534

THE PLAGUE OF PSEUDO-SCIENCE

gists know that Genesis gives no certain data. Even the
cautious and conservative Abbé Vigouroux, in his Diction­
naire de la Bible, sets down its chronology thus:
Creation
...
Deluge
.
.
.
Abraham leaves Ur .

.
.
.

.
.
?
.
.
?
2138 B.c.

So there may be gaps in the patriarchal record long
enough to allow for physical degeneration, as well as for
the moral corruption of which we read. Moreover, Arch­
bishop Sheehan1 significantly reminds us that, whilst we are
bound to believe that the present human race are all
descended from Adam and Eve, the Church has never con­
demned the opinion that a race of men lived on the earth,
but became extinct before the creation of Adam. The
Catholic apologist, as we have often pointed out, should be
at great pains to ascertain the exact limits of revelation in
regard to human origins and primitive history, for it is in
that direction that the rationalist finds it easiest to advance
to the attack. There is room for a detailed and popular
*' harmony ” between the Book of Nature and the Bible which
only those well acquainted with both should attempt. Such
a reconciliation would at once satisfy the intellectual de­
mands of the Catholic and provide him with a needed de­
fence of the Faith. For the rationalist is most effectually
discomfited when he finds that there are no real grounds
of conflict between Church teaching and the assured results
of scientific research.
THÉ EDITOR.

Note. It must not be implied from the foregoing that there is any real
dearth of Catholic literature on subjects involving the reconciliation of
revelation and science, but only that it is not available enough either
for the young in their formative years or for the Catholic. “ man
(or woman) in the street.” The information that is contained in such
books as that under review, Father Husslein’s “ Evolution and
Social Progress,” Professor Windle’s “The Church and Science,”
“Moses and the Law,” edited by Father Lattey, Father Gerard’s
"Old Riddle” and "Essays in Un-Natural History," Canon de
Dorlodot’s “ Darwinism," Dr. P. L. Mills’s “ Creation versus Evolu­
tion,” and a host of articles in the great Catholic Encyclopedia, needs
digesting and simplifying for youthful consumption, and, for popular
use, should be presented in a carefully thought-out series of C.T.S.
pamphlets. False and misleading doctrines are already propagated
in attractive form: truth should be elaborated with at least equal care.
1 Apologetici and Christian Doctrine, Part II., p. 56.

SOME PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF
MYSTICISM
INCENDIUM AMORIS.

;

HAT emotional ardours of a more intense type art
often attended by an actual rise of bodily tempera­
ture may be regarded as a fact of everyday experi­
ence. There is nothing therefore particularly astonishing
in the statements' which we so often encounter in the lives
of the great mystics, to the effect that when some transport
of love took possession of their souls their countenances be­
came inflamed, that they could hardly endure the clothing
which seemed to stifle them, and that in the coldest of winter
weather they threw open doors and windows, panting for
air and half unconsciously seeking the same kind of relief
as our Lord has indicated in His parable of Dives and
Lazarus. Let us begin by taking a few well-known exam­
ples. In Father Goldie’s Story of St. Stanislaus Kostka we
read:
St. Francis de Sales’in his book on the Love of God, says,
“ Stanislaus was so violently assailed by the love of Our Saviour
as often to faint and to suffer spasms in consequence, and he
was obliged to apply cloths dipped in cold water to his breast
in order to temper the violence of the love he felt.” One day
he was found by his Superior walking alone at night time in the
little garden which the Novitiate then possessed, when a very
bitter cold wind was blowing, and on being asked by the Father
Rector what he was doing there, he replied with all simplicity
• and straightforwardness, “ I am burning, I am burning,” as he
felt his heart still on fire with the love of God, although his
prayer was over. Stephen Augusti bore witness to the fact that
the Socius to the Master of Novices, Father Lelius Sanguigni,
had often to bathe his chest to temper the scorching heat.1
Similarly in the case of St. Mary Magdalen de’ Pazzi, who
was born in 1566, two years before St. Stanislaus died, we
are told how her transports of love transformed her out­
ward appearance, “for her face,” says her biographer and
confessor, Father Cepari, " losing in a moment the paleness
which had been produced by her penances and austere re« The Story of St. Stanislaus Kostka, pp. 136—137 (ed. 1893). This is based
upon the details furnished in the Analecta Bollandiana, c. xiii., pp. 143-5· "

i-

I

Sj6

SOME PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF MYSTICISM

ligious life, became glowing, beaming and full; her eyes
shone and sparkled like stars, and she cried out, saying, '0
Love! O God of Love!’ etc.” But, more in particular, the
same biographer, whose statements are in every, way con­
firmed by the depositions of the witnesses who gave evidence
in the process of beatification, declares that:
Sometimes, overpowered by the excess and abundance of this
love, she said, “ I can no longer bear so much love, retain it in
Thyself;” and through the great and consuming flame of this
Divine Love which she felt, she could find no rest, but tore her
clothes, went into the garden and tore up the plants, or whatever
came to hand. In the midst of winter she could not bear woollen
garments, through that fire of love which burned in her breast,
but cut and loosened her habit.

Or again:
Feeling so great a flame in her face, she fanned herself with
her veil, then ran to the well and drank a quantity of fresh water,
bathed her face and arms, poured it into her bosom, and so great
was the flame which burned in her breast that even externally she
seemed to consume.1

Not less remarkable was the devotional ardour of St.
Philip Neri, the contemporary of both the saints last named.
Philip [says Father Bacci] felt such a heat in the region of
the heart, that it sometimes extended over his whole body, and
for all his age, thinness and spare diet, in the coldest days of
winter it was necessary, even in the midst of the night, to open
the windows, to cool the bed, to fan him while in bed, and in
various ways to moderate the great heat. Sometimes it quite
burned his throat, and in all his medicines something cooling
was generally mixed to relieve him. Cardinal Crescenzi, one
of his spiritual children, said that sometimes when he touched
his hand, it burned as if the saint was suffering from a raging
fever. . . Even in winter he almost always had his clothes open
from the girdle upwards, and sometimes when they told him to
fasten them lest he should do himself some injury, he used to
say he really could not because of the excessive heat he felt.
One day, at Rome, when a great quantity of snow had fallen,
he was walking in the streets with his cassock unbuttoned; and
when some of his penitents, who were with him were hardly
able to endure the cold, he laughed at them and said it was
a shame for young men to feel cold when old men did not.
■ Oratorian Translation, pp. »35—»37.

I

.1

SOME PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF MYSTICISM

537

Elsewhere the biographer records how—
Sometimes in saying office, or after Mass, or in any other spiritual
action, sparks, as it were of fire, were seen to dart from his eyes
and from his face. This inward fire was such that it sometimes
Î made him swoon, forcing him to throw himself on his bed, where
he is said to have lain occasionally a whole day without any
other sickness than that of divine love. On one occasion it so
burned his throat that he was ill for several days.1
There can be little doubt that the discovery which was
made in the autopsy performed after St. Philip's death must
be closely connected with the same intense fervour of divine
love. During more than fifty years of his long life he had
suffered from a strange and inexplicable palpitation of the
heart, which was noticed, not only by himself, but by many
of his companions and friends whom in the tenderness of
his affection for their souls he often pressed to his bosom.
The surgeons, when they opened his body, found a swelling
under his left breast, which proved to be due to the fact,
that two of his ribs were broken and thrust outwards. In.
view of the positive testimony of the surgeons, there can:
be no dispute that .the injury was there and had been there
for many years.
His biographers seem therefore fullyjustified in tracing it to that strange incident of the coming
to him of the Holy Ghost in- 1544 under the guise of a
globe of fire. “ Thereupon,” we are told, “ he was suddenly
surprised by such an ardour of love that, unable to bear it,
he threw himself down upon the ground, and, like one trying
to cool himself, bared his breast, to temper in some measure:
the flame which he felt.” Certain it is in any case that from;
that time forth his body was liable in moments of deep
emotional feeling to tremble convulsively· with intense pal­
pitations, while he became conscious: of the presence of a
swelling on the left breast, the size of a man’s fist. This he
retained for all the rest of his life.* It is curious that a dis­
placement of the ribs, similar in cause and character, but
apparently less in degree, is recorded in the case of St. Paul
of the Cross, the founder of the Passionists, who lived two
centuries later. An even more striking modem example is
« Bacci, Life of St. Philip Neri, edited by Father Antrobus (1902), Vol. I.,,
pp. 26, 141.
* The fullest account of the autopsy will be found in the Life by Father
Gallonio, St. Philip's intimate friend and disciple. See AA. SS. May, vi., 5to.
Capecciatro (Eng. Trans. II., 463) and the Bollandists do not quite agree as
to the names of the surgeons. But the medical testimony given on oath seems
to have been submitted in the process of Beatification. Several of the Oratorian
Fathers were also present at the autopsy.

'X

53»

SOME PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF MYSTICISM

that of Gemma Galgani {Life, pp. 259, 352, 423), who died
at Lucca in 1903.
Nevertheless, such physical manifestations as these, how­
ever wonderful in themselves, can hardly be regarded as
witnessing to any abnormal increase of the temperature of
the body. So long as we have no evidence of a more ob­
jective kind than the mystic’s longing for fresh air or cool
water, or his statement that he is suffering from a sensa­
tion of suffocation and burning heat, there obviously is
nothing which takes us beyond the range of the symptom^
which may be observed in any hospital fever-ward. None
the less, the claim is made in many hagiographical writ­
ings that phenomena do occasionally occur for which no
parallel can be found in the pathological records known to
medical science. I have heard it stated, for example, that
in the case of Padre Pio da Pietrelcina, the young Capuchin
priest of Foggia, who is marked with the stigmata, the clini­
cal thermometer used by his doctor in visiting him profes­
sionally has on more than one occasion been unable to
register the high temperature of the patient, and has conse­
quently been broken by the unprecedented expansion of the
mercury within. The same allegation has also been made
to me, by persons who seemed to be well informed, in con­
nection with another modern mystic. But in neither case
have I authority which I could quote in print. In earlier
ages, of course, there were no clinical thermometers, and
the only proofs which can be offered in evidence are of a
much ruder description. Still, some such tests are recorded
in hagiographical literature, and the authenticity of these
alleged examples affords interesting matter for discussion.
Probably the best-known case is that of St. Catherine of
Genoa, which, thanks in large measure to the very learned
and painstaking study of Baron Friedrich von Hiigel, has
been brought to the notice of many English readers for
whom the ordinary Saint’s Life offers little attraction. St.
Catherine was a mystic of the seraphic type, and perhaps
nothing more beautiful has ever been printed about the love
of God than is to be found in the utterances and writings
attributed to this noble Genoese matron. Assuming for the
moment the authenticity of the whole content of the Vita e
Dottrina di Santa Caterina da Genova, which was first pub­
lished in 1551, we find that the book abounds in refer­
ences to the extraordinary physical state into which

1

SOME PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF MYSTICISM

539

t

Catherine was frequently thrown by the intensity of her con­
suming love. Quite at the beginning, and in reference to
her “great fasts,” which lasted from 1476 to 1499, it is
stated that, for twenty-three lents and as many advents, the
Saint took no solid food at all, but occasionally drank a
glassful of a beverage compounded of water, vinegar and
pounded salt.

·«

3

When she drank this mixture it seemed as if it were thrown
upon a red-hot flag-stone and that it was at once dried up in
the great fire which was burning within her. An astounding and
unheard of thing! For no digestion, however healthy, could
bear a drink of this kind fasting, but she declared that the in­
terior sweetness she experienced was so great that even this
unpalatable beverage gave refreshment to her body.1

«·-<*

I omit chance references which seem to point to some
similar state of suffering which recurred at intervals during
the intervening years. What is certain is that in her last
sickness, which continued from January to September, 1510,
she was over and over again the victim of sensations of
intense burning. For example:

On one day she was stabbed with a still sharper arrow of
the divine love. .
The wound (jeritd) was so poignant that
she lost speech and sight, and abode in this manner some three
hours. . . . She made signs with her hands of feeling as if it
were red-hot pincers attacking her heart and other interior parts.
Later on' there was a day when she suffered such an intensity
of burning that it was impossible to keep her in bed. She
seemed like a creature placed in a great flame of fire, so much
so that human eyes could not endure the spectacle of such a
martyrdom^ This anguish lasted a whole day and night and
it was impossible to-touch her skin because of the acute pain
which she felt from any such touch.*
But this was by no means all. We are told a little later
of another attack (assalto)—
This was so violent that her whole frame seemed to be in a
tremble, especially her right shoulder (which appeared as
though severed from her body, and similarly one rib seemed
to be forced out of its place with so much pain, anguish and
racking of muscles and bones, that it was a terrible thing to
« Vila e Dottrina, Genova, 1847, pp. 10—II.
» /bid., p. j52. No one who recalls the details given in one at toy Stig­
matization articles regarding Domenica Lazzari (see The Month, Oct. 1919.
pp
__ 29$) can fail to note the many points of resemblance between her
case and that of St. Catherine.

fife
Sr

■·

4
f:

540

SOME PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF MYSTICISM

look upon, and it seemed impossible that a human body could
endure it) Λ

The words which I have enclosed in brackets are regarded
by Baron von Hügel as not forming part of the primitive
text of the Vita, in spite of the fact—so at least I infer
from him—that they are found in the manuscripts as well
as in the first printed edition of 1551. He asserts, in
regard both of the alleged injury to the shoulder and the dis­
placed rib, that these details “have precisely the same
‘ colour,’ and no doubt proceed from the same contributor,
as the longer passage relative to her supposed stigmatiza­
tion, absent from all the MSS., but given in the printed
Vita on the authority of Argentina.”2 It requires, I think,
a very robust sceptic to reject nowadays the -possibility of
the phenomena of stigmatization, and some injury to the
shoulder is of frequent occurrence in the case of stigmatized
persons. To take but a single example, the post mortem
examination of the body of St. Veronica Giuliani attested
the existence of “a very considerable curvature of the right
shoulder, which bent the very bone just as the weight of a
heavy cross might have done.” The surgeon, Gentili, who
performed the autopsy, stated in his sworn deposition that
“if this curvature had occurred by natural means it would
have prevented her moving her arm, but I have myself fre­
quently seen Sister Veronica during her last illness move
her right arm without the least difficulty.”» But whatever
we may think of the inference thus drawn, there can be no
reasonable doubt of the fact that some extraordinary de­
flection of St. Veronica’s right shoulder was observable, to­
gether with the marks of the five wounds, when her body was
examined on July 10, 1727, thirty-four hours after her
death. Now the Vita e Dottrina, as we have it, was actually
printed in 1551, so that such precedents as St. Philip Neri's
displaced ribs, and St. Veronica Giuliani’s flexed clavicle
could not possibly have been known to the compilers. Conse­
quently it seems, in my judgment, much saner to suppose
that these additional details, if additions they were, are de­
rived from Argentina’s faithful memory of what her eyes
* Vita e Dottrina, p. 154. Una costa levata dalP altre are the words of
the original.
* The Mystical Element of Religion, I., 197, note.
x Salvatori, Life of St. Veronica Giuliani (Eng. Trans.), p. 163. This
biography is based upon the evidence given in the process of Beatification, and
its statements of fact may be regarded as trustworthy.

«tNM

ua

SOME PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF MYSTICISM

541

actually saw in St. Catherine’s last illness, than to attribute
them to the fervid imaginations of irresponsible panegyrists.
But the most curious and interesting record of the in­
ternal conflagration by which the last remnants of Catherine’s
vitality were consumed has still to be noticed. On August
4
28 th, when the tragedy of suffering began to near its end,
she was again all on fire. She cried aloud that “ all the
water which the world contains could not give me the least
refreshment.” Later her tongue and lips became so parched
with the burning heat within that she could not move them
or speak. At such times, if anyone touched a hair of her
head, or even the edge of the bed, or the bedclothes, she
would scream as if she had been stabbed. Her confessor
sometimes hesitated to bring her Communion in this state,
for she could swallow nothing, neither food or drink, “but,
with a joyous face, she would make him a sign that she was
not afraid, and then, when she had received, she remained
with her countenance glowing and rosy, like that of a
Seraph,”1
An explanation of all this suffering was afterwards given
by her devoted handmaid, Argentina, who declared that
Catherine had predicted it before it came about, and had
I confided to her that before her death she was destined to
endure the sufferings of our Lord’s Passion, together with
the anguish of the five wounds (the Stigmata), at least in­
teriorly, on account of the great love she bore to her Saviour
and her desire to resemble Him in all things.2
None the less, it is added that Catherine never allowed
a word to escape her in public which could throw light upon
the cause of these torments and betray their entirely super­
natural character.® When Argentina also bears witness that
her mistress, throwing out her arms in the form of a cross,
presented the counterpart of her crucified Saviour, one of
her arms being stretched more than five inches beyond its
natural length,1 I must confess that this detail, instead of
discrediting her statement, as Baron von Hügel declares it
to do, seems to me to supply a notable confirmation of the
general trustworthiness of our witness. Certain it is, in any,

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« Vila t Dottrina, p, i66.
’ ibid. pp. 167—168,
3 Ibid. p. 168. " Giammai disse pure una parola donde si prodecessero
tante pene."
* Ibid. “ Ebbe (Caterina) grandissima pena ad un braccio, di tal sorte
che si allungô più di mezzo palmo del solito.”

I".

ôaasÊssfiaa^

542

SOME PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF MYSTICISM

case, that when the Blessed Stefana Quinzani in 1497 repre­
sented in ecstasy the incidents of the Passion of our Lord,
her left arm in the crucifixion scene was “stretched con­
siderably beyond its natural length ” (assai sofira la lungagine sua naturale1). If Argentina was romancing, it is ex­
traordinary that she should have embellished her story with
just those striking features foy which parallels, attested by
the best of evidence, can be found in the case of other
mystics. No doubt it may be said that Argentina might
easily have read or heard an account of Blessed Stefana
Quinzani’s ecstasies which took place in 1497. This is true,
but it is much more likely that the story would have been
known to an educated lady like her mistress, St. Catherine,
and in that case it is quite conceivable that the impression
made upon Catherine’s mind may have contributed to pro­
duce the same physical phenomenon in her own mystical
transports.
During the whole of the Saint's last illness, and especially
in its closing phases, these long-protracted seizures, charac­
terized by a sensation of intense burning (juoco), are a con­
stantly recurring feature. In particular, the printed Vita
records two special occasions when material proof was given
of the intensity of the heat developed. Let me copy the
first in Baron von Hiigel’s translation:
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.*
One is conscious of a certain temerity in differing from
an authority who has devoted so much time and so much
learning to the elucidation of his subject; moreover, I can
make no claim to any expert knowledge of Italian. Never­
theless, I find it hard to accept the Baron’s rendering of
this passage, and still more his rejection of the whole in­
cident as unhistorical. To begin with, the “ large silver
» See a paper of mine in the Proceedings of the S.P.R., Vol. XXXII., p. 196;
and cf. the account I have given of the elongations of the Ven. Veronica
Laparelli in Journal S.P.R., Vol. XIX. (1919), pp. $t seq. The phenomena
in Blessed Stêfana’s case were attested by the signed and sealed declaration of
twenty-one eye-witnesses.
• The Mystical Element of Religion, I., 452. The original Italian occurs
in the Vita e Dottrina (ed. Genova, 1847), p. 167.

(ΜΜβζκπκη

*

SOME PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF MYSTICISM

543

'· cup” (gran tazza d'argento} was surely a standing cup with
i a stem and a shallow bowl, more or less like an exaggerated
i champagne, glass in form, though probably the stem was
‘ shorter in proportion. Cups and saucers were not known
ij in Europe until long afterwards, and, in any case, there is
ί no mention of a ” saucer,” but simply, of the piede della tazza,
1 the stem or pedestal of the cup. Anyone who leaves a silver
spoon in a cup of hot tea is apt to discover with a start that
silver is an excellent conductor of heat. It seems to me
j natural to suppose that Argentina made a similar discovery.
She had carried the cup in by its pedestal full of the coolest
water she could procure. After St. Catherine had bathed
her hands Argentina came to remove it and the stem burned
i her when she touched it. Such an incident is likely to have
$ impressed itself upon her memory, and the use of the word
s bollente (boiling) is only a very natural exaggeration. She
j was surprised to find that the stem had become unpleasantly
* hot. .
;
Between the 13th of September and the 15th, on which
./
last day she died, Catherine lost immense quantities of
blood. The temperature of this discharge, we are told in
»
the Vita, was such that (1) it heated the vessels in which
j it was caught; (2) it scalded her flesh wherever it touched
j it, so that the places had to be cooled with rose-water; (3)
? being on one occasion received in a silver cup, it heated
the base of the cup and left a mark which could never be
1 washed out.1 Baron von Hiigel comments that only the first
I of these observations is to be found in the manuscripts, and
■j that “purely secondary, physical matters are thus, with a
j short-sighted good faith and admiration, eagerly utilized to
Î naturalize and obscure a soaringly spiritual personality.”2
; No doubt it is true that these physical matters are “ purely
secondary”; but after all, for our present inquiry, the ques* tion is, Is the statement accurate? If these things did hapi pen they were worth recording, and while I agree that the
\ evidence taken by itself is not conclusive, we cannot ignore
i the precisely similar declarations which have been made by
■ eye-witnesses in the case of other mystics.

,

« Vita e Dottrina, p. 172.
* The Mystical Element of Religion,!., 214. Without disputing the possibility and even the likelihood, of subsequent interpolations in such a work, I
must confess myself frankly distrustful of all attempts to reconstruct the primitive
tert - Textual criticism is a very necessary science, but it offers many pitfalls
to the pioneer who easily allows conjecture to crystallire into assurance.

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54+

SOME PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF MYSTICISM

Let us take for example the instance of the Venerable
Serafina di Dio, a Cannelite nun of Capri, who died in 1699.
Her life, which was written by the two Oratorian Fathers,
Sguillante and Pagani, was published at Rome in 174B.
They seem to have based it almost entirely upon the evi­
dence furnished in the Process of Beatification. In this
biography we read:
Her nuns say that they have often seen her—for example,
when she was in prayer, or after Communion—with her face
glowing like a flame and her eyes sparkling. It scorched them'
if they touched her, even in winter time and even when she was
quite old, and they declared that they had repeatedly heard
her say that she was consumed with a living fire and that her
blood was boiling. Her throat, palate and lips became so
parched that it was necessary to cool them with fresh water; but
this expedient by no means sufficed to allay the burning she
felt. ...
The doctors, who did not understand the cause of her suffer­
ings, applied many kinds of cooling remedies and frequently
bled her; while our Saviour Himself, in order to give her some
relief, especially when these blood-boilings (li bollori del sangue) lasted for two or three days, as was often the case at times
when she entertained an intense desire to die a martyr, so dis­
posed matters that she lost great quantities of blood through
the nostrils or by the mouth. It was a matter of intense astonishment to all observers to see a body so emaciated as hers lose
such a vast quantity of blood without being incapacitated for
everyday duties.1
Those who are familiar with the story of St. Catherine of
Genoa will remember that, in her case too, her recoveries
were as marvellous as the mysterious indispositions which repeatedly brought her to death’s door. But the most striking
phenomenon recorded in the Life of the Venerable Serafina
is the statement made regarding her holy remains after she
breathed her last:
For the space of twenty hours the body retained so great a
heat, particularly in the region of the heart, that one could comfortably warm one’s hand by holding it there, as many of the
nuns discovered on making the experiment. Indeed the warmth
was perceptible for thirty-three hours after death, though somewhat less in degree, in spite of the fact that the month was March
and the weather chilly. The corpse did not completely lose its
heat until it had been opened and the heart extracted.1
* Sgudiante and Pagani, Vita della Ven. Serafina di Dio, Rome, 1748, p. 360.
* Ibid. p. 463.

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•SOME PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF MYSTICISM

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545

One’s first instinct is to conclude that the nuns and their
doctor must have been mistaken in supposing that life was
extinct, but there are a good many similar cases, and it is
difficult to believe that mystics, after long and exhausting
illnesses, were peculiarly exposed to the danger of being
buried alive.
Take, for example, the case of the Dominican nun, Suor
Maria Villani at Naples. She died on March 26, 1670, at
the age of. 86, and her Life was published four years after­
wards, in a volume of more than 600 pages, by Father
Francis Marchese, O.P. In his very first sentence the bio­
grapher informs us that his heroine was a furnace of love,
and this is the note upon which he harps throughout the
whole book. It is plain, also, from the letters and other
writings of the Sister herself, that the idea that she was con­
tinually consumed by an almost insupportable flame of love
dominated all her thoughts. The Life states that the phy­
sical effects of this interior conflagration were such as to
compel her to drink as much as 36, and sometimes even 45,
libre of water in a day. I do not exactly know the English
equivalent of the Neapolitan measure of a libra, but 36 libre
probably falls not much short of 28 pints or three gallons
and a half. Moreover, we are told that the drinking of this
was attended by a hissing sound like that of water falling
on a sheet of red-hot iron.1 It is impossible not to sus­
pect a certain amount of exaggeration in all this, but on
the other hand, there are definite physical facts connected
with the case which cannot readily be explained away. Suor
Maria believed that she had been wounded in the side and
heart by a fiery spear of love, and there is good evidence
that the wound was really there. At any rate, her biographer
prints three formal depositions signed by three of her con­
fessors, who had been permitted, at different times, to see,
touch anâ even probe the external wound. These Fathers
were well-known Dominicans, and one, Lonardo di Lettere,
had a great reputation for sanctity, so that the cause of his
Beatification was introduced after his death. The Life of
Maria Villani appeared with the fullest ecclesiastical sanc1 Marchese, Vita della Serva di Dio, Suor Maria Villani (Napoli, 1674),
pp. 203—204. An exactly similar statement is made by Canon Martinon re­
garding his penitent the Venerable Agnes of Jesus, a French Dominican
nun. He declares that he himself had been present when water was poured
upon her breast to cool her in her transports of burning fervour, and that
the water sizzled like water poured on to red-hot iron. Luest, Vie de la V. Agnis
de /isas, II-, p. 134·
VOL. CXLI.

JJ

54-6

SOME PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF MYSTICISM

tion, and both the General of the Dominicans and the Car­
dinal Archbishop of Naples gave it. their imprimatur. But
perhaps the most remarkable statement which the book con­
tains is the account of the opening of the body nine hours
after death. The corpse of this woman of 86, which, when
she breathed her last, had been dried up, emaciated and
dark in hue, became fresh-coloured and supple like that of
a living person. When the surgeon opened the breast, a
quantity of bright fluid blood issued both from the incision
made and from the heart. Some of this blood, the bio­
grapher assures us, had been preserved in two little flasks,
and at the time of writing (1673) still remained liquid and
incorrupt. But what most astonished the onlookers present
at the autopsy was “ the smoke (Juma) and heat which ex­
haled from the heart, that veritable furnace of divine love.*’
.The surgeon found the heat too trying to proceed. He was
compelled to draw back for a while, but afterwards return­
ing, “ he put in his hand to extract the heart, but he found it
so hot, that burning himself (scottandosi), he was com­
pelled to take his hand out again several times before he suc­
ceeded in effecting his purpose.” The biographer declares
that a formal affidavit regarding these facts was made by
the surgeons Domenico Trifone and Francesco Pinto.1 With
regard to the heart itself, an open wound was found in it
of the very same form and shape as the dead nun had drawn
with her own hand on a page of her tractate, De tribus
divitiis /imwOT/r. “ This wound (in the heart),” the bio­
grapher goes onr " I have seen and.touched and examined.
The lips of the wound are hard and seared, just as happens
when the cautery is used, to remind us, no doubt, that it was
made with a spear of fire.”2
There are other examples more or less similar to those
of Serafino di Dio and Maria Villani, but I have no room to
discuss them at any length. It must be sufficient to note that
in the case of the Franciscan missionary, the Ven. Antonio
Margil, an apostle who was often seen raised in the air in
his ecstasies of love, it is stated that after death “his face
which had been pale during lifetime became of a beautiful
rosy hue, his eyes remained bright and his limbs flexible,
while his flesh continued warm down to the moment when his
‘ Vila. di Marin Villani, pp. 609—610. This statement must carry some
weight when we remember that the book was published in Naples itself, and
that less than four years had elapsed since the autopsy wok place.
T ibid. p. 610.

SOME PHYSICAL PHENOMENA OF MYSTICISM

547

body was consigned to the tomb.”1 So, again, we are told
of Blessed Andrew Ibernon, another holy Franciscan who
was entirely penetrated with the seraphic spirit of the Poor
Man of Assisi, “ it was observed when they laid his body in
the coffin (three days after death) that the flesh was still
warm and soft, and all the sinews and muscles flexible, just
as if he had only expired the moment before.”2 These two
Lives last mentioned were written in each case by the Postu­
lator of the Cause, who had all the sworn depositions before
him. .
- · ■ ·.
-·
........ . . - - Among other instances of phenomenal heat manifesta­
tions might be cited the case of the Venerable Rosa Maria
Serio (f 1725), Prioress of the Carmelite convent of Fasano,
who for seven successive years had an extraordinary experi­
ence on Whit-Sunday. On the first occasion a ball of fire
descended upon her visibly in the sight of all the nuns.
When they undressed her they found her underlinen above
the breast burned in the form of a heart. The same burning
took place for six other years, but there was no visible ball
of fire.8 Again in the Life of the Venerable Francesca dal
Serrone (f 1601), a Franciscan nun who, like Maria Villani,
had a wound in the side, we read that the blood, which on
certain occasions came from her side or was vomited by
the mouth, was so hot that it cracked an earthenware vessel
used to receive it, and had to be caught in a metal bowl.4
Similarly of St. Theresa's companion, the Cannelite Agnes
of Jesus, as well as of two or three other candidates for
beatification, we are told that in some of her-illnesses, the
nuns who nursed her could hardly touch her flesh on account
of the burning heat.8 The evidence for these cases is in­
conclusive, but it is certainly not contemptible.
HERBERT THURSTON.

* G. M. Gusman, Notlite della Vita etc det Ven. Fr. Antonio Margil (Rome,
1836), p. 102. He died at Mexico in 1726 at the age of 69. ..............
• V. Mondina, Vita del Beato Andrea Ibernon (Rome, 1791), p. 17*· Blessed
Andrew Ibernon was 68 years old when he died at Gandia in Spain in 1602.
3 G. Gentili. S.J., Vita della Ven. Madre Rosa Maria Serio (Venezia, 174·),
Preface, p. vii., and pp. 34 and 74—75·
,
< G. B. Canoeilotti, SJ-, Vita della Ven. Francesca dal Serrone (Rome, 1665),
«η 2Ο—30, 134, and ISA seq.
s Berthold-Ignace, Vie de la Mire Anne de lisas (Malines, 1882), Vol. IL,

,P-493·

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