Pope Linus

Linus served as bishop of Rome from around 68 until his death around 80, stepping into a role still warm from Saint Peter's departure. Irenaeus identified him as the same Linus named in Paul's Second Epistle to Timothy, placing him in Rome at Paul's side near the end of the apostle's life. He led a Church still in its first generation, when memory of the founders was direct and the structures of what would become the papacy were only beginning to form. Like all the early popes, he was later canonized, his brief tenure marking the fragile continuity between the apostolic age and everything that followed.