Cletus, Pope Saint (1)
Cletus, Pope Saint
The second successor of St. Peter. Whether he was the same as Cletus, who is also called Anencletus as well as Anacletus, has been the subject of endless discussion. Irenaeus, Eusebius, Augustine, Optatus, use both names indifferently as of one person. Tertullian omits him altogether. To add to the confusion, the order is different. Thus Irenaeus has Linus, Anacletus, Clement; whereas Augustine and Optatus put Clement before Anacletus. On the other hand, the “Catalogus Liberianus”, the “Carmen contra Marcionem” and the “Liber Pontificalis”, all most respectable for their antiquity, make Cletus and Anacletus distinct from each other; while the “Catalogus Felicianus” even sets the latter down as a Greek, the former as a Roman. Among the moderns, Hergenroether (Hist. de l’église, I 542, note) pronounces for their identity. So also the Bollandist De Smedt (Dissert. vii, 1). Dëllinger (Christenth. u K., 315) declares that “they are, without doubt, the same person”and that “the ‘Catalogue of Liberius’ merits little confidence before 230.” Duchesne, ” Origines chretiennes “, ranges himself on that side also but Jungmann (Dissert. Hist. Eccl., I, 123) leaves the question in doubt. The chronology is, of course, in consequence of all this, very undetermined, but Duchesne, in his “Origines”, says “we are far from the day when the years, months, and days of the Pontifical Catalogue can be given with any guarantee of exactness. But is it necessary to be exact about popes of whom we know so little? We can accept the list of Irenaeus — Linus, Anacletus, Clement, Evaristus, Alexander, Xystus, Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius, and Anicetus. Anicetus reigned certainly in 154. That is all we can say with assurance about primitive pontifical chronology.” That he ordained a certain number of priests is nearly all we have of positive record about him, but we know he died a martyr, perhaps about 91.
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T.J. CAMPBELL Transcribed by Gerard Haffner
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Cletus, Pope Saint (1)
This name is only another form for Anacletus, the second successor of St. Peter. It is true that the Liberian Catalogue, a fourth-century list of popes, so called because it ends with Pope Liberius (d. 366), contains both names, as if they were different persons. But this is an error, owing evidently to the existence of two forms of the same name, one an abbreviation of the other. In the aforesaid catalogue the papal succession is: Petrus, Linus, Clemens, Cletus, Anacletus. This catalogue, however, is the only authority previous to the sixth century (Liber Pontificalis) for distinguishing two popes under the names of Cletus and Anacletus.
The “Carmen adv. Marcionem” is of the latter half of the fourth century, and its papal list probably depends on the Liberian Catalogue. The “Martyrologium Hieronymianum” (q. v.) mentions both “Aninclitus” and “Clitus” (23 and 31 December), but on each occasion these names are found in a list of popes; hence the days mentioned cannot be looked on as specially consecrated to these two persons. Apart from these lists, all other ancient papal lists, from the second to the fourth century, give as follows the immediate succession of St. Peter: Linos, Anegkletos, Klemes (Linus, Anencletus, Clemens), and this succession is certainly the right one. It is that found in St. Irenæus and in the chronicles of the second and third centuries. Both Africa and the Orient adhered faithfully to this list, which is also given in the very ancient Roman Canon of the Mass, except that in the latter Cletus is the form used, and the same occurs in St. Epiphanius, St. Jerome, Rufinus, and in many fifth- and sixth-century lists. This second successor of St. Peter governed the Roman Church from about 76 to about 88. The “Liber Pontificalis” says that his father was Emelianus and that Cletus was a Roman by birth, and belonged to the quarter known as the Vicus Patrici. It also tells us that he ordained twenty-five priests, and was buried in Vaticano near the body of St. Peter.
There is historical evidence for only the last of these statements. The feast of St. Cletus falls, with that of St. Marcellinus, on 26 April; this date is already assigned to it in the first edition of the “Liber Pontificalis”. (See POPE SAINT CLEMENT I.)
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LIGHTFOOT, Apostolic Fathers, Pt. I: St. Clement of Rome (2nd ed., London, 1890), 201-345; DUCHESNE, Liber Pontificalis, I, LXIX-LXX, 2-3, 52-53; HARNACK, Gesch. der alt-christl. Lit. bis Eusebius, II-I, 144-202; Acta SS., April, III, 409-11; DE SMEDT, Dissertationes selectæ in hist. eccles. (Ghent, 1876), 300-04.
J.P. KIRSCH Transcribed by Vivek Gilbert John Fernandez Dedicated to the first popes of the Holy Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IVCopyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York