Saint Alexander I

The marvelous conversions he brought about, especially in the high ranks of society, drew the attention of the persecutors upon him; but let us let the Acts speak:

"Alexande r, who sat sixth on the chair of the blessed Peter, apostle, was a m Alexandre, qui siégea le sixième sur la chaire du bienheureux Pierre Sixth pope of the Catholic Church, martyr under Trajan. an of incomparable holiness; young in years, he was old in faith. Divine grace so won him the affection of the city of Rome that he converted a great number of senators to Jesus Christ. One of his first conquests was the prefect of Rome, Hermes, whom he baptized with his wife, his sister, Saint Theodora, and his sons, and twelve hundred and fifty slaves who belonged to them, in a single Easter day. Before receiving the regenerating water, Hermes restored their freedom to them all; they continued to serve as free men the one they had served as slaves; Hermes distributed all his goods to them. Meanwhile, the Emperor Trajan had just sent to Rome the chief of his militia, Aurelian, with orders to put all Chr Aurélien Gallo-Roman nobleman and ambassador of Clovis. istians to death. Upon his arrival, the pagan priests came to denounce the fact to him; Hermes and Pope Alexander were thrown into a dungeon. As they passed, the crowd, stirred up by the idolatrous pontiffs, shouted cries of death: Let them be burned alive! they said. It is they who make our temples deserted and who have turned millions of men away from the worship of the gods! — The prefect of the city, Hermes, was handed over to the custody of the tribune Quiri nus. How, this tribun Quirinus Roman military tribune converted by Pope Alexander. soldier said to him, could a patrician such as you, a lieutenant of the emperor, have willingly lost an eminent post, to exchange it for chains reserved for the vilest criminals? — Hermes replied to him: I have not lost my prefecture, I have only moved it. An earthly dignity is subject to all the vicissitudes of the earth; a heavenly dignity is eternal as God Himself. — What! exclaimed the tribune, with the wisdom that we admire in you, you could have let yourself be seduced by such a senseless doctrine! You believe that anything of us remains"

after this life, when our body is reduced to ashes that a single breath is enough to scatter? — I too, said Hermes, a few years ago, laughed at such a hope and valued only this mortal life. — But, replied Quirinus, who then could have made you change your feelings? What proofs have you had to believe? Make them known to me; I might believe in my turn. — Hermes answered: You have at this moment under your guard the prisoner who convinced me; it is Alexander. — At these words, Quirinus burst into curses against Alexander, and cried out: My dear master, illustrious Hermes, I conjure you, return to your rank; come back to yourself; your patrimony, your family, your whole house will be returned to you. Alexander is but an impostor; Aurelian has charged me to tell you that, if you consent to sacrifice to the gods, nothing is lost for you. I asked you what proofs had determined your resolution, and you name to me a miserable magician, a scoundrel whom I had thrown into a low dungeon! Is it really true that you could have been seduced by this artisan of crimes? But a peasant would hardly be the toy of such a Samardachus¹ who will soon be burned alive! If he were so powerful, why does he not deliver himself, and you with him? — The Jews, replied Hermes, said the same word to Jesus Christ, my master, when he was on the cross: Let him come down, they said, and we will believe in him! Now, if Jesus Christ had not had horror of their perfidy and if he had not known clearly their bad faith, he would have really come down from the cross in their presence, and would have appeared to them in all his majesty. — Well! said Quirinus, if it is so, I am going to your Alexander, I will say to him: Do you want me to believe in your God? I am going to have the number of your chains tripled; find yourself then at the hour of supper in the cell of Hermes. If I see such a miracle, I will believe. — The tribune went to the dungeon of Alexander, made him this proposal, and, after having doubled the guards at his door, left him. Alexander began to pray: My Lord and my God! you who made me sit on the seat of Peter, your apostle, you are my witness that I do not wish to avoid the passion and death that await me. Grant me only to lead myself this evening to your servant Hermes, and make it so that tomorrow morning I am back in this dungeon. — Now, at the beginning of the night, a child, holding a lighted torch, appeared to the prisoner, took him by the hand, opened the sealed window and led him to the cell of Hermes; the two Martyrs, miraculously reunited, began to pray, and Quirinus, bringing the evening meal, found them in this attitude. His stupor, his terror, did not allow him to articulate a word; he seemed struck by lightning. You wanted a miracle to believe, they said to him; you see the miracle. Believe then in Jesus Christ, Son of God, who hears his servants, and who has promised to grant them all that they ask of him. Quirinus had had time to regain his senses. Is that perhaps, he replied, one of the prestiges of your magic? — What! said Hermes, is it then by our will that we could have broken, without leaving traces, the doors of your dungeon? You have tripled your guards, and yet here we are together. Believe then at last; there is no other magic than the power of Jesus Christ, this God who gave sight to the blind, healed the lepers and raised the dead! — The tribune felt moved: I have, said he, Balbina, my daughter, whom I intended to marry soon. A goiter has appeared on her neck; heal her and I will belie ve in J Balbina Daughter of the tribune Quirinus, healed of scrofula by Pope Alexander. esus Christ. — Alexander said to him: Untie this iron chain that binds my neck, have your daughter touch it, and she will be healed. — Quirinus hesitated, he did not know if he wanted to leave the two captives reunited. Close the door of the cell, in the usual manner, the Pontiff said to him; tomorrow morning I will be in my dungeon. — Indeed, the next day, at the first hour of the day, Quirinus opened the door of Alexander's dungeon. The jailer was not alone, Balbina, his daughter, miraculously healed, accompanied him; he prostrated himself at the feet of the holy Martyr, and, bursting into tears, he said: Lord, I conjure you, intercede for me with the God of whom you are the bishop, so that he may forgive my past incredulity; here is my daughter, your servant, I have done what you told me, she is healed¹.

Quirinus was converted. Alexander asked him: How many captives are there in this prison? — About twenty, replied the tribune. — Inquire if there are any among them who have been incarcerated for the name of Christ. — Quirinus made this inquiry and soon returned to tell the Pontiff: There is an elderly priest named Eventius, and another who came from the East, named Theodulus. — Go, Alexander said to him, and bring them to me. — T he tribu Eventius Roman priest martyred with Pope Alexander. ne was not content with bringing th e two pri Théodulus Former prefect of Constantinople who became a stylite in the 5th century. ests to Alexander; he gathered around the holy Pontiff all the other prisoners: These, he said, are thieves, adulterers, murderers, all burdened with crimes. — It is for sinners, said Alexander, that Jesus Christ, Our Lord, descended from heaven, he calls us all to penance and forgiveness. — Beginning then to instruct them, he spoke to them with so much force and effectiveness, that, touched by his words, they asked for baptism. Alexander charged the priests Eventius and Theodulus to receive them into the number of catechumens and to continue their instruction. Soon Quirinus, Balbina, his daughter, all the members of his house and all the captives, received baptism; the prison was changed into a church. The clerk, commentariensis, denounced to Aurelian all that had just happened. This imperial lieutenant had Quirinus called: I wished you well, he said to him, you have unworthily deceived me; here you are the dupe of this Alexander! — I am a Christian, replied Quirinus. You can scourge me, cut off my head, throw me into the flames, I will never be anything else! All the prisoners who were under my guard are Christians like me. I begged the pontiff Alexander and the patrician Hermes to leave their dungeon, I opened the doors for them, they refused; they aspire to death like a hungry man to a feast; now, do with me what you will. — Insolent! said the Roman magistrate, I am going to have your tongue cut out and apply you to the torture. — Quirinus indeed had his tongue cut out, and was stretched on the rack; after this torment, his hands and feet were cut off successively; finally Aurelian gave the order to behead him and had his body thrown to the dogs. During the night, the brothers secretly took away these precious remains and buried them in the cemetery of Praetextatus, on the Appian Way. Balbina, daughter of Quirinus, consecrated her virginity to the Lord. One day, Alexander saw her respectfully kissing the iron chain that had miraculously healed her: Cease, he said to her, to kiss this chain. Seek rather the irons that the blessed Peter wore, you will be able to lavish your homage upon them. — The virgin did not forget this recommendation of the Martyr. After long and painful searches, she finally discovered the chains of the Apostle and bequeathed them later to the patrician Theodora, sister of Hermes. The latter had his head cut off by order of Aurelian. Theodora collected his remains and buried them in the catacomb of the old Salarian Way¹, near Rome, on the 3rd of the kalends of September. Aurelian had all the prisoners baptized by Alexander seized; they were embarked on a disabled ship, which was sunk in the open sea².

Aurelian had reserved Alexander, and the two priests Eventius and Theodulus, to interrogate them with greater care. "I wish," he said to the pontiff, "to learn from your own mouth the whole mystery of your sect. Explain to me how, in the name of I know not what Christ, you run to meet chains and death." "What you ask of me," replied Alexander, "is the secret of the Saints. And it has been said to us: 'Do not give holy things to dogs.'" "So I am a dog!" cried Aurelian. "Alas!" resumed Alexander, "the dog dies entirely; it has no account to render after life; it has no immortal soul that can be condemned to an eternity of suffering. But man, formed in the image of God, owes himself to the obligations that such a privilege imposes upon him; eternal torments are reserved for his crimes. As a dignitary of the empire, you would punish a bold man who had outraged, in one of your statues, the majesty of a public official. However, being mortal yourself, the punishments you inflict cannot exceed temporal death. But God is eternal; His sentences have eternity as their sanction and duration." "That is not an answer," said Aurelian. "I have questioned you clearly. Speak, or I will hand you over to the whips of the lictors." "What!" said Alexander, "you claim to tear from me, through threats, the revelation of our mysteries! It is to me that you speak in such language! But, apart from my King who is in the heavens, no power could make me tremble. Know that Christians endure all tortures without uttering a single word that could betray the secret of their faith. Yet they deliver it entirely to the docility of humble disciples." Aurelian thought he should intervene with the imperial omnipotence, of which he was the representative. "Enough of subterfuges!" he said. "You are not before an ordinary judge. I am the delegate of Trajan, the master of the world." "Take care," said Alexander. "The omnipotence of which you boast will soon be reduced to nothing." The prophecy of the holy Pope was soon to be realized by the unforeseen death of Aurelian and the emperor himself; but at that moment it exasperated the official. "Wretch!" he cried. "I have delayed too long in punishing. You are going to expire in torments." "What does it matter!" replied Alexander. "Does one not know that such is the fate you reserve for innocence? You grant life only to those who abjure the name of Jesus Christ, my God. Now, I shall not have that cowardice. I must therefore perish by your hands. I shall die, like Hermes, that patrician whom martyrdom has truly placed in the rank of the clarissimi. I shall die, like Quirinus, that true tribune of Christ, and like those glorious regenerated ones who have just ascended to the heavens!" "That is precisely what I am asking you," said Aurelian. "Why do you Christians prefer death to all the offers I can make you?" "I have already answered," said Alexander: "Non licet sanctum dare canibus." "That insult again!" cried Aurelian. "Enough of vain words! Lictors, do your duty!" Alexander was stretched on the rack; his flanks were torn with iron claws, and the bleeding wounds were stoked with flaming torches. The Martyr smiled, while praying. "Fool," the magistrate said to him. "You are not yet forty! Why waste your existence for pleasure?" "Would to God," said the Martyr, "that you yourself would not lose your immortal soul!" At that moment, Aurelian's wife sent word to him: "Set Alexander at liberty. He is a Saint. If you persist in torturing him, divine vengeance will burst upon you, and I will have the misfortune of losing you." "Alexander is young!" replied Aurelian. "Ask my wife if that is not the reason for the tender interest she bears him." In reality, Aurelian's wife was a Christian, and her husband did not know it. When the Pontiff, exhausted by the loss of his blood, was taken down from the rack, Eventius and Theodulus were brought in. Aurelian addressed Alexander: "Tell me," he asked him, "who are these?" "They are two Saints, two priests," replied Alexander. "What is your name?" the magistrate said to Eventius. "My name among men is Eventius," resumed the priest. "But I am a Christian, and that is my spiritual name." "How long have you been a Christian?" added Aurelian. "For seventy years. I was baptized at the age of eleven; at twenty I was ordained a priest. I am now eighty-one years old. This last year of my life has been the happiest for me, for I have spent it in a dungeon, for the name of my God!" "Take pity on your old age," said Aurelian. "Abjure Christ; I will honor your white hair, you will be the friend of the emperor, and I will shower you with riches." Eventius replied: "I thought you had some wisdom, but your heart is blinded; it refuses to open itself to the divine light. However, there is still time; embrace the true faith; believe in Jesus Christ, son of the living God, and mercy will be shown to you." The magistrate had Eventius removed without answering him. Theodulus was ordered to approach the tribunal. "And you too," he said, "will you want to count for nothing the orders that I give you in the name of the emperor?" "Neither you, nor your orders, could frighten me!" cried Theodulus. "Who are you, you who torture the Saints of God? What has Alexander, the holy pontiff, done to deserve the torments you have inflicted upon him?" "Do you hope to escape them yourself?" asked Aurelian. "God forbid," cried Theodulus. "Jesus Christ will not refuse me the grace of being associated with his martyrs!" This word gave birth in Aurelian's soul to a thought he believed to be marvelous. He gave the order to tie Alexander and Eventius back to back, and had them both thrown into a burning furnace. As for Theodulus, he wanted him held near the blazing oven, to be a witness to their torment, but without sharing it. However, the miracle of the companions of Daniel was renewed at that moment. "From the midst of the flames, Alexander cried out: 'Theodulus, my brother, come to us! The angel who appeared to the three young Hebrews is here at our sides, he is keeping a place for you!'" At these words, Theodulus, escaping the soldiers, threw himself into the furnace. The three Martyrs could be heard, free in the flames, singing the words of the Psalm: "Lord, you have tested us by fire, and no iniquity was found in us!" Aurelian, furious at this prodigy which he attributed to a magical power, had them removed from the furnace. Eventius and Theodulus had their heads cut off. Alexander, reserved for a more painful torment, had his whole body slowly pierced by steel points, until he gave up his soul. Aurelian was insulting their corpses when he heard a voice from heaven saying to him: "These dead, whom you outrage, are now in a place of eternal delights, but you are going to descend into hell!" Seized with horror, the magistrate returned to his palace, trembling in all his limbs. He called Severina, his wife. "I thought I saw," he told her, "a young man with a sparkling face; he threw at my feet something like a flaming sword, and said to me: 'Aurelian, you are now going to receive your reward!' A nervous tremor has taken hold of me. Fever is devouring me. What to do? Invoke your God for me; pray to Him to show me mercy." Severina replied: "I will go myself to bury the holy Martyrs, they will intercede for us." She went, therefore, and on one of her estates, at the seventh milestone from Rome, on the Via Nomentana, she deposited Eventius and Alexander with her own hands in the same tomb. Theodulus was buried alone, in a separate sepulcher. The priests of Rome and all the faith via Nomentana Burial place of Alexander and Eventius. ful had accompanied the bodies of the Martyrs. They remained gathered, while Severina returned in all haste to her husband. Aurelian was in the grip of the most violent delirium; a burning fever was consuming him; incoherent words came from his lips; sometimes, however, imprecations against himself escaped him; he reproached himself for his crime. "Unfortunate man," said Severina, "you have despised my advice! The hand of God is heavy upon you!" Soon Aurelian expired in atrocious convulsions. Severina clothed herself in a hairshirt; she came to prostrate herself on the tomb of the Martyrs, and would no longer leave that place. Later, when the pontiff Sixtus had arrived from the East, she obtained that a bishop would celebrate the holy mysteries there every day. That is why a priest has remained to this day attached to this oratory. Now, the martyrdom of the saints Alexander, Eventius, and Theodulus took place on the fifth of the Nones of May (May 3, 117). Glory to God for ever and ever. Amen!

Such are the Acts of Saint Alexander which were found in the 18th century in a manuscript of the Vatican Library: they are the first of a Pope to have escaped the burning of the Christian archives ordered by Decius and Diocletian. The details they contain are wonderfully confirmed by the discovery of the tomb of Saint Alexander and Saint Eventius, which was made in Rome, on the same Via Nomentana, in 1844, 1860, and 1864.

Saint Balbina, the spiritual daughter of Alexander, after having spent the rest of her life like an angel, employing her goods for the nourishment of poor Christians, surrendered her soul to the Spouse of virgins in the year 169, on March 31, the day on which the Roman Martyrology does her the honor of mentioning her. Her virginal body was buried near the remains of the Martyr, her father, on the Appian Way.

Saint Balbina is represented: holding in her hand the chains of Pope Saint Alexander; or else, the Pope places his chains on her neck, beside Saint Quirinus, her father. She is invoked against scrofula, from which Saint Alexander miraculously cured her.

Saint Quirinus is represented with a severed arm; — he is sometimes given a horse and armor, no doubt to recall his status as a Roman knight or military tribune; — a falcon refuses to touch his tongue, which is thrown to it as food; and dogs, his limbs, which are given to them to devour. An ancient painting that was once in the choir of the noble canonesses of Saint Quirinus at Neuss recalled the episode of the tongue offered to the falcon. An author even adds the following curious detail: People resorted to Saint Quirinus for the healing of fistulas and scrofula, called the graces of Saint Quirinus. The masters of Saint Quirinus, that is to say, the nurses in charge of caring for the sick who came to Neuss to seek their healing, could not eat eggs or poultry as long as the treatment lasted. Another painting represented the martyr dragged to his torture by ten horses: these animals gained from this the fact of often being delivered from glanders by "the blessed saint."

Saint Quirinus is particularly honored in Cologne where there were relics of him in the church of Saint-Pantaleon, in that of Saint-Alban, and in five others; in Zulpich, in Mainz, in Paris, near Louvain, in Lille, in Tongeren, in Floresse, in Brussels, in Neuss, in Corregio, and in Lorraine, etc. He is also invoked against paralysis, leg ailments, and in Brabant, against earaches.

In an abridgment of the life and martyrdom of Saint Quirinus, published in 1847¹, one finds interesting details regarding the relics of this blessed one and those of Saint Balbina, his daughter, of which here is a brief summary. The holy Pope Leo IX, Bruno of Dagsburg, formerly Bishop of Toul, strongly solicited by Pepa, his sister or mother, who had come to visit him in Rome, consented to give her the bodies of Saint Quirinus and Saint Balbina, with which she wished to enrich the convent of Neuss Nuyss City in Germany where the heads of Quirinus and Balbina rest. , not far from Cologne, of which she was abbess. Upon her return, having arrived one evening at some distance from Dagsburg, today Dabo, the mule that carried the reliquaries stopped and would not move forward; it was necessary to deposit the venerable burden with all possible decency, which the next day one could not lift, despite vigorous and persistent efforts. Pepa, recognizing by such a sign that God had designs of mercy for the country where she found herself, had a chapel built at the very place of the deposit and left there the bodies of the father and the daughter, of which, however, she took the heads to Neuss. The pious abbess entrusted the care of the chapel and the holy reliquaries to a person devoted to the maintenance of the new sanctuary. After the death of the faithful guardian, the Abbot of Marmoutier, in Alsace, replaced her with one of his monks, and then later had the relics transported to his abbey. But the populations of the region, attributing to this removal the calamities that came to afflict them, addressed vigorous complaints to the Count of Dagsburg who, having transmitted them while joining his own to the Abbot of Marmoutier, obtained the restitution of the protective reliquaries. For his part, the Abbot represented to the Count that it would be more appropriate to entrust their care to two or three monks who would serve the Lord near these distinguished relics. The Count subscribed to the desire of the Abbot; he built the priory of Saint-Quirin where they were honorably placed and around which rose the beautiful village that bears his name². The numerous and signal graces, obtained through the intercession of the two Martyrs, have made this locality the destination of a considerable pilgrimage that has not ceased.

A portion of the relics of Saint Quirinus was replaced in the primitive chapel, named the High Chapel, in which pilgrims do not fail to go and pray. Another exists in the rural church of Saint-Bilaire, in the canton of Saint-Nicolas-de-Port³.

1° Saint Alexander had to combat two types of heretics, the Docet ists an Docètes Heretics who denied the reality of Christ's passion. d the Heracleonites. The former denied the reality of the Savior's passion: it is against them that his first written regulation is directed, ordering that mention be made of the passion, in the holy sacrifice, by these words: *Qui proedie quam pateretur* until the consecration. As he himself says, it was the simple confirmation of a traditional usage, — *a patribus accepimus*, — but for fear that the heretics might argue ignorance, he cut short their innovations with the sword of the written word.

"In the oblation of the Sacraments," he says, "which takes place at the solemnity of the Mass, it is fitting to make memory of the Lord's passion... The oblation of the sacrifice must consist solely of bread and wine mixed with water. The Fathers have taught us that the chalice of the Lord must not be filled with wine alone, nor with water alone, but with the mixture of both. The reason for this is easy to understand: it is that from the open heart of Jesus Christ escaped both blood and water..."

2° Heracleon was teaching dogmas in Sicily. It was, in less than a century, the eighteenth heresiarch who attacked the divine work of Jesus Christ. He taught that baptism conferred an inamissible grace: one sees that quietism dates back a long way. The bishops of Sicily referred the matter to the Pope who composed a treatise against Heracleon, and sent a holy priest named Sabinianus to bring it to them. Sabinianus had a public conference with the heresiarch in which he reduced him to silence. This important historical fact has been brought to light by the unsuspected erudition of a French scholar, Father Sirmond ¹.

3° Decretal relative to holy water, instituting the custom of keeping it in Christian homes.

Endless dissertations have been written on the origin of holy water: some have wanted to see in it the intention of sanctifying the pagan use of lustral water: this is useless erudition, for if one had read, in France, the letters of Saint Alexander, — his decretals if you will, — one would have seen that paganism has nothing to do with this question, and that the origin of holy water proceeds directly from the Hebrew ceremonial transformed by the Apostles, adapted to the liturgy of those who believe in spirit and in truth. "I have not come to destroy the law," said the Master, "but to complete it." His disciples, remembering this precept of Leviticus (II, 13): "In every oblation to the Lord, you shall mix salt," mixed it with water. Salt, which was for the Jews the symbol of wisdom, became, for Christians, the symbol of Jesus Christ himself, the uncreated wisdom. Moreover, had not the first Christians learned from Saint Paul to extend their hands in the form of a cross, to pray, and to purify them by a prior oblation; which we still do today when entering our churches: now, where is there any question of lustral water in the epistles of Saint Paul (I Tim., II, 8; Tertullian, de orat., cap. 2), and especially the learned Annals of Baronius; the History of the Church, by Abbé Darvas, vol. VII; Acta Sanctorum, vol. IV, of May? Father Giry had said, in a few months, the same thing as we have: proof that the so-called modern criticism had not carried all convictions by attacking, with bias, the primitive documents.

The decretals of Saint Alexander I are found in volume V of the Greek Patrology of M. Migne.

Acta Sanctorum, May 3; Darvas, Hist. de l'Église, vol. VII; local notes.