Columba, praised by Holstenius, it is read conformably to the Epternach codex, At Nicomedia, the birthday of Saint Zoilus; which reading we thought should be preserved in the title. Concerning that Martyr there is nothing in all the other Martyrologies or their supplements, not even in any Usuardine additions that I have seen, however frequent and numerous; nothing, I say, concerning him is found.