not always decisive (Ezek. xxxii., for example, looks upon Edom and Sidon as dead), and while the continued revision of the book allows the presumption that the tradition ascribing its inception to the time of Josiah may be authentic, it is doubtful how much of the original nucleus can be safely recognized. These are problems which concern not only the criticism of biblical prophetical writings as a whole, but also the historical vicissitudes of the period over which they extend (see Jews; Palestine: History).
According to late tradition Zephaniah, like Habakkuk, was of the tribe of Simeon (cf. Micah of Mareshah and Obadiah of Bethhaccerem, see Cheyne, Ency. Bib., col. 3455). The apocryphal prophecy of Zeph. (Clement of Alex., Strom., v. 11, 77; see Schürer, Gesch. Volk. Isr., m. 271 seq.) merely illustrates the tendency to utilize older traditions. See further on textual, metrical and literary details, W. R. Smith (note 4, previous page), reprinted in Ency. Bib., with additions by S. R. Driver, J. A. Selbie in Hastings's Dict. Bib., J. Lippl in Bibl. Studien (1910), and the commentaries on (all or portions of) the Minor Prophets by A. B . Davidson (Camb. Bible, 1896); G. A. Smith (1898); W. Nowack (1903); K. Marti (1904; especially valuable); Driver (Cent. Bib., 1906); Von Hoonacker (1908). (S. A. C.)
ZEPHYRINUS, ST, bishop of Rome from about 198 to 217, succeeded Victor I. He is described as a man of little intelligence or strength of character, and the somewhat important controversies on doctrine and discipline that marked his pontificate are more appropriately associated with the names of Hippolytus and of Calixtus, his principal adviser and afterwards his successor.
ZEPHYRUS, in Greek mythology, the west wind (whence the English “zephyr,” a light breeze), brother of Boreas, the north wind, and son of the Titan Astraeus and Eos, the dawn. He was the husband of Chloris, the goddess of flowers, by whom he had a son, Carpus, the god of fruit (Ovid, Fasti, v. 197); by the harpy Podargē he was also the father of Xanthus and Balius, the horses of Achilles. Being spurned by Hyacinthus (q.v.), he caused his death by accident at the hands of Apollo. He was identified by the Romans with the Favonius, and Chloris with Flora.
ZERBST, a town of Germany, in the duchy of Anhalt, situated on the Nuthe, 11 m. N.W. of Dessau and 27 m. S .E. of Magdeburg by the railway Dessau-Leipzig. Pop. (1900) 17,095. It is still surrounded in part by old walls and bastions, while other portions of the whilom fortifications have been converted into pleasant promenades. It contains five churches, one of which (St Nicholas), built in 1446-88, is a good example of the late Gothic style as developed in Saxony, with its spacious proportions, groined vaulting, and bare simple pillars. The town hall dates from about 1480, but it was disfigured by additions in the beginning of the 17th century. It contains the municipal museum, among the chief treasures of which is a Luther Bible illustrated by Lucas Cranach the younger. The palace (1681-1750) has been used as a depository of archives since 1872. There are several quaint old houses, with high gables, in the market-place, in the middle of which stand a Roland column, of about 1445, and a bronze figure known as the Butterjungfer (butter-girl), of uncertain origin and meaning, but now regarded as the palladium of the town. The old Franciscan monastery, with fine cloisters, founded in 1250, contains the gymnasium; a Cistercian nunnery of 1214 has been converted into barracks; and the Augustinian monastery of 1390 has been a hospital since 1525. Gold and silver articles, silk, plush, cloth, leather, soap, starch, chemicals and carriages are among the chief manufactures. Iron-founding is carried on; and several breweries are engaged in the preparation of Zerbster bitter beer, which enjoys considerable repute.
Zerbst is an ancient town, mentioned in 949. In 1307 it came into the possession of the Anhalt family, and from 1603 till 1793 was the capital of the collateral branch of Anhalt-Zerbst. In 1793 it passed to Anhalt-Dessau.
ZERMATT, a mountain village at the head of the Visp valley and at the foot of the Matterhorn, in the canton of the Valais, Switzerland. It is 22¼ m. by rail from Visp in the Rhône valley, and there is also a railway from Zermatt past the Riffel inns to the very top of the Gornergrat (10,289 ft.). The village is 5315 ft. above the sea, and in 1900 had 741 permanent inhabitants (all Romanists save 9, and all but 12 German-speaking), resident in 73 houses. Formerly Zermatt was called “Praborgne,” and this name is mentioned in the Swiss census of 1888. Its originally Romance population seems to have been Teutonised in the course of the 15th century, the name “Matt” (now written “Zermatt,” i.e. the village on the meadows) first occurring at the very end of that century. Zermatt was long known to botanists and geologists only, and has an interesting though very local history. De Saussure in 1789 was one of the first tourists to visit it. But it was not till the arrival of M. Alexandre Seiler in 1834 that its fame as one of the chief tourist resorts in the Alps was laid, for tourists abound only where there are good inns. When M. Seiler died in 1891 he was proprietor of most of the great hotels in and around Zermatt. The Matterhorn, which frowns over the village from which it takes its name, was not conquered till 1865, Mr E. Whymper and two guides then alone surviving the terrible accident in which their four comrades perished. The easy glacier pass of the St Théodule (10,890 ft.) leads S. in six hours from the village to the Val Tournanche, a tributary glen of the valley of Aosta.
ZERO, the figure 0 in the Arabic notation for numbers, nought, cipher. The Arabic name for the figure was sifr, which meant literally an empty thing. The old Latin writers on arithmetic translated or transliterated the Arabic word as zephyrum; this in Ital. became zefiro, contracted to zero, borrowed by F. zéro, whence it came late into English. The Spanish form cifra, more closely resembling the original Arabic, gave O. Fr. cifre, mod. chiffre, also used in the sense of monogram, and English “cipher” which is thus a doublet. In physics, the term is applied to a point with which phenomena are quantitatively compared, especially to a point of a graduated instrument between a positive and negative or ascending and descending scale, as in the scales of temperature.
ZEULENRODA, a town of Germany, in the principality of Reuss-the-Elder, situated on a high plateau in a well-wooded and hilly country, 35 m. N. from Hof by the railway to Werdau. Pop. (1900) 9419. The town contains a handsome town hall, several churches and schools, and carries on an active industry in cotton and woollen stocking manufacture. Zeulenroda is mentioned as a village as early as 1399, and it obtained municipal rights in 1438. Since 1500 it has belonged to the Greiz branch of the Reuss line of princes.
ZEUS, the Greek counterpart of the Roman god, Jupiter (q.v.). In the recorded periods of Hellenic history, Zeus was accepted as the chief god of the pantheon of the Greeks; and the religious progress of the people from lower to higher ideas can be well illustrated by the study of his ritual and personality. His name is formed from a root div, meaning “bright,” which appears in other Aryan languages as a formative part of divine names, such as the Sanskrit Dyâus, “sky”; Latin Diovis, Jovis, Diespiter, divus; Old English Tiw; Norse Tyr. The conclusion that has been frequently drawn from these facts, that all the Indo-Germanic stocks before their dispersal worshipped a personal High God, the Sky-Father, has been now seen to be hazardous.[1] Nevertheless, it remains probable that Zeus had already been conceived as a personal and pre-eminent god by the ancestors of the leading Hellenic tribes before they entered the peninsula which became their historic home. In the first place, his pre-eminence is obviously pre-Homeric; for Homer was no preacher or innovator in religion, but gives us some at least of the primary facts of the contemporary religious beliefs prevailing about 1000 B.C.: and he attests for us the supremacy of Zeus as a belief which was unquestioned by the average Hellene of the time; and appreciating how slow was the process of religious change in the earlier period, we shall believe that the god had won this position long before the Homeric age. In the next place, we cannot trace the origin of his worship
- ↑ See, however, Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples (trans. Jevons), 416-419.
