Pope St. Anterus

(ANTEROS.)

(Reigned 21 November, 235-3 January, 236). We know for certain only that he reigned some forty days, and that he was buried in the famous “papal crypt” of the cemetery of St. Calixtus at Rome [Northcote and Brownlow, Roma Sotterranea, (London, 1879) I, 296-300]. The “Liber Pontificalis” (ed. Duchesne I, 147; cf. xcv-vi) says that he was martyred for having caused the Acts of the martyrs to be collected by notaries and deposited in the archives of the Roman Church. This tradition seems old and respectable; nevertheless the best scholars maintain that it is not sufficiently guaranteed by its sole voucher, the “Liber Pontificalis”, on account, among other things, of the late date of that work’s compilation. (See PAPACY, NOTARIES.) The site of his sepulchre was discovered by De Rossi in 1854, with some broken remnants of the Greek epitaph engraved on the narrow oblong slab that closed his tomb, an index at once of his origin and of the prevalence of Greek in the Roman Church up to that date. For the “Epistola Anteri” attributed to him by Pseudo-Isidore see Hinschius, “Decret. Pseudo-Isidorianae” (Leipzig, 1863), 156-160 and P.G., X, 165-168. Cf. “Liber Pont”. (ed. Duchesne), I. 147.