ANICETUS, ST. POPE

Pontificate: 150 or 157 to 153 or 168. Eusebius says Anicetus ruled for 11 years, placing his death in 168, the eighth year of Marcus Aurelius (Hist. 4.11, 14, 19, 22; 5.6, 24; Irenaeus 3.3). Jerome (Chron. ) dates his accession in the eighteenth year of Antoninus Pius (155 or 156). polycarp came from Smyrna to discuss with Anicetus variations in the date of Easter according to the quartodeciman and Roman systems. The discussions ended amicably, but both Rome and the Orient continued their separate, traditional observance of the feast. In fact, at that time Rome did not have a special Easter feast, but observed the resurrection every Sunday. Polycarp's martyrdom on his return to Smyrna in 155 fixes the beginning of Anicetus's episcopacy as 155 or earlier.

Eusebius records that the Gnostic valentinus remained in Rome until Anicetus's pontificate, and that the great Syrian scholar, hegesippus, and justin martyr were there. The Liber pontificalis says Anicetus was from emesa (Homs) in Syria and that he was a martyr, but this is uncertain. It also reports that he forbade clerics to wear long hair and gives two accounts of his burial: one in the Vatican and the other in the cemetery of Calixtus, which did not exist, at least in name, until 50 years later. It reports that anacletus (79?–92?) built a sepulchral monument for Peter but probably mistakes that pope for Anicetus since it refers to the tropaion mentioned by the Roman priest Gaius in the second century; recent excavations under St. Peter's have shown this monument to be a late, second-century structure.

Feast: April 17.

Bibliography: eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 4.11, 14, 19. e. kirschbaum, Tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul, tr. j. murray (New York 1959). e. ferguson, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (New York 1997), 1:56. j. n. d. kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes (New York 1986), 10–11. g. quispel, "Valentinus and the Gnostikoi," Vigiliae Christiane 50: l–4.

[e. g. weltin]