Читать книгу Sketches of Imposture, Deception, and Credulity онлайн

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Account of Pope Joan—Artifice of Pope Sextus V.—Some Christian Ceremonies borrowed from the Jews and Pagans—Melting of the Blood of St. Januarius—Addison’s opinion of it—Description of the Performance of the Miracle—Miraculous Image of our Saviour at Rome—Ludicrous Metamorphosis of a Statue—Relics—Head of St. John the Baptist—Sword of Balaam—St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins—Self-Tormenting—Penances of St. Dominic the Cuirassier—The Crusades—Their Cause and Progress, and the immense numbers engaged in them.

There appears to have been, on the one hand, an extensive belief in the existence of a female Pope Joan, while, on the other, many eminent writers have been anxious to relieve the papal chair of such a scandal.

By the believers in her existence, Joan is affirmed to have worn the tiara between Leo IV. who died 855, and Benedict III. who died 858. Anastatius the library keeper, in that age, does not appear to have made mention of this she-pope; but Marianus Scotus observes, under the year 855, that, Joan a woman, succeeded Leo IV. during two years five months and four days.