ANTÈRO (ANTÈROTE), POPE, saint. — His pontificate was very brief: from the end of November 235 to 3 January 236. He succeeded Ponziano, who, having been exiled to Sardinia by the emperor Massimino, resigned in September 235. It is not certain that A. died a martyr for the faith. The Liber Pontificalis (ed. Duchesne, I, p. 147) presents him as a martyr, associating his death with that of a certain presbyter Massimo, who is also said to have been martyred. It must, however, be noted that the text of the Liber Pontificalis is very corrupt in the various manuscripts, and its reconstruction therefore remains uncertain.
A.’s name does not appear in the Depositio Martyrum, and the Liberian Catalogue of the Popes, speaking of his death, uses the term dormit, regularly employed for those Popes who did not give their lives for the faith. A. was buried in the cemetery of S. Callisto, in the crypt of the Popes. He was the first to be laid there, since only later was the body of his predecessor Ponziano transferred from Sardinia to Rome. The slab closing his tomb, cut into one of the walls of the crypt, was found by De Rossi. Engraved upon it are the words: ΑΝΤΕΡΙΩ ΕΠΙ (σκοπος). The decretal attributed to him, permitting bishops to pass from one see to another, is apocryphal. Equally worthless is the statement in the Liber Pontificalis that «hic gesta martyrum diligenter a notariis exquisivit et in ecclesia recondit». He is venerated in the Latin Church as a martyr on 3 January.
Pietro Goggi - A. Pietro Frutaz