Linus

About Linus

Linus is remembered as the second pope of the Catholic Church. The Vatican's papal list places his pontificate between 68 and 79 and gives his place of origin as Tuscia.

The strongest early account of his responsibility comes from Irenaeus. In Against Heresies, Irenaeus says that Peter and Paul established the Roman church and entrusted its episcopal ministry to Linus. He names Anacletus next, then Clement. For Irenaeus this succession matters because Christian teaching is publicly handed on through communities and their leaders, rather than reserved for people claiming a hidden tradition. Linus appears as someone entrusted with that continuing responsibility, not as the subject of a detailed personal memoir.

Second Timothy includes a Linus among those sending greetings with Eubulus, Pudens and Claudia. The verse gives him no office and supplies no account of his earlier life. The name stands within a group of people connected by the letter's final greetings.

Later chronological accounts do not agree completely. Eusebius says that Linus held the Roman episcopate for twelve years and was succeeded by Anencletus in the second year of Titus. He organizes the succession around the reigns of emperors, but gives no story of Linus's last illness or death in that passage.

A modern dictionary gives his death as possibly 76. That remains an approximate estimate, not a known day of death.

Other familiar details come from a much later account, the Liber Pontificalis. Kirsch's historical review questions the evidence for its claims about Linus's family, a decree on women's head coverings, martyrdom and burial beside Peter. A letter on the deaths of Peter and Paul later circulated under Linus's name, but Kirsch identifies it as apocryphal. These traditions do not provide secure personal sayings or a detailed record of his decisions.

His commemoration continues in more than one calendar. Vatican News lists him on September 23 as a pope.

The Orthodox Church in America remembers him on November 5 with other apostles of the Seventy and identifies him as Peter's successor at Rome.

In the 1962 Roman Missal, his September observance calls him pope and martyr. Its collect asks the eternal Shepherd to protect the flock. This is a liturgical remembrance, not a prayer written by Linus.

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Prayers for Linus