The Mirror of Annihilated Simple Souls, Marguerite Porete
by M.D. Coverley, University of Texas.
Actually it is an hypertext weave which uses as its departure point
the writing The Mirror of Simple Souls as a launchpad into an
examination of several issues. One of which is the persistence of the
written word, throughout the developement of new media .
More relevant perhaps is the Deb Platt`s Mysticism in the World Religions site`s
section of quotations from Marguerite Poretè`s Mirror of Simple Souls

Other Women`s Voices: Marguerite Poretè – excerpts and a brief biographical
sketch.
Also, Bonnie Duncan has 14 chapters and introduction from Ellen. L. Babinsky`s
translation of Marguerite Poretè`s Mirror of Simple Souls in its own section on her homepage.

As you may well remember, about a week ago I posted to this
blog some details about the tragedy of the heresy trial against the young
woman Marguerite Porète, whose fervour, bordering if not breaching into
fanaticism (are we in any position to know the type of character her passion
had? I doubt it.), and her endeavour to let the voice speaking to, in and from
her be heard in the minds ,and above all , hearts (she argues none of what
she wrote would be properly understood if received only within the monopoly of reasoning) – of her readers. Like Stephanus, who could not help flying in the face of the self-righteous judges, not only of him, not only of the earliest Christians, but of the entire demographic excluding their choice traditionalist elite, and being filled up with spirit, his self-criticism decreasing and vaporising at the very temperature of that presence – were bound to pay the price, for such words, apparently does not fit; it is received in one way or another, either the powers that be ignore it, pretending they did not hear it, or assured themselves it came from the lips of a madman – or else it is censured with extreme prejudice, which means the free expression of thoughts,ideas,feelings and knowledge has been evaluated to be extremely dangerous. Or with St.Paul who by no means were winning the contest of being the most popular and readily available voice within the entire of Christendom, even then. If we zoom forward we find certain men and women driven out into the desolate wilderness, not only are they fleeing the contagion of a mind and soul closing up on itself, once the Empire overshaddowed the Kingdom, devoured Christ Jesus, and spat out something or somebody else – already in the 4th century. Priscillian of Avila saw it as his lot, after finally being persuated or pressganged into the role of Bishop – to extend and make available methodical study of those scriptures which is, to us, in the 21th century, foundational in understanding the preceding generations, the primitive Christians, understanding of Holy Writ; he sent agents to the Levant and beyond, to extract from its monastic communities the contents of a tradition reduced to pastiche, parody and ignorant clichès in the west due to the arrogance of the foundlings and favourites among the ecclesiastical hierarchies. In some sense he was among the first voices of a kind of reformation, attempted during the Renaissance, then several times afterwards – however, the reward was that the world turned briefly upside down, a rather venomous developement involving trials failed, intervention from St.Martin of Tours, false testimonies given, the exchange of a pope for another pope (or Presiding vicar of Peter) at the behest of the emperor, new trials and the final burning of Saint Priscillian of Avila, along with his ecclesiastical servants (deacons and priests), and several nobles whose property (the motif for this crime) was expropriated and divided between the usurping bishops and the emperor to whom they pledged allegiance. While it also reached a tragic end, he believed, like Marguerite Poretè, that his words, his values and his ideas were worth enough to stand up for, or fall down for. Continue reading →