Also known as:
Alexander I of Rome, St. Alexander I;
Italian: San Alessandro I
ALESSANDRO I, pope, saint - Abruzzese painting (late 14th century) - Pentima.ALESSANDRO I, pope, saint - Painting by Fra Diamante (late 15th century) - Sistine Chapel.
ALEXANDER I, Pope, Saint. - Pontiff from 109 to c. 119. St. Irenaeus (Adv. haer., III, 3: PG 7, 851) indicates A. as the successor of Evaristus and the fifth bishop of Rome after St. Peter. Eusebius of Caesarea (Hist. eccl., IV, 4) specifies that he died in the third year of the reign of Hadrian (119-20) and that he had been bishop for ten years. However, L. Duchesne, albeit with reservations, inclines to place the pontificate of A. between the years 106-15.
Neither Irenaeus nor Eusebius calls him a martyr. The Liber Pontificalis wrongly confuses him with the martyr Alexander, buried on the Via Nomentana. Like the other bishops of Rome of the first two centuries, he was probably buried in the cemetery of the Vatican. According to the Liber Pontificalis, A. would have inserted the Qui pridie or the Unde et memores into the canon of the Mass. But all are agreed in holding that this statement has no value (cf. F. Cabrol, Canon, in DACL, II, 2, col. 1852 ff.). Nor is the other notice authentic, also from the Liber Pontificalis, according to which A. would have established the custom of blessing houses with water mixed with salt.
To this pope were attributed certain letters and decrees, which are certainly apocryphal.
Bibliography4 worksLiber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, I, Paris 1886, pp. xci-xcii and 127; Jaffé-Wattenbach, I, p. 5; P. Allard, Storia critica dalle persecuzio
BIBL.: Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, I, Paris 1886, pp. xci-xcii and 127; Jaffé-Wattenbach, I, p. 5; P. Allard, Storia critica dalle persecuzioni, Italian trans., I, Florence 1913, p. 194 f.; A. Dufourcq, s. v. in DHG, II, coll. 204-206.
Goggi, Pietro. “Alessandro I, papa, santo.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. I, col. 787. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1948. https://azioneromana.com/article/alessandro-i-papa-santo.
MLA
Goggi, Pietro. “Alessandro I, papa, santo.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. I, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1948, col. 787. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/alessandro-i-papa-santo.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec1_alessandro_i_papa_santo,
author = {Goggi, Pietro},
title = {Alessandro I, papa, santo},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {I},
pages = {787},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1948},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/alessandro-i-papa-santo}
}
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