Was the Ripper choosing to kill on dates devoted to Patron Saints?

[Richard Patterson]

Richard,

St Jerome is a doctor of the church yes - excellent, we're making progress!

However [there is always one of those, I'm afraid] the term 'Doctor' in this sense relates to the original meaning of the word, from the Latin 'docere' - to teach.

It refers to a learned man, or woman - not a medical doctor in and of itself. The term as used in respect of medical doctor has evolved as it has because those practicing medicine were learned men [or women]

We still use the term 'doctor' in it's original sense today within academia. My husband, for example, is fond of telling me that he's a 'real' doctor [since an academic doctor and not a medical man]

But I digress. With respect to St Jerome, he's a patron saint of learning - of scholarship, effectively; and a doctor of the Church because he was considered to be a learned man. As Ally suggests, he has nothing to do with medical doctors, knife wielding or otherwise.

I'd say that was a knock on the head for your theory, personally.

I'd say you were right.

[Ally]

St Jerome as a doctor of the church is by his title associated with doctors. How can you say that he has nothing to do with doctors when he was a doctor?

So the guy who taught me literature is a medical doctor because I called him Dr. Smith?

You do understand the difference between academic "doctorates" and "doctors of medicine" do you not?

[Richard Patterson]

I was wrong.

The theory rested on 4 consecutive murders dates, with each date affiliated with a saint for an occupation sought by the police. Even though St Jerome is a doctor of the church, I accept that this type of doctor had no requirement to carry knives or have anatomical knowledge. This removes September 30 from the equation removing one murder date from the four and dropping the odds that it is all chance down to 1 in 14290. It also removes the premise of the murders in accordance to saint days happening consecutively. I was wrong. I retract the premise. I'm sorry to have wasted everyone's time.

[MrBarnett]

If this were my theory, I wouldn't give up so easily.

Perhaps the urge to kill was so strong on the 29/30th Sept. that he was forced to chose a location with an appropriate saintly connection.

And that would conveniently explain why our Spitalfields/Whitechapel slayer wandered as far south as St George in the East.

Just a thought.

[Penhalion]

London is positively lousy with churches named for saints (as opposed to Holy Trinity or Holy Rosary or some such). To give St George in the East special consideration you'd have to prove that there were no other churches of likely attribution closer to the center of the murders.

BTW- I respect Richard Patterson for admitting that his theory does not successfully explain the dates of the murders. I've seen a lot of theories held onto like grim death in the face of all sorts of reason and facts. Kudos to you, sir!

[Ally]

. I was wrong. I retract the premise. I'm sorry to have wasted everyone's time.

Being wrong is the condition of being human. It happens to the best of us, on a more than average basis. Good luck with your next hypothesis.

[Robert]

Yes, don't worry, Richard.

[Richard Patterson]

Thanks for the encouragement and condolences. If someone is wrong they should be told and they should accepted it, and I do. I’m in the habit of following generally the principle of Ockham's razor, that with competing hypotheses (and may I add the lack thereof), the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. My fairly simple premise was that the Canonical five were murders under the auspice of saints for those days. It seems at this time that the September 30th double murders fall outside this premise and to explain their absence now requires a further assumption. This is not logical. What I have always enjoyed about my suspect is that he fits this principle of not having to create further entities to match him to the murders. For example, he trained as a surgeon and this lies within the scope of the ripper cannon. I have not needed to discredit established views to fit my suspect. To me the best explanations should be the simplest without having to insert clauses. Until my saint day premise can be stated simply it should be seen as just a flawed curiosity. If some amazing insight strikes me that resolves this dilemma, rest assured I will be back. Better luck next time.

Mr Barnett’s post #49 asks whether perhaps the September 30th murder might be relying on location to fulfill a religious design to the murders. For his interest I include at the end of this post something about the Catholic Church history of Whitechapel in relation to crimes again women, there is also a little bit about my suspect.

This is a bit of copy and paste from my group on Thompson, but it might give some idea on how we viewed the district of Whitechapel as sacred. Of the eighty-five districts in London in 1888, only one district bore a name that was clearly Christian in origin and this was Whitechapel. It was named after the Catholic Church of Saint St Mary Matefelon. Later it was renamed Whitechapel, for its tower painted in whitewash, but before this, the Matefelon church and its surrounding grounds had been a Catholic sanctuary for six centuries. This means that even in 2015, and certainly in 1888, for most of its existence, Whitechapel was Catholic. It is a fact that Ripper’s victims were killed on its old church ground.

The name Matefelon comes from two words joined words, - Mate, like matte black, and felon as in criminals -. The name came from the time of Henry VI when a parish widow was murdered here while she slept. The felon fled with her jewels and he was pursued across to the Church of St. George in Southwark, where he claimed the right of sanctuary. The constables ignored his claim and brought him back to the city of London. As he was being brought back, the women of flung the filth of the street upon him. Hence, St. Mary's was given the latter name of Matefelon for unclean felon.

(Both the district’s most well known murder case, the 1888 Ripper killings, and the oldest murder case, the 1428 widow killing, were crimes against women with a cross country hunt for the criminal.)

(I'm being specific when I write district, dividing London into its police divisions for of course there are heaps of, locations, areas and parishes in London with clearly religious names.)

Francis Thompson was a likely Whitechapel resident who might have known all this, having had trained as a Catholic priest for several years, in a school that held the largest Catholic libraries in the land filled with old manuscripts. He excelled in the studies of church laws and won awards for his essays on church history. His essays on the lives of the saints, including those for the dates of the murders, are much admired for their insight and details. The religious histories of Whitechapel, including old survey maps, were housed in the Guildhall library. This was where Thompson spent the months and years before 1888 pouring through its old books, before being removed by the police. To Thompson, beneath the urban sprawl, the influx of refugees, and prostitution holding market, may have been this image of fields and hedgerows. Thompson did literally live in the past. Thompson wrote this in a letter to the Meynells, his publishers, in which he said.

‘I do not know but, by myself, I live pretty well as much in the past and future as in the present, which seems a very little patch between the two.'

[Ausgirl]

Better to be proven wrong here, than after the book comes out.

I can't help feeling a tiny bit smug, though - but only because you speak to people like a proper dick at times.

I wish you the best of luck with the rest of it.

[Richard Patterson]

Better to be proven wrong here, than after the book comes out.

I can't help feeling a tiny bit smug, though - but only because you speak to people like a proper dick at times.

I wish you the best of luck with the rest of it.

Too late the book is already out. Thank god it's just a novel. Me speak like a dick! What an accusation to make against my good name - Richard Pat... ohh...

[c.d.]

I have to be honest and say that I thought the theory was pretty far fetched to begin with. But I will also say that to his credit Richard didn't try to duck and weave like so many others when they begin to see the handwriting on the wall. And again to his credit, he retracted his premise. If only more people on these boards were as forthright.

All the best, Richard. It was an interesting theory at that. Keep trying.

c.d.

[GUT]

I have to be honest and say that I thought the theory was pretty far fetched to begin with. But I will also say that to his credit Richard didn't try to duck and weave like so many others when they begin to see the handwriting on the wall. And again to his credit, he retracted his premise. If only more people on these boards were as forthright.

All the best, Richard. It was an interesting theory at that. Keep trying.

c.d.

Agree 100% when it doesn't work say so and move on. If there are holes admit same, if some aspects are open to other interpretation make the concession but argue why yours is better, not just say "No that could never be".

[Errata]

God knows I don't want to encourage a religious fanatic theory, but...

St. Jerome being the patron saint of Librarians does not negate him from the theory. He is not associated with the Ripper killings because of his patronage. However, Jerome the scholar and the man spent a large part of his life defining the role of women in a Christian society. Modesty, chastity, virginity, what they should wear, what they should want, how they should behave. Even what they should eat and drink.

And to top it off, he killed a young woman of ill repute. She was a typical Roman party girl who after a near death experience joined his little group of ascetics, and the privation killed her within a few months. He was disgusted at how upset her mother was, saying that the girl should not be mourned at all. It soon got him thrown out of Rome.

If ever there was a Patron saint of hyper controlling misogynists concerned more with moral order than the sanctity of life, it's Jerome.

And it gets weirder.

St. Raymond, is the patron saint of midwives because he was born via a caesarian that killed his mother.

Sept. 8 is the day of St. Adrian, but it's also the Birthday of the Virgin Mary.

Saint Theodore was essentially known for two things. he burned down a temple to the Mother Goddess Cybele out of all the temples in Amasea, and he killed a dragon. And in Christian symbolism, dragons represent female evil.

Jerome dictated how Christian women should act. The Virgin Mary represents the ideals he set forth. Theodore punished evil feminine forces. And Raymond came into the world when his mothers uterus was ripped out of her body (olden time caesarians were brutal).

And just to throw it out there, Martha Tabram was killed on St. Cajetan's day, a saint who founded a religious order whose purpose was to combat moral laxity.

I'm sure I could find connections with any five random saints, Christianity being what it is in it's relationship with women, but I see the appeal of drawing parallels.

[c.d.]

But what if the killings were politically motivated? Haven't some people argued that the Ripper was trying to stir things up? I am sure that if you did enough research you could find a connection between those dates and speeches by a particular politician or something in the same vein. Or again, it could relate to days when his favorite cricket team won. That is the problem when you start down that road. You have oh so many options.

c.d.

[Richard Patterson]

God knows I don't want to encourage a religious fanatic theory, but...

St. Jerome being the patron saint of Librarians does not negate him from the theory. He is not associated with the Ripper killings because of his patronage. However, Jerome the scholar and the man spent a large part of his life defining the role of women in a Christian society. Modesty, chastity, virginity, what they should wear, what they should want, how they should behave. Even what they should eat and drink.

And to top it off, he killed a young woman of ill repute. She was a typical Roman party girl who after a near death experience joined his little group of ascetics, and the privation killed her within a few months. He was disgusted at how upset her mother was, saying that the girl should not be mourned at all. It soon got him thrown out of Rome.

If ever there was a Patron saint of hyper controlling misogynists concerned more with moral order than the sanctity of life, it's Jerome.

And it gets weirder.

St. Raymond, is the patron saint of midwives because he was born via a caesarian that killed his mother.

Sept. 8 is the day of St. Adrian, but it's also the Birthday of the Virgin Mary.

Saint Theodore was essentially known for two things. he burned down a temple to the Mother Goddess Cybele out of all the temples in Amasea, and he killed a dragon. And in Christian symbolism, dragons represent female evil.

Jerome dictated how Christian women should act. The Virgin Mary represents the ideals he set forth. Theodore punished evil feminine forces. And Raymond came into the world when his mothers uterus was ripped out of her body (olden time caesarians were brutal).

And just to throw it out there, Martha Tabram was killed on St. Cajetan's day, a saint who founded a religious order whose purpose was to combat moral laxity.

I'm sure I could find connections with any five random saints, Christianity being what it is in it's relationship with women, but I see the appeal of drawing parallels.

Thanks for the encouragement. I've looked into the lives of the saints and how they bear a relationship to the Ripper crimes and my suspect Francis Thompson. For example that Saint Theodore set fire to a temple, while Thompson, when acting as an altar boy, set fire to his local church. Also that St Jerome took the life of a prostitute and so did the Ripper, and Thompson wrote of how they disgusted him, but my premise was upon the police seeking out suspects with occupations related to these saints and not the suspects whose actions mimicked them. I appreciate your valuable contribution. Thank you.