Footnote

d Let no reader make the mistake of thinking that Pope John XXIII reckoned that he was the twenty-third in the Pontificate bearing the name John by counting from the apostle john. The apostle was never a pope, but, while he was on the prison isle of Patmos receiving the apocalypse or revelation, a bishop named Clement was supposed to be pope at Rome, 88-97 C.E., he being succeeded by Evaristus as Pope, 97-105 C.E. No, but Pope John XXIII counted his number from John 1, Martyr, pope 523-526 C.E.​—See the 1963 National Catholic Almanac, pages 162, 163, under the heading “The Roman Pontiffs.”