Publication and content

The alleged prophecy was first published in 1595 by a Benedictine named Arnold Wion in his Lignum Vitæ, a history of the Benedictine order. He attributed it to Saint Malachy, the 12th‑century Archbishop of Armagh. He explained that the prophecy had not, to his knowledge, ever been printed before, but that many were eager to see it. Wion includes both the alleged original prophecy, consisting of short, cryptic Latin phrases, as well as an interpretation applying the statements to historical popes up to Urban VII (pope for thirteen days in 1590), which Wion attributes to historian Alphonsus Ciacconius.^[4]

Origin theories

According to an account put forward in 1871 by Abbé Cucherat, Malachy was summoned to Rome in 1139 by Pope Innocent II to receive two wool palliums for the metropolitan sees of Armagh and Cashel. While in Rome, Malachy purportedly experienced a vision of future popes, which he recorded as a sequence of cryptic phrases. This manuscript was then allegedly deposited in the Vatican Secret Archives, and forgotten about until its rediscovery in 1590, supposedly just in time for a papal conclave occurring at the time.^[5]

Several historians have concluded that the prophecy is a late 16th‑century forgery.^[5][6][7] Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, a contemporary biographer of Malachy who recorded the saint's alleged miracles, makes no mention of the prophecy.^[5] The earliest known reference to them dates to 1587.^[8] Spanish monk and scholar Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro wrote in his Teatro Crítico Universal (1724–1739), in an entry called Purported prophecies, that the high level of accuracy of the verses up until the date they were published, compared with their high level of inaccuracy after that date, is evidence that they were created around the time of publication.^[9] The verses and explanations given by Wion correspond very closely to a 1557 history of the popes by Onofrio Panvinio (including replication of errors made by Panvinio), which may indicate that the prophecy was written based on that source.^[10] In 1694, Claude-François Menestrier argued the additional interpretive statements were not written by Ciacconius, as the prophecy was not mentioned in any of Ciacconius' works, nor were the interpretive statements listed among his works.^[11]

One theory to explain the prophecy's creation, put forward by 17th-century French priest and encyclopaedist Louis Moréri, among others, is that it was spread by supporters of Cardinal Girolamo Simoncelli in support of his bid to become pope during the 1590 conclave to replace Urban VII. In the prophecy, the pope following Urban VII is given the description "Ex antiquitate Urbis" ("from the old city"), and Simoncelli was from Orvieto, which in Latin is Urbevetanum, old city. Moréri and others proposed the prophecy was created in an unsuccessful attempt to demonstrate that Simoncelli was destined to be pope.^[12] However, the discovery of a reference to the prophecy in a 1587 letter has cast doubt on this theory. In this document the entourage of the Cardinal Giovanni Girolamo Albani interprets the motto "De rore coeli" ("From the dew of the sky") as a reference to their master, on the base of the link between "alba" ("dawn") and Albani, and the dew, as a typical morning atmospheric phenomenon.^[13]

Petrus Romanus

In recent times, some interpreters of prophetic literature have drawn attention to the prophecy due to its imminent conclusion; if the list of descriptions is matched on a one-to-one basis to the list of historic popes since publication, Benedict XVI (2005–13) would correspond to the second to last of the papal descriptions, Gloria olivae (the glory of the olive).^[15] The longest and final verse predicts the Apocalypse:^[16]

In persecutione extrema S.R.E. sedebit. Petrus Romanus, qui pascet oves in multis tribulationibus, quibus transactis civitas septicollis diruetur, & judex tremendus judicabit populum suum. Finis.

This may be translated into English as:

In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church, there will sit [i.e., as bishop]. Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations, and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills [i.e. Rome] will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge^{[lower-alpha 1]} will judge his people. The End.^[17]

Several historians and interpreters note the prophecy leaves open the possibility of unlisted popes between "the glory of the olive" and the final pope, "Peter the Roman".^[5][18] In the Lignum Vitae, the line In persecutione extrema S.R.E. sedebit. forms a separate sentence and paragraph of its own. While often read as part of the "Peter the Roman" entry, other interpreters view it as a separate, incomplete sentence explicitly referring to one or more popes between "the glory of the olive" and "Peter the Roman".^[1]

Popes and antipopes 1143–1590 (pre-publication)

The text on the silver lines below reproduces the original text (including punctuation and orthography) of the 1595 Lignum Vitae, which consisted of three parallel columns for the popes before 1590. The first column contained the motto, the second the name of the pope or antipope to whom it was attached (with occasional errors), and the third an explanation of the motto. There are some indications that both the mottos and explanations were the work of a single 16th-century person.^[21] The original list was unnumbered.

Popes 1590 to present (post-publication)

For this group of popes, the published text only provides names for the first three (i.e., those who were popes between the appearance of the text c. 1590, and its publication in 1595) and provides no explanations.