I'm not looking for a list of when the varous Popes led the Church, but for documentation of who ordained them and the dates.[/quote]
Here you go Miss Katz, this is all the info the Church has concerning pope Linus. I hope it helps.
(Reigned about A.D. 64 or 67
to 76 or 79) The ancient records of the
Roman bishops which have by
St. Irenaeus,
Julius Africanus,
St. Hippolytus,
Eusebius, also the Liberian catalogue of 354, place the name of Linus directly after the Apostle,
St. Peter. These records are traced back to a list of the
Roman bishops which existed in the time of
Pope Eleutherus (about 174-189), when
Irenaeus wrote his book "Adversus haereses". The Roman list in
Irenaeus has great claims to historical authority. The author claims that Pope Linus is mentioned by
St. Paul in his
2 Timothy 4:21. The passage by
Irenaeus (
Against Heresies III.3.3) reads:After the Holy Apostle (
Peter) had founded and set the
Church in order (in
Rome) they gave over the episcopal office to Linus. The same Linus is mentioned by
St. Paul in his Epistle to Timothy.
Linus's term of office, according to the
papal lists handed down to us, lasted only twelve years. It cannot be
doubted that according to the accounts of
Irenaeus concerning the
Roman Church in the second century, Linus was chosen to be head of the community of
Christians in
Rome, after the death of the Apostle. For this reason his pontificate dates from the year of the death of the Apostles
Peter and
Paul, which, however, is not known for certain.
The
"Liber Pontificalis" asserts Linus is supposed to have issued a
decree "in conformity with the ordinance of St. Peter", that
women should have their heads covered in church. The statement made in the same source, that Linus suffered
martyrdom, is improbable. For between
Nero and
Domitian there is no mention of any
persecution of the
Roman Church; and
Irenaeus (1. c., III, iv, 3) from among the early Roman
bishops designates only
Telesphorus as a
martyr.
Finally Linus, after his death, was buried in the Vatican beside
St. Peter. We do not
know whether the author had any decisive reason for this assertion. As
St. Peter was certainly buried at the foot of the Vatican Hill, it is quite possible that the earliest
bishops of the
Roman Church also were
interred there. There was nothing in the
liturgical tradition of the fourth-century
Roman Church to prove this, because it was only at the end of the second century that any special feast of
martyrs was instituted and consequently Linus does not appear in the fourth-century lists of the feasts of the Roman
saints.
The feast of St. Linus is now celebrated on 23 September. This is also the date given in the
"Liber Pontificalis". An epistle on the
martyrdom of the Apostles
St. Peter and
Paul was at a later period attributed to St. Linus, and supposedly was sent by him to the
Eastern Churches. It is
apocryphal and of later date than the history of the
martyrdom of the two Apostles, by some attributed to Marcellus, which is also
apocryphal Sources
LIGHTFOOT,
The Apostolic Fathers;
St. Clement of Rome, I (London, 1890), 201 sqq.; HARNACK,
Geschichte der Altchristlichen Literatur, II:
Die Chronologie I (Leipzig, 1897), 70;
Acta SS. September, VI, 539 sqq.,
Liber Pontificalis, ed. DUCHESNE, I, 121: cf.
Introduction, lxix; DE SMEDT,
Dissertationes selectae in primam aetatem hist. eccl., I, 300 sqq.
You must be one easily-amused kind of guy.
