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Cletus or Anacletus, Bishop of Rome

Wace's Dictionary of Early Christian Biography

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Cletus or Anacletus, "le même que St. Clet, comme les savants en conviennent" ( L’Art de vérif. les dates , i. 218). Eusebius calls him Anencletus, and says that he was succeeded in the see of Rome by Clement in the twelfth year of Domitian, having himself sat there twelve years. According to this, his own consecration would have fallen in the first year of Domitian, or a.d. 81; but it is variously dated by others (cf. Gieseler, E. H. § 32 with note 4, Eng. tr.). Eusebius indeed nowhere says that he succeeded Linus, or was the second bp. of Rome: yet he places him between Linus, whom he calls the first bishop, and Clement, whom he calls third. Other ancient authorities make Clement the first bishop (see Clinton, F. R. ii. 399). Rohrbacher, on the strength of a list attributed to pope Liberius, places Clement after Linus, Cletus after Clement, and another pope named Anencletus after Cletus ( E. H. iv. 450). This Gieseler calls "the modern Roman view." [But for this question of the succession of the Roman bishops, see Lightfoot, Clement of Rome, part i. pp. 201–345; of which Bp. Westcott says (Preface to Lightfoot), "Perhaps it is not too much to say that the question of the order of the first five bps. of Rome is now finally settled."] Three spurious epistles have the name of Anacletus affixed to them in the Pseudo-Isidorian collection (Migne, Patr. cxxx. 59 and seq.).

[E.S.Ff.]