ANNO DOMINI CCI-CCXIX. S. ZEPHYRINUS PONTIFEX ROMANUS. NOTITIA EX LIBRO PONTIFICALI DAMASI PAPÆ.
Zephyrinus, a Roman by nationality, son of Abundius, held the see for eight years, seven months, and ten days. He lived in the times of Antoninus and Severus, from the consulship of Saturninus and Gallicanus up to the consulship of Praesens and Strilo. He decreed that, with the clergy and faithful laity present, a cleric, a Levite, or a priest should be ordained. And he made a regulation regarding the church, that ministers should carry glass patens before the priests while the bishop was celebrating mass, and that all the priests should stand by while masses were thus celebrated. He held four ordinations in the month of December, [ordaining] thirteen presbyters, seven deacons, and eleven bishops for various places. He was buried in his own cemetery, not far from the cemetery of Callistus, on the Appian Way, on the seventh day before the Kalends of September. And the episcopate ceased for six days.
A Zephyrinus was the successor of Victor in the year 203 of our savior Christ, on the eighth day of August, after the pontifical see had been vacant for eleven days. Euseb. lib. v Hist. eccl., cap. 27. Under this pontiff, the fifth general persecution of the Christians was decreed by the emperor: those who fled from his cruelty were undeservedly censured by Tertullian and others as followers of Montanus. Through this pontiff, the Cataphrygians were condemned in a public disputation, over which Caius, a man of prime eloquence and piety, presided; they were condemned along with Marcion, Praxeas, Sabellius, Valentinus, and others by anathema. Hieron. de scriptor. eccles. in Caio; Euseb. lib. VI Hist., cap. 15; Optat. Milevit. Natalius the confessor, having been seduced into the heresy of Theodotus the money-changer by the promise of money, after having been frequently admonished to return to his senses, and having been severely beaten by angels, finally clothed himself in sackcloth, covered himself with ashes, and with great sorrow and tears fell at the feet of Zephyrinus the pontiff and at the feet of the clergy and laity, asking as a suppliant to be received into the church and to penance, and he was kindly accepted by this same pontiff. Euseb. lib. v Hist., cap. 27. At this time, through the influence of Agrippinus, bishop of Carthage, the sect advocating the rebaptism of heretics arose, and being condemned, it was proven to be contrary to the Church, as is evident from Cypr. epist. 71. The edict, which is held and attacked by Tertullian, the Christian and turncoat, against the heresy of Montanus and others who denied that those who had lapsed could be penitent, was issued by the pontifical authority (which invites even adulterers and fornicators to penance). The words of the edict, which survive, are these: I, the Pontifex Maximus—that is, the bishop of bishops—decree: I remit the sins of adultery and fornication to those who have performed penance. B More can be seen in Baronius in the year of Christ 203 up to 221.
(2) He held the see for 8 years, 7 months, and 10 days. The author of the Chronicon says 18 years and as many days, following Baronius, in the year 221, number 1; and correctly, because from the ninth year of the emperor Severus, when he entered the pontificate, up to the second year of Antoninus Elagabalus, by whom he is testified to have died in the second year of his life and pontificate, in the year 203 up to the year 221, neither more nor fewer can be computed. That he died a martyr, the Martyrology reports, perhaps for the reason that he opposed Elagabalus, who wished to include the religion of all Christians under the worship of his own God. Baronius, in the aforementioned year, num. 2. Ib.
(3) That glass patens were in use is evident from this, and it is proven elsewhere that a glass, wooden, and even silver chalice was also used at this time. Concerning the glass chalice, St. Gregory the Pope writes in lib. I Dial., c. 7, that St. Donatus, bishop and martyr of the Aretine Church in Gaul, restored by prayer a glass chalice broken by pagans. Hieron. epist. 4 ad Rusticum: Nothing, he says, is richer than he who carries the body of the Lord in a wicker basket and the blood in glass. Concerning the same, Cyprian. The Gauls, in the life of Caesarius, bishop of Arles: Is the blood of Christ, he says, not contained in glass? Epiphanius in Panar., heresy 34, relates that Marcus the heresiarch, who lived close to the time of the apostles, deluded the people with a glass chalice which he used in performing his sacred rites, in such a way that the people, deluded by magic art and trickery, judged the color of white wine, which appeared from the outside in the glass, to be red, and thus believed the wine had been turned into blood. That there were sacred silver vessels in the Church in these times also, even before Christian emperors, is evident from the Life of St. Urban in the Liber Pontificalis below; and from epistle 165 of Saint Augustine, where he relates from the proconsular acts that in the time of Diocletian, Christians had two golden chalices, six silver ones, etc. Gregory of Tours, De gloria mart., c. 38, writes that under the same Diocletian, the silver ministerial sacred vessels were dug up from the crypts in which the holy martyrs used to perform their sacred rites. That a wooden chalice was used it is expressly stated in can. Vasa, de consecrat. dist. 1, and the same is openly gathered from the Council of Tribur, c. 18, where priests are prohibited from presuming to celebrate in wooden vessels in any way. However, because of the fragility of glass, the use of a glass chalice is dangerous; finally, around the time of Charlemagne, it was decreed in the Council of Rheims that the chalice of the Lord, with the paten, should be entirely of gold or silver. If anyone is too poor, it is added, he should at least have a pewter chalice. See Baronius in the notes to the Roman Martyrology, August 7. Id.