CATALOGUES of POPES and of BISHOPS. — Early on, the custom began in individual churches of keeping an official list of the series of bishops. This involved the necessity of not mentioning bishops who had defected from the faith and those who had been excluded as usurpers.
There is evidence from as early as the 3rd century of the custom of reading such catalogues during the sacred liturgy; they were written in special "diptychs" (q.v.), and it was in the inscription or erasure from these diptychs that official recognition or denial of the legitimacy of individual bishops consisted (F. Cabrol, s.V. in DACL, IV, cols. 1045-94).
I. CATALOGUES OF POPES
From 1947 onwards, the catalogue of popes is found critically compiled in the Annuario pontificio. The many catalogues handed down through the centuries, compiled by private authors, present discrepancies in number, in the inclusion or exclusion of names, and even in chronology. This is due to deficiencies in positive data or critical method; to the reality of confused situations arising from contested elections, schisms, depositions; to the different ways of dating the beginning of a pontificate; and all this involves delicate canonical as well as historical problems. The uncertainties in certain details, however, do not invalidate the uninterrupted succession of popes from the Apostle Peter in the Roman see.The oldest known catalogues are those compiled by Irenaeus (Adv. haer., III, 3, 5) and by Hegesippus (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., IV, 22) in the controversy with the Gnostics. They are lists of names without chronological indications. Collected from local tradition (as Hegesippus affirms), they bear witness to the existence and use at Rome around AD 150 of a catalogue, probably written and used in the liturgy. According to E. Caspar, it lacked indications of the duration of the pontificates but was stable in the succession of names, thus providing a chronological element for dating ecclesiastical events not otherwise dated (e.g., the arrival and activity of heretics at Rome) by the name of a pope (Irenaeus, Adv. haer., III, 4, 2-3).
In the 3rd century, with the works of the chroniclers Hippolytus and Julius Africanus and their continuators, the first attempts were made to fix the chronology of the popes and synchronize it with that of the emperors. From Julius Africanus derives the chronology of Eusebius, and from Hippolytus that of the so-called "Liberian Catalogue," inserted in the Chronography of 354. Eusebius reports in his Ecclesiastical History and in the Chronicle two lists that agree in the identity and succession of names but differ in the number of years attributed to each; the Liberian Catalogue, besides indicating the duration of the pontificates in years, months, and days, and from AD 135 onwards also the date of ordination, presents a variant in the names. While Eusebius has: Linus, Anacletus, Clement, Evaristus..., the Liberian has Peter, Linus, Clement, Cletus, Anacletus, Evaristus. The splitting of Cletus-Anacletus (Cletus, the Western form of Anacletus) and the postponement after Clement are due to chronological difficulties of the compilers of the Liberian, as is the inversion of Anicetus-Pius among the popes of the 2nd century, and the supposed splitting of Marcellinus-Marcellus at the time of Diocletian to cover a vacancy of the Roman see lasting several years. Such errors passed from the Liberian into other catalogues and especially into two influential collections until the last century: the portraits in the basilica of St Paul and the Liber Pontificalis.
The portraits in St Paul’s basilica in their oldest series date from the 5th-6th centuries and, with the inclusion of the antipope Lawrence (early 6th century), reflect the struggles of the time; the inscriptions, however, show later influences.
The Liber Pontificalis expands the data of the Liberian Catalogue to provide biographical notices of the popes. Composed at the beginning of the 6th century, it does not escape, in compiling the oldest notices, the controversies aroused by the Laurentian schism, but it is accurate for contemporary notices, and, having met with favour, was continued.
In the 6th-9th centuries, additions made by clerics of the Curia, some still living during the popes’ reigns, with the help of the papal archives, are important and exact for general chronology. For a time (9th-10th centuries) the Liber Pontificalis was reduced to little more than a list added later, which allowed for the inclusion, in that confused period, of a non-existent Donus II (973) and, in some manuscripts, even of Pope Joan. With Leo IX (1049), more extensive biographies resume. Written by different authors, they were gathered as a continuation of the Liber Pontificalis in the 12th century.
A similar work was carried out in the 14th and 15th centuries, extending up to Pius II (1464). At that time, the *Vitae pontificum* of Platina appeared, a reworking of the *Liber Pontificalis* without excessive critical pretensions. In the following centuries, O. Panvinio, C. Baronio, and many others concerned themselves with the so-called papal catalogues. In 1751, C. Marangoni published a *Chronologie romanorum pontificum*, deduced from the oldest series of portraits of St Paul, which passed into the yearbooks: *Notizie per l'anno*... (1818–1860), *Annunzia* (1863–70), *La Gerarchia cattolica* (1873–1903), *Annuario pontificio* (1913–46).
In the 19th century, historical criticism introduced new methods and results into research. The masterly edition of the *Liber Pontificalis* by L. Duchesne, richly annotated, provided the basis for a critical catalogue which, widely accepted by scholars, has today, with the refinements of A. Mercati, passed into the usage of the Roman Curia.
II. The so-called episcopal catalogues
Like Rome, other episcopal cities soon had their catalogues for liturgical purposes in the diptychs, and later for historical purposes with chronological indications. Irenaeus considered it easy in his time to establish these, but he only reports the Roman one. Eusebius, drawing on Hegesippus and Julius Africanus, reports those of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. In the 6th–7th centuries and later, the ambition to trace one’s origins back to an Apostle or a disciple of the Apostles altered many catalogues with fictitious names (the Apostle Andrew as bishop of Byzantium, bishops of Italy and France sent by St Peter, etc.), which were favourably repeated in the following centuries; v.: apostolicity of churches.The example of the Roman *Liber Pontificalis*, imitated by other cities, gave rise to the *Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis* (9th century), *Eichstettensis* (11th century), etc., and the *Gesta episcoporum*, widely used in the medieval period. With Humanism, many local or diocesan histories appeared, favouring ancient legends. In the 17th–18th centuries came the great erudite works of the Maurists, *Gallia christiana*, and of F. Ughelli, *Italia sacra*, still useful but insufficient.
The episcopal sees of Italy go back to a very early antiquity, but the scant notices of ancient writers, the few secure data from martyrologies and *Passiones*, the subscriptions of bishops at synods, and the not numerous preserved liturgical diptychs do not make the compilation of catalogues easy. Ughelli with his *Italia sacra* (several vols., Rome 1644–48) produced one amid many defects and errors, partly corrected by N. Coleti in his greatly enlarged and corrected edition (Venice 1717–1733), and by L. Cappelletti with *Le Chiese d’Italia* (21 vols., ibid. 1844–70). New paths were opened by F. Savio with *Gli antichi vescovi d’Italia dalle origini al 1300*, limited by his death to Piedmont and Lombardy. Restricting the field further, F. Lanzoni with *Le diocesi d’Italia dalle origini al principio del sec. VII* (AD 604) completed Savio’s design for all Italy.