Pope St. Anacletus
?–88 CE · Rome
Anacletus—also known as Cletus—appears in early Roman episcopal lists as the third pope, succeeding Linus. He is among the most obscure of the early bishops of Rome, and virtually nothing reliable survives about his life or acts. Confusion in ancient sources, which sometimes split the single name into two separate popes, reflects how thin the record is. The later Liber Pontificalis assigns him an origin and various administrative decrees, but such details are legendary accretions. His significance is essentially as a name in the apostolic succession lists that early writers like Irenaeus compiled to demonstrate continuity from the apostles.
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RomeרומאItaly
We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.
Rome in this era
Under the Julio-Claudian and Flavian emperors, Rome was the capital of a pagan empire yet became an early Christian beachhead, where the apostle Paul arrived as a prisoner around 60 CE and where both Peter and Paul are traditionally attested as martyred under Nero c. 64–68 CE.
About Rome
# Rome In the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, Rome lay within the Papal States, the territorial domain of the Catholic Church, though its temporal glory as an empire had long faded. The city sprawled across its famous hills along the Tiber River, a landscape of crumbling ancient monuments, medieval fortifications, and Romanesque churches that dominated the skyline. The Jewish community of Rome was among Europe's most ancient, tracing roots to the second century BCE, and it flourished in a precarious but resilient position under papal authority; while confined to restricted quarters and subject to discriminatory laws, Roman Jews maintained a sophisticated intellectual and commercial life, with Hebrew scholarship and biblical commentary flourishing despite—or perhaps because of—the community's isolation. The Jewish quarter itself, densely packed and vibrant, became a center of learning where skilled scribes copied manuscripts and rabbinical discussions drew on centuries of local tradition. What made Rome extraordinary for Torah study was not merely its learned scholars but the tangible presence of antiquity itself: the community lived amid the ruins of pagan temples and Roman law, giving their interpretations of Jewish law a unique resonance, as if they were rebuilding Jewish civilization in the very streets where Roman power had once reigned supreme.
In Rome at the same time
Across the traditions, in Rome at the same time
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Pope St. Anacletus’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
- Pliny, the Elder· Rome
- Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius· Rome
- Berenice· Rome
- Musonius Rufus· Rome
- Quintilian· Rome
- Josephus· Rome
- Titus· Rome
- Martial· Rome
- Valerius Flaccus, Gaius· Rome
- Statius, P. Papinius (Publius Papinius)· Rome
- Plutarch· Rome
- Domitian· Rome
- Epictetus· Rome
- Juvenal· Rome
- Tacitus, Cornelius· Rome
- Pliny, the Younger· Rome
- Suetonius· Rome
- Florus, Lucius Annaeus· Rome
In the same tradition
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Pope St. Anacletus’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.