The Lives and Times of the Popes - Saint Zephyrinus - A.D. 202

Zephyrinus, a Roman, the son of Abondio, was created pontiff A.D. 202. According to Anastasius, who wrote the life of this pope, he ordered that all the priests living with a bishop should be present whenever he should officiate; that no patriarch, primate, or archbishop should pass sentence upon a bishop without the authority of the pope; that all Christians should communicate at Easter; that the patens and chalices should not be of wood, as till then they had been, but of glass. Some writers say that Saint Zephyrinus ordered them to be neither of wood nor of glass, but of gold or silver.

Saint Zephyrinus condemned the Montanists, the Phrygians, the Cataphrygians, and the Encratites. Tertullian also was excommunicated, and endeavored to avenge himself by sarcasm, unworthy of so lofty a genius, which pride rendered heretical. It was under Saint Zephyrinus that the famous Origen went to Rome to visit the first and most celebrated of all the Christian churches. During the seventeen years of his pontificate, Saint Zephyrinus wholly devoted himself to maintaining the purity of the faith and discipline in the clergy. By the prudent counsels of Zephyrinus, Natalis, who had professed the heresy of Theodotus, the currier, so fully and frankly recanted that the pontiff received him into the communion of the faithful, and exempted him from canonical penalties.

Saint Zephyrinus, in four ordinations, created thirteen bishops, thirteen priests, and seven deacons. He governed the Church nearly seventeen years. He was buried in the cemetery called after the name of Calixtus, his successor, on the Appian Way.

Saint Zephyrinus had an especial esteem for Clement, that Platonic philosopher who became a Christian, and who taught in the school of Alexandria. Clement had a great number of disciples who afterwards ranked among the best masters; among them were Origen, and Alexander, Bishop of Jerusalem. Clement died about the year 217. The most celebrated of his works is An Exhortation to the Pagans, the object of which is to expose the absurdity of idolatry; the Pedagogue, a master who conducts the pupil from childhood to manhood in the way to heaven; and the Stromata, a collection of miscellanies in eight books. He wrote this book to serve him as a collection of memoranda when his memory should fail him.

Clement, who well knew the pagans, has judged them more favorably than many of the other Fathers, though he conceals neither their errors nor their vices.

Tertullian, priest of Carthage, died towards the close of the reign of Saint Zephyrinus. His works are of two kinds – those which he wrote before and after his separation from Rome. Among those of the former class is his Apology for the Christians, which is considered one of the most precious monuments of Catholic antiquity. Fleury, among other details, gives the following extracts from Tertullian:

“We do not,” says he, “entreat on his behalf gods which exist not, the dead, and statues which he can command; but we invoke, for the health of the emperors, the eternal God, the true God, the living God. Bareheaded, with uplifted eyes, and hands outstretched towards heaven, we pray for all the emperors, and we ask that they may have long life, a tranquil reign, safety in their houses, valor in their armies, fidelity in the senate, honesty in the people, and rest for every one. All that man or emperor can need, I can only ask of Him who has the power to grant it, to whom I offer the one sacrifice that he hath commanded, the prayer that proceeds from a pure heart, an innocent mind, and the inspiration of the Holy Ghost; and not a few grains of incense or of gum, or a few drops of wine, or the blood of some paltry animal, and, what is still worse, an evil conscience.

“We pray, not by the genius of Caesar, but by his health, which is more august than his genius. Know ye not that genii are demons? Neither will I call the emperor God, because I will not lie, and because I respect him too much to make a mockery of him. I am willing to call him Lord, but only when I am not compelled to say Lord and God are equivalent. For me, and equally for the emperor, there is but one Lord, who is all-powerful and eternal.

“The Christians are denounced as public enemies, because they do not pay false and vain honors to the emperors; because, professing the true religion, they daily enact their part in the public rejoicings rather by the feelings of their hearts than by debauchery. Great honor, surely, is paid to princes by setting out hearths and tables in the public streets for the banquet, and turning the whole city into a public house, to mingle wine and mire, and go about in companies committing insolences! Can public joy be only expressed by public shame? Are we culpable in praying for and rejoicing in our emperors in pure, sober, and modest guise?

“How many cruelties do you not still exercise against the Christians, whether from your own inclination or in obedience to the laws! How often does it not happen that the populace, even without awaiting your orders, throw stones at us, or set fire to our houses! Have you ever remarked that we have never done aught to revenge ourselves for so much injustice, and an animosity that pursues us even unto the death? Yet a single night, and a few torches, would enable us abundantly to avenge ourselves, if it were allowable to us to repay evil with evil; and if we chose openly to declare ourselves your enemies, could we not command strength and troops? Are the Moors, the Parthians, or any other nation, more numerous than all the nations of the world? We are but a people of yesterday, and we abound everywhere, in your cities, your hamlets, your camps, your castles, your tribes, your palaces, the senate-house, and the public square; in every place we have taken possession, leaving you nothing but your temples.”

Saint Justin himself is here surpassed in the sacred struggle against intolerance.

Unhappily, Tertullian did not persist in such excellent sentiments. He became a Montanist; and he left that sect and became the founder of a new heresy.

Saint Zephyrinus enjoyed the success of Tertullian, and no doubt pardoned his error before his death.

- from "The Lives and Times of the Popes", by Alexis-François Artaud de Montor