Alexander I (pope)

Alexander I, (Rome, ¿?-c. 117) was the sixth pope of the Catholic Church, from about the year 106 until his death in the year 117.

Biography

The exact dates of his pontificate are controversial among historians, because the sources are inconsistent. In the Historia Ecclesiastica of Eusebius of Caesarea the pontificate is said to have lasted from 108 to 119. The Liberian Catalogue from 109 to 116. The Liber Pontificalis only talks about the last year that would be 116.

The data offered by the Liber Pontificalis are of dubious historicity. It is stated in it that Alexander was Roman, and also that he would have modified the canon of the mass so that the memory of the Passion of the Lord would be made with the expression qui pridie quam pateretur.

There is very little historical evidence of this pontiff. Irenaeus of Lyons lists him as one of the first twelve popes in his work Adversus haereses published in AD 180. c.

Tradition says that he instituted the use of holy water, to which salt had to be added, to purify Christian houses, and introduced unleavened bread and wine mixed with water into the Eucharist.

He is also said to have suffered martyrdom by being beheaded along with Saint Eventius and Saint Theodulus, although this tradition, dating from the V, has been the subject of controversy ever since, in the XIX century, they were discovered on Via Nomentana, on the outskirts of from Rome, the remains of three beheaded people and although they were initially attributed to Alexander I and his two companions in martyrdom and moved to the church of Santa Sabina, the body that was initially attributed to this pope seems to correspond to another Saint also called Alexander. Hence the presence of a Passio written between the centuries V and VI with various miraculous events and conversions he would have achieved before he died. They would have nailed it to different parts of his body until his death (while his companions were beheaded).

Considered a saint by the Catholic Church, his feast day is celebrated on May 3.

Around 107, at the beginning of Alexander I's pontificate as Bishop of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch wrote to the Romans extolling the dignity of the Church of Rome.