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

[30] Assisi MS., 338, f^o 28a-31a, with the rubric: De lictera
et ammonitione beatissimi patris nostri Francisci quam misit
fratribus ad capitulum quando erat infirmus. This letter was
wrongly divided into three by Rodolfo di Tossignano (f^o 237),
who was followed by Wadding (Epistolæ x., xi., xii.). The text
is found without this senseless division in the manuscript cited
and in Firmamentum , f^o 21; Spec. , Morin, iii., 217a;
Ubertini, Arbor vit. cruc. , v., 7.

[31] This initial (given only by the Assisi MS.) has not failed
to excite surprise. It appears that there ought to have been
simply an N ... This letter then would have been replaced by the
copyist, who would have used the initial of the minister general
in charge at the time of his writing. If this hypothesis has any
weight it will aid to fix the exact date of the manuscript.
(Alberto of Pisa minister from 1239-1240; Aimon of Faversham,
1240-1244.)

[32] This epistle also was unskilfully divided into two distinct
letters by Rodolfo di Tossignano, f^o 174a, who was followed by
Wadding. See Assisi MS., 338, 23a-28a; Conform. , 137a, 1 ff.

[33] The letter to the clergy only repeats the thoughts already
expressed upon the worship of the holy sacrament. We remember
Francis sweeping out the churches and imploring the priests to
keep them clean; this epistle has the same object: it is found
in the Assisi MS., 338, f^o 31b-32b, with the rubric: De
reverentia Corporis Domini et de munditia altaris ad omnes
clericos . Incipit: Attendamus omnes . Explicit: fecerint
exemplari . This, therefore, is the letter given by Wadding
xiii., but without address or salutation.

[34] We need not despair of finding them. The archives of the
monasteries of Clarisses are usually rudimentary enough, but
they are preserved with pious care.

[35] Spec. , 117b; Conform. , 185a 1; 135b, 1. Cf. Test. B.
Claræ , A. SS., Aug., ii., p. 747.

[36] This story is given in the Spec. , 128b, as from
eye-witnesses. Cf. Conform. , 184b, 1; 203a, 1.

[37] 1 Cel., 106. These recommendations as to Portiuncula were
amplified by the Zelanti, when, under the generalship of
Crescentius (Bull Is qui ecclesiam , March 6, 1245), the
Basilica of Assisi was substituted for Santa Maria degli Angeli
as mater et caput of the Order. Vide Spec. , 32b, 69b-71a;
Conform. , 144a, 2; 218a, 1; 3 Soc., 56; 2 Cel., 1, 12 and 13;
Bon., 24, 25; see the Appendix, the Study of the Indulgence of
August 2.

[38] 2 Cel., 108. As will be seen (below, p. 367) the remainder
of Celano's narrative seems to require to be taken with some
reserve. Cf. Spec. , 115b; Conform. , 225a, 2; Bon., 211.

[39] Non sum cuculus , in Italian cuculo .

[40] Spec. , 136b; Fior. iv. consid. It is to be noted that
Guido, instead of waiting at Assisi for the certainly impending
death of Francis, went away to Mont Gargano. 2 Cel., 3, 142.

* * * * *


CHAPTER XX

FRANCIS'S WILL AND DEATH

End of September-October 3, 1226


The last days of Francis's life are of radiant beauty. He went to meet death, singing,[1] says Thomas of Celano, summing up the impression of those who saw him then.

To be once more at Portiuncula after so long a detention at the bishop's palace was not only a real joy to his heart, but the pure air of the forest must have been much to his physical well-being; does not the Canticle of the Creatures seem to have been made expressly to be sung in the evening of one of those autumn days of Umbria, so soft and luminous, when all nature seems to retire into herself to sing her own hymn of love to Brother Sun?

We see that Francis has come to that almost entire cessation of pain, that renewing of life, which so often precedes the approach of the last catastrophe.

He took advantage of it to dictate his Will.[2]

It is to these pages that we must go to find the true note for a sketch of the life of its author, and an idea of the Order as it was in his dreams.

In this record, which is of an incontestable authenticity, the most solemn manifestation of his thought, the Poverello reveals himself absolutely, with a virginal candor.

His humility is here of a sincerity which strikes one with awe; it is absolute, though no one could dream that it was exaggerated. And yet, wherever his mission is concerned, he speaks with tranquil and serene assurance. Is he not an ambassador of God? Does he not hold his message from Christ himself? The genesis of his thought here shows itself to be at once wholly divine and entirely personal. The individual conscience here proclaims its sovereign authority. "No one showed me what I ought to do, but the Most High himself revealed to me that I ought to live conformably to his holy gospel."

When a man has once spoken thus, submission to the Church has been singularly encroached upon. We may love her, hearken to her, venerate her, but we feel ourselves, perhaps without daring to avow it, superior to her. Let a critical hour come, and one finds himself heretic without knowing it or wishing it.

"Ah, yes," cries Angelo Clareno, "St. Francis promised to obey the pope and his successors, but they cannot and must not command anything contrary to the conscience or to the Rule."[3]

For him, as for all the spiritual Franciscans, when there is conflict between what the inward voice of God ordains and what the Church wills, he has only to obey the former.[4]

If you tell him that the Church and the Order are there to define the true signification of the Rule, he appeals to common sense, and to that interior certitude which is given by a clear view of truth.

The Rule, as also the gospel, of which it is a summary, is above all ecclesiastical power, and no one has the right to say the last word in their interpretation.[5]

The Will was not slow to gain a moral authority superior even to that of the Rule. Giovanni of Parma, to explain the predilection of the Joachimites for this document, points out that after the impression of the stigmata the Holy Spirit was in Francis with still greater plenitude than before.[6]

Did the innumerable sects which disturbed the Church in the thirteenth century perceive that these two writings--the Rule and the Testament--the one apparently made to follow and support the other, substantially identical as it was said, proceeded from two opposite inspirations? Very confusedly, no doubt, but guided by a very sure instinct, they saw in these pages the banner of liberty.

They were not mistaken. Even to-day, thinkers, moralists, mystics may arrive at solutions very different from those of the Umbrian prophet, but the method which they employ is his, and they may not refuse to acknowledge in him the precursor of religious subjectivism.

The Church, too, was not mistaken. She immediately understood the spirit that animated these pages.

Four years later, perhaps to the very day, September 28, 1230, Ugolini, then Gregory IX., solemnly interpreted the Rule, in spite of the precautions of Francis, who had forbidden all gloss or commentary on the Rule or the Will, and declared that the Brothers were not bound to the observation of the Will.[7]

What shall we say of the bull in which the pope alleges his familiar relations with the Saint to justify his commentary, and in which the clearest passages are so distorted as to change their sense completely. "One is stupefied," cries Ubertini of Casali, "that a text so clear should have need of a commentary, for it suffices to have common sense and to know grammar in order to understand it." And this strange monk dares to add: "There is one miracle which God himself cannot do; it is to make two contradictory things true."[8]

Certainly the Church should be mistress in her own house; it would have been nothing wrong had Gregory IX. created an Order conformed to his views and ideas, but when we go through Sbaralea's folios and the thousands of bulls accorded to the spiritual sons of him who in the clearest and most solemn manner had forbidden them to ask any privilege of the court of Rome, we cannot but feel a bitter sadness.

Thus upheld by the papacy, the Brothers of the Common Observance made the Zelanti sharply expiate their attachment to Francis's last requests. Cæsar of Speyer died of violence from the Brother placed in charge of him;[9] the first disciple, Bernardo di Quintavalle, hunted like a wild beast, passed two years in the forests of Monte-Sefro, hidden by a wood-cutter;[10] the other first companions who did not succeed in flight had to undergo the severest usage. In the March of Ancona, the home of the Spirituals, the victorious party used a terrible violence. The Will was confiscated and destroyed; they went so far as to burn it over the head of a friar who persisted in desiring to observe it.[11]

WILL (LITERAL TRANSLATION).

See in what manner God gave it to me, to me, Brother Francis, to
begin to do penitence; when I lived in sin, it was very painful
to me to see lepers, but God himself led me into their midst,
and I remained here a little while.[12] When I left them, that