Stigmata

STIGMATA. - From the Greek στίγμα, meaning "brand, mark"; in Christian hagiography and mysticism, they are the marks of the wounds of Jesus impressed upon the body of a servant of God.

1. NOTIONS

Στίγματα were the brands customarily impressed with a red-hot iron, among the Greeks and Romans, upon fugitive slaves, and in the East upon all slaves, sometimes upon soldiers (and in all countries upon livestock), to indicate their owner or master. In the New Testament the term occurs only in Gal. 6:17 (stigmata Domini Iesu in corpore meo porto): St. Paul, with evident reference to the Eastern custom, calls the traces on his body of the sufferings endured for the name of Jesus "stigmata of Jesus," in the sense that these make him resemble his crucified Master and cause him to be recognized as his true slave and soldier.

The stigmata are for the most part external and visible (sometimes they are invisible, but their painful effect is no less perceptible: the most celebrated case among these is that of St. Catherine of Siena, reported by Bl. Raymond of Capua [cf. Benedict XIV, De Servorum Dei beatificatione, lib. V, part 2, ch. 8, nos. 4-8]). The phenomenon occurs for the most part in the hands and the side; but other parts of the body may also be affected (for example, the forehead after the example of the crowning with thorns, the shoulders by analogy with the carrying of the Cross, the back as a reflection of the scourging of Jesus, etc.). Visible stigmatization is ordinarily accompanied by effusion of blood at the surface or in the subcutaneous region, by bleeding wounds, and, when it is deep, by laceration of the tissues. In the case of mere superficial erosions, or of other doubtful marks, it is probably not a matter of stigmata. The phenomenon can be permanent and continuous, or intermittent, that is, limited to certain periods. The wounds and the bleeding can be constant as regards shape and anatomical location, or vary in shape, intensity and extent, and shift from one part of the body to another. Stigmatization can be accompanied by preternatural or simply mysterious phenomena, which are however accessory and independent (for example, ecstasies, clairvoyance, the gift of tongues, reading of hearts, total or partial disappearance of appetite or sleep, etc.). Whenever phenomena of a psychopathic nature are added to the stigmatization, true or apparent, as not infrequently happens especially in female subjects, it falls to the psychiatrist to judge of them beforehand.

II. THE STIGMATA OF ST. FRANCIS

In history there are remembered about 330-350 cases of stigmatized persons (some eighty already raised to the honors of the altars), among whom only about fifty are of the male sex (cf. A. Imbert-Gourbeyre, La stigmatisation, Clermont-Ferrand 1894, where 321 cases are listed). The figure, according to some, would be susceptible of increase; according to others, however, it is exaggerated (cf. P. Debonne, in Etudes carmél., 20 [1936, 11], pp. 22-59), since there are not a few doubtful cases or cases of scant reliability. The first and most important case of stigmatization is that of St. Francis of Assisi, which occurred on La Verna in 1224, two years before his death. The fact of the stigmata of St. Francis is concordantly narrated and described in minute detail by the earliest and most authoritative biographers: Thomas of Celano (eyewitness, cf. De miraculis, II, 5), Julian of Speyer (ca. 1232, cf. Anal. Francisc., t. X, 1, pp. 363 ff.; and he alludes to it also in the rhymed Office, chaps. 12-30, cf. 385), St. Bonaventure. The news was published immediately after the Saint's death by his vicar and successor, Brother Elias, in the Encyclical Letter to the friars: the Elian document (Anal. Francisc., t. X, 1, pp. 525-28). In the so-called parchment of Assisi there appear the names of 16 eyewitnesses who saw the stigmata on the body of St. Francis after death (cf. Misc. Francesc., 15 [1913], p. 131 ff.). Brother Leo, who accompanied the Saint on La Verna, also alludes to it in the parchment of the autograph blessing of St. Francis preserved in the Sacred Convent (Thomas of Eccleston makes known that this disciple loved to recount to the friars the circumstances that accompanied the event, cf. Anal. Francisc., I (1885), p. 245). To these are added the authoritative testimonies of Gregory IX, friend of the Saint (5 Apr. 1237, cf. G. G. Sbaralea, in Bull. Franc., I, Rome 1759, pp. 214 and 211), and of Alexander IV (29 Oct. 1255; ibid., II, ibid. 1762, p. 86), who appeals to the eyewitness texts, among whom, as St. Bonaventure informs us, was the same Pontiff as cardinal (Legenda Maior, chap. 13, 8).

According to these testimonies, one morning around the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, in the hermitage of La Verna the Saint, absorbed in prayer in the contemplation of the Passion of Jesus, he saw a Seraph descend with six wings, among which appeared the likeness of a man with his hands and feet fixed in the form of a cross; when the vision disappeared, there appeared in his hands and feet the marks of the nails as in the image of the Seraph, and in the right side of his chest a broad wound, from which blood often flowed, soaking his garments. On the hands and feet were seen black, round fleshy protrusions in the shape of nails, almost twisted and clinched, on the inner side of the hands and on the upper side of the feet, while their points emerged from the opposite sides (Celano, Vita I, part 2, ch. 3, no. 95 and ch. 9, no. 112; De miraculis, ch. 2, nos. 4-5; St. Bonaventure, Legenda maior, XIII, 3; XV, 2). The marks of the stigmata, although jealously concealed by the Saint, were seen, during his lifetime, by a good number of friars and by other persons worthy of belief, including some cardinals, and at his death by about fifty religious, by St. Clare with her sisters and by many laypeople (Celano, De miraculis, II, 5).

The truth of the fact cannot therefore be called into doubt, nor can its prodigious character; the very futility of the efforts to give it a purely natural explanation is the counterproof of this. Because of the highly exceptional circumstances that accompanied it, among which were the impressiveness of the marks, with deep laceration of the tissues, and their unaltered continuity for more than two years (a large piercing of the side with frequent emission of blood, hands and feet pierced by piercing nails of flesh formed of tendons and nerves twisted together): it is a unique fact in hagiography.

The Church has repeatedly pronounced itself on the truth and the supernatural character of the stigmata of St. Francis, as can be deduced from the testimonies of the popes from Gregory IX and Innocent IV to Pius XI (cf. AAS, 16 [1924], pp. 362-65) and from the feast that is celebrated on 17 September in the universal Church: the Franciscan Order celebrated it from the first half of the 14th century by indult of Benedict XII (1334-42) or already of Benedict XI (1303-1304); Paul V in 1615, at the request of St. Robert Bellarmine, extended the concession to the whole Church: the feast was then made obligatory by Clement IX and raised to a double rite by Clement XIV.

The iconography of the stigmata of St. Francis occupies an important place in the history of art: the first representation with a certain date is the panel by B. Berlinghieri in St. Francis of Pescia from 1235, which served as a model for painters throughout the 13th century. But the true artistic flowering on the subject began in the 16th century, both because of the growing popularity of the miracle and because of the influence of the perfect Giottoesque representation in the frescoes of the basilica of Assisi.

In the liturgy of the Dominican Order, the stigmatization of St. Catherine of Siena is commemorated on April 1, by concession of Benedict XIII (1727) (regarding whose historical reality there were, especially in the 15th century, many lively discussions), just as in the Carmelite Order an analogous feast of the transverberation of St. Teresa is celebrated. For certain other stigmatized saints and blesseds (for example, St. Catherine de' Ricci and Bl. Lucia of Narni, O.P.), a simple mention of it is made in the historical lessons approved for the respective institutes or dioceses. But in most cases the Church has not pronounced on the matter; indeed, as in the case of St. Gemma Galgani, it has expressly stated that it does not express any judgment concerning her stigmatization, which is said to have occurred in 1899 (cf. AAS, 24 [1932], p. 57). It is generally recognized that the stigmata are a very complex phenomenon and therefore must be diligently examined case by case; it is not always easy to establish whether they should be attributed to supernatural intervention. — See pl. XCII.

Arch. Franc. hist., 3 (1910), pp. 393-432 (a confutazione delle conclusioni di J. Merkt); S. Mencherini, Cod. diplom. della Verna e delle sacre s. di s. Franc., Firenze 1924; V. Facchinetti, Le s. di s. Franc. d'A., Milano 1924 (con 75 illustraz. artist. delle s.; M. Faloci Pulignani, Le più antiche testimon. sulla verità delle s. di s. Franc., in S. Franc. d'A., 4 (1924), pp. 192-96; A. Gemelli, Le affermata, della scienza intorno alle s. di s. Franc., in Studi francese., nuova serie, 10 (1924), pp. 368-404; W. Lampen, La liturgia delle sacre s., ibid., pp. 323-343; P. Nesi, Iconogr. delle s. di s. Franc. nel sec. XIII, ibid., pp. 289-322; J. Felder, Trois témoignages inconnus sur les Stigmates de St François, in Etud. Francisc., 34 (1924), pp. 121-25.

Gaetano Stano

III. MEDICAL STUDY

Among the prodigious phenomena that have blood as their object (tears of blood, haematidrosis, bleeding from cadavers and from objects, persistent fluidity of the blood, etc.) the most important is stigmatization.

External or visible stigmata are true lesions of the soft tissues, not produced by external agents or by diseases, which manifest themselves unpredictably in certain fixed areas, suddenly, and which are preceded or accompanied by very intense physical or moral pains. Sometimes the pain appears instead when the stigmata incomprehensibly disappear. They are ulcers sui generis, circumscribed, of various appearance, shape and dimension: roundish, oval; superficial, deep, perforating; the diameter in the latter may be equal both on the back and in the palm of the hands or in the sole of the feet, or, and almost always, on one side it is several centimetres, while on the other side it is punctiform. From the stigmata there issues a simple oozing of blood or a true haemorrhage; the blood is red, bright, accompanied by serosity; the haemorrhage, as a rule, may be continuous, intermittent, periodic, especially on certain religious recurrences and especially during Passion Week.

The stigmata must not be considered as wounds or as sores, inasmuch as these entities tend to cicatrization by virtue of the normal reparative powers of the tissue affected, but they are special ulcers, without therefore any tendency to healing. All the most suitable dressings and treatments fail to cicatrize them; they undergo no processes of infection or of decomposition, they do not fall into necrosis, they do not emit a bad odour; they remain stationary and unaltered for years and years against every law of nature. They are covered by red-brown crusts, given by the coagulation of the blood.

The stigmata are not the exact reproduction, especially as regards their location, of the wounds of Jesus, which today is known with absolute certainty from the studies of the Holy Shroud (v.); in fact in some stigmatized persons a larger hole is seen on the back of the hand, while in the palm a punctiform lesion is barely discernible. Moreover they do not manifest themselves (and this observation is important for countering the theory of those who hold them to be determined by suggestion) in the location of the wounds of the Crucifix before which the individual prays; in fact until the 17th century Crucifixes had the wound of the side on the right, whereas the stigmata were produced on the left.

In these phenomena the Church is rightly very severe and, only after rigorous studies and controls by physicians and theologians, has pronounced in favour of a very limited number of cases that presented all six characteristics of the stigmata, namely: instantaneousness of appearance, important modification of the tissues, persistence and inalterability despite all therapies, haemorrhages, absence of suppurative events and instantaneous and perfect cicatrization. It must further be remembered that the true stigmata manifest themselves in healthy subjects who practise the most heroic virtues and who usually have special gifts, such as ecstasy, levitation, premonition, etc.

Numerous are the theories admitted by different schools that attempt to remove the supernatural character from the stigmata by seeking to give a scientific explanation of them, bringing into play hysteria, suggestion, psychopathic, metapsychic phenomena, etc. But none of these syntheses withstands objective, rigorously scientific criticism. Charcot maintained that in hysterics suggestion can provoke vasomotor phenomena important enough to reach oedema; the neuropsychiatrists of the Salpêtrière school spoke even of haemorrhagic events. All this was easier, they said, to occur and became more conspicuous during hypnosis or in the state of sleep under the influence of dream thought. Dr. Abadir reports the case of Dr. Osty, formerly director of the Institute of Metapsychics in Paris, who is said to have succeeded in making graphic signs and even raised letters of red colour appear on the arm of a subject whom he himself had suggested. Platonoff said he had obtained in a suggested subject, through a complex of conditioned reflexes, ecchymoses and even vesicles similar to those that occur in burns. Still other authors have thought that the stigmata could be explained naturally by autosuggestion, that is, as the product of the strong impression aroused by thinking and by the vivid representation of wounds in general or by the very fear of a trauma. But this too does not correspond to the truth; as the experience of wars teaches, such lesions have never been seen in soldiers who had been strongly shaken by the direct sight of wounds in their comrades-in-arms; nor in soldiers who, thrown to the ground by the displacement of air from the explosion of a shell, believed they had been struck; nor in combatants who, touched by a "spent" bullet that had merely grazed them, without even having the courage to look at the supposedly injured part, threw themselves to the ground believing themselves gravely wounded; nor has the delay of cicatrization ever been seen, even, in wounded men who, through fear of being immediately sent back to the front, wished not to heal (when naturally such delay was not maintained by themselves).

In 1890 Babinski and subsequently Virchow, while admitting the possibility of some haemorrhagic suffusion due to suggestion, opposed this theory with serious arguments and countered the literature on the subject, which in truth has more historical than scientific value, so uncertain, poorly studied, and often implausible are the facts; in fact all the authors who have wished to verify the various phenomena in experiments based on concentration of thought and on suggestion have been able to demonstrate nothing other than modifications concerning only the functional state and have never observed a true lesion of the tissues. Some author has written that the stigmata depend on mystical neurosis, inasmuch as these patients consider as reality what is instead the result of the hallucinations of their diseased brain, attributing to supernatural phenomena facts that are purely pathological. The differences that exist between the true stigmata and these banal and subjective manifestations are too evident. Other authors have attempted to maintain that the stigmata may depend on the vivid desire for martyrdom, on the craving to suffer like the Redeemer; but if this were so one would have numerous descriptions of such phenomena among the neophytes of Christianity and among the fanatical flagellants of the Middle Ages, something that is instead absolutely lacking. Finally other authors attempted to find a pathogenetic relation and a certain resemblance between the stigmata and certain manifestations that can sometimes be observed in particular diseases. In tabes dorsalis, during the crises of shooting pains, one can observe, albeit very rarely, the formation of small cutaneous haemorrhages, of small petechial eruptions localized to the limbs where the seat of the intensely painful sensations is; in herpes zoster ("St. Anthony's fire") there appear, after strong neuralgic pains, groups of dark-red vesicles that form along the course of a nerve trunk; in disseminated neuropathic gangrene there is the sudden appearance of gangrenous patches in various parts of the body. Experimentally, moreover, Tind obtained, by provoking a violent and prolonged excitation on a sensory nerve, a conspicuous vasodilation (more evident in the mucosae of the region, rare and barely hinted at on the skin), which could also be the seat of small haemorrhages.

All these manifestations, which in truth have nothing to do with the true stigmata, are by now explained by physiopathology: this vasodilatory reaction is not the consequence of a simple reflex (in fact one can have it even without the intervention of the nerve centres, by simply exciting the peripheral segment of a sensory nerve, sectioned above the point excited), but is given by that phenomenon known as "antidromic vasodilator conduction of sensory fibers" (Bayliss), and it is provoked by the histamine that is released by pain at the level of the sensory nerve endings.

It is well known to everyone that strongly passionate states can, for various reasons and in subjects with vascular alterations or blood dyscrasias, produce epistaxis, emotional hemorrhages, cerebral hemorrhages, etc. The pathogenesis of vicarious menstruation is also known, and finally it is known how certain sweats of a red color are due to chromogenic microbes or to chemical processes. All this, however, is far removed from what has been said concerning the stigmata. Prof. Wunderle in fact concludes a very careful study of his by concluding that one can, strictly speaking, admit that in certain morbid forms, in some psychopaths, and even in psychophysiology laboratories, vesicles, reddenings, vasomotor disturbances, small hemorrhages, etc., appear; nevertheless never and in no case have lesions been able to be produced that can be similar to the true stigmata. Furthermore, if the stigmata depended on natural forces they would have appeared in every age, and their description should be found (phenomena so conspicuous and marvelous cannot escape observation) in the medical literature, whereas until the 12th century there was never any mention of stigmata; moreover, even in our own day, given certain circumstances, they should be observed constantly, which, in truth, is not the case.

The "invisible stigmata" consist of piercings and pains localized where the visible manifestations would usually appear; they can precede or follow the external manifestations; sometimes they become visible only after death. The "false stigmata" have given rise to a vast literature on the subject; particularly among hysterics there are very many pseudo-stigmatized persons. Here great prudence and caution are needed, because every hysteric is inclined to simulation, to imposition, to lying, to fraud, to staging, and is most skillful in these attitudes; there exist many documented cases in which these neuropaths, with pieces of glass, with their nails, with nails, produced sores for themselves, which, however, presented characteristics quite different from the true stigmata. Furthermore, subjects have been described who presented ecchymoses without any trauma having provoked them; these are the so-called psychopathic spots, which, however, besides the other divergences from the stigmata, are scattered over the entire surface of the body; only in some rare case (see the subject of Du Prel and of Brown-Sequard) do they assume a symbolic arrangement.

In conclusion, there is reason to hold that the stigmata as natural manifestations have never been either observed or experimentally obtained; on the contrary, those that appear in mystics, in the fullness of their distinctive characters, present themselves, by their extrinsic and intrinsic notes, outside all the laws that regulate physiopathology, and must therefore be considered as phenomena of a preternatural order. - See plate XCII.