Re: The Need for Debate

Thomas R. Wier scripsit:

> Also interestingly,
> there never was a Pope John XX; people lost track sometime in the
> 11th century and misnumbered this one and the next (d. 1334).
In James Branch Cabell's 1919 picaresque fantasy _Jurgen_, the hero gets
into Heaven (by no means the last stop on his journey) by claiming to be
the missing John XX:

    "Perhaps," says Jurgen, "I ought not to tell you who I am. But what
    is life without confidence in one another? Besides, you appear a boy
    of remarkable discretion. So I will confide in you that I am Pope
    John the Twentieth, Heaven's regent upon Earth, now visiting this
    place upon Celestial business which I am not at liberty to divulge
    more particularly, for reasons that will at once occur to a young
    man of your unusual cleverness."

    "Oh, but I say! that is droll. Do you just wait a moment!" cried the
    boy angel.

    His bright face vanished, with a whisking of brown curls: and Jurgen
    carefully re-read the cantrip of the Master Philologist. "Yes, I
    have found, I think, the way to use such magic," observes Jurgen.

    Presently the young angel re-appeared at the parapet. "I say, messire!
    I looked on the Register--all popes are admitted here the moment they
    die, without inquiring into their private affairs, you know, so as to
    avoid any unfortunate scandal,--and we have twenty-three Pope Johns
    listed. And sure enough, the mansion prepared for John the Twentieth
    is vacant. He seems to be the only pope that is not in Heaven."

    "Why, but of course not," says Jurgen, complacently, "inasmuch as
    you see me, who was once Bishop of Rome and servant to the servants
    of God, standing down here on this cinder-heap."

    "Yes, but none of the others in your series appears to place you.
    John the Nineteenth says he never heard of you, and not to bother
    him in the middle of a harp lesson--"

    "He died before my accession, naturally."

    "--And John the Twenty-first says he thinks they lost count somehow,
    and that there never was any Pope John the Twentieth. He says you
    must be an impostor."

    "Ah, professional jealousy!" sighed Jurgen: "dear me, this is very
    sad, and gives one a poor opinion of human nature. Now, my boy, I
    put it to you fairly, how could there have been a twenty-first
    unless there had been a twentieth? And what becomes of the great
    principle of papal infallibility when a pope admits to a mistake in
    elementary arithmetic? Oh, but this is a very dangerous heresy, let
    me tell you, an Inquisition matter, a consistory business! Yet,
    luckily, upon his own contention, this Pedro Juliani--"

    "And that was his name, too, for he told me! You evidently know all
    about it, messire," said the young angel, visibly impressed.

    "Of course, I know all about it. Well, I repeat, upon his own
    contention this man is non-existent, and so, whatever he may say
    amounts to nothing. For he tells you there was never any Pope John
    the Twentieth: and either he is lying or he is telling you the
    truth. If he is lying, you, of course, ought not to believe him:
    yet, if he is telling you the truth, about there never having been
    any Pope John the Twentieth, why then, quite plainly, there was
    never any Pope John the Twenty-first, so that this man asserts his
    own non-existence; and thus is talking nonsense, and you, of course,
    ought not to believe in nonsense. Even did we grant his insane
    contention that he is nobody, you are too well brought up, I am
    sure, to dispute that nobody tells lies in Heaven: it follows that
    in this case nobody is lying; and so, of course, I must be telling
    the truth, and you have no choice save to believe me."

Full text available -- and recommended! at
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8jurg10.txt .

--
Knowledge studies others / Wisdom is self-known;      John Cowan
Muscle masters brothers / Self-mastery is bone;       jcowan@reutershealth.com
Content need never borrow / Ambition wanders blind;   www.ccil.org/~cowan
Vitality cleaves to the marrow / Leaving death behind.    --Tao 33 (Bynner)