"Why thee? Why thee? Why thee?" he repeated again and again, as if to make a mock of Francis. "What are you saying?" cried Francis at last. "I am saying that everybody follows thee, everyone desires to see thee, hear thee, and obey thee, and yet for all that thou art neither beautiful, nor learned, nor of noble family. Whence comes it, then, that it should be thee whom the world desires to follow?"On hearing these words the blessed Francis, full of joy, raisedhis eyes to heaven, and after remaining a long time absorbed in contemplation he knelt, praising and blessing God with extraordinary fervor. Then turning toward Masseo, "Thou wishest to know why it is I whom men follow? Thou wishest to know? It is because the eyes of the Most High have willed it thus; he continually watches the good and the wicked, and as his most holy eyes have not found among sinners any smaller man, nor any more insufficient and more sinful, therefore he has chosen me to accomplish the marvellous work which God has undertaken; he chose me because he could find no one more worthless, and he wished here to confound the nobility and grandeur, the strength, the beauty, and the learning of this world."
"Why thee? Why thee? Why thee?" he repeated again and again, as if to make a mock of Francis. "What are you saying?" cried Francis at last. "I am saying that everybody follows thee, everyone desires to see thee, hear thee, and obey thee, and yet for all that thou art neither beautiful, nor learned, nor of noble family. Whence comes it, then, that it should be thee whom the world desires to follow?"
On hearing these words the blessed Francis, full of joy, raisedhis eyes to heaven, and after remaining a long time absorbed in contemplation he knelt, praising and blessing God with extraordinary fervor. Then turning toward Masseo, "Thou wishest to know why it is I whom men follow? Thou wishest to know? It is because the eyes of the Most High have willed it thus; he continually watches the good and the wicked, and as his most holy eyes have not found among sinners any smaller man, nor any more insufficient and more sinful, therefore he has chosen me to accomplish the marvellous work which God has undertaken; he chose me because he could find no one more worthless, and he wished here to confound the nobility and grandeur, the strength, the beauty, and the learning of this world."
This reply throws a ray of light upon St. Francis's heart; the message which he brought to the world is once again the glad tidings announced to the poor; its purpose is the taking up again of that Messianic work which the Virgin of Nazareth caught a glimpse of in herMagnificat, that song of love and liberty, the sighs of which breathe the vision of a new social state. He comes to remind the world that the welfare of man, the peace of his heart, the joy of his life, are neither in money, nor in learning, nor in strength, but in an upright and sincere will. Peace to men of good will.
The part which he had taken at Assisi in the controversies of his fellow-citizens he would willingly have taken in all the rest of Italy, for no man has ever dreamed of a more complete renovation; but if the end he sought was the same as that of many revolutionaries who came after him, their methods were completely different; his only weapon was love.
The event has decided against him. Apart from theilluminatiof the March of Ancona and theFraticelliof our own Provence his disciples have vied with one another to misunderstand his thought.3
Who knows if some one will not arise to take up his work? Has not the passion for worm-eaten speculations yet made victims enough? Are there not many among us who perceive that luxury is a delusion, that if life is a battle, it is not a slaughter-house where ferocious beasts wrangle over their prey, but a wrestling with the divine, under whatever form it may present itself—truth, beauty, or love? Who knows whether this expiring nineteenth century will not arise from its winding-sheet to makeamende honorableand bequeath to its successor one manly word of faith?
Yes, the Messiah will come. He who was announced by Gioacchino di Fiore and who is to inaugurate a new epoch in the history of humanity will appear.Hope maketh not ashamed.In our modern Babylons and in the huts on our mountains are too many souls who mysteriously sigh the hymn of the great vigil,Rorate cœli desuper et nubes pluant Justum,4for us not to be on the eve of a divine birth.
All origins are mysterious. This is true of matter, but yet more true of that life, superior to all others, which we call holiness; it was in prayer that Francis found thespiritual strength which he needed; he therefore sought for silence and solitude. If he knew how to do battle in the midst of men in order to win them to the faith, he loved, as Celano says, to fly away like a bird going to make its nest upon the mountain.5
With men truly pious the prayer of the lips, the formulated prayer, is hardly other than an inferior form of true prayer. Even when it is sincere and attentive, and not a mechanical repetition, it is only a prelude for souls not dead of religious materialism.
Nothing resembles piety so much as love. Formularies of prayer are as incapable of speaking the emotions of the soul as model love-letters of speaking the transports of an impassioned heart. To true piety as well as to profound love, the formula is a sort of profanation.
To pray is to talk with God, to lift ourselves up to him, to converse with him that he may come down to us. It is an act of meditation, of reflection, which presupposes the effort of all that is most personal in us.
Looked at in this sense, prayer is the mother of all liberty and all freedom.
Whether or no it be a soliloquy of the soul with itself, the soliloquy would be none the less the very foundation of a strong individuality.
With St. Francis as with Jesus, prayer has this character of effort which makes of it the greatest moral act. In order to truly know such men one must have been able to go with them, to follow Jesus up to the mountain where he passed his nights. Three favored ones, Peter, James, John, followed him thither one day; but to describe what they saw, all that a manlysursum cordaadded to the radiance and the mysterious grandeur of himwhom they adored, they were obliged to resort to the language of symbols.
It was so with St. Francis. For him as for his Master the end of prayer is communion with the heavenly Father, the accord of the divine with the human; or rather it is man who puts forth his strength to do the work of God, not saying to him a mere passive, resigned, powerlessFiat, but courageously raising his head: "Behold me, Lord, I delight to do thy will."
"There are unfathomable depths in the human soul, because at the bottom is God himself." Whether this God be transcendent or immanent, whether he be One, the Creator, the eternal and immutable Principle, or whether he be, as say the doctors beyond the Rhine, the ideal objectivation of our Me, is not the question for the heroes of humanity. The soldier in the thick of battle does not philosophize as to how much truth or falsehood there is in the patriotic sentiment; he takes his arms and fights at the peril of his life. So the soldiers of spiritual conflicts seek for strength in prayer, in reflection, contemplation, inspiration; all, poets, artists, teachers, saints, legislators, prophets, leaders of the people, learned men, philosophers, all draw from this same source.
But it is not without difficulty that the soul unites itself to God, or if one prefers, that it finds itself. A prayer ends at last in divine communion only when it began by a struggle. The patriarch of Israel, asleep near Bethel, had already divined this: the God who passes by tells his name only to those who stop him and do him violence to learn it. He blesses only after long hours of conflict.
The gospel has found an untranslatable word to characterize the prayers of Jesus, it compares the conflict which preceded the voluntary immolation of Christ to the death-struggle:Factus in agonia.6We might say ofhis life that it had been a long temptation, a struggle, a prayer, since these words only express different moments of spiritual activity.
Like their Master, the disciples and successors of Christ can conquer their own souls only through perseverance. But these words, empty of meaning for devout conventicles, have had a tragic sense for men of religious genius.
Nothing is more false, historically, than the saints that adorn our churches, with their mincing attitude, their piteous expression, that indescribably anæmic and emaciated—one may almost say emasculated—air which shows in their whole nature; they are pious seminarists brought up under the direction of St. Alphonso di Liguori or of St. Louis di Gonzagua; they are not saints, not the violent who take the kingdom of heaven by force.
We have come to one of the most delicate features of the life of Francis—his relations with diabolical powers. Customs and ideas have so profoundly changed in all that concerns the existence of the devil and his relations with men, that it is almost impossible to picture to oneself the enormous place which the thought of demons occupied at that time in the minds of men.
The best minds of the Middle Ages believed without a doubt in the existence of the perverse spirit, in his perpetual transformations in the endeavor to tempt men and cause them to fall into his snares. Even in the sixteenth century, Luther, who undermined so many beliefs, had no more doubt of the personal existence of Satan than of sorcery, conjurations, or possessions.7
Finding in their souls a wide background of grandeur and wretchedness, whence they sometimes heard a burst of distant harmonies calling them to a higher life, soon to be overpowered by the clamors of the brute, our ancestors could not refrain from seeking the explanation of this duel. They found it in the conflict of the demons with God.
The devil is the prince of the demons, as God is the prince of the angels; capable of all transformations, they carry on to the end of time terrible battles which will end in the victory of God, but meantime each man his whole life long is contended for by these two adversaries, and the noblest souls are naturally the most disputed.
This is how St. Francis, with all men of his time, explained the disquietudes, terrors, anguish, with which his heart was at times assailed, as well as the hopes, consolations, joys in which in general his soul was bathed. Wherever we follow his steps local tradition has preserved the memory of rude assaults of the tempter which he had to undergo.
It is no doubt useless to recall here the elementary fact that if manners change with the times, man himself is quite as strangely modified. If, according to education, and the manner of life, such or such a sense may develop an acuteness which confounds common experience—hearing in the musician, touch with the blind, etc.—we may estimate by this how much sharper certain senses may have been then than now. Several centuries ago visual delusion was with adults what it is now with children in remotest country parts. A quivering leaf, a nothing, a breath, an unexplained sound creates an image which they see and in the reality of which they believe absolutely. Man is all of a piece; the hyperæsthesia of the will presupposes that of the sensibility, one is conditioned on the other, and it is this which makes men ofrevolutionary epochs so much greater than nature. It would be absurd under pretext of truth to try to bring them back to the common measures of our contemporary society, for they were veritably demigods for good as for evil.
Legends are not always absurd. The men of '93 are still near to us, but it is nevertheless with good right that legend has taken possession of them, and it is pitiable to see these men who, ten times a day, had to take resolutions where everything was at stake—their destiny, that of their ideas, and sometimes that of their country—judged as if they had been mere worthy citizens, with leisure to discuss at length every morning the garments they were to wear or themenuof a dinner. Most of the time historians have perceived only a part of the truth about them; for not only were there two men in them, almost all of them are at the same time poets, demagogues, prophets, heroes, martyrs. To write history, then, is to translate and transpose almost continually. The men of the thirteenth century could not bring themselves to not refer to an exterior cause the inner motions of their souls. In what appears to us as the result of our own reflections they saw inspiration; where we say desires, instincts, passions, they said temptation, but we must not permit these differences of language to make us overlook or tax with trickery a part of their spiritual life, bringing us thus to the conclusions of a narrow and ignorant rationalism.
St. Francis believed himself to have many a time fought with the devil; the horrible demons of the Etruscan Inferno still haunted the forests of Umbria and Tuscany; but while for his contemporaries and some of his disciples apparitions, prodigies, possessions, are daily phenomena, for him they are exceptional, and remain entirely in the background. In the iconography of St. Benedict,as in that of most of the popular saints, the devil occupies a preponderant place; in that of St. Francis he disappears so completely that in the long series of Giotto's frescos at Assisi he is not seen a single time.8
In the same way all that is magic and miracle-working occupies in his life an entirely secondary rank. Jesus in the Gospels gave his apostles power to cast out evil spirits, and to heal all sickness and all infirmity.9Francis surely took literally these words, which made a part of his Rule. He believed that he could work miracles, and he willed to do so; but his religious thought was too pure to permit him to consider miracles otherwise than as an entirely exceptional means of relieving the sufferings of men. Not once do we see him resorting to miracle to prove his apostolate or to bolster up his ideas. His tact taught him that souls are worthy of being won by better means. This almost complete absence of the marvellous10is by so much the more remarkable that it is in absolute contradiction with the tendencies of his time.11
Open the life of his disciple, St. Anthony of Padua (Cross1231); it is a tiresome catalogue of prodigies, healings, resurrections. One would say it was rather the prospectus of some druggist who had invented a new drug than a call to men to conversion and a higher life. It may interest invalids or devotees, but neither the heart nor the conscience is touched by it. It must be said in justice to Anthony of Padua that his relations with Francis appear to have been very slight. Among the earliest disciples who had time to fathom their master's thought to the very depths we find traces of this noble disdain of the marvellous; they knew too well that the perfect joy is not to astound the world with prodigies, to give sight to the blind, nor even to revive those who have been four days dead, but that it lives in the love that goes even to self-immolation.Mihi absit gloriari nisi in cruce Domini.12
Thus Brother Egidio asked of God grace not to perform miracles; he saw in them, as in the passion for learning, a snare in which the proud would be taken, and which would distract the Order from its true mission.13
St. Francis's miracles are all acts of love; the greater number of them are found in the healing of nervous maladies, those apparently inexplicable disquietudes which are the cruel afflictions of critical times. His gentle glance, at once so compassionate and so strong, which seemed like a messenger from his heart, often sufficed to make those who met it forget all their suffering.
The evil eye is perhaps a less stupid superstition thanis generally fancied. Jesus was right in saying that a look sufficed to make one an adulterer; but there is also a look—that of the contemplative Mary, for example—which is worth all sacrifices, because it includes them all, because it gives, consecrates, immolates him who looks.
Civilization dulls this power of the glance. A part of the education the world gives us consists in teaching our eyes to deceive, in making them expressionless, in extinguishing their flames; but simple and straightforward natures never give up using this language of the heart, "which brings life and health in its beams."
"A Brother was suffering unspeakable tortures; sometimes he would roll upon the ground, striking against whatever lay in his way, frothing at the mouth, horrible to see; at times he would become rigid, and again, after remaining stark outstretched for a moment, would roll about in horrible contortions; sometimes lying in a heap on the ground, his feet touching his head, he would bound upward as high as a man's head." Francis came to see him and healed him.14
But these are exceptions, and the greater part of the time the Saint withdrew himself from the entreaties of his companions when they asked miracles at his hands.
To sum up, if we take a survey of the whole field of Francis's piety, we see that it proceeds from the secret union of his soul with the divine by prayer; this intuitive power of seeing the ideal classes him with the mystics. He knew, indeed, both the ecstasy and the liberty of mysticism, but we must not forget those features of character which separate him from it, particularly his apostolic fervor. Besides this his piety had certain peculiar qualities which it is necessary to point out.
And first, liberty with respect of observances: Francis felt all the emptiness and pride of most religious observance.He saw the snare that lies hidden there, for the man who carefully observes all the minutiæ of a religious code risks forgetting the supreme law of love. More than this, the friar who lays upon himself a certain number of supererogatory facts gains the admiration of the ignorant, but the pleasure which he finds in this admiration actually transforms his pious act into sin. Thus, strangely enough, contrary to other founders of orders, he was continually easing the strictness of the various rules which he laid down.15We may not take this to be a mere accident, for it was only after a struggle with his disciples that he made his will prevail; and it was precisely those who were most disposed to relax their vow of poverty who were the most anxious to display certain bigoted observances before the public eye.
"The sinner can fast," Francis would say at such times; "he can pray, weep, macerate himself, but one thing he cannot do, he cannot be faithful to God." Noble words, not unworthy to fall from the lips of him who came to preach a worship in spirit and in truth, without temple or priest; or rather that every fireside shall be a temple and every believer a priest.
Religious formalism, in whatever form of worship, always takes on a forced and morose manner. Pharisees of every age disfigure their faces that no one may be unaware of their godliness. Francis not merely could not endure these grimaces of false piety, he actually counted mirth and joy in the number of religious duties.
How shall one be melancholy who has in the heart an inexhaustible treasure of life and truth which only increases as one draws upon it? How be sad when inspite of falls one never ceases to make progress? The pious soul which grows and develops has a joy like that of the child, happy in feeling its weak little limbs growing strong and permitting it every day a further exertion.
The word joy is perhaps that which comes most often to the pen of the Franciscan authors;16the master went so far as to make it one of the precepts of the Rule.17He was too good a general not to know that a joyous army is always a victorious army. In the history of the early Franciscan missions there are bursts of laughter which ring out high and clear.18
For that matter, we are apt to imagine the Middle Ages as much more melancholy than they really were. Men suffered much in those days, but the idea of grief being never separated from that of penalty, suffering was either an expiation or a test, and sorrow thus regarded loses its sting; light and hope shine through it.
Francis drew a part of his joy from the communion. He gave to the sacrament of the eucharist that worship imbued with unutterable emotion, with joyful tears, which has aided some of the noblest of human souls to endure the burden and heat of the day.19The letter of the dogma was not fixed in the thirteenth century as it is to-day, but all that is beautiful, true, potent, eternal in the mystical feast instituted by Jesus was then alive in every heart.
The eucharist was truly the viaticum of the soul. Like the pilgrims of Emmaus long ago, in the hour when the shades of evening fall and a vague sadness invades the soul, when the phantoms of the night awake and seem toloom up behind all our thoughts, our fathers saw the divine and mysterious Companion coming toward them; they drank in his words, they felt his strength descending upon their hearts, all their inward being warmed again, and again they whispered, "Abide with us, Lord, for the day is far spent and the night approacheth."
And often their prayer was heard.
FOOTNOTES1.1 Cel., 62.2.1 Cel., 66; cf. Bon., 180; 1 Cel., 67; cf. Bon., 182; 1 Cel., 69; Bon., 183. After St. Francis's death the Narniates were the first to come to pray at his tomb. 1 Cel., 128, 135, 136, 138, 141; Bon., 275.3.As concerning: 1, fidelity to Poverty; 2, prohibition of modifying the Rule; 3, the equal authority of the Will and the Rule; 4, the request for privileges at the court of Rome; 5, the elevation of the friars to high ecclesiastical charges; 6, the absolute prohibition of putting themselves in opposition to the secular clergy; 7, the interdiction of great churches and rich convents. On all these points and many others infidelity to Francis's will was complete in the Order less than twenty-five years after his death. We might expatiate on all this; the Holy See in interpreting the Rule had canonical right on its side, but Ubertino di Casali in saying that it was perfectly clear and had no need of interpretation had good sense on his side; let that suffice!Et est stupor quare queritur expositio super litteram sic apertam quia nulla est difficultas in regulæ intelligentia. Arbor vitæ crucifixæ, Venice, 1485. lib. v., cap. 3.Sanctus vir Egidius tanto ejulatu clamabat super regulæ destructionem quam videbat quod ignorantibus viam spiritus quasi videbatur insanus. Id. ibid.4.Heavens drop down your dew, and let the clouds rain down the Just One.Anthem for Advent.5.In foramibus petræ nidificabat.1 Cel., 71. Upon the prayers of Francis vide ibid., 71 and 72; 2 Cel., 3, 38-43; Ben., 139-148. Cf. 1 Cel., 6; 91; 103; 3 Soc., 8; 12; etc.6.Luke, xxii. 44.7.Felix Kuhn:Luther, sa vie et son œuvre, Paris, 1883, 3 vols., 8vo. t. i., p. 128; t. ii., p. 9; t. iii., p. 257. Benvenuto Cellini does not hesitate to describe a visit which he made one day to the Coliseum in company with a magician whose words evoked clouds of devils who filled the whole place. B. Cellini,La vita scritta da lui medesimo, Bianchi's edition, Florence, 1890, 12mo, p. 33.8.On the devil and Francis vide 1 Cel., 68, 72; 3 Soc., 12; 2 Cel., 1, 6; 3, 10; 53; 58-65; Bon., 59-62. Cf. Eccl., 3; 5; 13;Fior., 29;Spec., 110b. To form an idea of the part taken by the devil in the life of a monk at the beginning of the thirteenth century, one must read theDialogus miraculoriumof Cæsar von Heisterbach.9.Matthew, x. 1.10.Miracles occupy only ten paragraphs (61-70) in 1 Cel., and of this number there are several which can hardly be counted as Francis's miracles, since they were performed by objects which had belonged to him.11.Heretics often took advantage of this thirst for the marvellous to dupe the catholics. The Cathari of Moncoul made a portrait of the Virgin representing her as one eyed and toothless, saying that in his humility Christ had chosen a very ugly woman for mother. They had no difficulty in healing several cases of disease by its means; the image became famous, was venerated almost everywhere, and accomplished many miracles until the day when the heretics divulged the deception, to the great scandal of the faithful. Egbert von Schönau,Contra Catharos. Serm. I. cap. 2. (Patrol. lat. Migne t. 195.) Cf. Heisterbach,loc. cit., v. 18. Luc de Tuy,De altera Vita, lib. ii. 9; iii. 9, 18 (Patrol. Migne., 208).12."But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Gal. vi. 14. This is to this day the motto of the Brothers Minor.13.Spec., 182a; 200a; 232a. Cf. 199a.14.1 Cel., 67.15.Secundum primam regulam fratres feria quarta et sexta et per licentiam beati Francisci feria secunda et sabbato jejunabant. Giord. 11. cf. Reg. 1221, cap. 3andReg. 1223, cap. 3, where Friday is the only fast day retained.16.1 Cel., 10; 22; 27; 31; 42; 80; 2 Cel., 1, 1; 3, 65-68; Eccl., 5; 6;Giord., 21;Spec., 119a;Conform., 143a, 2.17.Caveant fratres quod non ostendant se tristes extrinsecus nubilosos et hypocritas; sed ostendant se gaudentis in Domine, hilares et convenientes gratiosos.18.Eccl.,loc. cit.; Giord.,loc. cit.19.VideTest.; 1 Cel., 46; 62; 75; 2 Cel., 3, 129;Spec., 44a.
1.1 Cel., 62.2.1 Cel., 66; cf. Bon., 180; 1 Cel., 67; cf. Bon., 182; 1 Cel., 69; Bon., 183. After St. Francis's death the Narniates were the first to come to pray at his tomb. 1 Cel., 128, 135, 136, 138, 141; Bon., 275.3.As concerning: 1, fidelity to Poverty; 2, prohibition of modifying the Rule; 3, the equal authority of the Will and the Rule; 4, the request for privileges at the court of Rome; 5, the elevation of the friars to high ecclesiastical charges; 6, the absolute prohibition of putting themselves in opposition to the secular clergy; 7, the interdiction of great churches and rich convents. On all these points and many others infidelity to Francis's will was complete in the Order less than twenty-five years after his death. We might expatiate on all this; the Holy See in interpreting the Rule had canonical right on its side, but Ubertino di Casali in saying that it was perfectly clear and had no need of interpretation had good sense on his side; let that suffice!Et est stupor quare queritur expositio super litteram sic apertam quia nulla est difficultas in regulæ intelligentia. Arbor vitæ crucifixæ, Venice, 1485. lib. v., cap. 3.Sanctus vir Egidius tanto ejulatu clamabat super regulæ destructionem quam videbat quod ignorantibus viam spiritus quasi videbatur insanus. Id. ibid.4.Heavens drop down your dew, and let the clouds rain down the Just One.Anthem for Advent.5.In foramibus petræ nidificabat.1 Cel., 71. Upon the prayers of Francis vide ibid., 71 and 72; 2 Cel., 3, 38-43; Ben., 139-148. Cf. 1 Cel., 6; 91; 103; 3 Soc., 8; 12; etc.6.Luke, xxii. 44.7.Felix Kuhn:Luther, sa vie et son œuvre, Paris, 1883, 3 vols., 8vo. t. i., p. 128; t. ii., p. 9; t. iii., p. 257. Benvenuto Cellini does not hesitate to describe a visit which he made one day to the Coliseum in company with a magician whose words evoked clouds of devils who filled the whole place. B. Cellini,La vita scritta da lui medesimo, Bianchi's edition, Florence, 1890, 12mo, p. 33.8.On the devil and Francis vide 1 Cel., 68, 72; 3 Soc., 12; 2 Cel., 1, 6; 3, 10; 53; 58-65; Bon., 59-62. Cf. Eccl., 3; 5; 13;Fior., 29;Spec., 110b. To form an idea of the part taken by the devil in the life of a monk at the beginning of the thirteenth century, one must read theDialogus miraculoriumof Cæsar von Heisterbach.9.Matthew, x. 1.10.Miracles occupy only ten paragraphs (61-70) in 1 Cel., and of this number there are several which can hardly be counted as Francis's miracles, since they were performed by objects which had belonged to him.11.Heretics often took advantage of this thirst for the marvellous to dupe the catholics. The Cathari of Moncoul made a portrait of the Virgin representing her as one eyed and toothless, saying that in his humility Christ had chosen a very ugly woman for mother. They had no difficulty in healing several cases of disease by its means; the image became famous, was venerated almost everywhere, and accomplished many miracles until the day when the heretics divulged the deception, to the great scandal of the faithful. Egbert von Schönau,Contra Catharos. Serm. I. cap. 2. (Patrol. lat. Migne t. 195.) Cf. Heisterbach,loc. cit., v. 18. Luc de Tuy,De altera Vita, lib. ii. 9; iii. 9, 18 (Patrol. Migne., 208).12."But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Gal. vi. 14. This is to this day the motto of the Brothers Minor.13.Spec., 182a; 200a; 232a. Cf. 199a.14.1 Cel., 67.15.Secundum primam regulam fratres feria quarta et sexta et per licentiam beati Francisci feria secunda et sabbato jejunabant. Giord. 11. cf. Reg. 1221, cap. 3andReg. 1223, cap. 3, where Friday is the only fast day retained.16.1 Cel., 10; 22; 27; 31; 42; 80; 2 Cel., 1, 1; 3, 65-68; Eccl., 5; 6;Giord., 21;Spec., 119a;Conform., 143a, 2.17.Caveant fratres quod non ostendant se tristes extrinsecus nubilosos et hypocritas; sed ostendant se gaudentis in Domine, hilares et convenientes gratiosos.18.Eccl.,loc. cit.; Giord.,loc. cit.19.VideTest.; 1 Cel., 46; 62; 75; 2 Cel., 3, 129;Spec., 44a.
1.1 Cel., 62.
2.1 Cel., 66; cf. Bon., 180; 1 Cel., 67; cf. Bon., 182; 1 Cel., 69; Bon., 183. After St. Francis's death the Narniates were the first to come to pray at his tomb. 1 Cel., 128, 135, 136, 138, 141; Bon., 275.
3.As concerning: 1, fidelity to Poverty; 2, prohibition of modifying the Rule; 3, the equal authority of the Will and the Rule; 4, the request for privileges at the court of Rome; 5, the elevation of the friars to high ecclesiastical charges; 6, the absolute prohibition of putting themselves in opposition to the secular clergy; 7, the interdiction of great churches and rich convents. On all these points and many others infidelity to Francis's will was complete in the Order less than twenty-five years after his death. We might expatiate on all this; the Holy See in interpreting the Rule had canonical right on its side, but Ubertino di Casali in saying that it was perfectly clear and had no need of interpretation had good sense on his side; let that suffice!Et est stupor quare queritur expositio super litteram sic apertam quia nulla est difficultas in regulæ intelligentia. Arbor vitæ crucifixæ, Venice, 1485. lib. v., cap. 3.Sanctus vir Egidius tanto ejulatu clamabat super regulæ destructionem quam videbat quod ignorantibus viam spiritus quasi videbatur insanus. Id. ibid.
4.Heavens drop down your dew, and let the clouds rain down the Just One.Anthem for Advent.
5.In foramibus petræ nidificabat.1 Cel., 71. Upon the prayers of Francis vide ibid., 71 and 72; 2 Cel., 3, 38-43; Ben., 139-148. Cf. 1 Cel., 6; 91; 103; 3 Soc., 8; 12; etc.
6.Luke, xxii. 44.
7.Felix Kuhn:Luther, sa vie et son œuvre, Paris, 1883, 3 vols., 8vo. t. i., p. 128; t. ii., p. 9; t. iii., p. 257. Benvenuto Cellini does not hesitate to describe a visit which he made one day to the Coliseum in company with a magician whose words evoked clouds of devils who filled the whole place. B. Cellini,La vita scritta da lui medesimo, Bianchi's edition, Florence, 1890, 12mo, p. 33.
8.On the devil and Francis vide 1 Cel., 68, 72; 3 Soc., 12; 2 Cel., 1, 6; 3, 10; 53; 58-65; Bon., 59-62. Cf. Eccl., 3; 5; 13;Fior., 29;Spec., 110b. To form an idea of the part taken by the devil in the life of a monk at the beginning of the thirteenth century, one must read theDialogus miraculoriumof Cæsar von Heisterbach.
9.Matthew, x. 1.
10.Miracles occupy only ten paragraphs (61-70) in 1 Cel., and of this number there are several which can hardly be counted as Francis's miracles, since they were performed by objects which had belonged to him.
11.Heretics often took advantage of this thirst for the marvellous to dupe the catholics. The Cathari of Moncoul made a portrait of the Virgin representing her as one eyed and toothless, saying that in his humility Christ had chosen a very ugly woman for mother. They had no difficulty in healing several cases of disease by its means; the image became famous, was venerated almost everywhere, and accomplished many miracles until the day when the heretics divulged the deception, to the great scandal of the faithful. Egbert von Schönau,Contra Catharos. Serm. I. cap. 2. (Patrol. lat. Migne t. 195.) Cf. Heisterbach,loc. cit., v. 18. Luc de Tuy,De altera Vita, lib. ii. 9; iii. 9, 18 (Patrol. Migne., 208).
12."But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." Gal. vi. 14. This is to this day the motto of the Brothers Minor.
13.Spec., 182a; 200a; 232a. Cf. 199a.
14.1 Cel., 67.
15.Secundum primam regulam fratres feria quarta et sexta et per licentiam beati Francisci feria secunda et sabbato jejunabant. Giord. 11. cf. Reg. 1221, cap. 3andReg. 1223, cap. 3, where Friday is the only fast day retained.
16.1 Cel., 10; 22; 27; 31; 42; 80; 2 Cel., 1, 1; 3, 65-68; Eccl., 5; 6;Giord., 21;Spec., 119a;Conform., 143a, 2.
17.Caveant fratres quod non ostendant se tristes extrinsecus nubilosos et hypocritas; sed ostendant se gaudentis in Domine, hilares et convenientes gratiosos.
18.Eccl.,loc. cit.; Giord.,loc. cit.
19.VideTest.; 1 Cel., 46; 62; 75; 2 Cel., 3, 129;Spec., 44a.
After Whitsunday of 1217 chronological notes of Francis's life are numerous enough to make error almostimpossible. Unhappily, this is not the case for the eighteen months which precede it (autumn of 1215-Whitsunday, 1217). For this period we are reduced to conjecture, or little better.
As Francis at that time undertook no foreign mission, he doubtless employed his time in evangelizing Central Italy and in consolidating the foundations of his institution. His presence at Rome during the Lateran Council (November 11-30, 1215) is possible, but it has left no trace in the earliest biographies. The Council certainly took the new Order into consideration,2but it was to renewthe invitation made to it five years before by the supreme pontiff, to choose one of the Rules already approved by the Church.3St. Dominic, who was then at Rome to beg for the confirmation of his institute, received the same counsel and immediately conformed to it. The Holy See would willingly have conceded special constitutions to the Brothers Minor, if they had adopted for a base the Rule of St. Benedict; thus the Clarisses, except those of St. Damian, while preserving their name and a certain number of their customs, were obliged to profess the Benedictine rule.
In spite of all solicitations, Francis insisted upon retaining his own Rule. One is led to believe that it was to confer upon these questions that we find him at Perugia in July, 1216, when Innocent III. died.4
However this may be, about this epoch the chapters took on a great importance. The Church, which had looked on at the foundation of the Order with somewhat mixed feelings, could no longer rest content with being the mere spectator of so profound a movement; it saw the need of utilizing it.
Ugolini was marvellously well prepared for such a task. Giovanni di San Paolo, Bishop of the Sabine, charged by Innocent III. to look after the Brothers, died in 1216, and Ugolini was not slow to offer his protectionto Francis, who accepted it with gratitude. This extraordinary offer is recounted at length by the Three Companions.5It must certainly be fixed in the summer of 12166immediately after the death of Giovanni di San Paolo.
It is very possible that the first chapter held in the presence of this cardinal took place on May 29, 1216. By an error very common in history, most of the Franciscan writers have referred to a single date all the scattered incidents concerning the first solemn assizes of the Order, and have called this typical assembly theChapter of the Mats. In reality for long years all the gatherings of the Brothers Minor deserved this name.7
Coming together at the season of the greatest heat, they slept in the open air or sheltered themselves under booths of reeds. We need not pity them. There is nothing like the glorious transparency of the summer night in Umbria; sometimes in Provence one may enjoy a foretaste of it, but if at Baux, upon the rock of Doms, or at St.Baume, the sight is equally solemn and grandiose, it still wants the caressing sweetness, the effluence of life which in Umbria give the night a bewitching charm.
The inhabitants of the neighboring towns and villages flocked to these meetings in crowds, at once to see the ceremonies, to be present when their relatives or friends assumed the habit, to listen to the appeals of the Saint and to furnish to the friars the provisions of which they might have need. All this is not without some analogy with the camp-meeting so dear to Americans. As to the figures of several thousands of attendants given in the legends, and furnishing even to a Franciscan, Father Papini, the occasion for pleasantries of doubtful taste, it is perhaps not so surprising as might be supposed.8
These first meetings, to which all the Brothers eagerly hastened, held in the open air in the presence of crowds come together from distant places, have then nothing in common with the subsequent chapters-general, which were veritable conclaves attended by a small number of delegates, and the majority of the work of which, done in secret, was concerned only with the affairs of the Order.
During Francis's lifetime the purpose of these assemblies was essentially religious. Men attended them notto talk business, or proceed to the nomination of the minister-general, but in mutual communion to gain new strength from the joys, the example, and the sufferings of the other brethren.9
The four years which followed the Whitsunday of 1216 form a stage in the evolution of the Umbrian movement; that during which Francis was battling for autonomy. We find here pretty delicate shades of distinction, which have been misunderstood by Church writers as much as by their adversaries, for if Francis was particular not to put himself in the attitude of revolt, he would not compromise his independence, and he felt with an exquisite divination that all the privileges which the court of Rome could heap upon him were worth nothing in comparison with liberty. Alas, he was soon forced to resign himself to these gilded bonds, against which he never ceased to protest, even to his last sigh;10but to shut one's eyes to the moral violence which the papacy did him in this matter is to condemn oneself to an entire misapprehension of his work.
A glance over the collection of bulls addressed to the Franciscans suffices to show with what ardor he struggled against favors so eagerly sought by the monastic orders.11
A great number of legendary anecdotes put Francis's disdain of privileges in the clearest light. Even his dearest friends did not always understand his scruples.
"Do you not see," they said to him one day, "that often the bishops do not permit us to preach, and make us remain several days without doing anything before we are permitted to proclaim the word of God? It would be better worth while to obtain for this end a privilege from the pope, and it would be for the good of souls.""I would first convert the prelates by humility and respect," he replied quickly; "for when they have seen us humble and respectful toward them, they themselves will beg us to preach and convert the people. As for me, I ask of God no privilege unless it be that I may have none, to be full of respect for all men, and to convert them, as our Rule ordains, more by our example than by our speech."12
"Do you not see," they said to him one day, "that often the bishops do not permit us to preach, and make us remain several days without doing anything before we are permitted to proclaim the word of God? It would be better worth while to obtain for this end a privilege from the pope, and it would be for the good of souls."
"I would first convert the prelates by humility and respect," he replied quickly; "for when they have seen us humble and respectful toward them, they themselves will beg us to preach and convert the people. As for me, I ask of God no privilege unless it be that I may have none, to be full of respect for all men, and to convert them, as our Rule ordains, more by our example than by our speech."12
The question whether Francis was right or wrong in his antipathy to the privileges of the curia does not come within the domain of history; it is evident that this attitude could not long continue; the Church knows only the faithful and rebels. But the noblest hearts often make a stand at compromises of this kind; they desire that the future should grow out of the past without convulsion and without a crisis.
The chapter of 1217 was notable for the definitive organization of the Franciscan missions. Italy and the other countries were divided off into a certain number ofprovinces, having each its provincial minister. Immediatelyupon his accession Honorius III. had sought to revive the popular zeal for the crusades. He had not stopped at preaching it, but appealed to prophecies which had proclaimed that under his pontificate the Holy Land would be reconquered.13The renewal of fervor which ensued, and of which the rebound was felt as far as Germany, had a profound influence on the Brothers Minor. This time Francis, perhaps from humility, did not put himself at the head of the friars charged with a mission to Syria; for leader he gave them the famous Elias, formerly at Florence, where he had had opportunity to show his high qualities.14
This Brother, who from this time appears in the foreground of this history, came from the most humble ranks of society; the date and the circumstances of his entrance into the Order are unknown, and hence conjecture has come to see in him that friend of the grotto who had been Francis's confidant shortly before his decisive conversion. However this may be, in his youth he had earned his living in Assisi, making mattresses and teaching a few children to read; then he had spent some time in Bologna asscriptor; then suddenly we find him among the Brothers Minor, charged with the most difficult missions.
His adversaries vie with one another in asserting that he was the finest mind of his century, but unhappily it is very difficult, in the existing state of the documents, to pronounce as to his actions; learned and energetic, eager to play the leading part in the work of the reformationof religion, and having made his plan beforehand as to the proper mode of realizing it, he made straight for his goal, half political, half religious. Full of admiration for Francis and gratitude toward him, he desired to regulate and consolidate the movement for renovation. In the inner Franciscan circle, where Leo, Ginepro, Egidio, and many others represent the spirit of liberty, the religion of the humble and the simple, Elias represents the scientific and ecclesiastical spirit, prudence and reason.
He had great success in Syria and received into the Order one of the disciples most dear to Francis, Cæsar of Speyer, who later on was to make the conquest of all Southern Germany in less than two years (1221-1223), and who in the end sealed with his blood his fidelity to the strict observance, which he defended against the attacks of Brother Elias himself.15
Cæsar of Speyer offers a brilliant example of those suffering souls athirst for the ideal, so numerous in the thirteenth century, who everywhere went up and down, seeking first in learning, then in the religious life, that which should assuage the mysterious thirst which tortured them. Disciple of the scholastic Conrad, he had felt himself overpowered with the desire to reform the Church; while still a layman he had preached his ideas, not without some success, since a certain number of ladies of Speyer had begun to lead a new life; but their husbands disapproving, he was obliged to escape their vengeance by taking refuge at Paris, and thence he went to the East, where in the preaching of the Brothers Minor he found again his hopes and his dreams. This instance shows how general was the waiting condition ofsouls when the Franciscan gospel blazed forth, and how its way had been everywhere prepared.
But it is time to return to the chapter of 1217: the friars who went to Germany under conduct of Giovanni di Penna were far from having the success of Elias and his companions; they were completely ignorant of the language of the country which they had undertaken to evangelize. Perhaps Francis had not taken into account the fact that though Italian might, in case of need, suffice in all the countries bathed by the Mediterranean, this could not be the case in Central Europe.16
The lot of the party going to Hungary was not more happy. Very often it came to pass that the missionaries were fain to give up their very garments in the effort to appease the peasants and shepherds who maltreated them. But no less incapable of understanding what was said to them than of making themselves understood, they were soon obliged to think of returning to Italy. We may thank the Franciscan authors for preserving for us the memory of these checks, and not attempting to picture the friars as suddenly knowing all languages by a divine inspiration, as later on was so often related.17
Those who had been sent to Spain had also to undergo persecutions. This country, like the south of France, was ravaged by heresy; but already at that time it was vigorously repressed. The Franciscans, suspected of being false Catholics and therefore eagerly hunted out, found a refuge with Queen Urraca of Portugal, who permitted them to establish themselves at Coimbra, Guimarraens, Alenquero, and Lisbon.18
Francis himself made preparations for going to France.19This country had a peculiar charm for him because of his fervent love of the Holy Sacrament. Perhaps also he was unwittingly drawn toward this country to which he owed his name, the chivalrous dreams of his youth, all of poetry, song, music, delicious dream that had come into his life.
Something of the emotion that thrilled through him on undertaking this new mission has passed into the story of his biographers; one feels there the thrill at once sweet and agonizing, the heart-throb of the brave knight who goes forth all harnessed in the early dawn to scan the horizon, dreading the unknown and yet overflowing with joy, for he knows that the day will be consecrated to love and to the right.
The Italian poet has given the one name of "pilgrimages of love" to the farings forth of chivalry and the journeys undertaken by dreamers, artists, or saints to those parts of the earth which forever mirror themselves before their imagination and remain their chosen fatherland.20Such a pilgrimage as this was Francis undertaking.