Poping Up Everywhere

So, the Pope is retiring, eh?  I don't blame him, really.  In this day and age it's very difficult to be martyred as pope, and so they're all living longer and suffering ill-health.  Why not retire whilst you can still remember your retirement?  It's not the first time a pope has retired, so why worry?

I'm more interested in actual 'firsts', not the 'first since…' and although this is by no means an exhaustive list of 'firsts', I rather like these 'firsts', which tend to put our 'first to resign since…' ex-pope to a wee bit of shame.

 

Pope Clement I (92 to 99 AD)

First pope to be martyred by being thrown out of a boat, tied to the anchor.

This was a punishment for his miracle of providing water for quarry workers, which resulted in large numbers of conversions.  For the record, his watery grave was the Black Sea.

Pope Saint Victor I (189 to 199)

First African pope.  He was born in the Roman Province of Africa: probably in the thriving city of Leptis Magna in Tripolitania.

 

Pope Pontian or Pontianus (230 to 235)

First pope to quit.

Arrested and exiled to the mines of Sardinia as a labourer, he abdicated on 28 September 235 AD to avoid a power vacuum in the Church.

Pope Fabian (236 to 250)

First Pope to be elected by dove.

'Eusebius of Caesarea…relates how the Christians…saw a dove alight upon the head of Fabian, a layman and stranger to the city, who…was at once proclaimed bishop by acclamation.'

 

Pope Siricius (384 to 399)

First pope to issue decretals.  His decree of 385 stated that priests should stop cohabiting with their wives.  Spoilsport.

 

Pope Leo I (440 to 461)

He was the first pope to have been called 'the Great'.  You'll probably know him as the pope who met Attila the Hun in 452 and persuaded him to not invade Italy after all.  Just because all your friends are doing it doesn’t make it all right.

 

Pope Boniface II (530 to 532)

First Germanic pope.  While that in itself is not earth-shattering, it is interesting that he changed the numbering of the years in the Julian Calendar to Anno Domini from Ab Urbe Condita.

 

Pope John II (533 to 535)

First pope to adopt a new regnal name upon being elected to the papacy.  This was because his personal name, Mercurius, honoured the Roman pagan god Mercury.

Pope-elect Stephen (752)

First to get so close, and yet be so far from the papacy.

He was a priest of Rome elected Pope on 23 March 752 AD to succeed Pope Zachary.  However, he died of a stroke only three days later, before being ordained a bishop.  Some pope-lists still include his name and he is sometimes known as Stephen II.  The Vatican sanctioned his addition to the list of popes in the 16th century, but he was removed in 1961 and is no longer considered a pope by the Catholic Church.  Who knows, in another 400 years he could get back in again.

Pope Nicholas I (858 to 867)

First pope to try an exciting career in marriage counselling.

When King Lothair II abandoned his lawful wife to marry his mistress, Pope Nicholas refused to grant an annulment.  At a synod in April 862, the bishops of Lotharingia approved the union, contrary to ecclesiastical law.  In June 863, at another synod, the papal legates, bribed by the king, assented to the previous synod's decision and condemned the king's absent lawful wife.  Upon this, the pope brought the matter before his own tribunal.  Nicholas I declared the Council to be deposed, its messengers excommunicated, and its decisions void.  He never ceased his efforts to bring about reconciliation between Lothair and his wife, but he wasn't successful.

Pope Formosus (891 to 896)

First pope to be tried and deemed unworthy of the pontificate after he was dead.

In what is called the Cadaver Synod, held in the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome in January 897, Formosus's corpse was disinterred, clad in papal vestments, and seated on a throne to face charges of perjury and of having acceded to the papacy illegally.  He was pronounced guilty and his papacy retroactively declared null.  The corpse was then stripped of its vestments, had three fingers cut off on his right hand (the ones used for consecrations, naturally) and ‘watched’ as all of his acts and ordinations were declared invalid.  Formosus was interred in a graveyard for foreigners, only to be dug up again, tied to weights and thrown into the Tiber River.

Pope John XII (955 to 964)

First pope to die whilst enjoying an adulterous sexual encounter.  It is unclear whether he died of apoplexy or at the hands of a jealous husband.

 

Pope Sylvester II (999 to 1003)

The first French pope, Sylvester II was also a cleric-scientist, who endorsed and promoted Arabic knowledge of arithmetic and astronomy in Europe.  He also reintroduced the abacus and armillary spheres, which had been lost to Europe since the end of the Greco-Roman era.  Unsurprisingly he was accused of having studied magical arts and astrology by his enemies, leading to rumours of his being in league with the Devil.  So, he's probably also the first pope to be suspected of sorcery.

Pope Benedict IX (1032 to 1048)

Pope Benedict IX is one of the youngest popes in history, having been approximately twenty years old at his first election.  Yes, his first election.  He is the only man to have been pope on more than one occasion, the only man ever to have sold the papacy, and the first verifiable person to have resigned it too.

In September 1044, Benedict was forced out of Rome, and Pope Sylvester III was elected.  Benedict's forces returned in April 1045 and expelled his rival.  Later that year, as Benedict was considered too scandalous for the Church, his godfather offered him some money to resign the papacy, thus allowing Pope Gregory VI to become pope.  However, Benedict soon regretted this and returned to Rome, taking the city and remaining on the throne until July 1046.  He was declared deposed by King Henry III at the Council of Sutri, giving way to Pope Clement II, but as Benedict had not attended the council, he didn't accept the deposition.  Therefore, when Clement died, Benedict seized the Lateran Palace, only to be driven away by German troops in July 1048.  It is unclear what the little darling’s eventual fate was.

Pope Adrian IV (1154 to 1159)

The only, so in a way first, Englishman to be pope so far.

In a prototypically Englishman-abroad sort of way, he died at Anagni on 1 September 1159, choking on a fly in his wine.

Pope Callixtus III (1455 to 1458)

First pope to excommunicate a comet.

Although it has no known primary sources to support it, according to one story that first appeared in 1475, Callixtus III excommunicated the 1456 visitation of Halley's Comet, believing it to be an ill omen for the Christian defenders of Belgrade.

 

Pope Pius II (1458 to 1464)

First pope to publish an erotic novel and to hang out with Dracula.

He was also the only reigning pope to pen an autobiography, but he is better known for The Tale of Two Lovers, written in 1444 before he became pope.  It is one of the earliest examples of an epistolary novel, written as a series of love letters, full of erotic imagery.

Pius also influenced Vlad III Dracula (Vlad the Impaler), whom he held in high regard, to start a war against Sultan Mehmed II of Turkey.

 

Pope Alexander VI (1492 to 1503)

First pope so interesting and politically 'controversial' that he is being played by Jeremy Irons on Showtime.

Perhaps his life could form a new storyline for a book by Philippa Gregory or Hilary Mantel?

Pope Clement VII (1523 to 1534)

The first pope to be a papacy fashion instigator.

Yes, yes, he was the pope who excommunicated Henry VIII from the Catholic Church for marrying Anne Boleyn, but who cares?  That's been done to death.  What I'm more interested in is the fact that Clement VII was the unintentional originator of a fashion that lasted well over a century: popes having beards.

Clement grew a full beard as a sign of mourning for the sack of Rome.  The only precedent for this had been set by Pope Julius II, who also wore one in mourning for nine months in 1511-12, which was a violation of Catholic canon law.  However, Clement kept his beard until his death.  His beardy example was followed by each of his next twenty-four successors, right down to Pope Innocent XII who died in 1700.

 

Pope Urban VII (13 days in September 1590)

First pope to impose a smoking ban, the world's first smoking ban.

He threatened to excommunicate any who 'took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking with a pipe or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose.'  This was eventually repealed by Pope Benedict XIII (r. 1724-1730).

 

Pope Pius IX (1846 to 1878)

First pope to be photographed; and very fetching he is too.

 

Pope Leo XIII (1878 to 1903)

First pope of whom a sound recording was made – and apparently, his performance of Ave Maria is available on the internet.  He was also the first pope to appear in a moving picture, blessing the camera whilst being filmed (by W K Dickson).

 

Pope Pius XI (1922 to 1939)

Pius XI was the first pope to use the power of modern communications.  He established Vatican Radio in 1931.  It began broadcasting on two shortwave frequencies using 10kW of power on 12 February 1931, with the pontifical message 'Omni creaturae' of Pope Pius XI.  Today, its programmes are offered in 47 languages, and are sent out on short and medium wave, FM, satellite and the internet, and it produces more than 42,000 hours of simultaneous broadcasting covering international news, religious celebrations, features and music.

And an honourable mention has to go to:

Anti-Pope John XXIII (1410 to 1415)

The first person to pursue a career as a land- and sea pirate both before and during his papal escapade, Dr Baldassare Cossa was later convicted of ‘piracy, rape, sodomy, murder and incest’ – amid other ‘more scandalous charges [that] were suppressed’.  One dreads to think.

So, don't get your knickers in twist about our newest ex-pope being the 'first to resign since…'  Why not send him fishing tackle and a gift subscription to The Field with which to enjoy his retirement instead?