Pope Soter was born inFondi,Lazio (then inCampania[4]), into aGreek family.[5][6] This ancestry seems to have made Soter particularly interested in the problems of relations with theGreek Church, even sending a collection of funds to theChurch of Corinth, in order for them to be distributed to the poor.[5]
Saint Soter'sfeast day is celebrated on 22 April, as is that ofSaint Caius.[7] TheRoman Martyrology, the official list of recognized saints, references Soter: "At Rome, Saint Soter, Pope, whom Dionysius of Corinth praises for his outstanding charity towards needy exiled Christians who came to him, and towards those who had been condemned to the mines."[7]
It has often been supposed that all the earliest Popes suffered martyrdom, but the Roman Martyrology does not give Pope Soter the title of martyr.[7] The book detailing the 1969 revision of theGeneral Roman Calendar states: "There are no grounds for including Saint Soter and Saint Caius among the martyrs."[8]
TheMontanist movement, which originated inAsia Minor, made its way to Rome andGaul in the second half of the 2nd century, during the reign of Eleuterus. Its nature did not diverge so much from the orthodoxy of the time for it to initially be labeled heresy. During the violent persecution atLyon, in 177, local confessors wrote from their prison concerning the new movement to the Asiatic andPhrygian communities as well as to Pope Eleuterus.[9] The bearer of their letter to the pope was the presbyterIrenaeus, soon to becomeBishop of Lyon. It appears from statements of Eusebius concerning these letters that the Christians of Lyon, though opposed to the Montanist movement, advocated patience and pleaded for the preservation of ecclesiastical unity.
When the Roman church took its definite stand against Montanism is not precisely known.Tertullian records that a Roman bishop sent some conciliatory letters to the Montanists, but based on the complaints of Praxeas "concerning the prophets themselves and their churches, and by insistence on the decisions of the bishop's predecessors" forced the pontiff to recall these letters.[10] ThePraedestinatorum Haeresis (once attributed toAugustine of Hippo, but now considered to be the work of an unknown author) states that "Holy Soter, Pope of the City, wrote against them a book, as did the master,Apollonius of Ephesus. Against these wrote the priest Tertullian of Carthage, who "in all ways wrote well, wrote first and wrote incomparably, in this alone did reprehensibly, that he defended Montanus".[11] At Rome, theGnostics andMarcionites continued to preach against theCatholic Church.
