Zoë

ON ST. ZOË, MARTYR AT ROME

From the Acts of St. Sebastian.

In the year 286.

Zoë, Martyr, at Rome (S.)

By the Author J. B. S.

That the author of the Little Roman was the first who inserted several Saints from the Acts of St. Sebastian into the sacred Fasti, on this and the two following days, I have long suspected, and the silence of the more ancient Martyrologies concerning them seems sufficiently to show it. So he himself wrote on this day, First inserted into the Fasti by the author of the Little Roman, At Rome, the birthday of Zoë, wife of Nicostratus. From the praised Acts Ado composed a brief elogium, contracted by Usuard nearly as it is read today in the Roman. Rabanus, who did not see the Little Roman, makes no mention of Zoë: in Notker some days are wanting: Wandelbert's verses we have given in our edition of Usuard. She is adorned a little more fully from the cited source, but on the fourth of July, by him whom our Elders thought to be Florus. It is an addition, which is contained in a single contracted Hieronymian, namely the Augsburg, Of Zoë wife of Nicostratus. The other Martyrologists, especially the more recent, I do not enumerate, nor are longer or shorter encomia to be transcribed from them, which can embrace nothing other than what I shall shortly subjoin, as more genuine. Well known is the notable oration of St. Sebastian, drawn out through four chapters on the twentieth of January, by which the most famous Martyrs, the twin brothers Marcellianus and Marcus, nearly wavering through the tears and prayers of their own people, he excellently roused to constancy, and converted others to the faith, among whom that St. Zoë, of whom we treat, with her husband Nicostratus; as you have on the said twentieth of January, chapter 7; from which, rather than from the Equilinus or from manuscripts, I transcribe the words that pertain to our Saint, however much they may be somewhat carped at by hypercritics.

[2] Therefore, when the most blessed Sebastian was uttering these things from his mouth, by the oration and signs of St. Sebastian a mute woman is converted. clad in a cloak, girt with a belt, suddenly, for nearly a whole hour, an exceeding splendor coming from heaven, he was illuminated, and under that very splendor he was clothed in a most white robe by seven most bright angels, and a young man appeared beside him, giving him peace, and saying: Thou shalt always be with me. And all these things were done within the house of the Primiscrinius, by name Nicostratus, with whom Marcellianus and Marcus were kept. This Nicostratus had a wife, by name Zoë; she six years before, through the excess of a sickness, had been made mute, yet she had not only not lost the faculty of hearing and understanding, but even better than before she had possessed, she held the office of her ears.

[3] She therefore, when she had understood all that the blessed Sebastian had said, and receives her speech, and had seen so great a light around him; and when all, struck with awe, were held by amazement at the miracle, made signs with her hand to all, as if those were to be reproached who did not believe so evident an assertion, and, cast at his knees, she began to entreat him by signs of her hands. But St. Sebastian, when he saw that she could not declare the secrets of her heart by the expression of her tongue, having inquired the causes of this silence, learned that the abundance of speech had been taken from her by the excessive force of the infirmity. Then the blessed Sebastian said: If I am a true servant of Christ, and if all things are true which this woman has heard and believed from my mouth, let my Lord Jesus Christ command that the office of her tongue return to her, and open her mouth, who opened the mouth of Zachary his prophet; and he made the sign of the cross upon her mouth.

[4] And at this word of St. Sebastian, the woman cried out with a loud voice, seeing an angel assisting St. Sebastian. saying: Blessed art thou, and blessed the word of thy mouth; and blessed are they who believe through thee in Christ the Son of the living God. For I saw with my own eyes an angel coming to thee from heaven, and holding a book before thine eyes, from the reading of which the whole discourse of thy speech ran on. Blessed are they who believe in all the things which thou hast spoken, and cursed are they who shall have doubted even in one word of all these which they have heard; for just as the dawn, coming on, shuts out all the darkness of the night, and to the eyes of all restores the light which the blind night had denied; so the light of thy words has wiped away all mist and all the blindness of ignorance, and to the eyes of those who rightly believe has restored a serene day after the darkness of night: and from me it has not only shut out the darkness of unbelief, but has also opened the door of my speech, which for six years had been closed.

[5] The Acts go on, from number 25, to relate what Nicostratus did, Unwilling to sacrifice to Mars, seeing that so great a power of Christ was celebrated in his wife, and then, from chapter 8 to 19, the things that were nobly done by SS. Marcellianus and Marcus, by St. Sebastian, by St. Polycarp the presbyter, and others, until in chapter 20 and the following one comes to their martyrdoms, of which our Saint was the standard-bearer, shining forth bravely and gloriously before the rest. I take up the words of the Acts again, on which in their place may be seen the notes of Bolland and what Baronius observed on the Martyrology. Thus they proceed: But, because it is much, if we should wish to follow out what and how great things Christ did through them, and how each one came to the palm of martyrdom, let us only set forth this much. The most blessed Zoë, on the birthday of the Apostles, while she was praying at the confession of the Apostle Peter, is beset by the pagans lying in wait, and is led to the Patron of the district of the Naumachia, and is compelled to burn drops of incense to a little statue of Mars, which stood there. Then she answered: You compel a woman to sacrifice to Mars, that you may show that your Mars delights in womanly things. But he was able to snatch away the modesty of the most shameless Venus; against me, however, who bear the trophy of the faith on my brow, he will not be able to prevail. For I do not struggle against him with my own strength, but, trusting in the power of my Lord Jesus Christ, I despise both you and him alike with laughter.

[6] Long tortured with hunger, she is put to death and cast into the Tiber. Then the Patron of the district put her into a most dark prison, and for five days made her neither see the light nor receive food nor drink. Only the voice of him who had shut her up there was heard, saying: There thou shalt die of hunger and thirst and blindness, unless thou promise to offer libation to the gods. But when six days had passed, they made suggestion of her to the raging Prefect: who ordered her to be hung by the neck and hair upon a high tree, and smoke from a dunghill to be applied beneath. But immediately, as she was hung up, in the confession of the Lord she gave up her spirit. But they, taking away her body, bound it with a stone and sank it in the channel of the Tiber, saying: Lest the Christians take her body and make her a Goddess for themselves. Therefore, her martyrdom being accomplished, she came in sleep to the blessed Sebastian, and told him how she had received her martyrdom. Which when St. Sebastian had told, St. Tranquillinus started forward, saying: The women go before us to the crown; why do we live? He too, going down on the eighth day of the birthday of the Apostles to the confession of the blessed Paul, likewise himself suffering ambush, was seized, and stoned by the people, died, and his body was consigned to the whirlpool of the Tiber. Thus far the praised Acts on the martyrdom of St. Zoë.

[7] From these things indeed it appears, says Baronius at the year 286, number 14, that it was not hidden from the heathen that the Christians were wont to attend the memorials of the Saints with religious cult. The year and day of the passion. And that the gentiles were accustomed to sink in the Tiber the corpses of those whom they judged should be deprived of burial, there are innumerable examples. See there. But both this and the following martyrdoms are assigned to the aforesaid year 286, in which probably most were crowned, as Tillemont does not deny; who nevertheless, against Bolland, judges that the combat of St. Sebastian should be attached not to the next following year 287, but to 288, in volume 4, note 3, page 744. However you may determine it, since St. Zoë preceded the rest, I do not see that a surer epoch can be found for her than the year 286. The day of the passion also the author of the Little Roman collected rightly enough, since from the order of the days on which she was seized, held in prison, and afflicted with martyrdom, it is plainly understood, just as also on the following day, in the Octave of the Apostles, he rightly placed St. Tranquillinus, however much for the rest he was not very scrupulous in choosing at his own discretion and assigning the festivities of the Saints, as we have noted elsewhere more than once. And let these things said about our Saint suffice; nor indeed are those things to be repeated here which on the twentieth of January were abundantly explained by Bolland, as we have also already noted above.