Anacletus (Cletus), Pope, Saint

ANACLETUS (Cletus), Pope, Saint. - According to the papal list preserved for us by St. Irenaeus (Adv. haer., III, 3: PG 7, 849), A. succeeded Linus, the immediate successor of Peter. The list reported by Eusebius of Caesarea (Hist. eccl., III, 13; V, 6) also presents the same succession of names. These two writers represent the most ancient and authoritative tradition. The name of A. (Ἀνέγκλητος) in some ancient lists was abbreviated to Cletus (Κλέτος): indeed we find it written thus in St. Epiphanius, Rufinus of Aquileia and in other later Latin documents. Probably a copy of the ancient list containing the name of Cletus was corrected with the addition of A. in the margin, alongside Cletus. Subsequently a copyist inserted the two names, through inadvertence or excessive scruple, into the body of the list. From this derives the distinction of two popes: Cletus and A., which we find in the Liberian catalogue and in the Liber Pontificalis.

The chronology of his pontificate is uncertain. Eusebius of Caesarea (Hist. eccl., III, 15) places his death in the twelfth year of the reign of Domitian and sets the duration of his episcopate at twelve years, which can therefore be placed approximately between the years 79-91. The Liber Pontificalis says he was of Greek origin, born in Athens and patre Antiocho, and adds that out of gratitude toward St. Peter he had a monument (memoria) built over the tomb of the apostle. The letters attributed to him by pseudo-Isidore (PG 2, 789 ff.; PL 130, 59 ff.) are apocryphal.

The Roman Martyrology makes two persons of him, assigning the feast of Cletus to 26 April and that of A. to 13 July, making them both martyrs.

Pietro Goggi