According to the Roman Breviarj-, Linus was born at Volterra, but an old papal catalogue represents him as an Etrurian. According to tradition, he went to Rome when 22 j'ears of age, made there the acquaintance of Peter, and was sent by him to Besan^on, in France, to preach the Gospel. After his retiurn to Rome Peter ap-
LINUS
445
LION
pointed liim his coadjutor; but, according to the Brev- iary, he was the one who primus 2MSt I'etrum r/uheniavit eccksia/i). He is said to liave enacted, on his accession to the bishopric, that, in accordance with 1 Cor. xi, 5, women sliould never enter the church with tlieir heads uncovered.
The duration of his episcopate is given by Eusebius (whose //. E. iii, 16, and Chronicon give inconsistent evi- dence) as A.D. G8-80; by Tilleniont, who, however, re- proaches Pearson with departing from the chronology of Eusebius, as 66-78; by Baronius as 67-78; and by I'earson as 55-67. Pearson, in the treatise already (juoted (i, 10), gives weighty reasons for distrusting the chronology of Eusebius as regards the years of the early bishops of Rome, and he derives his own opinion from certain very ancient (Ijut interpolated) lists of those bishops (see i, 13, and ii, 5). This point has been sub- sequently considered by Baraterius {De Successimie A nii- quisainm Episc. Rom. 1740), who gives A.D. 56-67 as the date of the episcopate of Linus.
" The statement of Kuffinus, that Linus and Cletus were bishops in Rome while St. Peter was alive, has been quoted in support of a theory which sprang up in the 17th century, received the sanction even of Ham- mond in his controversy with Blondel ( Worls, ed. 1684, iv, 825 ; Episcopatus Jura, v. 1, § 1 1), was held with some . slight modification by Baraterius, and has recently been revived. It is supposed that Linus was bishop in Rome only of the Christians of Gentile origin, while at the same time another bishop exercised the same authority over the Jewish Christians there. Tertullian's assertion (i)e Prcfscr. llaret. § 32) that Clement [the third bish- op] of Rome was consecrated by St. Peter has been quoted also as corroborating this theory, but it does not follow from the words of Tertullian that Clement's con- secration took place immediately before he became bish- op of Rome ; and the statement of Ruffinus, so far as it lends any support to the above-named theory, is shown to be without foundation by I'earson (ii, 3, 4). Tille- mont's observations (p. 590) in reply to Pearson only show that the establishment of two contemporary bish- ops in one city was contemplated in ancient times as a possible provisional arrangement to meet certain tempo- rary difficulties. The actual limitation of the authority of Linus to a section of the Church in Rome remains to be proved. Ruthnus's statement ought, doubtless, to be interpreted in accordance with that of his contempo- rary Epiphanius {Adv. liar, xxvii, 6, p. 107), to the ef- fect that Linus and Cletus were bishops of Rome in suc- cession, not contemporaneously. The facts were, how- ever, ditferently viewed, (1) by an interpolator of the Gestu Pontijicum Damasi, quoted by J. Voss in his sec- ond epistle to A. Rivet (App. to Pearson's Vindicice Igna- iiancE) ; (2) by Bede {Vita S. Benedicti, § 7, p. 146, edit. Stevenson), when he was seeking a precedent for two contemporaneous abbots presiding in one monasterj' , and (3) by Rabanus Maurus {De Chon-piscopis, in 0pp. cd. Migne, iv, 1197), who ingeniously claims primitive authority for the institution of chorepiscopi on the sup- position that Linus and Cletus were never bishops with fidl powers, but were contemporaneous chorepiscopi em- l)loycd by St. Peter in his absence from Rome, and at his request, to ordain clergymen for the Church at Rome" (Smith).
Linus is reckoned by Pseudo-Hippolj'tus, and in the Greek Menxa, among the seventy disciides. According to the Breviary, he cured the possessed, raised the dead, and was beheaded at the instigation of the consul Satur- ninus, although he had restored the latter's daughter from a dangerous illness. He was buried in the Vatican, by the side of St. Peter. Various days are statcil by dif- ferent authorities in the Western Church, and by the Eastern Church, as the day of his death. According to the most generally received tradition, he died on Sept. 23. A narrative of the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paid, printed in the Bihliotluca Put rum (Paris, 1644, vol. viii), and certain pontifical decrees, are incorrectly as-
cribed to Linus, but he is generally considered as the author of a history of Peter's dispute with Simon Magus. See Ilerzog, lieui-Eiic/jklop. viii, 421 ; Lipsius, Die Pujjst Katalocje dts Eusebius (Kiel, 1868, 8vo).
Iiinz or Lintz, The Peace of, so named after the place where it was concluded, Dec. 13, 1645, between Rakoczy, prince of Transylvania, and the emperor Fer- dinand HI, as king of Hungary, was an event of great importance for the legal existence of the Evangelical Church in Ilungarj'. Ralioczy, who aimed at the crown of that country, and relied on the Protestant party for support, had concluded in April, 1643, with Sweden and France, a defensive and offensive alliance against Fer- dinand. In an address to the Hungarians, in which he enumerated their various grievances, he laid great stress on the oppression of the evangelical party. He suc- ceeded in assembling an army, and in obtaining John Kemenyi, an experienced general, to command it. Swe- den sent him soldiers under tlie renowned Dugloss, and France furnished him with large amounts of money. His troops obtained some unimportant advantages over those of Frederick, and the Swedish soldiers succeeded in driving the Imperialists out of several towns. This, however, did not continue, and in October, 1644, Rakoc- zy began negotiations for peace with Ferdinand. The advantages he asked, namely, the absolute religious lib- erty of Hungary, etc., were approved at Vienna August 8, i645, and the peace finally signed as above. The most important feature of the treaty is the grant of re- ligious liberty to the Hungarians. It gave permission to all to attend whatever Church they might choose; ministers and preachers of all the different confessions were to be left undisturbed, and such as had previously been persecuted and driven away on account of their religious principles were allowed to return, or to be re- called by their congregations. The churches and Church property taken from the evangelical party were restored to their previous owners. The eighth article of the sixth decree of king Wladislaus VI was re-enacted against those who infringed these regulations, and made them subject to a trial and punishment at the next session of the Diet. These regulations, however, so favorable to the Protestants, met with great opposition at the Diet of Presburg in 1647, and were most violently opposed bj' the Jesuits. The Roman Catholics refused to surrender to the Protestants the churches they had taken from them, and the evangelical party finally agreed to accept, instead of some 400 churches which had been taken from it, the small number of 90, which had been assured to it by a royal edict, under date of Feb. 10, 1647. See Steph. Katona, llistoria mtica regum Hungaricorum, xxii, 332 sq. ; Dumont, Cor/js iiniversel diplomatique da droit des gem, vi, 1 sq. ; J. A. Fessler, Die Gesch. d. Un- garn, etc., ix, 25 sq. ; Johann Mailath, D. Religionswir- ren in Ungarn (Regensb. 1845), pt. i, p. 30 sq. ; Gesch. d. Erangelischen Kirche in Ungarn (Berlin, 1854), p. 199 sq. ; History of the Protestant Church in Hungary, transl. by J. Craig (Boston and New York, 1856, 12mo). See