Life of St. Francis of Assisi Part 35

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 att.i.tude 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 a.s.sume 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 G.o.d."[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 cl.u.s.tered around the origin of this doc.u.ment; 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 pa.s.sage in the plan at the last moment.[22] I have already so far described this Rule that there is no need to return to the subject here.

It was approved November 25, 1223.[23] Many memories appear to have cl.u.s.tered about the journey of Francis to Rome. One day Cardinal Ugolini, whose hospitality he had accepted, was much surprised, and his guests as well, to find him absent as they were about to sit down at table, but they soon saw him coming, carrying a quant.i.ty of pieces of dry bread, which he joyfully distributed to all the n.o.ble company. His host, somewhat abashed by the proceeding, having undertaken after the meal to reproach him a little, Francis explained that he had no right to forget, for a sumptuous feast, the bread of charity on which he was fed every day, and that he desired thus to show his brethren that the richest table is not worth so much to the poor in spirit as this table of the Lord.[24]

We have seen that during the earlier years the Brothers Minor had been in the habit of earning their bread by going out as servants. Some of them, a very small number, had continued to do so. Little by little, in this matter also all had been changed. Under color of serving, the friars entered the families of the highest personages of the pontifical court, and became their confidential attendants; instead of submitting themselves to all, as the Rule of 1221 ordained, they were above everyone.

Entirely losing sight of the apostolic life, they became courtiers of a special type; their character, half ecclesiastic and half lay, rendered them capable of carrying out a number of delicate missions and of playing a part in the varied intrigues for which the greater number of Roman prelates have always seemed to live.[25] By way of protest Francis had only one weapon, his example.

One day, the Speculum relates, the Blessed Francis came to Rome to see the Bishop of Ostia (Ugolini), and after having remained some time at his house, he went also to visit Cardinal Leo, who had a great devotion for him.

It was winter; the cold, the wind, the rain made any journey impossible, so the cardinal begged him to pa.s.s a few days in his house and to take his food there, like the other poor folk who came there to eat. ... "I will give you," he added, "a good lodging, quite retired, where if you like you may pray and eat."

Then Brother Angelo, one of the twelve first disciples, who lived with the cardinal, said to Francis: "There is, close by here, a great tower standing by itself and very quiet; you will be there as in a hermitage." Francis went to see it and it pleased him. Then, returning to the cardinal, "Monsignor," he said, "it is possible that I may pa.s.s a few days with you." The latter was very joyful, and Brother Angelo went to prepare the tower for the Blessed Francis and his companion.

But the very first night, when he would have slept, the demons came and smote him. Calling then to his companion, "Brother," he said, "the demons have come and smitten me with violence; remain near me, I beg, for I am afraid here alone."

He was trembling in all his members, like one who has a fever.

They pa.s.sed the night both without sleeping. "The demons are commissioned with the chastis.e.m.e.nts of G.o.d," said Francis; "as a podesta sends his executioner to punish the criminal, so G.o.d sends demons, who in this are his ministers.... Why has he sent them to me? Perhaps this is the reason: The cardinal desired to be kind to me, and I have truly great need of repose, but the Brothers who are out in the world, suffering hunger and a thousand tribulations, and also those others who are in hermitages or in miserable houses, when they hear of my sojourn with a cardinal will be moved to repine. 'We endure all privations,' they will say, 'while he has all that he can desire; 'but I ought to give them a good example--that is my true mission." ...

Early next morning, therefore he quitted the tower, and having told the cardinal all, took leave of him and returned to the hermitage of Monte Colombo, near Rieti. "They think me a holy man," he said, "and see, it needed demons to cast me out of prison."[26]

This story, notwithstanding its strange coloring, shows plainly how strong was his instinct for independence. To compare the hospitality of a cardinal to an imprisonment! He spoke better than he knew, characterizing in one word the relation of the Church to his Order.

The lark was not dead; in spite of cold and the north wind it gayly took its flight to the vale of Rieti.

It was mid-December. An ardent desire to observe to the life the memories of Christmas had taken possession of Francis. He opened his heart to one of his friends, the knight Giovanni di Greccio, who undertook the necessary preparations.

The imitation of Jesus has in all times been the very centre of Christianity; but one must be singularly spiritual to be satisfied with the imitation of the heart. With most men there is need that this should be preceded and sustained by an external imitation. It is indeed the spirit that gives life, but it is only in the country of the angels that one can say that the flesh profiteth nothing.

In the Middle Ages a religious festival was before all things else a representation, more or less faithful, of the event which it recalled; hence the _santons_ of Provence, the processions of the _Palmesel_, the Holy Supper of Maundy Thursday, the Road to the Cross of Good Friday, the drama of the Resurrection of Easter, and the flaming tow of Whitsunday. Francis was too thoroughly Italian not to love these festivals where every visible thing speaks of G.o.d and of his love.

The population of Greccio and its environs was, therefore, convoked, as well as the Brothers from the neighboring monasteries. On the evening of the vigil of Christmas one might have seen the faithful hastening to the hermitage by every path with torches in their hands, making the forests ring with their joyful hymns.

Everyone was rejoicing--Francis most of all. The knight had prepared a stable with straw, and brought an ox and an a.s.s, whose breath seemed to give warmth to the poor _bambino_, benumbed with the cold. At the sight the saint felt tears of pity bedew his face; he was no longer in Greccio, his heart was in Bethlehem.

Finally they began to chant matins; then the ma.s.s was begun, and Francis, as deacon, read the Gospel. Already hearts were touched by the simple recital of the sacred legend in a voice so gentle and so fervent, but when he preached, his emotion soon overcame the audience; his voice had so unutterable a tenderness that they also forgot everything, and were living over again the feeling of the shepherds of Judea who in those old days went to adore the G.o.d made man, born in a stable.[27]

Toward the close of the thirteenth century, the author of the _Stabat Mater dolorosa_, Giacopone dei Todi, that Franciscan of genius who spent a part of his life in dungeons, inspired by the memory of Greccio, composed another Stabat, that of joy, _Stabat Mater speciosa_. This hymn of Mary beside the manger is not less n.o.ble than that of Mary at the foot of the cross. The sentiment is even more tender, and it is hard to explain its neglect except by an unjust caprice of fate.

Stabat Mater speciosa Juxtum foenum gaudiosa Dum jacebat parvulus.

Quae gaudebat et ridebat Exsultabat c.u.m videbat Nati partum inclyti.

Fac me vere congaudere Jesulino cohaerere Donec ego vixero.[28]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] All this took place with prodigious rapidity. The dimensions of the Basilica of a.s.sisi, the plans of which were made in 1228, no more permits it to be considered as a conventual chapel than Santa-Croce in Florence, San Francesco in Sienna, or the Basilica San Antonio at Padua, monuments commenced between 1230 and 1240. Already before 1245 one party of the episcopate utters a cry of alarm, in which he speaks of nothing less than of closing the door of the secular churches, which have become useless. He complains with incredible bitterness that the Minor and Preaching Friars have absolutely supplanted the parochial clergy. This letter may be found in Pierre de la Vigne, addressed at once to Frederick II. and the Council of Lyons: _Epistolae_, Basle, 1740, 2 vols., vol. i., pp. 220-222. It is much to be desired that a critical text should be given. See also the satire against the two new Orders, done in rhyme about 1242 by Pierre de la Vigne, and of which, allowing for possible exaggerations, the greater number of the incidents cannot have been invented: E. du Meril, _Poesies pop. lat._, pp. 153-177, Paris, 8vo, 1847.

[2] And not of the 29th, as Sbaralea will have it. _Bull. fr._, vol. i., n. 10. Horoy, vol. iv., col. 129; the original, still in the archives of a.s.sisi, bears the t.i.tle: _Datum Anagnie 11 Kalendas Aprilis pontificatus nostri anno s.e.xto_.

[3] Potthast, 6809; Horoy, iv., col. 129. See also the bull _Ecce Venit Deus_ of July 14, 1227; L. Auvray: _Registres de Gregoire IX._, no. 129; cf. 153; Potthast, 8027 and 8028, 8189.

[4] He had finished his mission as legate in Lombardy toward the close of September, 1221 (see his register; cf. Bohmer, _Acta imp. sel. doc._, 951). In the spring of 1222 we find him continually near the pope at Anagni, Veroli, Alatri (Potthast, 6807, 6812, 6849). The Holy See had still at that time a marked predilection for the Preachers; the very trite privilege of power to celebrate the offices in times of interdict had been accorded them March 7, 1222, but instead of the formula usual in such cases, a revised form had been made expressly for them, with a handsome eulogy. Ripolli, _Bull. Praed._, t. i., p. 15.

[5] 2 Cel., 3, 93: _Subtrahebat se a consortio fratrum._

[6] It is needless to say that local traditions, in this case, though as to detail they must be accepted only with great reserve, yet on the whole are surely true. The geography of St.

Francis's life is yet to be made.

[7] 2 Cel., 3, 59; Bon., 60; _Conform._, 122b, 2.

[8] 2 Cel., 3, 5; _Spec._, 12a; _Conform._, 169b, 2.

[9] Eccl., 6. Vide Liebermann's text, _Mon. Germ. hist.

Script._, t. 28, p. 663.

[10] 2 Cel., 3, 93; Bon., 104 and 105; _Conform._, 101a, 2.

[11] 2 Cel., 3, 93; _Spec._, 49b; 182a; _Conform._, 182a, 1; _Tribul._, f^o 5a; 2 Cel., 3, 98; 113; 115; 1 Cel., 28, 50; 96; 103; 104; 108; 111; 118.