MARIA DE AGREDA, ma-ri'd d6 d-gr6'dd (Maria
Coronel, Maria de Jesu): A nun of the Franciscan
order of the Poor Clares, mother superior of the
convent of the Immaculate Conception at Agreda
(135 m. n.e. of Madrid) in Old Castile; b. at Agreda
Apr. 2, 1602; d. there May 24, 1635. She left a
work, alleged to have been divinely inspired,
La
mystics ciudad de Dios
(first published in-Spanish,
3 vols., Madrid, 1670, afterward also in Latin and
other languages)-a tendency writing in favor of the
Scotist Franciscan doctrine of the immaculate conception of Mary. The supposed revelations to the
author are the wildest flights of imagination. Mary,
the immaculately conceived, is carried directly after
her birth at divine command into the uppermost
heaven, where she beholds the Trinity; 900 angels,
under command of the Archangel Michael, are appointed to her service; she is praised as God's eternal wisdom (cf.
Prov. viii. 22
sqq.), as ruler of the
world, who was present at the transfiguration of
Christ on Mount Tabor as well as at his Last Supper, who rose again after her death at Jerusalem,
and ascended to heaven no less
than twice, and the
like. Pope Innocent XI. prohibited the book in
1681, chiefly on the ground of its one-sided espousal
of an uncanonized dogma. and the heretical teaching propounded therein, viz., that Mary's flesh and
blood were present propria. specie in the Eucharist.
But Charles II. of Spain interfered in behalf of the
work, which his subjects not only loved but almost
idolized. He obtained from the pope a suspension
of the decree, at least for Spain. An effort to induce Innocent's successor, Alexander VIII., to revoke the edict for all Christendom, was in vain;
the new pope confirmed the suspension brief of his
predecessor (1690). Alexander's successor, Innocent XII., to please the king, appointed a commission to examine the work, but never published its
decision. This reservation of his opinion seemed
the more necessary, as during Innocent's pontificate the Sorbonne of Paris condemned the work
after the publication of a French edition (La Mystique Citk de
Dieu,
Marseilles, 1695). The controversy grew more complicated, as the authorship
was repeatedly denied to Maria of Agreda and ascribed to the Franciscan Joseph Ximenes Sammaniejo. Pope Benedict XIV. (in an edict of Jan.
1748) declared the authorship to be uncertain, and
Clement XIV. and Pius VI. were also compelled to
take notice of the book. A German adaptation in
two volumes was published at Regensburg as late
as 1890 (2d ed., 1893).
O. Zöckler†.
Bibliography:
S. J.
Baumgarten,
Nachnchten von merk
witrdiaen Bachern, iv. 214
sqq.,
Halle,
1753; J.
Görres,
Die
christliche Mystik,
i. 482-495,
Regensburg,
1836; A.
M. da
Vicenza,
Della mistica citta di Dio,
Bologna,
1873;
Germ.
transl. of a brief life from this book by B.
M.
Lierheimer,
Regensburg,
1875; J.
Hergenröther,
Kirchengeschichte,
iii. 5211-528,
Freiburg,
1886;
F. H. Reusch,
Der Index
der
verbatenen Bücher, ii. 253-257,
Bonn,
1885.
