Wounds of the crucifixion on living bodies: the strange history of stigmata
In 1224, two years before his death, Francis of Assisi went to Mount La Verna for a forty-day fast and, according to legend, left bearing wounds like Christ's. He is widely counted as the first recorded stigmatic. Most cases have since been put down to trickery, and probably over 80 percent of stigmatics have been women.
The word comes from the Greek for a mark or brand. In Roman Catholic usage it means wounds, scars or pain appearing where Jesus was hurt during the crucifixion: hands or wrists and feet from the nails, the side from the lance, the head from the crown of thorns, and the back from scourging. Stigmatics are overwhelmingly a Catholic phenomenon, and the Eastern Orthodox Church holds no official position on them. Saint Paul's letter to the Galatians already speaks of carrying the marks of Jesus in his body.
According to the legend, a six-winged, crucified angel appeared to Francis as he prayed near the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and when it left he carried marks in his hands, feet and side. His first biographer, Thomas of Celano, described the episode in 1230, and Pope Alexander IV was among those who said they had seen the wounds. Earlier claims exist, notably Saint Ansbert of Rouen, who died in 695 and whose body was said to show a red cross on the forearms, but the Catholic Encyclopaedia recognised no definitive cases before the thirteenth century.
Reported cases vary. Some bleed on and off, occasionally after Holy Communion; some claim invisible stigmata, pain with no visible mark; others describe wounds that never clot or become infected, or blood with a sweet smell called the Odour of Sanctity. A relatively high share claim inedia, living on almost nothing but the Eucharist, and closer investigation of such claims often uncovers fakery. Padre Pio reported stigmata for more than fifty years, and several 20th-century physicians examined him.
Explanations differ. The writer Ted Harrison argues there was no single mechanism behind the marks and that what counts is that others recognise them as religious. The theologian Ivan Illich proposed that exceptionally intense faith, and a longing to share the Messiah's suffering, could become embodied as pain.
Source: Stigmata
