Chapter VI: Catherine’s Doctrine (2)

There is, first, the great category of _in_, _within_, _down into_; that is, recollection, concentration. “The love which I have within my heart.” “Since I began to love It, never again has that Love diminished; indeed It has ever grown to Its own fulness, within my innermost heart.” Hence she would say to those who dwelt in admiration of her psycho-physical peculiarities: “If you but had experience (_sapeste_) of another thing which I feel within me!” And again,“If we would esteem (aright) the operations of God, we must attend more to interior than to exterior things.” And, with regard to the Holy Eucharist, she would whisper, when seeing at Mass the Priest about to communicate: “O swiftly, swiftly speed It down to the heart, since it is the heart’s own food ”; and she would declare, with regard to her own Communion: “In the same instant in which I had It in my mouth, I felt It in my heart.”[252]

There is, next, the category of _out_, _outside_, _outwards_; that is, liberation, ecstasy. “The soul which came out from God pure and full has a natural instinct to return to God as full and pure (as it came).” “The soul finds itself bound to a body entirely contrary to its own nature, and hence expects with desire its separation from the body.” “God grants the grace, to some persons, of making their bodies into a Purgatory (already) in this world.” “When God has led the soul on to its last stage (_passo_), the soul is so full of desire to depart from the body to unite itself with God, that its body appears to it a Purgatory, keeping it far apart from its (true) object.” “The prison, in which I seem to be, is the world; the chain is the body”; “to noble (_gentili_) souls, death is the end of an obscure prison; to the remainder, it is a trouble,--to such, that is, as have fixed all their care upon what is but so much dung (_fango_).” And, whilst strenuously mortifying the body, she would answer its resistances, as though so many audible complainings, and say: “If the body is dying, well, let it die; if the body cannot bear the load, well, leave the body in the lurch (O soul).”[253]

And all this imprisonment is felt as equivalent to being outside of the soul’s true home. “I seem to myself to be in this world like those who are out of their home, and who have left all their friends and relations, and who find themselves in a foreign land; and who, having accomplished the business on which they came, stand ready to depart and to return home,--home, where they ever are with heart and mind, having indeed so ardent a love of their country (_patria_), that one day spent in getting there would appear to them to last a year.”[254]

And this feeling of outsideness, seen here with regard to the relations of the soul to the body and to the world, we find again with regard to sanctity and the soul. In this latter case also the greater is felt to be (as it were) entrapped, and contained only very partially within the lesser; and as though this greater could and did exist, in its full reality, only outside of the lesser. “I can no more say ‘blessed’ to any saint, taken in himself, because I feel it to be an inappropriate (_deforme_) word”; “I see how all the sanctity which the saints have, is outside of them and all in God.” Indeed she sums this up in the saying: “I see that anything perfect is entirely outside of the creature; and that a thing is entirely imperfect, when the creature can at all contain it.” Hence “the Blessed possess (_hanno_) blessedness, and yet they do not possess it. For they possess it, only in so far as they are annihilated in their own selves and are clothed with God; and they do not possess it, in so far as they remain (_si trovano_) in their particular (_proprio_) being, so as to be able to say: ‘_I_ am blessed.’”[255]

There is, in the third place, the category of _over_, _above_, _upwards_; that is elevation, sublimation. We will begin with cases where it is conjoined with the previous categories, and will move on into more and more pure aboveness. “I am so placed and submerged in His immense love, that I seem as though in the sea entirely under water, and could on no side touch, see, or feel anything but water.” And “if the sea were the food of love, there would exist no man nor woman that would not go and drown himself (_affogasse_) in it; and he who was dwelling far from this sea, would engage in nothing else but in walking to get to it and to immerse himself within it.”[256] The soul here feels the water on every side of it, yet evidently chiefly above it, for it has had to plunge in, to get _under_ the water.

“Listen to what Fra Jacopone says in one of his Lauds, which begins, ‘O Love of Poverty.’ He says: ‘That which appears to thee (to be), is not; so high above is that which _is_. (True) elevation (_superbia_) is in heaven; earthy lowness (_umiltà_) leads to the soul’s own destruction.’ He says then: ‘That which appears to thee,’ that is, all things visible, ‘are not,’ and have not true being in them: ‘so high’ and great ‘is He who _is_,’ that is, God, in whom is all true being. ‘Elevation is in heaven,’ that is, true loftiness and greatness is in heaven and not on earth; ‘earthy lowness leads to the soul’s own destruction,’ that is, affection placed in these created things, which are low and vile, since they have not in them true being, produces this result.”--“I feel,” she says in explanation of what and how she knows, “a first thing above the intellect; and above this thing I feel another one and a greater; and above this other one, another, still more great; and so up and up does one thing go above the other, each thing ever greater (than its predecessors), that I conclude it to be impossible to express even a spark (scintilla) as to It” (the highest and greatest of the whole series, God). Here it is interesting still to trace the influence of the same passage of Jacopone (again referred to in this place by the _Vita_), and to see why she introduced “greatness” alongside of “loftiness” into her previous paraphrase.[257]

Now this vivid impression of a strong upward movement, combined with the feeling of being in and under something, gives the following image, used by her during her last illness: “I can no longer manage to live on in this life, because I feel as though I were in it like cork under water.” And this “above,” unlike to “outside,” is accompanied by the image, not of clothing but of nakedness; the clothes are left below. “This vehement love said to her, on one occasion: ‘What art thou thinking of doing? I want thee all for myself. I want to strip thee naked, naked. The higher up thou shalt go, however great a perfection thou mayest have, the higher will I ever stand above thee, to ruin all thy perfections’”--this, of course, inasmuch as she is still imperfect and falls short of the higher and higher perfections to which her soul is being led.[258]

And as to man’s faculties, she says: “As the intellect reaches higher (_supera_) than speech, so does love reach higher than intellect.” And again, as a universal law: “When pure love speaks, it ever speaks above nature; and all the things which it does and thinks and feels are always above nature.”[259]

2. _The Two Ways: the Negative Way, God’s Transcendence; the Positive Way, God’s Immanence._

Now these three categories of within and inward, outside and outward, above and upward position and movement, can lead, and do actually lead in Catherine’s case, to two separate lines of thought and feeling. And these lines are each too much a necessary logical conclusion from the constant working of these categories, and they are each again far too much, and even apart from these categories, expressive of two rival but complementary experiences, for either of them to be able to suppress or even modify the other. Each has its turn in the rich, free play of Catherine’s life. I will take the negative line first, and then the positive, so as to finish up with affirmation, which will thus, as in her actual experience and practice, be all the deeper and more substantial, because it has passed, and is ever re-passing, through a process of limitation and purification.

First, then, if grace and God are only within, _and_ only without, _and_ only above, she will and does experience contradiction and paradox in all attempts at explaining reality; she will thus find things to be obscure instead of clear; and she will end by affirming the unutterableness, the unthinkableness of God, indeed of all reality. “I see without eyes, I understand without understanding, I feel without feeling, and I taste without taste.” “When the creature is purified, it sees the True; and such a sight is not a sight.” “The sight of how it is God” who sends the soul its purifying trials “gives the soul a great contentment; and yet this contentment does not diminish the pain.” Still, “pure love cannot suffer; nor can it understand what is meant by pain or torment.” “The sun, which at first seemed so clear to me, now seems obscure; what used to seem sweet to me, now seems bitter: because all beauties and all sweetnesses that have an admixture of the creature are corrupt and spoilt.” “As to Love, only this can we understand about It, that It is incomprehensible to the mind.” “So long as a person can still talk of things divine, and can relish, understand, remember and desire them, he has not yet come to port.” For indeed “all that can be said about God is not God, but only certain smallest fragments which fall from (His) table.”[260]

And yet those experiences of God’s presence as, apparently, in a special manner within us, and without us, and above us, also lead, by means of another connection of ideas, to another, to a positive result. For those experiences can lead us to dwell, not upon the difference of the “places,” but upon the apparent fact that He is in a “place” of some sort, in space somewhere, the exact point of which is still to find; and, by thus bringing home to the mind this underlying paradox of the whole position, they can help to make the soul shrink away from this false clarity, and to fall back upon the deep, dim, true view of God as existing, for our apprehension, in certain states of soul alone, states which have all along been symbolized for us by these different “places” and “positions.” And thus what before was a paradox and mystery _qua_ space, because at the same time within and without, and because not found by the soul “within” unless through getting “without” itself, becomes now a paradox and mystery _qua_ state, because the soul at one and the same time attains to its own happiness and loses it, indeed attains happiness only through deliberately sacrificing it. And we thus come to the great central secret of all life and love, revealed to us in its fulness in the divine paradox of our Lord’s life and teaching.

God, then, first seems to be in a place, indeed to be a place. “I see all good to be in one only place, that is God.” “The spirit can find no place except God, for its repose.”[261]

If God be in a place, we cannot well conceive of Him as other than outside of and above the soul, which itself, even God being in a place, will be in a place also. “God has created the soul pure and full, with a certain God-ward instinct, which brings happiness in its train (_istinto beatifico_).” And “the nearer the soul approaches” (is joined, _si accosta_) “to God, the more does the instinct attain to its perfection.” Here the instinct within pushes the soul “onwards, outwards, upwards.” And the nearer the soul gets to God in front, outside and above of it, the happier it becomes: because, the more it satisfies this its instinct, the less it suffers from the distance from God, and the more does it enjoy His proximity.[262]

This approach is next conceived of as increasingly conveying a knowledge to the soul of God’s desire for union with it; but such an approach can only be effected by means of much fight against and through the intervening ranks of the common enemies of the two friends; and, as we have already seen, chief amongst these enemies is the soul’s false self. “The nearer man approaches to (_si accosta_) God, the more he knows that God desires to unite Himself with us.” “Being determined to approach God, I am constrained to be the enemy of His enemies.”[263]

And then, that “place” in which God was pictured as being, is found to be a state, a disposition of the soul. Now as long as the dominant tendency was to think God with clearness, and hence to picture Him as in space, that same tendency would, naturally enough, represent this place He was in as outside and above the soul. For if He is in space, He is pictured as extended, and hence as stretching further than, and outside of, the soul, which itself also is conceived as spacially extended; and if He is in a particular part of space, that part can only, for a geocentric apprehension of the world, be thought of as the upper part of space. But in proportion as the picture of physical extension and position gives way to its prompting cause, and the latter is expressed, as far as possible, unpictorially and less clearly, but more simply as what it is, viz. a spiritual intention and disposition, she is still driven indeed, in order to retain some clearness of speech, to continue to speak as of a place and of a spacial movement, but she has now no longer three categories but only one, viz. _within_ and _inwards_. For a physical quantity can be and move in different places and directions in space; but a spiritual quality can only be experienced within the substance of the spirit. “God created the soul pure and full, with a certain beatific instinct of Himself” (_i.e._ of His actual presence). And hence, “in proportion as it (again) approaches to the conditions of its original creation, this beatific instinct ever increasingly discovers itself and grows stronger and stronger.”[264]

And God being thus not without, nor indeed in space at all, she can love Him everywhere: indeed the _what_ she is now constitutes the _where_ she is; in a camp she can love God as dearly as in a convent, and heaven itself is already within her soul, so that only a change in the soul’s dispositions could constitute hell for that soul, even in hell itself. “O Love,” she exclaims, after the scene with the Friar, who had attempted to prove to her that his state of life rendered him more free and apt to love God, “who then shall impede me from loving Thee? Even if I were in the midst of a camp of soldiers, I could not be impeded from loving Thee.” She had, during the interview, explained her meaning: “If I believed that your religious habit would give me but one additional glimpse” (spark, scintilla) “of love, I would without doubt take it from you by force, were I not allowed to have it otherwise. That you may be meriting more than myself, I readily concede, I am not seeking after that; let those things be yours. But that I cannot love Him as much as you can do, you will never succeed in making me even understand.” “I stood so occupied in seeing the work of Love (within my soul), that if it had thrown me with soul and body into hell, hell itself would have appeared to me to be nothing but love and consolation.” And, on another occasion, she says to her disciples: “If, of that which this heart of mine is feeling, one drop were to fall into hell, hell itself would become all life eternal”; and she accepts with jubilation this interpretation of her words, on the part of one of them (no doubt Vernazza): “Hell exists in every place where there is rebellion against Love, God; but Life Eternal, in every place where there is union with that same Love, God.”[265]

And she now cannot but pray to possess all this love,--love being now pictured as a food, as a light, or as water, bringing life to the soul. “O tender Love, if I thought that but one glimpse of Thee were to be wanting to me, truly and indeed I could not live.” “Love, I want Thee, the whole of Thee.” “Never can love grow quiet, until it has arrived at its ultimate perfection.” And, in gaining all God, she gains all other things besides: “O my God, all mine, everything is mine; because all that belongs to God seems all to belong to me.”[266]

But if she loves all God, she can, on the other hand, love only Him: how, then, is she to manage to love her neighbour? “Thou commandest me to love my neighbour,” she complains to her Love, “and yet I cannot love anything but Thee, nor can I admit anything else and mix it up with Thee. How, then, shall I act?” And she received the interior answer: “He who loves me, loves all that I love.”[267]

But soon her love, as generous as it is strong, becomes uneasy as to its usual consequences,--the consolations, purely spiritual or predominantly psychical or even more or less physical, which come in its train. And even though she is made to understand that at least the first are necessarily bound up with love, in exact proportion to its generosity, she is determined, to the last, to love for love itself, and not for love’s consequences, battling thus to keep her spirituality free from the slightest, subtlest self-seeking. “This soul said to its Love: ‘Can it really be, O tender Love, that Thou art destined never to be loved without consolation or the hope of some advantage in heaven or on earth” accruing to Thy lover?’” “And she received the answer, that such an union could not exist without a great peace and contentment of the soul.” And yet she continues to affirm: “Conscience, in its purity, cannot bear anything but God alone; of all the rest, it cannot suffer the least trifle.”[268]

And she practices and illustrates this doctrine in detail. “One day, after Communion, God gave her so great a consolation that she remained in ecstasy. When she had returned to her usual state, she prayed: ‘O Love, I do not wish to follow Thee for the sake of these delights, but solely from the motive of true love.’” On another similar occasion she prays: “I do not want that which proceedeth from Thee; I want Thyself alone, O tender Love.” And again, “on one occasion, after Communion, there came to her so much odour and so much sweetness that she seemed to herself to be in Paradise. But instantly she turned towards her Lord and said: ‘O Love, art Thou perhaps intending to draw me to Thee by means of these sensible consolations (_sapori_)? I want them not; I want nothing except Thee alone.’”[269]

IV. THE OTHER WORLDS.

We have now gone through Catherine’s contemplations and conceptions as regards the soul’s relations with its true Life and Love, here and now, on this side the veil. We have, in conclusion, to try and reproduce and illustrate her teaching as to these relations on the other side of death.

1. _No absolute break in the spirit’s life at the body’s death._

Now here especially is it necessary ever to bear in mind her own presupposition, which runs throughout and sustains all her doctrine. For she is sure, beyond ever even raising a question concerning the point, that her soul and God, her two great realities and experiences, remain substantially the same behind the veil as before it, and hence that the most fundamental and universal of the soul’s experiences _here_ can safely be trusted to obtain _there_ also. Hence, too, only such points in the Beyond are dwelt on as she can thus experimentally forecast; but these few points are, on the other hand, developed with an extraordinary vividness and fearless, rich variety of illustration. And it is abundantly clear that this assumption of the essential unity and continuity of the soul’s life here and hereafter, is itself already a doctrine, and a most important one. We will then take it as such, and begin with it as the first of her teachings as to the Beyond.

“This holy soul,” says the highly authoritative prologue to the _Trattato_, in close conformity with her constant assumptions and declarations, “finding herself, whilst still in the flesh, placed in the Purgatory of God’s burning love,--a love which consumed (burnt, _abbrucciava_) and purified her from whatever she had to purify, in order that, on passing out of this life, she might enter at once into the immediate presence (_cospetto_) of her tender Love, God: understood, by means of this furnace of love, how the souls of the faithful abide in the place of Purgatory, to purge themselves of every stain of sin that, in this life, had been left unpurged. And as she, placed in the loving Purgatory of the divine fire, abode united to the divine Love, and content with all that It wrought within her, so she understood it to be with the souls in Purgatory.”[270]

2. _Hell._

The details of her doctrine as to the Beyond we can group under three heads: the unique, momentary experience and solitary, instantaneous act of the soul, at its passing hence and beginning its purgation there; the particular dispositions, joys and sufferings of the soul during the process of purification, as well as the cause and manner of the cessation of that process; and (generally treated by her as a simple contrast to this her direct and favourite purgatorial contemplation) the particular dispositions, sufferings, and alleviations of lost souls. Since her teachings on the last-named subject are more of an incidental character, I shall take them first, and make them serve, as they do with her, as a foil to her doctrine of the Intermediate State: whilst her conception of Heaven, already indicated throughout her descriptions of Pure Love, is too much of a universal implication, and too little a special department of her teaching, to be capable of presentation here.

As to the cause of Hell, she says: “It is the will’s opposition to the Will of God which causes guilt; and as long as this evil will continues, so long does the guilt continue. For those, then, who have departed this life with an evil will there is no remission of the guilt, neither can there be, because there can be no more change of will.” “In passing out of this life, the soul is established for good or evil, according to its deliberate purpose at the time; as it is written, ‘where I shall find thee,’ that is, at the hour of death, with a will either determined to sin, or sorry for sin and penitent, ‘there will I judge thee.’” Or, in a more characteristic form: “There is no doubt that our spirit was created to love and enjoy: and it is this that it goes seeking in all things. But it never finds satiety in things of time; and yet it goes on hoping, on and on, to be at last able to find it. And this experience it is that helps me to understand what kind of a thing is Hell. For I see that man, by love, makes himself one single thing with God, and finds there every good; and, on the other hand, that when he is bereft of love, he remains full of as many woes as are the blessings he would have been capable of, had he not been so mad.”[271]

And yet, and this is her own beautiful contribution to the traditional doctrine on this terrible and mysterious subject, neither are the sufferings of the lost infinite in amount, nor is their will entirely malign. And both these alleviations evidently exist from the first: I can find no trace anywhere in her teaching of a gradual mitigation of either the punishment or the guilt. Indeed, although she always teaches the mitigation of the suffering, it is only occasionally that she teaches the persistence of some moral good. Thus her ordinary teaching is: “Those who are found, at the moment of death, with a will determined to sin, have with them an infinite degree of guilt, and the punishment is without end”; “the sweet goodness of God sheds the rays of His mercy even into Hell: since He might most justly have given to the souls there a far greater punishment than He has.” “At death God exercises His justice, yet not without mercy; since even in Hell the soul does not suffer as much as it deserves.” But occasionally she goes further afield, and insists on the presence there, not only of some mercy in the punishment, but also of some good in the will. “When we shall have departed from this life in a state of sin, God will withdraw from us His goodness, and will leave us to ourselves, and yet not altogether: since He wills that in every place His goodness shall be found and not His justice alone. And if a creature could be found that did not, to some degree, participate in the divine goodness, that creature would be, one might say, as malignant as God is good.”[272] There can be no doubt, as we shall see further on, that this latter is her full doctrine and is alone entirely consistent with her general principles.

Certain details of her Hell doctrine which appear in immediate contrast to, or in harmony with, some special points of her Purgatorial teaching, had better appear in connection with the latter.

3. _Purgatory; the initial experience and act._

Let us now take, in all but complete contrast to this doctrine as to Hell, what she has to say about Purgatory. And here we have first to deal with the initial experience and act, both of them unique and momentary, of the soul destined for Purgatory. As to that experience, only one description has been preserved for us. “Once, and once only, do the souls (that are still liable to, and capable of, purgation) perceive the cause of (their) Purgatory that they bear within themselves,--namely in passing out of this life: then, but never again after that: otherwise self would come in (_vi saria una proprietà_).”[273]

And this unique and momentary experience is straightway followed by as unique and momentary an act, free and full, on the part of the experiencing soul. Catherine has described this act in every kind of mood, and from the various points of view, already drawn out by us, of her doctrine, so that we have here again a most impressive and vivid summing-up and pictorial representation of all her central teaching.

“The soul thus seeing” (its own imperfection) and, “that it cannot, because of the impediment” (of this imperfection) “attain (_accostarsi_) to its end, which is God; and that the impediment cannot be removed (_levato_) from it, except by means of Purgatory, swiftly and of its own accord (_volontieri_) casts itself into it.”[274] Here we have the continuation of the outward movement: the soul is here absolutely impeded in that, now immensely swift, movement, and is brought to a dead stop, as though by something hard on the soul’s own surface, which acts as a barrier between itself and God; it is offered the chance of escaping from this intolerable suffering into the lesser one of dissolving this hard obstacle in the ocean of the purifying fire: and straightway plunges into the latter.

“If the soul could find another Purgatory above the actual one, it would, so as more rapidly to remove from itself so important (_tanto_) an impediment, instantly cast itself into it, because of the impetuosity of that love which exists between God and the soul and tends to conform the soul to God.”[275] Here we have an extension of the same picturing, interesting because the addition of an upwards to the outwards introduces a conflict between the image (which evidently, for the soul’s plunge, requires Purgatory to lie beneath the soul), and the doctrine (which, taking Purgatory as the means between earth and heaven, cannot, if any spacial picturing be retained at all, but place Heaven at the top of the picture, and Purgatory higher up than the soul which is coming thither from earth). The deep plunge has become a high jump.

“I see the divine essence to be of such purity, that the soul which should have within it the least mote (_minimo chè_) of imperfection, would rather cast itself into a thousand hells, than find itself with that imperfection in the presence of God.”[276] Here the sense of touch, of hardness, of a barrier which is checking motion, has given way to the sense of sight, of stain, of a painful contrast to an all-pure Presence; and the whole picture is now devoid of motion. We thus have a transition to the immanental picturing, with its inward movement or look.

“The soul which, when separated from the body, does not find itself in that cleanness (_nettezza_) in which it was created, seeing in itself the stain, and that this stain cannot be purged out except by means of Purgatory, swiftly and of its own accord casts itself in; and if it did not find this ordination apt to purge that stain, in that very moment there would be spontaneously generated (_si generebbe_) within itself a Hell worse than Purgatory.”[277] Here we have again reached her immanental conception, where the soul’s concern is with conditions within itself, and where its joys and sorrows are within. Its trouble is, in this case, the sense of contrast, between its own original, still potential, indeed still actual though now only far down, hidden and buried, true self, and its active, obvious, superficial, false self. In so far as there is any movement before the plunge, it is an inward, introspective one; the soul as a whole is, for that previous moment, not conceived as in motion, but a movement of her self-observing part or power takes place within her from the surface to the centre; and only then, after her rapid journey from this her surface-being to those her fundamental ineradicable requirements, and after the consequent intolerably painful contrast and conflict within herself, does she cast herself, with swift wholeheartedness, with all she is and has, into the purifying place and state.

And, in full harmony with this immanental conception, the greater suffering which would arise did she abide with this sight of herself and yet without any moral change is described as springing up spontaneously within herself. “The soul, seeing Purgatory to have been ordained for the very purpose of purging away its stains, casts itself in, and seems to find a great compassion (on the part of God) in being allowed (able) to do so.” This appears to be only a variety of the immanental view just given.[278]

4. _Purgatory: the subsequent process._

We have finally to give her doctrine as to the particular dispositions, joys, and sufferings of the soul during the process of its purgation, and as to the cause and manner of the cessation of that process.

As to the dispositions, they are generally the same as those which impelled the soul to put itself in this place or condition. Only whereas then, during that initial moment, they took the form of a single act, an initiation of a new condition, now they assume the shape of a continuous state. Then the will freely tied itself; now it gladly though painfully abides by its decision and its consequences. Then the will found the relief and distraction of full, epoch-making action; now it has but to will and work out the consequences involved in that generous, all-inclusive self-determination. The range and nature of this, its continuous action will thus be largely the very reserve of those of that momentary act. “The souls that are in Purgatory are incapable of choosing otherwise than to be in that place, nor can they any more turn their regard (_si voltare_) towards themselves, and say: ‘I have committed such and such sins, for which I deserve to tarry here’; nor can they say, ‘Would that I had not done them, that now I might go to Paradise’; nor yet say, ‘_That_ soul is going out before me’; nor, ‘I shall go out before _him_.’ They are so completely satisfied that He should be doing all that pleases Him, and in the way it pleases Him, that they are incapable of thinking of themselves.” Indeed they are unable even to see themselves, at least directly, for “these souls do not see anything, even themselves in themselves or by means of themselves, but they (only) see themselves in God.” Indeed we have already seen that to do, or to be able to do, otherwise, would now “let self come in (_sarebbe una proprietà_).”[279]

And the joys and sufferings, and the original, earthly cause of the latter, are described as follows. “The souls in Purgatory have their (active) will conformed in all things to the will of God; and hence they remain there, content as far as regards their will.” “As far as their will is concerned, these souls cannot find the pain to be pain, so completely are they satisfied with the ordinance of God, so entirely is their (active) will one with it in pure charity. On the other hand, they suffer a torment so extreme, that no tongue could describe it, no intellect could form the least idea of it, if God had not made it known by special grace.” And indeed she says: “I shall cease to marvel at finding that Purgatory is” in its way as “horrible as Hell. For the one is made for punishing, the other for purging: hence both are made for sin, sin which itself is so horrible and which requires that its punishment and purgation should be conformable to its own horribleness.” For in Purgatory too there still exist certain remains of imperfect, sinful habits in the will. “The souls in Purgatory think much more of the opposition which they discover in themselves to the will of God,” than they do of their pain. And yet, being here with their actual will fully at one with God’s purifying action (an action directed against these remains of passive opposition), “I do not believe it would be possible to find any joy comparable to that of a soul in Purgatory, except the joy of the Blessed in Paradise.”[280]

Now the sufferings of the soul are represented either as found by it, under the form of an obstacle to itself, whilst in motion to attain to God, a motion which in some passages is outward, in others inward; or as coming to it, whilst spacially at rest. Only in the latter case is there a further attempt at pictorially elucidating the nature of the obstacle and the cessation of the suffering. It is fairly clear that it is the latter set of passages which most fully suits her general teaching and even imagery. For, as to the imagery: after that one movement in which the soul determines its own place, we want it to abide there, without any further motion. And, as to doctrine: more and more as the soul’s history is unfolded, should God’s action within it appear as dominating and informing the soul’s action towards God, and should change of disposition supplant change of place.

First, then, let us take the clearer but less final conception, and see the soul in movement, in a struggle for outward motion. “Because the souls that are in Purgatory have an impediment between God and themselves, and because the instinct which draws the soul on to its ultimate end is unable as yet to attain to its fulfilment (_perfezione_), an extreme fire springs up from thence (within them), a fire similar to that of Hell.” We have here an application and continuation of the transcendental imagery, so that the impediment is outside or on the surface of the soul, and God is outside and above this again: but the whole picture here, at least as regards the fire, is obscure and tentative.[281]

Or the soul is still conceived as in movement, but the motion is downwards from its own surface to its own centre, a centre where resides its Peace, God Himself. “When a soul approaches more and more to that state of original purity and innocence in which it had been created, the instinct of God, bringing happiness in its train (_istinto beatifico_), reveals itself and increases on and on, with such an impetuousness of fire that any obstacle seems intolerable.”[282] Here we have the immanental picturing, the soul moving down, under the influence of its instinct for God, to ever fuller masses of this instinct present within the soul’s own centre. But the extreme abstractness and confusion of the language, which mixes up motion, different depths of the soul, and various dispositions of spirit, and which represents the soul as capable of approaching a state which has ceased to exist, cast doubts on the authenticity of this passage. In both these sets where the soul is in motion, we hear only of an impediment in general and without further description; and, in both cases, the fire springs up because of this impediment, whereas, as we shall see, in the self-consistent form of her teaching the Fire, God, is always present: the impediment simply renders this Fire painful, and that is all.

And next we can take the soul as spacially stationary, and as in process of qualitative change. Here we get clear and detailed pictures, both of what is given to the soul and of what is taken away from it. The images of the positive gain constitute the beautiful sixth chapter of the _Trattato_. But its present elaborate text requires to be broken up into three or four variants of one and the same simile, which are probably all authentic. I give them separately.

“If in the whole world there existed but one loaf of bread to satisfy the hunger of every creature: in such a case, if the creature had not that one bread, it could not satisfy its hunger, and hence it would remain in intolerable pain.”[283] Note how, so far, the nature of the possession of the bread is not specified, it is simply “had”; and how the pain seems to remain stationary.

“Man having by nature an instinct to eat: if he does not eat, his hunger increases continually, since his instinct to eat never fails him.”[284] Here all is clearer: man now takes the place of the creature in general; the possession is specified as an eating; the pain is a hunger; and this hunger is an ever-increasing one.

“If in all the world there were but one loaf of bread, and if only through seeing it could the creature be satisfied: the nearer that creature were to approach it (without seeing it and yet knowing that only the said bread could satisfy it), the more ardently would its natural desire for the bread be aroused within it (_si accenderebbe_),--that bread in which all its contentment is centred (_consiste_).”[285] Here the image for the nature of the appropriation has been shifted from the least noble of the senses, taste and touch, to the noblest, sight: there is still a longing, but it is a longing to see, to exercise and satiate fully the intellectual faculties. And yet the satiety is evidently conceived not as extending to these faculties alone, but as including the whole soul and spirit, since bread would otherwise cease to be the symbol here, and would have been replaced by light. Note too the subtle complication introduced by the presentation, in addition to the idea of an increase of hunger owing to lapse of time, of the suggestion that the increase is caused by a change in the spacial relations between the hungering creature and its food, and by an ever-increasing approach of that creature to this food.

“And if the soul were certain of never seeing the bread, at that moment it would have within it a perfect Hell, and become like the damned, who are cut off from all hope of ever seeing God, the true Bread. The souls in Purgatory, on the other hand, hope to see that Bread, and to satiate themselves to the full therewith; whence they suffer hunger as great as will be the degree to which they will (eventually) satiate themselves with the true Bread, God, our Love.”[286] Here it is noticeable how the specific troubles of Hell and Purgatory are directly described, whereas the corresponding joys of Heaven are only incidentally indicated; and how the full sight is not preceded by a partial sight, but simply by a longing for this full sight, so that, if we were to press the application of this image, the soul in Purgatory would not see God at all. And yet, as we have seen above, souls there see, though not their particular sins, yet their general sinful habits; for what are the “impediment,” the “imperfection,” the “stain,” which they go on feeling and seeing, but these habits? And they see themselves, though not in themselves, yet in God. But, if so, do they not see God?

The answer will doubtless be that, just as they do not see their sins any more in their specific particularity, but only feel in themselves a dull, dead remainder of opposition and imperfection, so also they do not, after the initial moment of action and till quite the end of their suffering, see God clearly,--as clearly as they do when the process is at an end. During one instant at death they had seen (as in a picture) their sins and God, each in their own utterly contrasted concrete particularity; and this had been the specific cause of their piercing pain and swift plunge. And then came the period of comparative dimness and dulness, a sort of general subconsciousness, when their habits of sin, and God, were felt rather than seen, the former as it were in front of the latter, but both more vaguely, and yet (and this was the unspeakable alleviation) now in a state of change and transformation. For the former, the blots and blurrs, and the sense of contrariety are fading gradually out of the outlook and consciousness; and the latter, the light and life, the joy and harmony of the soul, and God, are looming clearer, nearer, and larger, on and on. And even this initial feeling, this general perception, this semi-sight and growing sight of God, is blissful beyond expression; for “every little glimpse that can be gained of God exceeds every pain and every joy that man can conceive without it.”[287]

The imagery illustrative of what is taken from the soul, and how it is taken, is two-fold, and follows in the one case a more transcendental, in the other case a more immanental, conception, although in each case God is represented as in motion, and the soul as abiding in the same place and simply changing its qualitative condition under the influence of that increasing approach of God and penetration by Him.

The illustration for the more transcendental view is taken from the sun’s light and fire’s heat and a covering. It is, as a matter of fact, made up of three sayings: one more vague and subtle, and two more clear and vivid, sayings. “The joy of a soul in Purgatory goes on increasing day by day, owing to the inflowing of God into the soul, an inflowing which increases in proportion as it consumes the impediment to its own inflowing.”--God’s action upon the imperfect soul is as the sun’s action upon “a covered object. The object cannot respond to the rays of the sun which beat upon it (_reverberazione del sole_), not because the sun ceases to shine,--for it shines without intermission,--but because the covering intervenes (_opposizione_). Let the covering be consumed away, and again the object will be exposed to the sun and will answer to the rays in proportion as the work of destruction advances.”--Now “Sin is the covering of the soul; and in Purgatory this covering is gradually consumed by the fire; and the more it is consumed, the more does the soul correspond and discover itself to the divine ray. And thus the one (the ray) increases, and the other (the sin) decreases, till the time (necessary for the completion of the process) is over.”[288]

It is clear that we have here three parallel passages, each with its own characteristic image, all illustrative of an identical doctrine: namely, the persistent sameness of God’s action, viewed in itself, and of the soul’s reaction, in its essential, central laws, needs, and aspirations; and the accidental, superficial, intrinsically abnormal, inhibitory modification effected by sin in that action of God and in the corresponding reaction of the soul.--The first, dimmer and deeper saying speaks of an inflowing of God, with her usual combination of fire-and-water images. We seem here again to have the ocean of the divine fire, Itself pressing in upon the soul within It, yet here with pain and oppression, in so far as the soul resists or is unassimilated to It; and with peace and sustaining power, in so far as the soul opens out to, and is or becomes similar to, It. We hear only of an “impediment” in general, perhaps because the influx which beats against it is imaged as taking place from every side at once.--The second saying, the most vivid of the three, speaks of sun-light, and of how, whilst this sun-light itself remains one and the same, its effect differs upon one and the same object, according as that object is covered or uncovered. Here we get a “covering,” since the shining is naturally imaged as coming from one side, from above, only. But here also it is the same sun which, at one time, does not profit, and, at another time, gives a renewed life to one and the same object; and it is clear, that either Catherine here abstracts altogether from the question as to what consumes the covering, or that she assumes that this consumption is effected by the sun itself.--The third saying is the least simple, and is indeed somewhat suspicious in its actual form. Yet here again we have certainly only one agent, in this case fire, which again, as in the case of the influx and of the sun-light, remains identical in itself, but varies in its effects, according as it does or does not meet with an obstacle. The ray here is a ray primarily of heat and not of light, but which is felt by the soul at first as painful, destructive flame, and at last as peaceful, life-giving warmth.

Now, amongst these three parallel sayings, it is that concerning the inflowing, which leads us gently on to the more immanental imagery--that of fire and dross. And this image is again given us in a number of closely parallel variants which now constitute one formally consecutive paragraph,--the third of Chapter X of the _Trattato_. “Gold, when once it has been (fully) purified, can be no further consumed by the action of fire, however great it be; since fire does not, strictly speaking, consume gold, but only the dross which the gold may chance to contain. So also with regard to the soul. God holds it so long in the furnace, until every imperfection is consumed away. And when it is (thus) purified, it becomes impassible; so that if, thus purified, it were to be kept in the fire, it would feel no pain; rather would such a fire be to it a fire of Divine Love, burning on without opposition, like the fire of life eternal.”[289] Here the imperfection lies no more, as a covering, on the surface, nor does the purifying light or fire simply destroy that covering and then affect the bare surface; but the imperfection is mixed up with the soul, throughout the soul’s entire depth, and the purification reaches correspondingly throughout the soul’s entire substance. Yet, as with the covering and the covered object, so here with the dross and the impure gold, sin is conceived of as a substance alien to that of the soul. And, so far, God appears distinct from the fire: He applies it, as does the goldsmith his fire to the gold. But already there is an indication of some mysterious relation between the fire of Purgatory and that of Heaven. For if the very point of the description seems, at first sight, to be the miraculous character of the reward attached, more or less arbitrarily, to the soul’s perfect purification, a character indicated by the fact that now not even fire can further hurt the soul, yet it remains certain that, the more perfect the soul, the more must it perceive and experience all things according to their real and intrinsic nature.

Another conclusion to the same simile is: “Even so does the divine fire act upon the soul: it consumes in the soul every imperfection. And, when the soul is thus purified, it abides all in God, without any foreign substance (_alcuna cosa_) within itself.”[290] Here God and the fire are clearly one and the same. And the soul does not leave the fire, nor is any question raised as to what would happen were it to be put back into it; but the soul remains where it was, in the Fire, and the Fire remains what it was, God. Only the foreign substance has been burnt out of the soul, and hence the same Fire that pained it then, delights it now. Here too, however, God and the soul are two different substances; and indeed this Fire-and-Gold simile, strictly speaking, excludes any identification of them.

“The soul, when purified, abides entirely in God; its being is God.”[291] Here we have the teaching as to the identity of her true self with God, which we have already found further back. But the soul’s purification and union with God which there we found illustrated by the simile, so appropriate to this teaching, of the absorption of food into the living body, we find indicated here by the much less apt comparison of the transformation of gold by fire. For in this latter case, the gold remains a substance distinct from the fire, whereas the doctrine requires a simile such as a great pure fire expelling all impurity from a small, impure fire, and then itself continuing to live on, with this small fire absorbed into itself. But we shall see later on, why, besides the intrinsic difficulty of finding an at all appropriate simile for so metaphysical a doctrine, the imagery always becomes so ambiguous at this point. We shall show that a confluence of antagonistic doctrines, and some consequent hesitation in the very teaching itself, contribute to keep the images in this uncertain state. However, the possibly glossorial importation of this most authentic teaching of hers into this place and simile only helps to confirm the identity of the Fire with God, and the non-moving of the soul, throughout this group of texts. For the gold abides in the fire, as the soul abides in God; and the identification which is thus established of the painful with the joyous fire, and of both with God, is what will have suggested the introduction in this place of the further identification of the soul with God. And it is the continued abiding of the identical soul, a soul which has not moved spacially but has changed qualitatively, in the identical fire, God, which has helped to suggest the insertion in this place of the doctrine that the soul, in its true essence, is identical with God. God, in this final identification, would be the gold, the pure gold of the soul; and this pure gold itself would generate a fire for the consumption of all impurity, in proportion as such impurity gained ground within it. And, in proportion as this consumption takes place, does the fire sink, and leave nothing but the pure gold, the fire’s cause, essence, and end. In any case, we have here one more most authentic and emphatic enforcement of the teaching that the place of Purgatory is really a state; that its painfulness is intrinsic; and that it is caused by the partial discord between spirit and Spirit, and is ended by the final complete concord between both.