Nobility and Annihilation in Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls

Appendix

APPENDIX Following are three texts related to Marguerite Porete’s condemnation. The first is an account of her questioning and censure, followed by the extant articles from the Paris condemnation. The third is an excerpt of the decree Ad nostrum, which condemned both “Free Spirit” and beguine doctrines. Here is the case in question. From the time that Marguerite Porete was suspected of heresy, she refused, remaining in rebellion and insubordination , to take the oath and to respond to the inquisitor about everything pertaining to his office as inquisitor. The inquisitor initiated a process against her anyway, and by the deposition of many witnesses he learned that the said Marguerite had composed a book containing heresies and errors. The book had been publicly condemned as heresy and solemnly burned. . . . The bishop had ordered in an official letter that if she dared again to propagate by word or writing such things as were contained in this book, he would condemn her and give her over to the judgment of the civil court. The inquisitor learned next that she had acknowledged . . . that she still had in her possession, even after the condemnation mentioned above, the said book and other books . . . and that after the condemnation of the book had sent a similar book containing the same errors . . . to the bishop, but also to many other simple persons . . . as if it were good.1 THE PARIS CONDEMNATION The Paris condemnation of Marguerite in 1309 included the following two articles (the first and fifteenth): 1. That the annihilated soul is freed from the virtues and nor is she any longer in the service, because she does not have them as far as their practice is concerned, but the virtues obey according to her good pleasure. 15. That such a soul has no concern for the consolations of God nor for his gifts, and she neither ought nor is able to care, because her total intent is toward God, and otherwise her efforts toward God would be impeded.2 109 AD NOSTRUM 1. That man in the present life can acquire so great and such a degree of perfection that he will be rendered inwardly sinless, and that he will not be able to advance farther in grace; for, as they say, if anyone could always advance , he could become more perfect than Christ. 2. That it is not necessary for man to fast or pray after he has attained such a degree of perfection; because then his sensuality is so perfectly subject to the spirit and to reason that man can freely grant to the body whatever it pleases. 3. That those who are in the aforementioned degree of perfection and in that spirit of liberty are not subject to human obedience, nor are they bound to any precepts of the Church, because as they assert “where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”. (2 Cor. 3:17) 4. That man can so attain final beatitude according to every degree of perfection in the present life, as he will obtain in the blessed life. 5. That any intellectual nature in itself is naturally blessed, and that the soul does not need the light of glory raising it to see God and to enjoy Him beatifically. 6. That it is characteristic of the imperfect man to exercise himself in acts of virtue, and the perfect soul gives off virtues by itself. 7. That a woman’s kiss, since nature does not incline to this, is a mortal sin. But the carnal act, since nature inclines to this, is not a sin, especially when the one exercising it is tempted. 8. That in the elevation of the body of Jesus Christ they ought not to rise nor to show reverence to it, declaring that it would be characteristic of the imperfection in them if from the purity and depth of the contemplations they should descend to such a degree as to think about other things regarding the minister or the sacrament of the Eucharist of the passion of the humanity of Christ . . . We with the approval of the Sacred Council condemn and disapprove completely that sect together with its past errors, restraining more strictly lest anyone in the future hold, approve, or defend them.3 110 Nobility and Annihilation in Marguerite Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls ...