[199] Ibid. p. 150b. This fact and passage have occasioned an interesting succession of obvious accretions and re-statements.
[200] Ibid. p. 151a, b. I have in the text followed the MSS. as against the printed Vita, and have omitted a long clause, which attempts to find the explanation of these words of hers in a subsequent permanent change of attitude towards all those from whom she asked or received a service.
[201] Vita, p. 153b.
[202] Vita, pp. 150a, 154b, 127c, 153c.
[203] A copy of this entry exists, in the Priest Giovo’s handwriting, in the collection of Documents prefixed to the MS. Vita of St. Catherine, in the Biblioteca della Missione Urbana, Genoa.
[204] Vita, p. 154b, and the Inventory among the documents in the Vita, volume of the Biblioteca della Missione.
[205] Vita, pp. 153a, 155a; 157c, 158a. For this 7th September three heat-and-light impressions are given: (1) “A ray of divine love”; (2) “a vision of fiery stairs”; and (3) this apprehension of the whole world on fire. Perhaps the first also is authentic; the last is certainly so. The middle one seems to be secondary, and to have slipped in to form a transition and link between the other two accounts.
[206] Ibid. p. 153a.
[207] Vita, p. 155b, c. A third paragraph, pp. 155c, 156a (equally wanting in all the MSS. and claiming to be based on the authority of Argentina), follows here, and tells how the latter saw one of her mistress’s arms grow over half a palm in additional length, during the following night; and again how Catherine had told her, Argentina, that she, Catherine, “would before her death bear the stigmata and mysteries of the Passion in her own person.” These “facts” are thoroughly characteristic of the source from which they are no doubt derived.—A fourth paragraph, p. 156b, c, has also been omitted by me, although it occurs also in the MSS. It contains a long prayer put into Catherine’s mouth, and modelled on our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer in John xvii, 1-13. It is far too long, elaborate, and uncharacteristic to be authentic.
[208] Ibid. p. 156c.