Note 145 — Chapter IV · CATHERINE’S LIFE FROM 1473 TO 1506 AND ITS MAIN CHANGES AND GROWTH

Ibid. p. 113b. I take these two motives alone to have operated throughout such actions of hers during this last period. The additional motive attributed to her (Ibid. pp. 129c, 130a, and 134a), where she is represented as applying a lighted candle or live coal to her bare arm, for the purpose of testing whether her interior spiritual fire or this exterior material one is the greater, is entirely unlike Catherine’s spirit. It belongs to the demonstrably legendary and disfiguring interpretations which shall be studied further on. The sentence on p. 134a, in which she herself is made to declare this motive, is most certainly a worthless gloss.