105 AD to 115
AD
St. Irenaeus of Lyons, writing in the latter quarter
of the second century, reckons him as the fifth pope in succession
from the Apostles, though he says nothing of his martyrdom. His
pontificate is variously dated by critics, e. g. 106-115 (Duchesne)
or 109-116 (Lightfoot). In Christian antiquity he was credited with
a pontificate of about ten years (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. IV, i,) and
there is no reason to doubt that he was on the "catalogue of
bishops" drawn up at Rome by Hegesippus (Eusebius, IV, xxii, 3)
before the death of Pope Eleutherius (c. 189). According to a
tradition extant in the Roman Church at the end of the fifth
century, and recorded in the Liber Pontificalis he suffered a
martyr's death by decapitation on the Via Nomentana in Rome, 3 May.
The same tradition declares him to have been a Roman by birth and to
have ruled the Church in the reign of Trajan (98-117). It likewise
attributes to him, but scarcely with accuracy, the insertion in the
canon of the Qui Pridie, or words commemorative of the
institution of the Eucharist, such being certainly primitive and
original in the Mass. He is also said to have introduced the use of
blessing water mixed with salt for the purification of Christian
homes from evil influences (constituit aquam sparsionis cum sale
benedici in habitaculis hominum). Duchesne (Lib. Pont., I, 127)
calls attention to the persistence of this early Roman custom by way
of a blessing in the Gelasian Sacramentary that recalls very
forcibly the actual Asperges prayer at the beginning of Mass. In
1855, a semi-subteranean cemetery of the holy martyrs Sts.
Alexander, Eventulus, and Theodulus was discovered near Rome, at the
spot where the above mentioned tradition declares the Pope to have
been martyred. According to some archaeologists, this Alexander is
identical with the Pope, and this ancient and important tomb marks
the actual site of the Pope's martyrdom. Duchesne, however (op.
cit., I, xci-ii) denies the identity of the martyr and the pope,
while admitting that the confusion of both personages is of ancient
date, probably anterior to the beginning of the sixth century when
the Liber Pontificalis was first compiled [Dufourcq, Gesta Martyrum
Romains (Paris, 1900), 210-211]. The difficulties raised in recent
times by Richard Lipsius (Chronologie der römischen Bischofe, Kiel,
1869) and Adolph Harnack (Die Zeit des Ignatius u. die Chronologie
der antiochenischen Bischofe, 1878) concerning the earliest
successors of St. Peter are ably discussed and answered by F. S.
(Cardinal Francesco Segna) in his "De successione priorum Romanorum
Pontificum " (Rome 1897); with moderation and learning by Bishop
Lightfoot, in his "Apostolic Fathers: St. Clement ' (London, 1890)
I, 201-345- especially by Duchesne in the introduction to his
edition of the "Liber Pontificalis" (Paris, 1886) I, i-xlviii and
lxviii-lxxiii. The letters ascribed to Alexander I by PseudoIsidore
may be seen in P. G., V, 1057 sq., and in Hinschius, " Decretales
Pseudo-Isidorianae " (Leipzig, 1863) 94-105. His remains are said to
have been transferred to Freising in Bavaria in 834 (Dummler, Poetae
Latini Aevi Carolini, Berlin, 1884, II, 120). His so-called " Acts "
are not genuine, and were compiled at a much later date (Tillemont,
Mem. II, 590 sqq; Dufourcq, op. cit., 210-211).
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