Saint Joan of Arc (Jeanne la Pucelle): Difference between revisions
| Line 838: | Line 838: | ||
<blockquote>Article XLII. Jeanne hath said and published that Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret and Saint Michael have bodies — that is to say, head, eyes, face, hair, etc.; that she hath touched them with her hands; that she hath kissed them and embraced them. </blockquote> | <blockquote>Article XLII. Jeanne hath said and published that Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret and Saint Michael have bodies — that is to say, head, eyes, face, hair, etc.; that she hath touched them with her hands; that she hath kissed them and embraced them. </blockquote> | ||
Historians make much of Joan's testimony on the physicality of her Saints and the Archangel Michael, saying that it was a theological trap that the ignorant girl fell into, as if she should have | Historians make much of Joan's testimony on the physicality of her Saints and the Archangel Michael, saying that it was a theological trap that the ignorant girl fell into, as if she should have sculpted her testimony to match learned Church doctrine. Article XLII conforms to Joan's testimony, but any condemnation derived from it is theologically incorrect, and they knew it.<ref>>> to add here Vatican debate on these points in canonization process</ref> | ||
The interrogators deliberately used the term "object"<ref>>> get from original transcript Latin/French</ref> to denigrate Joan's Visions, as | The interrogators deliberately used the term "object"<ref>>> get from original transcript Latin/French</ref> to denigrate Joan's Visions, as the Church holds that such visions are of non-corporeal spirits and not of physical bodies or matter, or "objects", as the Rouen court carefully worded it. Church doctrine then and now also holds that the human soul separates from the body at death, whereupon it awaits reunification with its glorified body at the Final Judgment and Resurrection, so any visitation by a Saint would be non-corporeal, as well.<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 and if she touched them. It's not exactly counting angels on a pinhead, but it's a trivial distinction they were making, as they well knew Saint Thomas's teachings that both Angels and the Saints may represent themselves to the living in the image or likeness of a body, albeit not materially (which would be 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>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]</ref> | and,<ref>[https://www.newadvent.org/summa/5069.htm Summa Theologiae, Question 69, Article 3, Reply to Objection 3]</ref> | ||
<blockquote>Nevertheless, according to the disposition of Divine providence separated souls sometimes come forth from their abode and appear to men, as Augustine | <blockquote>Nevertheless, according to the disposition of Divine providence separated souls sometimes come forth from their abode and appear to men, as Augustine... relates of the martyr Felix who appeared visibly to the people of Nola when they were besieged by the barbarians.</blockquote> | ||
Secular historians don't care about all that, so they simply | Secular historians don't care about all that, so they simply adopt the implicti arguments in the Rouen court's questions to discredit Joan's Visions, forgetting or ignoring their nuance and borderline integrity. It becomes just more evidence that Joan fed the judges with imagined details to throw them off. It's unclear to me what these historians would have her to have said instead of relating her experiences truthfully, because if she was making it up, it merely got herself into more trouble. And, again, it ignores the record. | ||
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> | 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> Yet, following the procedures of an ecclesiastical trial, on April 5, the examiners submitted to "the Doctors", i.e. the clerics and theologians at the University of Paris, the "Twelve Articles of Accusations" which summarized, without formal judgment or sentence, the court's findings up to then. Article I went straight at the "bodily" Visions:<ref name=":3">Murray, p. 366</ref> | ||
<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 Saints 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 Saints, 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>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 Saints 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 Saints, 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> | </blockquote>Whereas the formal Accusations left it open for interpretation as to what Joan meant and whether or not she was lying, her first sentence, issued in public on May 24, went right at it, stating in the introduction,<ref>Murray, p. 129</ref><blockquote>the perfidious Sower of Errors works by his machinations and deceits to infest the Flock of Christ</blockquote>The public spectacle, the frenzy, and placed upon a platform in a cemetery, Joan recanted.<ref>Murray, p. 128</ref><blockquote>Inasmuch as the Clergy decide that the apparitions and revelations which I have had are not to be maintained or believed, I will not believe nor maintain them; in all I refer me to you and to our Holy Mother Church! </blockquote>There has been much debate over this scene, but what it came down to was that Joan signed a different document from what was read to her, which these words, as recorded in the Trial transcript may or may not be what she said, but what she signed. Nevertheless, she did recant, and she did give in to the moment. The Bishop then read her sentence, which likely was prepared in advance, which included sentenced her, as a reptetant heretic to "perpetual imprisonment."<ref>Murray, p. 133</ref> Among the heresies the Bishop declared her guilty of, was,<ref>Murray, p. 132-133</ref><blockquote>that thou, Jeanne, hast deeply sinned in pretending untruthfully that thy revelations and apparitions are of God; </blockquote>The accusation thus shifted from demonic Visions to "pretending" they were "of God", which suited the abjuration. But when she put on men's clothes that her guards gave her to wear either after threatening to or actually assaulting her:<ref>Monday, May 28, 1431, two days before her martyrdom (Murray, p. 137)</ref> she was presented back to the court, on Tuesday, May 29 and was asked,<blockquote>Since last Thursday<ref>The day of her abjuration</ref> have you heard your Voices at all?</blockquote><blockquote>Yes, I have heard them.</blockquote><blockquote>What did they say to you?</blockquote><blockquote>They said to me: "God had sent me word by St. Catherine and St. Margaret of the great pity it is, this treason to which I have consented, to abjure and recant in order to save my life! I have damned myself to save my life!"</blockquote>That was all they needed. | ||
. 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> | The standard view holds that Joan was burned for violating the terms of her abjurement by breaking her vow to wear only women's clothes, but the more serious "Relapse" came from invoking her Saints again. Now, the Bishop returned to demons, and Satan himself:<ref>Murray, p. 139</ref><blockquote>But since that day, driven by the Devil, behold! she hath, in the presence of many persons, declared anew that her Voices and the spirits that appeared to her have returned to her, and have said many things to her; and, casting away her woman's dress she hath again taken male garments.</blockquote>The next day, Wednesday, May 30, the Bishop officially excommunicated her as a relapsed heretic, and after more admonishments, including to quote from scripture,<ref>Murray, p. 144</ref><blockquote>O, shame! — that, as the dog returns again to his vomit, so hast thou returned to thine errors and crimes ; </blockquote>handed her to the English who burned her that morning. | ||
>>here | |||
>> fix/ remove. 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> | <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> | ||