Pope Eleutherius (Greek:Ελευθέριος; died 24 May 189), also known asEleutherus (Greek:Ελεύθερος), was thebishop of Rome from c. 174 until his death in 189.[1] His pontificate is alternatively dated to 171–185 or 177–193.[2] He is venerated as asaint in theCatholic Church.
He is linked to a number of legends, one of them credited him with receiving a letter from "Lucius,King of Britain".
As of 2025, he is the only Pope named Eleutherius.
The 6th-centuryrecension ofLiber Pontificalis ('Book of the Popes') known as the "Felician Catalog"[c] includes additional commentary to the work's earlier entry on Eleutherius. One addition ascribes to Eleutherius the reissuance of a decree:[d][7] "And he again affirmed that no food should be repudiated by Christians strong in their faith, as God created it, [provided] however that it is sensible and edible." Such a decree might have been issued against early continuations ofJewish dietary law and against similar laws practiced by theGnostics andMontanists. It is also possible, however, that the editor of the passage attributed to Eleutherius a decree similar to another issued around the year 500 in order to give it greater authority.
Another addition credited Eleutherius with receiving a letter from "Lucius,King of Britain" or "King of the Britons", declaring an intention to convert to Christianity.[e] Authoratiative accounts from the 1st and 2nd century, of Terullian, St. Clement, and St. Iraneaus, referred to Britain as being of the first as having been impacted by the Christian faith.[citation needed] Lately, ancient religious records have been quickly labeled aspious forgery, however it has been admittedly reproduced by several of the most reliable, including the letter itself transcribed by John Foxe in his sixteenth-century workActes and Monuments. This stands alongside the reputations ofLiber Pontificalis written in 535 AD, the Cistercian Hagiagropher Jocelyn in the 12th Century, Gildas, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bede, Urban, John of Tynemouth, and Capgrave, that preceded Foxe by nearly 1,000 years. Those who question its validity will then move to discussion over its original purpose.Haddan,Stubbs, and Wilkins[8] considered the passage "manifestly written in the time and tone" ofProsper of Aquitaine, secretary toPope Leo the Great in the mid-5th century, and supportive of themissions ofGermanus of Auxerre andPalladius.[8]Duchesne dated the entry a little later to the pontificate ofBoniface II around 530,[1] andMommsen to the early 7th century.[1] Only the last would support the conjecture that it aimed to support theGregorian mission to theAnglo-Saxons led byAugustine of Canterbury, whoencountered great difficulty with thenative British Christians, as at theSynod of Chester. Indeed, the Celtic Christians invoked the antiquity of their church to generallyavoid submission toCanterbury until theNorman conquest, but no arguments invoking the mission to Lucius appear to have been made by either side during thesynods among the Welsh and Saxon bishops.
Some claim that the first Englishman to mention the story wasBede[9][10] and he seems to have taken it, not from native texts or traditions, but fromThe Book of the Popes. Subsequently, it appeared in the 9th-centuryHistory of the Britons traditionally credited toNennius: The account relates that a mission from the pope baptised "Lucius, the Britannic king, with all the petty kings of the whole Britannic people".[11] The account, however, dates this baptism to AD 167 (a little before Eleutherius's pontificate) and credits it toEvaristus (reignedc. 99 – c. 107).[11] In the 12th century, more details began to be added to the story.Geoffrey of Monmouth'spseudohistoricalHistory of the Kings of Britain goes into great detail concerning Lucius and names the pope's envoys to him asFagan andDuvian.[12] The 12th-centuryBook of Llandaf placed the court of Lucius in southern Wales and names his emissaries to the pope asElfan andMedwy.[13]
Others cite the reliable histories from centuries before: "Gildas, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bede, Urban, John of [Tynemouth] and Capgrave, referred to 'as the most learned of English Augustinians whom the soil of England ever produced', support the date of return of the emissaries of King Lucius from visiting Bishop Eleutherius at Rome, as that given in the British annals, a.d. 183, over a century and a half before the Roman Catholic Church was founded. Cardinal Baronius not only denounces the Augustinian claim but in detail recites the whole record from the year a.d. 36 onward."[14]
An echo of this legend penetrated even toSwitzerland. In a homily preached atChur and preserved in an 8th- or 9th-century manuscript,Timothy is represented as anapostle toGaul, whence he went intoRoman Britain and baptised a king named Lucius, who himself became a missionary to Gaul and finally settled at Chur, where he preached the gospel with great success. In this way Lucius, the early missionary of the Swiss district of Chur, became identified with the alleged British king of theLiber Pontificalis.[15]
Harnack suggests that in the document which the compiler of theLiber Pontificalis drew his information, the name found was notBritanio, butBritio. Now this is the name (Birtha-,Britium) of the fortress ofEdessa.[16] The king in question is, therefore, Lucius Ælius Septimus MegasAbgar VIII, of Edessa, a Christian king as is well known. The original statement of theLiber Pontificalis, in this hypothesis, had nothing to do with Britain; the compiler of theLiber Pontificalis changedBritio toBrittanio, and in this way made a British king of theSyrian Lucius.
According to theLiber Pontificalis, Pope Eleutherius died on 24 May and was buried on theVatican Hill (in Vaticano) near the body ofPeter the Apostle. Later tradition has his body moved to the church ofSan Giovanni della Pigna, near thepantheon. In 1591, his remains were again moved to the church ofSanta Susanna at the request of Camilla Peretti, the sister ofPope Sixtus V. His feast is celebrated on 26 May.
^Catalogus Felicianus, named for its ending during the pontificate ofFelix IV. The earliest surviving codex dates to the 9th century.
^"Et hoc iterum firmavit ut nulla esca a Christianis repudiaretur, maxime fidelibus, quod Deus creavit, quæ tamen rationalis et humana est."
^InHaddan, Stubbs & Wilkins 1869, p. 25, this passage is given as "Hic accepit epistulam a Lucio Britanniæ Rege ut Christianus efficeretur per ejus mandatum." ('He accepted a letter from Lucius, King ofBritain, that he might become a Christian by his own will.') InKnight 2012, p. 14 the passage is quoted as "Hic accepit epistolam a Lucio Brittaniorum rege ut Xrianus efficeretur per ejus mandatum." ('He accepted a letter from Lucius, king of theBritons, that he might become a Xian by his own will.')
Geoffrey of Monmouth (1854) [c. 1136].Historia Regnum Britanniae [History of the Kings of Britain] (in Latin). Vol. IV, Ch. xix. From:Schulz, A., ed. (1854).Gottfried's von Monmouth Historia Regum Britanniae, mit literar-historischer Einleitung und ausführlichen Anmerkungen, und Brut Tysylio, altwälsce Chronik in deutscher Ueberseizung. Halle, Germany: Eduard Anton.
Nennius [attrib.] (1898) [c. 830]. Mommsen, Theodor (ed.).Historia Brittonum [History of the Britons] (in Latin). Vol. II, Ch. xxii. – viaWikisource. From:"Historia Brittonvm cvm additamentis Nennii".Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Cronica Minora, Saec. IV.V.VI.VII. Vol. III. Berlin: Societas Aperiendis Fontibus Rerum Germanicarum Medii Aevi. 1898.
