Linus

The holy Apostle Linus was one of the seventy apostles and, according to the list of Roman bishops preserved by Saint Irenaeus, the first to receive the care of the Church of Rome after the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. He lived in the first century, and his life is known only in a few outlines, partly from Scripture and partly from tradition.

His name appears in the New Testament, at the end of the second epistle of Saint Paul to Timothy, among the Christians of Rome who send greetings. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, writing about the year 180, says that the apostles, having founded and built up the Church in Rome, entrusted the office of bishop to Linus, and he takes him to be the same man as the one in the epistle. The Greek Synaxarion counts him among the seventy apostles and commemorates him on 5 November together with Saints Hermas, Patrobas, Gaius and Philologus.

The Apostolic Constitutions name his mother as Claudia, and the Liber Pontificalis, a later compilation, says that his father was called Herculanus and came from Etruria. The years of his ministry are reckoned differently: Eusebius and Jerome place them between 68 and 80, while other lists place them earlier. The Liber Pontificalis and the Greek Synaxarion say that he died a martyr by the sword, but scholars hold that his martyrdom cannot be proved. The writings on the martyrdom of Peter and Paul that carry his name are apocryphal and of later date.

The Orthodox Church honours him on 5 November, a fixed date in the Greek calendar, and the Church of Rome commemorates him on 23 September.