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

1222 he addressed to the brethren of Bologna a letter filled with sad forebodings. In that city, where the Dominicans, overwhelmed with attentions, were occupied with making themselves a stronghold in the system of instruction, the Brothers Minor were more than anywhere else tempted to forsake the way of simplicity and poverty. Francis's warnings had put on such dark and threatening colors that after the famous earthquake of December 23, 1222, which spread terror over all northern Italy, there was no hesitation in believing that he had predicted the catastrophe.[9] He had indeed predicted a catastrophe which was none the less horrible for being wholly moral, and the vision of which forced from him the most bitter imprecations:

"Lord Jesus, thou didst choose thine apostles to the number of
twelve, and if one of them did betray thee, the others,
remaining united to thee, preached thy holy gospel, filled with
one and the same inspiration; and behold now, remembering the
former days, thou hast raised up the Religion of the Brothers in
order to uphold faith, and that by them the mystery of thy
gospel may be accomplished. Who will take their place if,
instead of fulfilling their mission and being shining examples
for all, they are seen to give themselves up to works of
darkness? Oh! may they be accursed by thee, Lord, and by all the
court of heaven, and by me, thine unworthy servant, they who by
their bad example overturn and destroy all that thou didst do in
the beginning and ceasest not to do by the holy Brothers of this
Order."[10]

This passage from Thomas of Celano, the most moderate of the biographers, shows to what a pitch of vehemence and indignation the gentle Francis could be worked up.

In spite of very natural efforts to throw a veil of reserve over the anguish of the founder with regard to the future of his spiritual family, we find traces of it at every step. "The time will come," he said one day, "when our Order will so have lost all good renown that its members will be ashamed to show themselves by daylight."[11]

He saw in a dream a statue with the head of pure gold, the breast and arms of silver, the body of crystal, and the legs of iron. He thought it was an omen of the future in store for his institute.[12]

He believed his sons to be attacked with two maladies, unfaithful at once to poverty and humility; but perhaps he dreaded for them the demon of learning more than the temptation of riches.

What were his views on the subject of learning? It is probable that he never examined the question as a whole, but he had no difficulty in seeing that there will always be students enough in the universities, and that if scientific effort is an homage offered to God, there is no risk of worshippers of this class being wanting; but in vain he looked about him on all sides, he saw no one to fulfil the mission of love and humility reserved for his Order, if the friars came to be unfaithful to it.

Therefore there was something more in his anguish than the grief of seeing his hopes confounded. The rout of an army is nothing in comparison with the overthrow of an idea; and in him an idea had been incarnated, the idea of peace and happiness restored to mankind, by the victory of love over the trammels of material things.

By an ineffable mystery he felt himself the Man of his age, him in whose body are borne all the efforts, the desires, the aspirations of men; with him, in him, by him humanity yearns to be renewed, and to use the language of the gospel, born again.

In this lies his true beauty. By this, far more than by a vain conformity, an exterior imitation, he is a Christ.

He also bears the affliction of the world, and if we will look into the very depths of his soul we must give this word affliction the largest possible meaning for him as for Jesus. By their pity they bore the physical sufferings of humanity, but their overwhelming anguish was something far different from this, it was the birth-throes of the divine. They suffer, because in them the Word is made flesh, and at Gethsemane, as under the olive-trees of Greccio, they are in agony "because their own received them not."

Yes, St. Francis forever felt the travail of the transformation taking place in the womb of humanity, going forward to its divine destiny, and he offered himself, a living oblation, that in him might take place the mysterious palingenesis.

Do we now understand his pain? He was trembling for the mystery of the gospel. There is in him something which reminds us of the tremor of life when it stands face to face with death, something by so much the more painful as we have here to do with moral life.

This explains how the man who would run after ruffians that he might make disciples of them could be pitiless toward his fellow-laborers who by an indiscreet, however well-intentioned, zeal forgot their vocation and would transform their Order into a scientific institute.

Under pretext of putting learning at the service of God and of religion, the Church had fostered the worst of vices, pride. According to some it is her title to glory, but it will be her greatest shame.

Must we renounce the use of this weapon against the enemies of the faith? she asks. But can you imagine Jesus joining the school of the rabbins under the pretext of learning how to reply to them, enfeebling his thought by their dialectic subtleties and fantastic exegesis? He might perhaps have been a great doctor, but would he have become the Saviour of the world? You feel that he would not.

When we hear preachers going into raptures over the marvellous spread of the gospel preached by twelve poor fishermen of Galilee, might we not point out to them that the miracle is at once more and less astounding than they say? More--for among the twelve several returned to the shores of their charming lake, and forgetful of the mystic net, thought of the Crucified One, if they thought of him at all, only to lament him, and not to raise him from the dead by continuing his work in the four quarters of the world; less--for if even now, in these dying days of the nineteenth century, preachers would go forth beside themselves with love, sacrificing themselves for each and all as in the old days their Master did, the miracle would be repeated again.

But no; theology has killed religion. The clergy repeat to satiety that we must not confound the two; but what good does this do if in practice we do not distinguish them?

Never was learning more eagerly coveted than in the thirteenth century. The Empire and the Church were anxiously asking of it the arguments with which they might defend their opposing claims. Innocent III. sends the collection of his Decretals to the University of Bologna and heaps favors upon it. Frederick II. founds that of Naples, and the Patarini themselves send their sons from Tuscany and Lombardy to study at Paris.

We remember the success of Francis's preaching at Bologna,[13] in August, 1220; at the same period he had strongly reprimanded Pietro Staccia, the provincial minister and a doctor of laws, not only for having installed the Brothers in a house which appeared to belong to them, but especially for having organized a sort of college there.

It appears that the minister paid no attention to these reproaches. When Francis became aware of his obstinacy he cursed him with frightful vehemence; his indignation was so great that when, later on, Pietro Staccia was about to die and his numerous friends came to entreat Francis to revoke his malediction, all their efforts were in vain.[14]

In the face of this attitude of the founder it is very difficult to believe in the authenticity of the note purporting to be addressed to Anthony of Padua:

"To my very dear Anthony, brother Francis, greetings in Christ.

"It pleases me that you interpret to the Brothers the sacred
writings and theology, in such a way, however (conformably to
our Rule), that the spirit of holy prayer be not extinguished
either in you or in the others, which I desire earnestly.
Greetings."

Must we see in this a pious fraud to weaken the numberless clear declarations of Francis against learning?

It is difficult to picture to ourselves the rivalry which existed at this time between the Dominicans and Franciscans in the attempt to draw the most illustrious masters into their respective Orders. Petty intrigues were organized, in which the devotees had each his part, to lead such or such a famous doctor to assume the habit.[15] If the object of St. Francis had been scientific, the friars of Bologna, Paris, and Oxford could not have done more.[16]

The current was so strong that the elder Orders were swept away in it whether they would or no; twenty years later the Cistercians also desired to become legists, theologians, decretalists, and the rest.

Perhaps Francis did not in the outset perceive the gravity of the danger, but illusion was no longer possible, and from this time he showed, as we have seen, an implacable firmness. If later on his thought was travestied, the guilty ones--the popes and most of the ministers-general--were obliged to resort to feats of prestidigitation that are not to their credit. "Suppose," he would say, "that you had subtility and learning enough to know all things, that you were acquainted with all languages, the courses of the stars, and all the rest, what is there in that to be proud of? A single demon knows more on these subjects than all the men in this world put together.[17] But there is one thing that the demon is incapable of, and which is the glory of man: to be faithful to God."[18]

Definite information with regard to the chapters of 1222 and 1223 is wanting. The proposed modifications of the project of 1221 were discussed by the ministers[19] and afterward definitively settled by Cardinal Ugolini. The latter had long conferences on the subject with Francis, who has himself given us the account of them.[20]

The result of them all was the Rule of 1223. Very soon a swarm of marvellous stories, which it would be tedious to examine in detail, came to be clustered around the origin of this document; all that we need to retain of them is the memory that they keep of the struggles of Francis against the ministers for the preservation of his ideal.

Before going to Rome to ask for the final approbation he had meditated long in the solitude of Monte Colombo, near Rieti. This hill was soon represented as a new Sinai, and the disciples pictured their master on its heights receiving another Decalogue from the hands of Jesus himself.[21]

Angelo Clareno, one of the most complacent narrators of these traditions, takes upon himself to point out their slight value; he shows us Honorious III. modifying an essential passage in the