Alphabetical list of Popes

The Popes, in chronological order

AD 100-200

6. St Alexander I. b. Rome. elected 105, d. 115. GL calls Alexander, the sixth  after Peter, and recounts a story of how, when he was in jail in chains , he cured the daughter of Quirinus, a judge, who then released him. LP  reports he introduced holy water and sprinkling of salt to bless private homes, NCE adding that this custom "was inherited from pagan practises". Alexander was long reputed to have been beheaded but ODP says he may have been confused with a martyr of the same name whose tomb was discovered along Rome's Via Nomentana  in 1855.

7. St Sixtus I b. Rome. elected 115, d. 125. LP says he ordained that consecrated vessels should not be touched except by ministering clergy. LP's details about his supposed disciplinary and liturgical innovations  says ODP,  are "transparently anachronistic". and that he was buried near St Peter on the Vatican Hill are "without foundation".

8. St Telesphorus. b. Greece.  elected 125; d. 136  as a martyr "who bore witness gloriously", ie suffered martyrdom. (Ir). Said to have instituted  the fasting period that precedes Easter. Some of the details about him in LP (which says he was previously a hermit) have been tagged suspect;  he is credited with instituting practises that came centuries later.  EU and ODP suggest different dates when he was put to death but the latter states that, in any case, he was the one and only 2nd century pope whose martyrdom is "reliably attested".

9. St Hyginus. b. Greece. elected 136, d. 140.  A one-time Athenian philosopher said by ISPR to have decreed that all churches be consecrated. During his reign Gnostics arrived in Rome (Ir), preaching what CD calls "a false knowledge which threw off the trammels of faith and ecclesiastical authority". Gnosticism, the church's first major heresy, was a combination of Oriental mysteries and religious philosophies, resting on the concept of intuitive knowledge (Greek: gnosis ), denying Christ's human element and transforming Christianity into a system of knowledge rather than faith. In his Against Heresies , Irenaeus the Bishop of Lyons, refuted gnosticism by claiming that the Church itself was the depository of Christian teaching, "since the Apostles, like a rich man man in a bank, lodged in her hands most copiously all things relating to the truth".

10. St Pius I. b. Aquilea. elected 140, d. 155.  LP says he was son of Rufinus from Aquilea, probably the brother of Hermas, 2nd century  'official correspondent' of the Roman church and author of The Shepherd.  which declared  (SB) that by "repentance those who fall after baptism will be forgiven".  These lapsi , many of whom disavowed their faith on threat of torture, were to be a disputed issue throughout the early history of the church. Pius' cult along with the saints who preceded him were suppressed in 1969. Depicted in 9th c. mosaic in S. Prassede.

11. St Anicetus. b. Syria. elected 155, d. 166. Eu says he reigned for 11 years, dying in the 8th year of Marcus Aurelius' reign. Said by LP to have forbidden the clergy to grow long hair., he battled with the Gnostics who differed from the church's belief that Christianity was a body of knowledge handed down from the Apostles. Conferred with Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, about celebrating  Easter. He made the (future pope) Eleutherius a deacon.

12. St Soter. b. Fondi. elected 166, d. 175. LP says he was an Italian from Campania who ordained that no monk (or nun) should touch the consecrated altar cloth or should offer incense in the church, and that he forbade clerics to wear long hair.  Early authorities differ about his dates.. During his reign Easter came to be celebrated in Rome. He ratified matrimony if blessed by a priest. Eu has references to his correspondence with Dionysus, bishop of Corinth, who wrote to thank the pope for finanxial aid.  

13. St Eleutherius. b. Epirus. elected 175, d. 189. His Greek name meaning freeman, explains tP, suggests he was a former slave. According to both LP and GL  King Lucius appealed to him to send missionaries to convert the Britons but ODP calls this an "enigmatic story" resting on confusion with another king. He is the last pope to be listed on the list of Irenaeus of Lyons, who visited him in 177,  warning him about the spread of Montanism, a prophetic creed that preached the end of the world was at hand. Rejecting this, along with all other heresies, Irenaeus declared: "Because of its superior authority, all churches must agree with this (Roman) church" .

14. St Victor. b. Africa. elected 189, d. 199. Described by tP as "a man of dominating personality", a disciplinarian,  he denounced the Eastern churches which did not follow the Roman custom in keeping Easter and  proclaimed they "were all wholly excommunicated" (Eu), St Irenaeus "wrote on behalf of the brethren in Gaul, whose leader he was" and "did entreat and negotiate on behalf of the peace of the churches". As the first pope to have dealings with the imperial household (DP), Victor negotiated with  Emperor Commodius' Christian wife Marcia for the release of a group of Christians from work in the Sardinian mines . They  included the former slave (and future pope) Callistus who had earlier been accused of financial mismanagement.

15. St Zephyrinus. b. Rome; elected 199, d. 217.  Bitter infighting during his papacy over differing interpretations of Christianity. He completed the rehabilitation of Callistus, making him a deacon and directed that ordination ceremonies for the clergy should take place in public records (LP). Both he and his  archdeacon Callistus were denounced as ignorant by "his unscrupulous enemy"(tP)  Hippolytus., later to be an antipope. Zephyrinus excommunicated the historian Tertullian for his devotion to the teachings of the ascetic prophet Montanus, who gave greater weight to private revelation and alleged personal inspiration by the Holy Spirit, than to  the teaching authority of the Church: a split constantly to be repeated in church history.