A while ago I posted a couple of blogs about some of the first Popes of the Catholic Church. These posts are from old transcripts from a podcast I did about a decade ago (and of which I discontinued relatively early on.) Nevertheless it has been fun to personally re-visit some of those old transcripts. And then the idea of posting on steemit came to me so that it can be shared for whomever may be interested in popes or the Catholic Church. I am a big fan of history and found the story of the Church also reveals a lot about the history of western civilization over the past two thousand years.
In my last blog post on Popes (Pope Linus) I reviewed the difficulties in confirming the accuracy of the early history of the Catholic Church. Still a relatively small movement in the early decades after Jesus' martyrdom, the Church did not yet have the means to embrace a more formal recording of its history yet it must be noted that historians and Church officials over the centuries have done a fairly remarkable job in piecing together some details of the early Church leaders.
The story of Pope Cletus coincides with these relatively scarce times of historical records and was a difficult endeavor for me. This was mainly due to the wide degree of conflicting information I encountered throughout my research. That made it tough to identify a good place to really start with Cletus, so I decided the best place to start would be with his name.
The very name of the third Pope had been a source of controversy among Church historians. At one point Pope Cletus' name was actually assumed to be Pope Anacletus. The Oxford Dictionary of Popes claims that in Greek, Anacletus meant "blameless." However, Wikipedia states that Cletus meant "one who has been called" and Anacletus meant "one who has been called back." The historians Iraneus and Eusubius record that both names were attributed to the same individual; however the Liber Pontificalis and Liberian Catalogue state that Cletus and Anacletus were actually two different people.
Well, all of the controversy was settled in one fell swoop by Pope John XXIII who, in 1961, declared the feast day of Pope Anacletus to be officially changed to "its right name, Pope Cletus."
Pope John XXIII made this declaration via something called a motu propio, which is the product of a papal rescript. A motu propio is issued when the Pope is asked by some member of the Church, presumably one of the higher ranking clergy, to address a particular topic of debate directly, as opposed to letting a Cardinal or other official respond to the request. When a pope answers this directly, it's called a motu propio.
According to historical record, it appears that Pope John XXIII was asked to address the issue of Pope Anacletus' feast day. Pope John made the declaration of name change to Cletus when he also announced the now known as Pope Cletus' feast day changed from July 13 to April 26.
Nothing is known of Cletus' childhood or of how he came to the Catholic Church. Catholic tradition states that Cletus was a Roman who served as Pope for about twelve years. So in tracking our history of Popes and their succession dates the papacy of Cletus lasted from the year 76 and ended in the year 88.
As with Popes Peter and Linus, the monarchical pontificate had not yet been established, making it difficult to figure out exactly what Pope Cletus was able to contribute to the Church during this time. Some sources record that he split Rome into twenty five parishes, which makes sense as the effort was most likely done to better organize the expanding Church. Other sources indicate that he ordained an unknown number of priests.
Bust of Emperor Domitian
Pope Cletus is believed to have died a martyr in the year 91 at the hands of Emperor Domitian. Though there is no consensus on the issue of martyrdom, many historians believe that Domitian may have likely undertaken a persecution against the Jews and Christians towards the end of his reign as emperor. Pope Cletus is believed to be buried next to the man he succeeded, Pope Linus, in modern day Vatican City.
Painting of man believed to be Pope Cletus in his later years
Thanks for reading everyone! Please feel free to respond with any corrections or feedback.
