At 3:32 PM +0100 3/28/02, Marco Cimarosti wrote: >But it is not strictly necessary that any pope did not exist: 300 years >could be the sum of many little errors in the biographies of many popes. >Imagining that historians extended some popes' lifes by a two or three years >(maybe unintentionally, maybe to hide little periods of vacancy on the siege >of Peter) is much more plausible than inventing 54 popes from scratch. >
The semi-official Catholic chronology of papal succession lists St. Peter as the first pope in Rome for about twenty-five years. (32-67 according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm ) However, most historians today think that Peter probably didn't get to Rome and if he did, he wasn't there for more than about a year. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find similar issues with the reigns of other popes. -- +-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+ | Elliotte Rusty Harold | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Writer/Programmer | +-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+ | The XML Bible, 2nd Edition (Hungry Minds, 2001) | | http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/bible2/ | | http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0764547607/cafeaulaitA/ | +----------------------------------+---------------------------------+ | Read Cafe au Lait for Java News: http://www.cafeaulait.org/ | | Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://www.cafeconleche.org/ | +----------------------------------+---------------------------------+
