The Revelations of Blessed Angela — the problem of authorship of visions

Abstract

The book "Revelations of Blessed Angela" ("The Phenomenon of the gifts of the Almighty sent down in the Spirit of Blessed Mother Angela of Foligno", hereinafter — "Revelations...") as a historical source attracts very little attention in Russian literature, and in Western literature all research is focused around the religious component of revelations, the cult of the personality of God. Angela and the questions of finding the unknown and mystical in her visions. For some, bl. Angela is a real saint, for others she is a woman who suffered from hysteria, and all her visions are the fruit of a sick fantasy.The work analyzed the first two parts of the book "Revelations..." by bl. Angela, which are key to understanding the teaching. The experience described in the chapters on visions is closely related to the problem of authorship. Solving the issue of authorship may provide an opportunity to take a fresh look at historical time and similar works. It is proposed to consider the book as evidence of an attempt to create a cult of the holy new formation, which turned out to be very successful: under the developed doctrine of salvation, the life of the saint was compiled, who directly accepted divine revelations, fully confirming the views of certain groups of spirituals in the Franciscan order.

Keywords

• religious mysticism
• mystical and religious experience
• spirituals
• xiv century
• angela of foligno