Life of St. Francis of Assisi
addressed to him? It is the secret of history, but we may suppose there
was in his life at this time one of those moral tempests which overbear
the faculties of the strongest, leaving in their wounded hearts only an
unutterable pain.
Something of this pain has passed into the touching narrative of his
abdication which the biographers have given us.
"From henceforth," he said to the friars, "I am dead for you,
but here is Brother Pietro di Catana, whom you and I will all
obey." And prostrating himself before him he promised him
obedience and submission. The friars could not restrain their
tears and lamentations when they saw themselves thus becoming in
some sort orphans, but Francis arose, and, clasping his hands,
with eyes upraised to heaven: "Lord," he said, "I return to thee
this family which thou hast confided to me. Now, as thou
knowest, most sweet Jesus, I have no longer strength nor ability
to keep on caring for them; I confide them, therefore, to the
ministers. May they be responsible before thee at the day of
judgment if any brother, by their negligence or bad example, or
by a too severe discipline, should ever wander away."[17]
The functions of Pietro di Catana were destined to continue but a very
short time; he died on March 10, 1221.[18]
Information abounds as to this period of a few months; nothing is more
natural, since Francis remained at Portiuncula to complete the task
confided to him, living there surrounded with brethren who later on
would recall to mind all the incidents of which they were witnesses.
Some of them reveal the conflict of which his soul was the arena.
Desirous of showing himself submissive, he nevertheless found himself
tormented by the desire to shake off his chains and fly away as in
former days, to live and breathe in God alone. The following artless
record deserves, it seems to me, to be better known.[19]
One day a novice who could read the psalter, though not without
difficulty, obtained from the minister general--that is to say,
from the vicar of St. Francis--permission to have one. But as he
had learned that St. Francis desired the brethren to be covetous
neither for learning nor for books, he would not take his psalter
without his consent. So, St. Francis having come to the monastery
where the novice was, "Father," said he, "it would be a great
consolation to have a psalter; but though the minister-general
has authorized me to get it, I would not have it unknown to you."
"Look at the Emperor Charles," replied St. Francis with fire,
"Roland, and Oliver and all the paladins, valorous heroes and
gallant knights, who gained their famous victories in fighting
infidels, in toiling and laboring even unto death! The holy
martyrs, they also have chosen to die in the midst of battle for
the faith of Christ! But now there are many of those who aspire
to merit honor and glory simply by relating their feats. Yes,
among us also there are many who expect to receive glory and
honor by reciting and preaching the works of the saints, as if
they had done them themselves!"
... A few days after, St. Francis was sitting before the fire,
and the novice drew near to speak to him anew about his psalter.
"When you have your psalter," said Francis to him, "you will want
a breviary, and when you have a breviary you will seat yourself
in a pulpit like a great prelate and will beckon to your
companion, 'Bring me my breviary!'"
St. Francis said this with great vivacity, then taking up some
ashes he scattered them over the head of the novice, repeating,
"There is the breviary, there is the breviary!"
Several days after, St. Francis being at Portiuncula and walking
up and down on the roadside not far from his cell, the same
Brother came again to speak to him about his psalter. "Very well,
go on," said Francis to him, "you have only to do what your
minister tells you." At these words the novice went away, but
Francis began to reflect on what he had said, and suddenly
calling to the friar, he cried, "Wait for me! wait for me!" When
he had caught up to him, "Retrace your steps a little way. I beg
you," he said. "Where was I when I told you to do whatever your
minister told you as to the psalter?" Then falling upon his knees
on the spot pointed out by the friar, he prostrated himself at
his feet: "Pardon, my brother, pardon!" he cried, "for he who
would be Brother Minor ought to have nothing but his clothing."
This long story is not merely precious because it shows us, even to the
smallest particular, the conflict between the Francis of the early
years, looking only to God and his conscience, and the Francis of 1220,
become a submissive monk in an Order approved by the Roman Church, but
also because it is one of those infrequent narratives where his method
shows itself with its artless realism. These allusions to the tales of
chivalry, and this freedom of manner which made a part of his success
with the masses, were eliminated from the legend with an incredible
rapidity. His spiritual sons were perhaps not ashamed of their father in
this matter, but they were so bent upon bringing out his other qualities
that they forgot a little too much the poet, the troubadour, the
_joculator Domini_.
Certain fragments, later than Thomas of Celano by more than a century,
which relate some incidents of this kind, bear for that very reason the
stamp of authenticity.
It is difficult enough to ascertain precisely what part Francis still
took in the direction of the Order. Pietro di Catana and later Brother
Elias are sometimes called ministers-general, sometimes vicars; the two
terms often occur successively, as in the preceding narrative. It is
very probable that this confusion of terms corresponds to a like
confusion of facts. Perhaps it was even intentional. After the chapter
of September, 1220, the affairs of the Order pass into the hands of him
whom Francis had called minister-general, though the friars as well as
the papacy gave him only the title of vicar. It was essential for the
popularity of the Brothers Minor that Francis should preserve an
appearance of authority, but the reality of government had slipped from
his hands.
The ideal which he had borne in his body until 1209 and had then given
birth to in anguish, was now taking its flight, like those sons of our
loins whom we see suddenly leaving us without our being able to help it,
since that is life, yet not without a rending of our vitals. _Mater
dolorosa!_ Ah, no doubt they will come back again, and seat themselves
piously beside us at the paternal hearth; perhaps even, in some hour of
moral distress, they will feel the need of taking refuge in their
mother's arms as in the old days; but these fleeting returns, with their
feverish haste, only reopen the wounds of the poor parents, when they
see how the children hasten to depart again--they who bear their name
but belong to them no longer.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Giord., 14; _Tribul._, f^o 10.
[2] Any other date is impossible, since Francis in open chapter
relinquished the direction of the Order in favor of Pietro di
Catana, who died March 10, 1221.
[3] This too short fragment is found in Sec. vi. of the Rule of the
Damianites (August 9, 1253): Speculum, Morin, Tract. iii., 226b.
[4] 2 Cel., 2, 3; Bon., 162; cf. _Conform._, 184b, 2, and 62b, 1.
[5] Sigonius, _Opera_, t. iii. col. 220; cf. Potthast, 5516, and
6086.
[6] 2 Cel., 3, 4; _Spec._, 11a; _Tribul._, 13a; _Conform._,
169b, 2.
[7] Died in 1229. Cf. Mazzetti, _Repertorio di tutti i
professori di Bologna_, Bologna, 1847, p. 11.
[8] See _Mon. Germ. hist. Script._, t. 28, p. 635, and the
notes.
[9] Wadding, _ann. 1220_, no. 9. Cf. A. SS., p. 823.
[10] 2 Cel., 1, 16; _Spec._, 100a-101b.
[11] Giord., 14; cf. 2 Cel., 1, 17; _Spec._, 102; 3 Soc., 56 and 63.
[12] _Cum secundum._ The original is at Assisi with _Datum apud
Urbem Veterem X. Kal. Oct. pont. nostri anno quinto_ (September
22, 1220). It is therefore by an error that Sbaralea and Wadding
make it date from Viterbo, which is the less explicable that all
the bulls of this epoch are dated from Orvieto. Wadding, _ann.
1220_, 57; Sbaralea, vol. i., p. 6; Potthast, 6561.
[13] 2 Cel., 3, 118; Ubertin, _Arbor. V._, 2; _Spec._, 26; 50;
130b; _Conform._, 136a, 2; 143a, 2.
[14] 2 Cel., 3, 83; Bon. 77. One should read this account in the
_Conform._ according to the _Antigua Legenda_, 142a, 2; 31a, 1;
_Spec._ 43b.
[15] _Tribul._ Laur. MS., 12b; Magl. MS., 71b.
[16] Luke, ix., 1-6. _Tribul._, 12b: _Et fecerunt de regula
prima ministri removere_.... This must have taken place at the
chapter of September 29, 1220, since the suppression is made in
the Rule of 1221.
[17] 2 Cel., 3, 81; _Spec._, 26; _Conform._, 175b, 1; 53a; Bon.,
76; A. SS., p. 620.
[18] The epitaph on his tomb, which still exists at S. M. dei
Angeli bears this date: see _Portiuncula, von P. Barnabas aus
dem Elsass_, Rixheim, 1884, p. 11. Cf. A. SS., p. 630.
[19] _Spec._, 9b; _Arbor. V._, 3; _Conform._, 170a, 1; 2 Cel.,
3, 124. Cf. Ubertini, _Archiv._, iii., pp. 75 and 177.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XV
THE RULE OF 1221[1]
The winter of 1220-1221 was spent by Francis chiefly in fixing his
thought by writing. Until now he had been too much the man of action to
have been able to give much thought to anything but the _living word_,
but from this time his exhausted forces compelled him to satisfy his
longing for souls by some other means than evangelizing tours. We have
seen that the chapter of September 29, 1220, on one side, and the bull
_Cum secundum_ on the other, had fixed in advance a certain number of
points. For the rest, complete liberty had been given him, not indeed to
make a final and unchangeable statement of his ideas, but to set them
forth. The substance of legislative power had passed into the hands of
the ministers.[2]
That which we call the Rule of 1221 is, then, nothing more than a
proposed law, submitted to a representative government at its
parliament. The head of authority will one day give it to the world, so
thoroughly modified and altered that Francis's name at the head of such
a document will give but small promise, and quite indirectly, that it
will contain his personal opinion.
Never was man less capable of making a Rule than Francis. In reality,
that of 1210 and the one which the pope solemnly approved in November
29, 1223, had little in common except the name. In the former all is
alive, free, spontaneous; it is a point of departure, an inspiration; it
may be summed up in two phrases: the appeal of Jesus to man, "Come,
follow me," the act of man, "He left all and followed him." To the call
of divine love man replies by the joyful gift of himself, and that quite
naturally, by a sort of instinct. At this height of mysticism any
regulation is not only useless, it is almost a profanation; at the very
least it is the symptom of a doubt. Even in earthly loves, when people
truly love each other nothing is asked, nothing promised.
The Rule of 1223, on the other hand, is a reciprocal contract. On the
divine side the call has become a command; on the human, the free
impulse of love has become an act of submission, by which life eternal
will be earned.
At the bottom of it all is the antinome of law and love. Under the reign
of law we are the mercenaries of God, bound down to an irksome task,