Catherine’s energetic repudiation of “the corrupt expression, ‘You have

offended God,’” is replaced by God saying to Catherine, “Know that I

cannot be offended by man, except when he raises an obstacle to the

work which I have ordained for his good.”[449] Catherine has angrily

declared that the term could never be correctly used; the _Dialogo_

explains how special and metaphorical is its correct use.

The Lord declares here: “I descend with a fine thread of gold, which is

My secret love, and to this thread is bound a hook, which seizes the

heart of men. I hold this thread in My hand and ever draw it towards

Myself.” The hook and hand are additions to her authentic declaration,

“She seemed to herself to have in her heart a continuous ray of Love

… a thread of gold, as to which she had no fear that it would ever

break.”[450]--We get here the Wedding-feast imagery that is entirely

wanting in Catherine’s authentic sayings. “There is no shorter way

to salvation than (the owning of) this delightful wedding-garment

of charity”[451] A garment, generally in a bad sense, is quite

Catherinian; a wedding-garment is exclusively Battistan.--And the

parallel between St. John’s care of the Blessed Virgin, and Marabotto’s

attendance upon Catherine[452] is quite foreign to Catherine’s mind.

And the whole _Dialogo_ culminates in a double, daring yet graduated,

anthropomorphic picturing of the deification of the perfect soul,

interestingly different from Catherine’s favourite Ocean and Fire

similes, and from her description of the Soul as respectively submerged

in, and transformed by, this infinite and all-penetrating living

Ocean-Fire, God. The Soul asks what is the name which the Lord gives to

perfect souls; and the Lord answers (in Latin, as ever with Battista)

with the text of Ps. lxxxi, 6: “I have said, ye are Gods, and all of

you sons of the Most High”; a text which still leaves us with separate

human personalities face to face with the distinct Spirit-Person, God.

And then, to the Lord’s question, as to what the Soul declares its

heart to be, the Soul answers (this climax has been carefully led up

to all along): “I say that it is my God, wounded by love,--in Whom

I live joyful and contented.”--For, as in Battista’s own _Colloquy_

of December 10, 1554, we get three simultaneous “voices” at different

depths of her consciousness, so here, in this composition of 1550,

Catherine hears simultaneously within herself three voices--of the

Lord, of her own soul, and of her own heart. And Catherine can here

declare that now her heart is God, and God wounded by Love; for

Battista can write in 1576 that, in the perfect state, “of the Increate

Heart and of the created heart there is made a single, most secret

and inestimable union,”[453] and that Increate Heart appears here as

wounded, because God is ever, in Battista’s mind, explicitly identified

with Christ, and Christ’s Passion is ever in her thoughts. Catherine

identifies her true self with God, and God with Love; and conceives

her own heart as filled with love and inflamed and pierced by it; but

nowhere figures God with a Heart, or that Heart as wounded, for she has

little or nothing of Battista’s anthropomorphic tendency in regard to

God, or of her historical picturings with regard to Christ.

The entire _Dialogo_ then is the work of Battista Vernazza; and we

have to eliminate it, all but completely, from the means and materials

directly available for the constitution of Catherine’s life and

doctrine. The next Division will now attempt to deal finally with

the chief of these means--the _Dimostrazione_ (_Trattato_) and the

_Vita_-proper.

SECOND DIVISION: ANALYSIS, ASSIGNATION, AND APPRAISEMENT OF THE

“VITA-DOTTRINA-DICCHIARAZIONE” CORPUS, IN EIGHT SECTIONS.

We now find ourselves in face of the most difficult, and the alone

directly important, _corpus_ of documents concerning Catherine’s inner

life: the _Vita e Dottrina_, together with the _Dicchiarazione_ or

_Trattato_. It will be best to begin with this _Trattato_, and only

after a careful study of this little book, which, as we know, contains

the most original and valuable part of Catherine’s teaching, to finish

up with an examination of the, now separate, Life and (other) Doctrine.

I. THE “DICCHIARAZIONE”: THE TWO STAGES OF ITS EXISTENCE.

1. _The “Dicchiarazione,” from the first a booklet by itself._

All the Manuscripts give the _Dicchiarazione_ (_Trattato_)

substantially as we have it at present, although ever as but a Chapter

of the _Vita e Dottrina_, and not, as yet, itself divided up in any

way. Even the last Editions of the Printed _Vita_ still retain a

reference to this old arrangement: “The soul purifies itself, as do the

souls in Purgatory, according to the process described in the Chapter

appropriated to this matter.”[454]

Yet the very length of this “Chapter,” then as now, and the solemn

introductory paragraph, both point to its having, at first, formed a

booklet by itself. Thus the longest of the other doctrinal Chapters of

MS. A (Chapters XV, XVI, XX, and XL) are respectively 29, 22, 19, and

17½ pages long; whilst the _Trattato_-Chapter XLII runs to 46 pages.

Only the Narrative-Chapter XLI, the Passion, is of an exactly equal

length; but we shall find that this Chapter also existed, originally,

in part at least, as a separate document. And the introduction to

Chapter XLII is unparalleled by anything in such a position. “This

holy Soul, whilst yet in the flesh, finding herself placed in the

purgatory of God’s burning love, which consumed and purified her from

whatever she had to purify, in order that, in passing out of this life,

she might enter at once into the immediate presence of her tender

Love,--God: understood, by means of this fire of love, how the souls

of the faithful abide in the place of Purgatory to purge away every

stain of sin that, in this life, they had not yet purged.” I have here

omitted (after “understood”) “in her soul,” as marring the rhythm; and

(before “stain of sin”) “rust and,” since the whole group of words

appears in MS. A as “ogni rubigine di macchia di peccato,” requiring

the suppression of at least one of the first two nouns: we shall find

that “rubigine” is secondary.

I have also omitted, from what I hold was the first form of this

Introduction, the present second sentence and comparison: “And as

she, placed in the loving purgatory of the divine fire, abode united

to this Divine Love, and content with all that He wrought within her:

so she understood the state of the Souls that are in Purgatory.” For

all the circumstances and dispositions of this contentment have already

been anticipated in the “How the Souls abide in Purgatory” of the

first sentence.--We can still show, I think, when and why this second

sentence was added. Let us get at the reason slowly.

2. _Three differences between the first seven and the last ten

Chapters._

The first seven of the present seventeen Chapters of the

_Dicchiarazione_ (_Dic._) are indeed like, but also unlike, the last

ten Chapters, in three important matters.[455]

(1) All the seventeen Chapters are full of ideas, even of special words

and peculiar groups of words, appearing also in various places of the

_Vita_-proper. Yet the last ten Chapters alone have, in addition, four

complete paragraphs standing, as such, in the _Vita_-proper. The two

paragraphs of Chapter Eight, and the first paragraph of Chapter Nine,

of the _Dicchiarazione_ (“Più ancora dico che io veggio”--“se fosse

possibile,” _Vita_, pp. 175_c_-176_c_), are identical with paragraphs

four and five of Chapter Thirty of the _Vita_-proper (“E perciò diceva:

io veggio”--“se fosse possibile,” _Vita_, pp. 78_c_, 79_a_).

_Dic._’s text still keeps two primitive readings: “Gate” of Paradise,

in a first saying, unassimilated to the plural “arms” of God in the

second saying; against _V.’s_ assimilation, “gates” and “arms.” Again

“stain” and “stains,” alongside of “imperfection”; against _V.’s_

treble “imperfection.” But in all else _V._ is clearly the older text:

thus “His company” (against “His glory”); “un minimo chè” (against “un

minimo brusculo”); “appear before God” (against “find himself in the

presence of the Divine Majesty”); “purge” (against “lift away”); and

other points.

But if this general priority of the _V._-text be admitted, then this

part of _Dic._ must have been constituted at a time when these parts

of _V.’s_ text were already so definitely fixed in themselves, and so

firmly worked into their present contexts, that the Redactor of this

part of _Dic._ dared not take them simply away from their old home, and

did not modify them so as to conform with the glosses traceable in the

earlier Chapters of _Dic._ (note here, in Ch. VIII, the absence of the

“rubigine” present in the earlier Chapters). And this means that this

part of _Dic._ was constituted when this part of _V._ was no more new,

and _Dic.’s_ own earlier chapters had been fixed for some time.

(2) All the _Dicchiarazione_ Chapters are based on the assumption of a

true analogy, indeed a continuity, between the soul’s purgation, Here

and There. But only the last ten Chapters give passages (three whole

Chapters) treating exclusively of this-world sufferings, and an address

to souls that, in this world, run the risk not simply of Purgatory but

of Hell hereafter.

Thus Chapter Eleven (_Vita_, pp. 178_b_-179_a_) is now indeed

superscribed, “Of the desire of the souls in Purgatory to be quite free

from the stains of their sins”; and contains the clause “non che possa

guardare il Purgatorio siccome un Purgatorio” (179_a_). But all the

chapter-headings are recent, and the heading here is quite inaccurate,

for throughout the account (with the probable exception of the clause

quoted, which is a gloss) the soul is simply in this world, as on pp.

23_b_, 49_b_, 61_b_, 106_a_, 114_c_ of the _Vita_, which readily calls

such this-world sufferings a “Purgatory,” 128_b_, 136_c_, 137_a_. Here,

however, much of the form (_e.g._ “to contaminate,” “to occasion”), and

some of the doctrine (the resurrection effected by Baptism) is alien to

Catherine’s habits. The Chapter is, then, made up, about equally, of

genuine sayings referring exclusively to this-world purgations, and of

redactional amplifications of a systematizing and sacramental kind.

Chapter Twelve (_Vita_, p. 179_b_, _c_) is now subscribed, “How

suffering conjoins itself with joy in Purgatory,” and concludes with

“Thus the souls in Purgatory experience.…” Yet here too the body of

the text nowhere directly refers to, or consciously implies, the

other-world Purgatory; for its last clause, “ma questa contentezza non

toglie scintilla di pena,” requires freeing from the gloss, “alle Anime

che sono in Purgatorio,” which now stands between “contentezza” and

“non.”

Chapter Seventeen (_Vita_, pp. 182_c_-184_c_) now indeed opens with an

explicit reference by Catherine of “this purgative form that I feel it

in my mind, especially since the last two years” to the souls in “the

true Purgatory”; but this reference and the five last words of this

long Chapter, “e il Purgatorio lo purifica,” are clear glosses, since

Catherine is here exclusively occupied with the purgative character

of her this-world sufferings, and not with any likeness of them to

the other-world Purgatory. And indeed, since considerations about

the other-world Purgatory first occur, in any certainly authentic

_Vita_-passages, only after the great “ray”-experience of November 11,

1509 (the experience stands on p. 133_b_, where the MSS. give the date;

the considerations appear only on pp. 136_b_-137_a_, 144_b_, 146_b_),

the “last two years” here must mean that already three years or so

before her death she had come to dwell much on the purifying function

of her sufferings. Only during the last ten months does she seem to

have dwelt upon these sufferings as illustrating the purgations of the

other life.

And finally, Chapter Fifteen (_Vita_, p. 181_b_, _c_) is headed now:

“Reproofs addressed by the souls in Purgatory to worldly persons.”

But the text still begins with “a desire comes over me (Catherine)

to cry out so as to strike fear into every man on earth,” and deals

throughout with her this-life fears for such persons, not with respect

to Purgatory, but with regard to Hell.

(3) Even the first seven _Dicchiarazione_ Chapters we shall find to

contain short theological glosses. But only in the last ten Chapters

can we find extensive passages incompatible with Catherine’s authentic

teaching, or at least quite unlike her undoubted utterances.

Chapter Thirteen (_Vita_, p. 180_a_, _b_) is now entitled: “How the

souls in Purgatory are no longer in a state to merit; and how they

regard the charity exercised in the world for them.” Yet this very

_Dicchiarazione’s_ utterly authentic opening sayings (_Vita_, pp.

169_c_, 170_a_, _b_) eliminate clearly the second question: such souls

do not and cannot regard such charity at all. And though Catherine

(who put the question of merit, even as to the soul’s this-world

action, so emphatically behind that of love)[456] never considers

merit in connection with Purgatory, yet she conceives the souls in

Purgatory as purifying themselves of certain passive habitual defects,

by one initial free election of the condition of suffering, and by

then continually willing the painful condition,--volitional acts and

dispositions that are usually held to imply merit.

The first paragraph then opens with: “If the souls in Purgatory could

purge themselves with contrition, in one instant they would pay all

their debt.” Yet there is no such dilemma in Catherine’s authentic

thought as “instant purgation through contrition, of a necessarily

perfect kind,” or “no purgation through such contrition”; for

throughout the first seven Chapters purgation takes place through love

and general contrition, in a thorough but gradual, seemingly slow,

manner, and this not because God prevents the soul’s self-purification

by what would be the normal means, but, contrariwise, because He does

not interfere with the intrinsic, normally necessary interconnection of

sin and suffering, sorrow, self-renunciation, love and joy.

The second paragraph runs: “Of the payment not one penny is remitted to

those souls.…” This imagery of the payment of something as external to

the payer as is money, in view of so external a change as getting out

of prison, can hardly be Catherine’s, at least not as the deliberate

expression of her purgatorial conception. The last paragraph reads:

“They are henceforth incapable of seeing except [so much as] God’s

will[s] … they can no more turn [with any attachment] to see the alms

given for their intention by those that are living upon earth [except

within the (general) apprehension of that all-just balance of the

divine will], leaving God to do as He pleases in all things [God, who

pays Himself as it pleases His infinite goodness]. And if they could

turn to see those alms [outside of the divine will], this would be an

act of self-love (_proprietà_)…” (180_b_). We have here a substantially

authentic saying, but the bracketed words are certain glosses,

introducing the utterly un-Catherinian ideas and images of the souls

being allowed to see what is being done for them, of God’s balance, and

of His paying Himself.

Chapter Fifteen’s last paragraph (_Vita_, p. 181_c_), which warns

the soul that “the (kind of) Confession and Contrition necessary for

such a Plenary Indulgence (as shall instantly purify it from all sin)

is a thing most difficult to gain,” is also quite unlike Catherine’s

preoccupations, tone, and teaching.

3. _Remaining passages of the last ten Chapters not accounted for by

the three peculiarities just detailed._

The three last paragraphs of Chapter Nine (_Vita_, pp. 176_c_-177_b_)

and the very similar short Chapter Fourteen (_ibid._ pp. 180_c_,

181_a_) are more painfully composite and more repeatedly worked over

than, I think, even the most tormented passages of the first seven

Chapters.

We thus are left with but four paragraphs, the last two of Chapter

Ten (_Vita_, pp. 178_a_, _b_) and the two of Chapter Sixteen (pp.

181_c_-182_b_). These two sets form two couples of illustrative

descriptions of the Purgatorial process; and, in each set, the first

paragraph is easier to read but is less authentic than the second,

very composite, much-glossed paragraph. The second paragraph of the

first set reads: “L’oro quando è purificato [per sino a ventiquattro

caratti] non si consuma poi più, per fuoco che tu gli possi dare;

perchè non si può consumare se non la sua imperfezione. Così | fâ

il divin fuoco | dell’ anima: Dio la tiene tanto al fuoco, che le

consuma ogni imperfezione [e la conduce alla perfezione di ventiquattro

caratti, ognuna però in suo grado]. E quando è purificata, resta tutta

| in Dio [senz’ alcuna cosa]| in sè stessa; ed il suo essere è Dio |

[il quale quando ha condotta a sè] l’anima così purificata [allora

l’anima] resta impassibile [perchè più non le resta da consumare] e se

pure, così purificata, fosse tenuta al fuoco, non le saria penoso, anzi

le saria fuoco di divino amore, come vita eterna, senza contrarietà.”

The bracketed words are all more or less certain glosses. But there

is here, besides, a conflation (indicated by vertical lines) of two

applications of the gold-dross-fire simile: “Così dell’ anima: Dio la

tiene … imperfezione. E quando è purificata, resta tutta in Dio; e se

pure, così purificata, fosse tenuta …”; and “così fà il divin fuoco

dell’ anima, che le consuma ogni imperfezione; e quando è purificata

resta in sè stessa, ed il suo essere è Dio.” Both applications

are probably authentic; the latter is too daringly simple and too

delicately consistent with Catherine’s surest purgatorial conceptions

not to be genuine.

The second paragraph of the second set contains the important passage:

“Perchè sono in grazia l’intendono e capiscono | Dio | così come

sono, secondo la loro capacità; [e perciò a quel] le da un gran

contento, il quale non manca mai; anzi lo và loro accrescendo tanto,

quanto più si approssimano a Dio.” This seems a conflation of two

authentic sentences: “Perchè--grazia, l’intendono e capiscono così come

sono--capacità;” and “perchè--grazia, Dio le da un gran contento--a

Dio.” And the paragraph concludes with: “Ognì poca vista che si possa

avere di Dio, eccede ogni [pena ed ogni] gaudio che l’uomo può capire,

[e benchè la eccede, non leva loro però una scintilla di gaudio o di

pena];” where the brackets indicate glosses, since the sight of God is

directly ever a source of joy.

4. _“Dic.” 1 and “Dic.” 2 referred to, respectively, by the first and

second sentences of the Dicchiarazione’s present Introduction._

Now the result reached by our analysis of the _Dicchiarazione’s_ last

ten Chapters, viz. that this group (with the possible exception of the

two sets of similes in Chapters Ten and Sixteen and much of Chapter

Seventeen), was constituted under different, later circumstances than

was that of the first seven Chapters, is borne out, indeed required,

by the present Narrative-paragraph that introduces all the seventeen

Chapters. For the two sentences of this paragraph are similar in form

but different in matter. In the first sentence the soul is “placed in

Purgatory” in order that, “passing from this life, it may be presented

in the sight of its tender Love, God”; Purgatory is “a place”; and the

souls are in that place “to purge away every stain of sin.” And this

corresponds exactly to Chapters Four, Six, and Seven respectively,

which deal with the diverse souls that “have passed from this life” (p.

172_c_); with the sight or non-sight of “God, our Love” possessed by

them (p. 174_c_); and with God and Hell as “places,” and of the soul’s

purgatorial plunge “so as to join God” (p. 175_c_). In the second

sentence, the soul, “placed in the loving Purgatory of the divine

fire, stands united to the divine Love and content with all that It

operates within her,” and Purgatory is not called a “place.” And this

corresponds precisely with Chapter Twelve (p. 179_b_), “as though a man

stood in a great fire … the love of God gives him a contentment.…”

The second sentence, a pale, at first sight redundant, double of the

first, will, then, have been added to the first sentence, when the

second set of chapters was added to the first set.

II. THE EARLIER “DICCHIARAZIONE,” AND ITS THEOLOGICAL GLOSSES.

I will here analyse such paragraphs of these first seven chapters, as

most fully illustrate the astonishing complexity of the whole, and as,

between them, furnish all the theological “corrections” to be found in

this earliest _Dicchiarazione_.

1. _The two Sayings-paragraphs of Chapter First_ (“_Vita_,” pp. 169_c_,

170_a_, _c_.).

I print these sayings (here now broken up) in parallel columns and in

the order of their present position. Columns first and third (numbered

together as I) will turn out to contain original sayings, and column

second (numbered II) will appear as but a Redactor’s re-statement,

which (a sort of link between the two sets) first paraphrases the

set that has just preceded, and then restates the set that will

immediately follow. The arabic numbers indicate the several sayings,

in their original and secondary forms (the numbers of the latter being

bracketed): thus II (1), (2), (3), stands for the secondary versions of

I 1, 2, 3, respectively. I double-bracket the additions (theological

glosses) of the Printed text, and I single-bracket two MS. clauses

which are clearly a gloss.

I 1 II (1) I

Le Anime che Non _possono avere_

sono nel Purgatorio alcuna memoria

_non possono _propria_ neppure d’

avere_ altra elezione _altri_, nè in _bene_

che di essere in nè in _male_ [[dacui

esso luogo; [e ricevano maggior

questo è per _ordinazione afflizione del suo

di Dio_, il quale ordinario]]; ma hanno

ha fatto questo tanto contento

giustamente;] _nè_ di essere nell’

si _possono_ più voltare _ordinazione di Dio_,

verso _sè stesse_, e che adoperi tutto

nè dire: “io ho quello che gli piace

fatto tali peccati, e come gli piace,

per i quali merito che di _sè medesime_

di _star qui_”; non ne possono

nè possono dire pensare [[con maggiore

“non vorrei averli lor pena.]]

fatti, perchè _anderei_

ora _in Paradiso_”;

nè dire ancora

“_quello_ ne esce più

presto di mè,” ovvero

“_io_ nè usciro più

presto di _lui_.”

(2) e solamente 2. La causa del

_veggiono_ l’operazione Purgatorio che hanno

della divina in loro, _veggiono_

bontà, la quale ha una sol volta

tanta misericordia nel passare di

dell’ uomo per condurlo questa vita, e poi

a sè, che di mai più, imperocchè

pena o di bene vi saria una

che possa accadere _proprietà_.

in _proprietà_, non se

ne può vedere.

(3) e se’l potessero 3. Essendo dunque

vedere, non sarebbero in carità, e da

in _carità pura_. quella _non potendo_

Non _possono_ più deviare con

vedere che siano _attual diffetto_, non

in quelle pene possono più volere

per i loro peccati, se non il puro volere

e _non possono_ aver della _pura

quella vista nella carità_.

mente: imperocchè

vi sarebbe una

_imperfezione attiva_.

(4) la quale non [4. ed essendo in

può essere in esso quel fuoco del

luogo, perchè non Purgatorio, sono nell’

vi si può attualmente ordinazione divina

peccare. (la quale è carità

pura), e non possono

più in alcuna cosa

da quella deviare,

perchè sono

privati così di

attualmente peccare

come sono di

attualmente meritare.]

Here the middle sayings are sufficiently recent to have in II (1)

imitated the secondary “ordinazione di Dio” clause present in I 1.

And the two theological “corrections,” still absent from MSS. A and

B, both appear among these middle sayings; they attempt to explain

the non-attention of the souls to all particular things, as a

non-remembrance of such things as would add to their distress.

2. _The first two paragraphs of Chapter Second_ (pp. 170_c_-171_b_).

Originally single sentences have here been repeatedly broken up and

scattered about amongst other similarly broken-up passages: we can

still trace the motive for this procedure. I first print them as

they stand, double-bracketing, at the end, the interestingly obvious

theological “correction” that immediately follows a most authentic,

directly contrary, statement.

“Non credo che si possa trovare contentezza da comparare a quella di

un’ anima del Purgatorio, eccetto quella de’ Santi di Paradiso: ed

ogni giorno questa contentezza cresce per l’influsso di Dio in esse

anime, il quale và crescendo, siccome si và consumando l’impedimento

dell’ influsso. La ruggine del peccato è l’impedimento, e il fuoco và

consumando la ruggine: e così l’anima sempre più si và discuoprendo al

divino influsso. Siccome una cosa coperta non può corrispondere alla

riverberazione del sole, non per diffetto del sole, che di continuo

luce, ma per l’opposizione della copertura: così sè si consumerà la

copertura, si discoprirà la cosa al sole, e tanto più corrisponderà

alla riverberazione, quanto la copertura più si andrà consumando.

“Così la ruggine (cioè il peccato) è la copertura dell’ anima, e nel

Purgatorio si và consumando per il fuoco: e quanto più si consuma,

tanto sempre più corrisponde al vero sole Iddio: però tanto cresce la

contentezza, quanto manca la ruggine e si discopre al divin raggio: e

così l’uno cresce e l’altro manca, finchè sia finito il tempo. [[Non

manca però la pena, ma solo il tempo di stare in essa pena.]]”

Here the last (double-bracketed) sentence is a deliberate theological

correction, for it formally contradicts the precise point and

necessary consequences of the whole preceding, most authentic,

specially characteristic doctrine.--In that preceding part three

parallel illustrative similes (between the intact general statement

and the equally untouched general conclusion) have been broken

up, and dovetailed into each other, in a most bewildering manner;

and this from a (possibly but semi-conscious) desire to obscure a

characteristic feature of her teaching. I shall now give these five

sentences in English, and will disentangle the three middle ones from

each other.--The general statement: “I do not think that a contentment

could be found comparable to that of a soul in Purgatory, except that

of the Saints in Paradise; and every day this contentment is on the

increase.”--The three images descriptive of the cause and mode of this

increase, arranged according to the increasing materiality of their

picturings. (1) “The influx of God into the soul goes increasing, in

proportion as it consumes the impediment to that influx, and as the

soul opens itself out more and more to the influx.” (2) “As an object,

if covered up, cannot correspond to the beating of the sun upon it, not

through any defect in the sun, which indeed shines on continuously, but

because of the opposition of the covering, (so that) if this covering

be consumed, the object will open itself out to the sun: even so does

the soul in Purgatory more and more correspond with the true sun, God,

when its covering, sin, gets consumed.” (3) “Rust is an impediment to

fire, and fire goes consuming rust more and more: so does the rust,

that is the sin, of the souls in Purgatory, get consumed by the fire;

and their contentment grows in proportion as the rust diminishes and as

the soul uncovers itself to the divine ray (of fire).”--The conclusion,

which perhaps applies grammatically only to the last image, but which,

as to the sense, most certainly refers to all three pictures. “And

thus does the one (the influx, sun-light, fire-ray) increase, and does

the other (the impediment, covering, rust) decrease, until the time

(necessary for the whole process) be accomplished.”--The three images

are in no case supplementary, but each is complete and parallel to the

other two. As the fire that meets with the obstacle of the rust is the

same fire as that which removes the rust, so is it in all three cases:

in each case God, and His direct presence and action, are the “influx,”

“sun-light,” “fire-ray”; in each case a sinful, morally imperfect,

habit of the soul is the “impediment,” “covering,” “rust”; and in each

case the suffering as well as the joy, and the changing relations

between the two, proceed exclusively from the differing relations of

but two forces: the soul and God. It is only the peculiar, Redactional

dovetailing of the fragments of these three parallel similes which now

conveys the impression that the divine sun-light and fire-ray reaches

the uncovered soul in proportion as the soul’s covering and rust is

destroyed by material fire; and to convey this very impression, was,

no doubt, the motive of this dovetailing. The authentic passage on p.

178b, tells how the same divine fire which, at first, pains because

it has still to purify the soul, increasingly fills the soul with joy

in proportion as it can penetrate the soul unopposed: a doctrine also

explicitly taught by Catherine, in her dialogue with Vernazza as to the

effect of a drop of Love were it to fall into Hell (pp. 94_c_, 95_b_).

3. _Third paragraph of Chapter Third._

The much-tormented Chapter Third has, at the opening of its third

paragraph (p. 172_b_), an interesting theological “correction.” The

complete passage now reads: “E perchè le anime che sono nel Purgatorio

[[sono senza colpa di peccato perciò non]] hanno impedimento tra Dio

e loro, [[salvo che quella pena, la quale le ha ritardate, che]]

l’istinto non ha potuto avere la sua perfezione: e vedendo per certezza

quanto importi ogni minimo impedimento, ed essere per necessità di

giustizia ritardato esso instinto: di qui nasce un estremo fuoco.” The

bracketed words are two interdependent glosses. For though in some

other, possibly authentic, passages the souls in Purgatory “non hanno

colpa di peccato,” this most certainly applies only to mortal sin or a

still active, formal affirmation of venial sin; since the very _raison

d’être_ of Purgatory is “the rust of sin,” pp. 169_b_, 170_c_, 171_b_,

173_c_, 181_a_; “the stain of sin,” pp. 169_b_, 171_c_, 176_b_; “a mote

of imperfection,” p. 176_a_; “a stain of imperfection,” p. 176_b_; “a

passive defect,” p. 170_b_; “opposition to the will of God,” p. 177_b_;

an “impediment of sin,” 177_b_. And the _Vita_-proper says quite

plainly: “Both Purgatory and Hell are made for Sin: Hell to punish

and Purgatory to purge it” (p. 64_b_).--And this gloss is in strict

conformity with the glosses that affirm static suffering: in both cases

all change is excluded from the soul in Purgatory, since this Purgatory

is neither intrinsically necessary nor amelioratively operative within

the soul.

4. _First paragraph of Chapter Fourth._

Chapter Fourth is comparatively easy, but probably largely secondary,

because uncharacteristic of her teaching. Yet it contains a

“correction” deserving of notice. I give the two sentences which prove

both points. “Quei dell’ Inferno … hanno seco la colpa infinitamente,

e la pena [non però tanta, quanta meritano; ma pur quella] che hanno è

senza fine. Ma quei del Purgatorio hanno solamente la pena, perciocchè

la colpa fù cancellata nel punto della morte … e così essa pena è

finita, e và sempre mancando [[quanto al tempo, come s’è detto]]” (p.

173_a_).--The double-bracketed passage, directly referring to the

gloss on p. 171_b_, is, like the latter, a theological “correction.”

But also the single-bracketed words are a gloss, since they disturb

both grammar and rhythm of the passage, and introduce a point foreign

to the argument which is being conducted in this place.--Indeed, even

the remaining parts of these sentences are misleading, since Catherine

held no such simple and absolute distinction as infinite guilt in the

one case, and apparently no moral imperfection in the other. For of

the lost she says: “If any creature could be found which did in nowise

participate in the divine goodness, that creature would be as malignant

as God is good” (p. 33_b_); and as to the souls in Purgatory, they are

imperfect in precise proportion as they do and can suffer.

5. _First two sentences of Chapter Fifth._

Here we find the strongest instance of the strange clumsiness

characteristic of the theological “corrections.” I give the sentences

as they now stand, simply numbering the sentences thus amalgamated, and

bracketing at once the undoubted glosses.

(1) “Le Anime del Purgatorio hanno in tutto conforme la loro volontà

a quella di Dio; e però corrisponde loro colla sua bontà, e restano

contente quanto alia volontà, e purificate d’ogni lor peccato quanto

alla colpa. [[Restando così quelle Anime purificate, come quando Dio le

creò]]

(2) “e per essere passate di questa vita malcontente e confessate di

tutti i loro peccati commessi. … [Iddio subito perdona loro la colpa e]

non resta se non la ruggine del peccato, del quale poi si purificano

nel fuoco, mediante la pena; [e così]

(3) “purificate d’ogni colpa, unite a Dio per volontà [[veggiono

chiaramente Dio, secondo il grado che fà lor conoscere, e]] veggiono

[ancora] quanto importi la fruizione di Dio, e che l’anime sono state

create a questo fine.” (Pp. 173_c_, 174_a_.)

According to Catherine’s unvarying authentic teaching, souls go to

Purgatory precisely because they are _not_ already “pure as when God

created them,” and they there do _not_ “clearly see God.” Indeed, the

second sentence here distinctly states, that “there” still “remains” in

them “the rust of sin,” from which they “there” purify themselves. And

the two “veggiono” conclusions of the third sentence contradict each

other: for if they see clearly how much the fruition of God matters to

them, then they do not as yet possess that full fruition, _i.e._ they

do not as yet clearly see God.

These glosses are made entirely intolerable by a third Redactional

sentence here, which announces “an example,” or figure, of the doctrine

here conveyed, and then proceeds to do so in the beautiful Chapter

Sixth. For Chapter Sixth gives us the simile of the One Bread, “the

bare sight of which would satiate all creatures”; and the division of

all souls into those “in Purgatory,” which “have the hope of seeing the

Bread”; those in Hell, which “are bereft of all hope of ever being able

to see the Bread”; and, by implication, those in Heaven, that see and

satiate themselves with the Bread. And “the nearer a man were to get

to the Bread, without being able to see it, the more would the natural

desire for this Bread be enkindled”; “not having it, he would abide in

intolerable pain” (p. 174_b, c_).

III. FIVE CONCLUSIONS CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF THE “DICCHIARAZIONE.”

1. The authentic sayings, collected throughout the Seventeen Chapters,

all belong, at earliest, to the last nine, and indeed probably to

the last two or three, years of Catherine’s life.--At the latter

date Vernazza had been her close friend for twelve, and Marabotto,

her Confessor for eight years. To one or the other, or to both, we

undoubtedly owe the first writing down of this, originally small,

nucleus of authentic sayings,--probably in (many cases) on the very

day when Catherine uttered one or several of these thoughts.--The

One-Bread-Simile Chapter, and one or two other passages, contain

slightly varying doublets of the same saying, the registration of one

of which may well be by Vernazza, and the registration of the other

by Marabotto, each of these two auditors getting, perhaps, addressed

by Catherine in a slightly different form, or himself looking out for

that part or context of a saying which specially appealed to him, or

slightly, and probably quite unconsciously, giving to the identical

declaration a somewhat differing characteristic “colour” of his own.

Vernazza is, however, doubtless the first chronicler of the majority of

these sayings, in 1508-1510.

2. These sayings must have been collected together in a first shorter

_Dicchiarazione_ (equivalent to the greater part of the present first

seven chapters and possibly one or two other passages), not long after

her death, probably simultaneously with, but separately from, a short

“Conversione” account. The first public Cultus in May-July, 1512,

giving rise as it did to a painter’s picture of her, cannot have failed

to suscitate some such manuscript booklets. This short _Dicchiarazione_

will already have had the first sentence of the present introduction

prefixed to it, and this sentence, so like and yet somewhat unlike

Battista’s writings (Battista who was as yet only fifteen), will have

been written by Ettore. These Chapters already, I think, contained

the “colpa di peccato” and other technically theological passages,

probably introduced by Marabotto; but the Chapters will as yet

have been free from the theological “corrections,” which still come

away too easily from the rest of the text (in contradistinction to

the difficulty in the analysis of its other, much more resistant

components) not to be considerably younger than these latter.

3. The “corrections” insist upon three doctrines, in each case in

demonstrable contradiction with Catherine’s authentic teaching:

the complete absence of all guilt, sin, imperfection, even though

merely passive and habitual, in the soul, even in its first moment in

Purgatory; the simply vindictive, not curative, hence static, nature

of the suffering throughout the soul’s prison time, right up to this

time’s sudden cessation; and this soul’s clear vision of God from first

to last. Thus no increase or extension of purity, no work of love, is

effected in or by the soul during, or by means of, its Purgatory.--Now

Pope Leo the Tenth, in his Bull _Exsurge Domine_ of May 16, 1520,

against Luther, reprobated four propositions concerning Purgatory;

and the second part of the second of these propositions declares:

“It is not proved, by any reasons or by any texts of Scripture, that

the souls in Purgatory are out of a state capable of merit or of an

increase of Charity.”[457] The Censure of this doctrine must have

seemed to menace Catherine’s teaching on this same point. For she

nowhere indeed declares these souls to be capable of meriting, nor does

she teach that there is any increase in the intensity of their love;

yet by the one free act of self-determination to Purgatory, and by the

gradual extension of this determination of active love throughout all

the regions and degrees of the passive will and habitual dispositions

of the soul, her teaching must, to an at all nervous theologian,

have seemed, at the time, to come perilously near to the admission,

respectively, of merit and of an increase of love in the Beyond. And

the degree in which the fight with nascent Protestantism was raging

precisely around such Purgatorial questions, and the solemnity of the

Pope’s condemnation, at this early stage of Catherine’s Cultus and

reputation, must have combined to render the introduction of these

disfiguring glosses an apparent necessity.--I take them to have been

introduced soon after Vernazza’s death in 1524, hence some twelve years

after the constitution of these seven Chapters; presumably by the

Inquisitor to the Republic of Genoa for the time being.

4. The addition of the last ten Chapters to the first seven Chapters,

and of the second sentence to the Introduction, will have occurred some

time after the constitution of the _Vita_-proper, say, in 1531 or 1532;

but, in any case, was not due to Vernazza or Marabotto. And the glosses

will have been introduced into these ten Chapters quasi-automatically,

and simply as a consequence to the very deliberate “corrections” of

those previous seven Chapters; for now Catherine’s reputation had had

another twelve years in which to grow, and the Bull had been studied

for another twelve years.--But no such glosses were introduced into the

_Vita_-proper, either as to this, or indeed, perhaps, any other point.

For this _Vita_ treated only quite incidentally of the other-world

Purgatory; and this, in those times specially delicate, subject-matter

had received every precautionary attention in the _Dicchiarazione_

professedly devoted to it. And other, intrinsically more important

points, even though treated here with great boldness, were felt to

remain as open as before.

But we must now get on to this _Vita_-proper.

IV. THE “VITA”-PROPER, ITS DIVISIONS AND PARTS, AND CHIEF SECONDARY AND

AUTHENTIC CONSTITUENTS.

1. _The three great divisions, and their clearly secondary parts._

The _Vita_-proper, as we now have it in print, falls into three great

Divisions, of respectively two, four, and two parts each. The first and

last Divisions hold by far the greater amount of the primary material;

whereas the middle Division only gives us here and there chapters or

paragraphs of admirable freshness and beauty.

The eight opening Narrative Chapters, pp. 1_b_ to 21_b_, and the next

nine Chapters of Discourses, pp. 21_b_ to 50_c_, form the two parts

of the first Division, each part being more or less complete and

homogeneous within itself; and yet they are together in marked contrast

to most of the materials of the following Division. It is within the

limits of this first Division, and probably even of its first part,

that must subsist the materials, predominantly derived from Ettore

Vernazza, of that first “Conversione”-booklet of 1512.

The second Division opens out with the most important Narrative

Chapter Nineteenth, pp. 51_a_-53_c_; but the remaining seven Chapters

of this its first part (pp. 53_c_-70_a_), contain very little which

is not findable elsewhere in a more primary form. Then follow, as a

second part, seven Chapters of a bewildering variety of form: three

are largely Narrative and important (Chapters XXVII to XXIX, pp.

70_b_-77_b_); the next (Chapter XXX, pp. 77_b_-79_a_) gives Discourses,

only in part authentic; the next again (Chapter XXXI, pp. 79_b_-83_c_)

is chiefly Narrative and important; Chapter XXXII, pp. 83_c_-88_b_,

is now one long Discourse which incorporates some short but important

authentic sayings; and Chapters XXXIII to XXXV (pp. 88_c_-96_b_) are,

the first, a Narrative; the last two, Discourses; and, in all three

cases, preponderatingly secondary and negligible. Then a third part

consists of a largely Narrative Chapter of delightful authenticity

and freshness (Chapter XXXVI, pp. 94_b_-96_b_); a tryingly composite

but valuable Narrative Chapter (Chapter XXXVII, pp. 96_b_-97_c_);

and an important Narrative Chapter with dates (Chapter XXXVIII, pp.

98_a_-100_a_). And, as a fourth part, we get a group of three Chapters,

of which the first and last contain highly original matter (Chapters

XXXIX-XLI, pp. 100_a_-103_b_, 106_a_-111_b_), but of which the middle

one (Chapter XL, pp. 103_c_-105_c_) can safely be neglected. Ettore’s

chroniclings are again strongly represented in this Division.

And the last Division consists, in its first part, of five important

Narrative Chapters. (Chapters XLII-XLVI, pp. 111_c_-126_c_), clearly by

various hands, and of markedly manifold tone and emotional pitch. And

the second part consists of the six Chapters concerning her Passion,

Death, and Cultus (Chapters XLVII-LII, pp. 127_a_-166_a_), of which

we can safely neglect Chapter XLVII, pp. 127_a_-131_c_ (wanting in

the MSS., and a mere collection of passages still present, in a more

primitive form and connection, in other parts of the _Vita_); and pp.

161_c_-166_a_ (which treat of events subsequent to Catherine’s death).

This last Division gives the most important of the communications that

can with certainty be attributed to Marabotto. And as Division First’s

first part, Catherine’s Conversion, will have existed very early in

a separate form, and its second part will have, if added later, been

thus added very soon; so this Third Division’s second part, Catherine’s

Passion, will early have existed separately; and to this will have been

prefixed, still in early times, the Narrative Chapters XLII, XLIII,

XLV, and XLVI of the first part, all dealing with matters occurring

from 1496 onwards.

2. _Five main additions of the Printed Vita as against the extant MSS._

We have now reduced the bulk of the _Vita_-proper by 34½ pages, but

the remaining 132 pages are capable of further reduction. For the

Printed _Vita_, as compared with the MSS., contains, besides the

already rejected Chapter XLVII, five main additions.

The first addition (in the order of the Printed Vita) is the

beautifully vivid and daring, certainly historical scene between

Catherine and the Friar (Chapter XIX, pp. 51_a_-53_b_), a record

doubtless due to Ettore Vernazza, and which will have been omitted

by the Franciscan Scribe of MS. A from scruples with regard to the

doctrine implied.

The second is Chapter XLIV, omitted from p. 117_b_ to p.

121_b_,--Catherine’s declarations as to her lonely middle period and

the account of her Confessions to Don Marabotto, undoubtedly here

recorded by this Priest; matter again which the Franciscan Friar might

well consider dangerously daring, but which, we have seen, had not yet

been incorporated with the Franciscan’s Prototype, perhaps indeed not

with any copy of the then extant _Vita_.

The third is the fourth paragraph of Chapter XLVIII, p. 133_b_, giving

a new and beautiful description of the “Scintilla” experienced by

Catherine on November 11, 1509. It is of late composition, and Battista

Vernazza is no doubt its author.

The fourth consists of three new paragraphs to Chapter XLIX,

descriptive of Maestro Boerio’s three-weeks’ attempt at curing her,

sometime in May-July 1510 (pp. 146_c_-147_c_), and of evidently the

same Physician’s visit in his scarlet robes on September 2 (p. 154_b_).

Both passages, of transparent authenticity and still but little

enlarged, will have been contributed by this Physician’s Priest-son

Giovanni Boerio, who, dying in his seventies, in 1561,[458] must

himself have been twenty at the time of his Father’s attendance, and

may well have had his Father’s contemporary notes before him when

composing these interestingly vivid contributions.

And the fifth brings three new paragraphs for the events of September

4, 1510 (Chapter L, pp. 155_b_-156_a_), already referred to here, on

pp. 209, 210.

The MSS. read: “On the following day [4th September], being in great

pain and torment, she extended her arms in suchwise as to appear

in truth a body fixed to a cross; so that, according as she was

interiorly, so also did she show in her exterior, and she said--”[459]

Hereupon follows a long prayer so obviously modelled throughout upon

Our Lord’s High-Priestly prayer (John xvii, 1-26), and so elaborately

reflective, that it cannot but most distantly represent anything spoken

now by her who had been so interjectional in her remarks ever since

August 16 (pp. 149_b_-155_b_).--Now the Printed _Vita_ introduces

between “… exterior,” and “and she said,” the following account:

“Whence, it appears to me, we should indeed believe that the spiritual

stigmata were impressed in that body which was so afflicted and

excruciated by her Love; and although they did not appear exteriorly,

they nevertheless could easily be recognized through the Passion which

she felt; and that she suffered in her body that pain which her Love

had suffered on the Cross: as we read of the Apostle (Gal. vi [17])

who bore the stigmata of Our Lord Jesus Christ, not indeed exteriorly

but interiorly, through the great love and desire which he felt within

himself for his Lord.”

“In proof that this holy woman bore the stigmata interiorly, a large

silver cup was ordered to be brought in, which had a very high-standing

saucer”; the cup was “full of cold water, for refreshing her hands, in

the palms of which, because of the great fire that burned within her,

she felt intolerable pain. And on putting her hands into it, the water

became so boiling that the cup and the very saucer were greatly heated.

She also sustained great heat and much pain at her feet, and hence she

kept them uncovered; and at her head she similarly suffered great heat

with many pains.”

Argentina is then quoted as having seen how “one of” Catherine’s “arms

lengthened itself out by more than half a palm beyond its usual length;

yet she never said one word as to whence such great pains proceeded.

It is true that, on one occasion, before her last infirmity, she

predicted that she would have to suffer a great malady, which would not

be natural but different from other infirmities, and that she would

die of it; and that, before her death, she would have within herself

(_in sè_) the Stigmata and the Mysteries of the Passion: and this the

aforesaid Argentina revealed later on to many persons.

“Now this Beata being thus, with her arms extended, in pains so great

that she could not move.…” And then follows the “said” with the long

prayer, as given in the MSS.[460] Stigmatization is thus attributed,

but in two degrees and of two kinds. “Spiritual Stigmata,” like St.

Paul, who had them “through the great love and desire which he felt

within himself for his Lord”: this is the conception of the writer of

the first paragraph, doubtless Battista Vernazza. “Stigmata impressed

within her body,” intense interior physical pain, proved to be such by

the intense interior physical heat, and this heat proved by the insides

of Catherine’s hands causing cold water to boil: this was no doubt

Argentina’s view--at least as time went on. And note the interesting

combination of both views effected by the Redactor in the clauses “the

spiritual stigmata were impressed in her body,” “through the Passion

which she felt,” and “she bore the stigmata interiorly.”

V. AGE AND AUTHORSHIP OF THE LITERATURE RETAINED.

The next points to consider, in detail, are the authorship and

antiquity of the literature retained by us.

1. _Indications concerning Ettore Vernazza._

The indications to be found within the _Vita_ begin at pp. 98_c_,

99_a_, where, after six lines concerning “several ecstasies” which

occurred in one particular year and which Catherine herself had called

“giddiness” (_vertigine_), we are told: “One day that she was talking

with a Religious, that Religious said to her: ‘Mother, I beg you, for

the glory and honour of God, to elect some person that would satisfy

your mind, and to narrate to this person the graces which God has

granted to you, so that, when you die, these graces may not remain

… unknown, and the praise and glory due for them to God may not be

wanting.’ And then this Soul answered that she was quite willing (_ben

contenta_), if this were pleasing to her tender Love; and that, in

that case, she would elect no other person than himself.” “And then,

speaking on another occasion with the said Religious, she began to

narrate to him her Conversion. And she acted similarly later on, as

well as she could, with regard to many other things, which have been

faithfully collected and put into the present book” (_Vita_, pp. 98_c_,

99_a_). The Preface, we know, mentions “two Religious, her devotees,

her Confessor and a Spiritual son of hers, by whom the (matter of

the) book has been collected from the very lips of the Seraphic

Woman herself” (_Vita_, p. viii_c_): and we know, beyond all cavil,

that these two men were Cattaneo Marabotto, the Priest, and Ettore

Vernazza, the Lawyer. The passage just given, _Vita_, pp. 98_c_, 99_a_,

unmistakably refers to one of these two; and the address of “Mother,”

and the answer of “Son,” which occurs here immediately after the words

translated (p. 99_b_), fit only Vernazza.

Now the opening words of the first two, closely interconnected,

paragraphs of that Chapter XXXVIII (_Vita_, p. 98_a_, _b_) are: “In

the year 1507”; the first words of the next two paragraphs, which also

belong together, are: “It happened in a certain year.” The subjects and

sequences of those two sets correspond pretty closely; and the second

set is in simple juxtaposition to the first set. Yet the sets differ:

the first contains a definite date but no allusion to any interlocutor,

and Catherine moves about and overcomes her scruples by intercourse

with God alone; the second is without a date but refers repeatedly to a

witness, and Catherine is physically quiescent and solicits spiritual

help from a disciple. Each set is, in its own way, equally vivid and

peculiar: they can hardly be doublet narratives of the same event.--The

second set, then, gives a later stage of her health and dispositions;

and the “ecstasies,” “giddinesses,” which left her “half dead,” must

refer to the “assault” of November 11, 1509, which left many other,

similarly deep, impressions and definite records. The penultimate

paragraph of the Printed _Vita_ (p. 165_c_) reads in the MSS.: “Now

those who saw and observed these wonderful operations _during fifteen

years_;” and this (since Marabotto did not become Catherine’s Confessor

nor presumably know her, at least intimately, till 1499) must refer

specially to Vernazza, Thus 1495 marks the beginning of his intimacy

with Catherine; in 1497 he could ask Catherine to stand God-mother

to his first child; and the _Vita_ gives, pp. 122_c_, 123_a_, “what

she said after her husband’s death,” hence in the autumn of 1497, “to

a spiritual son of hers,” who is certainly Vernazza, “concerning the

character of Messer Giuliano.”--The conversation of November 1509 is,

then, not the starting-point of Vernazza’s observations, or even of his

registrations, but only the date from when Catherine began deliberately

to tell him about her past history.--All this gives us the following

canon: whatever in the _Vita_ is attributable to Vernazza can, if its

subject-matter is posterior to 1495, have been observed and written

down by him, then and there, as it occurred; if its subject-matter is

prior to 1495, then we have what, at best, is derived from Catherine’s

memory and communication to him. And there exists no earlier trained

and reliable witness of Catherine’s spiritual dispositions and sayings

than Vernazza from this date onwards.

Two beautiful scenes and compositions have undoubtedly been directly

witnessed and contemporaneously chronicled by Vernazza,--the

conversation about Love and Hell, with Ettore as the chief interlocutor

after Catherine herself (_Vita_, pp. 94_b_,-95_c_), between July 1495

and 1502; and the Scene with the Friar, which it is best to put back

to the end of 1495 or the beginning of 1496, since it is more natural

to take her words, “if the world or a husband,” as referring to a

still living husband.--We can also, I think, attribute to the same

intermediary the authentic central part of the analogous discourse as

to “that corrupt expression: you have offended God,” Chapter XXXIX,

pp. 100_c_-101_b_.--And it is Ettore again through whom, doubtless, we

derive all but everything that is authentic in the _Dicchiarazione_, as

we have already found.

Vernazza’s contributions to the second category, _i.e._ reminiscences

of Catherine brought to paper by him, are also very important and more

numerous; but they are, I think, generally worked up with parallel

accounts due to Marabotto, as we shall presently note.

2. _Indications of Marabotto._

The _locus classicus_ concerning Don Cattaneo appears in the _Vita_ in

Chapter XLIV, p. 117_b_, of which long and most important Chapter (pp.

116_c_-121_b_) only the first seven lines occur in the MSS. The passage

(omitting a highly glossed bracketed clause and a parallel, secondary

half-sentence) runs: “After this, ( ), the Lord gave her a Priest

(_Prete_) to have a care of her soul and body. [ ] He was elected

Rector of the Hospital in which she abode, and he was wont to hear her

Confessions, to say Mass for her, and to give her Communion, as often

as she liked. This Priest (_Sacerdote_), at the request of various

spiritual persons devoted to this Beata, has written a considerable

part (_buona parte_) of this work, having many times tempted her on

and incited her to tell him of the singular graces which God had given

her and had effected within her [; especially since (_massime che_)

this Religious, owing to long experience and intercourse, knew and

understood particularly well (_molto bene_) the sequence of her life].”

This introductory authentication is followed by the highly reliable

and important matters described in my Chapter IV,--her manner of

Confession; the incident of the perfume from Marabotto’s hand; her

solemn declaration as to her twenty-five years of complete interior

loneliness with God; and the murmurs of some of her friends as to the

closeness of their intimacy, and his consequent absence from her for

three days. All this (pp. 117_b_-121_b_) was certainly written down by

Marabotto himself, at the time, in substantially its present form.

Although this whole series now opens out with “la prima volta che si

volle confessare a questo Religioso” (p. 117_c_), the words “a questo

Religioso” are doubtless an addition of the Redactor. For everywhere

else Marabotto is always “il Confessore” or “suo Confessore,” whilst

“un Religioso” is reserved for Vernazza: and wherever she uses any

specific appellation to the Confessore,--a thing which is quite

exceptional,--she says “Padre”; whilst where she does so to the

Religioso, she says “Figliuolo.”[461] And, wherever the Confessore

addresses her, there is never any specific address; whereas the

Religioso constantly addresses her as “Madre.”[462]

As to “Confessore,” we get one mentioned as Confessor to the Convent of

S. Maria delle Grazie in 1460, p. 2_b_ the same or another Confessor

of the same Convent in 1473, p. 4_a_, _c_, is called “buon Religioso.”

Both these men, or this one man, heard Catherine’s Confessions at those

dates. But, a most important point: all the other Confessore-passages

throughout the book refer to after 1499, and to Marabotto alone. For

this is a list of them all. On p. 7_c_: here she is “so gravely ill,

as to be unable to eat,” a thing belonging to the times after 1499.

(In events of an obviously earlier date,--her fervent Communions,--pp.

8_a_, _c_, we get not “Confessore” but simply “Sacerdote.”) On p.

10_c_: here “to test her, he commanded her to eat,” an action of which

the results are described on pp. 117_b_, 119_c_. On page 108_b_: but

here her fasting is liable to damage her health, which points to after

1501. On p. 113_b_: but here the Confessore remains her sole aid, as

in the accounts referring to Marabotto in January 1510 and shortly

before, pp. 120_a_, 121_b_; 120_b_, 139_a_-_c_. On p. 115_b_: but here

the possessed “spiritual daughter” is certainly Mariola Bastarda, who

did not live with Catherine till after Giuliano’s death in 1497. On

pp. 117_b_-121_b_: the Confessore is throughout avowedly Marabotto,

and a treble indication here forces us to date his Confessorship from

not before 1499. The remaining “Confessore”-references,--pp. 130_a_,

138_c_, 139_a_, _b_, _c_; 140_b_, _c_; 143_c_, 156_c_, 157_b_,--are all

explicitly subsequent to 1501 and pertinent to Marabotto alone.

Now there is no good reason for doubting Marabotto’s original, and

still largely unmodified, authorship of all the above passages in which

he himself occurs. Only as to the scene with the possessed Mariola,

Chapter XLIII, pp. 115_a_-_c_, have I long hesitated to attribute

something so insignificant in substance, and yet so pompous in form, to

Marabotto, either as action or as composition. Yet I have ended, for

the reasons given in my Chapter IV, by thinking that, after all, this

scene does go back, more or less, to him.

3. _References to other witnesses._

There are but few other references to witnesses in the _Vita_. On p.

124_a_, in the account of Suor Tommasa Fiesca, there are “the Nuns

of her first and second Monastery”--San Silvestro and the Monastero

Nuovo,--and “secular persons, her familiar and devoted friends.” I

take this admirably vivid and _naïve_ account, pp. 123_b_-124_b_

(which exists in the MSS. without this sentence and Tommasa’s

death-date, 1534), to rest upon Suor Tommasa’s own reminiscences of

her heaven-storming cousin, but to be the composition of Battista

Vernazza.--And on p. 158_c_ “several of the ten Physicians,” who

assembled by Catherine’s bedside on September 10, 1510, “are still

alive in this year (1551),” but the very vague account of their

examination is no doubt due to a non-medical pen.

VI. ANALYSIS OF THE CONVERSION-NARRATIVES.

Let us now take the first of the four Narrative Passages in which

the largest or clearest conflations of original documents and of

subsequent glosses are traceable: the Conversion-Scene and subsequent

Apparition, March 1473; the “Scintilla”-Experience, November 11,

1509; the Temptation of August 23, 1510; and her Death on September

14, 1510. Roman and Arabic numerals indicate the probable provenances

from different contributors, and from different narratives of each

contributor, respectively; square brackets indicate glosses; and E,

C, and B stand respectively for the handiwork of Ettore Vernazza, of

Cattaneo Marabotto, and of Battista Vernazza.

THE TWO CONVERSION-SCENES, pp. 4_a_-5_c_.

(_a_) _In the Chapel._

I. 1. Il giorno dopo la Festa di San Benedetto [ad istanza di sua

sorella monaca] andò Caterina [per confessarsi d’] al Confessore di

esso Monistero, benchè non fosse disposta a confessarsi: ma la sorella

le disse, “almanco vattegli a raccommandare, perchè è buon religioso”;

ed, in verità era un uomo santo. 2. Subitochè se gli fù inginocchiata

innanzi, ricevè una ferita al cuore d’immenso amore di Dio, con una

vista così chiara delle sue miserie e diffetti e della bontà di Dio,

che nè fù quasi per cascare in terra.

II. 1. Onde per quei sentimenti d’immenso amore e delle offese fatte

al suo dolce Iddio, fù talmente tirata [per affetto purgato] fuor

delle miserie del mondo, che restò quasi fuor di sè; I. 3. e [perciò]

internamente gridava con ardente amore: “non più mondo, non più

peccati.” Ed in quel punto, se ella avesse avuto mille mondi, tutti gli

avrebbe gettati via.

III. Per la viva fiamma del infocato amore che essa sentiva, il dolce

Iddio impresse in quell’ anima, e le infuse, in un subito, tutta la

perfezione per grazia: onde la purgò di tutti gli affetti terreni, la

illuminò col suo divin lume, facendola vedere coll’ occhio interiore la

sua dolce bontà, e finalmente in tutto la unì, mutò e trasformò in sè,

per vera unione di buona volontà, accendendola da ogni parte col suo

vivo amore.

[Stando la Santa per quella dolce ferita quasi alienata da’ sensi

innanzi al confessore e senza poter parlare]

I. 4. Nè avvedendosi il Confessore del fatto, per caso fù chiamato e

levasi. Dappoichè assai presto fù retornato, non potendo ella appena

parlare per l’intrinseco dolore ed immenso amore, allo meglio che

potè gli disse: “Padre, se vi piacesse, lascerei volontieri questa

Confessione per un’ altra volta”: e così fù fatto. 5. Si parti dunque

Caterina e retornata a casa [si sentì così accesa e ferita di tanto

amor di Dio, a lei interiormente mostrato colla vista delle sue

miserie, che pareva fuors di sè] ed entrata in una camera la più

segreta che potè, ivi molto pianse [e sospirò con gran fuoco].

[In quel punto fù istrutta intrinsecamente dell’ orazione, ma la sua

lingua] I. 6. non poteva dir altro salvo questo: “O Amore, può essere

che mi abbi chiamata [con tanto amore] e fattomi conoscere in un punto

quello che colla lingua non posso esprimere?” II. 2. Le sue parole in

tutti quei giorni altro non erano che sospiri, e così grandi che era

cosa mirabile: ed aveva una si estrema contrizione [di cuore] per le

offese fatte a tanta bontà, che se non fosse stata miracolosamente

sostenuta, sarebbe spirata e crepatole il cuore.

(_b_) _In the Palace._

I. 7. (?) [Ma volendo] il Signore [accendere più intrinsecamente l’amor

suo in quest’ anima ed insieme il dolore dei suoi peccati,] se le

mostrò in ispirito colla Croce in spalla, piovendo tutto sangue, [per

modo che la casa le pareva tutta piena di rivoli di quel sangue,] il

quale vedea essere tutto sparso per amore: il che le accese nel cuore

tanto fuoco, che nè usciva fuor di sè [e pareva una cosa insensata per

lo tanto amore e dolore che ne sentiva.]

II. 3. (?) [Questa vista le fù tanto penetrativa, che] le pareva sempre

vedere (e cogli occhi corporali) il suo Amore tutto insanguinato

e confitto in Croce; e perciò gridava: “O Amore, mai più, mai più

peccati.” I. 8 (?) Se le accese poi un odio di sè medesima, che non si

poteva sopportare, e diceva: “O Amore, se bisogna, sono apparechiata di

confessare i miei peccati in pubblico.”

I. 9. Dopo questo fece la sua [generale] Confessione con tanta

contrizione e tali stimoli, che le passavano l’anima [. E benchè]

Iddio [in quel punto che le diede la dolce ed amorosa ferita, le

avesse perdonato tutti i suoi peccati, abbrucciandoli col fuoco del

suo immenso amore; nondimeno volendo soddisfare alla giustizia, la

fece passare per la via della soddisfazione] disponendo che questa

contrizione [lume e conversione] durasse [ro] circa quatt_r_o [dici]

_anni_, in capo a quali [, poichè ella ebbe soddisfatto, le fù levata

della mente la predetta vista in forma tale che] mai più non vide

neppure una minima scintilla dei suoi peccati, come se tutti fossero

stati gettati nel profondo del mare.

There is a striking parallelism of sights, sayings, and their

sequences, between the dated events in the Convent-Chapel, and the

undated ones in the Palace, divided off by the passage II 2, with its

vague “all these days.” Both sets have a “Vista,”--partly of “offese

fatte”; have next “and hence she cried ‘no more sin’”; and the first

concludes with a wish, expressed to the Confessor, to put off her

Confession, and the second with an exclamation, addressed to God, of

her readiness for even a public Confession.--This Christ-Vision, or

any other Passion-scene, is nowhere implied or referred to in all her

recorded post-Conversion sayings and doings; the legendary instinct, we

know, developed, from this single adult occupation with the Passion,

the “interior stigmatization” story; and in the Palace Narrative itself

there has been, in any case, _some_ uncertainty, shifting, or doubling

of the tradition as to that figured vision,--for the actual vision

cannot have represented Christ both as walking and carrying His Cross,

_and_ as motionless and hanging upon it. Are the two sets, then, but

two variant records of one sole event, and is the second but the result

of an early determination to find more of an historical, pictorial

element in Catherine’s spiritual experiences than had actually been

present in it?

Yet strong reasons operate on the other side. We have one, and only

one, absolutely certain detail from her childhood, the presence, in

her bedroom, of a Pietà (_Vita_, pp. 1_c_, 2_a_); yet nowhere, in her

subsequent actions and sayings, is there the slightest allusion to this

picture-scene which had so deeply moved her childhood.--And the most

vivid and characteristic details of the two Conversion-experiences are

delicately different in each set.

The first set, (_a_), consists of three documents. Document I 1,

2; 3; 4-6 continues the story of Catherine’s relations with the

“monistero” of the Madonna delle Grazie, and of her prayer on the eve

of St. Benedict’s day, told on pp. 2_b_-3_c_; is most vivid, precise,

and homely; and is doubtless the work of E. Document II 1, 2 is a

colourless parallel to I 2, 6; yet in I 2 she sees her own miseries, in

II 1 she is drawn out of the miseries of the world: II is thus probably

an ancient doublet, and, if so, then part of some annotations by C.

And document III is obviously from yet another, later, hand,--that

which produced the originally tripartite scheme of Catherine’s Convert

life (pp. 5_c_-_bc_), for the three “la” (her, Catherine) after “onde”

of III require but three stages of perfecting; whilst now the printed

text attempts (by italicizing “unì” and “transformò”) to produce four

stages, in keeping with the following, now quadripartite scheme. The

second set, (_b_), begins as though nothing had yet happened or as if,

at least, the past event had been but a step towards something greater.

Yet precisely such series of apparent anti-climaxes occur demonstrably

elsewhere in her life.--The account of II 3 (?) is irreconcilably

different from that of I 7 (?): for there Christ is moving, carrying

His Cross and raining blood upon objects not Himself, here He is

motionless, probably dead, affixed to the Cross, and His blood has

merely stained His own body; there she sees “in the spirit,” here

“with bodily eyes”; there, for some minutes, here continuously; there,

followed by speechless ecstasy, here, by penitential exclamations. And

this II 3 (?) is not a later stage of the vision given in I 7 (?), as

though, dissolving-view-like, the Moving Christ had shaded off into

a Fixed Christ, (although Catherine’s Viste give us such changes,

_e.g._ that of the Divine Fountain’s successive self-communications,

_Vita_, pp. 32c, 33a). For the very Redactor treats the second “Vista”

as simply identical with the first; and Battista, we saw, so entirely

realizes the contradiction between the two accounts, as to make two

quite distinct events out of them (_Dialogo_, pp. 209_b_, 211_a_,

_b_).--This second account can hardly be a gloss, for Battista already

found and respected it when at work on the Giustiniani-book of 1529

or 1530, and was thus powerfully influenced by it when composing

her _Dialogo_ in about 1547. Indeed, this II 3 (?) has been the

starting-point of all the stigmatization-glosses elsewhere, and can

hardly be a gloss itself.--If all this be so, then either Catherine

herself told the Christ-Vision to one disciple in two different ways;

or told it to two companions, to each in a different way; or told the

story so vaguely, or with such rich vividness and ambiguity, as to be

differently understood by these two different hearers. Only one of the

two latter alternatives would cover the facts, since no one writer

could remain unaware of the contradiction between these two accounts.

Hence we here require two writers, both considerably prior to Battista

and much respected by her; only E and C answer to these tests; and, in

that case, the Living Christ, seen in the Spirit, comes to us through

E, and the Dead Christ, seen with the bodily eyes, reaches us through

C.--And then comes I 8, of clearly first-hand authority, and belonging,

I think, to E’s account.

I 9, concluding the _Vita’s_ Conversion-story, must evidently contain

some words, originally belonging to document I, concerning her

Confession, since I has already twice (I 4, I 8) referred to such a

coming Confession. And such words are here: “Dopo questo--l’anima”;

“Iddio disponendo-circa quattro _anni_” (this is the original text

here); and a vivid description of her suddenly ceasing to see her

particular sins.

VII. THE SAYINGS-PASSAGES: THREE TESTS FOR DISCRIMINATING AUTHENTIC

FROM SECONDARY SAYINGS.

As to the Sayings, it is obviously more difficult to decide as to

their provenance, authenticity, and date of enunciation and literary

fixation. Yet three tests have proved solidly helpful towards gaining a

respectably large collection of texts which can, with high historical

probability or even certainty, be reasoned from as truly Catherine’s,

even in their form.

1. _Rhythm._

There is the test of rhythm and rhyme, since the _Vita_ describes her

“wont” of “making rhymed sayings in her joy,” and gives irrefragable

proofs of her deep love of Jacopone’s poetry.[463] The still obviously

rhymed or rhythmical sayings all answer to the other tests of

genuineness; and many sayings now turned, by successive Redactors,

into more or less sheer prose, can still be restored to their original

poetic form. All these rhythmic, rhymed sayings have an utterly

_naïve_, expansive tone, markedly different from the high-pitched

redactional rhetoric in which they are now embedded, or again from

Battista’s far more literary poetry: hence they cannot spring from this

strong and busy intellect.--Thus she hears her Love say: “Chi di Mè |

si fida, || di sè | non dubita”; possibly simply quoting, she says to

her soul, “ama chi t’ama, | e chi non t’ama lascia”; and she sums up

her life’s ideal as, “s’io mangio o bevo, | s’io [] taccio o parlo,

| dormo o veglio; | s’io son in chiesa, in casa, in piazza: | s’io

son inferma | o sana: | s’io muojo o non muojo: || ogni ora di vita

mia, | tutto voglio che sia, | Dio e prossimo: || non vorrei potere ne

volere, | fare, parlare nè pensare | eccetto tutto Dio.||”[464]--And

there are her repetitive utterances, beginning with “non più mondo, non

più peccati,” on March 22, 1472, and finishing with “andiàmo, non più

terra, non più terra,” of August 25, 1510.[465]

2. _Simplicity._

The second test requires the sayings to be short and simple, and to

be followed, in the present text, by carefully clausulated doublets,

or to be themselves now glossed and expanded. Such sayings occur

specially in Chapters I to VIII; XVIII and XIX; XXVII to XXIX; XXXVI to

XXXVIII; XLIV to XLVI; and in Chapter L. All these Chapters are largely

narrative; can in great part be traced to Vernazza or Marabotto; and

yield sayings readily attributable to her first Conversion-Period

(which she doubtless recounted to those Friends), or to 1495-1510, the

years of her intercourse with those intimates.

3. _Originality._

And the third test consists of a daring originality, which, often

softened and counteracted by the successive Redactors, precludes all

idea of sayings expressive of it proceeding from any one of less

authority than herself. These sayings again are all short; they too

occur, all but exclusively, in the Chapters indicated and in the

_Dicchiarazione_; they are all referable to the years 1495-1510, and to

the registration first of Vernazza, and, later on, of Marabotto.

Very few of the sayings grouped together by me in my Chapter VI but

satisfy at least two of these three tests.

VIII. CONCLUSION. AT LEAST SIX STAGES IN THE UPBUILDING OF THE COMPLETE

BOOK OF 1551. THE SLIGHT CHANGES INTRODUCED SINCE THEN. FIRST CLAIMS TO

AUTHORSHIP FOR CATHERINE.

1. _The Stages._

It would appear, then, from the preceding analyses, that the successive

stages in the composition and redaction of the _Vita-Dicchiarazione_

complex of documents cannot have been fewer than the following:--

(i) Description and Registration, (1) first by Vernazza (1495-1510),

(2) then also by Marabotto (1499-1510), more or less on the day of

their occurrence and utterance, of Catherine’s actions, psycho-physical

condition, and sayings expressive of her present spiritual experiences;

and of her deliberate reminiscences concerning her past, especially

her early Convert life. And similar contemporary Annotations, of much

lesser volume, by (3) Suor Tommasa Fiesca, (4) Maestro Boerio, and (5)

Don Giacomo Carenzio--the latter two, only since May 1510.

(ii) Redaction, probably in connection with the first public Cultus in

the summer or autumn of 1512, of (1) a short _Conversione_-booklet, by

Vernazza, perhaps already with slight contributions by Marabotto; (2)

a short _Dicchiarazione_-booklet, also by Vernazza, probably as yet

without the theological “corrections”; and (3) a short Passion-account,

by Marabotto, with additions by Carenzio and, in substance,

contributions by Argentina.

(iii) Redaction, after the death of the last of the two chief friends

(Marabotto, in 1528), by Battista Vernazza, in 1529 or 1530, of a

tripartite _Vita_, made up chiefly of II (1) and II (3), and a longer

_Dicchiarazione_, now with the theological glosses,--these latter

presumably from the pen of Fra Gaspar Toleto, O.P., the Inquisitor for

the Republic of Genoa, or his successor, Fra Geronimo da Genova.

(iv) Partial change of the tripartite scheme of the _Vita-Dottrina_ to

a quadripartite one, early in 1548.

(v) Composition by Battista Vernazza of (1) the _Dialogo_, “Chapter”

I alone, 1549; and then (2) of “Chapter” II (the present Parts II and

III), in 1550.

(vi) Final Redaction of the text of the Printed

_Vita-Dicchiarazione-Dialogo_, by means of all the preceding Documents,

of which I (4) and possibly the Confession-descriptions of I (2) are

now incorporated in the complete _Vita_ for the first time; and, with

the help of gossipy reminiscences of Argentina, possibly only now

reduced to writing--in 1550, 1551. This final Redactor would again be

Battista Vernazza.

2. _The Changes._

Now from 1551 onwards this whole _corpus_ has remained stationary,

with the exception of purely formal modifications, such as one synonym

for another; of, since 1737, her designation, on the title-page and

in some other places, as “Santa Caterina da Genova,” and, throughout

the text, as “Caterina” (only the Ancient Preface still retains the

strictly correct “Caterinetta,” _Vita_, p. viii); and of two other,

more important changes.

The first important change is the insertion (later than the fourth

edition, Venice, 1601) at her death-moment,--between “e in quel punto”

(after raising her forefinger heavenwards) “quest’ anima beata” and

“con una gran pace … spirò,”--of the words: “dicendo: In manus tuas

commendo spiritum meum.” This, intrinsically appropriate, last saying

prevented henceforth her last, directly recorded, words from being

something so little beautiful or characteristic as the “cacciate via

questa bestia” with which all the MSS., and all the editions till at

least 1601, had the fine courage to conclude the series of her sayings.

And the second change is a modification in the titles of the Book and

of its several parts, of significance as indicating the growth of the

legend attributing literary composition to her. The First Printed

Edition (1551) has: “Book of the admirable Life and holy Doctrine of

the Blessed Caterinetta of Genoa, in which is contained a useful and

Catholic Demonstration and Declaration” (Elucidation) “of Purgatory”;

and in the body of the Book this “Demonstrazione” appears as _Trattato

del Purgatorio_, after the _Vita_-proper. But though the complete

_Dialogo_ appears here, behind the _Trattato_ and divided into two

“Chapters,” no mention is made of it on the title-page.--The Second

Edition, Florence, 1568, adds to the title: “with a Dialogue between

the Soul and the Body, composed by the same,” thus attributing,

apparently, full literary authorship by Catherine to precisely that

document with which she has least of all to do.--The Fourth Edition,

Venice, 1601, simply adds, after “Dialogue,” “divided into two

Chapters”; and the Fifth, 1615, modifies this to “three Chapters,

between the Soul, (and) the Body; Humanity, (and) Self-love; the Spirit

and the Lord God, composed by the Beata herself.”

The first French translation, Paris, 1598, puts the _Dialogue_ before

the _Treatise_, and still attributes Catherine’s direct authorship to

the _Dialogue_ alone. But the first Latin translation, Freiburg in

Breisgau, 1626, has “Life and Doctrine of Blessed Catherine Adorna …

(and) the two excellent Treatises of the same: 1. Dialogue between

the Soul and the Body; 2. Concerning Purgatory.” Here both works are

attributed to her, in exactly the same degree; but that degree is not

clearly specified.[466]

I do not know how soon after the Sixth Edition, Naples, 1645, which

is still without it, the quite unambiguous title of the Thirteenth

Edition, Genoa, of about 1880: “Vita ed Opere di S. Caterina da

Genova,” was adopted, nor how soon the present Second Title-page to

the _Trattato_ and _Dialogo_--“Works of St. Catherine”--was inserted.

Yet even here the old correct name for the whole Book still appears as

the heading on p. 1: _Vita e Dottrina_, although now, owing to that

Second Title-page, “Doctrine” only covers the Doctrinal Chapters of the

_Vita_-proper.

Thus not till 1568 was anything claimed as a composition of Catherine’s

pen, and then only the _Dialogue_; and not till 1626 was the _Treatise_

put into the same category as the _Dialogue_. Pope Clement XII, in

his Bull of Canonization in 1737, declares the _Dialogue_ to be her

composition, whilst nothing is said concerning the _Treatise_, although

the Bull itself most wisely follows the account of the _Vita_-proper,

and softens down or ignores the different version of the _Dialogue_, in

the two crucial cases of Catherine’s Vision of the Bleeding Christ and

of the degree of her poverty.[467]

FOOTNOTES

[1] The remainder of this section is for the most part expressed in the

words of Prof. Edouard Zeller’s standard _Philosophie der Griechen_. I

have used the German text.

[2] _Rep._ VII, 518_b_.

[3] _Phaedo_, 67_c_, 64, 69_c_.

[4] _Theaetetus_, 168_a_.

[5] _Parmenides_, 134_c_.

[6] _Theaetetus_, 176_a_.

[7] Luke ix, 51-56; Matt. xxvi, 51, 52; Mark x, 13-16; ix, 30-32.

[8] I have been much helped throughout the remainder of this section

by many of the groupings and discussions of texts in Prof. H. J.

Holtzmann’s _Lehrbuch der N. T. Theologie_, 2 vols., 1897. Inge’s

_Christian Mysticism_, 1899, has also, in its pp. 44-74, furnished me

with some useful hints.

[9] Matt. vi, 26, 28; Mark iv, 27, 28; Matt. xiv, 32; xvi, 2, 3.

[10] Matt. v, 17; vi, 1, 2, 5, 16; v, 23.

[11] Mark v, 25-29; vi, 56.

[12] Mark vi, 12, 13; i, 9, 10; Matt. iii, 13-19; Mark xiv, 22-25;

Matt. xxvi, 26-29; Luke xxii, 15-19.

[13] Matt. v. 3, 8; xi, 25, 26, 28-30; Mark viii, 34, 35; Matt. xvi,

24, 25; x, 38, 39; Luke ix, 23, 24; xiv, 27; xvii, 33; Mark vii, 14, 15.

[14] Mark ix, 35, 36; x, 15; x, 14.

[15] Mark xii, 24-27; Matt. xxii, 29-33; Luke xx, 34-38.

[16] 1 Cor. xv, 3-8; xi, 23-26.

[17] Acts ii, 1-13; ix, 1-9; xxii, 3-11; xxvi, 9-18; 1 Cor. xii; xiv; 2

Cor. xii, 1-9.

[18] 1 Cor. i, 18, 22-25; ii, 14, 15.

[19] Col. i, 26; ii. 2; iv, 3, 4.

[20] 1 Cor. ii, 6; iii, 1.

[21] 1 Cor. ii, 10, 11.

[22] Eph. iii, 5; Rom. vi, 6, 8; viii, 11.

[23] Col. i, 15-17; Eph. i, 10; Col. iii, 11; 1 Cor. x, 4; Col. i, 15,

17; iii, 11; Eph. iv, 13; Gal. ii, 20; iv, 19; 2 Cor. iii, 18.

[24] John i, 14; 1 John i, 1; John v, 28, 29.

[25] 1 John i, 5; iv, 8; John iv, 24; iii, 16; vi, 44; xvii, 18.

[26] John xvii, 24; viii, 58; i, 3, 10; i, 9; 1 John i, 2; John i, 11;

xiv, 6; x, 7-9; vi, 35; xv, 1.

[27] John iii, 3, 5; 1 John v, 10; John vii, 17; iii, 21.

[28] 1 John iii, 2, 5; v, 6.

[29] John ii, 23, 24; iii, 2; iv, 39, 42; xiv, 11; xx, 29.

[30] John iii, 36; v, 24; 1 John iii, 14; v, 20.

[31] John xiv. 20, 21.

[32] I have been much helped in this section by Prof. R. Eucken’s

admirably discriminating, vivid book, _Die Lebensanschauungen der

grossen Denker_, in its first and fourth editions, 1890, 1902.

[33] I have been much helped, towards what follows here, by pages 51 to

128 in M. Maurice Blondel’s great book, _l’Action_, 1893.

[34] I have found much help towards formulating the following

experiences and convictions in Professor William James’s striking

paper, “Reflex Action and Theism,” in _The Will to Believe_, pp.

111-114, 1897.

[35] I have been much helped towards the general contents of the next

four sections by that profoundly thoughtful little book, Fechner’s _Die

drei Motive und Gründe des Glaubens_, 1863, and by the large and rich

conception elaborated by Cardinal Newman in his Preface to _The Via

Media_, 1877, Vol. I, pp. xv-xciv.

[36] See, for this point, the admirably clear analysis in J.

Volkelt’s _Kant’s Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1879, pp. 160-234. This book

is probably the most conclusive demonstration extant of the profound

self-contradictions running through Kant’s Epistemology.

[37] _Works of St. John of the Cross_, translated by David Lewis, Vol.

I, ed. 1889, p. 298.

[38] _Ibid._ Vol. II, ed. 1890, pp. 541, 542.

[39] _Œuvres de Fénelon_, Paris, Lebel, Vol. IX, 1828, pp. 632, 652,

668.

[40] _Tractatus de Gratia et Libero Arbitrio_, cap. xiv, § 47.

[41] _Summa c. Gentiles_, 1-3, c. 70, _in fine_.

[42] For the recent instances, see Walter Elliott’s _Life of Father

Hecker_, New York, 1894, p. 369; _The Treatise on Purgatory_, by St.

Catherine of Genoa, with a Preface by Cardinal Manning, 1858, 1880,

19--; F. W. Faber’s _All for Jesus_, ch. ix, sections iii-v; Aubrey de

Vere’s _Legends and Records of the Church and the Empire_, 1898, pp.

355, 356; George Tyrrell’s _Hard Sayings_, 1898, pp. 111-130.

[43] I have done my best to recover the day, or at least the month, but

in vain. The baptismal register of her Parish Church (the Duomo) is, as

regards that time, destroyed or lost.

[44] Not a shadow of reasonable doubt is possible as to the

authenticity of these relics. Buried as she was in the Church of the

Hospital of Pammatone, which latter she had first simply served,

and then directed and inhabited, during thirty-seven years, her

resting-place remained a centre of unbroken devotion up to her

Beatification and Canonization, when the relics were removed but a few

yards upwards, and placed in their glass shrine above and behind the

altar in the Chapel of the Tribune--the Deposito di S. Caterina--where

they have rested ever since. The special character of the brow and of

the hands is still plainly recognizable. Of the four or five portraits

mentioned by Vallebona, not one can be traced back to her lifetime.

In the _Manuale Cartularii_ of the Pammatone Hospital, under date

of 10th July 1512 (p. 62), (I quote from an authentic copy which I

found among various documents copied out by the protonotary P. Angelo

Giovo, and prefixed to his MS. Latin life of the Saint preserved in

the _Biblioteca della Missione Urbana_, Genoa, No. 30, 8, 140,) there

is an entry of money (7 lire 10 soldi, equivalent to about £7 10_s_.)

paid by the administrators of the Hospital to Don Cattaneo Marabotto,

her Confessor and Executor: “Ratio sepulturae q(uondam) D(ominae)

Catarinettae Adurnae pro diversis expensis factis p(er) D(ominum)

Cattaneum Marabottum, videlicet _pro pictura_ et apportari facere

lapides ipsius sepulturae.” The payment must have been either for

expressly painting a picture, or for buying one already painted. We

would, however, expect, in the former case, for the entry, in analogy

with its final clause, to run: “pro pingi facere picturam.” In the

latter case, we are almost forced to think of the picture as painted

by some friend or disciple of the Saint, not for herself or for her

relations or friends (for in that case it would hardly have been

sold, but would have been left or given to the Hospital), but for his

own consolation, or in hopes of its being eventually bought for the

Hospital (and this may well have been done during her lifetime). In any

case, this entry attests that a portrait of the Saint was in existence

at the Hospital not two years after her death, and which was approved

of by one of her closest friends. I take it that that portrait was

placed on her sepulchral monument erected to her in January 1512 in the

Hospital Church. If still extant, at least in a copy, that original or

copy is, presumably, at the Hospital still.

Now there are but three pictures at the Hospital which claim to be

portraits of her and are not, avowedly, copies. (1) The large oil

painting of her standing figure, in the room adjoining the closet now

shown as the place where she died, is clearly a late, quite lifeless

composition. (2) The portrait-head in the Superioress’s room has been

carefully examined for me by a trained portrait painter, who reports

that the picture consists of a skilful ancient foundation now largely

hidden under much clumsy repainting. (3) The picture reproduced at

the head of this first volume, now in the sacristy of the _Santissima

Annunziata in Portorio_ (the Hospital Church), is clearly the work

of one hand alone. It is without the somewhat disagreeable look

present in the previous portrait, a look doubtless introduced there

by the unskilful restoration. If then the sacristy picture is a copy

of the Superioress’s picture, it will have been copied before the

latter picture was thus repainted. This sacristy picture now hangs

in an old-fashioned white-and-gold wooden frame with “Santa Catarina

da Genova” in raised letters carved out upon it, a carving which is

evidently contemporary with the frame’s make. The frame thus cannot be

older than 1737, the year of Catherine’s canonization. But the portrait

is without trace of a nimbus and carefully reproduces the very peculiar

features of a particular face, head, and neck.

The original painting, thus still more or less before us in these

two pictures, was evidently by no mean artist, and strikes a good

connoisseur as of the school of Leonardo da Vinci (died 1519). There

were several good painters of this school resident in Genoa about

this time: Carlo da Milano, Luca da Novara, Vinzenzo da Brescia,

and Giovanni Mazone di Alessandria. In the very year of her death,

and still more two years later, she was publicly and spontaneously

venerated as Blessed, and this Cultus continued unbroken up to the

Bull of Urban VIII, of 1625. Hence the further back we place one or

both of these portraits, the more naturally can we explain the absence

of the nimbus. Everything conspires, then, to prove that one of these

portraits goes back, in some way, to the picture painted for or bought

by Marabotto, and which adorned her monument from 1512 to 1593.

I have striven hard but in vain to find some scrap of Catherine’s

handwriting. The late Mr. Hartwell Grisell of Oxford, and the Cavaliere

Azzolini dei Manfredi of Rome, both of them life-long collectors of

Saints’ autographs, have kindly assured me that they have never come

across a word even purporting to be in her handwriting. The fourteen

wills and codicils made in her favour or by herself are all, according

to the universal custom of the time and country, written throughout

in a rapid, cursive hand by the lawyer himself alone, with certain

slight signs (crosses or lines) for further identification of his

authorship, but with no signature of any kind. There is no shadow of a

true tradition as to any of her sayings or thinkings having ever been

written down by herself. And the business books of the Hospital, kept,

at least in part, by Catherine from 1490 to 1496, when she was its

matron, have long ago been destroyed by fire.

[45] See _Opere Spirituale della Ven. B. Vernazza_, Genova, 1755, 6

vols., Vol. I, p. 3.

[46] _Op. cit._ p. 45.

[47] Although the Church and Monastery belonged, as Catherine’s Will

of 1509 puts it, to “the Order of St. Benedict of the Congregation of

Saint Justina in Padua”--a Congregation founded from Monte Cassino

between 861 and 874--yet the community were evidently closely bound up

with the Augustinian Canons Regular of the Lateran, or at all events

with the foundation of the Convent of Augustinian Canonesses at Santa

Maria delle Grazie. For the concession of Pope Nicolas V for the latter

Convent is addressed to his “Beloved sons of Saint Theodore of Genoa”

(Augustinian Canons) “and of Saint Nicolas in Boschetto.” And this

close connection with, and action for, a Church and Convent so dearly

loved by Catherine, will have necessarily been one of the causes of her

affection for the Benedictine country-side Church.

[48] This evidently most authentic anecdote stands in the _Vita_, p.

3, in a doubly disconcerting context. Her prayers, always elsewhere

recorded together with their effects, are here abruptly left, without

any indication of their sequel; and the prayer for a _three months’

illness_ is followed by an attempted explanation of it--that she had

gone through _three months_ of mental _affliction_. I take it that some

other continuation has been suppressed, or, at least, that the present

explanation owes its “three months” to a quaint determination to find

at least a retrospective correspondence between her prayer and the

happenings of her life.

[49] _Vita_, p. 4, first two paragraphs. I hope to show in the Appendix

that we owe their getting on to paper to Ettore Vernazza, and that he

derived their contents from Catherine herself, some time after 1495.

[50] _Ibid._ p. 4. § 3.

[51] _Vita_, p. 4, § 3; p. 5, § 1.

[52] _Ibid._ p. 5, §§ 2, 3. I have, together with the Bull of

Canonization, deliberately omitted the first two sentences of § 3,

which (with their representation of Our Lord as appearing not alive

with the Cross, but dead on it, and with their repetition here of the

exclamation as to “no more sins” of her conversion-moment) form an

interesting doublet, with a complex and eventful history attaching to

it. See Appendix to this volume.

[53] _Vita_, p. 5_c_.

[54] _Vita_, p. 5_c_.

[55] _Vita_, pp. 5_c_, 6,--as they appear in MS. “A.” This matter of

these periods has given me much trouble, since there are two rival

traditions concerning them to be found, really unreconciled, within the

oldest documents of the _Vita_. The point is fully discussed in the

Appendix.

[56] _Ibid._ cc. ix-xli, pp. 21_c_-111_c_.

[57] _Vita_, p. 7_a_.