_Pope Joan_ (Vol. iii., p. 265.).--If the man who believes in this fable
can be found in England, he will meet with the demonstration of its
falsehood in the cotemporary chronicles of Galindo, Bishop of Troyes,
otherwise called by his assumed name of religion, Prudentius Trecensis,
or Trecassensis. (See _Monumenta Germaniæ Historica_, Hanover, 1826,
vol. i. p. 449.) It there appears clearly that no Pope John VIII.
succeeded Leo IV., or preceded Benedict III. Prudentius survived them
_both_ by three years. His words are "Mense Augusto Leo apostolicæ sedis
antistes defunctus est, eique Benedictus successit. Eodem mense duæ
stellæ majoris et minoris quantitatis visæ sunt," &c. &c.
It seems to me that a just blindness fell upon men so evil-minded as to
desire the falsification of chronology and history for polemical ends,
that they should have utterly missed the moral principle by which they
would be thought animated. No prelate ordaining a young person, unknown
to himself, save by academical reputation, could _know_ that person's
sex. The want of beard is no criterion; nor is the female lip in all
instances very smooth. But if it were true that a person eminently
distinguished by studies, and bringing from Athens a high reputation for
merit, could upon those grounds alone obtain the suffrages of the Roman
chapter, more honour would be conferred upon it than that chapter, or
other dispensers of patronage, have usually merited. Instead of being
unknown, the candidates in the days of Benedict III. were, if anything,
_too well known_; for the jobbery and faction, of which this fable would
indicate the entire, and almost unnatural, absence, were sufficiently at
work.