Life of St. Francis of Assisi
1298) there sums up with accuracy but without order the essential
features of the first legends and in particular the Second Life by
Celano.[16]
As for the inscription of Santa Maria del Vescovado at Assisi it is too
unformed to be anything but a simple object of curiosity.[17]
* * * * *
I have given up preparing a complete bibliography of works concerning
St. Francis, that task having been very well done by the Abbe Ulysse
Chevalier in his _Repertoire des sources historiques du moyen age_,
Bio-Bibliographie, cols. 765-767 and 2588-2590, Paris, 1 vol., 4to,
1876-1888. To it I refer my readers.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] He was born at Vitry sur Seine, became Cure of Argenteuil,
near Paris; Canon of Oignies, in the diocese of Namur, preached
the crusade against the Albigenses, and accompanied the
Crusaders to Palestine; having been made Bishop of Acre, he was
present in 1219 at the siege and at the capture of Damietta and
returned to Europe in 1225; created Cardinal-bishop of Frascati
in 1229, he died in 1244, leaving a number of writings. For his
life, see the preface of his _Historiae_, edition of Douai, 1597.
[2] This letter may be found in (Bongars) _Gesta Dei per
Francio_, pp. 1146-1149.
[3] _Jacobi de Vitriaco Libri duo quorum prior Orientalis, alter
Occidentalis Historiae nomine inscribitur studio Fr. Moschi Duaci
ex officina Balthazaris Belleri_, 1597, 16mo, 480 pp. Chapter
xxxii. fills pages 349-353, and is entitled _De ordine et
praedicatione fratrum Minorum_. See above, p. 229.
[4] This appears from the passage: _Videmus primus ordinis
fundatorem magestrum cui tanquam summo Priori suo omnes alii
obediunt._ _Loc. cit._, p. 352.
[5] It is inserted in the treatise of Sigonius on the bishops of
Bologna: _Caroli Sigonii de episcopis Bononiensibus libri
quinque cum notis L. C. Rabbii_, a work which occupies cols.
353-590 of t. iii. of his _Opera omnia_, Milan, 1732-1737, 6
vols., f^o. We find our fragment in col. 432.
[6] This passage will be found above, p. 241.
[7] _Guillelmi Tyrensis arch. Continuala belli sacri historia_
in Martene: _Amplissima Collectio_, t. v. pp. 584-572. The piece
concerning Francis is cols. 689-690.
[8] _Chronicon Montis Sereni_ (at present Petersberg, near
Halle), edited by Ehrenfeuchter in the _Mon. Germ. hist.
Script._, t. 23, pp. 130-226, 229.
[9] _Burchardi et Cuonradi Urspergensium chronicon_ ed., A. Otto
Abel and L. Weiland, _apud Mon. Germ, hist._, t. 23, pp.
333-383. The monastery of Ursperg was half-way between Ulm and
Augsburg. Vide p. 376.
[10] _Matthaei Parisiensis monachie Albanensis, Historia major_,
edition Watts, London, 1640. The Brothers Minor are first
mentioned in the year 1207, p. 222, then 1227, pp. 339-342.
[11] See the article, _Minores_, in the table of contents of the
_Mon. Germ. hist. Script._, t. xxviii.
[12] _Franz von Assisi_, p. 168 ff.
[13] See above, p. 97, his story of the audience with Innocent
III.
[14] For example, _Chronica Albrici trium fontium_ in Pertz:
_Script._, t. 23, _ad ann. 1207_, 1226, 1228. Vide Fragment of
the chron. of Philippe Mousket ([Cross] before 1245). _Recueil des
historiens_, t. xxii., p. 71, lines 30347-30360. The number of
annalists in this century is appalling, and there is not one in
ten who has omitted to note the foundation of the Minor
Brothers.
[15] For example, Vincent de Beauvais ([Cross] 1264) gives in his
_Speculum historiale_, lib. 29, cap. 97-99, lib. 30, cap.
99-111, nearly every story given by the Bollandists under the
title of _Secunda legenda_ in their _Commentarium praevium_.
[16] _Legenda aurea_, Graesse, Breslau, 1890, pp. 662-674.
[17] A good reproduction of it will be found in the _Miscellanea
francescana_, t. ii., pp. 33-37, accompanied by a learned
dissertation by M. Faloci Pulignani.
* * * * *
APPENDIX
CRITICAL STUDY OF THE STIGMATA AND THE INDULGENCE OF AUGUST 2
I. THE STIGMATA
A dissertation upon the possibility of miracles would be out of place
here; a historic sketch is not a treatise on philosophy or dogmatics.
Still, I owe the reader a few explanations, to enable him with thorough
understanding to judge of my manner of viewing the subject.
If by miracle we understand either the suspension or subversion of the
laws of nature, or the intervention of the first cause in certain
particular cases, I could not concede it. In this negation physical and
logical reasons are secondary; the true reason--let no one be
surprised--is entirely religious; the miracle is immoral. The equality
of all before God is one of the postulates of the religious
consciousness, and the miracle, that good pleasure of God, only degrades
him to the level of the capricious tyrants of the earth.
The existing churches, making, as nearly all of them do, this notion of
miracle the very essence of religion and the basis of all positive
faith, involuntarily render themselves guilty of that emasculation of
manliness and morality of which they so passionately complain. If God
intervenes thus irregularly in the affairs of men, the latter can
hardly do otherwise than seek to become courtiers who expect all things
of the sovereign's _favor_.
The question changes its aspect, if we call miracle, as we most
generally do, all that goes beyond ordinary experience.
Many apologists delight in showing that the unheard of, the
inexplicable, are met with all through life. They are right and I agree
with them, on condition that they do not at the close of their
explanation replace this new notion of the supernatural by the former
one.
It is thus that I have come to conclude the reality of the stigmata.
They may have been a unique fact without being more miraculous than
other phenomena; for example, the mathematical powers or the musical
ability of an infant prodigy.
There are in the human creature almost indefinite powers, marvellous
energies; in the great majority of men these lie in torpid slumber, but
awaking to life in a few, they make of them prophets, men of genius, and
saints who show humanity its true nature.
We have caught but fleeting glimpses into the domain of mental
pathology, so vast is it and unexplored; the learned men of the future
will perhaps make, in the realms of psychology and physiology, such
discoveries as will bring about a complete revolution in our laws and
customs.
It remains to examine the stigmata from the point of view of history.
And though in this field there is no lack of difficulties, small and
great, the testimony appears to me to be at once too abundant and too
precise not to command conviction.
We may at the outset set aside the system of those who hold that Brother
Elias helped on their appearance by a pious fraud. Such a claim might
indeed be defended if these marks had been gaping wounds, as they are
now or in most cases have been represented to be; but all the testimony
agrees in describing them, with the exception of the mark on the side,
as blackish, fleshy excrescences, like the heads of nails, and in the
palms of the hands like the points of nails clinched by a hammer. There
was no bloody exudation except at the side.
On the other hand, any deception on the part of Elias would oblige us to
hold that his accomplices were actually the heads of the party opposed
to him, Leo, Angelo, and Rufino. Such want of wit would be surprising
indeed in a man so circumspect.
Finally the psychological agreement between the external circumstances
and the event is so close that an invention of this character would be
as inexplicable as the fact itself. That which indeed almost always
betrays invented or unnatural incidents is that they do not fit into the
framework of the facts. They are extraneous events, purely decorative
elements whose place might be changed at will.
Nothing of the sort is the case here: Thomas of Celano is so veracious
and so exact, that though holding the stigmata to be miraculous, he
gives us all the elements necessary for explaining them in a
diametrically opposite manner.
1. The preponderating place of the passion of Jesus in Francis's
conscience ever since his conversion (1 Cel., 115; 2 Cel., 1, 6; 3, 29;
49; 52).
2. His sojourn in the Verna coincides with a great increase of mystical
fervor.
3. He there observes a Lent in honor of the archangel St. Michael.
4. The festival of the exaltation of the cross comes on, and in the
vision of the crucified seraph is blended the two ideas which have taken
possession of him, the angels and the crucifix (1 Cel., 91-96,
112-115).
This perfect congruity between the circumstances and the prodigy itself
forms a moral proof whose value cannot be exaggerated.
It is time to pass the principal witnesses in review.
1. Brother Elias, 1226. On the very day after the death of Francis,
Brother Elias, in his capacity of vicar, sent letters to the entire
Order announcing the event and prescribing prayers.[1]
After having expressed his sorrow and imparted to the Brothers the
blessing with which the dying Francis had charged him for them, he adds:
"I announce to you a great joy and a new miracle. Never has the world
seen such a sign, except on the Son of God who is the Christ God. For a
long time before his death our Brother and Father appeared as crucified,
having in his body five wounds which are truly the stigmata of Christ,
for his hands and his feet bore marks as of nails without and within,
forming a sort of scars; while at the side he was as if pierced with a
lance, and often a little blood oozed from it."
2. Brother Leo. We find that it is the very adversary of Elias who is
the natural witness, not only of the stigmata, but of the circumstances
of their imprinting. This fact adds a peculiar value to his account.
We learned above (Critical Study, p. 377) the untoward fate of a part of
the Legend of Brothers Leo, Angelo, and Rufino. The chapters with which
it now closes (68-73) and in which the narrative of the miracle occurs,
were not originally a part of it. They are a summary added at a later
time to complete this document. This appendix, therefore, has no
historic value, and we neither depend on it with the ecclesiastical
authors to affirm the miracle, nor with M. Hase to call it in question.
Happily the testimony of Brother Leo has come down to us in spite of
that. We are not left even to seek for it in the Speculum, the Fioretti,
the Conformities, where fragments of his work are to be found; we find
it in several other documents of incontestable authority.
The authenticity of the autograph of St. Francis preserved at Assisi
appears to be thoroughly established (see Critical Study, p. 357); it
contains the following note by Brother Leo's hand: "The Blessed Francis
two years before his death kept on the Verna in honor of the B. V. Mary
mother of God, and St. Michael Archangel, a Lent from the festival of
the Assumption of the B. V. M. to the festival of St. Michael in
September, and the hand of God was upon him by the vision and the
address of the seraph and the impression of the stigmata upon his body.
He made the laudes that are on the other side, ... etc."
Again, Eccleston (13) shows us Brother Leo complaining to Brother Peter
of Tewkesbury, minister in England, that the legend is too brief
concerning the events on the Verna, and relating to him the greater
number of the incidents which form the nucleus of the Fioretti on the