Life of St. Francis of Assisi
basilica. He borrowed the rags of one of them, lending him his garment
in exchange, and a whole day he stood there, fasting, with outstretched
hand. The act was a great victory, the triumph of compassion over
natural pride. Returning to Assisi, he doubled his kindnesses to those
of whom he had truly the right to call himself the brother. With such
sentiments he could not long escape the influence of the Church.
On all the roadsides in the environs of the city there were then, as
now, numerous chapels. Very often he must have heard mass in these
rustic sanctuaries, alone with the celebrant. Recognizing the tendency
of simple natures to bring home to themselves everything that they hear,
it is easy to understand his emotion and agitation when the priest,
turning toward him, would read the gospel for the day. The Christian
ideal was revealed to him, bringing an answer to his secret anxieties.
And when, a few moments later, he would plunge into the forest, all his
thoughts would be with the poor carpenter of Nazareth, who placed
himself in his path, saying to him, even to him, "Follow thou me."
Nearly two years had passed since the day when he felt the first shock;
a life of renunciation appeared to him as the goal of his efforts, but
he felt that his spiritual novitiate was not yet ended. He suddenly
experienced a bitter assurance of the fact.
He was riding on horseback one day, his mind more than ever possessed
with the desire to lead a life of absolute devotion, when at a turn of
the road he found himself face to face with a leper. The frightful
malady had always inspired in him an invincible repulsion. He could not
control a movement of horror, and by instinct he turned his horse in
another direction.
If the shock had been severe, the defeat was complete. He reproached
himself bitterly. To cherish such fine projects and show himself so
cowardly! Was the knight of Christ then going to give up his arms? He
retraced his steps and springing from his horse he gave to the astounded
sufferer all the money that he had; then kissed his hand as he would
have done to a priest.[14] This new victory, as he himself saw, marked
an era in his spiritual life.[15]
It is far indeed from hatred of evil to love of good. Those are more
numerous than we think who, after severe experience, have renounced what
the ancient liturgies call the world, with its pomps and lusts; but the
greater number of them have not at the bottom of their hearts the
smallest grain of pure love. In vulgar souls disillusion leaves only a
frightful egoism.
This victory of Francis had been so sudden that he desired to complete
it; a few days later he went to the lazaretto.[16] One can imagine the
stupefaction of these wretches at the entrance of the brilliant
cavalier. If in our days a visit to the sick in our hospitals is a real
event awaited with feverish impatience, what must not have been the
appearance of Francis among these poor recluses? One must have seen
sufferers thus abandoned, to understand what joy may be given by an
affectionate word, sometimes even a simple glance.
Moved and transported, Francis felt his whole being vibrate with
unfamiliar sensations. For the first time he heard the unspeakable
accents of a gratitude which cannot find words burning enough to express
itself, which admires and adores the benefactor almost like an angel
from heaven.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 1 Cel., 3; cf. Bon., 8, and A. SS., p. 563c.
[2] It is enough to have lived in the country of Naples to know
that there is nothing exaggerated in this picture. I am much
surprised that intelligent and good men fancy that to change the
religious formula of these people would suffice to transform
them. What a mistake! To-day, as in the time of Jesus, the
important matter is not to adore on Mount Moriah or Mount Zion,
but to adore in spirit and in truth.
[3] 1 Cel., 3 and 4.
[4] 3 Soc., 5. In the existing state of the documents it is
impossible to know whom this name designates, for at that time
it was borne by a number of counts who are only to be
distinguished by the names of their castles. The three following
are possible: 1. _Gentile comes de Campilio_, who in 1215 paid
homage for his property to the commune of Orvieto: _Le antiche
cronache di Orvieto, Arch. stor. ital._, 5th series., 1889,
iii., p. 47. 2. _Gentilis comes filius Alberici_, who with
others had made donation of a monastery to the Bishop of
Foligno: Confirmatory Bull _In eminenti_ of April 10, 1210:
Ughelli, _Italia Sacra_, 1, p. 697; Potthast, 3974. 3. _Gentilis
comes Manupelli_; whom we find in July, 1200, assuring to
Palermo the victory over the troops sent by Innocent III.
against Marckwald; Huillard-Breholles, _Hist. dipl._, i. p., 46
ff. Cf. Potthast, 1126. _Gesta Innocenti_, Migne, vol. i.,
xxxii, ff. Cf. Huillard-Breholles, _loc. cit._, pages 60, 84,
89, 101. It is wrong to consider that Gentile could here be a
mere adjective; the 3 Soc. say _Gentile nomine_.
[5] 1 Cel., 4; 3 Soc., 5.
[6] 3 Soc., 6; 2 Cel., 1, 2; Bon., 8.
[7] 1 Cel., 5; 3 Soc., 5; 2 Cel., 1, 2; Bon., 9.
[8] 3 Soc., 6; Bon., 9; 2 Cel., 1, 2.
[9] 3 Soc., 6; 2 Cel., 1, 2.
[10] These days are recalled by Celano with a very particular
precision. It is very improbable that Francis, usually so
reserved as to his personal experience, should have told him
about them (2 Cel., 3, 68 and 42, cf. Bon., 144). On the other
hand, nothing forbids his having been informed on this matter by
Brother Elias. (I strongly suspect the legend which tells of an
old man appearing on the day Francis was born and begging
permission to take the child in his arms, saying, "To-day, two
infants were born--this one, who will be among the best of men,
and another, who will be among the worst"--of having been
invented by the _zelanti_ against Brother Elias. It is evident
that such a story is aimed at some one. Whom, if not him who was
afterward to appear as the Anti-Francis?) We have sufficient
details about the eleven first disciples to know that none of
them is here in question. There is nothing surprising in the
fact that Elias does not appear in the earliest years of the
Order (1209-1212), because after having practised at Assisi his
double calling of schoolmaster and carriage-trimmer (_suebat
cultras et docebat puerulos psalterium legere_, Salimbene, p.
402) he was _scriptor_ at Bologna (Eccl., 13). And from the
psychological point of view this hypothesis would admirably
explain the ascendency which Elias was destined always to
exercise over his master. Still it remains difficult to
understand why Celano did not name Elias here, but the passage,
1 Cel., 6, differs in the different manuscripts (cf. A. SS. and
Amoni's edition, p. 14) and may have been retouched after the
latter's fall.
Beviglia is a simple farm three-quarters of an hour northwest of
Assisi, almost half way to Petrignano. Half an hour from Assisi
in the direction of Beviglia is a grotto, which may very well be
that of which we are about to speak.
[11] 1 Cel., 6; 2 Cel., 1, 5; 3 Soc., 8, 12; Bon., 10, 11, 12.
[12] 3 Soc., 7; 1 Cel., 7; 2 Cel., 1, 3; 3 Soc., 13.
[13] 3 Soc., 8-10; Bon., 13, 14; 2 Cel., 1, 4.
[14] To this day in the centre and south of Italy they kiss the
hand of priests and monks.
[15] See the Will. Cf. 3 Soc., 11; 1 Cel., 17; Bon., 11; A. SS.,
p. 566.
[16] 3 Soc., 11; Bon., 13.
* * * * *
CHAPTER III
THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209
St. Francis was inspired as much as any man may be, but it would be a
palpable error to study him apart from his age and from the conditions
in which he lived.
We know that he desired and believed his life to be an imitation of
Jesus, but what we know about the Christ is in fact so little, that St.
Francis's life loses none of its strangeness for that. His conviction
that he was but an imitator preserved him from all temptation to pride,
and enabled him to proclaim his views with incomparable vigor, without
seeming in the least to be preaching himself.
We must therefore neither isolate him from external influences nor show
him too dependent on them. During the period of his life at which we are
now arrived, 1205-1206, the religious situation of Italy must more than
at any other time have influenced his thought and urged him into the
path which he finally entered.
The morals of the clergy were as corrupt as ever, rendering any serious
reform impossible. If some among the heresies of the time were pure and
without reproach, many were trivial and impure. Here and there a few
voices were raised in protest, but the prophesyings of Gioacchino di
Fiore had no more power than those of St. Hildegarde to put a stop to
wickedness. Luke Wadding, the pious Franciscan annalist, begins his
chronicle with this appalling picture. The advance in historic research
permits us to retouch it somewhat more in detail, but the conclusion
remains the same; without Francis of Assisi the Church would perhaps
have foundered and the Cathari would have won the day. The _little poor
man_, driven away, cast out of doors by the creatures of Innocent III.,
saved Christianity.
We cannot here make a thorough study of the state of the Church at the
beginning of the thirteenth century; it will suffice to trace some of
its most prominent features.
The first glance at the secular clergy brings out into startling
prominence the ravages of simony; the traffic in ecclesiastical places
was carried on with boundless audacity; benefices were put up to the
highest bidder, and Innocent III. admitted that fire and sword alone
could heal this plague.[1] Prelates who declined to be bought by
_propinae_, fees, were held up as astounding exceptions![2]
"They are stones for understanding," it was said of the officers of the
Roman _curia_, "wood for justice, fire for wrath, iron for forgiveness;
deceitful as foxes, proud as bulls, greedy and insatiate as the
minotaur."[3] The praises showered upon Pope Eugenius III. for
rebuffing a priest who, at the beginning of a lawsuit, offered him a
golden mark, speak only too plainly as to the morals of Rome in this
respect.[4]
The bishops, on their part, found a thousand methods, often most out of
keeping with their calling, for extorting money from the simple
priests.[5] Violent, quarrelsome, contentious, they were held up to
ridicule in popular ballads from one end of Europe to the other.[6] As
to the priests, they bent all their powers to accumulate benefices, and
secure inheritances from the dying, stooping to the most despicable
measures for providing for their bastards.[7]
The monastic orders were hardly more reputable. A great number of these
had sprung up in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; their reputation
for sanctity soon stimulated the liberality of the faithful, and thus
fatally brought about their own decadence. Few communities had shown the
discretion of the first monks of the Order of Grammont in the diocese of
Limoges. When Stephen de Muret, its founder, began to manifest his
sanctity by giving sight to a blind man, his disciples took alarm at the
thought of the wealth and notoriety which was likely to come to them
from this cause. Pierre of Limoges, who had succeeded Stephen as prior,
went at once to his tomb, praying:
"O servant of God, thou hast shown us the way of poverty, and