Illiterate popes
# Illiterate popes

Several popes are regarded by historians as illiterate, including:

* Pope Zephyrinus (199–217); St. Hippolytus of Rome wrote "Pope Zephyrinus was illiterate" (Hippol. p. 284, ed. Miller).
* Pope Adrian IV (1154–1159); George Washington Dean writes: "Adrian IV., the only English Pope, had been an illiterate servant in a monastery at Avignon."
* Pope Celestine V (1294); Sir Maxwell Herbert writes of Celestine V: "On the commemoration day of S. Paul, Celestinus the Fifth was created Pope, who, albeit illiterate, was the priest and confessor of his predecessor."

## Wrongly regarded as illiterate

Ludwig von Pastor has shown that Pope Julius II (1503–1513) was not illiterate, although he is poetically referred to as such by Desiderius Erasmus.

