# What are Saturn's rings made of? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 20, 2013, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-saturns-rings-made-of/674327 "2013-11-20T08:35:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mistery](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/848f3c/32.png) [@mistery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mistery)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-saturns-rings-made-of/674327/1 "2013-11-20T08:35:08Z")
Urban myth or not? > **[The Holy Foreskin](https://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_holy_foreskin)** > > The Holy Foreskin of Christ first made an appearance in medieval Europe around 800 ce, when King Charlemagne presented it as a gift to Pope Leo III. Charlemagne said it had been given to him by an angel. However, rival foreskins soon began to pop up... > [@](#): > > The 17th century theologian Leo Allatius speculated in his essay _De Praeputio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Diatriba [A Discussion of the Foreskin of Our Lord Jesus Christ]_ that the holy foreskin had ascended into heaven at the same time as Jesus, and had become the rings of Saturn. This anecdote has been widely repeated on the Internet and on [television](http://youtu.be/DmEH8cPvrUU?t=5m45s). So, I was surprised to find that Allatius’s notorious essay isn’t online somewhere. From my research, it seems that while Allatius **did** write an essay with that title, it was never published, meaning we can’t check whether he did believe that the rings of Saturn were Christ’s, uh, “praeputio”. _De Praeputio_ is listed in in Fabricius’s [_Bibliotheca Graeca_](http://books.google.com.au/books?id=hTgBAAAAMAAJ&dq=allatius%20%22de%20praeputio%22&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q=allatius%20%22de%20praeputio%22&f=false) (a 1728 bibliography of Greek writers), citing this [1668 booklet](http://books.google.com.au/books?id=qGSRqP1k3XAC&pg=PA10#v=onepage&q&f=false) where it is mentioned as an essay scheduled to appear in Volume 8 of a projected 10-volume set of Allatius’s works. However, [WorldCat](http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/557459136) notes that these volumes were “apparently never published.” Most web sites and blogs that repeat the story cite no sources or references for the claim. Those who **do** cite a source can only name the 19th century British atheists G.W. Foote & J.M. Wheeler, in their chapter on relics in their 1887 polemic, [Crimes of Christianity](http://ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/c5.htm#94:7). > [@](#): > > …at least one Catholic writer has devoted a treatise to the Savior’s foreskin, asserting that it ascended, like Jesus himself, and expanded into one of the rings of Saturn.\* > > \*Leo Allatius, De Praeputio Nostri Domini Jesu Christi Diatriba. Unfortunately Foote and Wheeler don’t tell us how they found out about this obscure and unpublished 17th century essay, of which nobody else seems to have first-hand knowledge. When I contacted the Vallicellian Library in Rome (which holds Allatius’s manuscripts) they replied that their catalog of his unpublished works is not complete (sheesh, after 300 years you’d think they might have got around to it!), but _De Praeputio_ does not appear in the current catalog. So, this presumably means: (1) the essay **is** somewhere in the Vallicellean but has not been indexed; (2) it is held in some other library or archive; (3) it is a “lost” work. In any case we can’t check it. I have also contacted a college professor who is an expert on Allatius. He too has never seen the essay in question, but from what he knows of Allatius he thinks it unlikely that he would have proposed such a bizarre notion about Saturn. Any thoughts on how we can resolve this literary mystery? ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-saturns-rings-made-of/674327/2 "2013-11-20T09:03:28Z")
I think the name “Museum of hoaxes” has some significance in this matter. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-saturns-rings-made-of/674327/3 "2013-11-20T09:37:13Z")
Another one in a long list of fallacies. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-saturns-rings-made-of/674327/4 "2013-11-20T10:00:49Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > Another one in a long list of fallacies. Don’t you mean phallicies?