Angels of Light?: Sanctity and the Discernment of Spirits in the Early Modern Period

321 Pages·2012·5.266 MB·English

by  Clare Copeland, Johannes Machielsen, Andrew Colin Gow

Angels of Light?
Studies in Medieval and
Reformation Traditions
Edited by
Andrew Colin Gow
Edmonton, Alberta
In cooperation with
Sylvia Brown, Edmonton, Alberta
Falk Eisermann, Berlin
Berndt Hamm, Erlangen
Johannes Heil, Heidelberg
Susan C. Karant-Nunn, Tucson, Arizona
Martin Kaufhold, Augsburg
Erik Kwakkel, Leiden
Jürgen Miethke, Heidelberg
Christopher Ocker, San Anselmo and Berkeley, California
Founding Editor
Heiko A. Oberman †
VOLUME 164
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/smrt
Angels of Light?
Sanctity and the Discernment of Spirits in the
Early Modern Period
Edited by
Clare Copeland
Jan Machielsen
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2013
Cover illustration: “Diaboli sub figura 2 Monialium fraudulentis Sermonibus, conantur illam
divertere ab incepto vivendi modo,” in Vita ser. virg. S. Maria Magdalenae de Pazzis, Florentinae
ordinis B.V.M. de Monte Carmelo iconibus expressa, Abraham van Diepenbeke (Antwerp, ca. 1670).
Reproduced with permission from the Bibliotheca Carmelitana, Rome.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012952309
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ISSN 1573-4188
ISBN 978-90-04-23369-0 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-23370-6 (e-book)
Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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For
Robin, Lyndal, and Nick

CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ...................................................... ix
Editors’ Acknowledgments ............................................ xi
Notes on Contributors ................................................ xiii
Introduction ............................................................... 1
Clare Copeland & Jan Machielsen
I Angels, Demons, and Everything in Between:
Spiritual Beings in Early Modern Europe ......................... 17
Euan Cameron
II Dangerous Visions: The Experience of Teresa of Avila
and the Teaching of John of the Cross ............................. 53
Colin Thompson
III Participating in the Divine: Visions and Ecstasies
in a Florentine Convent ............................................... 75
Clare Copeland
IV Heretical Saints and Textual Discernment: The Polemical
Origins of the Acta Sanctorum (1643–1940) ....................... 103
Jan Machielsen
V Augustine Baker: Discerning the “Call” and Fashioning
Dead Disciples .......................................................... 143
Victoria Van Hyning
VI A Seventeenth-Century Prophet Confronts His
Failures: Paul Felgenhauer’s Speculum Poenitentiae,
Buß-Spiegel (1625) ...................................................... 169
Leigh T. I. Penman
viii CONTENTS
VII Visions, Dreams, and the Discernment of Prophetic Passions:
Sense and Reason in the Writings of the Cambridge
Platonists and John Beale, 1640–60 ............................... 201
R. J. Scott
VIII Gijsbert Voet and Discretio Spirituum after Descartes .......... 235
Anthony Ossa-Richardson
IX “Incorporeal Substances”: Discerning Angels in Later
Seventeenth-Century England ..................................... 255
Laura Sangha
Afterword: Angels of Light and Images of Sanctity ............ 279
Stuart Clark
Further Reading ....................................................... 305
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1.1 Jean d’Arras. L’Histoire de Melusine. Lyon, ca. 1480 ............. 26
1.2 Girolamo Zanchi. In Jacob Verheiden. Praestantium aliquot
theologorum, qui Rom. antichristum praecipue oppugnarunt
effigies. The Hague, 1602 ............................................ 34
3.1 Abraham van Diepenbeeck, Vita seraphicae virginis S. Mariae
Magdalenae de Pazzis, Florentinae ordinis B.V.M. de Monte
Carmelo iconibus expressa (Antwerp, 1670), image 12 .......... 81
4.1 Frontispiece of the Acta Sanctorum. vol. 1.
Antwerp, 1643. ....................................................... 137
10.1 Orazio Gentileschi. St Francis and an Angel. ca. 1600.
Houston Museum of Fine Arts .................................... 287
10.2 Vincenzo Foppa. Miracle of the False Madonna. ca. 1468.
Fragment of a fresco for the Portinari Chapel, Sant’
Eustorgio Basilica, Milan ........................................... 290
10.3 Filippo Abbiati. St Peter Martyr Unmasks the False Madonnna.
ca. 1700. Quadreria del Duomo, Milan .......................... 292
10.4 Lelio Orsi. The Temptation of St Anthony. ca. 1570s. J. Paul
Getty Museum, Los Angeles ....................................... 296
10.5 Paolo Veronese. St Anthony Tempted by the Devil. 1552–53.
Musée des Beaux Arts, Caen ...................................... 299
10.6 Albrecht Dürer. Temptation of St Anthony.
From the Prayer Book of Maximilian I. Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, Munich .......................................... 301
10.7 Jan Wellens de Cock. The Temptation of St Anthony.
ca. 1510–20. Metropolitan Museum, New York ............... 302