title: Mary Magdalene

text: The "composite Magdalene" was never accepted by the Eastern Orthodox churches, who saw only Mary the disciple, and believed that after the Resurrection she lived as a companion to Mary the mother of Jesus, and not even in the West was it universally accepted. The Benedictine Order always celebrated Mary of Bethany together with Martha and Lazarus of Bethany on July 29, while Mary Magdalene was celebrated on July 22. Not only John Chrysostom in the East ("Matthew, Homily 88"), but also Ambrose ("De virginitate" 3,14; 4,15) in the West, when speaking of Mary Magdalene after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, far from calling her a harlot, suggest she was a virgin. Starting in around the eighth century, Christian sources record mention of a church in Magdala purported to have been built on the site of Mary Magdalene's house, where Jesus exorcized her of the seven demons.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: In an eastern tradition supported by the western bishop and historian Gregory of Tours ( 538 – 594), Mary Magdalene is said to have retired to Ephesus in Asia Minor with Mary the mother of Jesus, where they both lived out the rests of their lives. Gregory states that Mary Magdalene was buried in the city of Ephesus. Modestus, the Patriarch of Jerusalem from 630 until 634, describes a slightly different tradition that Mary Magdalene had come to Ephesus to live with the apostle John following the death of Mary the mother of Jesus.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: Starting in early High Middle Ages, writers in western Europe began developing elaborate fictional biographies of Mary Magdalene's life, in which they heavily embellished upon the vague details given in the gospels. Stories about noble saints were popular during this time period; accordingly, tales of Mary Magdalene's wealth and social status became heavily exaggerated. In the tenth century, Odo of Cluny ( 880 – 942) wrote a sermon in which he described Mary as an extraordinarily wealthy noblewoman of royal descent. Some manuscripts of the sermon record that Mary's parents were named Syrus and Eucharia and one manuscript goes into great detail describing her family's purported land holdings in Bethany, Jerusalem, and Magdala.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: The theologian Honorius Augustodunensis ( 1080 – 1151) embellished this tale even further, reporting that Mary was a wealthy noblewoman who was married in "Magdalum", but that she committed adultery, so she fled to Jerusalem and became a "public sinner" ("vulgaris meretrix"). Honorius mentions that, out of love for Jesus, Mary repented and withdrew into a life of quiet isolation. Under the influence of stories about other female saints, such as Mary of Egypt and Pelagia, painters in Italy during the ninth and tenth centuries gradually began to develop the image of Mary Magdalene living alone in the desert as a penitent ascetic. This portrayal became so popular that it quickly spread to Germany and England. From the twelfth century, Abbot Hugh of Semur (died 1109), Peter Abelard (died 1142), and Geoffrey of Vendome (died 1132) all referred to Mary Magdalene as the sinner who merited the title "apostolorum apostola" (Apostle to the Apostles), with the title becoming commonplace during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: In western Europe, elaborate and conflicting legends began to develop, which said that Mary Magdalene had travelled to southern France and died there. Starting in around 1050, the monks of the Abbey of la Madaleine, Vézelay in Burgundy said they discovered Mary Magdalene's actual skeleton. At first, the existence of the skeleton was merely asserted, but, in 1265, the monks made a spectacular, public show of "discovering" it and, in 1267, the bones were brought before the king of France himself, who venerated them. On December 9, 1279, an excavation ordered by Charles II, King of Naples at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, Provence, led to the discovery of another purported burial of Mary Magdalene. The shrine was purportedly found intact, with an explanatory inscription stating why the relics had been hidden. Charles II commissioned the building of a new Gothic basilica on the site and, in return for providing accommodation for pilgrims, the town's residents were exempt from taxes. Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume gradually displaced Vézelay in popularity and acceptance.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: The most famous account of Mary Magdalene's legendary life comes from "The Golden Legend", a collection of medieval saints stories compiled in around the year 1260 by the Italian writer and Dominican friar Jacobus de Voragine ( 1230 – 1298). In this account, Mary Magdalene is, in Ehrman's words, "fabulously rich, insanely beautiful, and outrageously sensual", but she gives up her life of wealth and sin to become a devoted follower of Jesus. Fourteen years after Jesus' crucifixion, some pagans throw Mary, Martha, Lazarus (who, in this account, is their brother due to a conflation with Mary of Bethany), and two other Christians named Maximin and Cedonius onto a rudderless boat in the Mediterranean Sea to die. Miraculously, however, the boat washes ashore at Marseille in southern France. Mary persuades the governor of the city not to offer sacrifices to a pagan god and later persuades him to convert to Christianity after she proves the Christian God's power by successfully praying to Him to make the governor's wife pregnant. The governor and his wife sail for Rome to meet the apostle Peter in person, but their ship is struck by a storm, which causes the wife to go into labor. The wife dies in childbirth and the governor leaves her on an island with the still-living infant at her breast. The governor spends two years with Peter in Rome and, on his way home, he stops at the same island to discover that, due to Mary Magdalene's miraculous long-distance intercession, his child has survived for two years on his dead mother's breast milk. Then the governor's wife rises from the dead and tells him that Mary Magdalene has brought her back. The whole family returns to Marseille, where they meet Mary again in person. Mary herself spends the last thirty years of her life alone as a penitent ascetic in a cave in a desert in the French region of Provence. At every canonical hour, the angels come and lift her up to hear their songs in Heaven. On the last day of her life, Maximin, now the bishop of Aix, comes to her and gives her the Eucharist. Mary cries tears of joy and, after taking it, she lies down and dies. De Voragine gives the common account of the transfer of Mary Magdalene's relics from her sepulchre in the oratory of Saint Maximin at Aix-en-Provence to the newly founded Vézelay; the transportation of the relics is entered as undertaken in 771 by the founder of the abbey, identified as Gerard, Duke of Burgundy.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: The monk and historian Domenico Cavalca ( 1270 – 1342), citing Jerome, suggested that Mary Magdalene was betrothed to John the Evangelist: "I like to think that the Magdalene was the spouse of John, not affirming it... I am glad and blythe that St Jerome should say so". They were sometimes thought to be the couple at the Wedding at Cana, though the Gospel accounts say nothing of the ceremony being abandoned. In the "Golden Legend", De Voragine dismisses talk of John and Mary being betrothed and John leaving his bride at the altar to follow Jesus as nonsense.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: The thirteenth-century Cistercian monk and chronicler Peter of Vaux de Cernay said it was part of Catharist belief that the earthly Jesus Christ had a relationship with Mary Magdalene, described as his concubine: "Further, in their secret meetings they said that the Christ who was born in the earthly and visible Bethlehem and crucified at Jerusalem was "evil", and that Mary Magdalene was his concubine – and that she was the woman taken in adultery who is referred to in the Scriptures." A document, possibly written by Ermengaud of Béziers, undated and anonymous and attached to his "Treatise against Heretics", makes a similar statement:


title: Mary Magdalene

text: In the middle of the fourteenth century, a Dominican friar wrote a biography of Mary Magdalene in which he described her brutally mutilating herself after giving up prostitution, clawing at her legs until they bled, tearing out clumps of her hair, and beating her face with her fists and her breasts with stones. This portrayal of her inspired the sculptor Donatello ( 1386 – 1466) to portray her as a gaunt and beaten ascetic in his wooden sculpture "Penitent Magdalene" ( 1454) for the Florence Baptistery. In 1449, King René d'Anjou gave to Angers Cathedral the amphora from Cana in which Jesus changed water to wine, acquiring it from the nuns of Marseilles, who told him that Mary Magdalene had brought it with her from Judea, relating to the legend where she was the jilted bride at the wedding after which John the Evangelist received his calling from Jesus.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: In 1517, on the brink of the Protestant Reformation, the leading French Renaissance humanist Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples published his book "De Maria Magdalena et triduo Christi disceptatio" ("Disputation on Mary Magdalene and the Three Days of Christ"), in which he argued against the conflation of Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, and the unnamed sinner in Luke. Various authors published a flurry of books and pamphlets in response, the vast majority of which opposed Lefèvre d'Étaples. In 1521, the theology faculty of the Sorbonne formally condemned the idea that the three women were separate people as heretical, and debate died down, overtaken by the larger issues raised by Martin Luther. Luther and Huldrych Zwingli (1484 – 1531) both supported the composite Magdalene. Luther, whose views on sexuality were much more liberal than those of his fellow reformers, reportedly once joked to a group of friends that "even pious Christ himself" had committed adultery three times: once with Mary Magdalene, once with the Samaritan woman at the well, and once with the adulteress he had let off so easily. Because the cult of Mary Magdalene was inextricably associated with the Catholic teaching of the intercession of saints, it came under particularly harsh criticism by Protestant leaders. Zwingli demanded for the cult of Mary Magdalene to be abolished and all images of her to be destroyed. John Calvin (1509 – 1564) not only rejected the composite Magdalene, but criticized Catholics as ignorant for having ever believed in it.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: During the Counter-Reformation, Roman Catholicism began to strongly emphasize Mary Magdalene's role as a penitent sinner. Her medieval role as a patron and advocate became minimized and her penitence became regarded as her most important aspect, especially in France and in the Catholic portions of southern Germany. A massive number of Baroque paintings and sculptures depict the penitent Magdalene, often showing her naked or partially naked, with a strong emphasis on her erotic beauty. Poems about Mary Magdalene's repentance were also popular. Estates of nobles and royalty in southern Germany were equipped with so-called "Magdalene cells", small, modest hermitages that functioned as both chapels and dwellings, where the nobility could retreat to find religious solace. They were usually located away in wild areas away from the rest of the property and their exteriors were designed to suggest vulnerability.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: Because of the legends saying that Mary Magdalene had been a prostitute, she became the patroness of "wayward women", and, in the eighteenth century, moral reformers established Magdalene asylums to help save women from prostitution. Edgar Saltus's historical fiction novel "Mary Magdalene: A Chronicle" (1891) depicts her as a heroine living in a castle at Magdala, who moves to Rome becoming the "toast of the tetrarchy", telling John the Baptist she will "drink pearls... sup on peacock's tongues".


title: Mary Magdalene

text: St Peter Julian Eymard calls her "the patroness and model of a life spent in the adoration and service of Jesus in the sacrament of His Love."


title: Mary Magdalene

text: The common identification of Mary Magdalene with other New Testament figures was omitted in the 1969 revision of the General Roman Calendar, with the comment regarding her liturgical celebration on July 22: "No change has been made in the title of today's memorial, but it concerns only Saint Mary Magdalene, to whom Christ appeared after his resurrection. It is not about the sister of Saint Martha, nor about the sinful woman whose sins the Lord forgave." Elsewhere it said of the Roman liturgy of July 22 that "it will make mention neither of Mary of Bethany nor of the sinful woman of Luke 7:36–50, but only of Mary Magdalene, the first person to whom Christ appeared after his resurrection". According to historian Michael Haag, these changes were a quiet admission from the Vatican that the Church's previous teaching of Mary Magdalene as a repentant whore had been wrong. Mary of Bethany's feast day and that of her brother Lazarus is now on July 29, the memorial of their sister Martha.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: Nonetheless, despite the Vatican's rejection of it, the view of Mary as a repentant prostitute only grew more prevalent in popular culture. She is portrayed as one in Nikos Kazantzakis's 1955 novel "The Last Temptation of Christ" and Martin Scorsese's 1988 film adaptation of it, in which Jesus, as he is dying on the cross, has a vision from Satan of what it would be like if he married Mary Magdalene and raised a family with her instead of dying for humanity's sins. Mary is likewise portrayed as a reformed prostitute in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's 1971 rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar". In "Superstar", Mary describes her sexual attraction to Jesus in the song "I Don't Know How to Love Him", which shocked many of the play's original viewers. Ki Longfellow's novel "The Secret Magdalene" (2005) draws on the Gnostic gospels and other sources to portray Mary as a brilliant and dynamic woman who studies at the fabled library of Alexandria, and shares her knowledge with Jesus. Lady Gaga's song "Judas" (2011) is sung from Mary's perspective, portraying her as a prostitute who is "beyond repentance".


title: Mary Magdalene

text: The 2018 film "Mary Magdalene", starring Rooney Mara as the eponymous character, sought to reverse the centuries-old portrayal of Mary Magdalene as a repentant prostitute, while also combating the conspiracy statements of her being Jesus' wife or sexual partner. Instead, the film portrays her as Jesus' closest disciple and the only one who truly understands his teachings. This portrayal is partially based on the Gnostic "Gospel of Mary Magdalene". The film, which described as having a "strongly feminist bent", was praised for its music score and cinematography, its surprising faithfulness to the Biblical narrative, and its acting, but was criticized as slow-moving, overwritten, and too solemn to be believable. It was also criticized by many Christians, who were offended by the film's use of extracanonical source material.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: The early notion of Mary Magdalene as a sinner and adulteress was reflected in Western medieval Christian art, where she was the most commonly depicted female figure after the Virgin Mary. She may be shown either as very extravagantly and fashionably dressed, unlike other female figures wearing contemporary styles of clothes, or alternatively as completely naked but covered by very long blonde or reddish-blonde hair. The latter depictions represent the "Penitent Magdalene", according to the medieval legend that she had spent a period of repentance as a desert hermit after leaving her life as a follower of Jesus. Her story became conflated in the West with that of Mary of Egypt, a fourth-century prostitute turned hermit, whose clothes wore out and fell off in the desert. The widespread artistic representations of Mary Magdalene in tears are the source of the modern English word "maudlin", meaning "sickeningly sentimental or emotional".


title: Mary Magdalene

text: In medieval depictions Mary's long hair entirely covers her body and preserves her modesty (supplemented in some German versions such as one by Tilman Riemenschneider by thick body hair), but, from the sixteenth century, some depictions, like those by Titian, show part of her naked body, the amount of nudity tending to increase in successive periods. Even if covered, she often wears only a drape pulled around her, or an undergarment. In particular, Mary is often shown naked in the legendary scene of her "Elevation", where she is sustained in the desert by angels who raise her up and feed her heavenly manna, as recounted in the "Golden Legend".


title: Mary Magdalene

text: Mary Magdalene at the foot of the cross during the Crucifixion appears in an eleventh-century English manuscript "as an expressional device rather than a historical motif", intended as "the expression of an emotional assimilation of the event, that leads the spectator to identify himself with the mourners". Other isolated depictions occur, but, from the thirteenth century, additions to the Virgin Mary and John as the spectators at the Crucifixion become more common, with Mary Magdalene as the most frequently found, either kneeling at the foot of the cross clutching the shaft, sometimes kissing Christ's feet, or standing, usually at the left and behind Mary and John, with her arms stretched upwards towards Christ in a gesture of grief, as in a damaged painting by Cimabue in the upper church at Assisi of 1290. A kneeling Magdalene by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel ( 1305) was especially influential. As Gothic painted crucifixions became crowded compositions, the Magdalene became a prominent figure, with a halo and identifiable by her long unbound blonde hair, and usually a bright red dress. As the swooning Virgin Mary became more common, generally occupying the attention of John, the unrestrained gestures of Magdalene increasingly represented the main display of the grief of the spectators.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: According to Robert Kiely, "No figure in the Christian Pantheon except Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and John the Baptist has inspired, provoked, or confounded the imagination of painters more than the Magdalene". Apart from the Crucifixion, Mary was often shown in scenes of the Passion of Jesus, when mentioned in the Gospels, such as the Crucifixion, Christ Carrying the Cross and Noli me Tangere, but usually omitted in other scenes showing the Twelve Apostles, such as the Last Supper. As Mary of Bethany, she is shown as present at the Resurrection of Lazarus, her brother, and in the scene with Jesus and her sister Martha, which began to be depicted often in the seventeenth century, as in "Christ in the House of Martha and Mary" by Velázquez.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: The Eastern Orthodox Church has never identified Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany or the "sinful woman" who anoints Jesus in Luke 7:36–50 and has always taught that Mary was a virtuous woman her entire life, even before her conversion. They have never celebrated her as a penitent. Mary Magdalene's image did not become conflated with other women mentioned in Biblical texts until Pope Gregory the Great's sermon in the sixth century, and even then this only occurred in Western traditions. Instead, she has traditionally been honored as a "Myrrhbearer" (Μυροφόρος; the equivalent of the western Three Marys) and "Equal to the Apostles" (ἰσαπόστολος). For centuries, it has been the custom of many Eastern Orthodox Christians to share dyed and painted eggs, particularly on Easter Sunday. The eggs represent new life, and Christ bursting forth from the tomb. Among Eastern Orthodox Christians this sharing is accompanied by the proclamation "Christ is risen!" One folk tradition concerning Mary Magdalene says that following the death and resurrection of Jesus, she used her position to gain an invitation to a banquet given by the Roman emperor Tiberius in Rome. When she met him, she held a plain egg in her hand and exclaimed, "Christ is risen!" The emperor laughed, and said that Christ rising from the dead was as likely as the egg in her hand turning red while she held it. Before he finished speaking, the egg in her hand turned a bright red and she continued proclaiming the Gospel to the entire imperial house.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: During the Counter-Reformation and Baroque periods (late 16th and 17th centuries), the description "penitent" was added to the indication of her name on her feast day, July 22. It had not yet been added at the time of the Tridentine Calendar of 1569 and is no longer found in the present General Roman Calendar but, once added, it remained until the General Roman Calendar of 1960. The Gospel reading in the Tridentine Mass was Luke 7:36–50 (the sinful woman anointing the feet of Jesus), while in the present version of the Roman Rite of Mass it is John 20:1–2, 11–18 (meeting of Mary Magdalene with Jesus after his resurrection).


title: Mary Magdalene

text: According to Darrell Bock, the title of "apostola apostolorum" first appears in the 10th century, but Katherine Ludwig Jansen says she found no reference to it earlier than the 12th, by which time it was already commonplace. She mentions in particular Hugh of Cluny (1024–1109), Peter Abelard (1079–1142), and Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) among those who gave Mary Magdalene the title of "apostolorum apostola" (apostle of the apostles). Jane Schaberg adds Geoffrey of Vendôme (c. 1065/70–1132).


title: Mary Magdalene

text: The equivalent of the phrase "apostolorum apostola" may have appeared already in the 9th century. Chapter XXVII of the "Life of Mary Magdalene" attributed to Hrabanus Maurus (c. 780 – 4 February 856) is headed: "Ubi Magdalenam Christus ad apostolos mittit apostolam" (Wherein Christ sends Magdalene as an apostle to the apostles). The same chapter says she did not delay in exercising the office of apostolate with which he had been honored ("apostolatus officio quo honorata fuerat fungi non distulit"). Raymond E. Brown, commenting on this fact, remarks that Hrabanus Maurus frequently applies the word "apostle" to Mary Magdalene in this work. However the work is actually no earlier than the 12th century. Because of Mary Magdalene's position as an apostle, though not one of those who became official witnesses to the resurrection, the Catholic Church honored her by reciting the Gloria on her feast day – the only female saint so honored apart from Mary, the mother of Jesus. In his apostolic letter "Mulieris Dignitatem" ("On the dignity and vocation of women", parts 67–69) dated August 15, 1988, Pope John Paul II dealt with the Easter events in relation to the women being present at the tomb after the Resurrection, in a section entitled 'First Witnesses of the Resurrection':


title: Mary Magdalene

text: The 1549 "Book of Common Prayer" had on July 22 a feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, with the same Scripture readings as in the Tridentine Mass and with a newly composed collect: "Merciful father geue us grace, that we neuer presume to synne through the example of anye creature, but if it shall chaunce vs at any tyme to offende thy dyuine maiestie: that then we maye truly repent, and lament the same, after the example of Mary Magdalene, and by lyuelye faythe obtayne remission of all oure sinnes: throughe the onely merites of thy sonne oure sauiour Christ." The 1552 edition omitted the feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, which was restored to the Book of Common Prayer only after some 400 years.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: Modern Protestants honor her as a disciple and friend of Jesus. Anglican Christians refer to her as a saint and may follow her example of repentance; While some interpret the Thirty-Nine Articles as forbidding them to call upon her for intercession, other Anglicans, citing the Episcopal burial service, say they can ask the saint to pray for them. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America honors Mary Magdalene on July 22 as an Apostle, albeit as a Lesser Festival. Presbyterians honor her as the "apostle to the apostles" and, in the book "Methodist Theology", Kenneth Wilson describes her as, "in effect", one of the "first missionaries".


title: Mary Magdalene

text: Mary Magdalene is remembered in the Church of England with a Festival and in the Episcopal Church with a Major Feast on 22 July.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: There are many references to Mary Magdalene in the writings of the Baháʼí Faith, where she enjoys an exalted status as a heroine of faith and the "archetypal woman of all cycles". `Abdu'l-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion, said that she was "the channel of confirmation" to Jesus' disciples, a "heroine" who "re-established the faith of the apostles" and was "a light of nearness in his kingdom". `Abdu'l-Bahá also wrote that "her reality is ever shining from the horizon of Christ", "her face is shining and beaming forth on the horizon of the universe forevermore" and that "her candle is, in the assemblage of the world, lighted till eternity". `Abdu'l-Bahá considered her to be the supreme example of how women are completely equal with men in the sight of God and can at times even exceed men in holiness and greatness. Indeed he said that she surpassed all the men of her time, and that "crowns studded with the brilliant jewels of guidance" were upon her head.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: The Baháʼí writings also expand upon the scarce references to her life in the canonical Gospels, with a wide array of extra-canonical stories about her and sayings which are not recorded in any other extant historical sources. `Abdu'l-Bahá said that Mary traveled to Rome and spoke before the emperor Tiberius, which is presumably why Pilate was later recalled to Rome for his cruel treatment of the Jews (a tradition also attested to in the Eastern Orthodox Church). Baháʼís have noted parallels between Mary Magdalene and the Babí heroine-poet Táhirih. The two are similar in many respects, with Mary Magdalene often being viewed as a Christian antecedent of the latter, while Táhirih in her own right could be described as the spiritual return of the Magdalene; especially given their common, shared attributes of "knowledge, steadfastness, courage, virtue and will power", in addition to their importance within the religious movements of Christianity and the Baháʼí Faith as female leaders.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: Many of the alleged relics of the saint are held in Catholic churches in France, especially at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, where her skull (see above) and the "noli me tangere" are on display; the latter being a piece of forehead flesh and skin said to be from the spot touched by Jesus at the post-resurrection encounter in the garden. A tibia also kept at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume is the object of an annual procession.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: In 1998, Ramon K. Jusino proposed an unprecedented argument that the "Beloved Disciple" of the Gospel of John is Mary Magdalene. Jusino based his argument largely on the Nag Hammadi Gnostic books, rejecting the view of Raymond E. Brown that these books were later developments, and maintaining instead that the extant Gospel of John is the result of modification of an earlier text that presented Mary Magdalene as the Beloved Disciple. The gospel, at least in its current form, clearly and consistently identifies the disciple as having masculine gender, only ever referring to him using words inflected in the masculine. There are no textual variants in extant New Testament manuscripts to contradict this, and thus no physical evidence of this hypothetical earlier document. Richard J. Hooper does not make the Jusino thesis his own, but says: "Perhaps we should not altogether reject the possibility that some Johannine Christians considered Mary Magdalene to be 'the disciple whom Jesus loved'." Esther A. de Boer likewise presents the idea as "one possibility among others", not as a definitive solution to the problem of the identity of the anonymous disciple. There is a theological interpretation of Mary as the Magdala, "The Elegant Tower" and certain churches honor her as a heroine of the faith in their teachings.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: Dan Brown's 2003 bestselling mystery thriller novel "The Da Vinci Code" popularized a number of erroneous ideas about Mary Magdalene, including that she was a member of the tribe of Benjamin, that she was Jesus' wife, that she was pregnant at the crucifixion, and that she gave birth to Jesus' child, who became the founder of a bloodline which survives to this very day. There is no historical evidence (from the canonical or apocryphal gospels, other early Christian writings, or any other ancient sources) to support these statements. "The Da Vinci Code" also purports that the figure of the "beloved disciple" to Jesus' right in Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" is Mary Magdalene, disguised as one of the male disciples; art historians maintain that the figure is, in reality, the apostle John, who only appears feminine due to Leonardo's characteristic fascination with blurring the lines between the sexes, a quality which is found in his other paintings, such as "St. John the Baptist" (painted 1513–1516). Furthermore, according to Ross King, an expert on Italian art, Mary Magdalene's appearance at the last supper would not have been controversial and Leonardo would have had no motive to disguise her as one of the other disciples, since she was widely venerated in her role as the "apostle to the apostles" and patron of the Dominican Order, for whom "The Last Supper" was painted. There would have even been precedent for it, since the earlier Italian Renaissance painter Fra Angelico had included her in his painting of the Last Supper. Numerous works were written in response to the historical inaccuracies in "The Da Vinci Code", but the novel still exerted massive influence on how members of the general public viewed Mary Magdalene.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: In 2012, scholar Karen L. King published the Gospel of Jesus' Wife, a purported Coptic papyrus fragment in which Jesus says: "My wife ... she will be able to be my disciple." The overwhelming consensus of scholars is that the fragment is a modern forgery, and in 2016, King herself said that the alleged Gospel was a forgery.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: Ehrman states that the historical sources reveal absolutely nothing about Jesus' sexuality and that there is no evidence whatsoever to support the idea that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married or that they had any kind of sexual or romantic relationship. None of the canonical gospels imply such a thing and, even in the late Gnostic gospels, where Mary is shown as Jesus' closest disciple, the relationship between them is not sexual. The extremely late "Greater Questions of Mary", which has not survived, allegedly portrayed Mary not as Jesus' wife or partner, but rather as an unwilling voyeur. Ehrman says that the Essenes, a contemporary Jewish sect who shared many views with Jesus, and the apostle Paul, Jesus' later follower, both lived in unmarried celibacy, so it is not unreasonable to conclude that Jesus did as well.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: Furthermore, according to , Jesus taught that marriage would not exist at all in the coming kingdom of God. Since Jesus taught that people should live as though the kingdom had already arrived, this teaching implied a life of unmarried celibacy. Ehrman says that, if Jesus had been married to Mary Magdalene, the authors of the gospels would definitely have mentioned it, since they mention all his other family members, including his mother Mary, his father Joseph, his four brothers, and his at least two sisters.


title: Mary Magdalene

text: Maurice Casey rejects the idea of Mary Magdalene as Jesus' wife as nothing more than wild popular sensationalism. Jeffrey J. Kripal writes that "the historical sources are simply too contradictory and simultaneously too silent" to make absolute declarations regarding Jesus' sexuality.


title: Marco Polo

text: Marco Polo (, , ; 8 January 1324) was a Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in "The Travels of Marco Polo" (also known as "Book of the Marvels of the World " and "Il Milione", ), a book that described to Europeans the then mysterious culture and inner workings of the Eastern world, including the wealth and great size of the Mongol Empire and China in the Yuan Dynasty, giving their first comprehensive look into China, Persia, India, Japan and other Asian cities and countries.


title: Marco Polo

text: Born in Venice, Marco learned the mercantile trade from his father and his uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, who travelled through Asia and met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to meet Marco for the first time. The three of them embarked on an epic journey to Asia, exploring many places along the Silk Road until they reached Cathay (China). They were received by the royal court of Kublai Khan, who was impressed by Marco's intelligence and humility. Marco was appointed to serve as Khan's foreign emissary, and he was sent on many diplomatic missions throughout the empire and Southeast Asia, such as in present-day Burma, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. As part of this appointment, Marco also travelled extensively inside China, living in the emperor's lands for 17 years and seeing many things that had previously been unknown to Europeans. Around 1291, the Polos also offered to accompany the Mongol princess Kököchin to Persia; they arrived around 1293. After leaving the princess, they travelled overland to Constantinople and then to Venice, returning home after 24 years. At this time, Venice was at war with Genoa; Marco was captured and imprisoned by the Genoans after joining the war effort and dictated his stories to Rustichello da Pisa, a cellmate. He was released in 1299, became a wealthy merchant, married, and had three children. He died in 1324 and was buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Venice.


title: Marco Polo

text: Though he was not the first European to reach China (see Europeans in Medieval China), Marco Polo was the first to leave a detailed chronicle of his experience. This account of the Orient provided the Europeans with a clear picture of the East's geography and ethnic customs, and was the first Western record of porcelain, gunpowder, paper money, and some Asian plants and exotic animals. His travel book inspired Christopher Columbus and many other travellers. There is substantial literature based on Polo's writings; he also influenced European cartography, leading to the introduction of the Fra Mauro map.


title: Marco Polo

text: Marco Polo was born in 1254 in Venice, the capital of the Venetian Republic. His father, Niccolò Polo, had his household in Venice and left Marco's pregnant mother in order to travel to Asia with his brother Maffeo Polo. Their return to Italy in order to "go to Venice and visit their household" is described in "The Travels of Marco Polo" as follows: "...they departed from Acre and went to Negropont, and from Negropont they continued their voyage to Venice. On their arrival there, Messer Nicolas found that his wife was dead and that she had left behind her a son of fifteen years of age, whose name was Marco".


title: Marco Polo

text: His first known ancestor was a great uncle, Marco Polo (the older) from Venice, who lent some money and commanded a ship in Constantinople. Andrea, Marco's grandfather, lived in Venice in "contrada San Felice", he had three sons: Marco "the older", Maffeo and Niccolò (Marco's father). Some old Venetian historical sources considered Polo's ancestors to be of far Dalmatian origin.


title: Marco Polo

text: Marco Polo is most often mentioned in the archives of the Republic of Venice as , which means Marco Polo of the of St John Chrysostom Church.


title: Marco Polo

text: However, he was also nicknamed during his lifetime (which in Italian literally means 'Million'). In fact, the Italian title of his book was , which means "The Book of Marco Polo, nicknamed '. According to the 15th-century humanist Giovanni Battista Ramusio, his fellow citizens awarded him this nickname when he came back to Venice because he kept on saying that Kublai Khan's wealth was counted in millions. More precisely, he was nicknamed (Mr Marco Millions).


title: Marco Polo

text: However, since also his father Niccolò was nicknamed , 19th-century philologist Luigi Foscolo Benedetto was persuaded that was a shortened version of , and that this nickname was used to distinguish Niccolò's and Marco's branch from other Polo families.


title: Marco Polo

text: In 1168, his great-uncle, Marco Polo, borrowed money and commanded a ship in Constantinople. His grandfather, Andrea Polo of the parish of San Felice, had three sons, Maffeo, yet another Marco, and the traveller's father Niccolò. This genealogy, described by Ramusio, is not universally accepted as there is no additional evidence to support it.


title: Marco Polo

text: His father, Niccolò Polo, a merchant, traded with the Near East, becoming wealthy and achieving great prestige. Niccolò and his brother Maffeo set off on a trading voyage before Marco's birth. In 1260, Niccolò and Maffeo, while residing in Constantinople, then the capital of the Latin Empire, foresaw a political change; they liquidated their assets into jewels and moved away. According to "The Travels of Marco Polo", they passed through much of Asia, and met with Kublai Khan, a Mongol ruler and founder of the Yuan dynasty. Their decision to leave Constantinople proved timely. In 1261 Michael VIII Palaiologos, the ruler of the Empire of Nicaea, took Constantinople, promptly burned the Venetian quarter and re-established the Byzantine Empire. Captured Venetian citizens were blinded, while many of those who managed to escape perished aboard overloaded refugee ships fleeing to other Venetian colonies in the Aegean Sea.


title: Marco Polo

text: Almost nothing is known about the childhood of Marco Polo until he was fifteen years old, except that he probably spent part of his childhood in Venice. Meanwhile, Marco Polo's mother died, and an aunt and uncle raised him. He received a good education, learning mercantile subjects including foreign currency, appraising, and the handling of cargo ships; he learned little or no Latin. His father later married Floradise Polo (née Trevisan).


title: Marco Polo

text: In 1269, Niccolò and Maffeo returned to their families in Venice, meeting young Marco for the first time. In 1271, during the rule of Doge Lorenzo Tiepolo, Marco Polo (at seventeen years of age), his father, and his uncle set off for Asia on the series of adventures that Marco later documented in his book.


title: Marco Polo

text: They sailed to Acre and later rode on their camels to the Persian port Hormuz. During the first stages of the journey, they stayed for a few months in Acre and were able to speak with Archdeacon Tedaldo Visconti of Piacenza. The Polo family, on that occasion, had expressed their regret at the long lack of a pope, because on their previous trip to China they had received a letter from Kublai Khan to the Pope, and had thus had to leave for China disappointed. During the trip, however, they received news that after 33 months of vacation, finally, the Conclave had elected the new Pope and that he was exactly the archdeacon of Acre. The three of them hurried to return to the Holy Land, where the new Pope entrusted them with letters for the "Great Khan", inviting him to send his emissaries to Rome. To give more weight to this mission he sent with the Polos, as his legates, two Dominican fathers, Guglielmo of Tripoli and Nicola of Piacenza.


title: Marco Polo

text: They continued overland until they arrived at Kublai Khan's place in Shangdu, China (then known as Cathay). By this time, Marco was 21 years old. Impressed by Marco's intelligence and humility, Khan appointed him to serve as his foreign emissary to India and Burma. He was sent on many diplomatic missions throughout his empire and in Southeast Asia, (such as in present-day Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam), but also entertained the Khan with stories and observations about the lands he saw. As part of this appointment, Marco travelled extensively inside China, living in the emperor's lands for 17 years.


title: Marco Polo

text: Kublai initially refused several times to let the Polos return to Europe, as he appreciated their company and they became useful to him. However, around 1291, he finally granted permission, entrusting the Polos with his last duty: accompany the Mongol princess Kököchin, who was to become the consort of Arghun Khan, in Persia (see "Narrative" section). After leaving the princess, the Polos travelled overland to Constantinople. They later decided to return to their home.


title: Marco Polo

text: They returned to Venice in 1295, after 24 years, with many riches and treasures. They had travelled almost .


title: Marco Polo

text: Marco Polo returned to Venice in 1295 with his fortune converted into gemstones. At this time, Venice was at war with the Republic of Genoa. Polo armed a galley equipped with a trebuchet to join the war. He was probably caught by Genoans in a skirmish in 1296, off the Anatolian coast between Adana and the Gulf of Alexandretta (and not during the battle of Curzola (September 1298), off the Dalmatian coast, a claim which is due to a later tradition (16th century) recorded by Giovanni Battista Ramusio).


title: Marco Polo

text: He spent several months of his imprisonment dictating a detailed account of his travels to a fellow inmate, Rustichello da Pisa, who incorporated tales of his own as well as other collected anecdotes and current affairs from China. The book soon spread throughout Europe in manuscript form, and became known as "The Travels of Marco Polo" (Italian title: Il Milione, lit. "The Million", deriving from Polo's nickname "Milione". Original title in Franco-Italian : "Livres des Merveilles du Monde"). It depicts the Polos' journeys throughout Asia, giving Europeans their first comprehensive look into the inner workings of the Far East, including China, India, and Japan.


title: Marco Polo

text: Polo was finally released from captivity in August 1299, and returned home to Venice, where his father and uncle in the meantime had purchased a large palazzo in the zone named "contrada San Giovanni Crisostomo" (Corte del Milion). For such a venture, the Polo family probably invested profits from trading, and even many gemstones they brought from the East. The company continued its activities and Marco soon became a wealthy merchant. Marco and his uncle Maffeo financed other expeditions, but likely never left Venetian provinces, nor returned to the Silk Road and Asia. Sometime before 1300, his father Niccolò died. In 1300, he married Donata Badoèr, the daughter of Vitale Badoèr, a merchant. They had three daughters, Fantina (married Marco Bragadin), Bellela (married Bertuccio Querini), and Moreta.


title: Marco Polo

text: Pietro d'Abano philosopher, doctor and astrologer based in Padua, reports having spoken with Marco Polo about what he had observed in the vault of the sky during his travels. Marco told him that during his return trip to the South China Sea, he had spotted what he describes in a drawing as a star "shaped like a sack" (in Latin: "ut sacco") with a big tail ("magna habens caudam"), most likely a comet. Astronomers agree that there were no comets sighted in Europe at the end of the thirteenth century, but there are records about a comet sighted in China and Indonesia in 1293. Interestingly, this circumstance does not appear in Polo's book of Travels. Peter D'Abano kept the drawing in his volume "Conciliator Differentiarum, quæ inter Philosophos et Medicos Versantur". Marco Polo gave Pietro other astronomical observations he made in the Southern Hemisphere, and also a description of the Sumatran rhinoceros, which are collected in the "Conciliator".


title: Marco Polo

text: In 1305 he is mentioned in a Venetian document among local sea captains regarding the payment of taxes. His relation with a certain Marco Polo, who in 1300 was mentioned with riots against the aristocratic government, and escaped the death penalty, as well as riots from 1310 led by Bajamonte Tiepolo and Marco Querini, among whose rebels were Jacobello and Francesco Polo from another family branch, is unclear. Polo is clearly mentioned again after 1305 in Maffeo's testament from 1309 to 1310, in a 1319 document according to which he became owner of some estates of his deceased father, and in 1321, when he bought part of the family property of his wife Donata.


title: Marco Polo

text: In 1323, Polo was confined to bed, due to illness. On 8 January 1324, despite physicians' efforts to treat him, Polo was on his deathbed. To write and certify the will, his family requested Giovanni Giustiniani, a priest of San Procolo. His wife, Donata, and his three daughters were appointed by him as co-executrices. The church was entitled by law to a portion of his estate; he approved of this and ordered that a further sum be paid to the convent of San Lorenzo, the place where he wished to be buried. He also set free Peter, a Tartar servant, who may have accompanied him from Asia, and to whom Polo bequeathed 100 lire of Venetian denari.


title: Marco Polo

text: He divided up the rest of his assets, including several properties, among individuals, religious institutions, and every guild and fraternity to which he belonged. He also wrote off multiple debts including 300 lire that his sister-in-law owed him, and others for the convent of San Giovanni, San Paolo of the Order of Preachers, and a cleric named Friar Benvenuto. He ordered 220 soldi be paid to Giovanni Giustiniani for his work as a notary and his prayers.


title: Marco Polo

text: The will was not signed by Polo, but was validated by the then-relevant "signum manus" rule, by which the testator only had to touch the document to make it legally valid. Due to the Venetian law stating that the day ends at sunset, the exact date of Marco Polo's death cannot be determined, but according to some scholars it was between the sunsets of 8 and 9 January 1324. Biblioteca Marciana, which holds the original copy of his testament, dates the testament on 9 January 1323, and gives the date of his death at some time in June 1324.


title: Marco Polo

text: An authoritative version of Marco Polo's book does not and cannot exist, for the early manuscripts differ significantly, and the reconstruction of the original text is a matter of textual criticism. A total of about 150 copies in various languages are known to exist. Before the availability of printing press, errors were frequently made during copying and translating, so there are many differences between the various copies.


title: Marco Polo

text: Polo related his memoirs orally to Rustichello da Pisa while both were prisoners of the Genova Republic. Rustichello wrote "Devisement du Monde" in Franco-Venetian. The idea probably was to create a handbook for merchants, essentially a text on weights, measures and distances.


title: Marco Polo

text: The oldest surviving manuscript is in Old French heavily flavoured with Italian; According to the Italian scholar Luigi Foscolo Benedetto, this "F" text is the basic original text, which he corrected by comparing it with the somewhat more detailed Italian of Giovanni Battista Ramusio, together with a Latin manuscript in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana. Other early important sources are R (Ramusio's Italian translation first printed in 1559), and Z (a fifteenth-century Latin manuscript kept at Toledo, Spain). Another Old French Polo manuscript, dating to around 1350, is held by the National Library of Sweden.


title: Marco Polo

text: One of the early manuscripts "Iter Marci Pauli Veneti" was a translation into Latin made by the Dominican brother in 1302, just a few years after Marco's return to Venice. Since Latin was then the most widespread and authoritative language of culture, it is suggested that Rustichello's text was translated into Latin for a precise will of the Dominican Order, and this helped to promote the book on a European scale.


title: Marco Polo

text: The first English translation is the Elizabethan version by John Frampton published in 1579, "The most noble and famous travels of Marco Polo", based on Santaella's Castilian translation of 1503 (the first version in that language).


title: Marco Polo

text: The published editions of Polo's book rely on single manuscripts, blend multiple versions together, or add notes to clarify, for example in the English translation by Henry Yule. The 1938 English translation by Moule and Paul Pelliot is based on a Latin manuscript found in the library of the Cathedral of Toledo in 1932, and is 50% longer than other versions. The popular translation published by Penguin Books in 1958 by Latham works several texts together to make a readable whole.


title: Marco Polo

text: The book opens with a preface describing his father and uncle travelling to Bolghar where Prince Berke Khan lived. A year later, they went to Ukek and continued to Bukhara. There, an envoy from the Levant invited them to meet Kublai Khan, who had never met Europeans. In 1266, they reached the seat of Kublai Khan at Dadu, present-day Beijing, China. Kublai received the brothers with hospitality and asked them many questions regarding the European legal and political system. He also inquired about the Pope and Church in Rome. After the brothers answered the questions he tasked them with delivering a letter to the Pope, requesting 100 Christians acquainted with the Seven Arts (grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, arithmetic, music and astronomy). Kublai Khan requested also that an envoy bring him back oil of the lamp in Jerusalem. The long "sede vacante" between the death of Pope Clement IV in 1268 and the election of his successor delayed the Polos in fulfilling Kublai's request. They followed the suggestion of Theobald Visconti, then papal legate for the realm of Egypt, and returned to Venice in 1269 or 1270 to await the nomination of the new Pope, which allowed Marco to see his father for the first time, at the age of fifteen or sixteen.


title: Marco Polo

text: In 1271, Niccolò, Maffeo and Marco Polo embarked on their voyage to fulfil Kublai's request. They sailed to Acre, and then rode on camels to the Persian port of Hormuz. The Polos wanted to sail straight into China, but the ships there were not seaworthy, so they continued overland through the Silk Road, until reaching Kublai's summer palace in Shangdu, near present-day Zhangjiakou. In one instance during their trip, the Polos joined a caravan of travelling merchants whom they crossed paths with. Unfortunately, the party was soon attacked by bandits, who used the cover of a sandstorm to ambush them. The Polos managed to fight and escape through a nearby town, but many members of the caravan were killed or enslaved. Three and a half years after leaving Venice, when Marco was about 21 years old, the Polos were welcomed by Kublai into his palace. The exact date of their arrival is unknown, but scholars estimate it to be between 1271 and 1275. On reaching the Yuan court, the Polos presented the sacred oil from Jerusalem and the papal letters to their patron.


title: Marco Polo

text: Marco knew four languages, and the family had accumulated a great deal of knowledge and experience that was useful to Kublai. It is possible that he became a government official; he wrote about many imperial visits to China's southern and eastern provinces, the far south and Burma. They were highly respected and sought after in the Mongolian court, and so Kublai Khan decided to decline the Polos' requests to leave China. They became worried about returning home safely, believing that if Kublai died, his enemies might turn against them because of their close involvement with the ruler. In 1292, Kublai's great-nephew, then ruler of Persia, sent representatives to China in search of a potential wife, and they asked the Polos to accompany them, so they were permitted to return to Persia with the wedding party—which left that same year from Zaitun in southern China on a fleet of 14 junks. The party sailed to the port of Singapore, travelled north to Sumatra, and around the southern tip of India, eventually crossing the Arabian Sea to Hormuz. The two-year voyage was a perilous one—of the six hundred people (not including the crew) in the convoy only eighteen had survived (including all three Polos). The Polos left the wedding party after reaching Hormuz and travelled overland to the port of Trebizond on the Black Sea, the present-day Trabzon.


title: Marco Polo

text: The British scholar Ronald Latham has pointed out that "The Book of Marvels" was, in fact, a collaboration written in 1298–1299 between Polo and a professional writer of romances, Rustichello of Pisa. It is believed that Polo related his memoirs orally to Rustichello da Pisa while both were prisoners of the Genova Republic. Rustichello wrote "Devisement du Monde" in Franco-Venetian language, which was the language of culture widespread in northern Italy between the subalpine belt and the lower Po between the 13th and 15th centuries.


title: Marco Polo

text: Latham also argued that Rustichello may have glamorised Polo's accounts, and added fantastic and romantic elements that made the book a bestseller. The Italian scholar Luigi Foscolo Benedetto had previously demonstrated that the book was written in the same "leisurely, conversational style" that characterised Rustichello's other works, and that some passages in the book were taken verbatim or with minimal modifications from other writings by Rustichello. For example, the opening introduction in "The Book of Marvels" to "emperors and kings, dukes and marquises" was lifted straight out of an Arthurian romance Rustichello had written several years earlier, and the account of the second meeting between Polo and Kublai Khan at the latter's court is almost the same as that of the arrival of Tristan at the court of King Arthur at Camelot in that same book. Latham believed that many elements of the book, such as legends of the Middle East and mentions of exotic marvels, may have been the work of Rustichello who was giving what medieval European readers expected to find in a travel book.


title: Marco Polo

text: Apparently, from the very beginning, Marco's story aroused contrasting reactions, as it was received by some with a certain disbelief. The Dominican father Francesco Pipino was the author of a translation into Latin, "Iter Marci Pauli Veneti" in 1302, just a few years after Marco's return to Venice. Francesco Pipino solemnly affirmed the truthfulness of the book and defined Marco as a "prudent, honoured and faithful man".


title: Marco Polo

text: In his writings, the Dominican brother Jacopo d'Acqui explains why his contemporaries were sceptical about the content of the book. He also relates that before dying, Marco Polo insisted that "he had told only a half of the things he had seen".


title: Marco Polo

text: According to some recent research of the Italian scholar Antonio Montefusco, the very close relationship that Marco Polo cultivated with members of the Dominican Order in Venice suggests that local fathers collaborated with him for a Latin version of the book, which means that Rustichello's text was translated into Latin for a precise will of the Order.


title: Marco Polo

text: Since Dominican fathers had among their missions that of evangelizing foreign peoples (cf. the role of Dominican missionaries in China and in the Indies), it is reasonable to think that they considered Marco's book as a trustworthy piece of information for missions in the East. The diplomatic communications between Pope Innocent IV and Pope Gregory X with the Mongols were probably another reason for this endorsement. At the time, there was open discussion of a possible Christian-Mongol alliance with an anti-Islamic function. In fact, a Mongol delegate was solemny baptised at the Second Council of Lyon. At the council, Pope Gregory X promulgated a new Crusade to start in 1278 in liaison with the Mongols.


title: Marco Polo

text: Since its publication, some have viewed the book with skepticism. Some in the Middle Ages regarded the book simply as a romance or fable, due largely to the sharp difference of its descriptions of a sophisticated civilisation in China to other early accounts by Giovanni da Pian del Carpine and William of Rubruck, who portrayed the Mongols as 'barbarians' who appeared to belong to 'some other world'. Doubts have also been raised in later centuries about Marco Polo's narrative of his travels in China, for example for his failure to mention the Great Wall of China, and in particular the difficulties in identifying many of the place names he used (the great majority, however, have since been identified). Many have questioned whether he had visited the places he mentioned in his itinerary, whether he had appropriated the accounts of his father and uncle or other travellers, and some doubted whether he even reached China, or that if he did, perhaps never went beyond Khanbaliq (Beijing).


title: Marco Polo

text: It has, however, been pointed out that Polo's accounts of China are more accurate and detailed than other travellers' accounts of the period. Polo had at times refuted the 'marvellous' fables and legends given in other European accounts, and despite some exaggerations and errors, Polo's accounts have relatively few of the descriptions of irrational marvels. In many cases of descriptions of events where he was not present (mostly given in the first part before he reached China, such as mentions of Christian miracles), he made a clear distinction that they are what he had heard rather than what he had seen. It is also largely free of the gross errors found in other accounts such as those given by the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta who had confused the Yellow River with the Grand Canal and other waterways, and believed that porcelain was made from coal.


title: Marco Polo

text: Modern studies have further shown that details given in Marco Polo's book, such as the currencies used, salt productions and revenues, are accurate and unique. Such detailed descriptions are not found in other non-Chinese sources, and their accuracy is supported by archaeological evidence as well as Chinese records compiled after Polo had left China. His accounts are therefore unlikely to have been obtained second hand. Other accounts have also been verified; for example, when visiting Zhenjiang in Jiangsu, China, Marco Polo noted that a large number of Christian churches had been built there. His claim is confirmed by a Chinese text of the 14th century explaining how a Sogdian named Mar-Sargis from Samarkand founded six Nestorian Christian churches there in addition to one in Hangzhou during the second half of the 13th century. His story of the princess Kököchin sent from China to Persia to marry the Īl-khān is also confirmed by independent sources in both Persia and China.


title: Marco Polo

text: Sceptics have long wondered whether Marco Polo wrote his book based on hearsay, with some pointing to omissions about noteworthy practices and structures of China as well as the lack of details on some places in his book. While Polo describes paper money and the burning of coal, he fails to mention the Great Wall of China, tea, Chinese characters, chopsticks, or footbinding. His failure to note the presence of the Great Wall of China was first raised in the middle of the seventeenth century, and in the middle of the eighteenth century, it was suggested that he might have never reached China. Later scholars such as John W. Haeger argued that Marco Polo might not have visited Southern China due to the lack of details in his description of southern Chinese cities compared to northern ones, while Herbert Franke also raised the possibility that Marco Polo might not have been to China at all, and wondered if he might have based his accounts on Persian sources due to his use of Persian expressions. This is taken further by Frances Wood who claimed in her 1995 book "Did Marco Polo Go to China?" that at best Polo never went farther east than Persia (modern Iran), and that there is nothing in "The Book of Marvels" about China that could not be obtained via reading Persian books. Wood maintains that it is more probable that Polo only went to Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey) and some of the Italian merchant colonies around the Black Sea, picking hearsay from those travellers who had been farther east.


title: Marco Polo

text: Supporters of Polo's basic accuracy countered on the points raised by sceptics such as footbinding and the Great Wall of China. Historian Stephen G. Haw argued that the Great Walls were built to keep out northern invaders, whereas the ruling dynasty during Marco Polo's visit were those very northern invaders. They note that the Great Wall familiar to us today is a Ming structure built some two centuries after Marco Polo's travels; and that the Mongol rulers whom Polo served controlled territories both north and south of today's wall, and would have no reasons to maintain any fortifications that may have remained there from the earlier dynasties. Other Europeans who travelled to Khanbaliq during the Yuan dynasty, such as Giovanni de' Marignolli and Odoric of Pordenone, said nothing about the wall either. The Muslim traveller Ibn Battuta, who asked about the wall when he visited China during the Yuan dynasty, could find no one who had either seen it or knew of anyone who had seen it, suggesting that while ruins of the wall constructed in the earlier periods might have existed, they were not significant or noteworthy at that time.


title: Marco Polo

text: Haw also argued that footbinding was not common even among Chinese during Polo's time and almost unknown among the Mongols. While the Italian missionary Odoric of Pordenone who visited Yuan China mentioned footbinding (it is however unclear whether he was merely relaying something he had heard as his description is inaccurate), no other foreign visitors to Yuan China mentioned the practice, perhaps an indication that the footbinding was not widespread or was not practised in an extreme form at that time. Marco Polo himself noted (in the Toledo manuscript) the dainty walk of Chinese women who took very short steps. It has also been noted by other scholars that many of the things not mentioned by Marco Polo such as tea and chopsticks were not mentioned by other travellers as well. Haw also pointed out that despite the few omissions, Marco Polo's account is more extensive, more accurate and more detailed than those of other foreign travellers to China in this period. Marco Polo even observed Chinese nautical inventions such as the watertight compartments of bulkhead partitions in Chinese ships, knowledge of which he was keen to share with his fellow Venetians.


title: Marco Polo

text: In addition to Haw, a number of other scholars have argued in favour of the established view that Polo was in China in response to Wood's book. The book has been criticized by figures including Igor de Rachewiltz (translator and annotator of "The Secret History of the Mongols") and Morris Rossabi (author of "Kublai Khan: his life and times"). The historian David Morgan points out basic errors made in Wood's book such as confusing the Liao dynasty with the Jin dynasty, and he found no compelling evidence in the book that would convince him that Marco Polo did not go to China. Haw also argues in his book "Marco Polo's China" that Marco's account is much more correct and accurate than has often been supposed and that it is extremely unlikely that he could have obtained all the information in his book from second-hand sources. Haw also criticizes Wood's approach to finding mention of Marco Polo in Chinese texts by contending that contemporaneous Europeans had little regard for using surnames and that a direct Chinese transliteration of the name "Marco" ignores the possibility of him taking on a Chinese or even Mongol name with no similarity to his Latin name.


title: Marco Polo

text: Also in reply to Wood, Jørgen Jensen recalled the meeting of Marco Polo and Pietro d'Abano in the late 13th century. During this meeting, Marco gave to Pietro details of the astronomical observations he had made on his journey. These observations are only compatible with Marco's stay in China, Sumatra and the South China Sea and are recorded in Pietro's book "Conciliator Differentiarum", but not in Marco's "Book of Travels".


title: Marco Polo

text: Reviewing Haw's book, Peter Jackson (author of "The Mongols and the West") has said that Haw "must surely now have settled the controversy surrounding the historicity of Polo's visit to China". Igor de Rachewiltz's review, which refutes Wood's points, concludes with a strongly-worded condemnation: "I regret to say that F. W.'s book falls short of the standard of scholarship that one would expect in a work of this kind. Her book can only be described as deceptive, both in relation to the author and to the public at large. Questions are posted that, in the majority of cases, have already been answered satisfactorily ... her attempt is unprofessional; she is poorly equipped in the basic tools of the trade, i.e., adequate linguistic competence and research methodology ... and her major arguments cannot withstand close scrutiny. Her conclusion fails to consider all the evidence supporting Marco Polo's credibility."


title: Marco Polo

text: Some scholars believe that Marco Polo exaggerated his importance in China. The British historian David Morgan thought that Polo had likely exaggerated and lied about his status in China, while Ronald Latham believed that such exaggerations were embellishments by his ghostwriter Rustichello da Pisa.


title: Marco Polo

text: This sentence in "The Book of Marvels" was interpreted as Marco Polo was "the governor" of the city of "Yangiu" Yangzhou for three years, and later of Hangzhou. This claim has raised some controversy. According to David Morgan no Chinese source mentions him as either a friend of the Emperor or as the governor of Yangzhou – indeed no Chinese source mentions Marco Polo at all. In fact, in the 1960s the German historian Herbert Franke noted that all occurrences of Po-lo or Bolod in Yuan texts were names of people of Mongol or Turkic extraction.


title: Marco Polo

text: However, in the 2010s the Chinese scholar Peng Hai identified Marco Polo with a certain "Boluo", a courtier of the emperor, who is mentioned in the Yuanshi ("History of Yuan") since he was arrested in 1274 by an imperial dignitary named Saman. The accusation was that Boluo had walked on the same side of the road as a female courtesan, in contravention of the order for men and women to walk on opposite sides of the road inside the city. According to the "Yuanshi" records, Boluo was released at the request of the emperor himself, and was then transferred to the region of Ningxia, in the northeast of present-day China, in the spring of 1275. The date could correspond to the first mission of which Marco Polo speaks.


title: Marco Polo

text: If this identification is correct, there is a record about Marco Polo in Chinese sources. These conjectures seem to be supported by the fact that in addition to the imperial dignitary Saman (the one who had arrested the official named "Boluo"), the documents mention his brother, Xiangwei. According to sources, Saman died shortly after the incident, while Xiangwei was transferred to Yangzhou in 1282–1283. Marco Polo reports that he was moved to Hangzhou the following year, in 1284. It has been supposed that these displacements are due to the intention to avoid further conflicts between the two.


title: Marco Polo

text: The sinologist Paul Pelliot thought that Polo might have served as an officer of the government salt monopoly in Yangzhou, which was a position of some significance that could explain the exaggeration.


title: Marco Polo

text: It may seem unlikely that a European could hold a position of power in the Mongolian empire. However, some records prove he was not the first nor the only one. In his book, Marco mentions an official named "Mar Sarchis" who probably was a Nestorian Christian bishop, and he says he founded two Christian churches in the region of "Caigiu". This official is actually mentioned in the local gazette "Zhishun Zhenjian zhi" under the name "Ma Xuelijisi" and the qualification of "General of Third Class". Always in the gazette, it is said Ma Xuelijsi was an assistant supervisor in the province of Zhenjiang for three years, and that during this time he founded two Christian churches. In fact, it is a well-documented fact that Kublai Khan trusted foreigners more than Chinese subjects in internal affairs.


title: Marco Polo

text: Stephen G. Haw challenges this idea that Polo exaggerated his own importance, writing that, "contrary to what has often been said ... Marco does not claim any very exalted position for himself in the Yuan empire." He points out that Polo never claimed to hold high rank, such as a "darughachi", who led a "tumen" – a unit that was normally 10,000 strong. In fact, Polo does not even imply that he had led 1,000 personnel. Haw points out that Polo himself appears to state only that he had been an emissary of the khan, in a position with some esteem. According to Haw, this is a reasonable claim if Polo was, for example, a "keshig" – a member of the imperial guard by the same name, which included as many as 14,000 individuals at the time.


title: Marco Polo

text: Haw explains how the earliest manuscripts of Polo's accounts provide contradicting information about his role in Yangzhou, with some stating he was just a simple resident, others stating he was a governor, and Ramusio's manuscript claiming he was simply holding that office as a temporary substitute for someone else, yet all the manuscripts concur that he worked as an esteemed emissary for the khan. Haw also objected to the approach to finding mention of Marco Polo in Chinese texts, contending that contemporaneous Europeans had little regard for using surnames, and a direct Chinese transcription of the name "Marco" ignores the possibility of him taking on a Chinese or even Mongol name that had no bearing or similarity with his Latin name.


title: Marco Polo

text: Another controversial claim is at chapter 145 when the Book of Marvels states that the three Polos provided the Mongols with technical advice on building mangonels during the Siege of Xiangyang,


title: Marco Polo

text: Since the siege was over in 1273, before Marco Polo had arrived in China for the first time, the claim cannot be true. The Mongol army that besieged Xiangyang did have foreign military engineers, but they were mentioned in Chinese sources as being from Baghdad and had Arabic names. In this respect, Igor de Rachewiltz recalls that the claim that the "three" Polo were present at the siege of Xiang-yang is not present in all manuscripts, but Niccolò and Matteo could have made this suggestion. Therefore, this claim seems a subsequent addition to give more credibility to the story.


title: Marco Polo

text: A number of errors in Marco Polo's account have been noted: for example, he described the bridge later known as Marco Polo Bridge as having twenty-four arches instead of eleven or thirteen. He also said that city wall of Khanbaliq had twelve gates when it had only eleven. Archaeologists have also pointed out that Polo may have mixed up the details from the two attempted invasions of Japan by Kublai Khan in 1274 and 1281. Polo wrote of five-masted ships, when archaeological excavations found that the ships, in fact, had only three masts.


title: Marco Polo

text: Wood accused Marco Polo of taking other people's accounts in his book, retelling other stories as his own, or basing his accounts on Persian guidebooks or other lost sources. For example, Sinologist Francis Woodman Cleaves noted that Polo's account of the voyage of the princess Kököchin from China to Persia to marry the Īl-khān in 1293 has been confirmed by a passage in the 15th-century Chinese work "Yongle Encyclopedia" and by the Persian historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani in his work "Jami' al-tawarikh". However, neither of these accounts mentions Polo or indeed any European as part of the bridal party, and Wood used the lack of mention of Polo in these works as an example of Polo's "retelling of a well-known tale". Morgan, in Polo's defence, noted that even the princess herself was not mentioned in the Chinese source and that it would have been surprising if Polo had been mentioned by Rashid-al-Din. Historian Igor de Rachewiltz strongly criticised Wood's arguments in his review of her book. Rachewiltz argued that Marco Polo's account, in fact, allows the Persian and Chinese sources to be reconciled – by relaying the information that two of the three envoys sent (mentioned in the Chinese source and whose names accord with those given by Polo) had died during the voyage, it explains why only the third who survived, Coja/Khoja, was mentioned by Rashìd al-Dìn. Polo had therefore completed the story by providing information not found in either source. He also noted that the only Persian source that mentions the princess was not completed until 1310–11, therefore Marco Polo could not have learned the information from any Persian book. According to de Rachewiltz, the concordance of Polo's detailed account of the princess with other independent sources that gave only incomplete information is proof of the veracity of Polo's story and his presence in China.


title: Marco Polo

text: Morgan writes that since much of what "The Book of Marvels" has to say about China is "demonstrably correct", any claim that Polo did not go to China "creates far more problems than it solves", therefore the "balance of probabilities" strongly suggests that Polo really did go to China, even if he exaggerated somewhat his importance in China. Haw dismisses the various anachronistic criticisms of Polo's accounts that started in the 17th century, and highlights Polo's accuracy in great part of his accounts, for example on features of the landscape such as the Grand Canal of China. "If Marco was a liar," Haw writes, "then he must have been an implausibly meticulous one."


title: Marco Polo

text: In 2012, the University of Tübingen Sinologist and historian Hans Ulrich Vogel released a detailed analysis of Polo's description of currencies, salt production and revenues, and argued that the evidence supports his presence in China because he included details which he could not have otherwise known. Vogel noted that no other Western, Arab, or Persian sources have given such accurate and unique details about the currencies of China, for example, the shape and size of the paper, the use of seals, the various denominations of paper money as well as variations in currency usage in different regions of China, such as the use of cowry shells in Yunnan, details supported by archaeological evidence and Chinese sources compiled long after the Polos had left China. His accounts of salt production and revenues from the salt monopoly are also accurate, and accord with Chinese documents of the Yuan era. Economic historian Mark Elvin, in his preface to Vogel's 2013 monograph, concludes that Vogel "demonstrates by specific example after specific example the ultimately overwhelming probability of the broad authenticity" of Polo's account. Many problems were caused by the oral transmission of the original text and the proliferation of significantly different hand-copied manuscripts. For instance, did Polo exert "political authority" ("seignora") in Yangzhou or merely "sojourn" ("sejourna") there? Elvin concludes that "those who doubted, although mistaken, were not always being casual or foolish", but "the case as a whole had now been closed": the book is, "in essence, authentic, and, when used with care, in broad terms to be trusted as a serious though obviously not always final, witness."


title: Marco Polo

text: Other lesser-known European explorers had already travelled to China, such as Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, but Polo's book meant that his journey was the first to be widely known. Christopher Columbus was inspired enough by Polo's description of the Far East to want to visit those lands for himself; a copy of the book was among his belongings, with handwritten annotations. Bento de Góis, inspired by Polo's writings of a Christian kingdom in the east, travelled in three years across Central Asia. He never found the kingdom but ended his travels at the Great Wall of China in 1605, proving that Cathay was what Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) called "China".


title: Marco Polo

text: Marco Polo's travels may have had some influence on the development of European cartography, ultimately leading to the European voyages of exploration a century later. The 1453 Fra Mauro map was said by Giovanni Battista Ramusio (disputed by historian/cartographer Piero Falchetta, in whose work the quote appears) to have been partially based on the one brought from Cathay by Marco Polo:


title: Marco Polo

text: Though Marco Polo never produced a map that illustrated his journey, his family drew several maps to the Far East based on the traveller's accounts. These collections of maps were signed by Polo's three daughters, Fantina, Bellela and Moreta. Not only did it contain maps of his journey, but also sea routes to Japan, Siberia's Kamchatka Peninsula, the Bering Strait and even to the coastlines of Alaska, centuries before the rediscovery of the Americas by Europeans.


title: Marco Polo

text: There is a legend about Marco Polo importing pasta from China; however, it is actually a popular misconception, originating with the "Macaroni Journal", published by a food industry association with the goal of promoting the use of pasta in the United States. Marco Polo describes in his book a food similar to "lasagna", but he uses a term with which he was already familiar. In fact, pasta had already been invented in Italy a long time before Marco Polo's travels to Asia. According to the newsletter of the National Macaroni Manufacturers Association and food writer Jeffrey Steingarten, the durum wheat was introduced by Arabs from Libya, during their rule over Sicily in the late 9th century, thus predating Marco Polo's travels by about four centuries. Steingarten also mentioned that Jane Grigson believed the Marco Polo story to have originated in the 1920s or 30s in an advertisement for a Canadian spaghetti company.


title: Marco Polo

text: The Marco Polo sheep, a subspecies of "Ovis ammon", is named after the explorer, who described it during his crossing of Pamir (ancient Mount Imeon) in 1271.


title: Marco Polo

text: In 1851, a three-masted clipper built in Saint John, New Brunswick also took his name; the "Marco Polo" was the first ship to sail around the world in under six months.


title: Marco Polo

text: The frequent flyer programme of Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific is known as the "Marco Polo Club".


title: Marco Polo

text: Croatian state-owned shipping company's (Jadrolinija) ship connecting Split with Ancona in Italy is named after Marco Polo.


title: Emily Deschanel

text: Emily Erin Deschanel (; born October 11, 1976) is an American actress. She portrayed Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan in the Fox crime procedural series "Bones" (2005–2017).


title: Emily Deschanel

text: Deschanel was born in Los Angeles, California, to cinematographer and director Caleb Deschanel and actress Mary Jo Deschanel (née Weir). Her younger sister is actress and singer-songwriter Zooey Deschanel. Her paternal grandfather was French, from Oullins, Rhône; her roots also include Swiss, Dutch, English, Irish, and other French ancestry.


title: Emily Deschanel

text: Deschanel attended Harvard-Westlake School and Crossroads School in Los Angeles before graduating from Boston University's Professional Actors Training Program with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater.


title: Emily Deschanel

text: In 1994, Deschanel made her feature film debut in the romantic comedy-drama "It Could Happen to You", on which her father worked as chief cinematographer. Her next notable role was as Pam Asbury in Stephen King's horror miniseries "Rose Red" in 2002. Then she appeared in "Cold Mountain", "The Alamo", and "Glory Road" and was named one of "six actresses to watch" by "Interview Magazine" in 2004.


title: Emily Deschanel

text: In 2005, Deschanel was cast as Dr. Temperance Brennan with David Boreanaz as FBI agent Seeley Booth on the Fox crime procedural comedy-drama "Bones", based on the novels and the career of forensic anthropologist and author Kathy Reichs, created by Hart Hanson. The series ran for 12 seasons from September 13, 2005, to March 28, 2017. For her performance, she received a 2006 Satellite Award nomination and a 2007 Teen Choice Award nomination. Deschanel and Boreanaz served as co-producers at the start of the show's third season, before becoming producers in the middle of the show's fourth season. While "Bones" was still in production, Deschanel also played the Brennan character on a 2015 episode of "Sleepy Hollow" and a 2016 episode of "BoJack Horseman".


title: Emily Deschanel

text: Deschanel, with Alyson Hannigan, Jaime King, Minka Kelly, and Katharine McPhee made a video slumber party featured on FunnyorDie.com to promote regular breast cancer screenings for the organization Stand Up 2 Cancer. In recent years, her passion for animal welfare has led her to providing the narration for "My Child Is a Monkey" and serving as an associate producer on the documentary film "How I Became an Elephant". Deschanel ranked number 72 in The 2012 Hot 100 on AfterEllen.


title: Emily Deschanel

text: Deschanel is a vegan and a supporter of animal rights causes. She has said she went vegan after watching the film "Diet for a New America". She can be seen in an "Access Hollywood" video at the book launch event of Karen Dawn's "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals", discussing how vegetarian and vegan diets help the environment, and a video on the homepage of the book's website talking about the importance of animal rights. She collaborated with PETA on a video encouraging mothers to raise their children as vegans. In September 2014, she joined the board of directors at Farm Sanctuary.


title: Emily Deschanel

text: Deschanel was raised Roman Catholic but is no longer practicing and has expressed agnostic views, saying "I am more of a spiritual person, if anything, and I am of the belief that we don't know, and I'm not going to pretend that I do."


title: Emily Deschanel

text: On September 25, 2010, Deschanel married "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" actor and writer David Hornsby in a small private ceremony in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. On September 21, 2011, Deschanel gave birth to their first son. On June 8, 2015, she gave birth to their second son. Both pregnancies were written into "Bones".


title: Emily Deschanel

text: Deschanel is best friends with her "Bones" co-star Michaela Conlin, who played her best friend Angela Montenegro on the show. She is also friends and has a strong working relationship with her "Bones" co-star David Boreanaz.


title: Emily Deschanel

text: In 2015, Deschanel filed suit against Fox alongside Boreanaz, Reichs and "Bones" executive producer Barry Josephson, claiming they were cheated out of their share of series profits. In February 2019, an arbitrator awarded them $179 million: $128 million in punitive damages, $32 million in compensatory damages, $10 million in prejudgment interest and more than $9 million in fees and costs. In May 2019, the Los Angeles Superior Court voided the punitive damages, with the plaintiffs' attorneys saying they would appeal. In September 2019, the parties came to an undisclosed settlement.


title: Pope

text: The pope (, from , 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Catholic Church, and has also served as the head of state or sovereign of the Papal States and later the Vatican City State since the eighth century. From a Catholic viewpoint, the primacy of the bishop of Rome is largely derived from his role as the apostolic successor to Saint Peter, to whom primacy was conferred by Jesus, who gave Peter the Keys of Heaven and the powers of "binding and loosing", naming him as the "rock" upon which the Church would be built. The current pope is Francis, who was elected on 13 March 2013.


title: Pope

text: While his office is called the papacy, the jurisdiction of the episcopal see is called the Holy See. It is the Holy See that is the sovereign entity by international law headquartered in the distinctively independent Vatican City State, a city-state which forms a geographical enclave within the connurbation of Rome, established by the Lateran Treaty in 1929 between Italy and the Holy See to ensure its and spiritual independence. The Holy See is recognized by its adherence at various levels to international organizations and by means of its diplomatic relations and political accords with many independent states.


title: Pope

text: According to Catholic tradition, the apostolic see of Rome was founded by Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the first century. The papacy is one of the most enduring institutions in the world and has had a prominent part in human history. In ancient times, the popes helped spread Christianity and intervened to find resolutions in various doctrinal disputes. In the Middle Ages, they played a role of secular importance in Western Europe, often acting as arbitrators between Christian monarchs. In addition to the expansion of Christian faith and doctrine, modern popes are involved in ecumenism and interfaith dialogue, charitable work, and the defense of human rights.


title: Pope

text: Over time, the papacy accrued broad secular and political influence, ultimately rivaling those of territorial rulers. In recent centuries, the temporal authority of the papacy has declined and the office is now largely focused on religious matters. By contrast, papal claims of spiritual authority have been increasingly firmly expressed over time, culminating in 1870 with the proclamation of the dogma of papal infallibility for rare occasions when the pope speaks —literally "from the chair (of Saint Peter)"—to issue a formal definition of faith or morals. The pope is considered one of the world's most powerful people due to the extensive diplomatic, cultural, and spiritual influence of his position on both 1.3 billion Catholics and those outside the Catholic faith, and because he heads the world's largest non-government provider of education and health care, with a vast network of charities.


title: Pope

text: The word "pope" derives from Greek (), meaning 'father'. In the early centuries of Christianity, this title was applied, especially in the East, to all bishops and other senior clergy, and later became reserved in the West to the bishop of Rome during the reign of Pope Leo I (440–461), a reservation made official only in the 11th century. The earliest record of the use of the title of 'pope' was in regard to the by then deceased patriarch of Alexandria, Heraclas (232–248). The earliest recorded use of the title "pope" in English dates to the mid-10th century, when it was used in reference to the 7th century Roman Pope Vitalian in an Old English translation of Bede's .


title: Pope

text: The Catholic Church teaches that the pastoral office, the office of shepherding the Church, that was held by the apostles, as a group or "college" with Saint Peter as their head, is now held by their successors, the bishops, with the bishop of Rome (the pope) as their head. Thus, is derived another title by which the pope is known, that of "supreme pontiff".


title: Pope

text: The Catholic Church teaches that Jesus personally appointed Peter as the visible head of the Church, and the Catholic Church's dogmatic constitution makes a clear distinction between apostles and bishops, presenting the latter as the successors of the former, with the pope as successor of Peter, in that he is head of the bishops as Peter was head of the apostles. Some historians argue against the notion that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, noting that the episcopal see in Rome can be traced back no earlier than the 3rd century.


title: Pope

text: The writings of the Church Father Irenaeus, who wrote around 180 AD, reflect a belief that Peter "founded and organized" the Church at Rome. Moreover, Irenaeus was not the first to write of Peter's presence in the early Roman Church. The church of Rome wrote in a letter to the Corinthians (which is traditionally attributed to Clement of Rome ) about the persecution of Christians in Rome as the "struggles in our time" and presented to the Corinthians its heroes, "first, the greatest and most just columns", the "good apostles" Peter and Paul. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote shortly after Clement; in his letter from the city of Smyrna to the Romans he said he would not command them as Peter and Paul did.


title: Pope

text: Given this and other evidence, such as Emperor Constantine's erection of the "Old St. Peter's Basilica" on the location of St. Peter's tomb, as held and given to him by Rome's Christian community, many scholars agree that Peter was martyred in Rome under Nero, although some scholars argue that he may have been martyred in Palestine.


title: Pope

text: Though the interpretation of the historical record in open in various details to continuing debate, first-century Christian communities may have had a group of presbyter-bishops functioning as guides of their local churches. Gradually, episcopal sees were established in metropolitan areas. Antioch may have developed such a structure before Rome. In Rome, there were over time at various junctures rival claimants to be the rightful bishop, though again Irenaeus stressed the validity of one line of bishops from the time of St. Peter up to his contemporary Pope Victor I and listed them. Some writers claim that the emergence of a single bishop in Rome probably did not occur until the middle of the 2nd century. In their view, Linus, Cletus and Clement were possibly prominent presbyter-bishops, but not necessarily monarchical bishops.


title: Pope

text: Documents of the 1st century and early second century indicate that the bishop of Rome had some kind of pre-eminence and prominence in the Church as a whole, as even a letter from the bishop, or patriarch, of Antioch acknowledged the Bishop of Rome as "a first among equals", though the detail of what this meant is unclear.


title: Pope

text: Sources suggest that at first, the terms 'episcopos' and 'presbyter' were used interchangeably, with the consensus among scholars being that by the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries, local congregations were led by bishops and presbyters, whose duties of office overlapped or were indistinguishable from one another. Some say that there was probably "no single 'monarchical' bishop in Rome before the middle of the 2nd century...and likely later."


title: Pope

text: Other scholars and historians disagree, citing the historical records of St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107) and St. Irenaeus, who recorded the linear succession of bishops of Rome (the popes) up until their own times. However, 'historical' records written by those wanting to show an unbroken line of popes would naturally do so, and there are no objective substantiating documents. They also cite the importance accorded to the bishops of Rome in the ecumenical councils, including early councils.


title: Pope

text: In the early Christian era, Rome and a few other cities had claims on the leadership of worldwide Church. James the Just, known as "the brother of the Lord", served as head of the Jerusalem church, which is still honored as the "Mother Church" in Orthodox tradition. Alexandria had been a center of Jewish learning and became a center of Christian learning. Rome had a large congregation early in the apostolic period whom Paul the Apostle addressed in his Epistle to the Romans, and according to tradition Paul was martyred there.


title: Pope

text: During the 1st century of the Church (), the Roman capital became recognized as a Christian center of exceptional importance. The church there, at the end of the 1st century, wrote an epistle to the Church in Corinth intervening in a major dispute, and apologizing for not having taken action earlier. However, there are only a few other references of that time to recognition of the authoritative primacy of the Roman See outside of Rome.


title: Pope

text: In the Ravenna Document of 13 October 2007, theologians chosen by the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Churches stated: "41. Both sides agree ... that Rome, as the Church that 'presides in love' according to the phrase of St Ignatius of Antioch, occupied the first place in the , and that the bishop of Rome was therefore the among the patriarchs. Translated into English, the statement means "first among equals".


title: Pope

text: What form that should take is still a matter of disagreement, just as it was when the Catholic and Orthodox Churches split in the Great East-West Schism. They also disagree on the interpretation of the historical evidence from this era regarding the prerogatives of the bishop of Rome as , a matter that was already understood in different ways in the first millennium."


title: Pope

text: In the late 2nd century AD, there were more manifestations of Roman authority over other churches. In 189, assertion of the primacy of the Church of Rome may be indicated in Irenaeus's "Against Heresies" (3:3:2): "With [the Church of Rome], because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree ... and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition." In AD 195, Pope Victor I, in what is seen as an exercise of Roman authority over other churches, excommunicated the Quartodecimans for observing Easter on the 14th of Nisan, the date of the Jewish Passover, a tradition handed down by John the Evangelist (see Easter controversy). Celebration of Easter on a Sunday, as insisted on by the pope, is the system that has prevailed (see computus).


title: Pope

text: The Edict of Milan in 313 granted freedom to all religions in the Roman Empire, beginning the Peace of the Church. In 325, the First Council of Nicaea condemned Arianism, declaring trinitarianism dogmatic, and in its sixth canon recognized the special role of the Sees of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch. Great defenders of Trinitarian faith included the popes, especially Liberius, who was exiled to Berea by Constantius II for his Trinitarian faith, Damasus I, and several other bishops.


title: Pope

text: In 380, the Edict of Thessalonica declared Nicene Christianity to be the state religion of the empire, with the name "Catholic Christians" reserved for those who accepted that faith. While the civil power in the Eastern Roman Empire controlled the church, and the patriarch of Constantinople, the capital, wielded much power, in the Western Roman Empire, the bishops of Rome were able to consolidate the influence and power they already possessed. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, barbarian tribes were converted to Arian Christianity or Catholicism; Clovis I, king of the Franks, was the first important barbarian ruler to convert to Catholicism rather than Arianism, allying himself with the papacy. Other tribes, such as the Visigoths, later abandoned Arianism in favour of Catholicism.


title: Pope

text: After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the pope served as a source of authority and continuity. Pope Gregory I () administered the church with strict reform. From an ancient senatorial family, Gregory worked with the stern judgement and discipline typical of ancient Roman rule. Theologically, he represents the shift from the classical to the medieval outlook; his popular writings are full of dramatic miracles, potent relics, demons, angels, ghosts, and the approaching end of the world.


title: Pope

text: Gregory's successors were largely dominated by the exarch of Ravenna, the Byzantine emperor's representative in the Italian Peninsula. These humiliations, the weakening of the Byzantine Empire in the face of the Muslim conquests, and the inability of the emperor to protect the papal estates against the Lombards, made Pope Stephen II turn from Emperor Constantine V. He appealed to the Franks to protect his lands. Pepin the Short subdued the Lombards and donated Italian land to the papacy. When Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne (800) as emperor, he established the precedent that, in Western Europe, no man would be emperor without being crowned by a pope.


title: Pope

text: The low point of the papacy was 867–1049. This period includes the Saeculum obscurum, the Crescentii era, and the Tusculan Papacy. The papacy came under the control of vying political factions. Popes were variously imprisoned, starved, killed, and deposed by force. The family of a certain papal official made and unmade popes for fifty years. The official's great-grandson, Pope John XII, held orgies of debauchery in the Lateran Palace. Emperor Otto I had John accused in an ecclesiastical court, which deposed him and elected a layman as Pope Leo VIII. John mutilated the Imperial representatives in Rome and had himself reinstated as pope. Conflict between the Emperor and the papacy continued, and eventually dukes in league with the emperor were buying bishops and popes almost openly.


title: Pope

text: In 1049, Leo IX traveled to the major cities of Europe to deal with the church's moral problems firsthand, notably simony and clerical marriage and concubinage. With his long journey, he restored the prestige of the papacy in Northern Europe.


title: Pope

text: From the 7th century it became common for European monarchies and nobility to found churches and perform investiture or deposition of clergy in their states and fiefdoms, their personal interests causing corruption among the clergy. This practice had become common because often the prelates and secular rulers were also participants in public life.