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

to be his spiritual director (St. François, Plon, p. 24)! We
have an indirect but unexceptionable proof of the reserve with
which these pious traditions must be accepted; Francis did not
even tell his bishop ( pater et dominus animarum , 3 Soc., 29)
of his design of having his Rule approved by the pope. This is
the more striking because the bishop would have been his natural
advocate at the court of Rome, and because in the absence of any
other reason the most elementary politeness required that he
should have been informed. Add to this that bishops in Italy are
not, as elsewhere, functionaries approached with difficulty by
the common run of mortals. Almost every village in Umbria has
its bishop, so that their importance is hardly greater than that
of the curé of a French canton. Furthermore, several pontifical
documents throw a sombre light on Guido's character. In a
chapter of the decretals of Honorius III. ( Quinta compil. ,
lib. ii., tit. iii., cap. i.) is given a complaint against this
bishop, brought before the curia by the Crucigeri of the
hospital San Salvatore delle Pareti (suburbs of Assisi), of
having maltreated two of their number, and having stolen a part
of the wine belonging to the convent: pro eo quod Aegidium
presbyterum, et fratrem eorem conversum violentas manus
injecerat ... adjiciens quod idem hospitale quadam vini
quantitate fuerat per eumdem episcopum spoliatum. Honorii
opera , Horoy's edition, t. i., col. 200 ff. Cf. Potthast, 7746.
The mention of the hospital de Pariete proves beyond question
that the Bishop of Assisi is here concerned and not the Bishop
of Osimo, as some critics have suggested.

Another document shows him at strife with the Benedictines of
Mount Subasio (the very ones who afterward gave Portiuncula to
Francis), and Honorius III. found the bishop in the wrong: Bull
Conquerente oeconomo monasterii ap . Richter, Corpus juris
canonici . Leipzig, 1839, 4to, Horoy, loc. cit. , t. i., col.
163; Potthast, 7728.

[16] 3 Soc., 36 and 37. Cf. Anon. Perus. ap. , A. SS., p. 585;
Test. B. Francisci .

[17] 3 Soc., 38-41.

* * * * *


CHAPTER VI

ST. FRANCIS AND INNOCENT III

Summer 1210[1]


Seeing the number of his friars daily increasing, Francis decided to write the Rule of the Order and go to Rome to procure its approval by the Pope.

This resolution was not lightly taken. It would be a mistake in fact to take Francis for one of those inspired ones who rush into action upon the strength of unexpected revelations, and, thanks to their faith in their own infallibility, overawe the multitude. On the contrary, he was filled with a real humility, and if he believed that God reveals himself in prayer, he never for that absolved himself from the duty of reflection nor even from reconsidering his decisions. St. Bonaventura does him great wrong in picturing the greater number of his important resolutions as taken in consequence of dreams; this is to rob his life of its profound originality, his sanctity of its choicest blossom. He was of those who struggle, and, to use one of the noblest expressions of the Bible, of those who by their perseverance conquer their souls . Thus we shall see him continually retouching the Rule of his institute, unceasingly revising it down to the last moment, according as the growth of the Order and experience of the human heart suggested to him modifications of it.[2]

The first Rule which he submitted to Rome has not come down to us; we only know that it was extremely simple, and composed especially of passages from the Gospels. It was doubtless only the repetition of those verses which Francis had read to his first companions, with a few precepts about manual labor and the occupations of the new brethren.[3]

It will be well to pause here and consider the brethren who are about to set out for Rome. The biographies are in agreement as to their number; they were twelve, including Francis; but the moment they undertake to give a name to each one of them difficulties begin to arise, and it is only by some exegetical sleight of hand that they can claim to have reconciled the various documents. The table given below[4] briefly shows these difficulties. The question took on some importance when in the fourteenth century men undertook to show an exact conformity between the life of St. Francis and that of Jesus. It is without interest to us. The profiles of two or three of these brethren stand out very clearly in the picture of the origins of the Order; others remind one of the pictures of primitive Umbrian masters, where the figures of the background have a modest and tender grace, but no shadow of personality. The first Franciscans had all the virtues, including the one which is nearly always wanting, willingness to remain unknown.

In the Lower Church of Assisi there is an ancient fresco representing five of the companions of St. Francis. Above them is a Madonna by Cimabue, upon which they are gazing with all their soul. It would be more true if St. Francis were there in the place of the Madonna; one is always changed into the image of what one admires, and they resemble their master and one another.[5] To attempt to give them a name is to make a sort of psychological error and become guilty of infidelity to their memory; the only name they would have desired is that of their father. His love changed their hearts and shed over their whole persons a radiance of light and joy. These are the true personages of the
Fioretti , the men who brought peace to cities, awakened consciences, changed hearts, conversed with birds, tamed wolves. Of them one may truly say: "Having nothing, yet possessing all things" ( Nihil habentes, omnia possidentes ).

They quitted Portiuncula full of joy and confidence. Francis was too much absorbed in thought not to desire to place in other hands the direction of the little company.

"Let us choose," he said, "one from among ourselves to guide us,
and let him be to us as the vicar of Jesus Christ. Wherever it
may please him to go we will go, and when he may wish to stop
anywhere to sleep there we will stop." They chose Brother
Bernardo and did as Francis had said. They went on full of joy,
and all their conversations had for their object only the glory
of God and the salvation of their souls.

Their journey was happily accomplished. Everywhere they found
kindly souls who sheltered them, and they felt beyond a doubt
that God was taking care of them.[6]

Francis's thoughts were all fixed upon the purpose of their journey; he thought of it day and night, and naturally interpreted his dreams with reference to it. One time, in his dream, he saw himself walking along a road beside which was a gigantic and wonderfully beautiful tree. And, behold, while he looked upon it, filled with wonder, he felt himself become so tall that he could touch the boughs, and at the same time the tree bent down its branches to him.[7] He awoke full of joy, sure of a gracious reception by the sovereign pontiff.

His hopes were to be somewhat blighted. Innocent III. had now for twelve years occupied the throne of St. Peter. Still young, energetic, resolute, he enjoyed that superfluity of authority given by success. Coming after the feeble Celestine III., he had been able in a few years to reconquer the temporal domain of the Church, and so to improve the papal influence as almost to realize the theocratic dreams of Gregory VII. He had seen King Pedro of Aragon declaring himself his vassal and laying his crown upon the tomb of the apostles, that he might take it back at his hands. At the other end of Europe, John Lackland had been obliged to receive his crown from a legate after having sworn homage, fealty, and an annual tribute to the Holy See. Preaching union to the cities and republics of Italy, causing the cry ITALIA! ITALIA! to resound like the shout of a trumpet, he was the natural representative of the national awakening, and appeared to be in some sort the suzerain of the emperor, as he was already that of other kings. Finally, by his efforts to purify the Church, by his indomitable firmness in defending morality and law in the affair of Ingelburge and in many others, he was gaining a moral strength which in times so disquieted was all the more powerful for being so rare.

But this incomparable power had its hidden dangers. Occupied with defending the prerogatives of the Holy See, Innocent came to forget that the Church does not exist for herself, that her supremacy is only a transitory means; and one part of his pontificate may be likened to wars, legitimate in the beginning, in which the conqueror keeps on with depredations and massacres for no reason, except that he is intoxicated with blood and success.

And so Rome, which canonized the petty Celestine V., refused this supreme consecration to the glorious Innocent III. With exquisite tact she perceived that he was rather king than priest, rather pope than saint.

When he suppressed ecclesiastical disorders it was less for love of good than for hatred of evil; it was the judge who condemns or threatens, himself always supported by the law, not the father who weeps his son's offence. This priest did not comprehend the great movement of his age--the awakening of love, of poetry, of liberty. I have already said that at the opening of the thirteenth century the Middle Age was twenty years old. Innocent III. undertook to treat it as if it were only fifteen. Possessed by his civil and religious