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. 175c-176c), are identical with paragraphs four and five of Chapter Thirty of the Vita-proper (“E perciò diceva: io veggio”—“se fosse possibile,” Vita, pp. 78c, 79a).
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. 178b-179a) 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” (179a). 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. 23b, 49b, 61b, 106a, 114c of the Vita, which readily calls such this-world sufferings a “Purgatory,” 128b, 136c, 137a. 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. 179b, 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. 182c-184c) 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. 133b, where the MSS. give the date; the considerations appear only on pp. 136b-137a, 144b, 146b), 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. 181b, 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. 180a, 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. 169c, 170a, 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 … 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)…” (180b). 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. 181c), 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. 176c-177b) and the very similar short Chapter Fourteen (ibid. pp. 180c, 181a) 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. 178a, b) and the two of Chapter Sixteen (pp. 181c-182b). 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. 172c); with the sight or non-sight of “God, our Love” possessed by them (p. 174c); and with God and Hell as “places,” and of the soul’s purgatorial plunge “so as to join God” (p. 175c). 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. 179b), “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. 169c, 170a, 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.
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. 170c-171b).
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. 94c, 95b).
3. Third paragraph of Chapter Third.
The much-tormented Chapter Third has, at the opening of its third paragraph (p. 172b), 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. 169b, 170c, 171b, 173c, 181a; “the stain of sin,” pp. 169b, 171c, 176b; “a mote of imperfection,” p. 176a; “a stain of imperfection,” p. 176b; “a passive defect,” p. 170b; “opposition to the will of God,” p. 177b; an “impediment of sin,” 177b. And the Vita-proper says quite plainly: “Both Purgatory and Hell are made for Sin: Hell to punish and Purgatory to purge it” (p. 64b).—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. 173a).—The double-bracketed passage, directly referring to the gloss on p. 171b, 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. 33b); 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. 173c, 174a.)
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. 174b, 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. 1b to 21b, and the next nine Chapters of Discourses, pp. 21b to 50c, 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. 51a-53c; but the remaining seven Chapters of this its first part (pp. 53c-70a), 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. 70b-77b); the next (Chapter XXX, pp. 77b-79a) gives Discourses, only in part authentic; the next again (Chapter XXXI, pp. 79b-83c) is chiefly Narrative and important; Chapter XXXII, pp. 83c-88b, is now one long Discourse which incorporates some short but important authentic sayings; and Chapters XXXIII to XXXV (pp. 88c-96b) 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. 94b-96b); a tryingly composite but valuable Narrative Chapter (Chapter XXXVII, pp. 96b-97c); and an important Narrative Chapter with dates (Chapter XXXVIII, pp. 98a-100a). 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. 100a-103b, 106a-111b), but of which the middle one (Chapter XL, pp. 103c-105c) 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. 111c-126c), 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. 127a-166a), of which we can safely neglect Chapter XLVII, pp. 127a-131c (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. 161c-166a (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. 51a-53b), 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. 117b to p. 121b,—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. 133b, 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. 146c-147c), and of evidently the same Physician’s visit in his scarlet robes on September 2 (p. 154b). 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. 155b-156a), 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. 149b-155b).—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. 98c, 99a, 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. 98c, 99a). 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. viiic): 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. 98c, 99a, 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. 99b), fit only Vernazza.
Now the opening words of the first two, closely interconnected, paragraphs of that Chapter XXXVIII (Vita, p. 98a, 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. 165c) 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. 122c, 123a, “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. 94b,-95c), 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. 100c-101b.—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. 117b, of which long and most important Chapter (pp. 116c-121b) 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. 117b-121b) 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. 117c), 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. 2b the same or another Confessor of the same Convent in 1473, p. 4a, 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. 7c: 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. 8a, c, we get not “Confessore” but simply “Sacerdote.”) On p. 10c: here “to test her, he commanded her to eat,” an action of which the results are described on pp. 117b, 119c. On page 108b: but here her fasting is liable to damage her health, which points to after 1501. On p. 113b: but here the Confessore remains her sole aid, as in the accounts referring to Marabotto in January 1510 and shortly before, pp. 120a, 121b; 120b, 139a-c. On p. 115b: 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. 117b-121b: 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. 130a, 138c, 139a, b, c; 140b, c; 143c, 156c, 157b,—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. 115a-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. 124a, 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. 123b-124b (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. 158c “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. 4a-5c.
(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 quattro [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. 1c, 2a); 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. 2b-3c; 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. 5c-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. 209b, 211a, 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]