RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Catenae Catharine
lects his fragments of exposition mainly from Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory, and lays his chief stress on the edifying explanation of the moral and mystical sense. In this tendency he was followed by Alcuin, Rabanus Maurus, Walafried Strabo, Dietrich of Hersfeld, Haimo, and Remigius of Auxerre, all less careful in the reproduction of their sources than Bede, with whom it was a matter of principle to designate clearly the intellectual property of his authorities. Among later commentaries of the catena sort especial influence was exerted by that of Peter Lombard on the Pauline epistles, which made no pretense of indicating sources, and the Catena Aurea of Thomas Aquinas on the Gospels, which makes use of some Greek Fathers as well as of Augustine, Jerome, Rabanus, and Remigius. Mention should also be made of the " glosses " — the Glossa ordinaria of Walafried Strabo, the Glossa interlinealis of Anselm of Laon (1110), and the Postilla perpetual of Nicholas of Lyra (1340; see Glosses, Biblical and Ecclesiastical).
These works lead up to the exegetical collections
which were made after the Reformation and under
its influence. The expository standpoint was
different, but the method of compilation remained
the same. They either gave the ob-
9. Post- servations of certain selected exposi-
Reforma- tors side by side without change, or tion they made groups of extracts from as
Catenae, large a number as possible. Instances of the first method are the Biblia magna of De la Haye (Paris, 1643), the Biblia maxima (ib. 1660), the English Annotations upon all the Books of the Old and New Testament (London, 1645), and the Gritici sacri edited by J. Pearson and others (ib. 1660). The second class is represented by Matthew Pole's Synopsis criticorum aliorumque scriptural sacrm interpretum et commentatorum (London, 1669), which contains the most varied extracts from more than eighty theologians of all ages and beliefs, even including the Jewish. The Roman Catholic expositors, such as Cornelius a Lapide, Estius, and Calmet, followed the lines laid down by the older Catenae, to which, however, with their uncritical subservience to a tradition presupposed as authoritative, they are far inferior.
(G. Heinrici.)
CATHARI. See New Manicheans, II.
CATHARINE, SAINT, OF ALEXANDRIA. See
Catharine, Saint, the Martyr.
CATHARINE, SAINT, OF BOLOGNA: Roman Catholic saint; b. at Bologna or, according to other accounts, at Verona Sept. 8, 1413; d. at Bologna Mar. 9, 1463. About 1430 she entered the order of the Poor Clares at Ferrara after having been a lady of honor at the court of Princess Margaret of Este for about two years. She later became abbess of a convent of her order which was founded at Bologna. Her name was included in the Roman martyrology in 1592, and she was canonized by Benedict XIII. in 1724. Later tradition wove many legends about her name, and her body was preserved undecayed in her convent until recent years. To St. Catharine is ascribed a prophetic
work entitled Revelationes, sive de septem armis spiritualibus, composed about 1438 and first edited probably at Bologna in 1475 and repeatedly since. In art she is represented in the habit of the Poor Clares, carrying the Christ-child, since the Virgin is said to have appeared to her and to have placed in her arms the infant Jesus in his swaddlingclothes. (O. ZoCKLERf.) Bibliography: The Vita which is the earliest source was published at Bologna, 1502, from which a number of biographies were drawn in the next century. Consult: J. Gorres, Die christliche Mystik, ii. 53 sqq., 158-159, 4 vols., Regensburg, 1838-42.
CATHARINE, SAINT, OF GENOA: Roman Catholic saint; b. at Genoa 1447; d. there Sept. 14, 1510. She was the daughter of Roberto Fieschi, who had been viceroy of Naples under Rene of Anjou. Despite her desire for a life of religion, she was obliged to marry a nobleman of her native city named Giuliano Adorno, whence she is often called Catharina Flisca Adurna. After a life of extravagance her husband died in 1474, but not before he had been converted by his wife's piety and had become a Franciscan of the third order. For the remainder of her life his widow, as a member of the order of the Annunciation of St. Marcellina, was distinguished both for her care of the sick in the Genoese hospital Pammatone (especially during the plagues of 1497 and 1501) and by her extreme asceticism. For twenty-three years during the seasons of Lent and Advent she is said to have fasted absolutely, taking at most a glass of water with salt and vinegar " to cool the raging flame within." She was formally canonized by Clement XII. in 1737, and the following pope, Benedict XIV., placed her name in the Roman martyrology, appointing her feast for Mar. 22. St. Catharine was one of the numerous mystic and prophetic authors of the latter part of the Middle Ages and wrote Demonstratio purgatorii or Tractatus de purgatorio (ed. C. Marabotto and E. Vernazza in their biography of St. Catharine, Genoa, 1551 ; Eng. transl., London, 1858), Dialogus animam inter et corpus, amorem proprium, spiritum, humanitatem ac Deum, and a treatise on the Christian life (both contained in the edition already mentioned). Her visions were assailed by Adrian Baillet in his Vies des saints (Paris, 1701) from the Gallican point of view, but other Roman Catholic authorities, such as St. Francis of Sales and the modern Jesuit Christian Pesch, have esteemed them highly.
(O. ZoCKLERf.) Bibliography: The anonymous Vita with commentary is in ASB, Sept., v. 123-176, and was translated into French by the Abbe" Piot, Paris, 1840. Consult: P. Lechner, Leben und Schriften der heiligen Katharina von Genua, Regensburg, 1859; T. de Bussiere, Vie et ceuvres de S. Catherine de Genes, Paris, 1873; P. Fliche, <S. Catherine de Genes, Paris, 1880; F. von Hiigel, in The Hampstead Annual, 1898, pp. 70 sqq.
CATHARINE, SAINT, THE MARTYR (SAINT CATHARINE OF ALEXANDRIA): One of the most honored saints both of the Eastern and the Western Church. Many modern hagiographers identify her with a wealthy and noble Christian lady of Alexandria who, according to Eusebius (Hist, eccl, VIII. xiv. 15), resisted the licentious advances of the emperor Maximinus, and was con-
Catharine