Part 9 (1/2)

1. The temptation is strong to claim a fraud, especially because the same witnesses who testify to the truth of the tale, also relate such monstrous, incredible stories, that one is almost forced to doubt either their integrity or their sanity. But there is no evidence in support of so serious an indictment. After showing that signs and portents attend every crisis in history, Mrs. Oliphant says: ”Every great spiritual awakening has been accompanied by phenomena quite incomprehensible, which none but the vulgar mind can attribute to trickery and imposture;” but still she herself remains in doubt about the whole story.

2. Although Mosheim uses the term ”fraud,” it would seem that he means rather the irresponsible self-infliction of the wounds. He says: ”As he [Francis] was a most superst.i.tious and fanatical mortal, it is undoubtedly evident that he imprinted on himself the holy wounds. Paul's words, 'I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus,' may have suggested the idea of the fraud.” The notion certainly prevailed that Francis was a sort of second Christ, and a book was circulated showing how he might be compared to Christ in forty particulars. There are many things in his biography which, if true, indicate that Francis yearned to imitate literally the experiences of his Lord.

3. Numerous experiments, conducted by scientific men, have established the fact that red marks, swellings, blisters, bleeding and wounds have been produced by mental suggestion. Bjornstrom, in his work on ”Hypnotism,” after recounting various experiments showing the effect of the imagination on the body, says, respecting the _stigmata_ of the Middle Ages: ”Such marks can be produced by hypnotism without deceit and without the miracles of the higher powers.” Prof. Fisher declares: ”There is no room for the suspicion of deceit. The idea of a strange physical effect of an abnormal state is more plausible.” Trench thinks this is a reasonable view in the case of a man like Francis, ”with a temperament so irrepressible, of an organization so delicate, permeated through and through with the anguish of the Lord's sufferings, pa.s.sionately and continually dwelling on the one circ.u.mstance of his crucifixion.” But others, despairing of any rational solution, cut the Gordian knot and declare that ”the kindest thing to think about Francis is that he was crazy.”

4. Roman Catholics naturally reject all explanations that exclude the supernatural, for, as Father Candide Chalippe affirms: ”Catholics ought to be cautious in adopting anything coming from heretics; their opinions are almost always contagious.” He therefore holds fast to the miracles in the lives of the saints, not only because he accepts the evidence, but because he believes these wonderful stories ”add great resplendency to the merits of the saints, and, consequently, give great weight to the example they afford us.”

It is altogether probable that each one will continue to view the whole affair as his predispositions and religious convictions direct; some unconvinced by traditionary evidence and undismayed by charges of heresy; others devoutly accepting every monkish miracle and marveling at the obstinacy of unbelief.

Two years after the event just described Francis was carried on a cot outside the walls of a.s.sisi, where, lifting his hands he blessed his native city. Some few days later, on October 4, 1226, he pa.s.sed away, exclaiming, ”Welcome, Sister Death!”

Whatever we may think of the legends that cl.u.s.ter about his life, Francis himself must not be held responsible for all that has been written about him. He himself was no phantom or mythical being, but a real, earnest man who, according to his light, tried to serve his generation. As he himself said: ”A man is just so much and no more as he is in the sight of G.o.d.” ”Francis appears to me,” says Forsyth, ”a genuine, original hero, independent, magnanimous, incorruptible. His powers seemed designed to regenerate society; but taking a wrong direction, they sank men into beggars.” Through the mist of tradition the holy beggar and saintly hero s.h.i.+nes forth as a loving, gentle soul, unkind to none but himself. However his biography may be regarded, his life ill.u.s.trates the beauty and power of voluntary renunciation,--the fountain not only of religion but of all true n.o.bility of character. He may have been ignorant, perhaps grossly so, as Mosheim thinks, but nevertheless he merits our highest praise for striving honestly to keep his vow of poverty in the days when worldly monks disgraced their sacred profession by greed, ambition, and l.u.s.tful indulgence.

_The Franciscan Orders_

The orders which Francis founded were of three cla.s.ses:

1. Franciscan Friars or Order of Friars Minor, called also Gray or Begging Friars. The year in which Francis took the habit, 1208, is reckoned the first year of the order, but the Rule was not given until 1210.

This Rule, which has not been preserved, was very simple, and doubtless consisted of a group of gospel pa.s.sages, bearing on the vow of poverty, together with a few precepts about the occupations of the brethren. The pope was not asked to sanction the Rule but only to give his approbation to the missions of the little band. Some of the cardinals expressed their doubts about the mode of life provided for in the rules. ”But,”

replied Giovanni di San Paolo, ”if we hold that to observe gospel perfection and make profession of it is an irrational and impossible innovation, are we not convicted of blasphemy against Christ, the Author of the Gospel?”

There was also the Rule of 1221, which makes an intermediate stage between the first Rule and that which was approved by the pope November 29, 1223. The Rule of 1210 was thoroughly Franciscan. It was the expression of the pa.s.sionate, fervent soul of Francis. It was the cry of the human heart for G.o.d and purity. The Rule of 1223 shows that the church had begun to direct the movement. Sabatier says of these two rules: ”At the bottom of it all is the antinome of law and love. Under the reign of law we are the mercenaries of G.o.d, bound down to an irksome task, but paid a hundred-fold, and with an indisputable right to our wages.” Such was the conception underlying the Rule of 1223. That of 1210 is thus described: ”Under the rule of love we are the sons of G.o.d, and co-workers with Him; we give ourselves to Him without bargaining and without expectation; we follow Jesus, not because this is well, but because we cannot do otherwise, because we feel that He has loved us and we love Him in our turn.”

Francis would not allow his monks to be called Friars; he preferred Friars Minor or Little Brothers as a more humble designation[F].

[Footnote F: Appendix, Note F.]

Ten years after the founding of the order, it is claimed, over five thousand friars a.s.sembled in Rome for the general chapter. The monks lodged in huts made of matting and hence this convention has been called the ”Chapter of Mats.” The order was strongest numerically about fifty years after the death of Francis, when it numbered eight thousand convents and two hundred thousand monks. Many of its members were highly distinguished, such as St. Bonaventura, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon and Cardinal Ximenes.

2. Nuns of St. Clara or Poor Claras, dates from 1212, but it did not receive its rule from Francis until 1224. The order was founded in the following manner: Clara, a daughter of a n.o.ble family, was distinguished for her beauty and by her love for the poor. Francis often met her, and, in the language of his biographer, ”exhorted her to a contempt of the world and poured into her ears the sweetness of Christ.” Guided, no doubt, by his counsel, she stole one night from her home to a neighboring church where Francis and his beggars were a.s.sembled. Her long and beautiful hair was cut off, while a coa.r.s.e woolen gown was subst.i.tuted for her own rich garments. Standing in the midst of the ragged monks, she renounced the dregs of Babylon and a wicked world, pledging her future to the monastic inst.i.tution. Out from this little church into the darkness of the night, Francis led this beautiful girl of seventeen years and committed her to a Benedictine nunnery. Later on Clara became the abbess of a Franciscan convent at St. Damian, and the Sisterhood of St. Clara was established. It was an order of sadness and penitential tears. It is said that Clara never but once (when she received the blessing of the pope) lifted her eyelids so that the color of her eyes might be discerned.

3. The Third Order, called also ”Brotherhood of Penitence,” was composed of lay men and women. So many husbands and wives were desirous of leaving their homes in order to enter the monastic state, that Francis, not wis.h.i.+ng to break up happy marriages, so it is said, was compelled to give these enthusiasts some sort of a rule by which they might compromise between their established life and the monastic career. This state of things led to the formation, in 1221, of the Third Order of St. Francis, or the Order of Tertiaries, in relation to the Friars Minor and the Poor Claras. Sabatier says this generally-accepted date is wrong; that it is impossible to fix any date, for that which came to be known as the Third Order was born of the enthusiasm excited by the preaching of Francis soon after his return from Rome in 1210. Candidates for admission into this order were required to make profession of all the orthodox truths, special care being employed to guard against the intrusion of heretics. Days of fasting and abstinence were enjoined, and members were urged to avoid profanity, the theater, dancing and law-suits. The order met with astonis.h.i.+ng success, cardinals, bishops, emperors, empresses, kings and queens, gladly enrolling themselves among the followers of St. Francis.

_Dominic de Guzman, 1170-1221 A.D._

Half-way between Osma and Aranda in Old Castile, Spain, is a little village known as ”the fortunate Calahorra.” Here was the castle of the Guzmans, where Dominic was born. His family was of high rank and character, a n.o.ble house of warriors, statesmen and saints. If we accept the legends, his greatness was foreshadowed. Before his birth, his mother dreamed she saw her son under the figure of a black-and-white dog, with a torch in his mouth. ”A true dream,” says Milman, ”for he will scent out heresy and apply the torch to the f.a.ggots;” but, as will be seen later, this observation does not rest on undisputed evidence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PHOTOGRAVURE--RINGLER CO

SAINT DOMINIC

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH OF THE PAINTING PRESERVED IN HIS CELL IN THE CONVENT OF SANTA SABINA, AT ROME

TRENTON: ALBERT BRANDT, PUBLISHER, 1900]

In the year 1191, when Spain was desolated by a terrible famine, Dominic was just finis.h.i.+ng his theological studies. He gave away his money and sold his clothes, his furniture and even his precious ma.n.u.scripts, that he might relieve distress. When his companions expressed astonishment that he should sell his books, Dominic replied: ”Would you have me study off these dead skins, when men are dying of hunger?” This n.o.ble utterance is cherished by his admirers as the first saying from his lips that has pa.s.sed to posterity.

Dominic was educated in the schools of Palencia, afterwards a university, where he devoted six years to the arts and four to theology.