ZEPHYRINUS, Pope, Saint. - Successor of Victor and predecessor of Callistus, consecrated in 199, died in 217. In the Philosophumena it is read that he placed the deacon Callistus in charge of the administration of the cemetery (IX, 11).
In the Hieronymian Martyrology he is indicated on Dec. 20: "Romae depositio Zephirini episcopi"; the Munich codex even gives "Romae via Appia in cimiterio depositio s. Zephirini episcopi". In the Liber Pont. it is read that he was buried "in cimiterio suo iuxta cymiterium Calisti via Appia, VIII Ksl. sept." (I, pp. 62, 139 ff.); this date of Aug. 25 is denied by Duchesne, who prefers the other one of Dec. 20 from the Hieronymianum (ibid., p. clviii). His tomb is indicated above ground by the "Notitia ecclesiarum" (R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti, Codice topogr. della città di Roma, II, Rome 1942, p. 88); the Epitome de locis gives him as laid together with the martyr Tarsicius, "in uno tumulo" (ibid., p. 110). G. B. De Rossi, L. Duchesne, O. Marucchi held that Z. had been laid in the triclinium cell where today the bust of G. B. De Rossi is. De Rossi held however that he had first been buried in the underground and then transferred to the open air, at least already in the time of Sixtus III, because his name does not appear in the commemorative inscription placed by that Pontiff in the crypt of the popes of the 3rd century. Duchesne held that he had been immediately laid in the above-ground area of Callistus and precisely in the aforementioned triclinium cell. G. Wilpert instead preferred to recognize his tomb in a triclinium cell situated to the east of the first. P. Franchi de' Cavalieri thinks that the triclinium cell proposed by Wilpert corresponds better to the "iuxta coem. Callisti" of the Liber Pontificalis, but observes that in it the tomb found in the middle does not appear contemporary with the construction of the building, while the place of honor was not supposed to be in the center, but in the apses; moreover it cannot be excluded that besides the two surviving cells there were others, and therefore he concluded that the elements for determining the tomb of Z. are lacking. In the Vatican Grottoes, in a catalog of relics of the 9th century it is read: "Zefferini Pap. et Tarsicii", but relics of Z. and of Tarsicius are also listed in S. Silvestro in Capite.
Bibliography5 works
Enrico Josi