Life of St. Francis of Assisi by Paul Sabatier (i am malala young readers edition TXT) 📖

We know how little such an appeal to signs is characteristic of St. Francis. Perhaps the story, which comes from Bonaventura, is born of a misconception. The sultan, like a new Pharaoh, may have laid it upon the strange preacher to prove his mission by miracles. However this may be, Francis and his companions were treated with great consideration, a fact the more meritorious that hostilities were then at their height.

Returned to the Crusading camp, they remained there until after the taking of Damietta (November 5, 1219). This time the Christians were victorious, but perhaps the heart of the gospel man bled more for this victory than for the defeat of August 29th. The shocking condition of the city, which the victors found piled with heaps of dead bodies, the quarrels over the sharing of booty, the sale of the wretched creatures who had not succumbed to the pestilence,26 all these scenes of terror, cruelty, greed, caused him profound horror. The "human beast" was let loose, the apostle's voice could no more make itself heard in the midst of the savage clamor than that of a life-saver over a raging ocean.

He set out for Syria27 and the Holy Places. How gladly would we follow him in this pilgrimage, accompany him in thought through Judea and Galilee, to Bethlehem, to Nazareth, to Gethsemane! What was said to him by the stable where the Son of Mary was born, the workshop where he toiled, the olive-tree where he accepted the bitter cup? Alas! the documents here suddenly fail us. Setting out from Damietta very shortly after the siege (November 5, 1219) he may easily have been at Bethlehem by Christmas. But we know nothing, absolutely nothing, except that his sojourn was more prolonged than had been expected.

Some of the Brothers who were present at Portiuncula at the chapter-general of 1220 (Whitsunday, May 17th) had time enough to go to Syria and still find Francis there;28 they could hardly have arrived much earlier than the end of June. What had he been doing those eight months? Why had he not gone home to preside at the chapter? Had he been ill?29 Had he been belated by some mission? Our information is too slight to permit us even to venture upon conjecture.

Angelo Clareno relates that the Sultan of Egypt, touched by his preaching, gave command that he and all his friars should have free access to the Holy Sepulchre without the payment of any tribute.30

Bartholomew of Pisa on his part says incidentally that Francis, having gone to preach in Antioch and its environs, the Benedictines of the Abbey of the Black Mountain,31 eight miles from that city, joined the Order in a body, and gave up all their property to the Patriarch.

These indications are meagre and isolated indeed, and the second is to be accepted only with reserve. On the other hand, we have detailed information of what went on in Italy during Francis's absence. Brother Giordano's chronicle, recently discovered and published, throws all the light that could be desired upon a plot laid against Francis by the very persons whom he had commissioned to take his place at Portiuncula, and this, if not with the connivance of Rome and the cardinal protector, at least without their opposition. These events had indeed been narrated by Angelo Clareno, but the undisguised feeling which breathes through all his writings and their lack of accuracy had sufficed with careful critics to leave them in doubt. How could it be supposed that in the very lifetime of St. Francis the vicars whom he had instituted could take advantage of his absence to overthrow his work? How could it be that the pope, who during this period was sojourning at Rieti, how that Ugolini, who was still nearer, did not impose silence on these agitators?32

Now that all the facts come anew to light, not in an oratorical and impassioned account, but brief, precise, cutting, dated, with every appearance of notes taken day by day, we must perforce yield to evidence.

Does this give us reason clamorously to condemn Ugolino and the pope? I do not think so. They played a part which is not to their honor, but their intentions were evidently excellent. If the famous aphorism that the end justifies the means is criminal where one examines his own conduct, it becomes the first duty in judging that of others. Here are the facts:

On July 25th, about one month after Francis's departure for Syria, Ugolini, who was at Perugia, laid upon the Clarisses of Monticelli (Florence), Sienna, Perugia, and Lucca that which his friend had so obstinately refused for the friars, the Benedictine Rule.33

At the same time, St. Dominic, returning from Spain full of new ardor after his retreat in the grotto of Segovia, and fully decided to adopt for his Order the rule of poverty, was strongly encouraged in this purpose and overwhelmed with favors.34 Honorius III. saw in him the providential man of the time, the reformer of the monastic Orders; he showed him unusual attentions, going so far, for example, as to transfer to him a group of monks belonging to other Orders, whom he appointed to act as Dominic's lieutenants on the preaching tours which he believed it to be his duty to undertake, and to serve, under his direction, an apprenticeship in popular preaching.35

That Ugolini was the inspiration of all this, the bulls are here to witness. His ruling purpose at that time was so clearly to direct the two new Orders that he chose a domicile with this end in view, and we find him continually either at Perugia—that is to say, within three leagues of Portiuncula—or at Bologna, the stronghold of the Dominicans.

It now becomes manifest that just as the fraternity instituted by Francis was truly the fruit of his body, flesh of his flesh, so does the Order of the Preaching Friars emanate from the papacy, and St. Dominic is only its putative father. This character is expressed in one word by one of the most authoritative of contemporary annalists, Burchard of Ursperg (Cross 1226). "The pope," he says, "instituted and confirmed the Order of the Preachers."36

Francis on his journey in the Orient had taken for special companion a friar whom we have not yet met, Pietro di Catana or dei Cattani. Was he a native of the town of Catana? There is no precise indication of it. It appears more probable that he belonged to the noble family dei Cattani, already known to Francis, and of which Orlando, Count of Chiusi in Casentino, who gave him the Verna, was a member. However that may be, we must not confound him with the Brother Pietro who assumed the habit in 1209, at the same time with Bernardo of Quintavallo, and died shortly afterward. Tradition, in reducing these two men to a single personage, was influenced not merely by the similarity of the names, but also by the very natural desire to increase the prestige of one who in 1220-1221 was to play an important part in the direction of the Order.37

At the time of his departure for the East Francis had left two vicars in his place, the Brothers Matteo of Narni and Gregorio of Naples. The former was especially charged to remain at Portiuncula to admit postulants;38 Gregorio of Naples, on the other hand, was to pass through Italy to console the Brothers.39

The two vicars began at once to overturn everything. It is inexplicable how men still under the influence of their first fervor for a Rule which in the plenitude of their liberty they had promised to obey could have dreamed of such innovations if they had not been urged on and upheld by those in high places. To alleviate the vow of poverty and to multiply observances were the two points toward which their efforts were bent.

In appearance it was a trifling matter, in reality it was much, for it was the first movement of the old spirit against the new. It was the effort of men who unconsciously, I am willing to think, made religion an affair of rite and observance, instead of seeing in it, like St. Francis, the conquest of the liberty which makes us free in all things, and leads each soul to obey that divine and mysterious power which the flowers of the fields adore, which the birds of the air bless, which the symphony of the stars praises, and which Jesus of Nazareth called Abba, that is to say, Father.

The first Rule was excessively simple in the matter of fasts. The friars were to abstain from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays; they might add Mondays and Saturdays, but only on Francis's special authorization. The vicars and their adherents complicated this rule in a surprising manner. At the chapter-general held in Francis's absence (May 17, 1220), they decided, first, that in times of feasting the friars were not to provide meat, but if it were offered to them spontaneously they were to eat it; second, that all should fast on Mondays as well as Wednesdays and Fridays; third, that on Mondays and Saturdays they should abstain from milk products unless by chance the adherents of the Order brought some to them.40

These beginnings bear witness also to an effort to imitate the ancient Orders, not without the vague hope that they would be substituted for them. Brother Giordano has preserved to us only this decision of the chapter of 1220, but the expressions of which he makes use sufficiently prove that it was far from being the only one, and that the malcontents had desired, as in the chapters of Citeaux and Monte Cassino, to put forth veritable constitutions.

These modifications of the Rule did not pass, however, without arousing the indignation of a part of the chapter; a lay brother made himself their eager messenger, and set out for the East to entreat Francis to return without delay, to take the measures called for by the circumstances.

There were also other causes of disquiet. Brother Philip, a Zealot of the Clarisses, had made haste to secure for them from Ugolini the privileges which had already been under consideration.41

A certain Brother Giovanni di Conpello42 had gathered together a great number of lepers of both sexes, and written a Rule, intending to form with them a new Order. He had afterward presented himself before the supreme pontiff with a train of these unfortunates to obtain his approbation.

Many other distressing symptoms, upon which Brother Giordano does not dwell, had manifested themselves. The report of Francis's death had even been spread abroad, so that the whole Order was disturbed, divided, and in the greatest peril. The dark presentiments which Francis seems to have had were exceeded by the reality.43 The messenger who brought him the sad news found him in Syria, probably at St. Jean d'Acre. He at once embarked with Elias, Pietro di Catana, Cæsar of Speyer, and a few others, and returned to Italy in a vessel bound for Venice, where he might easily arrive toward the end of July.