Documenting, arguably, four Jewish popes (Cleveland Jewish News)

[Petergee]

Sean O L:

If I suggested to you that a post of such lenght would NOT be appropriate - would that allay the tendency to be flattered?

If you had left out the material which had been already posted in this thread, it would have been only half a dozen lines.

The same applied to St Evaristus who is also alleged to have been born in Bethlehem. I am sorry that you are not able to acknowledge the possibility - let alone the probability of him being an ethnic Judean.

What part of “very little is known of the ancestry of the Popes of the first couple of centuries” don’t you understand. This clearly includes St Evaristus (97-105AD). And in any case,after 70 AD the population of the province of Judea was mainly Gentile.

Why ought I be surprised at that? The claim still remains unsubstantiated, and you are consistent. It was for this quality that Ani Ibi wrote:

Frankly I’m at a loss to understand what either you or Ani feel I owe you an “apology” for, or what it is you think I am trying to “dodge”. And in the case of the issue that was buzzing in Ani’s bonnet, I submitted to the judgment of the moderator who ruled that “Yank” is not an offensive term and that no apology for it is required.

Frankly, mate, I am unconcerned what you will accept or not!

That’s too bad, mate, I thought we would be able to shed some light on this subject. I’m sure we would have been able to shed a lot more if you weren’t so precious about it. I won’t bother you any more about the subject.

Except to point out that you’re quite wrong to say that it’s only “technically” true to say that none of the purported “Jewish Popes” came from the ghetto. A ghetto is not just a name for a place where a lot of Jews live. Of course Jews, like any other ethnic or religious group, have always and still do tend to congregate voluntarily near others of the same ilk. In the case of Orthodox Jews there is the added requirement to live within a very short distance of a synagogue for religious and practical reasons. But a ghetto is something else entirely. A ghetto was an area circumscribed by law in which Gentile authorities demanded that Jews MUST live (and often, work, unless holding special permission). There were no ghettoes, by that or any other name, until the 16th century, when many States introduced them; spooked by the almost overnight loss of entire countries to heresy and the renewed assault on the heartland of Europe by the Turks, they grew nervous at and reacted to the presence of the non-Christian minority who had lived among them for centuries.

And of course as I mentioned, the purported Pierloni “Pope” was not a pope, but a false claimant. And as his family had been Christian for over 100 years he can hardly be claimed to be “from the ghetto” or even “from Jewish surroundings”. And as they had been very rich for centuries I hardly think they were living in a filthy overcrowded tenement slum. So the Prinz/Geduld claim is not only wrong, but wrong three times over.

 

[Sean_O_L]

For anyone interested in evidence for refuting the unsupported claim that “St Peter was the only Pope of Jewish descent” (see post #5 above) :

1. Extract from the “Annuario Pontificio” of 1871 from an obviously orthodox source ( tuttipapi.it/ ) - see CRONOLOGIA DEI PAPI - at tuttipapi.it/CRONOLOGIA.htm - where
   Pope St Evaristus (a.k.a. Evaristo, a.k.k. Aristus) is shown at #6 as being "di “Betlem”, and

Pope Gregorio VI (a.k.k. Gregory VI) shows his name at #148 as “Giovanni Graziano Pierleoni” (a.k.a. John Gratian Pierleoni).

1. CATHOLIC ONLINE/ Saints & Angels at catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=633
   as to St Evaristus states: ”The Liber Pontificalis says that he was the son of a Hellenic Jew of Bethlehem.”
2. “Al Bushra” - an Arabic Catholic web-site associated with the Catholic Patriarchate of Jerusalem - carries an article “Jerusalem 2000, a journey to the Great Jubilee, The Christian Minority in Palestine,” by Rev. Dr. Antoun Issa, at al-bushra.org/jubilee/0001_odeh.htm , stating:

“In Judea, the beginning of this expansion came with the first activities of the Apostles outside Jerusalem at the time of the dispersion. It is certain that Christians lived in Bethlehem, the home of Pope Evarist (98-107) who was born of a Judeo-Christian father “of the town of Bethlehem”(15) and emigrated to Antioch.”

The footnote is as follows:
*“15) ANASTHASE BIBLIOTHECA!RE, Historia de VitisRo. Pont. (S. Evaristus), VI, 6 in MIGNE, Patrologia Latina (PatroIogiae cursus completus: series Latina), CXXV1I, 1135-1136; ibid… Appendix ad vitas Romanorum Ponuficiun, CXXVIII, 1406, VI “. *

1. The “Catholic Encyclopedia” at NEW ADVENT has an entry on Pope St Evaristus:

“In the Liberian Catalogue his name is given as Aristus. In papal catalogues of the second century used by Irenaeus and Hippolytus, he appears as the fourth successor of St. Peter, immediately after St Clement. The same lists allow him eight years of reign, covering the end of the first and the beginning of the second century (from about 98 or 99 to about 106 or 107). The earliest historical sources offer no authentic data about him. In his “Ecclesiastical History” Eusebius says merely that he succeeded Clement in the episcopate of the Roman Church which fact was already known from St. Irenaeus. This order of succession is undoubtedly correct. The “Liber Pontificalis” says that Evaristus came of a Hellenic family, and was the son of a Bethlehem Jew.’

Petergee categorically claimed that “St Peter was the only Pope of Jewish descent". It appears to me to be clear that this is a spurious claim – and I have provided a mountain of prior evidence. Petergee has provided none.

As to Anacletus II – he was elected pope by a majority of cardinals, sat on the Papal Throne for eight years, and died occupying it. The Church declared him to be an antipope, and so it was. Nevertheless, he WAS from the ethnically Jewish Pierleoni family.

The “Annuario Pontificio” (and other sources quoted) state of Pope Gregory VI – who abdicated for having obtained the throne by simony – that his family name was Pierleoni.

What more can I say? What more evidence is required to come to a reasonable conclusion? Why has Petergee produced only unsubstantiated rhetoric? Who are the historians who (he claims) agree with him, and where are the appropriate supporting documentary evidence?

 

[Sean_O_L]

One more from my shelves:

“Evaristus now took the helm. Of him it is recorded that he was born in Bethlehem of Jewish parentage…”

“PAGEANT OF THE POPES,” by John Farrow, Catechical Guild Educational Society, St Paul 2, Minnesota, Nihil obstat: Patrick J. Dignan, PH.D., Imprimatur: Francis A. Mcintyre, Copyright 1949.

 

[Tom]

There are sufficient errors, in the first three paragraphs alone, to discount the entire article. Why would we need to search for an accurate statement from such an obviously flawed article? What possible difference does it make anyway? Peter was the first Pope, he was Jewish, who cares if there were any more? Jesus is Jewish isn’t He?

 

[Petergee]

Dear Sean, putting aside all of your macho blustering, you seem to be saying that basically what I said is correct. So I really don’t see what your point is, other than to aggrandise yourself.

 

[Sean_O_L]

Dear Petergee,

I originally said that I disagreed with only two of your points. Am I not allowed to disagree? On the other hand, as I have repeated, you provide NO evidence or links to accompany your assertions. That’s all. In fact, you would probably be highly surprised as to how much of what you have written (in other posts) with which I agree!http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

 

[Sean_O_L]

Tom wrote:

There are sufficient errors, in the first three paragraphs alone, to discount the entire article. Why would we need to search for an accurate statement from such an obviously flawed article?

O.K., then, let us start with the first paragraph.

Despite the recent media frenzy over the death of Pope John Paul II and the subsequent election of his successor Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict, no mention has been made in the media of the two, possibly four, popes who were of Jewish descent.

Can you quote any other recent articles mentioning the possibility? Is there anything else in this paragraph which you consider to be erroneous?

What possible difference does it make anyway? Peter was the first Pope, he was Jewish, who cares if there were any more? Jesus is Jewish isn’t He?

Well, you have my 100% Amen to THAT! The problem is that there ARE and HAVE BEEN so-called “traditionalists” who took the opportunity to very heavily bag, for example, Pope Paul VI as a Jew - a “perfidious jew”! I remember a rag out of Louisville, Kentucky called “VERITAS” which was heavy into that.

 

[Petergee]

Sean O L:

Well, you have my 100% Amen to THAT! The problem is that there ARE and HAVE BEEN so-called “traditionalists” who took the opportunity to very heavily bag, for example, Pope Paul VI as a Jew - a “perfidious jew”! I remember a rag out of Louisville, Kentucky called “VERITAS” which was heavy into that.

Ah, now I see where you are coming from.

 

[Sean_O_L]

Petergee wrote:

Ah, now I see where you are coming from

Bene! It is to counter the notion that being or descending from the Jews (or, ought I say, the “Iudeans”) is, necessarily, bad.

I am, personally, Celtic through my father and Norman/Italian through my Fitzgerald mother. But who is say that I may not be of Semetic descendent from the “Lost Tribes” OR that I have not Judean blood in my veins. So it may very well be with some of the Popes of History.

As Tom said: “So what?”

 

[Petergee]

Sean O L:

Petergee wrote:

Bene! It is to counter the notion that being or descending from the Jews (or, ought I say, the “Iudeans”) is, necessarily, bad.

I am, personally, Celtic through my father and Norman/Italian through my Fitzgerald mother. But who is say that I may not be of Semetic descendent from the “Lost Tribes” OR that I have not Judean blood in my veins. So it may very well be with some of the Popes of History.

As Tom said: “So what?”

I certainly did not have the notion that there is something bad about Jewish descent. I’m sorry if I somehow inadvertently made you think that I did.

And when you consider that each individual person living today’s total possible number of ancestors about 25 generations (about.800 years) ago, is greater than the then population of the world, it approaches close to a mathematical certainly that each and every one of us IS descended from at least one of the ancient Israelites.

 

[chosen_people]

Go ahead and argue but i’m still going to use as a sardonic reply to the obvious “Is the Pope Catholic?”

 

[offgrid]

If Guy Stair Sainty and te Semi-Gotha are correct, then Pope Paul V, Camillo Borghese was also Jewish (although converted or crypto) …

Borghese, Princes - Originally from Germany, becoming Catholics in the late 14th or early 15th centuries. Princes of Sulmona, etc.

Aldobrandini, Princes - in the male line a branch of the Borghese family, considered of ancient Jewish origin.

Torlonia, converts at the end of the 18th century, ennobled 1794, Patricians 1809, Princes 1814, Dukes 1847. Divided into two lines of Dukes Torlonia and Princes of Civitelli Cesi The junior line became extinct in the male line and was substituted with Borghese, also of Jewish descent

chivalricorders.org/nobility/nobjews.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_V

NOBLE FAMILIES OF JEWISH ANCESTRY © Guy Stair Sainty

Two related publications, the Semi-Gotha, or Historisch-genealoges-Taschenbuch des gesamted Adels jehuidäischen Ursprunges of 1912 and 1913, and the Semigothaisches Genealogisches Taschenbuch aristokratisch-jüdischer heiraten of 1914, attempted a comprehensive survey of those families of Jewish ancestry who were members of the titled European nobility (and a handful of non-European royalty or nobility). These were published at a time when the prestige and influence of European Jewry was at its highest and represented pride in their achievements since Jewish emancipation. Unhappily, these rare publications were later to be used by the nazis to identify families and individuals for extermination and many copies of these publications were destroyed both by nazi fanatics and by those Jewish families who had once been proud to have been included.

Birth dates were indicated with the hexagonal Star of David, while a Jewish tomb stone symbol indicated who died in the Jewish faith, and a Cross those who died in the Christian faith. Marriage dates were indicated with two bold rings interlocking if husband and wife both had Jewish blood, while a bold ring with an outline ring indicated whether only one of the partners was of Jewish ancestry. Two opposite pointing horizontal arrows indicated divorce, reflecting a Biblical passage “if thou take the right hand, then I will go to the left”. The genealogical section of the Semi-Gotha was preceded by a page with the swastika symbol - which meant something very different in 1913-14 and whose terrible implications were as yet unimaginable. The frontispiece illustration of the 1913 edition was a portrait of Benjamin Disraeli, 1st (and last) Earl of Beaconsfield.

The families named are sometimes included with titles whose origins are unknown, and in some cases were assumed. It also included families whose Jewish origins were at best uncertain and often mythical (Macdonald, for example). The Semi-Gotha generally gives anyone claiming a title the benefit of the doubt. This list when completed will include all those families listed in these publications (this author has made some comments in a few cases where the alleged Jewish ancestry of someone has been doubted by reputable scholars):