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.