Pope Joan: Was There Really a Female Pope? Pope Joan: Was There Really a Female Pope? Pope Joan: Was There Really a Female Pope? Was There Really a Female Pope Named Joan? kladcat/Wikimedia Commons By Austin Cline Updated February 17, 2016. There is a persistent and popular legend that a woman once managed to rise to the office of pope. This tale got its start some time during the Middle Ages and continues to be repeated today, but there is little if any evidence supporting it. Textual References The earliest reference to a popess can be found in the 11th century writing of Martinus Scotus, a monk from the Abbey of St. Martin of Cologne: “In AD 854, Lotharii 14, Joanna, a woman, succeeded Leo, and reigned two years, five months, and four days.” In the 12th century, a scribe named Sigebert de Gemlours wrote: “It is reported that this John was a female, and that she conceived a child by one of her servants.

The Pope, becoming pregnant, gave birth to a child, whereof some do not number her among the Pontiffs.” The most famous and detailed account of the Pope Joan comes from the Chronicron pontificum et imperatum (The Chronicle of the Popes and Emperors), written in the mid-13th century by Martin of Troppau (Martinus Polonus). According to Troppau: “After Leo IV, John the Englishman (Anglicus), a native of Metz, reigned two years, five months and four days. And the pontificate was vacant for a month. He died in Rome. This man, it is claimed, was a woman and when a girl, accompanied her sweetheart in male costume to Athens; there she advanced in various sciences to the extent that her equal could not be found. So, after having studied for three years in Rome, she had great masters for her pupils and hearers. And when there arose a high opinion in the city of her virtue and knowledge, she was unanimously elected Pope. But during her papacy she became in the family way by a companion.

Not knowing the time of the birth, as she was on her way from St Peter's to Lateran she had a painful delivery, between the Coliseum and St Clement's Church, in the street. Having died after, it is said she was buried on the spot.” Legends say that a stone slab marked the spot where Joan gave birth and was buried, but out of embarrassment Pope Pius V had it removed in the late 16th century. There is also supposedly a statue on this street depicting a mother a child — representations of the popess and her infant. Evidence for a Pope Joan? Believers in the legend point to a number of things that they claim support its truth. Papal processions stopped using the street in question. Popes starting being carried around in a chair with a hole in the bottom, supposedly designed to allow cardinals to check the gender of the person using it. As late as 1600, there was evidently a bust of Johannes VIII, femina ex Anglia in a row of papal busts at the Siena Cathedral. The legend should probably be rejected. First, there aren’t any contemporary accounts of a Pope Joan — the first reports come hundreds of years after she supposedly ruled.

Second, it would be difficult if not impossible to insert a papacy of more than two years anywhere that Pope Joan is alleged to have existed. A papacy of a few days or months may be credible, but not of multiple years. Perhaps just as interesting as the legend of Pope Joan is the question of why someone would take the trouble to invent the tale in the first place. The legend was most popular during the Reformation , when Protestants were eager for anything negative that could be said about the papacy, regarding the institution as an affront to God . Edward Gibbon argued that the source of the legend is likely the extreme influence that the Theophylact women had on the papacy during the 10th century. In the 16th century, Cardinal Baronius wrote: “A certain shameless strumpet called Theodora at one time was sole monarch of Rome and — shame though it is to write it — exercised power like a man. She had two daughters, Marozia and Theodora, who were not only her equals but could surpass her in the exercises that Venus loves .” The details of their lives are generally unknown and Baronius may be unfair in his assessment.

It is likely, however, that the women were connected to as many as four popes of the era: mistresses, wives, and even mothers. Thus, while there may not have been an actual Pope Joan in the 9th century, women did exercise extraordinary influence over the papacy for a time during the 10th. Pope Joan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Pope Joan Pope Joan with tiara as the Whore of Babylon . Pope Joan (also called La Papessa ) is the name of a legendary female pope who supposedly reigned for less than three years in the 850s, between the papacies of Leo IV and Benedict III . She is known primarily from a legend that circulated in the Middle Ages. Pope Joan is regarded by most modern historians and religious scholars as fictitious, possibly originating as an anti-papal satire. Contents 9 External links [ edit ] The legend of Pope Joan The story of Pope Joan is known mainly from the 13th century chronicler Martin of Opava (Martin von Troppau to Germans, also known as Martinus Polonus, "Martin the Pole").

In the Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum, it is written: "John Anglicus, born at Mainz , was pope for two years, seven months and four days, and died in Rome , after which there was a vacancy in the papacy of one month. It is claimed that this John was a woman, who as a girl had been led to Athens dressed in the clothes of a man by a certain lover of hers. There she became proficient in a diversity of branches of knowledge, until she had no equal, and afterwards in Rome , she taught the liberal arts and had great masters among her students and audience. A high opinion of her life and learning arose in the city, and she was chosen for pope. While pope, however, she became pregnant by her companion. Through ignorance of the exact time when the birth was expected, she was delivered of a child while in procession from St Peter's to the Lateran , in a lane once named Via Sacra (the sacred way) but now known as the "shunned street" between the Colisseum and St Clement's church . After her death, it is said she was buried in that same place.

The Lord Pope always turns aside from the street and it is believed by many that this is done because of abhorrence of the event. Nor is she placed on the list of the holy pontiffs, both because of her female sex and on account of the foulness of the matter." (Martin of Opava, Chronicon Pontificum et Imperatorum) An untitled Popess on the "Rosenwald Sheet" of uncut Tarot woodcut designs, late 15th-early 16th century (National Gallery, Washington) This event is said to have taken place between the reigns of Leo IV and Benedict III in the 850s. Versions of the story appear in sources earlier than Martin; the one most commonly cited is Anastasius Bibliothecarius (d. 886) a compiler of Liber Pontificalis , who would have been a contemporary of the female Pope. However, the story is not found in reliable manuscripts of Anastasius. In fact, only one manuscript of Anastasius' Liber Pontificalis contains a reference to the female Pope.

This manuscript, in the Vatican Library , bears the relevant passage inserted as a footnote at the bottom of a page, out of sequence, and in a different hand, one that certainly dates from after the time of Martin von Troppau . This "witness" to the female Pope is likely to be based upon Martin's account, and certainly not a possible source for it. The same is true of Marianus Scotus 's Chronicle of the Popes, a text written in the 11th century. Some manuscripts of it contain a brief mention of a female Pope named Joanna (the earliest source to identify her with a specific name), but all these manuscripts are, again, later than Martin's work. Earlier manuscripts do not contain the legend. There is only one source for a female Pope which certainly antedates Martin of Opava, and this is Jean de Mailly , who wrote slightly earlier in the 13th century. In his chronicle of Metz , Chronica Universalis Mettensis, he dates the scandal not to the 850s but to 1099, and writes: "Query.

Concerning a certain pope or rather female pope, who is not set down in the list of popes or bishops of Rome, because she was a woman who disguised herself as a man and became, by her character and talents, a curial secretary, then a cardinal and finally pope. One day, while mounting a horse, she gave birth to a child. Immediately, by Roman justice, she was bound by the feet to a horse 's tail and dragged and stoned by the people for half a league. And where she died, there she was buried, and at the place is written: 'Petre, Pater Patrum, Papisse Prodito Partum' [O Peter , Father of Fathers, Betray the childbearing of the woman pope]. At the same time, the four-day fast called the "fast of the female pope" was first established." (Jean de Mailly, Chronica Universalis Mettensis). From the mid-13th century onwards, then, the legend was widely disseminated and believed. Joan was used as an exemplum in Dominican preaching.

Bartolomeo Platina , the scholar who was prefect of the Vatican Library, wrote his Vitæ Pontificum Platinæ historici liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum qui hactenus ducenti fuere et XX in 1479 at the behest of his patron, Pope Sixtus IV . The book contains the following account of the female Pope: "Pope John VIII: John, of English extraction, was born at Mentz ( Mainz ) and is said to have arrived at Popedom by evil art; for disguising herself like a man, whereas she was a woman, she went when young with her paramour, Frumentius , a learned man, to Athens , and made such progress in learning under the professors there that, coming to Rome, she met with few that could equal, much less go beyond her, even in the knowledge of the scriptures; and by her learned and ingenious readings and disputations, she acquired so great respect and authority that upon the death of [Pope] Leo [IV] (as Martin says) by common consent she was chosen Pope in his room.

As she was going to the Lateran Church between the Colossean Theatre (so called from Nero 's Colossus) and St. Clement's her travail came upon her, and she died upon the place, having sat two years, one month, and four days, and was buried there without any pomp. This story is vulgarly told, but by very uncertain and obscure authors, and therefore I have related it barely and in short, lest I should seem obstinate and pertinacious if I had admitted what is so generally talked; I had better mistake with the rest of the world; though it be certain, that what I have related may be thought not altogether incredible." ( Bartolomeo Platina , Vitæ Pontificum Platinæ historici liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum qui hactenus ducenti fuere et XX ) References to the female pope abound in the later Middle Ages and Renaissance . Giovanni Boccaccio wrote about her in De mulieribus claris (1353).

[1] The Chronicon of Adam of Usk (1404) gives her a name, Agnes, and furthermore mentions a statue in Rome which is said to be of her. This statue had never been mentioned by any earlier writer anywhere; presumably it was an actual statue that came to be taken to be of the female Pope. A late 14th century edition of the Mirabilia Urbis Romae, a guidebook for pilgrims to Rome, tells readers that the female Pope's remains are buried at St. Peter's. It was around this time when a long series of busts of past Popes was made for the Duomo of Siena , which included one of the female Pope, named as "Johannes VIII, Foemina de Anglia" and included between Leo IV and Benedict III. At his trial in 1415, Jan Hus argued that the Church does not necessarily need a Pope, because during the pontificate of "Pope Agnes" (as he also called her), it got on quite well. Hus's opponents at this trial insisted that his argument proved no such thing about the independence of the Church, but they did not dispute that there had been a female Pope at all.

The Tarot , which surfaced in the mid-15th century, includes a Papesse with its Pape (since the late 19th century called The High Priestess and the Hierophant in English). It is often suggested, with some plausibility although no real proof, that this image was inspired by the legend of the female Pope. There were associated legends as well. In the 1290s the Dominican Robert of Uzès recounted a vision in which he saw the seat "where, it is said, the Pope is proved to be a man". By the 14th century, it was believed that two ancient marble seats, called the sedia stercoraria, which were used for enthroning new Popes in the Basilica of St. John Lateran , had holes in the seats that were used for determining the gender of the new Pope. It was said that the Pope would have to sit on one of the seats naked, while a committee of cardinals peered through the hole from beneath. Not until the late 15th century, however, was it said that this peculiar practice was instituted in response to the scandal of the 9th century female Pope.

[ edit ] Criticism of the legend In 1587 Florimond de Raemond, a magistrate in the parlement de Bordeaux and an antiquary , published his first attempt to deconstruct the legend, Erreur populaire de la papesse Jeanne (also subsequently published under the title L'Anti-Papesse). The tract applied humanist techniques of textual criticism to the Pope Joan legend, with the broader intent of supplying sound historical principles to ecclesiastical history, and the legend began to come apart, detail by detail. Raemond's Erreur populaire went through fifteen editions, as late as 1691. [2] In 1601, Pope Clement VIII declared the legend of the female Pope to be untrue. The famous bust of her, inscribed Johannes VIII, femina ex Anglia, which had been carved for the series of papal figures in the Duomo of Siena about 1400 and was noted by travelers, was either destroyed or recarved and relabeled, replaced by a male figure, of Pope Zachary (Stanford 1999; J.N.D. Kelly, Oxford Dictionary of Popes).

One legend says that Joan was the illegitimate daughter of a former Pope and had a vision from God that she should succeed her father and become Pope. Another legend says that a street in Italy is named after her and her body is buried beneath it. In some legends, Pope Joan is not murdered after being revealed as a woman. Instead she is deposed, lives the rest of her life in a convent and her son is made Bishop of Hostia . Here is a passage from a Berlin manuscript: “She was deposed for her incontinence, and taking up the religious habit, lived in penitence for such a long time that she saw her son made Bishop of Hostia [ Ostia , near Rome]. When, in her final days, she perceived her death approaching, she instructed that her burial should be in that place where she had given birth, which nevertheless her son would not permit. Having removed her body to Hostia, he buried her with honour in the Cathedral. On account of which, God has worked many miracles right up to the present day.” (Berlin Manuscript[ citation needed ]) Since the 14th century, the figure of Pope Joan has taken on a somewhat saintly figure.

There are stories of her figure appearing and performing miracles. Francesco Petrarch (1304-74) wrote in his Chronica de le Vite de Pontefici et Imperadori Romani that after Pope Joan had been revealed as a woman: "...in Brescia it rained blood for three days and nights. In France there appeared marvelous locusts which had six wings and very powerful teeth. They flew miraculously through the air, and all drowned in the British Sea. The golden bodies were rejected by the waves of the sea and corrupted the air, so that a great many people died." ( Francesco Petrarch Chronica de le Vite de Pontefici et Imperadori Romani). In 1675 a book appeared in English entitled A Present for a Papist: or the Life and Death of Pope Joan, Plainly Proving Out of the Printed Copies, and Manscriptes of Popish Writers and Others, that a Woman called JOAN, was really POPE of ROME, and was there Deliver'd of a Bastard Son in the open Street as She went in Solemn Procession.

The book describes among other stories, an account of the purported Pope Joan giving birth to a son in plain view of all those around, accompanied by a detailed engraving showing a rather surprised looking baby peeking out from under the pope's robes. The book was penned "By a LOVER of TRUTH, Denying Human Infallibility." According to the preface the author had been "many years since deceased" and was "highly preferred in the Church of Rome." Furthermore, the preface indicates that the book was first printed in 1602. [ edit ] Analysis This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913. Most scholars dismiss Pope Joan as a medieval legend .

[3] The Oxford Dictionary of Popes [4] acknowledges that this legend was widely believed for centuries, even among Catholic circles, but declares that there is "no contemporary evidence for a female pope at any of the dates suggested for her reign," and goes on to say that "the known facts of the respective periods make it impossible to fit [a female pope] in" although this is disputed due to the Liber pontificalis , the only continuous record of ninth century Popes, not being considered entirely accurate with regard to dates of succession and deaths with many of these dates known to be wholly invented. The legend of Pope Joan actually was initially discredited by David Blondel , a mid-17th century Protestant historian, who suggested that Pope Joan's tale may have originated in a satire against Pope John XI , who died in his early 20s. Blondel, through detailed analysis of the claims and suggested timings, argued that no such events could have happened.

The Catholic Encyclopedia elaborates on the historical timeline problem: “Between Leo IV and Benedict III, where Martinus Polonus places her, she cannot be inserted, because Leo IV died 17 July 855 , and immediately after his death Benedict III was elected by the clergy and people of Rome; but owing to the setting up of an antipope , in the person of the deposed Cardinal Anastasius, he was not consecrated until 29 September . Coins exist which bear both the image of Benedict III and of Emperor Lothair I , who died 28 September 855 ; therefore Benedict must have been recognized as pope before the last-mentioned date. On 7 October 855 , Benedict III issued a charter for the Abbey of Corvey. Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims , informed Nicholas I that a messenger whom he had sent to Leo IV learned on his way of the death of this pope, and therefore handed his petition to Benedict III, who decided it (Hincmar, ep. xl in P.L., CXXXVI, 85).

All these witnesses prove the correctness of the dates given in the lives of Leo IV and Benedict III, and there was no interregnum between these two popes, so that at this place there is no room for the alleged popess.” It is also notable that enemies of the Papacy in the ninth century make no mention of a female Pope. For example, Photius I of Constantinople , who became patriarch in 858 and was deposed by Pope Nicholas I in 863, was understandably an enemy of the Pope. He vehemently asserted his own authority as patriarch over that of the Pope in Rome, and would certainly have made the most of any scandal of that time regarding the Papacy. But he never mentions the story once in any of his voluminous writings. Indeed, at one point he mentions "Leo and Benedict, successively great priests of the Roman Church". [5] No source describing a female pope exists from earlier than the mid-12th century, almost exactly four hundred years after the time when Pope Joan allegedly existed. It is hard to believe that an event like a Pope unexpectedly giving birth in public and being stoned to death would not be mentioned by any writers or historians at the time.

The recent historian of the legend, Alain Boureau (Boureau 1988), finds that the origins of the story are to be found in the carnival and parody traditions of the twelfth century. Rosemary and Darrell Pardoe, authors of The Female Pope: The Mystery of Pope Joan. The First Complete Documentation of the Facts behind the Legend, are theorizing that a more plausible timeframe would be 1086-1108, when there were several antipopes, and the reign of the legitimate popes Victor III , Urban II and Paschal II was not always established in Rome , since this city was occupied by Emperor Henry IV , and later sacked by the Normans . [6] This is all in agreement with the earliest known version of the legend, by Jean de Mailly , as he places the story in the year 1099. De Mailly's story was also acknowledged by his companion Stephen of Bourbon . It has been argued that manuscripts and historical records were tampered with in the seventeenth century, when Pope Clement VIII decreed that there had never been a Pope Joan.

But this claim is highly unlikely: either passages would have to be physically erased from manuscripts - something that obviously leaves marks - or the manuscripts would have to be completely destroyed and replaced with forgeries. Modern scholars can date manuscripts quite accurately on the basis of the materials used, handwriting styles, and so on; any such tampering or replacement would be easily detectable. What is more, it would have required an immense conspiratorial effort to remove Joan's name from all documents in every library and monastery across Europe , a task almost impossible to carry out. Protestants of the time would have assuredly protected evidence in their possession that disparaged the papacy, further increasing the obstacles to the successful completion of any such plot. Against the weight of historical evidence to the contrary the question remains as to why the Pope Joan story has been so often believed and revisited. Some, such as writer Philip Jenkins , author of The New Anti-Catholicism , have suggested that the periodic revival of what Jenkins calls this "anti-papal legend" has more to do with feminist and anti-Catholic wishful thinking than historical accuracy [7] .

[ edit ] Related issues The sedes stercoraria (defecation seats), the thrones with holes in it at St John Lateran's did indeed exist, and were used in the elevation of Pope Pascal II in 1099 (Boureau 1988). In fact, one is still in the Vatican Museums , another at the Musée du Louvre . They do indeed have a hole in the seat. The reason for the hole is disputed, but as both the seats and their holes predated the Pope Joan story, and indeed Catholicism by centuries, they clearly have nothing to do with a need to check the sex of a pope.

It has been speculated that they originally were Roman bidets or imperial birthing stools, which because of their age and imperial links were used in ceremonies by popes intent on highlighting their own imperial claims (as they did also with their Latin title, Pontifex Maximus ).[2] Alain Boureau (Boureau 1988:23) quotes the humanist Jacopo d'Angelo de Scarparia who visited Rome in 1406 for the enthronement of Gregory XII in which the pope sat briefly on two "pierced chairs" at the Lateran: "the vulgar tell the insane fable that he is touched to verify that he is indeed a man" a sign that this corollary of the Pope Joan legend was still current in the Roman street. Medieval Popes, from the thirteenth century onwards, did indeed avoid the direct route between the Lateran and St Peter's, as Martin of Opava claimed. However, there is no evidence that this practice dated back any earlier, let alone that it originated in the ninth century as a deliberate rebuff to the memory of the female Pope.

The origin of the practice is uncertain, but it is quite likely that it was maintained because of widespread belief in the Joan legend and that it was thought genuinely to date back to that period. Although some medieval writers referred to the female Pope as "John VIII", the real Pope John VIII reigned between 872 and 882, and his life does not resemble that of the fictional female Pope in any way. A problem sometimes connected to the Pope Joan legend is the fact that there is no Pope John XX in any official list. It is sometimes said that this reflects a renumbering of the Popes to exclude the woman from history. Yet as historians have known since Louis Duchesne 's critical edition of the Liber Pontificalis , this renumbering was actually due to a misunderstanding in the textual transmission of the official papal lists, where in the course of the 11th century, in the time after John XIX , the entry on John XIV had been misread as being referring to two different popes of this name, who then came to be distinguished as Iohannes XIV. and Iohannes XIV. bis ("John XIV the second").

The existence of a "second" pope John XIV was widely accepted in the 13th century, and by consequence the numbering of popes John XV through XIX was regarded as being erroneous. When Petrus Hispanus was elected pope in 1276 and chose the papal name John, he meant to correct this error in enumeration by skipping the number XX and having himself counted as John XXI , thus acknowledging the presumed existence of John XIV "bis" in the 10th century who had nothing to do with the alleged existence of a pope John (Joan) VIII in the 9th century. [ edit ] In popular culture In Lady Godina's Rout;—or—Peeping-Tom spying out Pope-Joan (1796), James Gillray caricatured a game of Pope-Joan. "Lady Godina" is holding the diamond nine, called the "Pope" in the game. Pope Joan is also the name of a British card game.

The earliest reference to the game Pope Joan appears in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1732, although it did not become truly popular until the 19th century, and it did not appear in Hoyle until 1826. It is an ancestor to the modern games of Tripoli, Rummy Royale, or Michigan Rummy. But games with similar betting boards date back to the 1400s in the form of a German game known as "Poch." Requiem for an Android, chapter 1, part 1 of 2 Requiem for an Android Chapter 1: And Peace on Earth part 1 of 2 A research android poses a simple question to Mother Saulcerite of the planet Bavaria: does an android have a soul that can be redeemed? Is it enough to be pious and law-abiding and to have free will, or is the non-human excluded by definition? The question involves Mother Saulcerite’s research into the history of Gregoria I, the first official female Pope. The quest for an answer leads her to the discovery of a secret monastic order and takes her on a mission of espionage in the Roman catacombs.

When the time for secrecy, disguise and subterfuge is past, the answers to many questions will become clear, as they always were. The moons spun a cocoon of orbits around the planet Bavaria. As the brilliant double suns of this solar system worked their way along the vault of heaven, their rays refracted through the different diamond moons and spread an incessantly changing spectrum of daylight on the sunny side of the planet. And when the rain came, the rainbows threw their zigzag spans in all directions across the heavens. Mother Saulcerite hurried up to her lunch at the bar opposite the revolving meeting house of the Christian sect of the Eastercostals. Standing in line, she mixed with beings from the other systems of the Federation. Saulcerite — a local priest of the Catholic Church — was at work upon her doctoral dissertation about the second female Pope, Gregoria I. As far back as the 9th century Anno Domini, the Catholic Church, according to doubtful legends, had had its first female Pope. Pope Joan was said to have followed Leo IV in the year 855 and to have died in that same year.

She called herself Johannes Angelicus and passed as a man, but during a procession in Rome her identity was discovered when she gave birth to a child. According to tradition, the furious Romans forgot a certain commandment and stoned their exposed Pope to death. In that sense, the female Pope Joan would have signified a premonition of the black century of the papacy, the saeculum obscurum, which occurred twenty years later when the papacy fell into decay with a series of unworthy Popes. Long ago, the legend about the female Pope had been published in handwriting, beginning in the 13th century and later, inter alia, according to a book by von Döllinger in A.D. 1890, Die Papst-Fabeln des Mittelalters . But Mother Saulcerite, who had her parochial work to deal with, was not interested in the apocryphal Pope Joan. She was interested in Gregoria I and the circumstances under which this delicate being became the first official female Pope. For the day, the sky was unusually clear of moons.

As a rule, the moons moved across the vault of heaven around the clock, so that it was next to impossible on the planet of Bavaria to transmit enormous hologram projections at the height of twenty kilometers or so up in space. But now and then, as on this day, the sky was as good as clear of moons. It was possible to turn on the vision-system day and night, so that the sky became just one big 5D screen and people could do without the small receivers, which had totally gone out of fashion in most parts of the space Federation. As Mother Saulcerite sat in the meeting house, an android approached her. It was dressed in a T-shirt with an H2O-emblem on its breast, which proclaimed the wearer’s status as an android. She recognized this Gestalt: it often sat in her church, attending mass. It worried her. There was something weird about an artificial being who went to church and piously clasped its hands during prayers. Now it sat down by her side and ordered a glass of android lemonade. “Excuse me for disturbing you,” it said, “but are you still working on your thesis about the first female Pope?” “Rather the second,” said Mother Saulcerite.

“Nobody seems to have paid much attention to her.” “That’s right,” Saulcerite replied. “For some strange reason Gregoria I has not tempted scholars very much.” “Maybe not very much happened during her short pontificate?” “Ten months.” “I’m a research android,” the android explained. “My name is Paxinterra.” “Peaceonearth,” Saulcerite translated from the Latin, and for a moment her thoughts went to the theological controversy as to the right interpretation of this expression. Some considered that peace on earth concerned only the mother planet, Earth, the celestial body where Rome and the papacy were situated. Others suggested that the concept should be understood in a broader sense as referring to any celestial body. “Peaceonearth,” the android repeated. “Yes, that’s right.” Saulcerite snorted. “My specialty: one thousand years of Scandinavian languages,” the android said unexpectedly. Saulcerite wrinkled her face. “Scandinavian...? Let me see. Where did I hear that peculiar word?” “Well, the Scandinavians were only an insignificant footnote in cosmic history,” the android observed, “but by all means an interesting one.

You see, there was once a legend on Earth in those countries about someone called Necken. The name means ‘naked’. This Necken was a mythological being who sat on a cliff in the water and played an old-fashioned instrument. He drew a bow across animal intestines — a violin or a fiddle. Have you heard of the violin?” “Of course. It’s still used at times.” “Yes. Anyhow, there was a Scandinavian poet called Stagnelius.” “A Latin ending,” Saulcerite noted. “He wrote about Necken.” A long silence. Saulcerite got a feeling that they were beginning to approach the essence of the conversation. “Well?” she asked. “In this poem it is stated that Necken can never find salvation.” Nervously, Saulcerite fumbled at her rosary. What was the android driving at? Paxinterra broke the silence. “Let me take another example. There was a storyteller in Scandinavia. His name was H.C. Andersen.” “The ugly duckling,” Saulcerite murmured. “So, he was a Scandinavian.” “He wrote a tale about a little mermaid.” “So what?” Saulcerite said tartly.

Now that she knew the connection with Necken, she wanted to know where the conversation would lead. “Neither could this mermaid be redeemed.” “She neither?” “Neither the Necken of Stagnelius nor the mermaid of Andersen. But she sacrificed herself, and an opportunity opened up for her. It was a painful way, a long and difficult journey of suffering, a via dolorosa. But it would lead her to salvation.” “To the point, please!” Saulcerite said desperately. “An android cannot be redeemed.” She looked at him in surprise and panic, although deep down she had sensed that Paxinterra would put that impossible question to her. “An android can never find salvation,” the android repeated. “But an android can be profoundly religious.” “What is all this supposed to mean?” Suddenly Saulcerite stood up and accidentally poked a red-checkered reptile from Galtrism. “No worries,” the reptile transmitted. It had perceived the apology originating from the mind of Saulcerite. The reptile crawled on toward its evening meal and the upcoming negotiations at the chamber of commerce.

“It means that I — the android Paxinterra, who was manufactured seven months ago at the android factory of Deimos — that I believe in God the the Father, the Almighty, the Creator of heaven and the planets. That I believe in Jesus Christ, his only begotten son, Our Lord, as well as in the Holy Ghost, a holy Catholic Church. “But there is no salvation outside the church. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus. An android is forever condemned to be outside the church, and still — you must understand me, Mother Saulcerite — I am alive in God’s wonderful Creation, and I believe.” “Good God.” Saulcerite stared at him. They meditated in silence, but their thoughts were interrupted by loud color signals on the western, moonfree part of the sky. An important message was expected. Faster than light it would reach them through hyperspace within a few seconds. All colors were erased from the sky and only two of the three moons appeared dimly in the brownish yellow daylight in the East. The papal tiara was shown and the popular Father Noster of the Vatican became visible.

He looked down with a grave smile on the inhabitants of the capital of Bavaria, just as he — while the message was spread to other inhabited worlds — would look down on inhabitants on other planets in other systems. “We bring to you a great sorrow. Il Papa, Pope Paul LX, has passed away. We bring to you a recording of his last minutes in life.” The death struggle of the deceased Pope was shown on the sky. One could see his forced smile pierce his physical pain. With the assistance of a Brigittine, he raised his hand and made the sign of blessing. His head collapsed on the invisible pillow of pasemite. A few wheezes. It was over. A doctor in a soutane bent down over the dead Pope and opened the cloth at the breast. Saulcerite discerned a symbol there, but only for a second. It was a moment of recognition for her, but the doctor blocked her view. Some kind of device was lowered over the chest of the dead Pope, and the symbol was not seen again. Saulcerite went down on her knees and prayed for the soul of her spiritual leader.

She prayed for a long time and, when she at last stood up, she found that Paxinterra, too, was praying. She did not know if he prayed for the soul of the Pope or for his own salvation. “I make a fool of myself,” Paxinterra said finally, “but nobody can prevent me from being a fool.” “I don’t know what to say,” Saulcerite replied slowly. “Even though you’re right when you say that an android has no soul and cannot be redeemed, God is omnipresent; He hears us. Why should He not hear you? Human beings on Earth created the androids. You’re the handiwork of humans.” 1000+ images about Pope Joan on Pinterest | Legends, English and Art & literature Forward +.+.+.+ II - the High Priestess +.+.+.+ A regal-looking woman, perhaps the legendary Pope Joan, sits on a throne with a Papal tiara and staff. She is flanked by columns, one light and one dark. A cheetah sits obediently at her feet. She cradles a large red book. "Female intuition. Spiritual awareness, and acceptance of life's mysteries. Secret knowledge, intelligence and intuition.

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Question: According to a story originating in the 9th century, and disputed by the Catholic Church, who was the first female Pope?
Answer: Pope Joan