Apparition

APPARITION. - A supernatural and sensory manifestation by which a spiritual or corporeal object makes itself present to the external or internal senses. The apparition is correlative to the vision (v.), and often the two terms are used interchangeably. St. Augustine (Contra Adimantum, last chapter: PL 42, 171; De Genesi ad Litteram, XII, 6 ff.; PL 34, 458 ff.) distinguishes visions into corporeal, imaginative and intellectual: only to the visions of the first two categories does the apparition properly correspond. A phenomenon of the sensory order, the apparition is predominantly a manifestation of the visual order. Touch is also involved in the apparition, insofar as it serves to check and to reinforce the objectivity of the manifestations reported by sight. And since sight and touch are the two senses that most directly report objective reality, in the apparition there is produced what the moderns call the "feeling of presence." One who has an apparition, that is, is convinced of being in immediate contact with the object that has manifested itself to him, and not of undergoing a more or less distant influence from it or of finding himself merely before an image, a reproduction of it. According to what the great mystics who have experienced it report, for example St. Teresa (Vita, 28), this feeling of presence belongs also to the imaginative apparitions and constitutes precisely their difference with respect to the pure representations of the imagination.

By reason of the different authority by which they are attested and therefore the different faith they merit, apparitions are distinguished into biblical and extra-biblical. The former are guaranteed by the authority of God himself, the principal author of Sacred Scripture, and therefore must be believed with full and certain faith. The others, on the other hand, rest on documents or on ordinary testimonies; and therefore they must be given that faith which the documents or testimonies merit.

The biblical apparitions are brought about by God (v. ANGELO DI JAMNIEH; TROFANIA) or by the angels; the angel Raphael appears to Tobit and accompanies him on the journey (Tob. 5, 5-12, 22); Gabriel appears to Zechariah (Lk. 1, 8-22), and to Mary (Lk. 1, 26-38); an angel appears several times to St. Joseph (Mt. 1, 20; 2, 13); the angels announce to the shepherds the birth of Jesus (Lk. 2, 8-15); an angel comforts Jesus in the agony of Gethsemane (Lk. 22, 43); an angel announces to the pious women the resurrection of Jesus (Mt. 28, 2-5); an angel appears to the centurion Cornelius (Acts 10, 3), etc. Others are brought about by the dead, whether risen or not: to Judas Maccabeus appeared Onias and Jeremiah (II Macc. 15, 11-16); to the apostles on Tabor appeared Moses (Mt. 17, 3); after the resurrection of Jesus, many of the dead came out of their tombs and appeared to many persons in Jerusalem (Mt. 27, 53); the risen Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene (Mk. 16, 9), then to St. Peter (Lk. 24, 33), to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Lk. 24, 15), to the apostles gathered in the upper room (Mk. 16, 14; Mt. 28, 17; Jn. 20, 19), to Saul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9, 3-7), etc.

The biblical apparitions are for the most part narrated as perceived by the external senses; there is no lack, however, of apparitions to the internal senses or imaginative ones, to which are connected the dreams in which the divine will is revealed (II Macc. 15, 11; Mt. 1, 20; 2, 13).

After revelation was closed with the end of the apostolic age, the Lord or the Virgin, the angels or the demons or the saints often appeared, as ancient and recent history and hagiography attest. Well known to all are the apparitions of Paray-le-Monial, of Lourdes, of La Salette, of Fatima. The lives of the saints, moreover, for example of St. Teresa, of St. Margaret Mary, of the Curé of Ars, of St. Gemma Galgani, abundantly report the many apparitions had by these privileged souls. In the Middle Ages there was a whole flowering of eucharistic apparitions, within the framework of many other miracles that had the Eucharist as their center (cf. P. Browe, Die eucharistischen Wunder des Mittelalters, Breslau 1938).

The Catholic liturgy has consecrated the memory of some of these apparitions with the institution of special feasts: thus on 11 February it celebrates the apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes; on 8 May the apparition of St. Michael on Mount Gargano. The origin of other feasts is connected with some apparition, as for example the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes (11 February); of Our Lady of Mercy (24 September); of the Sacred Heart, etc. With the recognition they have received from the Church, such apparitions impose themselves in a particular way on the belief of the faithful: not as articles of faith, but as historical facts of whose authenticity, given the extreme prudence of the Church in admitting them, one cannot reasonably doubt.

As for the apparitions on which the Church has expressed no judgment, any assessment must be subordinated to certain criteria: a historical criterion (whether, through the study of the documents and testimonies, the alleged apparition proves really to have occurred), a psychological criterion (whether, by means of the examination of the intellectual, moral and psychic conditions of the subject, hallucination [v.] is excluded or not), a theological criterion (whether the alleged apparition is due to divine intervention or to occult forces of nature or to diabolical ones [v. SPIRITISMO]).

One who has apparitions is convinced of being in direct contact with the person who appears to him. But is the reality that manifests itself to the seer the objective truth of the person himself who makes himself present in the apparition, or is it something different, however sensory and therefore real?

The question is, on some points, a matter of discussion among theologians. It is agreed that in theophanies it is not the essence of God that enters into relation with the senses of man; this is impossible because of the absolute spirituality of God, who therefore manifests himself through some instrument. Analogously, one thinks it is so for the apparitions of the angels, as well as for those of the saints or of the dead, until these have taken up their bodies again. The discussion, therefore, is limited to the humanity of Jesus, whether in the apparitions after the ascension into heaven he manifested himself in his corporeal reality; and to the Most Holy Virgin, whose body is already glorious in heaven.

It is agreed in holding that to the apostle Paul Jesus appeared with his real body (I Cor. 9, 1), "corporaliter praesente" and not merely "aliqualiter apparente" (St. Thomas, Sum. Theol., 3ª, 9, 57, a. 6 ad 3). Otherwise the apostle could not, from such apparitions, prove the truth of the resurrection (I Cor. 15, 4-13).

For the other apparitions, opinions differ. It is commonly admitted by theologians that Jesus can leave heaven to make himself visible on earth in the reality of his body. The Angelic Doctor therefore writes: "Dignitati mansionis caelestis non derogat si ex aliqua dispensatione Christus quandoque corporaliter ad terram descendat" (ibid.). Beyond this possibility, some theologians, such as Scotus and the Scotists, Suárez and others, starting from the premise that the multilocation of bodies (v. BILOCAZIONE) is not repugnant, hold that, while remaining in heaven, the Lord can at the same time be locally present on earth with his body and therefore make himself visible. For St. Thomas and the Thomists, on the other hand, the hypothesis of the multilocation of the body entails an intrinsic repugnance: "Ponere quod aliquod corpus sit localiter in hoc loco et tamen sit in alio loco, est ponere contradictoria simul" (Quodlib. 3, a. 2). They therefore explain the apparitions of the Lord either by means of the intervention of some physical element that in a sensory and real form represents the body of the Savior, or by an actual modification, produced, through divine action, in the visual organ of the seer. Accordingly, treating of the eucharistic apparitions, that is, when in the sacrament "apparet miraculose caro vel puer," the Angelic Doctor does not hesitate to write that in them "non videtur propria species Christi, sed species miraculosa formata vel in oculis intuentium vel etiam in ipsis sacramentalibus dimensionibus." And the reason is evident: "Corpus Christi non potest in propria specie videri nisi in uno loco" (Sum. Theol., 3ª, q. 76, a. 8, ad 2).

Similarly to those of the Lord, the apparitions of the Virgin are also explained. However, the fact that in the various apparitions the Madonna appears now in one form and now in another seems to confirm that it is not her true body that manifests itself, but only a sensible form that represents it.

Francesco Carpino