Pope St. Linus

Please help support the mission of New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more — all for only $19.99...

(Reigned about A.D. 64 or 67to 76 or 79).

All the ancient records of theRoman bishops which have been handed down to us bySt. Irenaeus,Julius Africanus,St. Hippolytus,Eusebius, also the Liberian catalogue of 354, place the name of Linus directly after that of the Prince of the Apostles,St. Peter. These records are traced back to a list of theRoman bishops which existed in the time ofPope Eleutherus (about 174-189), whenIrenaeus wrote his book "Adversus haereses". As opposed to this testimony, we cannot accept as more reliableTertullian's assertion, which unquestionably placesSt. Clement (De praescriptione, xxxii) after theApostle Peter, as was also done later by other Latin scholars (Jerome,Illustrious Men 15). The Roman list inIrenaeus has undoubtedly greater claims to historical authority. This author claims that Pope Linus is the Linus mentioned bySt. Paul in his2 Timothy 4:21. The passage byIrenaeus (Against Heresies III.3.3) reads:

After the Holy Apostles (Peter andPaul) had founded and set theChurch in order (inRome) they gave over the exercise of the episcopal office to Linus. The same Linus is mentioned bySt. Paul in his Epistle to Timothy. His successor was Anacletus.

We cannot be positive whether this identification of thepope as being the Linus mentioned in2 Timothy 4:21 goes back to an ancient and reliable source, or originated later on account of the similarity of the name.

Linus's term of office, according to thepapal lists handed down to us, lasted only twelve years. The Liberian Catalogue shows that it lasted twelve years, four months, and twelve days. The dates given in this catalogue, A.D. 56 until A.D. 67, are incorrect. Perhaps it was on account of these dates that the writers of the fourth century gave their opinion that Linus had held the position of head of the Roman community during the life of the Apostle; e.g.,Rufinus in the preface to his translation of the pseudo-Clementine "Recognitiones". But this hypothesis has no historical foundation. It cannot bedoubted that according to the accounts ofIrenaeus concerning theRoman Church in the second century, Linus was chosen to be head of the community ofChristians inRome, after the death of the Apostle. For this reason his pontificate dates from the year of the death of the ApostlesPeter andPaul, which, however, is not known forcertain.

The"Liber Pontificalis" asserts that Linus's home was inTuscany, and that hisfather's name was Herculanus; but we cannot discover the origin of this assertion. According to the same work on thepopes, Linus is supposed to have issued adecree "in conformity with the ordinance of St. Peter", thatwomen should have their heads covered in church. Withoutdoubt thisdecree isapocryphal, and copied by the author of the"Liber Pontificalis" from thefirst Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (11:5) and arbitrarily attributed to the first successor of the Apostle inRome. The statement made in the same source, that Linus sufferedmartyrdom, cannot beproved and is improbable. For betweenNero andDomitian there is no mention of anypersecution of theRoman Church; andIrenaeus (1. c., III, iv, 3) from among the early Romanbishops designates onlyTelesphorus as a gloriousmartyr.

Finally this book asserts that Linus after his death, was buried in the Vatican besideSt. Peter. We do notknow whether the author had any decisive reason for this assertion. AsSt. Peter was certainly buried at the foot of the Vatican Hill, it is quite possible that the earliestbishops of theRoman Church also wereinterred there. There was nothing in theliturgical tradition of the fourth-centuryRoman Church to prove this, because it was only at the end of the second century that any special feast ofmartyrs was instituted and consequently Linus does not appear in the fourth-century lists of the feasts of the Romansaints. According to Torrigio ("Le sacre grotte Vaticane",Viterbo, 1618, 53) when the presentconfession was constructed in St. Peter's (1615), sarcophagi were found, and among them was one which bore the word Linus. The explanation given by Severano of this discovery ("Memorie delle sette chiese di Roma", Rome, 1630, 120) is that probably these sarcophagi contained the remains of the first Romanbishops, and that the one bearing that inscription was Linus's burial place. This assertion was repeated later on by different writers. But from amanuscript of Torrigio's we see that on the sarcophagus in question there were other letters beside the word Linus, so that they rather belonged to some other name (such as Aquilinus, Anullinus). The place of the discovery of thetomb is aproof that it could not be thetomb of Linus (De Rossi, "Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae", II, 23-7).

The feast of St. Linus is now celebrated on 23 September. This is also the date given in the"Liber Pontificalis". An epistle on themartyrdom of the ApostlesSt. Peter andPaul was at a later period attributed to St. Linus, and supposedly was sent by him to theEastern Churches. It isapocryphal and of later date than the history of themartyrdom of the two Apostles, by some attributed to Marcellus, which is alsoapocryphal ("Acta Apostolorum apocrypha", ed. Lipsius and Bonnet, I, ed; Leipzig, 1891, XIV sqq., 1 sqq.).

CONTACT US |ADVERTISE WITH NEW ADVENT