Zeno
- Year: 371.
- Feast Day: April 12
Born in North Africa, he became Bishop of Verona in Italy at the time of Julian the Apostate. He was remembered as a fervent pastor and a fierce opponent of Arianism.
Zeno was elected Bishop of Verona around 362. His legend praises his care for the poor and the sick. According to tradition, Zeno supported himself by fishing in the Adige (Etsch) river. This is how the messengers of Emperor Gallienus found him, when they came asking him to heal through prayer the emperor’s daughter, who was possessed.
A collection of 30 sermons and more than 60 further invitations and prefaces for the baptismal and Easter liturgy, short sermons, and fragments was compiled after Zeno’s death. These identify him as an opponent of Arianism and Judaism and a representative of the theology of the First Council of Nicaea. They deal predominantly with texts from the Old Testament and attest to a solid education; the figures and events of the Old Testament are consistently interpreted as pointing toward Christ. As one of the first in the Western Church, he strongly advocated the doctrine of the virginity of the Mother of God, Mary, and he promoted the monastic life for women — for this reason he founded one of the first convents for women.
The account given by Gregory of Tours, and a biography written around 800. His feast day is the day of Zeno’s episcopal consecration.
The Church of San Zeno soon arose over Zeno’s grave in Verona. Petronius of Bologna reported in a sermon on miracles at the grave. The church is said to have once been miraculously spared from flooding, as Pope Gregory the Great recounted in his Dialogues: the water is said to have stood like a wall even with the doors open, and did not enter the church; for this reason Zeno became the patron saint against water damage. After an earthquake destroyed the church, the present magnificent Church of San Zeno was built on the same site between 1118 and 1135. Even during his lifetime Zeno was venerated like a saint; the center of his veneration today is still Mais, in what is now Merano. Corbinian is said to have dedicated to Zeno the chapel he built near Mais, and he also brought the veneration of Zeno to Bavaria.
Hrabanus Maurus transferred relics to the former Church of St. Elizabeth — today a department store — in Ulm, as well as further relics to his monastery — on the site of today’s cathedral — in Fulda. Bishop Radulph of Verona founded the monastery in Radolfzell on Lake Constance in the early 8th century; Zeno’s head was therefore brought there in 830. Under the influence of Corbinian of Freising, Zeno also became popular in Bavaria: a relic came to Isen near Erding, for which Provost Ladislaus of Achdorf endowed a silver bust in 1451, now housed in the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg.
Words of the Saint
In a treatise on the three divine virtues — faith, hope, and love — he highlights love as their summit: Love has no end; it grows with every moment, and the more those who love show love to one another, the greater their mutual debt of love becomes. Love loves no one out of regard for its own standing, for it does not know how to flatter. It does not love for the sake of honor, for it is not ambitious. It does not love for the sake of gender, for to it both sexes are but one. It does not love only for a time, for it is not fickle. It is not jealous, for it does not know what envy is. It does not become puffed up, for it cherishes humility. It thinks no evil, for it is simple-hearted. It does not grow angry, for it gladly bears even injustice. It does not deceive, for it faithfully keeps its given word. It demands nothing, for it needs nothing but its own being.
Love is what keeps the countryside, the cities, and the peoples at peace and in quiet to this hour. Love is what makes swords harmless in the presence of kings. Love is what suppresses wars, removes disputes, causes people to renounce claims to their rights, softens courts of law, roots out hatred, and stifles anger. Love is what sails the sea, travels around the globe, and through trade brings peoples what they need. And — brothers — a brief word about its power: everything nature has denied to a place, love supplies to it. It is love that unites two people as one flesh through the venerable sacrament of marriage. It is love that makes human existence possible through birth. It is thanks to love that a wife is cherished, that children are well brought up, that fathers are true fathers. It is thanks to love that others are as close to us as we are to ourselves — indeed, even closer — and become our friends. It is thanks to love that we love our slaves like children, and that, in turn, they gladly honor us as their masters. It is thanks to love that we show kindness not only to acquaintances or friends, but often even to those we have never seen. …
O Love, how good you are! How rich! How mighty! Whoever does not have you has nothing! … You preserve life for the people destined for heaven, when you grant peace, guard the faith, protect innocence, promote truth, love patience, and keep hope before our eyes. Out of people who differ in character, in age, and in social standing, you make one nature, one spirit, one body. You do not allow the glorious martyrs to be turned away from confessing the Christian name. … You are content to go naked, so that you may clothe the naked. For you, hunger becomes satisfaction when a hungry poor person eats your bread. Your only investment is that what you have belongs entirely to mercy. You alone do not know what it means to have to be begged. You extend a rescuing hand to the oppressed or to those in any kind of need, even at cost to yourself. You are the eye of the blind. You are the foot of the lame. You are the most reliable shield of widows. You take the place of parents for orphans, better than the parents themselves. Your eyes never remain dry, because either compassion or joy will not allow it. You love even your enemies in such a way that no one can tell what difference remains, for you, between them and your friends. You join heavenly mysteries to human affairs, and human mysteries to heavenly things.
Source: The Treatises of St. Bishop Zeno of Verona. Translated from the Latin by Andreas Bigelmair, Library of the Church Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 10. Munich, 1934, pp. 78–80.
Quotations from Zeno:
Avoid disputing about what surpasses the limits of human understanding! In a certain sense, whoever tries to prove God denies him; for one only offers a defense to someone weak, and a person who thinks it is thanks to his own talent that God is acknowledged cannot show God true reverence.
This is the true greatness of faith: that a person serves God faithfully; that he places his trust in God alone; that he recognizes that his title Fidelis (the faithful one) comes from Fidelitas (faithfulness) and Fiducia (trusting confidence); that he leads a blameless life; that he dares to know God only with a good conscience, not with idle talk, which is in truth the mother of sin; that he does not violate but rather venerates the one fullness of the power of the Trinity, which is grasped as one in spirit, one in faith. Rightly does God hate … greed. It is an unfathomable craving, a blind desire, a mad passion, a rapacity that knows no limit, a tension that finds no rest, that never reaches the goal of its wishes because it knows no satisfaction. It breaks faithfulness; it neglects love; it denies justice; it acknowledges no feelings; it disregards divine rights; through cunning arguments it destroys human rights, in order, if possible, to seize the whole world for itself. Do you want to know what kind of evil it [greed] is? Certainly it directs its fury against the very one who loves it, even more than against others. Yet whoever overcomes it will have eternal life.
Source: The Treatises of St. Bishop Zeno of Verona. Translated from the Latin by Andreas Bigelmair, Library of the Church Fathers, 2nd series, vol. 10. Munich, 1934, pp. 65f, 71f, 144.
Source: https://www.heiligenlexikon.de/BiographienZ/Zeno.htm