The Pope Joan Myth

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 42, 17 October 1907, Page 10

The Pope Joan Myth

There has been an Anglican Synod in Napier. One of its subjects of discussion was the proposal for union" among the Reformed denominations. This, in turn, •has. led ,to,a ; discussion in the ' Hawke's „ Bay Herald,'.. So. far as we have -been able to follow- it,one side>at least of the newspaper controversy has beenmarked by a pretty bountiful disregard of the golden' s rule of debate lafd down by, Sir Edward Fry, when he counselled lawyers *so to present the case on either side as to generate the maximum of light and the minimum of heat '. High controversial temperatures rage through the contributions of a reverend Presbyterian cjergyman who opened the newspaper side of the discussion by trailing his coat-tails through the columns of the ' Herald \ Incidentally, we may remark that he '. fell in ' rather badly over a fact of recent New Zealand ecclesiastical hislory. Our whole and sole concern at present with our Northern neighbors' bout 1 of journalistic fisticufis, however, centres in the rather^pre-" cipitate Presbyterian divine's assertion that « for many years tnere were two Popes excommunicating each other.', and that one of the occupants, of the papal Ghair ' was a woman \ The iirst statement refers to what is called Ihe Great Schism of the West— when the children of Church in the West, although united in

faitfi, were here and there profoundly divided in opinion as regarded the pers.on who Avas the properly chosen and lawful Pope. It would be correct lo .state that there was, "during that period of l sturm und- drang,' a succession of legitimately appointed Popes who, one after the other, issued Secrees of excommunication against anti-Popes— that is t against pretenders or false claim-

ants to the papal dignity. It would likewise be true to assert that the pretenders went through a form (which was' null and void in canon law) of , excommunicating the genuine occupants of St. Peter's chair. It was one of the scandals that (as the Saviour Himself foretold) ' must needs come . There were in -that trying) -time many who— from ignorance of the facts of the papal elections, or from the" blindness of national or party feeling— were unable to decide which of two' claimants was the properly chosen Pontiff. So, in 1872, there, were many who could not determine who was' tjie , rightful -owner, of the Tichborne -estates. ! ihere have T>een N a few' Arthur Ortons in papal as well as in -English history. But - nobody in England imagined that therewere two ■ eldest sons of Sir Alfred Joseph' Tichborne. And nobody in' the time of the .Western Schism- "imagined —as does' the writer referred to here— that there were ■ two Teftl Popes in Christendom at the same-Hime liil.minating excommunications against each other. Per-k-in" WarbejcE or. a Lambert Simnel does/ not become. ..the,- 5 lawful; 'king of - England -by merely plaiming^-royal Hood : and* getting, a .partisan following to proclaim him anyhow. *■- •■' ' - " '„.-! • ' It is somewhat of a surprise to come across, -nowadays, a" mail.. of ' some, education who believes the story., of '/.the 'jfemafe Pope.\Like the story of. the ..' Popish,;, ; Plot.'' to "burn down. London, that curious: myth.;inay..be - deemed,. to have. - long-, since-, slithered . down the descensus;r I Aye'rni ' mentioned. by.JVlacaulay— to have been .abandoned, ■. ' by "statesmen to aldermen, by- aldermen jo ,clergymen, by-* clergymen^ "to old women, and by old women to. SirHarcpujrl Lees '— tjhat is/ to the Orange lodge. . And-,, some, of, the .best work done in exploding .the myth has. been put in. by learned. Protestant scholars. The alleged. -, Popess had as rrany ' aliases ' as a magsman or cribcracker. She was (so runneth the legend) born in May- : ence, and; is variously .named Agnes, G-ilberta, Johanna, and JuttaV .?She is said- to have, studied" philosophy in the schools of Athens, -disguised in male ature ; to have taught theology in JKome ; and (still masquerading successfully as a manf to have ascended the papal throne, under the title of John VIII., on the death of Leo IV. in 855 ; and to have reigned two years and a hair. The story winds up with an • account of her death upon the streets of Rome, under painful .circumstances, while going in" procession from her residence in the Vatican to the Lateran. ■-'•■" ' '" * * Tlie stp'r : y ! nas about it the flavor of" romance and . novelty that ' ensured it' a hearing, and,"' decked out as it. : was in the cours/ of time with the gewgaws of an , exuberant' fancy, it attracted attention, caught a certain, ' taste, and took its place in popular fiction. Quite a little literature has grown up around the fable. - But •nowadays no historian of repute would think of lifting it out of the region -of. myths and fables to which it has long ago " been relegated. We refer^the curious, who-jmay desire go "a little more deeply into "the details of tins strange myth, to Doellinger's work (English translation), ' Fables Respecting the Popes in the Middle Ages 7 (New. York, 1872., pp. 8-45 and 430-437), and (among other easily accessible sources) to Dr. • Reuben Parsons' ' Studies in Church History' (N,ew I York," 18JF6, v'qL ii, pp. 40-51). JF-or the information^ of our Hawke's. Bay readers, we give, the following ..brief and. sunmary statement in regard the Pops .. Joanfable : (1)' The story was not heard of fjor siome>.hundreds "of years after the death of the alleged Popess. Professor Philip Schaff, D.D. \oi the Union Theological Seminary, New York), an authority of very -consider-, able note among Presbyterians, says of the romance m his • History of the Christian Church ', vol. i, pp. 265-6 (New York, 1885) :— ■ • The story is undoubtedly a mere fiction, and is so^ regarded by nearly all modern historians,^Protestant ,as • well as Roman Catholic It is not mentioned till four hundred years later by Stephen, a French Dominican

(wEo died in, 1261). It was unknown to Photius and the bitter Greek polemics of the ninth and tenth centuries, who .would not have missed the opportunity to make . use of ft as an" argument against the Papacy V (2) The schools of Athens had died out as .far back as , the year 420, when Synesius wrote, and -they had not been revived' during the supposed student-life of Joan. (3) For many centuries (says Parsons, ii, p. 45) ' the custdm had obtained of raising to the Papacy only a- priest or deacon of the Koman Church '. In. tlie circumstances, a stranger such as. Joan is,repre-' sented to be, would be about the last" to be selected for that high dignity.. (4) 'It is certain', says Parsons - (vol. ii, pp. 45-6), on the authority of Onofrio Panvini, . • that , the Popes did not commence to inhabit the - Vatican before -the. reign of Boniface IX., who- .mounted-, the .throne in 1389. And finally, . -(5) to. -quote Schaff's ' History ' again .(vol. i, p; 266) :— :- ' . . „- . 1 There is no gap in the election of the- Popes .be- , twe'en Leo and Benedict, who, according tb contenippr- * , aEy - historians, was canonically elected- three day's after the aeath of Leo IV.' (which • occurred ' July 17tbv855), or at all events in the same month, and consecrated' ' two months after (Sept.- 29th).' ' This does not leave two years and r a half— nor even (all things considered) two. days and a half —for the. fabled reign of the Popess Joan. /In another; work • edited by. the learned Protestant historian and . - divine last quoted, Ihe Revi G. voigt, Ph!D. : , (Protestant) Professor of History in Leipzig, "well describes the _f . Pope Joan story as" '"a fable" which' hardly aTiybjqdy"how's" believes ' (' A Religious Encyclopaedia ', vol. ii, p". li:83, ; rart. ' Joan, Pope '). Here, we may leave the" myth t>f ' the female Pope^-to ' keep company with the stories of Sindbad tie Sailor and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. ' - ' ''>'_■

An article containing a further, investigation of ' Irish Outrages ' is crowded out of this issue by the pressing demands upon our kews columns.