Life of St. Francis of Assisi
One day Bernardo begged Francis to pass the following night with him, at
the same time giving him to understand that he was about to make a grave
resolution upon which he desired to consult him. The joy of Francis was
great indeed as he divined his intentions. They passed the night without
thinking of sleep; it was a long communion of souls. Bernardo had
decided to distribute his goods to the poor and cast in his lot with
Francis. The latter desired his friend to pass through a sort of
initiation, pointing out to him that what he himself practised, what he
preached, was not his own invention, but that Jesus himself had
expressly ordained it in his word.
At early dawn they bent their steps to the St. Nicholas Church,
accompanied by another neophyte named Pietro, and there, after praying
and hearing mass, Francis opened the Gospels that lay on the altar and
read to his companions the portion which had decided his own vocation:
the words of Jesus sending forth his disciples on their mission.
"Brethren," he added, "this is our life and our Rule, and that of all
who may join us. Go then and do as you have heard."[4]
The persistence with which the Three Companions relate that Francis
consulted the book three times in honor of the Trinity, and that it
opened of its own accord at the verses describing the apostolic life,
leads to the belief that these passages became the Rule of the new
association, if not that very day at least very soon afterward.
If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell that thou hast, and give to
the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and
follow me.
Jesus having called to him the Twelve, gave them power and
authority over all devils and to cure diseases. And he sent them
to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. And he said
unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor
scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats
apiece. And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide, and
thence depart. And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go
out of that city shake off the very dust from your feet for a
testimony against them. And they departed and went through the
towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after
me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever
will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man
profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own
soul?[5]
At first these verses were hardly more than the official Rule of the
Order; the true Rule was Francis himself; but they had the great merit
of being short, absolute, of promising perfection, and of being taken
from the Gospel.
Bernardo immediately set to work to distribute his fortune among the
poor. Full of joy, his friend was looking on at this act, which had
drawn together a crowd, when a priest named Sylvester, who had formerly
sold him some stones for the repairs of St. Damian, seeing so much money
given away to everyone who applied for it, drew near and said:
"Brother, you did not pay me very well for the stones which you bought
of me."
Francis had too thoroughly killed every germ of avarice in himself not
to be moved to indignation by hearing a priest speak thus. "Here," he
said, holding out to him a double handful of coins which he took from
Bernardo's robe, "here; are you sufficiently paid now?"
"Quite so," replied Sylvester, somewhat abashed by the murmurs of the
bystanders.[6]
This picture, in which the characters stand out so strongly, must have
taken strong hold upon the memory of the bystanders: the Italians only
thoroughly understand things which they make a picture of. It taught
them, better than all Francis's preachings, what manner of men these new
friars would be.
The distribution finished, they went at once to Portiuncula, where
Bernardo and Pietro built for themselves cabins of boughs, and made
themselves tunics like that of Francis. They did not differ much from
the garment worn by the peasants, and were of that brown, with its
infinite variety of shades, which the Italians call beast color. One
finds similar garments to-day among the shepherds of the most remote
parts of the Apennines.
A week later, Thursday, April 23, 1209,[7] a new disciple of the name
of Egidio presented himself before Francis. Of a gentle and submissive
nature, he was of those who need to lean on someone, but who, the needed
support having been found and tested, lift themselves sometimes even
above it. The pure soul of brother Egidio, supported by that of Francis,
came to enjoy the intoxicating delights of contemplation with an
unheard-of ardor.[8]
Here we must be on our guard against forcing the authorities, and asking
of them more than they can give. Later, when the Order was definitely
constituted and its convents organized, men fancied that the past had
been like the present, and this error still weighs upon the picture of
the origins of the Franciscan movement. The first brothers lived as did
the poor people among whom they so willingly moved; Portiuncula was
their favorite church, but it would be a mistake to suppose that they
sojourned there for any long periods. It was their place of meeting,
nothing more. When they set forth they simply knew that they should meet
again in the neighborhood of the modest chapel. Their life was that of
the Umbrian beggars of the present day, going here and there as fancy
dictated, sleeping in hay-lofts, in leper hospitals, or under the porch
of some church. So little had they any fixed domicile that Egidio,
having decided to join them, was at considerable trouble to learn where
to find Francis, and accidentally meeting him in the neighborhood of
Rivo-Torto[9] he saw in the fact a providential leading.
They went up and down the country, joyfully sowing their seed. It was
the beginning of summer, the time when everybody in Umbria is out of
doors mowing or turning the grass. The customs of the country have
changed but little. Walking in the end of May in the fields about
Florence, Perugia, or Rieti, one still sees, at nightfall, the bagpipers
entering the fields as the mowers seat themselves upon the hay-cocks for
their evening meal; they play a few pieces, and when the train of
haymakers returns to the village, followed by the harvest-laden carts,
it is they who lead the procession, rending the air with their sharpest
strains.
The joyous Penitents who loved to call themselves _Joculatores Domini_,
God's _jongleurs_, no doubt often did the same.[10] They did even
better, for not willing to be a charge to anyone, they passed a part of
the day in aiding the peasants in their field work.[11] The inhabitants
of these districts are for the most part kindly and sedate; the friars
soon gained their confidence by relating to them first their history and
then their hopes. They worked and ate together; field-hands and friars
often slept in the same barn, and when with the morrow's dawn the friars
went on their way, the hearts of those they left behind had been
touched. They were not yet converted, but they knew that not far away,
over toward Assisi, were living men who had renounced all worldly goods,
and who, consumed with zeal, were going up and down preaching penitence
and peace.
Their reception was very different in the cities. If the peasant of
Central Italy is mild and kindly the townsfolk are on a first
acquaintance scoffing and ill disposed. We shall shortly see the friars
who went to Florence the butt of all sorts of persecutions.
Only a few weeks had passed since Francis began to preach, and already
his words and acts were sounding an irresistible appeal in the depths of
many a heart. We have arrived at the most unique and interesting period
in the history of the Franciscans. These first months are for their
institution what the first days of spring are for nature, days when the
almond-tree blossoms, bearing witness to the mysterious labor going on
in the womb of the earth, and heralding the flowers that will suddenly
enamel the fields. At the sight of these men--bare footed, scantily
clothed, without money, and yet so happy--men's minds were much divided.
Some held them to be mad, others admired them, finding them widely
different from the vagrant monks,[12] that plague of Christendom.
Sometimes, however, the friars found success not responding to their
efforts, the conversion of souls not taking form with enough rapidity
and vigor. To encourage them, Francis would then confide to them his
visions and his hopes. "I saw a multitude of men coming toward us,
asking that they might receive the habit of our holy religion, and lo,
the sound of their footsteps still echoes in my ears. I saw them coming
from every direction, filling all the roads."
Whatever the biographies may say, Francis was far from foreseeing the
sorrows that were to follow this rapid increase of his Order. The maiden
leaning with trembling rapture on her lover's arm no more dreams of the
pangs of motherhood than he thought of the dregs he must drain after
quaffing joyfully the generous wine of the chalice.[13]
Every prosperous movement provokes opposition by the very fact of its
prosperity. The herbs of the field have their own language for cursing
the longer-lived plants that smother them out; one can hardly live
without arousing jealousy; in vain the new fraternity showed itself
humble, it could not escape this law.
When the brethren went up to Assisi to beg from door to door, many
refused to give to them, reproaching them with desiring to live on the
goods of others after having squandered their own. Many a time they had
barely enough not to starve to death. It would even seem that the clergy
were not entirely without part in this opposition. The Bishop of Assisi
said to Francis one day: "Your way of living without owning anything
seems to me very harsh and difficult." "My lord," replied he, "if we
possessed property we should have need of arms for its defence, for it
is the source of quarrels and lawsuits, and the love of God and of one's
neighbor usually finds many obstacles therein; this is why we do not
desire temporal goods."[14]
The argument was unanswerable, but Guido began to rue the encouragement
which he had formerly offered the son of Bernardone. He was very nearly
in the situation and consequently in the state of mind of the Anglican
bishops when they saw the organizing of the Salvation Army. It was not
exactly hostility, but a distrust which was all the deeper for hardly
daring to show itself. The only counsel which the bishop could give
Francis was to come into the ranks of the clergy, or, if asceticism
attracted him, to join some already existing monastic order.[15]
If the bishop's perplexities were great, those of Francis were hardly
less so. He was too acute not to foresee the conflict that threatened to
break out between the friars and the clergy. He saw that the enemies of
the priests praised him and his companions beyond measure simply to set
off their poverty against the avarice and wealth of the ecclesiastics,
yet he felt himself urged on from within to continue his work, and could
well have exclaimed with the apostle, _"Woe is me if I preach not the
gospel!"_ On the other hand, the families of the Penitents could not
forgive them for having distributed their goods among the poor, and
attacks came from this direction with all the bitter language and the
deep hatred natural to disappointed heirs. From this point of view the
brotherhood appeared as a menace to families, and many parents trembled
lest their sons should join it. Whether the friars would or no, they