“Get Thee Behind Me”

Here’s one way to beat temptation: file a lawsuit. In 1971, Gerald Mayo sued “Satan and his staff” in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. He alleged that “Satan has on numerous occasions caused plaintiff misery and unwarranted threats, against the will of plaintiff, that Satan has placed deliberate obstacles in his path and has caused plaintiff’s downfall” and had therefore “deprived him of his constitutional rights,” a violation of the U.S. Code.

The court noted that jurisdiction was uncertain; legally the devil might count as a foreign prince. Also, Mayo’s claim seemed appropriate for a class action suit, and it wasn’t clear that Mayo could represent all of humanity. Finally, no one was sure how the U.S. Marshal could serve process on Satan.

So the devil got away. Mayo’s case has been cited several times, and has never been overturned or contradicted.

| Oddities · Religion

Equivoque

An equivoque is a poem that can be read in two different ways. This one appeared in The Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome in 1679. Protestants were to read each line straight across, Catholics down each column:

The Jesuit’s Double-Faced Creed

I hold for sound faith What England’s church allows
What Rome’s faith saith My conscience disavows
Where the king’s head The flock can take no shame
The flock’s misled Who hold the Pope supreme
Where th’altar’s dress’d The worship’s scarce divine
The people’s bless’d Whose table’s bread and wine
He’s but an ass Who their communion flies
Who shuns the Mass Is Catholic and wise.
| Language · Religion

Shortest-Reigning Popes

Shortest-reigning popes:

  • Urban VII (elected in 1590): 13 days
  • Boniface VI (896): 16 days
  • Celestine IV (1241): 17 days
  • Sisinnius (708): 21 days
  • Theodore II (897): 21 days
  • Marcellus II (1555): 22 days
  • Damasus II (1048): 24 days
  • Pius III (1503): 27 days
  • Leo XI (1605): 27 days
  • Benedict V (964): 33 days

1978 is called the “year of three popes”: Pope Paul VI was succeeded by John Paul I, who lived only 33 days. John Paul II succeeded him.

| History · Religion

Koan: “Muddy Road”

A Zen koan:

Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling.

Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.

“Come on, girl,” said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.

Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself.

“We monks don’t go near females,” he told Tanzan, “especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?”

“I left the girl there,” said Tanzan. “Are you still carrying her?”

| Religion

Speak Up, Please

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Jean_Paul_Laurens_Le_Pape_Formose_et_Etienne_VII_1870.jpg

The appropriate word here is “Bleeaagh.” In 897, Pope Stephen VI dug up the decomposing body of his predecessor and put it on trial for violating church law. Formosus, who had been dead for nine months, was found guilty and buried again. Rome turned against Stephen, who was eventually strangled in prison. It’s known as the cadaver synod or, in Latin, the “synodus horrenda.”

| Death · Oddities · Religion

Famous Atheists

Famous atheists:

  • Ingmar Bergman
  • Ambrose Bierce
  • George Carlin
  • Denis Diderot
  • Sigmund Freud
  • David Hume
  • John Stuart Mill
  • Bertrand Russell
  • Jean-Paul Sartre
  • Percy Shelley
  • B.F. Skinner

“One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed in it,” wrote Mark Twain. “They have also believed the world was flat.”

| Religion · Trivia