ON SAINTS ZENO AND ZOILUS, AMONG THE GREEKS.
CommentaryZeno, among the Greeks (Saint)
Zoilus, among the Greeks (Saint)
[1] The Greeks in the large printed and manuscript Menaea and in Maximus, Bishop of Cythera, in his Lives of the Saints, celebrate on March 3 these two Saints with this brief eulogy: "On the same day, Saints Zeno and Zoilus fell asleep in peace." Saints Zeno and Zoilus died in peace. In the Menaea these verses are added:
"The dissolution of life for Zeno and for Zoilus Proved to be the acquisition of a better life."
The rest is lacking—whether that which pertains to the place and time where and when they lived, or by what exercise of virtues they merited eternal life, or finally by what famous miracles they were inscribed in the sacred calendars.
[2] We gave two Zenos in January and five in February, but as Martyrs, who cannot be transferred here. We celebrated on February 10 another Zeno, a monk near Antioch in Syria, Several holy Zenos: and reported his deeds from the Philotheus of Theodoret, and we noted that our Rader reports that the same person seems to be listed again on this day in the Menaea, without however adducing any argument for why he thinks so. But other illustrious Zenos existed. Thus in book 3 of the Lives of the Fathers by Rufinus of Aquileia, at number 7, a certain Zeno is reported who overcame the gluttonous thought of a stolen cucumber through the severe experience of torments, and this while traveling to Palestine. Another Zeno praised in the Lives of the Fathers: This generous deed is again reported in book 4 of the Lives of the Fathers, booklet 4, number 17, whose translator was Pelagius; in whom again, in book 10, number 22, a Zeno expounds to the brethren that passage of Job: "Nor is heaven clean in the sight of God." Job 1:5 This is perhaps the same as the preceding; but is he also to be considered the same as the one who lived in Syria and taught that vices should be revealed and virtues concealed, in the same Rufinus, number 111, and in Paschasius, book 7 of the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 12, number 4? In Pelagius, booklet 8, number 5, Abbot Zeno, a disciple of Abbot Silvanus, counsels the pursuit of humility. But the aforementioned Rufinus, book 3, number 46, and Pelagius, booklet 10, number 69, and booklet 11, number 28, report that Silvanus lived on Mount Sinai. But in booklet 14, number 5, he is said to have had a disciple in Scetis named Mark and to have visited his cells and those of others; and in booklet 18, number 15, he is said to have wished to go to Syria, where he perhaps also had disciples, and among them Zeno. Thus also Zeno is said, in Rufinus at number 210, to have been in Scetis, and in Pelagius, booklet 18, number 7, while staying in Scetis, to have tested a phantom by prayer. All of which seem to be able to be explained as referring to one and the same Zeno. But whether Zoilus was his disciple or companion, by what reasoning shall we ascertain, Various Zoili. since not all things have been written in the Lives of the Fathers? There, in Pelagius, book 15, number 9, a certain Zoilus is reported as a disciple of Saint Arsenius, of whom we find no mention elsewhere, among so many various accounts related about Saint Arsenius. Another, younger Zoilus, a Rector of Alexandria, is praised by John Moschus in his Spiritual Meadow, or book 10 of the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 171. Leontius the Bishop, in the Life of Saint John the Almsgiver published under January 23, mentions in chapter 7 a Zoilus to whom Saint Peter Teleonarius had been sold.