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.