From: The Christian Century | Date: February 3, 1993| Author: Miles, Margaret R. | COPYRIGHT 1993 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

MARGUERITE PORETES'S devotional book A Mirror for Simple Souls provides an example of the fruitfulness of paying attention to a book deemed heretical by ecclesiastical authorities in its own time. On June 1, 1310, Porete was burned as a heretic at the Place de Greve in Paris. A decade before, her book had been condemned as containing 15 erroneous theological beliefs. Porete was fully aware that her book might be misunderstood. Before its publication she had sent it to three theolo...