Pope Saint Zephyrinus
(199 A.D. - 217 A. D.).
Date: 24 March 2006 (original upload date).
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By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.
Volume 14.
Time After Pentecost.
Book V.
The Catacomb which thus succeeded the Vatican Cemetery in the honour of sheltering the Vicars of Christ, had been opened thirty years before by the Virgin Martyr Cæcilia.
As, when at the point of death, she had Consecrated her Palace into a Church, so now from her tomb she caused her family burial-place to pass into the hands of The Church.
This gift of the Cæcilii was the inauguration, in the very face of the pagan government, of common Church property officially recognised by the State.
Zephyrinus entrusted the administration of the new Cemetery to the person who ranked next to himself in the Roman Church, viz: The Arch-Deacon Callixtus.
The Holy Pontiff witnessed the growth of Heresy concerning the Unity of God and the Trinity of The Divine Persons; without the help of the special vocabulary, which was later on to fix even the very terms of Theological teaching, he knew how to silence both the Sabellians, to whom the Trinity was but a name, and the precursors of Arius, who revenged themselves by reviling him.
Zephyrinus, a Roman by birth, was chosen to govern The Church during the reign of the Emperor Severus.
He ordained that, according to custom, Holy Orders should be conferred on candidates at a fitting time and in the presence of many, both Clergy and Laity; and also that learned men should be chosen for that dignity.
Moreover, he decreed that when the Bishop was offering the Holy Sacrifice, he should be assisted by all the Priests. He also ordained that neither Patriarch, nor Primate, nor Metropolitan, might condemn a Bishop without the authority of the Apostolic See.
His Pontificate lasted eighteen years and eighteen days. In four Ordinations, which he held in the month of December, he Ordained thirteen Priests, seven Deacons, and thirteen Bishops, for divers places.
He was Crowned by Martyrdom under the Emperor Antoninus and was buried on the Appian Way, near the Cemetery of Callixtus, on the seventh of the Calends of September.
