Saint Joan of Arc (Jeanne la Pucelle): Difference between revisions

Her visions drove the Rouen trial court crazy, and they spent much time challenging and arguing with her about her encounters with the Saints. She answered everything plainly, which, again, drove them crazy. For a believer, what an an incredible opportunity to learn about the Saints! If we listen to her, Joan gives us a unique view into the experiences of an actual mystic.

The English-backed trial court, of course, was entirely antagonistic to those experiences, and reoriented her testimony and their questions constantly towards the accusations of witchcraft, such as the legend of a "Fairy Tree" at her hometown, Domrémy, and of mandrakes, a flowering plant which sorcerers were supposed to have used for spells,<ref>Mandrake roots have  hallucinogenic properties and often resemble the shape of a human, thus their association with witches and magic. Niccolò Machiavelli's play, ''La Mandragola'', featured a mandrake used to trick a man into willingly allowing another to sleep with his wife. Voltaire's [https://archive.org/details/completetalesofv0000volt/page/56/ Letters of Amabed] (p. 56) mention the play, "The comedy which I saw day before yesterday, in the dwelling of the <mark>Pope</mark>, is entitled Za Mandragora;—the hero of the piece is an adroit young man who wishes to sleep with the wife of his neighbor; he hires with money a monk—a Fa tutto or a Fa molto—to seduce his mistress and to make the husband fall into an absurd trap; all through the play there is derision of the religion which Europe professes, of which Roume is the centre, and of which the papal seat is the throne. Such pleasures will perhaps appear to thee as indecent, my dear and pious Shastasid;—Delight of the Eyes was scandalized; but the comedy is so pretty that the pleasure overcame the scandal."</ref> and which were commonly kept by peasants as charms. Their investigation into Joan's hometown found that mandrakes were used there, which would be affirmed by the village priest who in April 1429, after Joan had already departed, preached against them.<ref>Murray, p. 42. See footnote no. 1 for the sermon against them.</ref>  

 

<blockquote>Why should it have been cut off? I have not seen Saint Michael since I left the Castle of Crotoy. I do not see him often. I do not know if he has hair.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Has he a balance?<ref>Saint Michael is commonly depicting the scales of judgment. (He is not himself the judge.)</ref></blockquote>

<blockquote> I know nothing about it. It was a great joy to see him; it seemed to me, when I saw him, that I was not in mortal sin. Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret were pleased from time to time to receive my confession, each in turn. If I am in mortal sin, it is without my knowing it.</blockquote>

Giving up, the interrogation turned to another topic, with which the court was obsessed, about the "sign" she had given the French king. She left them with an intriguing suggestion about "another, much richer" crown than the one he received at Reims.<ref>Murray, p. 44. From the register, "Had your King a crown at Rheims?" "I think my King took with joy the crown that he had at Rheims; but another, much richer, would have been given him later. He acted thus to hurry on his work, at the request of the people of the town of Rheims, to avoid too long a charge upon them of the soldiers. If he had waited, he would have had a crown a thousand times more rich." "Have you seen this richer crown?" "I cannot tell you without incurring perjury; and, though I have not seen it, I have heard that it is rich and valuable to a degree."</ref> The next day, they back to her visions. The scribe noted that she had previously testified that Saint Michael "had wings" but had said nothing about the forms of Saints Catherine and Margaret. The scribe noted,<ref>Murray, pp. 44-45</ref>

The point of all this focus on the clothing and bodies of the Saints was to prove heresy by stating that Joan physically interacted with the Angels, who were understood by the Church as to be non-corporeal, i.e. entirely spiritual in nature.<ref>The spiritual nature of the angels was affirmed by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 and remains Church doctrine, as per the [https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/catechism/86/ Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph no.s 328-330]. </ref> As we see in the notary's notes about the follow up question on "the body and members" of the Saints, they thought they had her on this one, and so included them in the charges prepared against her,<ref>Murray, p. 355</ref>  

The interrogators deliberately used the term "object"<ref>>> get from original transcript Latin/French</ref> to denigrate Joan's Visions, as of course Church doctrine affirms visions of spirit -- but not of physical bodies, or "objects" as the Rouen court carefully worded it. Church doctrine then and now holds that angels are non-corporeal and that the human soul separates from the body at death whereupon it awaits reunification with its glorified body at the Final Judgment and Resurrection.<ref>The [https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/catechism/262/ Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 997] states, "In death, the separation of the soul from the body, the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body."  See also [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/15?42 1 Corinthians 15:42-44]. For the Final Judgment see [https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/5?28 John 5: 28-29]: "Do not be amazed at this, because the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voices and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation."</ref> In this light we can see the purpose of the questions about the particulars of Joan's visitors, their hair, their smells, the sounds and language of their voices. It's not exactly counting angels on a pinhead, but it's a trivial, if not foolish, distinction they were trying to make, as they well knew Saint Thomas's teachings that both Angels and the Saints may represent themselves to the living in ''image or likeness'' of a body, albeit not materially (an "object"). From Thomas' ''SummaTheologiae:''<ref>[https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1051.htm Summa Theologiae, Question 51, Article 2, Reply to Objection 2]</ref><blockquote>The body assumed is united to the angel not as its form, nor merely as its mover, but as its mover represented by the assumed movable body. For as in the Sacred Scripture the properties of intelligible things are set forth by the likenesses of things sensible, in the same way by Divine power sensible bodies are so fashioned by angels as fittingly to represent the intelligible properties of an angel. And this is what we mean by an angel assuming a body."</blockquote>and,<ref>[https://www.newadvent.org/summa/5069.htm Summa Theologiae, Question 69, Article 3, Reply to Objection 3]  

The Rouen clerics knew from Saint Thomas that a spirit may be "of the saints or of the damned" and that there are both "good and wicked angels."<ref>[https://www.newadvent.org/summa/5069.htm Summa Theologiae, Question 69, Article 3, Reply to Objection 6]</ref> However, rather than accusing Joan of lying, they left it open for interpretation as to what Joan meant. In the formal "Twelve Articles of Accusations," Article I,<ref name=":3">Murray, p. 366</ref><ref name=":3" />    <blockquote>A woman doth say and affirm that when she was of the age of thirteen years or thereabouts, she did, with her '''bodily''' eyes, see Saint Michael come to comfort her, and from time to time also Saint Gabriel ; that both the one and the other appeared to her in '''bodily''' form. Sometimes also she hath seen a great multitude of Angels ; since then. Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret have shewn themselves to her in bodily form ; every day she sees these two <mark>Saints</mark> and hears their voices ; she hath often kissed and embraced them, and sometimes she hath '''touched them''', '''in a physical and corporeal manner'''. She hath seen the heads of these Angels and these <mark>Saints</mark>, but of the rest of their persons and of their dress she will say nothing. <ref>The Article continues with a false claim that implied the Joan's Saints were actually the product of fairies: "The said Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret have also formerly spoken to her near a spring which flows at the foot of a great tree, called in the neighbourhood 'The Fairies' Tree.' This spring and this tree nevertheless have been, it is said, frequented by fairies; persons ill of fever have repaired there in great numbers to recover their health. This spring and this tree are nevertheless in a profane place. There and elsewhere she hath often venerated these two <mark>Saints</mark>, and hath done them obeisance.</ref>    </blockquote>Ultimately, the ecclesiastical court at Rouen condemned Joan for reneging on her vow to wear women's clothes,<ref>The men's clothing was the excuse to charge her with "relapse," or going against her own formal rejection (abjuration) of her own heresies. As she was charged with the relapse, she reaffirmed her Voices, which was also a relapse of her abjuration. </ref> which was a setup, but also for invoking her Saints for having told her to put the men's clothes back on. Aside from hints that it was fairies that Joan actually saw or thought she saw, they never directly accused her of invoking evil spirits or of making it up altogether. Had they accused her of outright witchcraft, which they never did, only hinting at it, such as in Article XI's,<ref>Murray, p. 370</ref><blockquote>She doth add that, if it were an evil spirit who had come to her under the appearance and mask of Saint Michael she would quite well have known how to distinguish that it was not Saint Michael</blockquote>Ultimately, it seems that the Trial judges thought she made it all up. Several of the clerics at the Rouen trial testified twenty years later at the Trial of Rehabilitation, including one of Joan's chief interrogators, Jean Beaupère, who maintained that Joan's voices were "from natural causes and human intent... [not] supernatural."<ref>Murray, p. 176</ref> Another, lesser player from the Rouen court, Augustinian Bishop Jean Lefevre,<ref>or Jean Favri</ref> whom the biographer Pernoud calls, "a dubious character,"<ref>Pernoud, Retrial, p. 176, fn 4</ref> told the examiners essentially the same, that her Voices were not real:<ref>Murray, p. 210, from May 9, 1452</ref>   

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