Two preceding indications were, as it were, mixed: one sought partly from the revelation itself, partly from outside it. It follows now that we investigate the things necessary to be observed in the circumstances.
First, there occurs that indication sought from the end: what moved the person to indicate and publish this revelation to others? Was it curiosity, levity, vanity, greed, avarice, ambition, his own advantage, or that of others? If his own, was it spiritual or carnal? If that of others, was it of a few, of many, or of all? In this very investigation of the cause, one must weigh not only the nearest and open end, but also the hidden and remote end. For, as Gerson says:
The nearest end may appear good, salutary, and devout for the edification of others, and yet at last slide into manifold scandal, when the last things do not answer to the first, or otherwise when falsehood or pretense is detected in persons reputed to be of great sanctity, as our age has taught in the deceptions of Doctor John of Varennes, John Hus, and the like.
Therefore Elijah, as much as he could, tried, loving humility, to put Elisha away from himself, so that he would not see him carried in a fiery chariot into heaven. Arsenius prudently never narrated revelations made to him unless the usefulness of others required it; and then he narrated them as though they had happened to someone else, as Simeon Metaphrastes observed. Blessed Hildegard too could scarcely be induced to write her revelations except by order of her superiors, and she was not induced until Pope Eugene III encouraged her to write them. The same was the sense of Blessed Lidwina. When Christ the Lord appeared to her while she was awake and left the signs of his five wounds visibly impressed upon her, and when the virgin saw that such gaping wounds could not lie hidden from people and feared the crowding and applause of men, she is written to have prayed to God thus:
Let, I beseech you, Lord, this sacrament of your gracious favor remain between me and you. Let your grace be sufficient for me.
Do not doubt that the humility and guardedness of the grateful bride pleased him. For by a great miracle the wounds were immediately covered over with skin, while the pain and lividity nevertheless remained permanently. The same virgin at another time deservedly saw a certain man, who had been accustomed to narrate his revelations and, as easily happens, in the heat of narration to add some things of his own, assigned for this reason to the pains of purgatory.
[margin: Gerson on the end or motive of revelations; John of Varennes and John Hus; Simeon Metaphrastes, in the life of Arsenius; Theodoric the abbot, book 1 of the life of Hildegard, chapter 4; John Brugman, life of St. Lidwina, part 2, chapter 8, and part 3, chapter 2]
Second, the thoughts which followed or preceded the revelation must be weighed. For from the imagination of preceding thoughts a phantastical illusion could be born. The Holy Spirit does not approach a mind tossed about by bad thoughts, nor does true revelation. Yet true and divine revelation does not always follow a good and pious thought; for the Devil has tried to creep in upon many even in the fervor of prayer. Good desires and good effects always follow a true revelation. Good things sometimes follow an illusory one incidentally and for a time, but these are directed by the Devil to some evil.
Hucbald had noted that earlier. When he had recounted the visions of St. Aldegund, he adds:
In all revelations of this kind the prudent virgin humbled herself more and more, drew nearer to the kingdom of God, and clung more fervently to the heavenly bridegroom.
Here, certainly, is the genuine effect of true revelations. Those which are contrary to this openly show that the one which preceded was illusory.
[margin: Hucbald, life of St. Aldegund, chapter 2, on the humbling effect of true revelations]
Third, it has been noted by some, and is also very useful, that, so that we may not be deceived, one should oppose to the vision or revelation itself the sign of the cross and fortify it with the cross. Senatus Bravonius confirms this doctrine, surely effective and pious. He narrates that Oswald the bishop, when, after all the mockeries and fearsome disturbances of the demon had been dispelled, the cunning enemy showed himself in a beautiful form as an angel, fortified himself with the sign of the cross, because he knew that a true angel would not bear that with annoyance, while the angel of darkness would be driven into flight by it. And that is what happened, for the words are those of Bravonius: “As soon as that malignant tempter saw that sign, he vanished from his eyes like smoke.”
Fourth, one must see how the spirit itself entered. For, as Father Ignatius admonishes, in those making progress the evil spirit pours himself in harshly, noisily, violently, and as if with a certain crashing, like rain falling on rocks; but the good spirit pours himself into the same persons gently, peacefully, and sweetly, as water moistens a sponge. Experience teaches that the contrary happens to those who are progressing toward worse things.
Fifth, one must observe whether what had caressed the mind with gladness at the beginning was afterward changed into horror and bitterness; likewise whether the horror which began at first was not gradually removed, but remained constant. These two are signs of false revelations. But if at the beginning the person is indeed disturbed and feels something of horror, and afterward this trouble and anxiety of soul is wiped away and he is bathed in a certain inward sweetness, this is a sign of divine consolation, as St. Anthony teaches us.
A natural cause of this seems to be the antipathy which exists between a human being and a murderous demon, and the sympathy which exists between a human being and angels. I would willingly refer to that antipathy a certain common opinion which prevailed in the times of Blessed Peter of Cluny, and from which he himself was not alien: that those to whom the dead had appeared did not long survive. Perhaps this opinion arose because, when demons had appeared to some persons in the form of the dead, those persons, from horror and from the antipathy of life and death, contracted disease and soon died.
But that lesson of St. Anthony must be understood of true inward sweetness, which brings and increases hunger and desire for virtues, especially charity and humility. Blessed Catherine of Siena rightly added this limitation.
The testimony of Blessed Angela of Foligno confirms this: from a vision there remained in her mind a more vehement desire to bear all torments and injuries for God. Someone may perhaps object that the demon can change the horror which at first he brought by his presence, as he is accustomed to do when he appears as a cloud touching the head, or in some other terrifying appearance, into gladness and sweetness of sense and blandishments of words. I answer: we are speaking of an apparition which produces these effects of horror and anxiety not by reason of the form under which it appears, but only by reason of the presence of the one appearing. For when it is terrifying by reason of the form, there is almost no need of any other indication. If the form is monstrous, it is certain that it is demonic; if it is human, then other circumstances must be considered, as I treated not carelessly in book 2, question 26, section 3. You may return there, if you wish.
[margin: Senatus Bravonius, life of St. Oswald, chapter 2, on the sign of the cross; Ignatius, Exercises, on discernment of spirits; William of Paris, De universo, part 2, chapter 132, and Peter of Cluny, Miracles, book 1, chapter 1, on apparitions of the dead]
Sixth, one must consider whether revelations are supported by true miracles. Then no doubt remains that they are from God, as in the revelation made to that noble matron to whom it was revealed that St. Winwaloe would restore the sight of her eyes, which she had lost. As soon as she went to the saint, she recovered the sight she had lost. But wonders and prodigies do not confirm revelation sufficiently, because a demon can produce them. Yet if miracles are lacking, the revelation should not be judged false for that reason alone. The Blessed Forerunner of Christ was a prophet, and more than a prophet, and yet he performed no miracle.
The seventh rule is this: if a revelation predicts something absolutely, and not under a condition, which they call an absolute and independent prophecy, and afterward the contrary happens, or what was foretold does not happen, whatever was announced was a false revelation and not from heaven. The proof, says Gerson, regards the spirit, not the person who experiences the visions, but the quality of the visions: whether they are true in all things, even down to the smallest proposition. For in the spirit of truth there is no falsehood, but in a lying spirit there are a thousand and five open ways by which he may deceive through one hidden falsehood. For this reason Christ prohibited the demoniacs, and Paul prohibited the Pythoness, from the testimony of truth which they were professing. Chrysostom confirms this doctrine on Matthew 19.
By this indication the revelations of Catherine of Racconigi, which John Francis Pico recounts, are proved true, as are those of Margaret of Ravenna in Jerome Rubeus, those of Blessed Aloysius Bertrand of our Society, and those of Father Francis Borgia, as Thomas Bozio reports from his life.
[margin: Gerson on absolute prophecy; Chrysostom on Matthew; John Francis Pico, in the life of Catherine of Racconigi; Jerome Rubeus, History of Ravenna, year 1510, on Margaret of Ravenna; Thomas Bozio, On the Signs of the Church, book 6, chapter 2, on Aloysius Bertrand and Francis Borgia]
From this also are proved divine the revelations of that Joan, the virgin of Lorraine, who was called by the French La Pucelle, who restored Charles VII, king of the Franks, to the kingdom from which he had been thrown down by English arms around the year 1428. The English, often overcome and routed by her, later captured her alive in battle and, with equal envy, cruelty, calumny, and injustice, burned her in deadly flames as though she were a sorceress. But afterward, in the year 1456, Pope Callixtus, the third Roman Pontiff of that name, delegated the knowledge of the cause to John, archbishop of Reims, and William of Paris. After hearing countless witnesses, greater than all exception, concerning Joan’s innocence, modesty, chastity, and religion, they declared her innocence and the injustice of the sentence against her. Papyrius Masson, born in Paris, testifies that the acts of the judgment are preserved at Paris among the Victorine canons regular near Belleforestus in the Life of Charles VII. Not only French writers favor her innocence, whom the British reject as suspect, but also foreigners, Italians and Greeks; and also the Belgian Meyer, otherwise not very favorable to the French.
Philip of Bergamo says that two of Joan’s unjust judges were still living then, were cited, lawfully convicted, condemned, and burned; and that the bones of two other judges who had died were dug up and likewise burned. He says that it was ordered that a church be built at Rouen, where the virgin had been burned, and that from the remaining goods of the aforesaid men, which had been confiscated by sentence, a daily sacrifice be instituted there for the honor of God and the propitiation of the dead woman. Thus the honor undeservedly taken from her was at last restored by pontifical judgment scarcely twenty years after her death.
Therefore Polydore Vergil, though a pensioner of the English, acted prudently when he did not dare to condemn Joan in book 23 of his History of England, but left the matter so ambiguous that he rather favors her innocence. Whoever wishes to run through the judicial acts should read Belleforestus from folio 387, where he reports the sentence of the delegated judges at folio 393.
[margin: Joan of Arc; Pope Callixtus III; Papyrius Masson; Belleforestus, life of Charles VII, folio 345, and folio 393 on the delegated judges; Thomas Bozio, On the Signs of the Church, book 8, final chapter; Philip of Bergamo, On Famous Women, chapter 157; Polydore Vergil; Meyer, Annals of Flanders, book 15]
By this touchstone of truth are detected light and fictitious revelations: formerly those of the Montanists; in more recent memory, those of John Sage of Bethys and Brother John of Rupescissa; and in our own time those of the Portuguese nun who is perhaps still alive, and of Francisco de la Cruz in Peru. Therefore, in my judgment, some persons have tried in vain to defend the revelations of Jerome Savonarola of Ferrara, which were condemned by apostolic judgment. How many things did he predict about the reformation of the Church, the conversion of the Turks and Moors, and the happiness of the Florentines, things which were about to be fulfilled soon and which many standing by would see before they died? He added, in his Compendium of Revelations, that these were absolute and unchangeable prophecies. Yet almost none of these things has happened up to now, and almost all things contrary to them have happened within nearly a hundred years.
Therefore it was because of party zeal, hatred of Alexander VI, and hatred of the Medici that some historians of little sobriety undertook a defense of Savonarola or called the justice of his condemnation into doubt. Certainly, as the outcome refutes his prophecies, so also his contumacy toward the prefect of his own order, his contempt of pontifical excommunication, which, even if openly unjust, must nevertheless be feared, and other similar actions are grave and urgent arguments of diabolic illusion and of the obstinacy which usually follows arrogance. Read Raphael Volaterranus, whose truthfulness is clear from the very things which Francis Guicciardini, although leaning toward the defense of Savonarola, committed to memory. Do not those act more piously and heartily who take up literary arms and fight with the pen for the judgment of the Apostolic See rather than for the reputation of a private man? Nor does this harm that most illustrious order, which shines like a star in this heaven of the militant Church, any more than Lucifer’s faction harms the choirs of angels or the impious Judas harms the apostolic company.
[margin: Montanists; John Sage of Bethys; John of Rupescissa; the Portuguese nun; Francisco de la Cruz; Savonarola, with Sabellicus, Ennead 10, book 9, Arnoldus Ferronus, French History, book 2, and others; Raphael Volaterranus, at the end of his Geography; Francis Guicciardini, book 3 of Italian affairs; Pedro de Ribadeneyra, On Tribulation, book 2, chapter 20]
And lest heretics boast that they are immune from these illusions: what, I ask, is that manuscript book of revelations by the Calvinist Jacob Brocard, addressed to Elizabeth, queen of England, and his preface on Genesis and some other little works of the same man, except a kind of jumble of demonic revelations, the chief of which, about the year 1580, time has now convicted of falsehood? On the other side, Nicholas Sander prudently proved from subsequent truth of events that the prophecies of the holy English virgin Elizabeth Barton were from God, in book 1 of On the English Schism. Certainly, the holiness of her life, the laurel of martyrdom, and the testimony of most illustrious fellow martyrs, Fisher and More, leave no room for doubt.
How unlike her was another Elizabeth born in the same island, concerning whose fraudulent prophecy Sander writes thus:
The heretics, a restless and turbulent race of people, devised an unheard-of stratagem to stir the London populace, which was then very given to sedition and heresy. They induced a certain girl, eighteen years old, corrupted by heresy and by reward, into this wicked simulation: that she should allow herself to be enclosed for a time in a hidden space between two walls in a corner of a certain house, and that through a tube fitted for this purpose she should utter those words which the craftsmen of that trick suggested to her. The girl’s name was Elizabeth Croft; the author of the deceit was a certain Drake.
Thus instructed and placed in a position suited for fraud, she continually uttered marvelous voices from her cave, and so sonorous that she could be heard through all the neighboring streets. Citizens ran in from all sides, asked what it was, and wondered; they shouted that the voices were not of a mortal human being but of an angel. This spirit threatened misery, calamities, and all evils to the city and state if they admitted marriage with the Spaniard or communion with the Roman Pope. It also poured out many things against the holy sacrifice and the rest of the Catholic faith as if they were oracles. Some of the conspirators purposely inserted themselves among the crowds standing by, and interpreted the prophetic and more obscure sentences of this spirit toward the overthrow of religion and the stirring of sedition. But the magistrate came to restrain the multitude and to discover what was truly being contrived. The fraud appeared with great difficulty; but at last, when a plan was made to dig through the wall and the nearby partitions from which the voices were thought to be returned, the miserable girl came forth. Examined about by whose persuasion and plan she had done this, she at once confessed that she had been induced to that wickedness by certain seditious sectarians, and especially by the one whom we named, Drake.
Thus he writes in book 2. What need is there to mention the pseudo-prophecies of Muenzer, Luther, and the like?
[margin: Jacob Brocard; Nicholas Sander, On the Anglican Schism, book 1, on Elizabeth Barton and Elizabeth Croft]
Finally, judgment must also be formed from the manner of the revelation, when something evil is found in it, such as something shameful, scandalous, etc. But when none of the aforesaid things is present, nor any evil manner, the matter remains altogether full of danger, even if many things consonant with true faith and solid virtues are present. For there has not usually been one single or certain mode of true revelations, nor is one more certain or more customary than another. Blessed Angela of Foligno writes that these spiritual illuminations and revelations used to happen to her in one way at one time, and in another way at another: “so that there is always newness there, and this is wholly indescribable. For revelations and visions are of one mode at one time and another at another.” Thus she writes at the end of chapter 56. In the whole work you will find that she describes diverse modes which she experienced, especially two remarkable ones by which Christ the Lord was accustomed to exhibit himself as present to her soul, in chapter 26.
Just as the preceding species is true, so this one is false. Therefore I placed it before conjectation, which is, as it were, mixed.