Saint Catherine of Genoa
Saint Catherine of Genoa
Saint Catherine of Genoa
Catherine of Genoa
Author(s): Anna Antonopoulos
Source: Hypatia, Vol. 6, No. 3, Feminism and the Body (Autumn, 1991), pp. 185-207
Published by: Indiana University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3809847
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Writingthe MysticBody:Sexualityand
Textualityin the ecriture-feminine
of
SaintCatherineof Genoa
ANNA ANTONOPOULOS
I. Introduction
Catherineof Genoa lived and died at the turn of the fifteenth century.At
the time when men were burning women at the stake for witchcraft, the
testimony of Catherine'slife story is that of a woman burningherself up for
God. Struckby what is referredto as a "supernatural malady,"and showingno
other, visible of
signs illness, Catherine lay spent and consumed,cauterizedto
the bone by a fireof which therewasno outwardsign. Herbody,retrievedfrom
the tomb eight months afterher death, was found "yellowas saffron"except
aroundthe heart, "wherethe skin was red, a sign of the love it had borne"
(Catherine 1979, 147).
Charged with its own peculiar blend of awe and fear, the image of the
burningwoman characteristicof medieval witch burningsand female perse-
cutionsexpressesthe idea of the femalebodyas locusof demonicpower.In the
worksof Catherineof Genoa, however,the imageof fire is used to expressthe
opposite-that is, the burningfemalebody as locus of the divine. Catherine's
life and especially her death find expression in the text of a "spiritual
psychology"passeddown to us in the formof two works,Purgatory andPurgation
andTheSpiritualDialogue.Transcribedby friendsand followers,this text of self
standsout as the living testimonyof consummationin God, as a woman'sbody
becomesthe symbolicpyreof transcendenceand union with the divine.
In the context of a feminist critique of medieval asceticism as world
rejection, the veneration of Catherine'speculiarannihilation could be con-
struedas the discursivefoil for the abominationand obliterationof the female
body by a dualistic and misogynousreligious tradition. According to this
argument,the apparentloss of subjecthoodand dissolutionof the mind/body,
subject/objectoppositions characteristicof the mystical experience hold a
peculiarappealfor women, whose verysubjecthood(both textual and sexual)
has been denied and repressed.However,my argumentis different.In keeping
with a current move to refute the standardpicture of medieval women as
constrainedon every side by a misogynythat they internalizedas self-hatred
or masochism, I want to locate Catherine's image-laden death within a
theoreticalframeworkthat looksuponmedievalasceticismas "thepossibilities
providedby fleshliness"andthe body,ratherthan a flightfromit (Bynum1987,
6). For Catherine was not the only one in her time to experience transcen-
dence in and throughbodily metaphors.A characteristicspiritualityemerged
in the Middle Ages in which bodily manipulationand its symbolismbecame
a standardpart of what Foucaultcalls a religious "technologyof the flesh"
(Foucault 1980, 121), one in which the uses of the flesh, its pleasuresand
displeasures,were aimedat communionwith and fulfillmentin God.1Indeed,
Anna Antonopoulos 187
God
The Soul
The Body
other words,the Body may be just "an animal body, without reason,power,
will or memory"(SD 125), but the Soul cannot live in the worldwithout it.
In addition to the terrestrialnature of its needs and its characteristicof
being-at-homein the world,the Bodyin these texts has one other character-
istic that distinguishes it from the Soul, what Catherine often calls an
"instinct"for terrestrialjoys. This so-called instinct is distinguishablefrom
terrestrial"needs"and "appetites."Catherinewrites:"The Body'sneeds ...
can be satisfied but its appetites are constantly renewed because . . . the
capacityof the Bodyis forfinite things"(SD 103). In this regard,the "instinct"
for terrestrialjoys in the Body is comparableto the "instinct"for God in the
Soul, except that whereasthe formeris an "instinct"forthingsfinite, the latter
is one for things infinite (SD 139). It is ultimatelythe conflict between these
two "instinctual"tendenciesthat leadsthe self'sdualisticmode of being in the
world. In the face of the ensuing strugglebetween these two modes of being
in the world,the resolutionthat Catherinegives to this conflict is in the form
of a transcendenceof binarismaltogether.The inscriptionof love upon the
self'sbeing in God becomesthe carnalexpressionthat Catherinegives to her
mystic body.Her body'smetamorphosisthroughfire and flamesbecomes the
avatarof her transcendenceas she moves fromthe dualisticmode of being in
the worldto the transcendentalbeing in God.
Self-Love
begins with loving your body which you are to maintain alive and healthy
underpain of sin" (SD 112).
However,if throughself-love harmonyis achieved, it is achieved at a cost.
And the cost is that of the atemporalorder,which is just as much a partof the
self in Catherine'spsychologyas is the temporalone. In this respect,the second
form of the self's being in the world must be understoodas a step in the
resolutionof that conflict/tensionin the ultimateformof its being in God. But
until that resolutionis achieved,this secondbeing in the world,which appears
in the formof an asceticismand brutalworld-rejection,remainsan extremely
negative portrayalof life on earth-one that, were it not constructedas part
of a largermysticalpsychologyof the self, would stand out as the singly most
undesirablestate (of being in the world) imaginable,and one, moreover,that
has not exactly been sparedthe lot of womankindunderpatriarchy-that of
self-hate.
Self-Hate
Trancendence
Transcendence,Erotomania,and Femininity
"The mystic will tortureher flesh to have the right to claim it; reducingit to
abjection,she exalts it as the instrumentof salvation"(Beauvoir1965, 635).
Thus what the majorityof female mystics,Saint Teresa's"minorsisters,"give
us is "an essentiallyfeminine vision of the world and of salvation."For,she
goes on, "it is not a transcendencethat they seek;it is the redemptionof their
femininity"(Beauvoir1965, 634).
But what about Catherine of Genoa? In Catherine'smysticalerotomania,
transcendenceand femininity are united in death itself. Sharing with Saint
Teresaof Avila and others in the imageryof God'sembraceof fire and flame,
Catherine'sbody becomes the very text of this consummation.Unlike the
stigmatathat appearon mystics'bodiesas the signsof a divine inscription,the
annihilation of her body'slife on earth becomesboth the enactment and the
vehicle of liberation.Thus what meansdo we have fordecidingwhetherit was
transcendenceshe was seeking or the redemptionof her femininity?Are we
to reject Catherine'spsychologyas the neuroticexpressionof woman'sambig-
uous relation to her body,or are we to accept it? And if so, as what?What is
the concept of woman and of the body that her life and work,and especially
her death, have to offerus?
I would like to take the time to suggestsome possibilities.Forwe need not
stay with Beauvoir'sdesexualizationof transcendencenor with Daly's neu-
roticizationof femininity.Eachof these positionsin its own wayparadoxically
erasesand obliteratesboth the political and the historicalsignificanceof the
femalemysticalexperience.While certainlyno othersareknown to have been
consumed unto death by fire,10an adequate political discourse about
Catherine's life and death would move beyond the sexual binarism of a
redemptionof femininity.In so doing it wouldbringnew insightsto the rather
extensive numberof mundanecases of medievalfemale "erotomania."
Pathologyor Protest?
In herspiritualpsychology,Catherinereiteratesthemesof mind-bodydialogue,
self-love and self-hate,and fulfillmentin God that typify medieval women's
"characteristic"spiritualityand its discourse.Althoughperhapsalone in givingit
such systematicvoice, her discourseis also representativeof the (Neoplatonic)
spiritualtraditionof her times.However,what is distinctiveaboutCatherineis
the unusualcircumstances of herdeathanditspositionin the particulardiscursive
context of her work.In the domesticcontext,this makesit difficultto reasonas
an effective meansof takingcontrol. It is here that the paradigmof writingthe
body expressedin Catherine'secriture-femininesuggestsnew possibilitiesfor
developinga theoreticaldiscourseaboutfemalemysticism.Forit addressesthe
eroticdimensionof women'sspiritualityasnot only a meansof controlbut also
as an experience.16In this way it rescuesthe eroticizationof the female body
froma presumedposition of ambivalenceandcontextualizeswomen'smystical
experiencehistoricallyand politicallywithin a new mechanismof subversion
and protest.
Insofaras Catherine'smysticism(her life, her works,and her death) renders
the imageof bodily fire into the distinctive motif of the desirefor consumma-
tion in God, the particularpathologyof protestthat it expressesextends into
the articulation of female desire itself. Thus her experience suggests the
existence of a "mechanism"through which changes were rung upon the
possibilitiesprovidedbythe bodyin termsof sexualaswell asreligiousconstraints.
If we considerthe conflictbetweenself-loveand self-hateto which Catherine's
mysticalpsychologygives voice, we can detect how this mechanismbecomes
inextricablylinked with what Bordocalls "dilemmasconcerning the manage-
ment of desire"(Bordo 1990b, 105).
The female mysticalexperience of the eroticizedbody on fire unfolds for
Catherinein the context of an Italianclimateof reformin which issuesof piety
become inextricablylinked with domesticity and sexuality.As theologians
werebusyexpandingthe notions of Christianroleswithin society and making
a religiousplace for the laity, Catherine, along with other medieval women,
could pursuea religiouslife without ever leaving home (Bynum 1987, 222).
In this way women could find in spiritualitythe means to affect not only
religiousbut also domesticand sexual conditions of constraint(Bynum 1987,
237-39). Thus for women of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries "lay
spirituality"became the standardmeans of escapingmaritalconditions they
did not desire. The number of marriedsaints suggeststhat it was not the
200 Hypatia
NOTES
"payattention to what women said and did, avoidingthe assumptionthat they simply
internalizedthe rhetoricof theologians,confessors,or husbands"(Bynum1987, 29).
7. By 1500 the modelof the femalesaint,expressedboth in popularvenerationand
in officialcanonization,wasthe mirrorimageof society'snotion of the witch, as each was
thought to be "possessed"be it by God or the Devil (Bynum 1987, 23). Accordingto
Bynum, the similarityof witch and saint in the eyes of the theologians and male
hagiographers suggeststhat the saintwasas threateningas the witchto clericalauthorities
(Bynum 1987, 23). In this context the veneration of woman can be interpretedas
evidence of a clericaltraditionthat looks upon womanas a threateningbeing-a being
whosesignificanceis to be obliterated.
8. TorilMoi theorizesthe relationof writingandvoice in theoriesof ecriture-feminine.
She arguesthat the speakingwomanis her voice by way of corporealsignificationthat
becomesthe "enactmentof liberation"ratherthan its merevehicle (Moi 1985, 114, 125).
9. CarolineBynumdiscussesthe significancefor feministresearchof the fact that
most of our informationon late medievalwomen'sreligiositycomes frommale biogra-
phersand chroniclersin termsof its effect on our understandingof the significanceof
late medievalwomen'spiety and religiousexperience(Bynum1987, 28ff.).
10. The problematicnatureof such a simple,ahistoricalcelebrationand the dangers
of fallingwithin the "essentialisttrap"have been amplydemonstratedby Bordo(1989),
Moi (1985), and Dallery(1989).
11. The closest to have come to this is Saint Teresaof Avila, whose vision of the
flamingheart(quotedin Irigaray1985a,201, n. 2), togetherwith SaintJohnof the Cross
(TheLivingFlameof Love)describesthe mystic'slove of God in imagesof fireandflames.
12. The notion of ecriture-fiminine
as the submergedtext of femalesubjectivityand
sexuality is developed primarilyby Luce Irigaray(1981, 1985b) and Helene Cixous
(CixouxandClement 1988) as "aspeechanalogousto the femalebody,that wouldspeak
the femalebodydirectly"(Gallop 1988,93). It takesas its inspirationthe synechdochical
connection betweenthe vulvulareconomyof the femalegenitaliaand the speakinglips,
therebydisplacingnot only the phallomorphiceconomy of male genitaliabut also its
concomitantbinarismbetweenthe clitoris(as supposedsite of femaleautoeroticism)and
the female vagina (site of reproductivesexuality).As an alternativeto binarythought
and a figurativereconceptualizationof the femalebody,women'sspeakinglips/ecriture-
femininemetonymicallysuggestplurality,multiplicity,and the dissolutionof bounds.
13. In her essay "La mysterique,"in whose neologistic title are fused the female
mystic/hysteric/mystery, LuceIrigaray(1985a) presentsa powerfulargumentfor looking
uponthe mystic'sself-abasementand surrender, her utterabjectionbeforethe divine as
partand parcelof the femininecondition in which she wasbroughtup (Moi 1985, 137).
Herargumentis that this perspectiveallowsfemininityto discoveritselfpreciselythrough
the deepestacceptanceof patriarchalsubjection.Put differently,femalemysticism,like
femalehysteria,offerswomana real, if limited,possibilityof discoveringaspectsof her
pleasurethat cannot be subsumedundera malelibidinaleconomybut arespecificto her
own libidinaldrives. Irigaray'sexampledoes not extend beyond the instance of Saint
Teresa'svision of the flamingheart (Irigaray1985a,201, n. 2). While a discourseon the
bodyis presentin the workofTeresaof Avila(Allen 1987)thatcontrastswith the classical
Platonic/Augustinian/Cartesian binaryprinciples,that discourseis not elaboratedby
Irigaraywithin the frameworkof a specificallymysticalpsychology.Consequently,no
reallyhistoricalinstanceof writingthe mysticbodyhas been presentedin keepingwith
Irigaray's perspective.
Anna Antonopoulos 205
REFERENCES