Saint Zephyrinus

Zephyrinus held the see of Rome longer than any pope before him, through the persecution of Septimius Severus and the disputes that followed, and the fullest account of him was written by a man who hated him. Hippolytus, the learned presbyter who would set himself up as rival bishop after Zephyrinus's death, described him as "an ignorant and unlettered man, unversed in the church's rules," "a taker of bribes and a lover of money," who did whatever his deacon Callixtus advised. Allowing for the malice, the picture of a plain administrator relying on an abler subordinate is probably fair.

The disputes were about God. Teachers from Asia, Noetus's disciples and then Sabellius, taught that Father and Son were one person who had suffered on the cross; Hippolytus insisted on two distinct persons and thought Zephyrinus stupid for not condemning the first group outright. Zephyrinus tried a formula: "I know one God, Jesus Christ, and besides him no other who was born and suffered," adding that "the Father did not die, but the Son." It satisfied nobody and kept the church together. At the other extreme, followers of the excommunicated Theodotus hired a confessor named Natalius as their bishop at a salary; he returned to Zephyrinus in sackcloth and was received back.

Under Zephyrinus the presbyter Gaius pointed a visitor to the "trophies" of Peter and Paul, Origen came from Alexandria "to see the most ancient church," and Callixtus was placed in charge of the new cemetery on the Appian Way.