A Chain Of Paper Popes

Articles

A Chain Of Paper Popes

By Thomas Keyes
Feb. 27, 2005

Here is a list of the first sixteen Popes of the Roman Catholic Church, with the traditional dates of their Pontificates:

1.) St. Peter (32-67)
2.) St. Linus (67-76)
3.) St. Anacletus (or Cletus) (76-88)
4,) St. Clement I (88-97)
5.) St. Evaristus (or Aristus) (97-105)
6.) St. Alexander I (105-115)
7.) St. Sixtus I (or Xystus I) (115-125)
8.) St. Telesphorus (125-136)
9.) St. Hyginus (136-140)
10.) St. Pius I (140-155)
11.) St. Anicetus (155-166)
12.) St. Soter (166-175)
13.) St. Eleutherius (175-189)
14.) St. Victor I (189-199)
15.) St. Zephyrinus (199-217)
16.) St. Callistus I (217-222)

The names and dates come from various sources. Probably the most famous is the succession list of St. Irenaeus, who lived from around 120 to 200 and who gave the names of the first thirteen Popes. Another source is St. Hegesippus, who died around 180, but his writings are known almost exclusively from St. Eusebius (260-341), who quoted and discussed them. Eusebius sometimes contradicted himself, giving different dates in his Chronicon and his Historia Ecclesiastica. Tertullian, a pagan lawyer of the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries, wrote attacks on Callistus I. Another source is the Liberian Catalogue, prepared during the Pontificate of the uncanonized Pope Liberius around 360, which lists the Popes from Peter to Liberius, the 36th Pope. The Liber Pontificalis is a medieval chronology, whose first edition includes biographies of the Popes from Peter to Stephen V or VI of the 9th century. Other sources for the early Popes include St. Augustine (354-430) and St. Jerome (340-420).

Apparently, the RCCh derives its information on St. Peter from the Gospels alone, and his creation as Pope, in particular, from the Gospel According to St. Matthew, Chapter 16, Verses 18 and 19, where Jesus is reported as saying, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church." In several articles I have written for useless-knowledge.com, I have presented incontrovertible evidence that the Gospel of Matthew is fallacious, or contradicts the Gospel of Luke, or misinterprets the Jewish Bible. There's no cogent evidence for the existence of Jesus as a real person, much less for that of St. Peter.

And it's very difficult to find any real evidence for the historical existence of the first ten Popes or so. The information presented in articles in the Catholic Encyclopedia usually consists of attempting to reconcile the often- irreconcilable chronologies given in the sources listed above, all of which were compiled decades or centuries after the supposed time of the early Popes. Not only do dates vary, but even the order of succession is open to question. In some cases, there are disagreements even as to names of the Popes. But there is very little in the way of verifiable facts concerning the lives and deeds of the early Popes.

One ruse the RCCh uses in its efforts to make the early Popes seem real consists in fixing the dates of a particular Pontificate, say 67-76 AD, and describing events known to have gone on in the Roman Empire at that time, as if the denominated Pope had somehow been involved in these affairs, much as one might invent a fictitious WWI hero and give him plausibility by surrounding his story with checkable historical facts. Another ruse is to attribute church customs and rulings to his Pontificate. But it's very difficult to find any extra-ecclesiastical references to most of the early Popes. An extant letter is attributed to Clement I, and a fragment of another letter is attributed to Soter, but forgeries are commonplace in church history. Even more commonplace is attributing a book or a letter to the wrong person, either deliberately or by by error.

Another consideration that comes into play here is the fact that the tenth Pope, St. Pius I, is claimed to have been the first sole Bishop of Rome. The earlier Popes were, at best, if they existed at all, pastors of local churches inside Rome. And it wasn't till the 45th Pope, St. Leo I. whose Pontificate was 440-461, that the authority of the Popes extended very far beyond the city of Rome. Calling such local preachers Popes is therefore also open to question.

More importantly, it seems to me that St. Irenaeus and some of his successors have been guilty of counterfeiting Popes, that is, making up names out of thin air, or perhaps adopting rumors and legends. Their obvious intent was to fabricate the appearance of a succession of Popes right from St. Peter to the first genuinely historical Popes, filling in the gaps in any way they could. Once the skeleton of a Papal dynasty had been fabricated, all that remained to do was flesh it out by inventing biographies and traditions, creating lists, writing lives of saints, painting pictures, carving statues, manufacturing relics and building chapels.

At some time in history, though, Popes must have started getting real. Maybe Callistus was the first real Pope. Maybe one of the earlier ones was. I can't venture a guess.

Anyway, the Catholic Church, with its fanciful New Testament and chain of paper Popes, got serious about making some money around the time of Emperor Constantine, and can boast tremendous successes even today.

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About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far.

I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents.

Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com

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