ON ST. ZENOBIUS, PRESBYTER, PHYSICIAN, AND MARTYR, AT ANTIOCH IN SYRIA,
ABOUT THE YEAR 304.
HISTORICAL COLLECTION.
Zenobius, presbyter and martyr at Antioch. (S.)
BY H. M.
§ Sole section. The martyrdom of St. Zenobius, his praise in the Latin calendars, the time of his death, and his practice of medicine.
When in the year 303 Diocletian declared war on the Christian religion, he first decreed, as is known, [At the beginning of the persecution of Diocletian St. Zenobius, presbyter, suffered,] that buildings and books should be destroyed, then he ordered the presidents of the churches to be cast into chains and compelled by the severest punishments to sacrifice to idols; which at length in the year 304 he also proclaimed concerning all Christians [Euseb. Eccl. Hist. book VIII, chapters 2 and 6; on the Martyrs of Palestine, chapters 1 and 3.]. Many bishops and presbyters therefore were put to death in the year 304 for the faith of Christ, and in such number indeed that the familiar sentence of the old Latin martyrologist, whose number the knowledge of God alone gathers, can deservedly be proclaimed of them. Among these no lowest place was held by St. Zenobius, presbyter of the church of Sidon, and at the same time a most excellent physician, whom, with Tyrannio, bishop of Tyre, and Silvanus, prelate of Emesa, Eusebius calls the most noble martyrs of Phœnicia. Yet his deeds, beyond the signal praises with which the writer of the ecclesiastical history heaps up his most constant virtue amid the punishments, we wholly do not know; but from Eusebius's words we infer that not only was the death of St. Zenobius illustrious (for in those times fortitude in the greatest tortures was not held an unusual thing), but also that his life was adorned with all the virtues which befit a Christian presbyter. Therefore his martyrdom was an example to all, and it left a perpetual memory of him among Christians.
[2] As is narrated briefly by Eusebius, and more briefly and negligently But what happened to most men in that common upheaval of all things befell this holy martyr also, though most illustrious: there was lacking, namely, a pious writer to compose his Acts; so that whatever we know of the deeds done by St. Zenobius is contained in a few lines of Eusebius. It will be of use then to recite them: Now, he says, of all the martyrs in Phœnicia the most noble were the pastors of the Christian flock acceptable to God, Tyrannio, bishop of the church of Tyre, and Zenobius, presbyter at Sidon; Silvanus also, prelate of the church of Emesa. But the latter, thrown to wild beasts with certain others in the very city of Emesa, was added to the choirs of the martyrs. But the former two at Antioch both illustrated the doctrine of the true faith by a most constant patience in enduring torments even unto death: Tyrannio being plunged into the deep sea; but Zenobius, most excellent of physicians, while his sides were being furrowed with hooks, dying with a brave spirit in the midst of the tortures Eccl. Hist. book VIII, chapter 13.. Thus far Eusebius, whom, as rendered in Latin by Rufinus, all those have followed who have made mention of St. Zenobius in the martyrologies. But since the presbyter of Aquileia by no means expressed him word for word, the praise of the medical art bestowed on the martyr of Sidon, and the place and kind of his passion, lay hidden from the Latins. Hence was born the confusion which, bringing forward the words of the martyrologies, with the passage of Rufinus set first, we shall sift out.
[3] by Rufinus, whom the Latin martyrologists following wrote not accurately enough. At Tyre, then, says Rufinus, most noble among the martyrs, and nurtured from his earliest age in the teachings of Christ, Tyrannio, bishop of the same city, Zenobius, presbyter from Sidon, and Silvanus, bishop of the church of the Emesenes, who, consumed in his own city by the bites of beasts, was joined to the choirs of the martyrs [Rufinus, Eccl. Hist. of Eusebius, book VIII, chapter 14, p. 491, Cacciari's edition.]. It is plain how unfaithfully Rufinus renders Eusebius here. Further, the author of the Little Roman Martyrology, soberly using after his manner the Rufinian translation of Eusebius, at the 20th of February announced the martyrs of Tyre, of whom Rufinus speaks elsewhere Book VIII, chapter 7., with the addition by conjecture of the name of Veturius, master of the soldiers, by whom the Chronicle of Eusebius or of St. Jerome teaches that the persecution began [St. Jerome, Chronicle at the 16th year of Diocletian; Eusebius, Aucher's edition.]. Then at the 29th of October he wrote: At Sidon, of Zenobius, presbyter and martyr. But Ado, whose concern it was to describe the contests of the martyrs more amply, not only brought forward at the 20th of February the history of the martyrs of Tyre, or rather of the Egyptians who suffered at Tyre, but also joined to them Tyrannio and Zenobius, whom from Rufinus's inaccurate version he understood to have suffered at Tyre Compare Ado at the 20th of Feb.. From here flowed Usuard's announcement on both days Compare Du Sollier's Usuard, with notes., and finally that of Baronius in the Roman Martyrology at the present day: At Sidon in Phœnicia, of St. Zenobius, presbyter, who under the bitterness of the latest persecution, exhorting others to martyrdom, was himself also deemed worthy of martyrdom. Where observe, I pray, that there is reported the exhortation to martyrdom, which Ado and Usuard recounted at the 20th of February only. Further, not without reason does the bishop of Vienne, who was persuaded that St. Zenobius and Tyrannio belonged to the troop of the Tyrians, set forth the other martyrs as urged on by their leaders, bishops, and presbyters to act bravely. But since this persuasion rests on the faulty Latin language of Eusebius, the praise of that exhortation collapses and vanishes. When this is deleted, Baronius could surely, if he had had before his eyes a faithful translation of the Greek history, have commemorated the medical art of St. Zenobius, or illustrated his virtue amid the punishments with the genuine words of Eusebius. But it is hardly worth noting that Acts which had been interpolated were devised in vain by Bollandus to explain the eulogy of Ado. All things are most openly drawn from known sources.
[4] The Greeks are silent on St. Zenobius; before Ado Wandalbert spoke. The Greeks, who knew St. Zenobius from the history of Eusebius, in large part copied out also by Nicephorus Callistus Book VII, chapter 16, p. 461, Greek-Latin edition., do not appear however ever to have entered him in their calendars. It is also strange that Zenobius is called bishop of Sidon by Theophanes Chronogr., p. 9, Paris edition.. But this manner of acting of the Greeks, in the absence of proper Acts, is more easily understood. For the memory of martyrs was rescued from oblivion chiefly in two ways, either by the writing of their deeds or by the public cult of their relics. Those whose names only were carried about had their recollection sooner erased by time. Witnesses are those very ancient books, the Hieronymian martyrologies and the Syriac codex published by Wright Journal of Sacred Literature, Oct. 1865 and Jan. 1866., which exhibit so many confessors unknown to us, among whom I was hoping to come upon the name of St. Zenobius. Nor did my hope wholly deceive me: for in the Hieronymian ones at the 24th of August I found written: At Antioch, the birthday of the Saints Zenobius, etc. The name agrees, not so very frequent in the history of the saints; the place of the passion is the same. It would not therefore be inept for anyone to judge that that Zenobius of whom we are treating is praised here Compare Acta SS. vol. IV of Aug., p. 767.. But that there may be full knowledge of the cult of St. Zenobius among the Latins, I shall add to the authors brought forward above Peter de Natalibus, Maurolico, and Galesini, who follow Ado both at the 20th of February and at the 29th of October. His agreement with Ado would urge counting Wandalbert with these; but the work of the latter was not set before the eyes of the former, but the contrary Du Sollier, Preface to Usuard, nos. 60 and following, 150 and 151.. What then shall we say? That the Little Roman showed the way to Wandalbert as well as to Ado? But this is almost incredible, unless we suppose that between the metrical martyrology and that old one published by Rosweyde some Hieronymian or Florian codex intervened, interpolated from the Little Roman. Either this must be wholly conceded, or, what will please few, that the very Old Roman itself was of use to Wandalbert. Du Sollier hesitated in a similar matter, he pointed out both opinions, evidently inclining to that which would seem to us less easily admissible Ibid., no. 63..
[5] The year 304, in which Zenobius suffered, we mark only with hesitation. At the beginning of this writing we indeed noted that St. Zenobius suffered about the year 304, not in fact because documents are available by which we might prove it, but because nothing compels us to suppose some delay between the beginning of the persecution and his martyrdom. Since moreover all the other martyrs of whom Eusebius speaks in one and the same chapter, except Anthimus of Nicomedia, Tyrannio, and Zenobius, shed their blood after the persecution of Diocletian, from the year 307 to 312, not a few writers have tied St. Zenobius's martyrdom to the year 310. Among others I shall name Theophanes Chronogr., p. 9, Paris edition., Chastelain Martyrologe universel, pp. 90 and 547., and Adalbert Müller Allgem. Martyrologium, Regensburg 1860, p. 546., men surely learned and shrewd; more cautiously Tillemont noted the year as uncertain [Mémoires ecclésiastiques, vol. V, chronology, at the end, p. 816, second edition.]. But is not rather the beginning of the persecution indicated in Eusebius, since the discourse afterwards returns again to the others, those three excepted, the first of whom most certainly died in the first onset of the persecution? This alone I have that bears some appearance of proof. Why finally the bishop of Tyre and the presbyter of Sidon came from their province to Antioch, I cannot divine. According to Eusebius, St. Zenobius died while his sides were being furrowed with iron combs. But Ado of Vienne says that he was slain by the sword, because, the torments inflicted on St. Zenobius having been omitted by Rufinus, he assigned him the end common to the Tyrian martyrs.
[6] [St. Zenobius was a physician, which was not forbidden to priests by ecclesiastical law before the year 1200.] St. Zenobius, who is proclaimed by Eusebius a most noble martyr, is said to have been most excellent also in the medical art, Ἰατρῶν ἄριστος. By no law at that time were clerics prohibited from the practice of this art. The Acts written by Metaphrastes confer the same praise on St. Zenobius, bishop of Ægæ, of whom treatment is given at the following day. But it will have to be examined there whether perhaps the grace of cures granted to the holy bishop did not give rise to the persuasion of the Greeks, which does not agree sufficiently with the Basilian Menology. More certain are the things which Eusebius teaches in express words of St. Theodotus, bishop of Laodicea, in the third century Book VII, chapter 32.. Theodoret also, in the fifth century, commends Peter, a priest and at the same time a physician by profession, who devoted himself to the art of medicine, and indeed migrated to Cyrrhus with Theodoret chiefly for this, as is evidently clear from the letters of this bishop Letters 114 and 115.. Let these be sufficient examples to make it appear that the priesthood could in the first centuries be conjoined to the medical art without any reproach. Indeed I find no monument brought forward older than the twelfth century, by which, either in the East or in the West, monks or clerics are debarred from medical studies. Luke, patriarch of Constantinople, on the testimony of Balsamon, appears to be the first in the East to have forbidden medicine to deacons and priests, in the year 1158 Beveridge, Pandectæ, vol. I, pp. 535 and 536.. Similar things concerning monks and canons regular were proclaimed by the council of Reims of the year 1131, in a decree which was the beginning of the discipline in force today. Further, on all these matters, if you please, go to Thomassin [Discipline ecclésiastique, part II, book I, chapter 91, nos. 15 and 16; part III, book III, chapter 19, nos. 8, 10; chapter 21, no. 3; chapter 22, no. 2.] and Benedict XIV De Synodo, book XIII, chapter 10, no. V., who learnedly unfold the changes of ecclesiastical discipline concerning the art of healing practised by clerics.