Malachy’s head was spinning; he was short of breath, gasping, and a cold chill flushed his face. He wondered: was he about to meet the Lord or was he having another sorcerous vision? 
He wanted rest. Bernard, oh where is Bernard? Then he remembered, confusion…so much confusion over the papacy. The words came fast and furious again. Phrases in liturgical Latin danced in his mind. Had the devil taken the papacy? Schismaticus, popes and antipopes, power-mad, political posturing in the house of God. The prophecies of the popes writhed in his feverish conscience; the dragon…oh no the dragon, Draco depreſſus and then Anguinus uir was this to be a serpentine pope? Just last year, on the twenty-fifth of January, 1138, the antipope Anacletus had died, finally allowing the appointed Innocent II to ascend the Holy See. When the conspiring Cardinals had launched their coup, the opposed Innocent II fled Rome under his given name, Gregorio Papareschi, finding refuge with dear Bernard at the abbey. It was just this year Pope Innocent had reclaimed the Holy See prompting this pilgrimage from Ireland to Rome.
The fatigue began to fade and Malachy recalled what led him here to Janiculum Hill on this day. After his arduous journey from Ireland to Rome, only a brief respite at the Clairvaux Abbey in the Vallée d’Absinthe had given him hope. Yet, despite his fondness for Bernard, the bitterness of wormwood had infected his soul. He had requested permission from his holiness to end his days with his loyal friend Bernard in retreat at the abbey. Unfortunately, the Pontiff had only increased his responsibilities, making him Papal Legate for all of Ireland. But Malachy was weary of it all—so very tired. What was driving the Pope so hard? Had not Christ admonished His disciples, “but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister?” (Matthew 20:26 KJV).The beast was coming one day and Malachy knew it… Bellua inſatiabilis. It was then that he knew the popes had taken the unspeakable bargain and there was no taking it back. After the fullness of time, Petrus Romanus would mark the end of Mysterium Babylon magna.
The Man Who Foresaw the Final Pope?
In the modest settlement of Armagh, in the beautiful, sweeping, emerald lands of Northern Ireland, in the year 1094, a nobleman and chief by the name of Lector Ua Morgair and his well-cultured wife celebrated the dawning of new life in their son, Máel Máedóc Ua Morgair. Neither of them could have known how the tiny boy they had just delivered would become a central figure in End-Times prophecy.Little Máel Máedóc Ua Morgair (anglicized to the more modern “Malachy”) lived his early, boyish days skipping amidst the comfortable sounds and familiar, candlelit ambiance of the Armagh Cathedral. He remained educated under the personal tutelage of his learned father, Lector of Armagh, until the fateful day of Lector’s death in the year 1102. Malachy and his brother and sister were then raised by his mother alone, a woman who had been described as “A dutiful, Christian woman”[i] by St. Bernard de Clairvaux.As the years progressed, Malachy continued his studies under the mentorship of Imar (also spelled “Imhar”) O’Haglan: a man who focused his teachings on renouncing earthly pleasures to preserve the eternal soul. Following in O’Haglan’s ascetical footsteps, Malachy showed astute perception within the walls of the cathedral and the shabby cell beneath where O’Haglan spent his days like a hermit. Despite the protests of his sister and school acquaintances when self-flagellation, penance, and other religious practices grew to be ultimately more important than becoming an inspired professor like his father before him, Malachy continued searching for opportunities to express his passion for the Church and the life he believed he was chosen to lead. Drawing everyday nearer to the effects of O’Haglan’s authority and vision, Malachy soon introduced Gregorian chants into his regime, and a zeal for Church reform.
By the age of twenty-two, the archbishop Cellach of Armagh (also spelled “Ceollach” and “Celsus”), a good acquaintance to O’Haglan, found such promise and exception in the young man that he put aside canonical law and ordained the youth as a deacon three years prior to custom. In 1119, he declared Malachy vicar-general and entrusted him with the duty of reforming the diocese while he was away. The changes observed in the diocese were immediate and extraordinary. Malachy’s sermons of penance ignited a passion in the common people and stirred the laity to respect canonical rules of the Church.
Eventually Malachy headed to Lismore to revise and sharpen his knowledge of the canon under the teaching and advice of well-known scholar Bishop Malchus. (St. Bernard writes that Bishop Malchus was “an old man, full of days and virtues, and the wisdom of God was in him.”[ii] He goes on to further explain that the bishop was later acknowledged as performing two miracles, one wherein he healed a young boy of a mental disorder who later became his porter, and another wherein “when the saint put his fingers into his ears on either side he perceived that two things like little pigs came out of them.”[iii] These distinctions of Bishop Malchus’ reputation are of importance to St. Bernard, “that it may be known to all what sort of preceptor Malachy had in the knowledge of holy things.”[iv] Needless to say, Malachy worked and studied with associates whose names circulated within the Church as significant.)
Though his trip to Lismore was meant for a time of quiet learning, Malachy’s was not idle there, taking opportunities to speak out on current affairs within the Church that concerned him, and was often sent by Malchus himself “to preach the word of God to the people and to correct many evil practices which had developed over the years. He achieved notable success. To reform the clergy he instituted regulations concerning celibacy and other ecclesiastical discipline, and reinstituted the recitation of the canonical hours. Most importantly, he gave back the sacraments to the common people, sending good priests among them to instruct the ignorant. He returned to Armagh in 1123.”[v]
This same year, Malachy was appointed Abbot of Bangor where he assisted in helping rebuild the abbey and establish a seminary. More importantly, from this time forward, a series of miracles and the gift of prophecy were attributed to him. One notable prophecy, especially hard to chalk up to pure coincidence, finds fulfillment in the twentieth century:
Ireland will suffer English oppression for a week of centuries [700 years], but will preserve her fidelity to God and His Church. At the end of that time she will be delivered, and the English in turn must suffer severe chastisement. Ireland, however, will be instrumental in bringing back the English to the unity of Faith.
Complete Anglo-Norman domination of Ireland was achieved a century after Malachy’s prediction. Independence for the southern part of Ireland came 700 years later in the early 20th century. If this utterance is not apocryphal, then it predates the schism between the Church of England and the Catholic faith by four centuries and implies that Anglicanism will falter sometime in our near future when the final pope finishes his reign.[vi]
Yet, Yves DuPont argues this began in the twelfth century and ended after WW2. He says, “The liberation has come in stages: World War I, independence within the British Empire; World War II, complete independence. Thus, Ireland was under British rule for seven centuries.”[vii] However, it just as likely applies to the rampant secularism in England ultimately being conquered by Christianity.
At thirty years of age, Malachy became Bishop Malachy of Down and Connor. John Hogue says of Malachy’s new position: “The bishopric was considered one of Ireland’s blackest holes for the faith. Malachy would face a moratorium on church tithes, a shortage of priests and an even greater shortage of celibate clerics; he would wince at the improvised performances of the sacraments based on the rejection of canon law in favor of native and often semi-pagan Irish rituals.”[viii] With passion, yet still humble as a true servant of God, Malachy spoke out about Church reform and continuously brought more and more attention to himself as a true trailblazer.
Never before had Malachy seen such lax cohesion to the laws of God within the walls of the Church. Discipline, offering, tithing, giving of the first-fruits, and going to confession were things of the past; marriages were made illegally. Christians behaved like pagans. “Never had he found men so shameless in regard of morals, so dead in regard of rites, so impious in regard of faith, so barbarous in regard of laws, so stubborn in regard of discipline, so unclean in regard of life.”[ix] Nevertheless, believing that he was a “shepherd and not a hireling,”[x] Malachy fought the issues head-on and in his enthusiasm, discovered followers who were willing to flock to his side to reestablish devotion to the rituals.
About this time according to legend, Malachy had a dream in which a woman appeared to him and revealed her identity as Archbishop Cellach’s wife. She handed Mallachy a pastoral staff, and then disappeared. He shared this with those in his company and it was esteemed important because for approximately fifteen generations by this time in Armagh, people high up in both secular politics and the Church had maintained office within family hierarchies. As a result, it was normal to nominate a successor to the seat of the archbishop by heritage instead of Church works. Archbishop Cellach, however, impressed by Malachy’s ministry, rejected the expectations of his family in this regard. Hoping that Malachy could bring new life and hope to the Church, and wanting to put a stop to hereditary succession of the office, Cellach charged those under him with the task of spreading word that Malachy would be given his seat as Archbishop of Armagh. When the word reached Malachy, it came as no surprise after the dream he’d had, and just days after Cellach passed away, Malachy received Cellach’s staff (the one from his dream), and a letter confirming the news of his latest promotion.
Cellach’s family was outraged. Feeling usurped by his decision to appoint someone outside the family as archbishop, tension rose between them and Malachy. Cellach’s cousin, Murtagh (also spelled “ Murtough” and “Muirchetrach”), fancied himself worthy of the role, and his family stood behind him in his campaign to become archbishop, ready even to use force to claim the position if necessary. The people of the Church fell in support of Malachy, equally ready for the hereditary succession of the office to end.
Three years passed while Malachy remained at the monastery, not refusing the archbishopric but unwilling to participate in a war between Murtagh and the Church. The papal legate eventually became revolted enough by Murtagh’s tyranny that the Church ordered Malachy, by threat of impending excommunication, to take his position. Malachy conceded and in response to the order, accepted his bishopric from a distance to avoid the mayhem of political/religious war. He made a deal with the legate that if the Church was ever fully restored to freedom in matters of succession, in return he wanted a leave from leadership so that he might find time to be alone in his studies and away from obligatory office. Remaining safely just outside the city, he maintained governance as the acknowledged Archbishop of Armagh, without immediately taking possession of his See.
When Murtagh passed away in 1134, he revealed that Niall, Cellach’s brother, would be his successor. During this time, the people generally believed that anyone in possession of the crosier of St. Patrick (the Bachal Isu, of “Staff of Jesus”) and the Book of Gospels (or Holy Book) was the true archbishop. In lieu of this, Niall saw and seized his opportunity to appear the legitimate and rightful archbishop by stealing these two artifacts from the cathedral of Armagh. Although history is cloudy when it comes to the issue of retrieving the stolen artifacts from Niall (most records point to a small war between the two sides, which was rumored to be brought to an end by diplomacy from Malachy, followed by his purchasing the artifacts back from Niall), Malachy did eventually get them back and take his place as primate in the cathedral city of Armagh. “In 1138, having broken the tradition of hereditary succession, rescued Armagh from oppression, restored ecclesiastical discipline, re-established Christian morals, and seeing all things tranquil, Malachy resigned his post as originally agreed.”[xi] Malachy retired to Bangor to live in rest for a time, among the camaraderie of his fellow monks, but with few demands on his schedule or solitary study.
Eventually Malachy felt the need to gain meeting with Pope Innocent II in Rome to officially recognize the archbishops (and the Sees) of Armagh and Cashel with a pallium, an official woolen cloak of authority, for each to signify the bishopric jurisdiction over the ecclesiastical provinces and to gain favor and blessing from the papal for the developments within the Church. In 1139, he gathered a few travelling companions and pack animals and headed to Rome through Scotland, England, and France. It was during his travels that he arrived at the Cistercian Abbey of Clairvaux, where he met the future-saint Bernard (who would later be his central biographer). Resting there for a short time, Malachy became enchanted with the Abbey and made a very close friendship with its abbot. Abbot Bernard was unusual in his approach to ministry. He maintained fitness of the body by practicing martial arts and kept those in his presence ready at all times to be counted upon for defending the Church at all costs. He proved to be such a wellspring of religious passion for Malachy that when the time came for him to leave the abbey and continue his pilgrimage to Rome, Malachy made a secret plan to ask for retirement in the seclusion of Clairvaux.
Sixteen months after the journey began Malachy finally arrived in Rome, his heart and mind lifted and hopeful. Quickly, he was brought to Pope Innocent II for official audience. Innocent approved Malachy’s request for the pallia but with strict conditions: Malachy would take on new responsibilities. He was now the Papal Legate of Ireland with all of its ensuing political intricacies. This was not what he had wanted; he so desperately desired the peace and serenity of the Abbey. It was upon leaving the seven-hilled city so frustrated, framed by the breathtaking Western view from Janiculum Hill that it came upon him. Because of the impiety of the popes, Rome would burn.
As the legend goes, Malachy experienced what is today considered a famous vision commonly called “The Prophecy of the Popes.” The prophecy is a list of Latin verses predicting each of the Roman Catholic popes from Pope Celestine II to the final pope, “Peter the Roman,” whose reign would end in the destruction of Rome. According to this ancient prophecy, the very next pope (following Benedict XVI) will be the final pontiff, Petrus Romanus or Peter the Roman.
The final segment of the prophecy reads:
In persecutione extrema S. R. E. sedebit Petrus Romanus, qui pascet oves in multis tribulationibus: quibus transactis civitas septicollis deruetur et judex tremendus judicabit populum. Finis.[xii]
Which is rendered:
In extreme persecution, the seat of the Holy Roman Church will be occupied by Peter the Roman, who will feed the sheep through many tribulations; when they are over, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the terrible or fearsome Judge will judge his people. The End.[xiii]
The Good News and the Bad News
After studying the history of the prophecy of the popes and the surrounding scholarly literature, we have some good news and some very bad news, which we will begin discussing in the next entry.
 

The Good News and the Bad News

After studying the history of the prophecy of the popes and the surrounding scholarly literature, we have some good news and some bad news. What’s that? You want the bad news first? Sure, no problem, let’s get this unpleasantness out of the way.
The bad news is that part of the prophecy may be a forgery which was fabricated around 1590. We say forgery meaning that over half of the prophecies, the first seventy or so predictions, are vaticinia ex eventu (prophecy from the event). It seems someone irrevocably altered the original medieval document and the original is either hidden away or lost to history. The first known publication of the “Malachy Prophecy of the Popes” was in Arnold de Wion’s massive eighteen-hundred-page volume entitled Lignum Vitae (Tree of Life), which was published in 1595. That text will be presented and examined below. Even though we have good reason to believe a much older document is still visible, we must accept that the earliest instance of the prophecy surfaced nearly four hundred years after its alleged origin in 1139. Despite the legend which pleads it was locked away in a musty Vatican vault those four hundred years, the skeptics still have valid points. Even so, it very well could be the work of Saint Malachy coarsely corrupted by a forger. Of course, this would fall neatly in line with the Roman Catholic practice demonstrated by the Donation of Constantine and Pseudo–Isidorian Decretals. Alternatively, some have suggested it was partially the work of Nostradamus cleverly disguised to protect his identity. While the identity of the actual prophet remains unclear, the author was a prophet whether he knew or not.
The exciting news is that the prophecy of the popes, although tainted, is still a genuine prophecy. Despite the superficial insincerity detectable in the first section of “prophecies,” the post publication predictions show astonishing fulfillments. We have no critical analysis to explain away the sometimes jaw-dropping, post-1595 fulfillments. Indeed, we are currently at 111 out of 112 and believers argue they seem to have increased in precision over time. However, we shall deal with bad news first. As we shall demonstrate, the Vatican’s penchant for propaganda is undisputed in the record of history. In Rome’s tradition of the altering ancient documents for political expediency, the prophecy of the popes was probably used as propaganda for Cardinal Girolamo Simoncelli papal ambitions. Nevertheless, it was a ploy which did not work as Simoncelli lost to Gregory XIV, Innocent IX, and Clement VIII. While textual evidence for this conspiracy is provided, we suggest the reader remain objective and patient in lieu of the more astounding findings.
Historically, the prophecy has enjoyed mixed acceptance. Four hundred years ago, with so many more popes to go, it was a mere novelty. However, as time runs short, the forecast understandably becomes more urgent and the criticism more caustic. Accordingly, beginning in the nineteenth century, the Jesuits, save one, have been outspokenly critical. As a result, the most recent edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia suggests that the prophecy is a late sixteenth century forgery, while the older 1911 edition allows, “it is not conclusive if we adopt Cucherat’s theory that they were hidden in the Archives during those four hundred years.”[i] He refers to the nineteenth-century author, Abbé Cucherat, who is one of the few who argued for the authenticity of the prophecy in his book, Revue du monde catholique, published in 1871. We will examine it and other positive assessments in the next chapter. Even so, most scholars point out that Malachy’s biographer and dear friend, St. Bernard, makes no mention of the papal prophecy in Life of St. Malachy of Armagh.[ii] This argument from silence is ubiquitous in the literature.
Modern academic sources are also not very charitable. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church bluntly states, “The so-called Prophecies of Malachy, which are contained in a document apparently composed in 1590, have no connection with St. Malachy except their erroneous attribution to him.”[iii] Jesuit scholarship presents a united front. M.J. O’Brien’s An Historical and Critical Account of the So-Called Prophecy of St. Malachy Regarding the Succession of Popes is a thorough attempt at debunking. Herbert Thurston, another Jesuit, was a prolific late nineteenth-century critic. He argues that “not one scrap of evidence has ever been adduced to show that St. Malachy’s prophecy about the Popes had been quoted, or even heard of, before it was published by Wion in 1595.”[iv] This is not necessarily the case as we will discuss a possible reference to the prophecy published by Nicholas Sanders in 1571. Even so, most scholars bifurcate the list of 112 Latin phrases at number 76, due to the circumstances surrounding its publication. In so doing, two layers of context are established in the prophecy. This approach is adapted from biblical scholarship.
Exegesis in biblical studies is always an attempt to derive the original author’s intention for his original reader and that is the methodology undertaken here. For instance, when scholars study the New Testament Gospels, they take into account layers of context. There is the context in which Jesus is interacting in the original historical setting and then there is a layer of context in which the author of the gospel is presenting his account to a later audience. Careful study reveals that each evangelist author, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, frames the events of Jesus’ life in unique ways for their own theological and evangelistic purposes. The underlying context of Jesus can be assimilated by studying first-century Judaism in Israel. We study the Pharisees to understand Jesus’ criticism of their traditions. In the same way, the upper level, the author’s context, can be discerned by how he presents Jesus. Still, the order in which a certain account is presented in a Gospel is often unique. This requires the careful student to “think vertically” for potential significance.
You might ask, “Is the author making a statement by where he places this parable?” The context of the evangelist author speaks to why and how he selected, arranged, and adapted the historical material about Jesus. Additionally, the scholar must “think horizontally” meaning to read each pericope with awareness of the parallels in other Gospels.[v] While each of the four accounts preserves actual historical data, they are not always chronologically identical because of the secondary layer of context pertaining to the unique purpose of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. This methodology unveils new insights into the prophecy of the popes as well.
At first glance, there appear to be at least two levels of historical context, that of the original author and then that of the publisher. We will examine the possibility of even deeper contextual layers in the next chapter but for now we might accept the Malachy legend or perhaps a pseudepigrapher as the lower contextual level. To determine the upper level, the context of the publisher/commentator, we discover that is has been suggested that a papal emissary, Nicholas Sanders (1530–1581), may have brought an original Celtic version of the prophecy to Rome during the reign of Pope Pius V (1566–72).[vi] While he may have obliquely referred to the prophecy in a book published in 1571, it has also been suggested that the first specific mention of the prophecy was in a handwritten account by Don Alphonsus Ciacconus, a Spanish Dominican scholar in Rome, in the year 1590.[vii] At the time, Ciacconus was a recognized expert on ancient Greco-Roman paleography and ancient manuscripts, as well as the history of the papacy. Apparently the publisher, Dom Wion, had received the text from someone and turned to Ciacconus for his opinion. Ciacconus ostensibly authenticated the manuscript. We cannot know exactly when it was altered but the textual and circumstantial evidence points to the original manuscript being tampered with by 1589–1590, in time to promote a particular papabile. In the meantime (1590–1595), it circulated surreptitiously amongst the Cardinals creating quite a stir. Wion published it with the previous popes named and interpretations of the fulfillments added in 1595.
Thus, we have discerned two layers of context:
 
·         Lower level of historical context: An original document possibly by St. Malachy or a pseudepigrapher circa 1139 –1571.
·         Upper level of historical context: Alterations imposed and interpretations added circa 1571–1595.
 
In examining the scans of the original 1595 Latin text, even with no comprehension of Latin, one can note that that explanations of the mottos with papal names cease at time of publication. Wion claimed that Ciacconus was responsible for the interpretations but this has been called into serious question by O’Brien, who suggests it was someone else who simply copied from Onuphrius Panvinius’ short history of the Popes, Epitome Romanorum Pontijicum usque ad Paulum IV, printed in Venice in 1557. He bases this on the case that the interpretations presented by Wion match Panvinius’ work but disagree with Ciacconus’ own book about the popes, Viltae et res Gesltae Romanorum Ponlificum el Cardinalium, printed in 1601. While Ciacconius’ work resembles Panvinius’, it disagrees in important areas that Ciacconius made explicit. O’Brien ponders this issue: “Now, if Ciacconius was the interpreter of the prophecies, as Wion asserts, Ciacconius must be pitching into himself, for we find reproduced in Wion’s book the errors of which he complains. Who then is the interpreter? Is it Panvinius? Or may not the prophecy as well as the explanation have come from the same hand? May not Wion have been merely duped (which could have been easily done considering his character); and may he not in good faith have given the prophecy as that of the great St. Malachy?”[viii]
Whoever the interpreter was, the last comment in Lignum Vitae referred to Urban VII who died in 1590 and the last papal name listed was Clement VIII who took office in 1592 just prior to the prophecy’s 1595 publication. In reading the Latin text, underneath “Crux Romulea…Clemens VIII,” the last page simply lists the remaining mottos in three columns ending with the famous apocalyptic codex centered on Petrus Romanus and the destruction of Mystery Babylon headquartered on Vatican Hill in the seven-hilled city.
Here is the original 1595 Latin text from Lignum Vitae:
The second paragraph above reads: “Three Epistles of St. Bernard addressed to St. Malachy are still extant (viz., 313, 316, and 317). Malachy himself is reported to have been the author of some little tractates, none of which I have seen up to the present time, except a certain prophecy of his concerning the Sovereign Pontiffs. This, as it is short, and so far as we know, has never before been printed, is inserted here, seeing that many people have asked for it.”
[ix]
The bottom two lines by Wion read, “What has been added to the popes is not the work of Malachy, but of Father Alphonsus Giacon, of the Order of Preachers, the interpreter of this prophecy.” This may seem confusing in light of the above discussion about Ciacconius. Gaicon is also Chacon or Ciacconius because he was from Spain, his original name, Alphonso Chacon, was Italianized to preserve the soft Spanish sound of “ch” in his name into Ciacconius or alternately as Wion has it “Giacon.” But this last line reveals that the original prophecy was a mere string of obscure Latin phrases, and that Giacon, Ciacconius, added each pope’s name and explained how the prophecy applied to him. The comments end with to Urban VII who died in 1590 and the last papal name listed is Clement VIII. Since the evidence points to the prophecy appearing in 1589–90, we observe the next prophecy after Urban was “ex antiquitate Urbis” which translates to “from the old city” and no interpretation is offered. This is the critical point where scholars detect an attempt to influence the conclave when Gregory XIIII was opposed by one Girolamo Simoncelli.
 As a representative example of scholarly detective work, Louis Moreri, a native of Provence born in 1643 and doctor of theology, is chosen. He was the author of the acclaimed Dictionnaire Historique. As his life’s work, the dictionary contains such a wide variety of information it is considered to be an early forerunner of the modern encyclopedia. In the 1759 edition, we read:
“They attribute to him [Malachy] a prophecy concerning the popes from Celestine II. To the end of the world, but the learned know that this prophecy was forged, during the conclave of 1590, by the partisans of Cardinal Simoncelli, who was designated by these words: ‘De anlzguilale Urbis,’ because he was of Orvieto; in Latin, ‘Urbs vetus.’”[x]
The argument “from the old city” would arguably predict Girolamo Simoncelli who was at that time the Cardinal of Orvieto which also means “old city.” This is the dominant opinion of Malachy scholars. The scholars are right; it does seem a little too perfect. It seems that the conspirators hoped to rig the papal conclave by encouraging the voters to fall in step with the much venerated Saint Malachy. The clever ruse failed when Simoncelli lost to Gregory XIV, albeit Gregory only lived a year to be followed by Innocent IX who similarly only lived a brief term dying in 1591. Because popes had a short life expectancy in those days, Simoncelli was a viable candidate in the conclaves in September and October–December 1590, and those in 1591 and 1592. Altogether, he missed out on seven opportunities including the earlier conclaves of April and May 1555, 1559, and 1565–66. Even so, Simoncelli died February 24, 1605 never winning the pontificate. While the trail of the conspiracy seems evident, the coherence of the frustrated papbile’s “old city” Cardinalate is not the most compelling reason we hold that it was tampered with.
To demonstrate why we can confidently discern that at least some of the pre-1590 mottos were written after the fact I will use an analogy from counter-cult apologetics, specifically in regard to Mormonism. Joseph Smith claimed that he miraculously translated the book of Mormon directly from gold plates which were written by a divine hand. Thus, it was a one-generation translation from plates to Smith’s manuscript. Accordingly, one would then expect the book of Mormon to be sacred scripture of the most direct and pure translation. The insurmountable obstacle for the veracity of the book of Mormon is demonstrated by the fact that when the book of Mormon references passages from the Hebrew Bible, it follows the translated text of the King James Bible a little too perfectly. For instance, where the King James italicized words, the Book of Mormon follows suit. Obviously, this proves that Smith copied his references from a King James Bible and not more ancient source material like the mythological golden plates. We have a similar line of evidence with the prophecy of the popes.
Because we are examining the upper level of context from the time of publisher, specifically the interpretations offered prior to 1590, we can discern that they were manipulated in line with what was available at the time. Books were hard to come by. The prophecy follows the descriptions and details found in a work on the history of the popes by Onuphrius Panvinius: Epitome Romanorum Pontijicum usque ad Paulum IV, printed in Venice in 1557. The prophecy transparently follows this reference work. O’Brien argued, “Any person who opens this work and compares the account of the popes in it from Celestine II to Paul IV, with the corresponding part of the ‘Prophecy of St. Malachy’ will come to the conclusion that the writer of the latter, if not Panvinius himself, must have been someone who followed Panvinius’ account rather too closely.”[xi] This is more than just an assertion; his evidence is detailed and specific:
In Panvinius’s Epitome, the popes’ armorial bearings are given, but not in every case. When the arms are given, we usually find that they figure in the prophecy, when not given, the prophecy is a play upon or a description of the pope’s name, country, family, or title, when cardinal. Moreover, we find in Panvinius the very same antipopes as given in the prophecy. Even when the pope’s family-name, armorial bearings or cardinalic title is wrongly given by Panvinius, we find the forger of the prophecy to perfectly chime in with him.[xii]
In other words, it matches too perfectly because, even in the few places where Panvinius’ papal history makes mistakes, the interpretations of the prophecy follow those errors. This only makes sense if someone was using Panvinius’ book or if it were Panvinius himself. If we allow that they were following Rome’s penchant for altering an authentic ancient document to meet their purposes, then we have two layers of context. The prophecy itself (the lower, an older level of historical context) seems to have been manipulated to match the interpretation (the upper, the late sixteenth-century level). O’Brien’s parting shot is a zinger:
According to Wion, Malachy’s prophecy was a mere string of meaningless Latin phrases. How did the supposed interpreter know with what pope to commence? How was he persuaded to take up the antipopes?[xiii]
While O’Brien’s incredulity is clear, the answer to the first question is trivial. As the legend goes, Malachy was summoned to Rome in 1139 by Pope Innocent II (r. 1130–43). Thus, the prophecy commenced with the Pope following Innocent II who was Celestine II (r. 1143–44). The second quandary concerning antipopes is much more problematic. For instance, in the Malachy prophecy, predictions 6: Octavius (“Victor IV”) (1159–1164); 7: Pascal III (1165–1168); 8: Callistus III (1168–1177) are antipopes. Antipopes are alternative popes elected in opposition to a standing pope during various schisms and controversies. The problem is that those antipopes listed opposed Alexander III (1159–81) but in reality there was another antipope Innocent III (1178–1180) who is not included in prophecy.[xiv] What makes this revealing is this is exactly the same way Panvinius recorded it. Panvinius neglected antipope Innocent III as well.
This state of affairs points to the fact that someone redacted the pre-1590 prophecies to conform to Panvinius’ book. In light of their goal, it makes perfect sense. Panvinius’ work was the authoritative source at the time and likely the only one most people had access to. By manipulating all of the pre-1590 mottos to have obvious fulfillments that any semi-studious Cardinal could verify, they launched an ingenious conspiracy to promote papabile Simoncelli as the candidate of divine destiny. Because the lower level of historical context, the original text, was just a series of nebulous Latin phrases, how could someone like the alleged interpreter Ciacconus or the publisher, Wion (who discovered the list over four hundred years after their composition), know to include these and only these specific antipopes? It is just not plausible. If the antipopes are not included, the whole list gets thrown out of sync. Of course, the original text left no such instructions. Even so, it is in sync…but not with actual history; rather, with Panvinius’ book!
In summary, there is ample evidence pointing to a sixteenth-century pseudepigrapher who referenced Panvinius’ book for all of the prophecies up until Paul IV in 1559 (when Panvinius’ book ends). The five popes between him and Urban VII (Pius IV, Pius V, Gregory XIII, and Sixtus V) would in recent memory and easy for anyone to describe. It is our belief that whoever perpetrated the ruse for the 1590 conclave used an actual prophetic document and modified all of the entries prior to coincide with the principle text on Pontifical history of that time. He then altered the next prophecy on the list “of the old city” to promote Girolamo Simoncelli who was the Cardinal of Orvieto (Latin urbs vetus = “old city”) at the 1590 conclave. While this evidence supports the conspiracy to promote Simoncelli, what it does not explain is what has happened over the last four hundred years since Wion’s publication.
In the next entry we shall look at: Acrostics, Anagrams, and a Real-Life Conspiracy Code?
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[i] Arthur Devine, “Prophecy,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 12 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911). (Retrieved online, December 27, 2011 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12473a.htm.