Life of St. Francis of Assisi by Paul Sabatier (best historical biographies txt) 📕

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[21] A. SS., Aprilis, t. iii., p. 238d.

[22] I would say that between the inspiration of Francis and the
Catharian doctrines there is an irreconcilable opposition; but
it would not be difficult to find acts and words of his which
recall the contempt for matter of the Cathari; for example, his
way of treating his body. Some of his counsels to the friars:
Unusquisque habet in potestate sua inimicum suum videlicit
corpus, per quod peccat. Assisi MS. 338, folio 20b. Conform.
138, b. 2.-- Cum majorem inimicum corpore non habeam. 2 Cel.,
3, 63. These are momentary but inevitable obscurations, moments
of forgetfulness, of discouragement, when a man is not himself,
and repeats mechanically what he hears said around him. The real
St. Francis is, on the contrary, the lover of nature, he who
sees in the whole creation the work of divine goodness, the
radiance of the eternal beauty, he who, in the Canticle of the
Creatures, sees in the body not the Enemy but a brother: Cæpit
hilariter loqui ad corpus; Gaude, frater corpus. 2 Cel., 3,
137.

[23] Quodam die, dicta fabrissa dixit ipsi testi prægnanti,
quod rogaret Deum, ut liberaret eam a Dæmone, quem habebat in
ventre ... Gulielmus dixit quod ita magnum peccatum erat jacere
cum uxore sua quam cum concubina. Döllinger, loc. cit. , pp.
24, 35.

[24] Those of the Concorrezenses and Bajolenses . In Italy
Cathari becomes Gazzari ; for that matter, each country had
its special appellatives; one of the most general in the north
was that of the Bulgari , which marks the oriental origin of
the sect, whence the slang term Boulgres and its derivatives
(vide Matthew Paris, ann. 1238). Cf. Schmit, Histoire des
Cathares , 8vo, 2 vols, Paris, 1849.

[25] The most current name in Italy was that of the Patarini ,
given them no doubt from their inhabiting the quarter of
second-hand dealers in Milan: la contrada dei Patari , found in
many cities. Patari! is still the cry of the ragpickers in the
small towns of Provence. In the thirteenth century Patarino and
Catharo were synonyms. But before that the term Patarini had an
entirely different sense. See the very remarkable study of M.
Felice Tocco on this subject in his Eresia net medio evo ,
12mo, Florence, 1884.

[26] Cesar von Heisterbach, Dial. mirac. , t. i., p. 309,
Strange's edition.

[27] Innocentii opera , Migne, t. i., col. 537; t. ii., 654.

[28] Computruistis in peccatis sicut jumenta in stercore suo ut
fumus ac fimus putrefactionis vestræ jam fere circumadjacentes
regionis infecerit, ac ipsum Dominum ut credimus ad nauseam
provocaverit. Loc. cit. , col. 654. Cf. 673; Potthast, 2532,
2539.

[29] Gesta Innocentii , Migne, t. i., col. clxii. Cf. epist.
viii., 85 and 105.

[30] Campi, Historia Ecclesiastica di Piacenza , parte ii., p.
92 ff. Cf. Innoc., epist. ix., 131, 166-169; x., 54, 64, 222.

[31] A. SS., Maii, t. v., p. 87.

[32] Bull of June 6, 1205, Potthast, 2237; Migne, vii., 83. This
Cardinal Leo (of the presbyterial title of Holy Cross of
Jerusalem) was one most valued by Innocent III. To him and
Ugolini, the future Gregory IX., he at this epoch confided the
most delicate missions (for example, in 1209, they were named
legates to Otho IV.). This embassy shows in what importance the
pope held the affairs of Assisi, though it was a very small
city.

[33] Not once do we find him fighting heretics. The early
Dominicans, on the contrary, are incessantly occupied with
arguing. See 2 Cel., 3, 46.

[34] It need not be said that I do not assert that no trace of
it is to be found after the ministry of St. Francis, but it was
no longer a force, and no longer endangered the very existence
of the Church.

[35] This strange personality will charm historians and
philosophers for a long while to come. I know nothing more
learned or more luminous than M. Felice Tocco's fine study in
his Eresia nel medio evo , Florence, 1884, 1 vol., 12mo, pp.
261-409.

[36] A. SS., Sept., t. vii., p. 283 ff.

[37] A. SS., Maii, vii.; Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum
historiale , lib. 29, cap. 40. La Sila is a wooded mountain,
situated eastward from Cosenza, which the peasants call Monte
Nero . The summits are nearly 2,000 metres above the sea.

[38] Toward 1195. Gioacchino died there, March 30, 1202.

[39] A whole apochryphal literature has blossomed out around
Gioacchino; certain hypercritics have tried to prove that he
never wrote anything. These are exaggerations. Three large works
are certainly authentic: The Agreement of the Old and New
Testaments , The Commentary on the Apocalypse , and The
Psaltery of Ten Strings , published in Venice, the first in
1517, the two others in 1527. His prophecies were so well known,
even in his lifetime, that an English Cistercian, Rudolph, Abbot
of Coggeshall ([Cross] 1228), coming to Rome in 1195, sought a
conference with him and has left us an interesting account of
it. Martène, Amplissima Collectio , t. v., p. 839.

[40] Comm. in apoc. , folio 78, b. 2.

[41] Qui vere monachus est nihil reputat esse suum nisi
citharam: Apoc., ib., folio 183. a. 2.

[42] E. Roth, Die Visionen der heiligen Elisabeth von Schönau :
Brünn, 1884, pp. 115-117.

* * * * *


CHAPTER IV

STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH

Spring of 1206-February 24, 1209


The biographies of St. Francis have preserved to us an incident which shows how great was the religious ferment even in the little city of Assisi. A stranger was seen to go up and down the streets saying to every one he met, "Peace and welfare!" ( Pax et bonum. )[1] He thus expressed in his own way the disquietude of those hearts which could neither resign themselves to perpetual warfare nor to the disappearance of faith and love; artless echo, vibrating in response to the hopes and fears that were shaking all Europe!

"Vox clamantis in deserto!" it will be said. No, for every heart-cry leaves its trace even when it seems to be uttered in empty air, and that of the Unknown of Assisi may have contributed in some measure to Francis's definitive call.

Since his abrupt return from Spoleto, life in his father's house had become daily more difficult. Bernardone's self-love had received from his son's discomfiture such a wound as with commonplace men is never healed. He might provide, without counting it, money to be swallowed up in dissipation, that so his son might stand on an equal footing with the young nobles; he could never resign himself to see him giving with lavish hands to every beggar in the streets.

Francis, continually plunged in reverie and spending his days in lonely wanderings in the fields, was no longer of the least use to his father. Months passed, and the distance between the two men grew ever wider; and the gentle and loving Pica could do nothing to prevent a rupture which from this time appeared to be inevitable. Francis soon came to feel only one desire, to flee from the abode where, in the place of love, he found only reproaches, upbraidings, anguish.

The faithful confidant of his earlier struggles had been obliged to leave him, and this absolute solitude weighed heavily upon his warm and loving heart. He did what he could to escape from it, but no one understood him. The ideas which he was beginning timidly to express evoked from those to whom he spoke only mocking smiles or the head-shakings which men sure that they are right bestow upon him who is marching straight to madness. He even went to open his mind to the bishop, but the latter understood no more than others his vague, incoherent plans, filled with ideas impossible to realize and possibly subversive.[2] It was thus that in spite of himself Francis was led to ask nothing of men, but to raise himself by prayer to intuitive knowledge of