Linus (1), accounted the first bp. of Rome after the apostles, and identified by Irenaeus (iii. 2) with the Linus from whom St. Paul sent greetings to Timothy (II. Tim. iv. 21). For the question of the order of succession of the alleged earliest bishops of Rome, and of the positions held by the persons named, see . As Linus there is no difference of opinion, since in all the lists he comes first. Eusebius (H. E. iii. 13) assigns 12 years to his episcopate; the Liberian Catalogue 12 years, 4 months, and 12 days, from 55 to 67; the Felician Catalogue 11 years, 3 months, and 12 days. These cannot be accepted as historical, nor can the statements of the last-named catalogue, that he died a martyr, and was buried on the Vatican beside the body of St. Peter on Sept. 24. []
Under the name of Linus are extant two
tracts purporting to contain the account of
the martyrdom of SS. Peter and of Paul. These were first printed in 1517 by Faber Stapulensis as an appendix to his Comm. on Saint Paul's Epistles. These Acts of Linus have so many features common with the Leucian Acts [ ] that the question arises whether we have not in Linus either a translation of a portion of the collection described by Photius or at least a work for which that collection supplied materials. Linus does not profess to give a complete account of the acts of the two apostles. He begins by briefly referring to (as if already known to his readers) the contest of St. Peter and Simon Magus, his imprisonments and other sufferings and labours, and then proceeds at once to the closing scenes. The stories of the martyrdom of the two apostles are quite distinct, there being no mention of Paul in the first nor of Peter in the second. The apostles′ deaths are immediately brought about, not by Nero himself, but by his prefect Agrippa, a name, we may well believe, transferred by a chronological blunder from the reign of Augustus. This name, as well as some others mentioned by pseudo-Linus, occur also in the orthodox Acts of Peter and Paul published by Tischendorf and by Thilo. The alleged cause of Agrippa′s animosity exhibits strongly the Encratite character common to Linus and the Leucian Acts. St. Peter, we are told, by his preaching of chastity had caused a number of matrons to leave the marriage bed of their husbands, who were thus infuriated against the apostle.
