Pope Eleuterus
Encyclopedia
Pope Saint Eleuterus, or Eleutherius, (Greek
: Ελευθέριος) was Bishop of Rome from about 174 to 189 (the Vatican cites 171 or 177 to 185 or 193). He was born in Nicopolis
in Epirus
. His name is Greek
for free.
His contemporary Hegesippus
wrote that he was a deacon
of the Roman Church under Pope Anicetus
(c. 154–164), and remained so under Pope Soter
, whom he succeeded in about 174.
, made its way to Rome and Gaul
in the second half of the 2nd century, around the reign of Eleuterus. Its nature did not diverge so much from the orthodoxy of the time for it to initially be labeled heresy. During the violent persecution at Lyon
, in 177, local confessors wrote from their prison concerning the new movement to the Asiatic and Phrygia
n communities, and also to Pope Eleuterus. The bearer of their letter to the pope was the presbyter Irenaeus
, soon to become Bishop of Lyon. It appears from statements of Eusebius concerning these letters that the Christians of Lyon, though opposed to the Montanist movement, advocated patience and pleaded for the preservation of ecclesiastical unity.
Exactly when the Roman Catholic Church took its definite stand against Montanism is not known with any certainty. It would seem from Tertullian
's account (adv. Praxeam, I) that a Roman bishop did send some conciliatory letters to the Montanists, but these letters, says Tertullian, were subsequently recalled. He probably refers to Pope Eleuterus, who long hesitated, but after a conscientious and thorough study of the situation, is supposed to have declared against the Montanists. At Rome, the Gnostics and Marcionites continued to preach against the Catholic Church. The Liber Pontificalis
ascribes to Pope Eleutherius a decree that no kind of food should be despised by Christians (Et hoc iterum firmavit ut nulla esca a Christianis repudiaretur, maxime fidelibus, quod Deus creavit, quæ tamen rationalis et humana est). Possibly he did issue such an edict against the Gnostics and Montanists; it is also possible that on his own responsibility the writer of the Liber Pontificalis attributed to this pope a similar decree current about the year 500.
, a British
king, a letter in which the latter declared that by his behest he wishes to become a Christian (Hic accepit epistula a Lucio Brittanio rege, ut Christianus efficerentur per ejus mandatum) or literally, "Here accept the letter from Lucius Brittanius, king, that he might become a Christian by his own will". Whence the author of the first part of the Liber Pontificalis drew this information, it is now impossible to say.
As at the end of the 2nd century the Roman administration was so securely established in Britain south of Caledonia
, that there could no longer have been any real native kings in that part of the island. That some tribal chief there, known as king, should have applied to the Roman bishop for instruction in the Christian faith seems improbable enough at that period. The unsupported assertion of the Liber Pontificalis, a compilation of papal biographies that in its earliest form cannot accurately date the first quarter of the 6th century, is not a sufficient basis for the acceptance of this statement. By some it is considered a story intended to demonstrate the Roman origin of the British Church, and consequently the latter's natural subjection to Rome. To make this clearer they locate the origin of the legend in the course of the 7th century, during the dissensions between the British Church and the nascent mission of St. Augustine of Canterbury to the Saxons
, recently arrived from Rome. But for this hypothesis all proof is lacking. It falls before the simple fact that the first part of the Liber Pontificalis was compiled long before these dissensions, most probably (Duchesne) by a Roman cleric in the reign of Pope Boniface II
(530–532), or (Waitz and Mommsen) early in the 7th century. Moreover, during the entire conflict that centered around the peculiar customs of the Early British Church no reference is ever made to this alleged King Lucius. Bede
is the first English writer (673–735) to mention the story repeatedly (Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
, I, V; V, 24, De temporum ratione
, ad an. 161), and he took it, not from native sources, but from the Liber Pontificalis. Harnack
suggests a theory (Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie, 1904, I, 906–916). In the document, he holds, from which the compiler of the Liber Pontificalis drew his information the name found was not Britanio, but Britio. Now this is the name (Birtha
- Britium) of the fortress of Edessa
. The king in question is, therefore, Lucius Ælius Septimus Megas Abgar IX, of Edessa, a Christian king, as is well known. The original statement of the Liber Pontificalis, in this hypothesis, had nothing to do with Britain. The reference was to Abgar IX of Edessa. But the compiler of the Liber Pontificalis changed Britio to Brittanio, and in this way made a British king of the Syrian
Lucius.
The 9th-century "Historia Brittonum" sees in Lucius a translation of the Celtic name Llever Maur (Great Light), says that the envoys of Lucius were Fagan and Wervan, and tells us that with this king all the other island kings (reguli Britanniæ) were baptized (Hist. Brittonum, xviii). 13th century chronicles add other details. The Liber Landavensis, for example (ed. Rees, 26, 65), makes known the names of Elfan and Medwy, the envoys sent by Lucius to the pope, and transfers the king's dominions to Wales
. An echo of this legend penetrated even to Switzerland
. In a homily preached at Chur
and preserved in an 8th- or 9th-century manuscript, St. Timothy is represented as an apostle of Gaul
, whence he came to Britain and baptized there a king named Lucius, who became a missionary, went to Gaul, and finally settled at Chur, where he preached the gospel with great success. In this way Lucius, the early missionary of the Swiss district of Chur, became identified with the alleged British king of the Liber Pontificalis.
The latter work is the authority for the statement that Pope Eleutherius died on 24 May, and was buried on the Vatican Hill
(in Vaticano) near the body of St. Peter. Later tradition has his body moved to the church of San Giovanni della Pigna, near the pantheon
. In 1591, his remains were again moved to the church of Santa Susanna
at the request of Camilla Peretti, the sister of Pope Sixtus V
. His feast is celebrated on 26 May.
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
: Ελευθέριος) was Bishop of Rome from about 174 to 189 (the Vatican cites 171 or 177 to 185 or 193). He was born in Nicopolis
Nicopolis
Nicopolis — or Actia Nicopolis — was an ancient city of Epirus, founded 31 BC by Octavian in memory of his victory over Antony and Cleopatra at Actium the previous year. It was later the capital of Epirus Vetus...
in Epirus
Epirus
The name Epirus, from the Greek "Ήπειρος" meaning continent may refer to:-Geographical:* Epirus - a historical and geographical region of the southwestern Balkans, straddling modern Greece and Albania...
. His name is Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
for free.
His contemporary Hegesippus
Hegesippus
The Greek name Hegesippos, commonly Latinized as Hegesippus can refer to the following persons:* Hegesippus * Saint Hegesippus...
wrote that he was a deacon
Deacon
Deacon is a ministry in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...
of the Roman Church under Pope Anicetus
Pope Anicetus
Pope Saint Anicetus was Pope of the Catholic Church from about 150 to about 167 . His name is Greek for unconquered...
(c. 154–164), and remained so under Pope Soter
Pope Soter
Pope Saint Soter was the Bishop of Rome during the latter half of the 2nd Century with his pontificate, according to the Annuario Pontificio, beginning between 162 and 168 then ending between 170 and 177. Although his name is derived from the Greek word "σωτήρ" , meaning a "saviour" or...
, whom he succeeded in about 174.
Catholic reactions to the Montanist movement
The Montanist movement, which originated in Asia MinorAsia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
, made its way to Rome and Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
in the second half of the 2nd century, around the reign of Eleuterus. Its nature did not diverge so much from the orthodoxy of the time for it to initially be labeled heresy. During the violent persecution at Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
, in 177, local confessors wrote from their prison concerning the new movement to the Asiatic and Phrygia
Phrygia
In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges , changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the...
n communities, and also to Pope Eleuterus. The bearer of their letter to the pope was the presbyter Irenaeus
Irenaeus
Saint Irenaeus , was Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, then a part of the Roman Empire . He was an early church father and apologist, and his writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology...
, soon to become Bishop of Lyon. It appears from statements of Eusebius concerning these letters that the Christians of Lyon, though opposed to the Montanist movement, advocated patience and pleaded for the preservation of ecclesiastical unity.
Exactly when the Roman Catholic Church took its definite stand against Montanism is not known with any certainty. It would seem from Tertullian
Tertullian
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian , was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and...
's account (adv. Praxeam, I) that a Roman bishop did send some conciliatory letters to the Montanists, but these letters, says Tertullian, were subsequently recalled. He probably refers to Pope Eleuterus, who long hesitated, but after a conscientious and thorough study of the situation, is supposed to have declared against the Montanists. At Rome, the Gnostics and Marcionites continued to preach against the Catholic Church. The Liber Pontificalis
Liber Pontificalis
The Liber Pontificalis is a book of biographies of popes from Saint Peter until the 15th century. The original publication of the Liber Pontificalis stopped with Pope Adrian II or Pope Stephen V , but it was later supplemented in a different style until Pope Eugene IV and then Pope Pius II...
ascribes to Pope Eleutherius a decree that no kind of food should be despised by Christians (Et hoc iterum firmavit ut nulla esca a Christianis repudiaretur, maxime fidelibus, quod Deus creavit, quæ tamen rationalis et humana est). Possibly he did issue such an edict against the Gnostics and Montanists; it is also possible that on his own responsibility the writer of the Liber Pontificalis attributed to this pope a similar decree current about the year 500.
Conversion of a British King?
The same writer is responsible for a curious and interesting assertion concerning the early missionary activity of the Roman Church; indeed, the Liber Pontificalis contains no other statement equally remarkable. Pope Eleutherius, says this writer, received from LuciusLucius of Britain
Saint Lucius is a legendary 2nd-century King of the Britons traditionally credited with introducing Christianity into Britain. Lucius is first mentioned in a 6th-century version of the Liber Pontificalis, which says that he sent a letter to Pope Eleuterus asking to be made a Christian...
, a British
Britons (historical)
The Britons were the Celtic people culturally dominating Great Britain from the Iron Age through the Early Middle Ages. They spoke the Insular Celtic language known as British or Brythonic...
king, a letter in which the latter declared that by his behest he wishes to become a Christian (Hic accepit epistula a Lucio Brittanio rege, ut Christianus efficerentur per ejus mandatum) or literally, "Here accept the letter from Lucius Brittanius, king, that he might become a Christian by his own will". Whence the author of the first part of the Liber Pontificalis drew this information, it is now impossible to say.
As at the end of the 2nd century the Roman administration was so securely established in Britain south of Caledonia
Caledonia
Caledonia is the Latinised form and name given by the Romans to the land in today's Scotland north of their province of Britannia, beyond the frontier of their empire...
, that there could no longer have been any real native kings in that part of the island. That some tribal chief there, known as king, should have applied to the Roman bishop for instruction in the Christian faith seems improbable enough at that period. The unsupported assertion of the Liber Pontificalis, a compilation of papal biographies that in its earliest form cannot accurately date the first quarter of the 6th century, is not a sufficient basis for the acceptance of this statement. By some it is considered a story intended to demonstrate the Roman origin of the British Church, and consequently the latter's natural subjection to Rome. To make this clearer they locate the origin of the legend in the course of the 7th century, during the dissensions between the British Church and the nascent mission of St. Augustine of Canterbury to the Saxons
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...
, recently arrived from Rome. But for this hypothesis all proof is lacking. It falls before the simple fact that the first part of the Liber Pontificalis was compiled long before these dissensions, most probably (Duchesne) by a Roman cleric in the reign of Pope Boniface II
Pope Boniface II
Pope Boniface II was pope from 530 to 532.He was by birth an Ostrogoth, the first Germanic pope, and he owed his appointment to the influence of the Gothic king Athalaric. Boniface was chosen by his predecessor, Pope Felix IV, who had been a strong adherent of the Arian king, and was never elected...
(530–532), or (Waitz and Mommsen) early in the 7th century. Moreover, during the entire conflict that centered around the peculiar customs of the Early British Church no reference is ever made to this alleged King Lucius. Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
is the first English writer (673–735) to mention the story repeatedly (Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is a work in Latin by Bede on the history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between Roman and Celtic Christianity.It is considered to be one of the most important original references on...
, I, V; V, 24, De temporum ratione
De temporum ratione
The Reckoning of Time is an Anglo-Saxon era treatise written in Latin by the Northumbrian monk Bede in 725. The treatise includes an introduction to the traditional ancient and medieval view of the cosmos, including an explanation of how the spherical earth influenced the changing length of...
, ad an. 161), and he took it, not from native sources, but from the Liber Pontificalis. Harnack
Adolf von Harnack
Adolf von Harnack , was a German theologian and prominent church historian.He produced many religious publications from 1873-1912....
suggests a theory (Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie, 1904, I, 906–916). In the document, he holds, from which the compiler of the Liber Pontificalis drew his information the name found was not Britanio, but Britio. Now this is the name (Birtha
Birtha (Commagene)
Birtha was an ancient town on the east bank of the Euphrates, at the upper part of a reach of that river, which runs nearly north-south, and just below a sharp bend in the stream, where it follows that course after coming from a long reach flowing more from the west. This town has often been...
- Britium) of the fortress of Edessa
Osroene
Osroene, also spelled Osrohene and Osrhoene and sometimes known by the name of its capital city, Edessa , was a historic Syriac kingdom located in Mesopotamia, which enjoyed semi-autonomy to complete independence from the years of 132 BC to AD 244.It was a Syriac-speaking kingdom.Osroene, or...
. The king in question is, therefore, Lucius Ælius Septimus Megas Abgar IX, of Edessa, a Christian king, as is well known. The original statement of the Liber Pontificalis, in this hypothesis, had nothing to do with Britain. The reference was to Abgar IX of Edessa. But the compiler of the Liber Pontificalis changed Britio to Brittanio, and in this way made a British king of the Syrian
Demographics of Syria
Syrians today are an overall indigenous Levantine people. While modern-day Syrians are commonly described as Arabs by virtue of their modern-day language and bonds to Arab culture and history...
Lucius.
The 9th-century "Historia Brittonum" sees in Lucius a translation of the Celtic name Llever Maur (Great Light), says that the envoys of Lucius were Fagan and Wervan, and tells us that with this king all the other island kings (reguli Britanniæ) were baptized (Hist. Brittonum, xviii). 13th century chronicles add other details. The Liber Landavensis, for example (ed. Rees, 26, 65), makes known the names of Elfan and Medwy, the envoys sent by Lucius to the pope, and transfers the king's dominions to Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. An echo of this legend penetrated even to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. In a homily preached at Chur
Chur
Chur or Coire is the capital of the Swiss canton of Graubünden and lies in the northern part of the canton.-History:The name "chur" derives perhaps from the Celtic kora or koria, meaning "tribe", or from the Latin curia....
and preserved in an 8th- or 9th-century manuscript, St. Timothy is represented as an apostle of Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
, whence he came to Britain and baptized there a king named Lucius, who became a missionary, went to Gaul, and finally settled at Chur, where he preached the gospel with great success. In this way Lucius, the early missionary of the Swiss district of Chur, became identified with the alleged British king of the Liber Pontificalis.
The latter work is the authority for the statement that Pope Eleutherius died on 24 May, and was buried on the Vatican Hill
Vatican Hill
Vatican Hill is the name given, long before the founding of Christianity, to one of the hills on the side of the Tiber opposite the traditional seven hills of Rome...
(in Vaticano) near the body of St. Peter. Later tradition has his body moved to the church of San Giovanni della Pigna, near the pantheon
Pantheon, Rome
The Pantheon ,Rarely Pantheum. This appears in Pliny's Natural History in describing this edifice: Agrippae Pantheum decoravit Diogenes Atheniensis; in columnis templi eius Caryatides probantur inter pauca operum, sicut in fastigio posita signa, sed propter altitudinem loci minus celebrata.from ,...
. In 1591, his remains were again moved to the church of Santa Susanna
Santa Susanna
The Church of Saint Susanna at the baths of Diocletian is a Roman Catholic parish church on the Quirinal Hill in Rome, with a titulus associated to its site that dates back to about 280...
at the request of Camilla Peretti, the sister of Pope Sixtus V
Pope Sixtus V
Pope Sixtus V , born Felice Peretti di Montalto, was Pope from 1585 to 1590.-Early life:The chronicler Andrija Zmajević states that Felice's family originated from modern-day Montenegro...
. His feast is celebrated on 26 May.
Sources
- This article incorporates text from the public domainPublic domainWorks are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
Catholic EncyclopediaCatholic EncyclopediaThe Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index...
.