Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Sixtus I., bp. of Rome

Sixtus I.—so called in the Liberian Catalogue by Optatus (l. 2) and Augustine (Ep. liii.); but Xystus, Xistus, or Xestus, in Catal. Felic., Irenaeus (adv. Haer. iii. 3), Eusebius (H. E. iv. 4, 5, and Chron.), Epiphanius (Haer. 97, 6)—one of the early bps. of Rome, called the 6th after the apostles, and the successor of Alexander. All assign him an episcopate of about 10 years, and place him in the reign of Hadrian. Catal. Liber. dates his episcopate 117–126; Eusebius (H. E.) 119–128; his Chronicle 114–124. Lipsius (Chronol. der röm. Bischöf.) gives 124–126 as the possible limits for his death. The Felician Catalogue and the Martyrologies represent him as a martyr, and he is commemorated among the apostles and martyrs, after Linus, Cletus, Clemens, in the canon of the mass. But Telesphorus being the first bp. of Rome designated a martyr by Irenaeus, the claim to the title of Sixtus and other early bps. of Rome, to the great majority of whom it has been since assigned, is doubtful.

[J.B—Y.]