380 MYSTICAL AND SENSUOUS ELEMENT 66 he is in the sight of God."* "No one," he often repeated to his monks, "should value himself for that which the sinner can do as well. The sinner can fast, pray, weep, and chastise his body; but there is one thing he cannot do, he cannot be faithful to his Lord. This alone, then, is our true glory, when we give to the Lord his glory; when we serve him faithfully, and ascribe all to him which he bestows on us." He was in some sort at strife with himself, as he told his monks, on the question whether he ought to devote himself to prayer alone, or also to busy himself with preaching. He thought that as he was a simple, uneducated man, he had received a greater gift of prayer than of preaching. "By prayer," said he, "one improves himself in gifts of grace; by preaching, one communicates the heavenly gifts received to others. Prayer tends to purify the affections of the heart, and to produce a union with the true and highest good, and an increase of moral strength; but preaching leads to a dissipation of the thoughts on outward things. Finally, in prayer we discourse with God, and hear his voice, and, as companions of the angels, live an angel-like life; in preaching, we must let ourselves down a good deal to men, live among them like men,-think, see, discourse, and hear like men. But one consideration seemed to him to outweigh all the rest, and to turn the scale; and this was, that the Son of God came down from heaven in order to form, by his example, the men whom he would redeem, and to preach to them the word of salvation, reserving nothing to himself which he was not ready to give up for our salvation. And as we should copy his example in all things, so it seems more acceptable in the sight of God that we should renounce rest, and go forth to work." Accordingly, he declares the activity expended in seeking to win souls to God more precious to him, if it proceeds from true love, than any offering. But that preacher is to be pitied who seeks not the salvation of souls, but his own glory; or who destroys by a wicked life what he builds up by the setting forth of pure doctrine. To such a person the simple Christian is greatly to be preferred who lacks the gift of discourse, and * Quantum homo est in oculis Dei, tantum est et non plus. Bonaventura, c. vi. † L. c. f. 283. Bonaventura, c. xii. * IN THE CHARACTER OF FRANCIS. -- 381 yet, by his own good example, promotes the cause of goodness. He warned his monks against overvaluing their own powers when they thought they saw great success attending their preaching. He spoke of those who, when they saw that some had been edified or awakened to repentance by their discourses, prided themselves upon it as their own work, when perhaps they were only instruments of others, living in secret, who had wrought these effects by their prayers.† "Blessed," said he, "is that servant who no more values himself on that which God speaks or works through him, than he does on that which God speaks or works through another." To the vicar of his order, Elias, he wrote:"There is only one mark by which I can know whether thou art a servant of God; namely, if thou compassionately bringest back wandering brethren to God, and never ceasest to love those who grievously err."§ He particularly recommended to his brethren itinerating through the world not to contend; not to judge others; to be meek, peace-loving, and humble. He admonished them not to despise others who lived in better style, and went better dressed. "Our God," said he, 'is also their Master, and he is able to call them to himself and to justify them."¶ Moreover, he warned his monks against excessive asceticism. "Each should consider his own nature; and if one required a less quantity of food, another, who required more, ought not to imitate him in that; but, having regard to his own nature, he should give his body just what it needed. For, as we ought to be on our guard against a superfluity which is injurious both to soul and body, so, and still more, ought we to be cautious of excessive abstinence, since God will have mercy and not sacrifice."** "We are called to this," said he to his monks, "that we should heal the wounded and reclaim the wandering, for many who seem to you members of the devil will still be disciples of Christ."†† A characteristic trait in Francis, growing out of that blending of the mystical element with the sensuous, of which we have spoken, was his reverence for every outward thing that *L. c. c. viii. f. 286. Opusc. ed. Wadding. T. I. c. xvii. p. 77. L. c. T. II. p. 172. **L. c. p. 306. f L. c. c. xvi. f. 325. L. c. T. III. p. 288. 382 MYSTICAL AND SENSUOUS ELEMENT IN HIS CHARACTER. . struck him as ennobled by its reference to religion; for the clergy, for churches, and especially for the consecrated bread and wine of the holy supper. *It was to him a matter of importance to be scrupulously careful that not a leaf on which the name of our Lord was written should be suffered to remain and be profaned in any unclean place, but that every such scrap should receive the due mark of homage. Again, as the ascetic bent admits of being easily converted into a contempt of nature, so we cannot but regard as the more remarkable that love, pushed even to enthusiasm, with which Francis embraced all nature as the creation of God; that sympathy and feeling of relationship with all nature, by virtue of its common derivation from God as Creator, which seems to bear more nearly the impress of the Hindoo than of the Christian religion, leading him to address not only the brutes but even inanimate creatures as brothers and sisters.† He had a compassion for brute animals, especially such as are employed in the sacred Scriptures as symbols of Christ. This bent of fanatical sympathy with nature furnished perhaps a point of entrance for the pantheistic element, which in later times found admission with a party among the Franciscans. As in general the culminating point of the form of Catholicism in that day exhibited itself in this order on a certain side, so from many other of the peculiar ideas which inspired Francis, as the following after Christ, evangelical poverty,-tendencies might proceed forth which were at variance with the church system. Seized and emblazoned in the colours of a sensuous fancy, that profoundly Christian idea of following after Christ gave birth to the story of the five wounds, said to have been imprinted on Francis, after Christ had appeared to him in a miraculous vision, two years before his death in 1226. Eye-witnesses are appealed to who saw these marks at the time. A story, which assuredly did not proceed at first from any intention to deceive, but only from the self-deception of a fanatical bent of the imagination, and, from fancied exaggeration; and a story with regard to which it still needs and deserves inquiry to what extent, in certain eccentric states of the system, a morbidly over-excited His words in the Opusculis, p. 360: Sublimitas humilis, quod Dominus universitatis, Deus et Dei filius sic se humiliat, ut pro nostra salute sub modica panis formula se abscondat. Quinque stigmata Christi. † E. g., Mi frater ignis. ORDER OF CLARA. MENDICANT FRIARS. 383 fancy might react on the bodily organism. It cannot be doubted, however, that this story has contributed much to promote a fanatical and excessive reverence of Francis, highly derogatory to the honour which is due to Christ alone. The one nuns. Three spiritual orders were founded by him. already mentioned, and which was the first, avoiding each proud name, called itself the society of minor brothers (Fratres minores, Minorites), and its rule, revised, was confirmed by pope Honorius the Third. The second was an order of This started with a young woman in Assisi,-Clara, whom a kindred bent of Christian feeling, early communicated to her by education,* conducted to Francis; and she was the first superintendent of the order called after herself, the order of St. Clara (at first, Ordo dominarum pauperum). Next came the third order (Fratres ordinis tertii, tertiarii), by the founding of which, in the year 1221, Francis furnished an opportunity for pious laymen, who would not or could not renounce the family-life, to live together in a sort of spiritual union, after one rule, and under a superior. They were also called Fratres Pœnitentiæ, inasmuch as this monk-like mode of life was regarded as a life devoted to penance. Many pious societies, which had proceeded from the order of laymen, might here find a place of refuge and a common bond of union. The peculiar regulation that distinguished the orders of the so-called mendicants (Fratres mendicantes) from other orders, would serve in a special manner to promote their more extensive spread and more general influence. In order to their establishment in any place, no endowed monasteries were required. Every country, every village, stood open to them; and they were contented with whatever indifferent food might be offered them. The way in which they subsisted brought them into the closest relations with the lower class of people. As religious instruction and the pastoral care were for the reasons already given most neglected in their case, so the monks who interested themselves with self-denying love in their spiritual wants, were received with the more hearty wel * See the account of her life by a contemporary, at the 12th August. Her mother had distinguished herself by the zeal with which she made pilgrimages; she, in fact, undertook a journey to the holy sepulchre, and made it a point to visit all the holy places in Syria. 384 HARDSHIPS AND DEPRIVATIONS. come; and, provided only pious men, well-instructed in the doctrines of Christianity, were selected for that purpose, much good might be done by their means. The men, animated by pious zeal, who first, with a sort of enthusiastic love, seized upon this mode of life, subjected themselves to sacrifices and deprivations truly great, when in all weathers, defying the fiercest cold in the north, the fiercest heat in the south, they itinerated through the countries, entering the meanest hovels, and cheerfully putting np with any fare which the poor occupants set before them to satisfy the most pressing momentary wants, and at the same time sustained all the toil of preaching and fatigue of pastoral labours. Nor did they suffer themselves to be driven off by insults and ridicule, whether from laymen, whose utter barbarity of manners and the want of religious instruction made them regard these men as unwelcome guests, or from jealous ecclesiastics. The Belgian Dominican, Thomas de Cantinpre, who lived in the thirteenth century, relating his own experience in this way,* describes how he and his companions, so wearied out by a long journey which they had made on foot as to be ready to sink to the earth, arrived at a certain village. They went to the house of a parish priest; but he refused to give them even a morsel of the black bread on which he supported himself and his domestics. After they had wandered over the whole village, and applied in vain at every door, they came finally, near the end of it, to a poor hut, where they were offered a crust of bran-bread,-a very acceptable alms to persons in their condition. They sat down under the sky and regaled themselves on this fare; and never had food tasted so pleasant to them before as this bran-bread * See the words of Thomas Cantipratenus, in his Bonum universale de apibus, L. II. c. x.: Numquid primo vides in prædicatorum ordine fratres, qui etsi studiis continuis et vigiliis macerati, non habentes in zona æs, per lutosa et lubrica pedibus gradientes terras prædicationibus circuire, imparata frequenter hospitia, cibos crudos, et duros, et super omnia ingratitudinem hominum sustinere? He relates in the same chapter, p. 164, an example from his own experience: Veni pedes in villam ignotam mihi, longo itinere fatigatus in tantum, ut præ debilitate nimia corde me deficere mox putarem. Ingressi fratres domum presbyteri nec saltem frustum panis nigerrimi, quo familia vescebatur. potuerunt obtinere. Inde digressi late per villam nihil prorsus, nisi in fine villæ a quadam paupercula fragmen panis furfurei habuerunt, donum satis magnum. |