Episode VII- Pope Alexander I

In this chapter, we will explore the life and papacy of one of our more mysterious Popes. And in spite of our lack of information about his life, his contributions that we do know about will enable us to take a closer look at some elements of the Church that are still in use today.

Early Life

Pope Alexander I was believed to have been born into a noble family in the Caput Tauri region of Rome. This region was where the Porta S. Lorenzo stood, a main entrance gate to ancient Rome. Caput Tauri means “Head of the Bull.” Apparently, there was actually the skull of a bull in the arch of the gate. Amazingly, this gate is still in use today, but more as a tourist attraction than point of entry into Rome itself.

Role in the Church

Alexander was elected Pope around the year 107, shortly after the passing of Pope Evaristus. His ascendance to the papacy was probably the first time a Pope was not elected by testamentary designation. This means he was not a disciple of the previous Pope. The tradition of the succession of Popes up to this time had been for a previous Pope to have great influence in the appointing of his successor to the Papacy. In Alexander’s case, his election was based on the testimony of priests and deacons, with the ultimate election having been decided by the parishioners themselves.

Amazingly, Alexander was believed to have been elected Pope while still in his twenties, indicating he must have been a very talented scholar and charismatic leader within the Christian community. The book “The Popes: Histories and Secrets,” also states he had a number of followers within the imperial court. Two notable followers of his were the prefect Ermetes and the tribune Quirinius.

A Roman prefect was an appointed official who was in charge of one of many areas of Roman society. A tribune was an elected governor of Roman society, usually related to military affairs. So as you can see, Pope Alexander’s influence may have touched upon many parts of Roman society.

Alexander’s Papacy is generally recognized to have begun during the reign of Emperor Trajan. It was towards the end of Trajan’s reign as emperor that Roman society became more tolerant of the Christians in Rome. This effort was spearheaded by a man named Pliny the Younger, who argued to the Roman elite that Christian persecution needed to be stopped as the Christians were not committing any crimes against the Empire itself. This change in Roman thinking most likely began just prior to the beginning of Alexander’s papacy, and continued while he was Pope.
Pope Alexander I has been credited with modifying a part of the Canon of the Mass. A Catholic Mass is the official celebration in which Catholics celebrate the life of Jesus and look to unite with Christ through the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the bread and wine which, Catholics believe, becomes the actual body and blood of Christ.

There is a part of the Mass where the priest will begin to initiate a process called the transubstantiation of the bread and wine you see into the body and blood of Christ. Transubstantiation is an extremely important element of Catholic tradition, and is generally recognized as one of the main things that sets Catholicism apart from other Christian traditions. It has also been an extremely controversial topic and is best explained by highly educated Church scholars. Although transubstantiation is a very complex thing to explain, probably the best way to explain it is to say that the substance of the bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Christ, although the presence of bread and wine remains intact to the physical senses.
During the mass the priest initiates this process of transubstantiation by saying a few prayers. The very first prayer begins with the Latin words Qui Pridie, which means “Who, the day before He suffered..” Alexander I has been credited with adding the phrase Qui Pridie to the beginning of the very first prayer of the Canon of the Mass. In English, the actual prayer reads like this:

“Who, the day before He suffered took bread into His holy and venerable hands, and with His eyes lifted up to Heaven, unto Thee, God, His almighty Father, giving thanks to Thee, He blessed, broke and gave it to His disciples, Saying: Take this and eat it, FOR THIS IS MY BODY.”

So here the phrase Qui Pridie is the beginning of the prayer in which the priest invites our Lord to become one with us spiritually in the form of the bread you see with your eyes. The prayer itself is kind of like a retelling of the story of how Jesus himself showed the disciples how to actually do this at the Last Supper.

Pope Alexander was also the first to implement the use of Holy Water after he made a blessing using a mixture of water and salt. Holy Water has many, many special meanings throughout Christianity, and especially Catholic tradition. In Catholicism it is specially prepared, and more importantly has been blessed by a priest. Holy water is most commonly used to be blessed with and make the Sign of the Cross at church. This gesture reminds Catholics of our baptismal promises we have agreed to keep and practice in our daily lives.

Death

As with most of our previous Holy Fathers, the circumstances surrounding Pope Alexander’s death are shrouded in mystery. The sources used in this book indicate that Pope Alexander was decapitated at the hands of Emperor Hadrian. Pope Alexander was believed to have been beheaded with his friend Ermetes, as well as with two other priests, named Eventius and Theodulus. It is likely that Hadrian had Alexander killed simply because Alexander was preaching in public, although Christian persecution was relatively rare during this time. The historian Eusebius indicates in his writings that Pope Alexander I died in the “third year of the reign of the Emperor Hadrian.”

Honors

Pope Alexander I has been honored with a feast day, which is celebrated on May 3, which is the day he was believed to have died. May 3rd is a busy for Catholic feasting as it is also the feast day of the Martyrs Eventius and Theodulus as well as that of the Bishop and Confessor St. Juvenal. Therefore, one does not necessarily have to be a Pope to have a feast day in the Catholic Church, but one must be a saint to have a feast day and it’s pretty hard to become a saint.

It appears that Pope Alexander shares his feast day with these three other amazing saints because their tombs were found together in a buried cemetery near the place where Alexander was believed to have been martyred. This was believed to be at the Via Nomentana, a road in ancient Rome, and scholars originally thought he was buried here. Historians now believe the tomb of Alexander found on the Via Nomentana is not our Alexander, but another Roman citizen named Alexander. Pope Alexander I is now believed to have been buried closer to the tomb of St. Peter.

Conclusion

While the information available clearly falls short of shedding a clear light on the life and papacy of Pope Alexander I, I feel as though we are continuing to discover the basis of what has become the wonderful expression of our faith today. We have now seen how the formation of our sacred Mass is beginning to take shape as well as the implementation of a much used tradition that still exists in our Church today, that of Holy Water.