The figurativeness of the mystical experience in Angela of Foligno

This paper explores the figurativeness of the language of the mystical experiences in the texts of Angela of Foligno. For this purpose, the prism of literary interpretation and analysis is utilised. The aim of this article is to define the main signs and specificities of Angela’s narration. The reflection on this theme also includes the research of possible similarities with other Christian mystical witnesses (Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross).

Corpus fractum

Recent work on political theology – most notably that of J. Kameron Carter – has turned to eucharistic theology and its notion of the ‘corpus mysticum’ to explain the political theology undergirding nationalism, white supremacy, and fascism. This article builds on this approach to articulate an anti-fascist sacramental theology through a reading of Georges Bataille’s Summa Atheologica. Against fascism’s fantasy of a pure and purifying sovereign body that can secure the redemption of the threatened body of the nation, Bataille’s Summa risked a ‘new theology’ of the irremediably lacerated body of Christ which might ground a non-sovereign community of fragmentation, dispossession, and vulnerability. By rethinking the Summa’s relationship to one of its main influences – the eucharistic theology of St Angela of Foligno – I argue that it is possible to rethink sacramental theology in a Bataillean key, against political theology and its eucharistic structure.

Lev Karsavin

A historian of Western Medieval history by training and a religious philosopher by vocation, Lev Platonovich Karsavin (1882–1951) explored the interconnectedness of history and religion throughout his life. He developed his ideas focusing on the notions of theophany and theosis, where the divine revealed itself in history and history moved towards divinization. Karsavin’s writings reflected influences of such diverse thinkers as Nicolas of Cusa, Bonaventure and Angela of Foligno, or Vladimir Soloviev and Oswald Spengler. Building upon their ideas, Karsavin created an original philosophy of personalism, which was based on the concept of ‘all-unity’. Central to it was the idea of the ‘person’ both as an individual and a collective entity. This chapter examines Karsavin’s life and thought, first in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg, through the experiences during the Russian Revolution, during his exile in Berlin, Paris, and Kaunas, and finally to his incarceration in Stalin’s Gulag camp where he was sent after the end of the Second World War and where he perished. It pays close attention to a number of crucial points of Karsavin’s intellectual odyssey including the impact of the revolution on Karsavin’s thought, the development of his concept of ‘all-unity’, his historiosophy, his engagement with ecumenism as well as his involvement with Eurasianism. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the rediscovery of Karsavin’s philosophical legacy in post-Soviet Russia.

The doctrine of love and the stage of the divine cognition, according to the community of the third order of St. Francis of Foligno, at the turn of XIII-XIV centuries

The article presents an analysis of one of the parts of the book of Revelations of blessed Angela of Foligno, which contains the Instructiones (message) to members of the community of the third order of St. Francis. The doctrine proposes to consider the relationship with God as an object/subject of love, to which feelings and emotions are directed. The “presence of the divine Beloved” is “cognition” and can respond by generating sensations of its material presence. The author of the doctrine has practical recommendations (stages of knowledge): how to achieve junction with the divine, what steps should be taken to change the way of life. It is concluded that there was a developed teaching among the members of the community, and its medical aspect is considered.

Mistyka relacyjna i metafizyczna w Księdze św. Anieli z Foligno

The article discusses the coexistence of two forms of Christian mysticism – metaphysical and relational – in The Book of Angela of Foligno. The metaphysical type, associated with the Neoplatonic philosophy, is probably inspired by The Soul’s Journey Into God by Saint Bonaventure who describes the experience of God as viewing existence or being (esse). The relational type is focused on the human and personal aspect of Jesus and the experience of love in the I-You relationship. While in many medieval mystics there is only one type of mysticism (e.g. metaphysical in Eckhart, relational in Bernard of Clairvaux), in Angela there is an interesting coexistence of both these types of experience of God.