A MEDITATION IN SOLITUDE OF ONE WHO IS POOR
[MEDITATIO PAUPERIS IN SOSLITUDINE]
Anonymous Author of Thirteenth Century
[Translation of the Edition prepared by Fr Ferdinand M. Delorme, O.F.M. in 1929]
CONTENTS
Preface to the critical edition 2
Introduction 14
Part I
1 How Christ in his passion showed the highest degree of poverty 15
2 How blessed Francis wished to adopt the highest degree of Christ’s poverty 20
3 How Christ in his passion showed the highest degree of love 21
4 How Francis wished to adopt the highest degree of Christ’s love 29
5 On the praises of love and an exhortation to love 31
6 How Christ in his passion showed the highest degree of humility 40
7 How blessed Francis wished to adopt the highest degree of Christ’s humility 42
8 How it is a duty for a Lesser Brother to adopt these virtues as did blessed Francis 43
9 What it means for a Lesser Brother to adopt these three virtues in their highest
Degree 49
10 On the degrees of the virtues 57
Part II
1 John in the sixth seal 62
2 Another angel 64
3 Ascending from the rising of the sun 66
4 Of the living God 68
5 Having the seal of the living God 75
6 Called out in a loud voice 80
7 To the four angels 82
8 To whom it is given to harm 83
9 The earth 84
10 The sea 90
11 The trees 100
12 Till we sign the servants of God on their foreheads 106
Part III
1 I heard the number of those sealed, one hundred forty-one thousand 113
2 First side 117
a. Judah 117
b. Reuben 119
c. Gad 120
3 Second side 121
a. Asher 122
b. Napthali 123
c. Manasseh 125
4 Third side 126
a. Simeon 126
b. Levi 127
c. Issachar 130
5 Fourth side 132
a. Zabulon 134
b. Joseph 136
c. Benjamin 144
Abbreviations 149
English translation used 149
PREFACE
TO THE CRITICAL EDITION
As far as I know this volume is the first edition of the Meditation
in solitude of one who is poor [Meditatio pauperis in solitudine].
Even though I regard this work as one of the better examples of the early Franciscan
ascetical literature, this outstanding tract, for what reason I do not know,
has been neglected and, as it were, buried down to our own day, so that no
contemporary author seems to mention it, and extremely few moderns speak of it.
Hence, anxious to prepare a careful edition of the work, I collected together
whatever could help one to understand its features. So something will be said
about the Codices in which the work is recorded, the time of writing, the
author of the book, its literary sources, and finally an overview giving a
summary idea of its contents. I have tried to do this in few but adequate words
so that scholars may be able to read the text with more profit. For the rest, I
have used much of the material previously published by myself under the title: Elevations
théologiques sur S. François l’autre ange au signe du Dieu vivant,[1] but
in places I have added to this material.
1. The Codices of the Meditation
From the varied and main texts of Franciscan documents in the town library of Assisi, two concern the present work. I first studied these carefully in 1921 and also on a later occasion and this led me to realize their importance. The two documents are numbered 422 and 439.
The text of Document 439 is divided throughout with headings, sometimes having a larger capital letter to mark the beginning of a section. There are few corrections in the text and it is here referred to as Codex B...
Document 422 has 129 folia. Since it has no cover it has suffered some damage. On folia lr-60v the Breviloquium of St Bonaventure is written and on the top of folium 61a there comes immediately: ‘The meditation of one who is poor begins. I am one who sees . . .’ The whole text has been written by the one person, generally without headings, but divisions in the text are indicated by empty spaces. On the top of folium 127v a later person has written: ‘Of the truth of theology and a meditation of one who is poor by Bonaventure’ as though both works were by the Seraphic Doctor.[2] It is referred to here by the letter A...
2. When was the work written?
Sbaralea claimed, that the Meditation was written about 1270: ‘Anonymous II’, he says in the Supplementum,[3] ‘of uncertain place and time, but certainly ancient, who seems to have lived around 1270, edited the small work with this title Meditatio pauperis in solitudine which is devoted to describing and extolling through texts of sacred Scripture the poverty of blessed Francis’. However, contrary to the esteemed author, I would say that he read the work superficially or looked only at the first two folia of Codex A. On the third folium Nicholas III, who published the Bull Exiit on 15 August 1279, is expressly mentioned; on subsequent pages, as is clear to all, many things other than the poverty of St Francis are extolled.
Before Sbaralea, Bonelli[4] had already noted correctly that the mention of the Bull Exiit necessarily places the work after 1279. But in fact the words against those speaking against the Rule of St Francis illustrate this more clearly: ‘bound their mouths with a most severe bond of excommunication, as is clearly evident in the recent Decree of the Lord Pope Nicholas III[5] on the Rule of the Lesser Brothers’. If the Bull Exiit was said to be recent, clearly the work quoting it was written not long afterwards.
Can we go further and calculate more accurately the year in which the work was written? Certainly. On page 30 below, mention is made of a vision given to a certain devout friar concerning the day and the hour of the imprinting of the sacred stigmata: ‘the imprinting of those sacred stigmata was not made without a sense of immense sorrow and a strong crying out of the voice, as blessed father Francis himself revealed in a definite way to a certain devout Friar’. The name of this Friar, as is clear in the historical records,[6] was Matthew de Castilione, of the Custody of Arezzo. When he went up to mount La Verna in the month of May 1281 the circumstances of that great miracle were revealed to him in a vision of St Francis. The same records add, concerning this vision, that it was examined in an authentic form at Florence on 11 October 1282, on the order of the General Chapter held in Strasburg in 1282.
What then? On the basis of this clear evidence, the author of the Meditation heard of the vision either
after the Chapter or after the inquiry. So we conclude with a degree of
certainty the work was written in 1282 or 1283. Nothing further can be
determined for lack of evidence.
2. Who was the author of the Meditation?
After publishing an article on the Meditation,[7] I had hoped to receive from those skilled in the literature of the Middle Ages, especially in the history of the literature of mysticism, some probable or even definitive identification of the name of the author of the Meditation. But nothing has come from these scholars to help solve the question. Since the end of Codex A is damaged and lacks the part of the epilogue in which some clue as to the identity of the author could be expected, the question for now cannot be resolved. However while I did not propose any name or a firm opinion in my article, I did investigate the question and I pursue the same inquiry here.
There is no need to prove that the author was a Lesser Brother since
the whole work makes this clear. Our task is to determine who he was, his nationality,
and his name. Great names have been proposed, such as St Bonaventure, Brother
John Pecham who was promoted to the See of Canterbury in 1279, Friar Gilbert of
Tournai who must be excluded;[8]
but other writers of the end of the thirteenth century and of some significance
in exploring mysticism come to mind. While not wishing to exclude others who
may have more right to be mentioned, I list for now Brother John of Caulania,
Friar Hugo Panziera, Friar Servasanctus, Friar Peter John Olivi and Brother Salimbene
of Parma, all of whom wrote on spiritual topics.
Brother John of Caulania is the person to whom are attributed the pseudo-bonaventurian
Meditationes Vitae Christi. He is indeed a pious writer, says Sbaralea,[9] but mediocre, not
learned, not a theologian; he treats of practical asceticism rather than
speculative mysticism, He lived and wrote in the first years of the fourteenth
century or even the last years of the thirteenth century. From the Fathers he
quotes continually but almost only from St Bernard.[10] I do not see any
likeness between our Meditation and his work; the style of each author is so different I cannot
attribute the work to him.
Friar Hugh Panziera, eloquent and a good theologian, is honoured as a missionary and also as a writer on mysticism. From zeal for promoting the faith, he set out for the East about 1307 where he is thought to have died about 1330. He wrote songs in the vernacular, letters and also treatises on the spiritual life and contemplation, in which he often took issue with the errors of the Beghards and of the sect of the free spirit.[11] I regard him as having nothing in common with the author of the Meditation, especially since in the years 1282-1283 he was young and could hardly have mastered such high doctrine.
Friar Servasanctus, whose literary merits are well known, deserves more attention. He lived from 1260 to the end of the thirteenth century and so was a contemporary of our author. He wrote many treatises, including one De virtutibus, another De exemplis naturalibus, a third De poenitentia, and a fourth; all of these, even though they are forgotten and unedited (except for the Sermons), point to an eminent writer.[12] However it is clear that he was not a scholastic or speculative writer but rather a moralist adapting teaching to the popular understanding and illustrating it by examples. Certainly his style shows no relation to the style and method of the Meditation.’[13]
The name of Friar Peter John Olivi also comes up. Noteworthy is the opinion that, in imitation of the Seraphic Doctor, he claimed that the reference in Revelation 7:2 to the angel having the sign of the living God is to be understood of St Francis’[14]: ‘It is clear that Francis is truly the angel opening the sixth seal having the sign of the living God, the sign namely of the wounds of the crucified Christ and also the sign of such a transformation and configuration of himself to Christ and in Christ. This is arrived at through a clear and trustworthy revelation, solemnly announced by Friar Bonaventure, the most eminent master of theology and one time General Minister of our Order, at the Chapter of the friars in Paris.[15]
This is the same opinion as in the Meditation;
it can be added that, like the author of the Meditation, Olivi was a careful scholar
of the holy Fathers. However it is clear that Olivi uses a scholastic
methodology, something no one would claim for our theologian; moreover, it is
unlikely that in the years 1282-1283, troubled by serious annoyances from the jealousy
over disputed doctrinal questions, he could have turned his mind to writing
such a book.
A few things need to be said about Friar Salimbene of Parma, famous for his Chronicle. In this work’[16] writing in the year
1284, and referring to Revelation 1:13:
‘I saw . . . one like to the
Son of man’, he says of St Francis: ‘The ways that he was like Christ, however,
I will not enumerate here since I have written of them elsewhere and since I
need to hasten to report other matters’. This reference does not indicate that
Salimbene wrote a special book on the likenesses between Christ and St Francis,
but only that he has spoken on this topic in some book, and we should not
restrict this to a work treating only of this topic. Having said this and given
that the time of composition and the matter treated in the Meditation are sufficiently close to the
language of Brother Salimbene, is this sufficient for us to close our eyes and
attribute the work to him? I do not think so. Certain ideas
common to the Chronicle and
the Meditation can well
be attributed to two writers who lived at the same time, under the same
influences, even though not in the same region.
The Meditation, therefore, is to remain anonymous, until such time as authors
competent in this area make known and bring to light the mystical writings of
the end of the thirteenth century. This is not impossible. When an author is
capable of composing a writing of such value, it would be surprising if either before or afterwards he had not
written something else,[17]
even though none of his contemporaries make mention of it.
Perhaps, if we pay more attention to his sources,
we will be able to come to a conclusion with some degree of certainty.
3. Whom had the author of the Meditation read?
As far as distant sources such as the Bible and the holy Fathers are concerned, I refer the reader to the Appendix or to the book itself. There is surely no one who does not admire the surprising skill with which the author of the Meditation draws an abundance of arguments from these and from the Philosopher. He was certainly most learned to be able to collect so many quotations and to construct a mosaic with them. I admit however that he did not derive many of these from original texts, but rather received them through a second hand. He took some statements of Ambrose and Jerome from the Decretales of Gratian as is clear on pp. 35-36; similarly from the Defence of the Mendicants of St Bonaventure or from De perfectione evangelica of John Pecham,[18] he was able to get some quotations of Augustine, for example those from De lapsu mundi, page 103, and from De singularitate clericorum, page 96. Compilations of texts from the Fathers were available like gold mines, whose treasures were readily available to anyone zealous for sacred doctrine.
It is better for us to concentrate on more recent and contemporary sources, namely authors who lived in the thirteenth century or even in a certain region such as France. I do not refer here to the Rule of St Francis nor to the decree Exiit of Nicholas III, which the author on different occasions quotes or on which he comments. These were official texts available to everyone. I want to indicate private writers, whose teaching was more or less the basis of the Meditation, whose words the author explicitly uses, whose influence on him is closer, and who they might be. They opened the way for the author, and were present to him; hence, they surely left some traces guiding us to their region or locality.
I begin with Brother John Pecham, whose apologetics are sufficiently well known. Five treatises defending the life and Rule of the Lesser Brothers can be attributed to him. They are: 1. De perfectione evangelica, also known as Tractatus pauperis; 2. Contra Robertum Kilwardby; 3. Epistola de sandaliis Apostolorum (in the Opera omnia of St Bonventure, vol. 8 pp. 386-390); 4. Expositio super Regulam fr. Minorum (in Opera omnia of St Bonaventure, vol. 8 pp. 39 1-437); 5. Canticum pauperis pro dilecto.[19] Take special note of the works referred to in nn. 3 and 4; I hope to vindicate effectively and definitively, as soon as I can, their authenticity as works of John Pecham. The last work, that is Canticum pauperis, merits special attention because it is clearly quoted verbatim in the Meditation.
Meditation, p. 49 ; Canticum, p. 195: This is Othoniel,
which means sign of my God, ‘Caleb’s younger brother’, as in Judg 1, 13; Caleb however means dog,
representing the Apostles according to the Psalm: ‘the tongues of your dogs’,
etc.
Meditation, p. 94; Canticum, pp. 199-200: so take care to
see, hear or speak with a woman only when . . . vigils anticipated and drawn out.
Meditation, p. 103; Canticum, pp. 200-201: Despise only yourself and consider that to every person . .. for which you rightly deserve to be esteemed by people.
Meditation, p. 108; Canticum, p. 198: it prescribes not any obedience as other Rules, but that obedience which Jesus Christ our Lord took on, so that human weakness could suffer and obey the Father unto death.
Meditation, pp. 108; Canticum, pp. 198-199: Other religious are accustomed to obey within the limits of stability of place. . . namely from the source of love and the foundation of obedience.
Meditation, p. 112; Canticum, p. 196: This statement would be invalid were it not that for those professed in this way of life, to enter any other Order would be to look back and to serve God less than they have promised to do in this way of life.
Meditation, p. 115; Canticum, pp. 204-205: Three gates face the East. The first is the beginning of the way of life . . . to go among the Saracens or other unbelievers’ etc.
So here are seven texts identical in each work. Because the Canticum is dated about 1275-1277, certainly before 1279, but the Meditation about 1282-1283, one has to conclude that the Meditation, which incorporates whole passages of the Canticum, depends on the Canticum and not vice versa. Once this is agreed on, influences of the Canticum on other passages can easily be seen; for example, p. 63 on the creation of St Francis in the image of God on the sixth day; p. 68 on the bald person who used a rope instead of a sash; p. 78 on the teacher providing higher things for the higher students and lower things for the slower students; p. 81 on the office of preaching in a special chapter of the Rule; p. 95 on Gilead the summit of Lebanon with the goats moving down its slopes. See Pecham, Canticum, pp. 194, 141, 141, 187-189, 139.
As for St Bonaventure, if one looks carefully, it is clear that the author of the Meditation used not just one of his works but at least five. Hence, we can conclude that the author had the golden writings of the Seraphic Doctor before him at all times. What worthier guide could he have had for doctrine, who could be closer to him? Can it not be proposed that it is to St Bonaventure he is referring when he says on p. 78: ‘as I learnt from my genuine and worthy master’?
Indeed whenever he speaks of St Francis or refers to what he did and said, he always has in hand the Major Legend and Minor Legend of St Bonaventure, more than once quoting from them verbatim. Apart from two or three facts handed down by tradition, whatever he repeats as being from the Seraphic Doctor is indeed found there and not in Celano or any other earlier historian. See pp. 20, 30, 31, 42, 44, 46, 58, 67, 76, 78, 80, 81, 89. So I warn, it is a complete misconception to seek in the Meditation for information on the life of St Francis or evidence for theories, perhaps preconceived, about his life.
That our author relied on the commentaries of St Bonaventure Super
Sententias, ‘which are still useful and worthy to
the present day’, as Brother Salimbene claimed[20]
is sufficiently evident from the teaching on the work of the demons, p. 81. The
style and almost the whole composition correspond to the style and formulas of
the holy doctor, II Sententiarum, d. 6 a. 3 q. 2 Opera Omnia, vol. 2 p. 169. See p. 82 note 2 and p. 117
note 5.
Our author is perhaps the first person to refer to and quote from the disputed questions in De perfectione evangelica of the same Seraphic Doctor. He copied a large portion of Question 1, which is on p. 103, note 8 and p. 104, note 7. Note the modest introduction which the author gives to this quote on p. 104: ‘For the consolation of simple people like myself some things are added below, from the limits of my understanding, so as to give some knowledge of true humility as well as both its fruits and usefulness’. The words ‘added below’ serve as an indication to the quotation. Probably also, I think, he took two quotes from the body of Article 3 of Question III, one of Jerome and the other of Augustine. See p. 99, note 6, and p. 100, note 2.
However, I do not think there is any work apart from Beniamin by Richard of St Victor, of which the author of the Meditation made such use and to which he owes more than to the Collations on the Six Days; these are the wonderful discourses which in 1273 Bonaventure delivered as conferences to the whole community of the Friars in Paris, to the masters, bachelors and the one hundred and sixty Friars. The author had at hand a text of these Collations which corresponded exactly to the latest published text, but not to the edition of a German friar which is based on Codex U. V. 6 of the library in Senigaglia. Since I will soon publish an edition of this Codex, I can make a sure study of both texts. Whole passages of three of the Collations are quoted literally. So from the second Collation 2, n. 30-32 almost the whole is found on pp. 135-136 beginning with the words: ‘When the affective faculty’ and ending: ‘these are what I ask for in prayer’; from Collation 15, n. 3 the quote is noted on p. 116, note 5; from Collation 23 there are many quotes from n. 14-31 as can be seen in the Index of Sources. I think the general plan of Part II of the Meditation is drawn from numbers 2, 3 and 14 of the twenty third Collation; more will be said of this below; on the other hand the whole outline of Part III is clearly indicated in n. 15-31, but developed by the particular insight of the author with the help of Richard of St Victor.
Apart from John Pecham and St Bonaventure there occurs a third Franciscan, a poet, from whom the author of the Meditation takes two quotations. He is Brother Guido of the Marches, a companion of Hugo Egolismensis and a native of the Marches, to whom Nicholas IV sent a letter Apostolicae sedis benignitas (23 January 1291),[21] in which is said ‘he worked daily in a praiseworthy way in the Order, was skilled in letters, upright in conduct and endowed with other gifts of virtues’. For many years he developed his skills and enjoyed a certain fame in the arts.[22] There are two of his poems, one of 580 lines with the title Defensio fratrum Mendicantium[23] written about the time of the Council of Lyons (1274), but certainly before the Bull Exiit (15 August 1279) of Nicholas III. From this poem, lines 333-336 are quoted on p. 93 introduced by the formula: ‘A not unlearned writer said’; similarly the praise on p. 81: ‘there is scarcely a village … voice of the successors’, uses the words of lines 235-236.
Francis of Italy was their patron,
a poor and
modest man, but holy and good;
There is hardly a village, hardly a corner of the earth,
in which there is not the authentic voice of his successors.
If to these three you add the Chancellor of Paris, a portion of whose prose is quoted on p. 45, and Adam of St Victor, two of whose lines are referred to on p. 137, we have five authors whose works are quoted; this gives me the strong impression that the Meditation was written not in Italy nor in his Province, but in France where these writers lived and wrote. There in France, their writings would have come into the hands of scholars more easily, more quickly and been better known.[24]
This impression is strengthened for me by two arguments. Firstly, when expounding the virtues of a true Lesser Brother and putting before them poverty, love and humility, which so shone in St Francis, the author never specifically touches on the thorny questions then dividing the Order in other places; secondly in Part III he included so many quotes from the book Beniamin by Richard of St Victor, a leader of theology and mysticism in Paris, that almost the whole teaching seems to be transcribed from there.
5. An overview of the whole Meditation
A concise analysis of the whole work is now given so that the arrangement of its parts, the method, and the order of the text can be understood. Since in the manuscripts the text has no index and few rubrics, it may seem to be nothing more than a forest of texts from the Bible and the Fathers. This is to miss the strong structure and the excellent teaching contained in the Meditation. On the basis of Codex B, I have inserted some titles or rubrics, as is clear in the text; although these divide up the material they are not sufficient on their own to give an adequate idea of the whole work.
The work revolves around three central ideas and can be easily divided into three parts of equal length. In the first part (pp. 15-62) the author shows the close likeness between the virtues of Christ crucified and St Francis marked with the stigmata; in the second (pp. 62-113) he shows that St Francis can fittingly be seen as the ‘other angel’ making known the sign of the living God, of which the apostle John speaks in the book, Revelation; in the third (pp. 113-148) he shows the virtues which should adorn the elect, marked by Francis, namely, his spiritual heirs, the Lesser Brothers, for the building up of the holy Jerusalem, the mystical city built in a square with twelve gates.
Part I: The first part is divided into sections as follows:
1 How Christ in his passion showed the highest degree of poverty
2 How blessed Francis wished to adopt the highest degree of Christ’s poverty
3 How Christ in his passion showed the highest degree of love
4 How blessed Francis wished to adopt the highest degree of Christ’s love
5 On the praises of love and an exhortation to love
6 How Christ in his passion showed the highest degree of humility
7 How blessed Francis wished to adopt the highest degree of Christ’s humility
8 How it is a duty for a lesser brother to adopt these
virtues as did blessed
Francis
9 What it means for a Friar Minor to adopt perfectly these three virtues in their highest degree
10 On the degrees of the virtues
It should be noted that the author, using his own terms and theological principles for solving the question of the likenesses of St Francis to Christ, has directly formulated this more clearly than previous historians such as Celano and St Bonaventure, and Bartholomaeus Pisanus who, in the following century, wrote on this topic in a treatise of considerable length.[25] The author proposed a solution which draws its origin from the miracle of the stigmata which he used as the firm foundation; it is a solution which satisfies piety and reason. He says on p. 58: ‘Although, therefore, I cannot examine this from within, let me say some things from the outside in a round about way, so as to give some satisfaction from my poor abilities, and also to offer something to the wise who can consider it more deeply’.
He gives his own solution in the Meditation by establishing clearly: 1. How Christ in his passion showed especially three virtues in their highest degree, namely, poverty, love, and humility; 2. how St Francis cultivated these same virtues to perfection in his life; 3. how he merited for this reason through the imprinting of the stigmata to receive, as it were, a seal configuring and perfecting him in that likeness. This is the whole thesis. He says on p. 55: ‘The highest poverty, eminent love and the deepest humility shone out in Christ especially at the time of the passion, as has been said, and these virtues were most truly in blessed Francis . . . and wondrously transformed into the crucified Christ, as will be clearer further on’; and again on p. 62: ‘Blessed Francis, as shown above, had in the highest degree the virtues which shone forth during the crucifixion of Christ. Because the highest degree of the virtues is that they be models or likenesses of the source of virtues, it was necessary for blessed Francis to become perfectly like Christ in his passion and crucifixion’; and there follows on the same page: ‘And so blessed Francis not only in soul, but in the limbs of his body, namely the hands and feet and side, was decorated with the marks of the wounds of Christ, and so was perfectly conformed to the Crucified. See also p. 78. All these points are refined throughout Part I while at the same time the teaching on the virtues is developed in a wonderful way, especially in sections 5, 8, 9 and 10.
Part II: The second part of the work is divided into twelve sections:
1 John in the sixth seal
2 Another angel
3 Ascending from the rising of the sun
4 Of the living God
5 Having the seal of the living God
6 Called Out in a loud voice
7 To the four angels
8 To whom it is given to harm
9 The earth
10 The sea
11 The trees
12 Till we sign the servants of God on their foreheads
It is clear that this part is a continuous commentary on Revelation 7:2-3. I do not know whether there be another commentary so copious, so learned, and written with such judgment. Read it with openness, quietly, not seeking controversy, and it will become evident whether the author is a dreamer or visionary, rather than a wise exegete who, examining the text and context, controls his thoughts according to the norms of sound interpretation. Some holding other opinions have expounded various interpretations with more or less validity; but there comes to mind, whether they like it or not, the opinion of Pisanus who asserted not altogether without reason[26]: ‘Whoever would say that this figure is not blessed Francis, must demonstrate to whom the words having the sign of the living God are to be applied, since blessed Francis had the sign; when they can do this, I will believe them’. Truly golden words which remain and will remain whether the text of John be understood literally or figuratively, as some prefer to say today.
This opinion is not refuted by claiming that it comes from the Joachimites and the Spirituals, or to imply that St Bonaventure condemned it in Gerard de Burgo S. Donnini, or that it is based on a revelation attributed to St Bonaventure, or finally to claim that it is rejected by some theologians.[27] All of these claims are to be taken with much caution and do not prove anything. If the opinion had been condemned in the Joachimites, how could St Bonaventure, and with him the whole Order and the Church, have made it their own in the Major Legend and the Minor Legend, and have it read publicly and in the Divine Office? Moreover no one has ever said, other than quite gratuitously, that Bonaventure had Gerard in mind precisely with regard to this opinion. Concerning the revelation given to St Bonaventure it can be noted that better and earlier witnesses, Brother P. John Olivi[28] and Brother Ubertinus de Casali,[29] hold that the revelation was not given to Bonaventure but to others and it was only recorded and handed on by Bonaventure; it is in no way proven that Bonaventure and the witnesses just named base their opinion on such a revelation, but they record it. The theologians named who hold the contrary opinion should have been free from a partisan point of view, but they were openly hostile to the opinion; they are suspect witnesses if, indeed, witnesses at all.
So the whole teaching of the Meditation endures, supported by the names of St Bonaventure, St Bernardine of Siena, Leo X in the Bull Ite et vos (29 May 1517), and from many learned and holy people who have embraced it over the course of the centuries.[30] Again I say, read it with openness, quietly, not seeking controversy;[31] it contains nothing of dreams or visions.
In the whole third section the author describes symbolically the mystical number 144000 from every tribe of the children of Israel marked by ‘another angel.’ Israel or Jacob is Francis, the children of Israel are all the spiritual children of Francis (p. 115); the number 144000 is the number of the holy city, the new Jerusalem (p. 114); the city, built in a square, with four sides each having three gates, is the holy way of life, that is the Order of Lesser Brothers (p. 114), with a Rule of twelve chapters like the twelve gates (p. 115); the twelve gates inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes represent the twelve virtues with which the new children of Jacob, that is Francis, are marked (p. 117).
Part III: The
third section is divided as follows:
1 I heard the number of those marked, one hundred forty-four thousand
2 First side
a Judah = a genuine profession of eternal truth
b Reuben = a humble veneration of the highest majesty
c Gad = a strong protection of inner holiness
3 Second side
a Asher = the main striving to be for lasting beatitude
b Naphthaii = a broad disposition of fraternal love
c Manasseh = a complete contempt for earthly possessions
4 Third side
a Simeon = an affectionate outreach of friendly pity
b Levi = a jealous uprightness of severe discipline
c Issachar = an endurance conquering earthly distress
5 Fourth side
a Zabulon = the peaceful condition of the sublime mansion
b Joseph = a clear vision of wise discretion
c Benjamin = the ecstatic excess of sweet consolation
As the outline stands, the author has taken it from the Collations on the six days by St Bonaventure,
coll. 23, n. 15-31,[32]
but has added his own material; however, the commentary and full explanation
come from the teaching of Richard of St Victor in his work Beniamin; the mystical teaching of our
author formally and clearly depends on this famous master.
6. The methodology of
the Meditation
Coming toward the end of this preface I think there are still a few points about the author which should be mentioned. He is certainly a person highly skilled in theology, who ‘with flour added by the hand of Elisha’ (p. 148), was able to prepare such a deep comparison between Christ and St Francis, to discourse on the virtues so ingeniously, based On so many arguments from Scripture and the Fathers. He was no less prudent, carefully guarding against the danger of error in himself and in others. Often then he alerts the reader: ‘Do not think’ (p. 22); ‘Do not think here’ (p. 34); ‘Note however how you understand this word’ (p. 52); ‘It is not to be thought’ (p. 58); ‘I say this to you who understand in a bodily way’ (p. 59); ‘Understand however’ (p. 93); ‘See whether what has been said above’ (p. 79). He also warns the reader of Joachim: ‘You too must believe this, lest you seem to favour the condemned writing of the abbot Joachim’ (p. 7).
More than once, as the need arose, he attacks directly the errors of
the Averroists condemned in Paris in 1277. Error 176, namely, that happiness is
in this life, he overturns with the words, p. 60: ‘They were wrong, however, in thinking that this happiness can be
had in the present life; this is clearly false’; he rejects error 157, which
claims a person by reason of natural virtues is sufficiently prepared for
beatitude, when he says on p. 60: ‘Virtues are not said to be given by God, but a virtuous habit is
acquired by frequent acts... This is not completely true’. Lastly he opposes
error 144, that every good consists in intellectual virtues, with the
following, p. 135: ‘Clearly then, it is wrong to say that every happiness is in
the mind, as some have said who are unlearned and caught up in things
existing’.
He often refers to himself and in doing so makes his intention to write
correctly even more evident: ‘I do not think’ (p. 21); ‘I think the meaning is’
(p. 64); ‘Here I think it should be noted’ (p. 70); ‘I think that each of these
points is to be pondered’ (p. 66); ‘I believe without any doubt’ (p. 30); ‘I
consider it most important to decide’ (p. 73); ‘I believe it is no other, I
understand it to be no other’ (p. 45); ‘And I heard from my seniors’ (p. 30);
‘as I learnt from my genuine and worthy master’ (p. 78); ‘I believe, given the
dullness of my understanding, I could not be of service in this but, rather, I
would be found wanting. However I draw your attention’ (p. 113). At other times
he writes with more feeling: ‘I dare to add that’ (p. 34); ‘I dare to say that
the saying is realized in them’ (p. 38); ‘But I boldly deny this, I
always refute it’ (p. 66); ‘throughout the entire world, is still heard and, I
dare to say, will be heard’ (p. 80); ‘if you do not believe me, ask the Jews’ (p.
81); ‘If you do not believe me, I can prove this copiously from sacred
Scripture’ (p. 98). He faced opposition: “We can understand this text in
another way because of those who oppose it’ (p. 75). All of these expressions,
if they have any meaning at all, indicate a significant attempt to examine
opinions and to express them in appropriate language. If he could not say more,
he at least was able to say with confidence: ‘Think carefully, note the words,
recognize the mysteries’ (p. 64); he applied this advice to himself first.
He was moreover a person of great zeal among his brothers. The whole book is for them. He defends the Rule (p. 18) and often interprets it, dwelling so admirably on the virtues contained in it. He says on p. 58: ‘I offer all I have said and will say to the praise and honour of our Lord Jesus Christ and of our father blessed Francis and of all the holy Lesser Brothers who have been, are, and will be’ and he does this ‘to give some satisfaction from my poor abilities’ (p. 58). In another text, while commending humility, he says: ‘For the consolation of simple people like myself some things are added below’ (p. 104).
Sometimes he speaks directly to the reader: ‘You, therefore who, believing in faith, understand the cross of the Lord in this way’ (p. 18); ‘Reflect, therefore, whoever you are, whether you can understand’ (p. 57); ‘Who then are you … Who are you’ (p. 43); ‘You therefore, who call yourself a Minor’ (p. 55); ‘Those should pay most attention to this who’ (p. 89); ‘So you who profess this Rule should note’ (p. 108); ‘But make it your principal care, your diligent watchfulness, to be what your name implies, namely a Friar Minor’ (p. 55); ‘You therefore, whoever you are, who call yourself a Lesser Brother, if you are truly a minor, that is genuinely humble, be as was blessed Francis’ (p. 43); ‘You then, who belong to his army, be especially careful’ (p. 78). These texts indicate a style and writing directed at the living.
It has been argued in what precisely consists the authentic Franciscan spirit;[33] in this discussion the question arises as to what was the genuinely characteristic virtue of St Francis, the virtue which is to be imitated by his followers and which distinguishes them from other religious. Some point to poverty, some to zeal for souls, some to devotion to the Crucified, others proclaim I do not know which virtue. The author of the Meditation proposed his own clear solution some six centuries ago. According to him, St Francis cultivated to the highest degree the three virtues which he saw as most evident in the suffering Christ, virtues by which he merited to be likened to Christ through the stigmata: poverty, love and humility. One can be a spiritual child of Francis to the degree that one possesses these three virtues making one like to him and, through him, to Christ (pp. 49-57). By these virtues the children of St Francis are named ‘poor Lesser Brothers’; this is their proper name, this is their definition.[34] In this sense John the Baptist ‘in truth was a lesser brother’ (pp. 52 and 64), and Paul: ‘he, dare I say it, showed himself to be a minor’ (pp. 146 and 142), and even Christ: ‘This Order has to belong to Christ by a special title, for he is its beginning, author and origin, since he in truth was the first and true lesser brother according to the perfection of the previously mentioned virtues, which shone out in him in a most perfect way’ (pp. 48 and 54). Certainly, it follows from what has been said, that the new Elisha has cooked for us, not a tasteless or harmful stew, but one sweetened in a healthy way and full of the knowledge of the saints (p. 148). My conclusion, therefore, is the theme of the whole Meditation,[35] the truth which the author proposes in the beginning of the book (p. 15) and which I ask the well intentioned reader to meditate with me: ‘It is the main teaching, the first philosophy, the highest theology, and in understanding and possessing it, is the perfection of Christ which is based primarily in poverty’.
P. Ferdinand M. Delorme, O.F.M.
Quaracchi, 28 March 1929.
A MEDITATION IN SOLITUDE OF ONE WHO IS POOR
INTRODUCTION
‘I am one who sees my poverty’ (Lamentations 3:1).[36]
The admirable, the more than admirable lady poverty is put before us, on whom not all are able to look, certainly not one who is a child in understanding needing milk, but one who is an adult who, having become virtuous, can be given solid food. ‘For every one who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil’,
as Paul says in Hebrews 5:13-14. ‘As one taken from the breast[37] who plays over the hole of the asp,[38] such should be the weaned child who shall put its hand on the adder’s den’. This is truly what one does who professes evangelical poverty, one who makes ‘the earth full of the knowledge of the Lord’, as written in Isaiah 11:9. For no one can reach perfection unless ‘the partial comes to an end’, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:10. When he was made a preacher of the Gospel, he added what follows immediately in the test: ‘When I was a child, I spoke like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways’. For to ‘whom will’ the Lord ‘teach’ Gospel ‘knowledge and to whom will he explain the prophetic message?’ Surely ‘those who are weaned from milk, those taken form the breast’, as stated in Isaiah 28:9. Such should not be ‘children tossed to and fro’ so that they are ‘blown about by every wind of doctrine’, as the Apostle says in Ephesians 4:14.
I am one
Not even all these are able to take hold of this perfection, but one alone, as stated by the wonderful prophet Jeremiah[39]: I, he says, not another. It is not to be thought that see here refers to the bodily eye, as this would not be singular. All the ‘wise’ and the ‘fools, humans’, namely, ‘and animals’[40] use the bodily eye, and are able to see; but ‘seeing’ here means understanding. And so a husband who, according to the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 11:3, ‘is the head of his wife’, signifies the top of the body intent on ‘contemplating things eternal’ as Augustine says in The Trinity.[41] Whoever truly acknowledges poverty, ‘ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God’; who contemplating heavenly things seeks the ‘things that are above, not on things that are on earth’.[42] But whoever loves the glory of the world, bearing the likeness of Caesar, is certainly unable to understand the poverty of Christ because the head is covered.
Who sees
If you ask what is this head, listen to the Apostle in the same text[43]: ‘Christ’, he says, ‘is the head of every man’. Their extreme poverty which has ‘overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part’, as he says in 2 Corinthians 8:2, can only be seen by the attention of a penetrating mind. Does not what makes a person blessed, seem most high to you? The Lord says: ‘’, Matthew 5:3; and blessed is the one who understands this, on the testimony of the Psalm[44] which says: ‘Happy are those who consider the poor’, that is, Christ who is truly our poverty, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:9: ‘For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich’.
My poverty
Therefore, one can understand and contemplate our poverty, which is so high and venerable, and praised by the prophet Jeremiah[45] in the words already quoted. To understand this is not a trifling thing but the highest wisdom; hence the letter put before this verse is Aleph, which means teaching.[46] It is the main teaching, the first philosophy, the highest theology, and in understanding and possessing it, is the perfection of Christ. So he says my, that is, I see it in myself. But what benefit is it for you to understand that Christ was poor for you, unless you see his poverty in yourself so that you too become poor for him?
Our blessed Father Francis strove to understand this poverty with the complete attention of his mind, longing to hold it with all his affection, reaching for it with every struggle and most careful effort; this he used as the deepest foundation for his Rule, this he put before his followers as something to be observed, this he left to his heirs as an inheritance in law and a lasting possession. Although this poverty has several degrees upon which various Orders are founded, he, however, took it to himself in its highest and most perfect degree.
PART I
I
HOW CHRIST IN HIS PASSION SHOWED THE HIGHEST DEGREE OF POVERTY
Interpretation of the letter Thau
Christ showed during his passion all the virtues to their highest degree, when, as the ‘exalted right hand of the Lord’, he acted ‘valiantly’.[47] For if, according to the Apostle in 2 Corinthians 12:9: ‘power is made perfect’ above all ‘in weakness’, then Christ raised on the cross, showed his weakness in an extreme way; here he was ‘accounted’ as one ‘stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted’, and there he, abandoned by his God, ‘cried out with a loud voice’,[48] and at this point truly perfected all virtues when he said: ‘It is finished’. John 19:28-30: ‘After this, when Jesus knew that all was finished, he said: ‘I am thirsty’; when Jesus had received the wine he said: ‘It is finished’. Then he bowed his head, and gave up his spirit’.
And so Thau, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, representing an image of the cross of Christ,[49] represents also the fulfilling of the whole Old Testament; the books of the Old Testament contained in the Canon are numbered according to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, as Jerome says in Prologus Galeatus.[50] Thau, therefore, the last letter shows the fulfilling of all things ‘written in the laws, the prophets and the Psalms’[51] about Christ. So Thau is understood as fulfilment. On the cross Christ, who is the end of the law for everyone who believes’, Romans 10:4, fulfilled all things, just as he said when giving proof after the resurrection to the unbelieving disciples, Luke 24:25-27: ‘O how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the Scriptures’, so as to show exactly that all things were to be fulfilled in his passion.
In the brightness of the saints
The day of the passion of Christ is called ‘the day you lead your forces’, on the evidence of David[52]: ‘your people will offer themselves willingly on the day you lead your forces’, that is to say, although you may cry out that you are abandoned by God, although you may commend your spirit into the hands of the Father, yet the divinity which is the source of all things, and the Father also, who is the source of the Godhead itself, were with you unable to leave you because the Father abides in the Son and the Son in the Father. So there follows[53]: ‘from the womb of the morning like dew, your youth will come to you’. The Father is speaking to the Son ‘from the womb’, that is, from his nature, his substance, from within the innermost parts of the divinity. Such is the teaching of Jerome in a homily.[54] You too must believe this, let you seem to favour the condemned writing of the abbot Joachim.[55] Jerome adds in the same place: ‘Christ spoke in a human way, he did not ask out of weakness; in him was the beginning, the divinity; but he asked for help, so that when it was given he might give it to his saints who could then shine forth’.
And that is what is called the brightness of the saints.[56] The crucifixion of Christ is truly the splendour of the strength of the Saints. So Habakkuk 3:4 says: His ‘brightness was like the sun’, a light, namely, ‘which enlightens everyone’.[57] When? Hear what follows[58]: ‘Rays came forth from his hand, where his power lay hidden’. ‘Rays’, however, in ‘the hand’ of Christ, are nothing else than the arms of his cross, where his ‘hidden power’ makes all holy people resplendent in virtues. For this reason the Church sings in the antiphon of the cross[59]: ‘O cross more resplendent than all the stars of the universe!’
The poverty of the living God
While Christ lived in human flesh, he was a ‘stranger in the land, like a traveller turning aside for the night’, as is said in Jeremiah 14:8, and did not have a place of his own ‘to lay down his head’, as he himself testifies in Matthew 8:20. Even though ‘he came to what was his own, his own people did not accept him’.[60] ‘In no way did he have a home, nor even a single palm tree in a place of refuge, not a shoot of a vine, or an extra garment, and he lived in every detail as one from the crowd of poor people,’ as Damascene says in the book De Philoretis.[61] However, he could not be destitute of everything. He had the clothes made by his mother, and purses for use in times of necessity; in appearance he was as one frail so as ‘not to condemn the ways’ of the weak, as he sometimes showed in fleeing.[62] But at the time of the passion he had nothing at all being completely stripped and naked. On the evidence of the Gospel story,[63] the soldiers who crucified him, took his clothes and divided them among themselves, but for the tunic woven in one piece, made by the hands of the blessed Virgin, they cast lots, not daring to divide it. The tunic is the symbol of the bond of love and the unity of faith, which then continued only in the blessed Virgin. On the cross, Christ had only what he had received from the body of his Mother. So he could truly say: ‘Woman, here is your son’, John 19:26.
The poverty of the suffering Christ
Christ wanted especially to entrust this poverty to us. Lamentations 3:19 says: ‘The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall’, namely, the poverty which was mine when, in the time of the bitter passion, I was made the transgression, that is, sin and curse on your behalf, as indicated by the wormwood and gall. So Galatians 3:13 says: ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”’; for ‘him who knew no sin’ God the Father ‘made him sin’ for us, so ‘that in him we might become the righteousness of God’, as the Apostle says in 2 Corinthians 5:21. The letter put before this verse is Zayin, meaning ‘go you as far’, that is, come to this degree of poverty, if you wish to be perfect and imitate Christ and be perfectly assimilated into him.
Of the chariot of the apostle Philip
Note also what is said in Acts 8:29: ‘The Spirit’, said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it”’. Philip means ‘the mouth of the lamp’. This is the lamp of which ‘its flashes are flashes of fire’ and flames, namely, a strong and fervent love of Christ, which ‘many waters’ even of tribulation ‘cannot quench nor floods’ of persecution ‘drown’, because ‘love is strong as death’, for which one despises as nothing all one’s possessions, as Song 8:6 says. This is that ‘fire’ of ‘fierce passion’,[64] which, as stated in Proverbs 30:15 ‘never says ‘”enough”’, until it reaches the perfect and final end because passion is as fierce as the grave.[65]
What, therefore, is this chariot which the Spirit orders Philip to reach and mount as if for his own need and perfection? Perhaps this is that ‘chariot of fire’ which carried Elijah and from which he threw off his mantle, as related in 2 Kings 2:11-13. In this chariot is being read how Christ ‘like a sheep was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth’, Acts 8:32. I can think here of no chariot other than the chariot of the Lord drawn by four beasts, namely, the cross of Christ on which like a sheep he was immolated and like a lamb was shorn and stripped naked. This is the ‘splendid chariot’ of the Lord and ‘the disgrace of the master’s house’, as stated in Isaiah 22:18 because ‘the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God’, 1 Corinthians 1:18; because as Paul says in the same place: ‘We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called both of Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God’.[66] You see, the only chariot of the glory and ignominy of the Lord is the cross of Jesus Christ; here is written, here is read: ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews’.[67]
Of the chariot of the king of Israel
This is the chariot spoken of in 1 Kings 22:35: ‘The king was propped up in his chariot facing the Arameans’, and wounded by the archers, died in the ‘evening’. Our king is the Lord Jesus, hangs on his cross facing the demons and is wounded by the archers, namely, by those Judaeans: ‘Who whet their tongues like swords, who aim bitter words like arrows, shooting from ambush at the blameless; because of their tongue he will bring them to ruin; they shoot suddenly and without fear they hold fast to their evil purpose, shouting: “Crucify, crucify him’.[68] So it is said in Jeremiah 9:8: ‘Their tongue is a deadly arrow, it speaks deceit. He died in the evening’,[69] that is, as the world comes to its evening, or because as he dies ‘the sun’s light failed’[70] and it was evening; hence in 2 Chronicles 18:34 it is said about him that at ‘sunset he died’.
The cross, the chariot of Christ
The Lord’s cross is the chariot which Philip is asked to reach if he wishes to be perfect and complete in virtue. So Augustine in a sermon[71]: ‘Christ wanted to have nothing, and yet a person has everything who comes to the cross for the sake of him who, naked and crucified, had his bones numbered by those insulting him’. And Jerome, in the letter to Heliodorus[72]: ‘The perfect servant of Christ has nothing other than Christ; the servant who has anything other than Christ is not perfect’. In no other place was Christ killed ‘like a sheep, and like a lamb silent before its shearer’, than on the cross where ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ was offered, as he so wished, and he did not open his mouth’;[73] when robbed and stripped by those crucifying him he did nothing to resist nor did he object in words to show that the highest poverty must be accompanied by true patience.
Against the opponents of poverty
You, therefore who, believing in faith, understand the cross of the Lord in this way, be careful to imitate it in deeds, otherwise there will be said of you what Philip said to the eunuch, Acts 8:30: ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Many today who ponder this poverty of the cross of the Lord, are boastful; they imagine, because of their knowledge and piety, that they understand it perfectly; but they show themselves unable to understand it correctly, because they neither have this highest poverty, nor wish to imitate it; and, what is more dangerous for them, they pull down with vindictive barking those who imitate it and wish to embrace it perfectly. Ravens are animals of a kind prohibited by the law of the Lord, Leviticus 11:15, because they are unclean and lacking in affection. This is clear in that the first raven released by Noah from the ark, busy with things outside, did not return into it.[74] Judas is like a raven. When give the title ‘apostle of the Lord’, he stood out against his master and Lord as one ‘far more zealous’ for the poor, not that he ‘cared about the poor, but because he was a thief and kept the common purse’, as stated in John 12:6. Hence the holy Roman Church, whose special care is for the poor of Christ, no longer able to put up with these poisonous bites, bound their mouths with a most severe bond of excommunication, as is clearly evident in the recent Decree of the Lord Pope, Nicholas III,[75] on the Rule which is genuinely for the poor of Christ, the Rule of the Lesser Brothers.
Christ is the true Noah
Ham, one of the children of Noah, received the curse of his father for laughing at his nudity which a younger brother reverently covered, as related in Genesis 9:23. Ham could not be cursed because he had been blessed by the Lord ‘for God blessed Noah and his sons’;[76] Noah would not have dared to curse one whom the Lord had not cursed. The Noah who alone is righteous and blameless[77] is Christ. Noah means rest since at his birth his father said in Genesis 5:29 in the Septuagint text: ‘This one will give us rest from our labours, whereas our translation has: this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands’. By no means did Noah himself give consolation or rest for in his lifetime the anger of God in the waters of the flood spent its fury against the human race; he also was the one to build the ark by which God ‘condemned the world’, as Hebrews 11:7 says. But the true Noah says in Matthew 11:28-29: ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls’.
This Noah, I say, is Jesus the true saviour who saved ‘his people from their sins’,[78] a people made holy by the piercing of his side. This is the Noah who ‘was found perfect and righteous; in the time of wrath he kept the race alive’, as stated in Sirach 44:17; who, from the vine of Soreth, the house of Israel which he planted, ‘drank some of the wine’, the chalice of the passion handed to him by the Father, and was ‘uncovered’[79] on the mount of Calvary at which anyone who laughs will undoubtedly lie under a curse.
Healing by contraries
Human avarice then filled almost the whole world, an avarice by which each clung to personal possessions, took the possessions of others if possible, and longed for them when not possible. It could be checked in no better way than by the one who is rich in everything, to whom belongs everything ‘in the heavens above’ and ‘on the earth below’,[80] who is the owner, controller and author of all things. Christ checked avarice by putting on human weakness, by becoming the poorest of all, by preaching this poverty in word, and confirming it by a most perfect example. To all called by him and wishing to follow him, he set this in the first place in the foundation of perfection and a deposit on the heavenly kingdom, Matthew 19:21: ‘If’, he said, you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’. To the apostles following him who had already left everything, he promises a most perfect gain from it, not just thirty fold, nor sixty, but a hundred fold and as well eternal life: You, he said, who have left ‘everything and followed me, will receive a hundred fold and will inherit eternal life’.[81] For if ‘by the skill of medicine, fever is cured by cold presses and cold by warmth’, there can be no better way of curing human avarice than for the one who longs for the possessions of others, not only to take what belongs to others, but also to give away personal possessions, as Gregory says[82] in a homily on the text of Luke: ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves’.[83]
On the rich man feasting
And so, according to the Lord’s advice, Matthew 6:20, we should place our treasure in heaven where neither ‘moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal’. ‘We bear’, in ourselves ‘the image of the man of heaven’, of the second Adam, namely, Christ, as the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 15:49. ‘The image of the man of dust’, the first man, the first Adam, is imprinted on gold, silver, and coins; so we are commanded for the day of judgment to give up not what belongs to God but what belongs to Caesar: ‘As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; for as the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven’, as Paul says in the same passage. Who wants wealth which we know our Lord and God scorns? Who dares to long for riches which we know the Lord and God forbids? For who but a worthless servant does not throw away that which God, our Lord, condemns in word and deed? I believe only such a person who is like the rich man who ‘received good things during his lifetime, and will have after death only a grave which is hell, so that it was truly said of him; ‘the rich man died and was buried’ in hell where thee will not even be the refreshment of a drop of water.[84]
2
HOW BLESSED FRANCIS WISHED TO ADOPT THE HIGHEST POVERTY OF CHRIST’S POVERTY
St Francis renounces everything
Blessed Francis wished to make his own in its highest degree this poverty; he wanted to have nothing as Christ had shown during his passion. He certainly wanted his Order to possess nothing as individuals nor in common, not a house, place or anything at all, not even the clothes they might have. Hence, when he started the Order, he renounced his family inheritance before the bishop of the city, and took off all that covered his body; as one intoxicated with the Spirit he did not hesitate to be completely naked before the crowd being mindful of the One who hung naked on the cross for us: ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I will be able to say without fear, Our Father who is in heaven’.[85] For as a son is the true image of his father, he truly made his own the image of the heavenly Father; he completely ‘stripped off his old self with its practices’, left his earthly father with his earthly possessions and clothed himself with Christ crucified, ‘the new self’;[86] he committed himself totally to the Father of spirits who is in heaven, mindful of the words already mentioned in Lamentations 3:19: ‘The thought of my’ poverty etc., where there immediately followed the same letter Zayin: ‘My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope’.
Francis recommends poverty
This is that ‘pearl of great value’ for which the happy merchant ‘sold all that he had’ so as to acquire it;[87] this is the field of the Gospel, in which the one contemplating heavenly things discovers hidden treasure, then, drawn by desire for it, leaves all to purchase it, according to Mathew 13:44. Hence, in the last chapter of Proverbs, verse 16, under the same letter Zayin one reads: ‘She considers a field and buys it’. And so recommending this poverty to his brothers in the Rule,[88] Francis says: ‘Let them go seeking alms with confidence, and they should not be ashamed because, for our sakes, our Lord made himself poor in this world. This is that sublime height of most exalted poverty which has made you, my most beloved brothers, heirs and kings of the kingdom of heaven, poor in temporal things but exalted in virtue. Let this be your portion which leads into the land of the living. Giving yourselves totally to this, beloved brothers, never seek anything else under heaven for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ’. In these words of the holy Rule, when well pondered, are truly contained all that has been said above.
Who of the Apostles was lost?
In his Order he did not want money to be kept in purses nor for it to be received in any way. The Apostles themselves, when perfect and filled with the Holy Spirit, in no way handled money but it was ‘laid at the apostles’ feet’ for the use of the poor, as stated in Acts 4:35; and Peter correctly answered the one asking for an alms: ‘I have no silver or gold’, as in Acts 3:6, on which a Gloss[89] says that Peter spoke here mindful of the Lord’s precept: ‘Do not have gold’. Ambrose says the same, Super Lucam.[90] And so those who have something even if only in common, who use purses or handle money, cannot rightly boast, except in name only, as being among the apostolic poor and perfect to the highest degree. Nor can it be passed over in silence, as it is not lacking in mystery, that the only Apostle to perish, namely, Judas who betrayed the Lord, was the one who carried the purse. John 12:6 reads: Judas ‘was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it’. His avarice was so strong that totally blinded in his heart, he was not afraid to sell his Lord and master.
3
HOW CHRIST IN HIS PASSION SHOWED THE HIGHEST DEGREE OF LOVE
Christ dies for his enemies
Christ in his passion showed also the highest degree of love. For while no one has ‘greater love than this’, namely, ‘to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’, as stated in John 15:13, Christ had a higher, indeed an incomparably higher love, as he, the Lord of majesty, wished to lay down his life, not for friends, but for enemies, for those crucifying him, and for servants totally ungrateful. Hence, 1 John 4:10: ‘In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins’; and Paul adds in Ephesians 2:4-5: ‘But God who is rich in mercy out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved’. Hugh also in the book De arrha sponsae[91] states: ‘Only by dying to free you from death could Christ show how much he loved you; not only did he extend to you a kindness of affection, but he also showed the compassion of love’.
Therefore, Christ through his passion worked our ‘salvation in the earth’[92] so that it might go through the whole world to all people, equally without distinction, just as later, sending his disciples through all the world he said: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; the one who believes and is baptized will be saved’.[93] By spreading out his arms on the cross he showed his desire to draw all to himself and embrace them, as he had predicted, John 12:32-33, to indicate the kind of death he was to die: ‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself’; and Isaiah 65:1-2 says: ‘I held out my hands all day to a rebellious people who walk in a way that is not good, to be found by those who did not seek me, and did not call on my name’.
It was necessary for the Saviour to be divine
For the human
race, made an enemy of God through the sin of the first parents, could only be
restored to God’s friendship through the highest act of love, an act which
would be completely dear and pleasing to God. No one could show such love
except one who would be loved by God with the highest love; but only one who
loves God to the highest degree can be loved by God to the highest degree; no
one, however, can love God totally except one who knows God to the highest
degree; but God can be known completely only by himself for only
God is infinite and immense. Hence, the one who manifested this act of love
necessarily had to be God.
Do not think that God died or suffered other than in the flesh. A human being can die but when the first parents were rightly subjected to death, by reason of the first sin, their death was neither acceptable nor pleasing to God; the Son of God was totally acceptable and leasing to God, but being impassiible and eternal, he, the Son, could not die. So it was necessary for God to be human, able to die a death totally acceptable and pleasing to God. For the human race was bound to satisfy divine justice, but could not; the Son of God could, but did not have to. It was necessary then that ‘righteousness and peace will kiss each other, and steadfast love and faithfulness will meet’ in the one person, since ‘faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky’.[94] The bride showed herself most eager for this kiss for she began to sing to her beloved in these words: ‘Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth’.[95] ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life’, as stated in John 3:16. ‘For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it’, as stated in Ephesians 2:14-16. But because, as the Psalmist says,[96] ‘the stupid cannot understand this’, they are rightly called by the Lord ‘foolish and slow of heart’ who do not believe that Christ ‘should suffer and so enter into his glory’, as stated in Luke 24:25-26. Truly they know nothing who do not think it was ‘better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed’, as the high priest Caiphas said, speaking from a spirit of prophecy in himself, as written in John 11:50-51.
On the ram caught by its horns
Christ, therefore, God and man, son of God and son of man, truly suffered and died according to the humanity, at the same time being incapable of suffering and remaining immortal according to the divinity. He is the beloved son, Isaac, whom his noble father Abraham wished to sacrifice, for whom a ram which represents the humanity of Christ was substituted. Abraham is made up of aba, which is father, and ram which is noble; when am is added to make Abraham it means the father of many implying many people.[97] Therefore, on that mountain of seeing, exactly where Christ was crucified, Abraham ‘saw a ram caught in a thicket by its horns’, which he took ‘and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son’, as stated in Genesis 22:13; then Abraham saw the day of the death of Christ and rejoiced. Hence the Lord said to the Jews, John 8:56, ‘your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad’. It was fitting that the lamb was found in the place where Christ was crucified. And it says ‘caught by its horns’, without saying by what it was caught; and it should be understood that it was caught not by its horns but was hanging on to something, namely, the horns of the cross, as ‘by the horns’ is here in the dative, not the ablative case. Hence, Augustine, Eighty Three Different Questions, says[98]: ‘Isaac is led to be sacrificed and the ram in the thicket is recognized as the One crucified’. Origen also says, in Homilies on Genesis and Exodus,[99] that, according to the Septuagint, the ram was caught by its horns in the tree Sabec. For Christ was hanging by the fixing of the nails to the horns of the cross; Habukukk 3:4-5: ‘Horns are in his hands, there is his strength hid’.[100] By which horns we ‘push down our’ foes and through the name the name of the crucified One we are able to ‘tread down our assailants’, as David says.[101] Hence there follows[102]: ‘Death shall go before his face, and the devil shall go forth before his feet’; because this is that ‘horn of salvation which the Lord has raised up to us when, to perform mercy to our fathers, he visited us and wrought the salvation of his people’, as Zechariah prophesied, Luke 1:68-69. 72.[103] Sabec, according to Origen,[104] means ‘forgiveness’, because Christ making satisfaction on the cross found forgiveness for all; ‘He forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross’, as the Apostle says in Colossians 2:13-14.
Melchizedek the priest
Christ, therefore, has the form of both the ram who was sacrificed and of Isaac who was set free, because he is host and priest, sacrifice and high priest. He is ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’, [105] behold the ram; he is ‘a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek’.[106] Hence Ambrose, De Trinitate[107]: ‘The same priest, same host and sacrifice, for as a lamb he was led to be sacrificed and he was a priest according to the offer of Melchizedek’.
Melchizedek, a figure of Christ
This is Melchizedek, the king of Salem. Salem is the place which later was called Iebus, then Jerusalem, where the lord was sacrificed ‘outside the city gate’;[108] in this place Melchizedek himself met Abraham and offered him bread and wine. Genesis 14:18: ‘And King Melchizedek of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High’. In this is truly represented the sacrifice instituted by Christ where Christ is truly the high priest and is truly contained in the host offered, not according to the order of Aaron who offered the flesh and blood of beasts; this Melchizedek offered his own flesh which is the ‘bread of life’,[109] and his blood which is the drink of salvation. Hence he says in John 6:54: ‘Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life’. This priest, as the Apostle says in Hebrews 7:16, ‘has become a priest, not through a legal requirement concerning physical descent, but through the power of an indestructible life’. He is ‘without father, without mother, without genealogy’, as Paul says in the same place, verse 3, because since he was without a father, without a mother in heaven, his generation was not subject to investigation according to the divinity nor according to the humanity. So Isaiah 53:8 says: ‘Who shall declare his generation?’[110] This is ‘the thong of his sandal’[111] which the Lord reached out into Idumea and which the precursor, the wonderful prophet and ‘more than a prophet’,[112] John the Baptist, declared he was not able to untie, as stated in Luke 3:16. This Melchizedek, according to the Apostle Paul,[113] means ‘king of righteousness’. This could be applied to no other than to the one who, being at the right hand of God the Father, ‘will shatter kings on the day of his wrath, when executing judgment among the nations’, he shall fill the ruins of the angels and will crush the heads of the evil doers with an enduring torment, acting as both king and priest.[114] Therefore, he is the one who ‘offered himself without blemish to God to purify our conscience from dead works’, as stated in Hebrews 9:14.
The Abraham, therefore, who is the heavenly Father or the Father of all, that is, God, ‘did not withhold his own’ only begotten Son, ‘but gave him up for all of us’, as stated in Romans 8:32. And in Romans 5:6-10 the Apostle says: ‘For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person - though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life’.
Barabbas
Observe whether or not this happened literally at the time of the passion of Christ. Matthew 27:16 says that Pilate had ‘a notorious prisoner called Barabbas’, whom at the request of the people ‘he released’ unharmed, but ‘he handed over Jesus to be crucified’. I do not think it happened by chance that only the notorious prisoner was unharmed. There were so many other prisoners, at least the two who were crucified with the Lord. So it is added that he was called Barabbas. Barabbas is made up of bar, which is son, and abba, which is Father; hence Barabbas with one r is son of the father but with double r is son of the teacher because then it is made up of bar and rabbi which means teacher.[115] Who is the father and teacher of all other than the one ‘who created you, who made you and established’ all things?[116] Christ, however, the son of God the Father who is the teacher of all, is also the son of the Virgin Mother. Having a father in heaven, he sought on earth only a mother; in his divinity he was borne from the Father, in his humanity he was born from his mother; so that he might be the son of God and a human son. As the son of God, he was Barabbas, that is son of the father, as the son of a human mother he was Jesus; hence he is named by the angel in Matthew 1:21: ‘You are to name him Jesus, he will be great and will be called the son of the Most High’; Luke 1:32. Therefore, Barabbas, the son of God, was released unharmed while Jesus, the son of man, died – hence, Ambrose, in The Holy Spirit says[117]: ‘Christ died according to the flesh; he died in what he had from the Virgin, not in what he had from the Father’. So Wisdom 18:5 says ’when one child had been abandoned and rescued the people’ of God was saved.
The goat which is the emissary
This is indeed prefigured in Leviticus 16:5 in the command to offer ‘two male goats for a sin offering’ for the people; one of these goats is to be released alive, the other is to be killed in the presence of the Lord and the high priest is ordered to offer its blood inside the curtain. But the goat which is the emissary has to ‘be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it’,[118] because it has to carry the sins of the people into the wilderness; prayers for the sins of people had to be offered by Christ according to his divinity because no one ‘can forgive sins but God alone’.[119] The goat which is sacrificed of which the blood is offered inside the curtain, is Jesus the son of man who ‘through the curtain (that is, through his flesh),[120] not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption,[121] by a single offering has perfected for all time those who are sanctified’, as stated in Hebrews 10:14.
But the goat which is sent into the desert is led by ‘someone designated for the task’,[122] who has to wash his clothes so as to be clean. This man can be understood as Pilate, namely, the one on whom the lot for the Lord would fall. To make it clear he was releasing this one by his judgment, he said to the people: ‘Whom will you that I release to you, Barabbas or Jesus that is called Christ?’ [123] Listen to what is said of how he washed his clothes so as to be clean: ‘he took some water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying: ‘I am innocent of his blood; see to it yourselves’ as stated in Matthew 27:24; and clean he would indeed have been except that later he gave in to the Jews and had Jesus scourged and put to death.
The desert represents heaven
Jesus can well be understood as the person designated. At the time of his passion Jesus sent his divinity into a solitary place or desert, namely, into heaven. The desert or the solitary place, in which Apopompeius[124] is released, can be taken in a good sense to refer to a place not peopled by enemies. Hence David says[125]: ‘In a dry and weary land where there is no water’. ‘So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary’, understanding the dwelling of the Holy of Holies as the trackless desert in which God lives and appears. The Psalm goes on: ‘beholding your power, that is, making visible the power by which Christ by dying overcame the devil and freed the human race, and glory, namely, by which he robbed hell by his rising. This is the interpretation of Jerome, Super Psalmos.[126] And in another text the Psalmist, speaking in the person of the Son of God about the passion of Jesus Christ, adds[127]: ‘I would flee far away; I would lodge in the wilderness’. This is the wilderness in which the Son of God deliberatively left the ninety nine sheep, namely, all the angels, and came to earth as a good shepherd to search out carefully the hundredth sheep, human nature, which was perishing as a lost sheep; once found, he carried it joyfully on his shoulders as written in Luke 15:4-6. Of this wilderness Isaiah 51:3 says: ‘The Lord will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song’, which literally has to be understood as the dwelling of the Holy of Holies.
The divinity returns to heaven
The divinity is said to have gone away to heaven at the time of the passion, not moving from place to place, but holding back its divine power to allow space for the passion; instead of ‘to go away’ understand ‘to hold back’. For God, who is present everywhere, sometimes is said to withdraw when holding back his activity. In the passion the Lord Jesus called out in a loud voice[128]: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ This Apopompeius is the Son of God who is in heaven, a desert place to which no creature can come; he always remained with God the Father and never went away, and he it is who carries our sins. Listen to the Apostle, Hebrews 1:3, who says of the Son of God: He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being and he sustains all things by his powerful word. But which things? Hear what follows: ‘When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high’. Christ, therefore, God and man, holding back the impassible Godhead, offered only the humanity to suffering; the effect, however, of his passion, that is, the forgiveness of sins, came not only from the tortured flesh but much more from the impassible Godhead.
How this man Jesus was to wash his clothes and become clean, Leviticus 16:26 says: that man ‘shall wash his clothes’, that is, ‘his body in water, and afterward may come into the camp’; the prophet Zechariah 3:3 says he saw Jesus the high priest ‘dressed with filthy clothes’; John in Revelation 19:13 says that ‘he is clothed in a robe dipped in blood and his name is called The Word of God’; in Genesis 49:11 the patriarch Jacob, when he prophesied that the Lord would be born from Judah, said: ‘he washes his garments in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes’; and Isaiah 63:1-3 says: ‘Who is this so splendidly robed, why are your robes red, like theirs who tread the wine press … their juice splattered on my garments and stained all my robes’. For Aaron himself, having offered this sacrifice, was ordered to wash his body with water and put on his clothes, as stated in Leviticus 16:24 which the Apostle in Hebrews 10:19-23 understands in this way: ‘Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh’), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering’.
The mystery of the two sparrows
This is also the mystery of the two sparrows[129]
which had to be offered for the cleansing of a leper, as stated in Leviticus
14:2: ‘This shall be the ritual for the leprous person, that is, of a sinner,
at the time of his cleansing’; the priest shall go out of the camp to him.
Unless the Son of God had gone outside the camp, we could not have been
cleansed from the leprosy of sin. He went out from the choirs of angels of whom
Jacob said on seeing them, Genesis 32: ‘This is God’s camp’. Unless Jesus
Christ had suffered outside the camp, that is, outside the gate of Jerusalem, we could not have been saved from our sins. On account of this the
Apostle says in Hebrews 13:12-13: ‘Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the
city gate in order to sanctify the people by his own blood. Let us then go to
him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured’.
The sacrificed sparrow is a figure of baptism
And let him offer ‘two living sparrows which it is lawful to eat’,[130] that is, clean animals, namely, the divinity and the humanity. Christ’s humanity is clean and living: clean because Christ has no personal sin nor was he subject to any curses of the Law, and he was conceived and born without any stain. One of these was sacrificed ‘in an earthen vessel’, that is, in a mortal body formed from our earth; ‘over fresh water’,[131] that is, over life giving waters which are the waters of baptism because no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit, as John 3:5 says. And he is to take up the cedar wood,[132] that is, the cross which was partly made from cedar; hence Sirach 24:17 says: ‘I was exalted like a cedar in Lebanon’.[133] And ‘crimson’ or scarlet ‘yarn’,[134] which is the colour of blood because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins as stated in Hebrews 9:22; hence the hanging of the ‘crimson cord’ was the sign of salvation for Rahab and her family, as in Joshua 2:18. And hyssop,[135] by its nature, represents the washing away of sins as of a harmful residue remaining in the heart; this is from the evidence of David who says[136]: ‘Purge me with hyssop’, O Lord, ‘and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow’; hence Moses ordered those who wished to be protected from the one slaying, to ‘dip a branch of hyssop in blood’,[137] because ‘it is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord’, as in Exodus 12:27.
And all the preceding were to be dipped ‘in the blood of the sparrow’,[138] which expresses perfectly the image of baptism and faithfully represents the death of Christ. So the Apostle says in Romans 6:3: ‘All of us’, therefore, ‘who have been baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized into his death’. In this there is a total wiping away of sins whether past or present; not that baptism is to be repeated, but because even sins committed later were taken away through penance; they are wiped away in virtue of the baptism received earlier, because every wiping away of sins is in virtue of the water and blood which flowed from the side of Christ already asleep on the cross. These are the things that bear witness on earth to our acceptance, as in 1 John 5:8[139]: ‘the spirit and the water and the blood’, the spirit, namely, of the sparrow sacrificed, the living sparrow whose blood was poured out on the waters; for when the Lord Jesus bowed his head and gave up his spirit,[140] one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and at once blood and water came out’, as said in John 19:34. That sparrow is to be sacrificed with its head wrung; for as said in Leviticus 1:14-15: ‘if your offering is of birds’, it is to be sacrificed ‘with its head wrung’. Without any doubt a leper is to be sprinkled with these as demanded by law;[141] ‘if any be not expiated after this rite, the soul shall perish’, as said in Numbers 19:20.[142]
That living sparrow, the divinity of Christ, which had to fly into the desert, is so sprinkled because we are baptized not only in the passion of the man, but also in the passion of God and man; for Christ is one, he suffered but was not divided, as the Apostle argues against the Corinthians, who thought they were baptized in the name of a man, as can be seen in 1 Corinthians 1:12-13. And so Abraham, the father of our faith, when he was to divide the sacrifice of the animals, ‘did not cut the birds in two’, as related in Genesis 15:10. Because the divinity is impassible, that living bird was released; because although inseparable from the flesh, it was sprinkled with the blood. This is ‘a bird flying to other places and a sparrow going here or there’, as Solomon says, Proverbs 26:2.[143]
The sparrows Judas thought to sell
These are the ‘two sparrows’ which the traitor Judas thought to sell, Matthew 10:29, ‘for a penny’, that is, wholly and entirely, by no means paying attention to Luke 12:6, that never can ‘one of them be forgotten in God’s sight’. Even though it seemed to be God’s intention for the salvation of people to abandon the divinity temporally and hand it over to death, it could not ‘fall to the ground apart from’ God.[144] But the wicked Judas, the waylayer of innocent blood, ‘wantonly ambushing the innocent, thought ‘to swallow’ him up ‘alive’ like hell, and ‘whole like those who go down to the Pit’ desiring ‘to fill his house with booty, he threw in his lot’[145]with the Jewish priests, who being poor cultivators of the vineyard killed the Son of God, the final one to be sent to them.[146] They with Judas had ‘one purse’ with the demons, as stated in Proverbs 1:11-14, forgetting, as follows on there immediately, that ‘in vain is the net baited while the bird is looking on; yet they lie in wait – to kill themselves, and set an ambush – for their own lives!’
For this reason our Lord himself, bound by the bonds of death, but ‘freed from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power’, as Peter testifies in Acts 2:24, ‘escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers’,[147] and in virtue of his precious blood led out of the pit of hell even the holy fathers held here as prisoners, as Zechariah 9:11 says. But most unfortunate Judas offended God in an even more detestable way, killing himself by hanging from a noose; he did not believe that the one he had sold ‘for silver’[148] would redeem him a no cost. Carnal love or wantonness of the flesh already filled almost the whole world so that people were completely carnal; the Spirit of God deserted each one in whom the flesh was rebellious, as God said in Genesis 6:3: ‘My spirit shall not abide in mortals for ever, for they are flesh’. This would have been the end had not the One who, always being more desirable in himself and of perfect delight to all the saints, took our flesh without sin and conquering it, subjected it perfectly to the spirit, something he taught by word and confirmed most perfectly by example.
The flesh is to be mortified
And so when fasting in the desert, taking food neither by day nor by night, he prayed continuously, and triumphed over Satan offering him delicacies; he showed that this type of demon can be cast out only by fasting and prayers.[149] Later, drinking the most bitter chalice of the terrible passion, accepting the harshest pains of the body in each sense, he showed that the pleasures or delights of the flesh are to be completely avoided; he also showed that, according to the apostolic witness, those who wish to be members of Christ must ‘put to death whatever is earthly’ and crucify ‘the flesh with its passions and desires’;[150] so that in Christ they can live, and with the same Paul be able to say: ‘It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me’, because ‘I have been crucified with Christ’.[151] And Peter says in 1 Peter 4:1-2: ‘Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin), so as to live for the rest of your earthly life no longer by human desires but by the will of God, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps,’ as stated in the same work 2:21. And 2 Corinthians 5:15 states: ‘Christ died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them’.
Who would want to be clothed in soft garments when our Lord and God is seen to be clothed in rags, rags plundered by the hands of the wicked? Who wants to eat delicate food on hearing that the Lord, our God, thirsty and hungry, afterwards drank gall and vinegar? Who would dare to indulge the flesh on seeing our Lord and God flogged all over the body and afterwards crucified and die? I believe no one would want this other than enemies of Christ, whom the Apostle, weeping, names when he adds: ‘Their end is destruction; their god is their belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things’, Philippians 3:19.
4
HOW BLESSED FRANCIS WISHED TO ADOPT THE HIGHEST DEGREE OF CHRIST’S LOVE
This degree of love which, as has been stated, Christ showed in the passion, blessed Father Francis wished to take to himself. Love not only in another but even in oneself cannot be recognized without some evidence and signs. That this highest love was in blessed Francis, whose ‘mind suffered in the flesh’,[152] is most certainly put before us, most effectively proven and most clearly shown, by the stigmata of the Crucified One impressed on his body. This transformation was not the work of some human skill but came from the power of love. The power of love is strongly uniting; it transforms the lover into the one loved. Hence, Hugh of St Victor, in the second book De sacramentis,[153] says of the blessed Virgin words that are truly fitting for blessed Francis in so far as they fit the present reflection: ‘Because the love of the Holy Spirit burnt in a singular way in her heart, the power of the Holy Spirit did wonderful things in her flesh; the Spirit’s love allowed no rival in her heart, and what the Spirit did in her flesh has no parallel’.
Francis longs for martyrdom
Francis was stricken by the love of the Crucified One who offered himself as a saving host for us to God the Father and he desired above all to grasp the palm of martyrdom and to make of himself a living host for others. For this reason he crossed over many times into the hands of the infidels and, after quite hazardous efforts, came to the Sultan of Babylon. But weakened by troubles and struck with many injuries, he was not able to realize his desire; God wanted to provide for us in a better way and to make this saint wonderful by a more worthy martyrdom.[154] For there was no more worthy and glorious martyrdom than that which Christ, the very king of martyrs, wished to set aside for him; the martyrdoms of all the other saints are compared to it as to the hottest fire, and share in its dignity to a greater or lesser degree. The Lord arranged to honour him as a most worthy martyr by the singular privilege of his own martyrdom and the Lord by his own power stamped the palm of martyrdom on his living body for two years.
The stigmata cut deeply into Francis
The soul of the saint is, therefore, truly blessed; before the sword of a persecutor or even of a common death might take it, it merited to hold the palm of a martyr; and what is more to be admired, his flesh can rightly be called blessed, for while he still lived it was marked wondrously and genuinely with the glorious adornment of a martyr. Because that holy soul chose to cling to the cross, his flesh, already almost exhausted, was fixed firmly to the cross. That flesh brought entirely under the power of the spirit, had to follow perfectly the sufferings of the soul. I believe without any doubt that the sacred stigmata of the wounds of Christ impressed on blessed Francis cut deeply into his soul whenever any violence was inflicted on his body; for in no other way does bodily sorrow cast one down, than when it affects the soul united to the body.
Because, therefore, the soul of his saint was most closely united in affection and love to Christ, the wounds of the body of Christ, by the sword of compassion, continually renewed in his soul a most vehement sorrow. So, by the love in his mind, his soul felt the sorrows of the body of Christ more than if he had endured in his own body sorrows inflicted by another. This is in accord with what Ambrose, in the book The Holy Spirit, says[155]: ‘A saint says: “Pierce thou my flesh with your fear”, not with nails of iron, but of fear, of faith; for more violent is the iron of fear than of punishment’. Hence, that soul marked with the wound of Christ in his own body by the sacred stigmata was burdened with a most grievous sorrow as if they were from his own wounds. For, as is sung[156] about him, although it is wonderful it is yet true that ‘true love fixed’ that soul ‘with new nails’ to the cross of Christ.
We have a sign of this in the blood which often flowed from the wound in his side[157] which could not happen without extreme sorrow of heart, because the imprinting of those sacred stigmata was not made without a sense of immense sorrow and a strong crying out of the voice. Blessed Father Francis himself revealed this in a definite way to a certain devout brother.[158] Christ himself, when his hands and feet were pierced with the nails, uttered strong shouts of sorrow, as Saint Hilary says in The Trinity.[159] And I heard from my seniors that Francis, resigned in himself to extreme weakness and being shaken by immense sorrows, when asked by the brothers in what part of the body he suffered so strongly, replied that he had to bear the most intense sorrows in the hands, in the feet and in the side, that is in the stigmata of the wounds of Christ.[160] For the whole two years during which he bore the sacred stigmata, he was afflicted with incurable sicknesses and many sorrows, as is evident in the Life and Acta to those who read carefully.[161]
Francis and his brothers
From the highest love of God, as has been said, God by taking humanity became our brother, yearning and saying as with the desire of the bride, Song 8:1: O that you were like a brother to me etc. So blessed Francis wished to be called a brother to all and commanded all in his Order to be called and to be spiritual brothers; he gave admonitions and commands in his Rule especially about love, concluding[162] that ‘if a mother loves and cares for her son according to the flesh, how much more diligently must someone love and care for his brother according to the Spirit’. This is not a comparison to be read literally but a likeness of analogy. And he adds that if ‘any brother falls sick, the other brothers must serve him as they would wish to be served themselves’.
You should note that this name, fraternity, does not apply exactly to any
other Order. For all who profess the Rule of blessed Augustine are called not
brothers but canons; while those who live under the Rule of blessed Benedict, are
named not brothers but monks; only those professing this third Rule, joined
together by the love of the spirit and charity can rightly claim for themselves
the name of fraternity, because in the third person of the
Trinity, the Holy Spirit, love is said to be truly uniting and a charity which
binds together. So the Apostle says, Hebrews 13:1: Let the charity of the
brotherhood abide in you.[163]
For if a brother is called ‘almost another’, that is, another materially and in
substance, not another in affection and well wishing, among whom there should
be one heart and soul[164]
on account of the identity of wills and the bond of love, by which each is
bound to love his brother as himself not in word or speech but in truth and
action, as said in 1 John 3:18.
5
ON THE PRAISES OF LOVE AND AN EXHORTATION TO LOVE
Love is the bond of perfection
The brothers are to love one another genuinely, ask advice of one another wisely, give of themselves and their possessions, console one another sweetly, suffer together gently, help one another without exception, and protect one another strongly; these are the duties of brothers. This is one of the things pleasing to God, agreement among brothers, Sirach 25:1. This is extremely good and pleasant as the Psalmist says[165] when kindred live together in unity. On this text Jerome says[166]: ‘Brothers here are spiritual not blood brothers, brothers in mind not in body for it is often a cause of discord for blood brothers to live together’. Paul says in Ephesians 4:1-4: lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, that is, because you are called brothers; he adds: with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling. Gregory, speaking on this in Pastoral Care, says[167]: ‘The one hope of calling can in no way be reached unless one hastens towards it united in heart with one’s companions’. For love is that which binds in perfect harmony which the Apostle advises us to have above all. Colossians 3:14. And in Philippians 2:2-4 he says: Be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.
God detests those who sow discord
Therefore, God hates with a great hate one who sows discord in a family, as said in Proverbs 6:19. For such a one tears the seamless tunic of Christ which not even the ones crucifying Christ dared to divide.[168] Hence Augustine says in his Commentary on the first Epistle of John[169]: ‘The one who loves his brother sees no scandal because he who loves his brother puts up with everything for the sake of unity; in the unity of charity is high love. Psalm: Great peace have those who love your name. Where there is charity, there is peace’. Jerome also on thetgexxt of the Psalm: Great peace have those who love your name and nothing can make them stumble says[170]: ‘Whoever loves God must necessarily have peace with the brethren for the one who is scandalized by another loves God in a false way’.
Bodily hurt is not to be feared
By this the disciples of Christ are correctly known, namely, if they have love for one another because this the Lord demanded of them, as John 13:35 says. Hence 1 John 4:21: The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brethren. Paul was afire with this love of the brethren when he said in 2 Corinthians 11:29: Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I am not indignant? For he became all things to all people to save all for Christ; he wished to spend himself and be spent gladly for the saving of others,[171] even to wish to be accursed for his kindred as he says in Romans 9:3. Do not understand his in a simplistic way, but judge whether or not the time and conditions are right for such a wish. And as he says also, in Ephesians 5:1-2, those who wish to be imitators of Christ, ought as beloved children to live in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. I dare to say that to save your brother you should fear no harm or bodily danger. Hence 1 John 3:16: We know love by this that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another; for a friend loves at all times, and kinsfolk are bon to share adversity, says Proverbs 17:17. Augustine also, in Christian Initiation, says[172]: ‘Another person is to be loved more than one’s own body’.
But of how many things am I forgetful? For there are examples and teaching in the whole of Scripture, not only the New but also the Old Testament, which spur you on to the love of God and neighbour because this is the greatest and first commandment from which hang all the law and the prophets: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and love your neighbour as yourself.[173] This commandment comes from the natural law. Hence the lord says, Matthew 7:12: In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. And on the text of Sirach 17:11: He bestowed knowledge upon them and the law of life, a Gloss says[174]: ‘He wished the written law to be a polishing of the natural law; for this natural law and the written law imply that we are to love God with ‘all the soul, all the mind, and all the strength’[175] and we observe the commandments of God by loving our neighbour’. And so there follows[176]: He said to them, ‘Beware of all evil’, and he gave commandment to each of them concerning the neighbour.
Love must extend to all
You are to accept your neighbours and all your brethren, each of whom has been given a rational soul and bears the image of God. All these have he one Father in heaven: Christ died for all impartially[177] and adequately redeemed all without distinction. So on the text of Leviticus 19:18: Love your neighbour as yourself, a Gloss says[178]: ‘A neighbour is not to be understood as one close in blood, but in a union of mind’, and Augustine, Christian Instruction[179]: ‘Every human being, from the very fact of being human, is to be loved for the sake of God’. For this reason Christ bore on his head a crown of thorns.[180] In sacred Scripture thorns signify sin for they are fuel for the fire, fuel produced by the earth when it was cursed; God said to Adam when putting him out of paradise: Cursed is the ground in your toil, horns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, Genesis 3:17-18, the crown, however, being of an all embracing and most perfect shape, represents the world: hence it is said in Isaiah 22:18: He will crown you with a crown of tribulation, he will toss you like a ball into a large and spacious country.[181]
Bear one another’s burdens
Christ, therefore, carries a crown of thorns upon his head, he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases, because on him was laid the iniquity of us all, as stated in Isaiah 53:4-6; For Christ is the anointing sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world, 1 John 2:2. This is Christ’s law of love which the blessed Apostle orders us to fulfil, Galatians 6:2, when he says: Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ. It is sin which the Apostle here calls burdens, for by their weight they drag one down into hell of which the Psalmist says[182]: For my iniquities have gone over my head; they weigh like a burden too heavy for me. In Exodus 15:5 it is said that Pharaoh and his army went down into the depths like a stone, and they sank like lead in the mighty waters.[183] Because hell is in the centre of the earth and heavy objects are attracted to the centre, sins are rightly described as being most heavy in weight, even dragging one down into hell; hence the prophet Zechariah 5:8 says that he saw wickedness pressed down with a leaden weight on its mouth. Hence Augustine, in Eighty Three Different Questions[184]: ‘The duty of the love of Christ is to carry one another’s burdens, for nothing so proves a friend as the carrying of a friend’s burdens’.
The sinner is to be helped
Christ, as has been said, carried the sins of all of us upon himself, and we truly carry out the law of Christ if we take care to bear one another’s burdens; for we also ought to love one another just as Christ loved us.[185] Therefore, the Law prescribes in Deuteronomy 22:4[186]: If you see your brother’s ass or his ox to be fallen down in the way, you shall not slight it, but shall lift it up with him. However, as the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 9:9, God is not concerned for oxen, but whatever was written was written for our instruction.[187] The ass, a dull animal, represents people fallen through imprudence into sin. You, therefore, if you possess the love of Christ, if you keep the law of Christ, when you see such a one, do not ignore it nor pass by, but help to lift up this person, indeed, if your can, do so by compassion and kindness. So the Apostle says, Galatians 6:1-3: My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ. For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. And so the Law says: do not slight it.
The enemy also is to be helped
Do not think here of a brother bound to you by a special bond, but even were he a stranger or an enemy you should do this - hence Exodus 23:5 says: ‘When you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would hold back from setting it free, you must help to set it free’ – because Christ suffered not only for friends but even for enemies as is clear from what has been already said.
Hence Proverbs 24:17-18 says: ‘Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble, or else the Lord will see it and be displeased’; on which text a Gloss says[188]: ‘But, as far as you can, console those who are downcast and help to lift them up; if your efforts succeed, you will rejoice over the one healed as you felt sorrow for the sick person, but if not, you will not lack the fruit of kindness before God’.
You can understand this of the one hating you, namely, the devil, for of him is written[189]: You shall ‘hate your enemy’, whose ass is said to have fallen into sin, according to the Psalm[190]: ‘he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them’.
The example of the Samaritan
You, therefore, lift the burden for another, carry the burden if you can, so as to lead the person back to Christ. See how genuinely the Samaritan did this, who coming upon that poor wounded man, ‘was moved with pity, bandaged his wounds, put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.[191] Go and do likewise’, as the Lord says, Luke 10:37. I dare to add that unless you do this ‘your brother’s blood’ will cry out against you, as the Lord said to Cain, Genesis 4:10; Cain was not a Samaritan because he refused to take care of his brother; Samaritan means ‘keeper’. I will require ‘a reckoning for human life, each one for the blood of another’, says the Lord, Genesis 9:5. For if God gave a ‘commandment to each of them concerning the neighbour’, there is no doubt that ‘I will require at your hand the blood’ of your neighbour.[192] As stated in Romans 15:1: ‘We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak’.
Compassionate women
The Apostle Paul would have us fearful, lest those who ought to nourish the poor with the sweetness of milk and support them in ‘a spirit of gentleness’[193] or with medicinal oil, were to treat others cruelly from an excessive desire to be seen as just.[194] Jeremiah laments over such in Lamentations 4:10: ‘The hands of compassionate women have boiled their own children; they became their food’; on which text a Gloss says[195]: ‘Those in the Church who are raised to high office and who are aflame with a fire of zeal or jealousy, cook, by a kind of mercy, the souls of their subjects; they are ever anxious to be seen as just, and so oppress with a tyrannical power; perhaps they have a “zeal for God, but it is not enlightened”;[196] such scorch by the austerity of their domination, which is a kind of justice, and they consume by their threats and censures, as if by their teeth, those who are weak and carnal’. Jeremiah refers to such as ‘compassionate women’. As mothers they ought to be compassionate to their children, but in fact they cook with their hands while pretending with empty words to be mothers; in fact and deed they oppress cruelly ‘holding to the outward form of godliness but’ completely ‘denying its power’.[197] For even if hey have the soft and meek voice of Jacob, they show evidence of the ‘hairy’ and rough ‘hand’ of the coarse and bloody Esau,[198] who, while he thought of himself as the main and older brother, always carried a fraternal hate.
How life is in the blood
Rightly then are they said to devour their young, even though they thirst only for the blood; Sirach 12:16: ‘An enemy may have tears in his eyes, but if he finds an opportunity he will never have enough of your blood’. Of such Wisdom 12:5 says: ‘Their merciless slaughter of children, and their feasting on blood’. According to the Lord’s precept, Leviticus 17:13-14, blood should be consumed by no one, but is to be poured out on the ground and covered with kindness and compassion, because ‘the life of every creature is its blood’; not that we understand blood to be the substance of the soul or life, but because life is joined to flesh by blood; should the blood be lost or frozen, then the flesh dies. So Augustine, in the book Quaestiones Novi et Veteris Tesamenti[199]: ‘Certainly a soul which is spirit, cannot live in dryness, as it is made to dwell in blood’. A soul is also joined to the body by a certain subtle body, called a spirit, which spirit, as medical experts say, is nothing other than the vapour of temperate blood; so when blood is lost or frozen this vapour is released, and when this happens the harmony of the union of body and soul cannot endure.
Blood is to be covered with earth
The precept of the Lord about covering blood with earth should be understood of the mercy and clemency to be given to sinners; this can be seen clearly from the fact that when sins were to be punished, God did not want blood to be poured on the ground and covered over, as is clear in Ezekiel 24:7-8, where is said: ‘For the blood she shed is inside it; she placed it on a bare rock; she did not pour it out on the ground, to cover it with earth. To rouse my wrath, to take vengeance, I have placed the blood she shed on a bare rock, so that it may not be covered’.
And Ezekiel 18:13 says of the one who did many ‘abominable things’ that ‘his blood shall be upon himself’; as if to mean his blood shall not be poured out on the ground nor covered. And holy Job, whom the devil greatly desired to punish with suffering inflicted maliciously on his innocent person, says, Job 16:18: ‘O earth, do not cover my blood; let my outcry find no resting place’. And he calls on God as a witness to show his innocence and to declare the demon’s malice; so he adds: ‘Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven, and he that vouches for me is on high’. Also, according to the decree of the Apostles in Acts 15:29 everyone should ‘abstain from blood and from what is strangled’. I understand this strangling to refer to what the Lord says, Matthew 18:28, about that wicked servant. His debt of ten thousand talents was remitted, but he tolerated no delay in the one owing him one hundred denarii, rather ‘seizing him by the throat, he said “Pay what you owe”’.
Ravenous wolves
Nor should anyone think that a high office exempts one from such a precept, so that one may look on oneself as a judge, not recognizing that he is a father or brother, because the Lord says, Leviticus 7:26-27: ‘You must not eat any blood whatever, either of bird or of animal, in any of your settlements. Anyone of you who eats any blood shall be cut off from your kin’. Where such things are stated as applicable to all, no one be can be exempted. Of such, Gregory in a homily[200] on the text of Luke 10:3: ‘I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves, says: ‘Many are taking on the duty of governing, are eager to attack their subjects, display a power causing fear, and harm the very ones they should benefit; and because they lack any sentiment of love, they wish to be seen as lords, not acknowledging in any way that they are fathers; they change the place of humility into a joy of dominating, and while outwardly agreeable, inwardly they are angry; of such Truth says in another text[201]: They ‘come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves’. Gregory often speaks of this.
Priests without mercy
The Lord in Luke 11:42 condemns the Scribes and Pharisees who ‘tithe herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and love’, who ‘tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others, but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them’, as the Lord says in Matthew 23:4. On this Chrysostom says[202]: ‘Such are priests even today, who demand every justice from the people yet they observe not even a small part; they appear to be just in what they say, not in what they do; such impose a heavy burden on any approaching them for penance, they preach but do not practise,[203] and so avoiding the burden of present penance, the punishment of future sin is despised. When a burden is placed on the shoulders of a young person who cannot carry it, the burden must necessarily either be rejected, or the person be broken under the weight; so a person on whom you impose a heavy penance, must necessarily either reject it or, taking on what cannot be carried, sin further from being caused to stumble. Hence, if we sin by imposing a light penance, is it not better to pay attention to mercy rather than cruelty? Where the father of the family is generous, the servant should not be niggardly: if God is kind, why should the priest appear austere?’
Moderation tempers justice
The same saint, in the book De reparatione lapsi,[204] speaks of the great kindness and generosity of God towards sinners: ‘Believe me, the pity of God towards people is such that penitence is never spurned, when offered sincerely and simply. Even if one were to go to the depths of evil and then wished to return to the way of virtue, God accepts and freely embraces this person, doing everything to restore the former condition’.
Holy Ambrose also agrees with this in the book Paradise when he says[205]: This act against a brother, as when Cain, thinking to answer God with a lie, said[206]: “I do not know, am I my brother’s keeper?” led to his accusation being reserved for the devil accusing’. ‘For the Gospel shepherd is said to have carried, not rejected, the lost sheep, and Solomon says[207]: “Do not be too righteous”, for moderation ought to temper justice. For how can one, whom you despise and who expects to be met with contempt not compassion in his doctor, come to you to be saved?’ ‘I willingly overlook, I forgive quickly[208]: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice; because through sacrifice the just person is commended, but redeemed through mercy.’
Gregory also says in Pastoral Care[209]: ‘Such should those in charge show themselves, that their subjects are not ashamed to make known their secrets to them. Thus when poor ones experience tempest of temptation, they will seek out the advice of the shepherd like the bosom of a mother, and, in the comfort of their encouragement and in the tears of prayers, they shall wash when they see themselves stained by an insistent, unclean guilt’.
Uzziah, the levite
Uzziah was struck dead by the Lord when he tried to straighten the ark of the covenant which was being shaken by the movement of the oxen, as narrated in 2 Samuel 6:6-7. The ark of the covenant represents prelates in whom there should be the tablets of Moses for right teaching, the flowering rod of Aaron for correcting with kindness for merciful forgiveness. These are said to be shaking as long as they dutifully bear the faults of subjects and humbly offer compassion and presence to their weakness. The oxen kicking represent the subjects not complying with the prelates; the levite who put out his hand represents those who censure the compassion of mercy in their prelates and who would provoke them to a stern severity. Hence that levite is well named Uzziah which means robust; they are called robust who, as long as they presume on their own righteousness think that mercy is to be denied to sinners and censure those who forgive. Hence they are struck dead by the Lord because ‘judgment without mercy’ will be done to those who do not want ‘mercy’ to be shown to sinners.[210] Sometimes ‘righteous people perish in their righteousness’, as stated in Ecclesiastes 7:16. Hence on the text of Sirach 19:14: ‘Question a neighbour’, a Gloss says[211]: ‘Patience and meekness are more effective in correcting others because they give space to the fear of the Most High and then comes a conversion from sins’. And Ezekiel 34:2-4: ‘Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to them - to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord God: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.’
The example of unfortunate Judas
Wherefore, unfortunate Judas who went to the chief priests rather than to his fellow Apostles and when he ‘repented’, found no refuge but an increase of despair. When he said to them \: ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood’, and brought back the money, they said to him: ‘What is that to us? See to it yourself’, Matthew 27:3-4. What fierce cruelty! What false righteousness! ‘What’, they say ‘is that to us’, as if to say: in us there is no love, no sense of duty, no mercy, no kindness; ‘what’, therefore, ‘to us’ is your sin? ‘You must carry your own load’,[212] because we have no wish to carry it with you, nor do we care for what you have thrown away. That they might be able to kill Christ, they boldly pledged to take on themselves the sin of Pilate in condemning Christ, as hey said: ‘His blood be on us and on our children’, Matthew 27:25. Had poor Judas returned to the Apostles, he would have gone to his brothers who certainly would have received him kindly and treated him with love, not saying: ‘What is that to us?’ I rather think that Peter, the first of the Apostles, would have shed bitter tears so as to succeed n reconciling him to Christ. For, as Jerome says,[213] ‘where a sinner, conscious of his wound, gives himself to a doctor to be cured, there is no need for a rod, but a spirit of gentleness’.
The example of the Apostle Paul
See if it is not what the Apostle Paul did in the case of the notorious fornicator who was disturbing the whole church of the Corinthians and whom Paul commanded ‘you are to hand him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh’;[214] but when he heard of his conversion he said in 2 Corinthians 2:6-11: ‘This punishment by the majority is enough for such a person; so now instead you should forgive and console him, so that he may not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. So I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. I wrote for this reason: to test you and to know whether you are obedient in everything. Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ. And we do this so that we may not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.’ But if any do not act in this way, I dare to say that the saying is realized in them, namely, the spring of love dries up in prelates. Fir this reason Jerusalem, a city of love and peace, often becomes a Babylon of dissension and confusion. And then no option is open to the people of God except, according to the word of the prophet, all are to flee out of it and ‘save your lives, each of you’.[215] Such prelates are called righteous by those who regard cruel oppression as zeal for justice; vices are often by a lie called virtues so that cruelty is thought to be justice, as Gregory says, Moralia in Job 1.[216] So the mighty will be mightily tested, as stated in Wisdom 6:6; Amos 6:1-3 threatens these: ‘Alas for those who are at ease in Zion, and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria, the notables of the first of the nations, to whom the house of Israel resorts! Cross over to Calneh, and see; from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are you better than these kingdoms? Or is your territory greater than their territory, O you that put far away the evil day, and bring near a reign of violence?’
On the ruin of Joseph
A later verse says[217]: ‘They are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph’. Commenting on this text, Augustine, in Christian Instruction, says[218]: ‘It is not said: “they are not grieved over the ruin” of a brother; “Joseph” is used instead of brother, so that each sibling is indicated by a proper name; each of the brothers stands out as an individual either because of evil planned or for good pondered’.
Hence a ‘new king’ on taking office afflicts the children of Israel, the people of God; that king, I say, who, totally lacking in the love of family,
‘did not know Joseph’, as stated in
Exodus 1:8. There can be no doubt that the Lord ‘does not forget the cry of the
afflicted’,[219]
but comes down and frees the people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. So ‘Jerusalem our mother’[220]
says through Baruch 4:21: ‘Take courage, my children, cry to God, and he will
deliver you from the power and hand of the enemy’.
Joseph betrayed by his brothers
This is the Joseph who, as stated in Genesis 37:20, went into the field and was devoured by his bothers, the shepherds, as if by ‘a wild animal’; they cared not about his return to his father but they threw him into an old ‘pit’, that is, the depths of despair. In league with the warlike Idumeans, that is, with the demons, they, whose hand are ‘against everyone and everyone’s hands against’ them, as in Genesis 16:12, handed him over to be led into Egypt, to ‘a land of gloom and deep darkness’,[221] which represents hell. But when there came ‘a reckoning for his blood’ from them they acknowledged that they were brothers of Joseph as they said, Genesis 42:21-22: ‘They said to one another, "Alas, we are paying the penalty for what we did to our brother; we saw his anguish when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen. That is why this anguish has come upon us." Then Reuben answered them, "Did I not tell you not to wrong the boy? But you would not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood."’
Ignorance is not an excuse
Nor can one be excused from this precept of love by pleading ignorance, for undoubtedly ‘anyone who does not recognize this is not to be recognized’.[222] The natural law cannot be unknown by anyone who is of sound mind because ‘what the law requires is written on their hearts’, as the Apostle says in Romans 2:15. One cannot be unaware of scientific principles once the terms are understood; for example, knowing a whole and a part you cannot be unaware that every whole is greater than its part, as is clear to one skilled in analysis. Likewise, the following precept cannot be ignored once the terms are understood, namely, whoever knows God and one’s neighbour, can in no way be ignorant that God is to be loved for God’s sake and above all others, and the neighbour as oneself. So 1 John 4:7-8 says: ‘Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love’. Nor will one be able to plead weakness, as Augustine proves in the sermon De martytribus,[223] which begins: ‘As often, dear people, of the holy martyrs etc.’, because ‘we search for love nowhere else than in your will and heart’.
6
NOW CHRIST IN HIS PASSION SHOWED THE HIGHEST DEGREE OF HUMILITY
The humility of Christ on the cross
Christ also showed the highest degree of humility in his passion. It was extreme humility for the king of glory, the Lord of virtues, to take on the form of our slavery and accept the weakness of our flesh, while ‘he was in the form of God’, and was indeed true God. Hence, the Apostle says in Philippians 2:5-7: ‘Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness’. But a more excellent humility is shown when he wished to take on the punishment of the cross and be condemned to a most shameful death. So the Apostle continues: ‘He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross’. He was reckoned with the wicked, hung between the thieves in the place of the wicked, blasphemed by the wicked themselves, yet ‘when he was abused, he did not return abuse’, as stated in 1 Peter 2:23; in humility his inclination to judge was ‘taken away’, Isaiah 53:8; he payed for his executioners imputing their action to ignorance, Luke 23:34: ‘Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing’. At these words, as stated in the Gospel of the Nazarenes,[224] many thousands of Jews came to faith as they stood near the cross; the centurion also shows this when he said: ‘Truly this man was God’s son’, witnessing what happened as he called out and died, as in Matthew 27:54.
In no other way could we be reconciled
The human race turned from God in the pride by which the first parents tried to be divine, could be reconciled to God only by an act of the highest humility. Hence, Augustine, in the book De gratia Novi Testamenti[225]: ‘Christ was made the mediator between God and us, so as to reconcile us through humility to God, from whom we had been widely separated by a wicked pride’; and in the book Christian Instruction [226]he says: ‘Because people fell through pride, the wisdom of God used humility for healing’. But since before God every creature is as nothing, no creature could humble itself to such a degree; if the creature can in no way come to God, to outweigh the presumption by which people through pride wished to reach God, it was necessary for the Son of God, who was perfectly equal to the Father, to reduce himself to nothing. He realized this humility by reverently obeying God the Father in suffering; by perfectly confounding every human pride he wiped out disobedience, ‘for just as by one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous’, as Paul says in Romans 5:19. Hence, Pope Leo in a sermon for Christmas says[227]: ‘In no other way could we be released from the bonds of eternal death, than by him becoming humble in our condition, while continuing exalted in his own state’.
In no other way could we be absolved
Lady pride had conquered almost the whole world for herself. So in Job[228] the one who is called ‘king over all that are proud’, namely, the devil and Satan, regarded as ‘the ruler of this world’ and ‘a god’,[229] could in no better way be confounded than by the Most High, ‘the King of Kings and Lord of Lords’.[230] This Lord took on the weakness of our flesh so as to teach this humility by his word and to confirm it most perfectly by example. Hence, Augustine, Confessions[231]: ‘The word of its essence is truth, because pre-eminent over every part of the creature, it lifts up to itself those beneath it; from weaker parts it built for itself a humble dwelling from our clay, through which it might divert all who are rapt in themselves and draw them to itself, healing tumours and nourishing love, lest in their self confidence they might progress further. They are weakened seeing before their feet a Godhead weak from sharing in our clothing of flesh’.
Augustine also says in the book De agone christiano[232]: ‘What pride can be healed if it is not healed by the humility of the Son of God?’ as if to say: none. And again in the book De baptismo parvulorum[233] he says: ‘Pride is the cause of all human vices; to overpower and take it away there came down through mercy a humble God, as a heavenly medicine, to people puffed up through pride’. Bernard also, in a sermon for Christmas,[234] says: ‘What necessity was there for the Lord of majesty so to humble, so reduce, so empty himself, other than that we might make ourselves like him? He first proclaimed by example what later he was to preach by word’.
And Augustine, The Trinity[235]: ‘We ought to believe and hold strongly and unshaken that the humility by which God was born from a woman and brought to death by people through such indignities, is the chief medicine by which the tumour of our pride could be healed and the precious sacrament by which the bond of our sin could be broken’.
And Gregory, in Pastoral Care, says[236]: ‘The occasion of our downfall was the pride of the devil, and the humility of God is found to be the guarantee of our redemption. For our enemy, lurking in everything, wished to be seen as superior to all; our Redeemer, remaining greater than all, deigned to become the least among many’. For although he was true Lord and God, in humility he became obedient to his mother and his foster father Joseph.
Christ washes the feet of his disciples
He commended this above all to his disciples saying in Matthew 11:29: ‘Learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart’; later when he bent down to wash their feet he, the ‘Teacher and Lord’, showed how they ‘ought to wash one another’s feet’, as stated in John 13:14. The authority and reasoning of this text show that whoever wishes to be a disciple of Christ must bend down even to the extreme of humility and abjection. Therefore, blessed Peter astonished at such humility said[237]: ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet? You will never wash my feet’. Note what he says: ‘You’, he says, ‘my feet’; this is a matter for reflection rather than speaking. ‘You’, he says, ‘my feet’; the master to the disciple, the lord to the servant and what is most worthy of wonder, God to a man, the creator to a creature. The Lord said to him[238]: ‘You do not know what I am doing; I have set you an example that you also should do as I have done to you’. Augustine comments on this saying[239]: ‘When the body bends down to wash the feet of another, humility is kept safe in the soul; the value of human humility is such that even the sublime God commended it by example’. Finally, drinking from the stream by the path, covered with dishonour, and putting his mouth to the dust,[240] he gave himself up to a most cruel death, namely, hanging on a cross.
Do not fear reproach
Who then are you, a fragile human being, to rise up in pride, when you see the Lord of majesty so thoroughly humiliated? Who are you, dust and ashes, to long for honours and glory, when you see the Lord, your God, abject, spat upon, blasphemed and dishonoured by the crowd so that he might call himself, in the words of the Psalm[241] which he sang while hanging on the cross, ‘a worm and not human: I’, he said, ‘am a worm and not human, scorned by others and despised by the people’. Isaiah 53:7 says: ‘You who know righteousness’, that is, Christ, who alone is righteous and suffered unjustly, for ‘he committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth’, as stated in 1 Peter 2:22; Isaiah adds: ‘Do not fear the reproach of others, and do not be dismayed when they revile you’, but rather, in accord with the word of the Lord,[242] ‘do not fear those who kill the body’, when you can have peace in Christ who conquered the world and overpowered all exaltation and pride by humility.
7
HOW BLESSED FRANCIS WISHED TO ADOPT THE HIGHEST DEGREE OF CHRIST’S HUMILITY
Blessed Francis wished to adopt this abysmal depth of humility. For while a multiple title of virtues might shine forth in him,[243] this humility, which is ‘the guardian and adornment of the virtues’, was seen to be especially resplendent in him. I am not able to relate here in a few words this excess of humility; but whoever reads carefully about his life will clearly infer how the most holy Father was as nothing in his own estimation; how he tried to appear worthless in the eyes of others, and was accustomed to demand of any of his companions in simple obedience not to call him great or first, but the least of the minors and to think of him as the newest among the brothers.
The humility of St Francis
Wishing then to base himself and to found his Order on this surest of foundations, he decreed that his companions were to be called lesser, minors, and he wished to use the title Lesser Brother. One is truly lesser when, according to that most pleasant document of the Apostle Paul,[244] one outdoes ‘another in showing honour’ and thinks of all others as superiors and greater, without being haughty. The title lesser of itself is not a comparison with any other, but is understood as the least of all. Blessed Francis is not called lesser than this or that, but the ‘youngest brother’ of Joseph,[245] that is, of Christ. Joseph was called in the Egyptian tongue, ‘the saviour of the world’ as stated in Genesis 41:45.[246]
8
HOW IT IS THE DUTY FOR A LESSER BROTHER TO ADOPT THESE VIRTUES AS DID BLESSED FRANCIS
Love and humility are the foundations of the virtues
You, therefore, whoever you are, who call yourself a lesser brother, if you are truly lesser, that is, genuinely humble, be as was blessed Francis, be a brother of Christ and become like him who ‘was made lower than the angels;[247] if you had in yourself the virtues to such a degree, you would have these two especially, namely, love and humility which underlie poverty and upon which all the other virtues are based and held firm, through which all the others are guarded and preserved. These are the two silver bases on which the frames of the tabernacle were placed.[248] These are the ‘two pegs’ which each frame of the table of the tabernacle required so that one could be joined to another in erecting the tabernacle as related in Exodus 26:17. For if, as the Apostle says in Ephesians 2:19, we wish to become ‘citizens with the saints and members of the household of God’, we must be built ‘with Christ himself as the cornerstone; for no one can lay any other foundation’ for a building upon which ‘the whole structure is joined together’ to become ‘a holy temple’ of God through the Holy Spirit; for we are ‘God’s temple’ which is holy, provided ‘the Spirit of God dwells’ in us.[249] These are the two bronze pillars upon which the height of the temple rests, which Solomon made and which the savage Chaldeans, which means almost demons, broke when Jerusalem was captured as related in Jeremiah 52:17.
Without love there is no virtue
For without love no virtue has any merit; in fact all the virtues are considered as nothing unless they be animated by love, as the Apostle proves so well, 1 Corinthians 13:1: ‘If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal’ etc. Read the text. And Augustine, book I De baptismo contra Donatistas[250]: ‘”Love covers a multitude of sins”; when it is absent other virtues are held to worthless, when present some others are allowed to be present’. Augustine again, Commentary on the First Epistle of John:[251] ‘Love alone distinguishes between the children of the devil and the children of God; you can have whatever you like, but if you do not have love nothing is to your advantage’. And Prosper, in the book The Contemplative Life[252]: ‘Love is the perfection of good actions, the preservation of orals, the purpose of heavenly precepts, the death of crimes, the life of virtues, the cause of good merits, without which no one can please God, but with it one is not, nor will be, able to sin, and from it ever good work lives’.
Without humility there can be no virtue
No virtue endures nor can be stable or pleasing to God without humility; for, as Bernard says in the homily Super missus est[253]: ‘Not even the virginity of the blessed Mary without humility could have pleased God’. And so the most blessed Virgin said[254]: for God has ‘looked on the lowliness of his servant’, not on the virginity. So Augustine says in the letter To Dioscorus[255]: ‘Pride alone raises itself against all the virtues of the soul, and like a general and deadly disease corrupts all. All our actions, and whatever we do well, must be preceded, accompanied and followed by humility, as well as what we plan to do, the present things to which we cling, and the burdens by which we are restrained. Unless everything we do be guarded carefully by humility, pride can sweep them out of our hand, even as we now rejoice in something well done; just as pride is the origin of all crimes, so it is the ruin of all virtues’.
For, as Gregory says[256]: ‘The one who develops virtues without humility is throwing dust into the wind’, and Jerome[257] on the Psalm[258]: ‘O Lord, my heart is not lifted up’, says: ‘He placed humility behind every virtue; we possess virtues in vain, if they are not crowned with the humility of the Lord’. That noble angel, adorned with every virtue and gift, covered with ‘every precious stone, blameless in its ways’, living ‘in Eden, the garden of God’, as stated in Ezekiel 28:13,[259] elated with a single feeling of pride, lost humility and the single virtues and, cast down into hell, is to be tortured with eternal fires. For, as said in 2 Peer 2:4, ‘if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment’, do you think that God can let you off without punishment, you a proud little worm? Let all extend humility towards one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’, as stated in 1 Peter 5:5.
God resists the proud
Our Moses, namely, our prelate blessed Francis, most meek of all people,[260] directed that the tabernacle, that is, the Order and his Rule, was to be founded and held firm on these, according to what he saw on the mountain where Christ was crucified, to whom it was said in Exodus 25:40: ‘See that you make it according to the pattern for them, which is being shown you on the mountain’. The mount where Christ was crucified is called vision, because it is said of this day, on that mount ‘the Lord will provide’,[261] that is, make to be seen. The Lord sees everywhere because ‘before him all are naked and laid bare’, nor can any ‘creature’ be ‘hidden’ from the eyes of God, as stated in Hebrews 4:13. On the mount of La Verna,[262] Jesus Christ crucified wished to appear under the form of a Seraph to blessed Francis while he was fasting and praying, just as at one time the Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai through angels.
An example held up on the mountain
For blessed Francis walking strongly in the footprints of Christ reached him perfectly; the Apostle wants us to come to this perfection when he says in 1 Corinthians 9:24: ‘Run in such a way that you may win it’. But take not of what Paul says before this: All, he says, ‘compete but only one receives the prize’. Who is the one following so perfectly, so singularly and happily running, that he takes hold of and accepts the prize? Is he perhaps Paul himself? Hear what he says in Philippians 3:12-14: ‘Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus’. If, therefore, it is not Paul who is it? I believe it is no other, I understand it to be no other than blessed Father Francis; Francis, as already said, who was the first of the lesser brothers, splendid in his ways from following Christ crucified in most perfect virtues and who holds the triumphal prize of the passion of Christ.[263]
The lines fell on a goodly heritage
But you may perhaps ask: how can his footsteps be followed by a human being and that to a perfect degree, for he is ‘higher than heaven, deeper than Sheol, broader than the sea, longer than the earth’, as stated in Job 11:8-9? ‘For what can the one do who comes after the king’, as asked in Ecclesiastes 2:12? But whoever has understood what has already been said, will be able, I think, to see clearly enough how blessed Father Francis so perfectly won the prize. He conquered the length with the highest poverty, the width by love, the height and depth by humility. This is the three days’ journey demanded of all who wish to escape the darkness of Egypt and flee the slavery of Pharaoh, so as to be able to offer sacrifice to God in the desert, as stated in Exodus 8:27. These are the boundary ‘lines’ which ‘fell’ for the Lord ‘on the goodly heritage’. The Chancellor of Paris[264] writes:
The lines fell for me on a goodly heritage,
on the goodly heritage, the Lesser Brothers.
In these goodly people the heritage of the Lord is truly made goodly, as said in the Psalm,[265] because God ‘appointed a ruler for every nation, but Israel is the Lord’s own portion. All their works are as clear as the sun before him, and his eyes are ever upon their ways, as in Sirach 17:17. 19.
St Francis the supplanter
Do you not see how in them ‘the heritage’ of the Lord is ‘goodly’? For while Orders are distinguished by the diversity of the various saints of God from whom their name and origin derive, ‘the Lord’s portion’ is ‘his’ own ‘people, Jacob his allotted share’, as said in Deuteronomy 32:9. Hence God the Father said to incarnate Wisdom, Sirach 24:8: ‘Make your dwelling in Jacob, and in Israel receive your inheritance’, and take root among your chosen people.[266] This Jacob, also called Israel, the one supplanting vices, namely, a man seeing God or strong or the first with God,[267] is truly blessed Francis, who, although he be the younger or lesser brother, obtained the inheritance of the older brother with the father’s blessing because of the fragrance of his clothes, that is, of his virtues, fragrant with the best perfume, which the mother of Jacob, namely, the Rule of blessed Francis, has concealed within it. This is Rebekah,[268] which means ‘accepted much’ because she alone beyond all others accepted heroic virtues to the highest degree, as is shown in the preceding pages; Rebekah also means ‘patience’, for unless virtues, especially the three poverty, love and humility, are guarded and preserved by patience, without a doubt they will perish.
The lesser preferred to the greater
These clothes, although they are said to belong to Esau, the elder brother, are worn only by the younger brother who, according to the preceding, is justly preferred to the elder according to the statement of the Lord, Genesis 25:23, ‘the elder shall serve the younger’. And you, if you carefully search the Scriptures,[269] will find younger brothers clearly preferred because of holiness and goodness; this is evident in the first two brothers, Cain and Abel. It is confirmed also by the statement of the Lord saying in Matthew 20:16: ‘The last shall be first and the first will be last’; Jerome, explaining this point in his commentary on Ecclesiastes 1:11: ‘The people of long ago are not remembered’ etc. says[270]: ‘The gracious and gentle God remembers the least ones, but to those on whom it fell to be the last he will not give as great a glory as to those who, in humility, chose to be the last in the world’. The ‘first’ is the ‘physical, and then the spiritual’, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:46. Hence Saul, who stood taller than all the people,[271] was set aside and David elected, who was seen as the youngest among his brothers;[272] Therefore, David said to his wife, the daughter of Saul: ‘I have danced, I will make myself yet more contemptible than this before the Lord who chose me in place of your father’, 2 Samuel 6:21-22.
Vision of the place of the fallen angel
Esau can also remind us of the first angel who, arrogant with pride, filled with envy of God, deprived of glory because of avarice, fell and was justly cast into hell, losing the delicacies prepared for him. We rightly understand Jacob, his younger brother, to be blessed Francis who by highest poverty, pre-eminent in love and with deep humility, merited to inherit the rights of the first born. Hence, when on a certain occasion he with his companion was praying in a church his companion rapt in an ecstasy of mind saw in the heavenly court a lofty place resplendent with every glory but vacant; when he asked whose place this might be, he heard a voice saying to him: ‘This was the place of the fallen angel which it lost through pride and now is kept for Francis, the lesser brother, because he merited this by humility’;[273] because just as our timpanist, the glorious Virgin, sang ‘he has brought down’ the proud ‘from their thrones’ to lift up ‘the lowly’ to them,[274] and holy Anna sang in a similar vein, 1 Samuel 2:8: ‘He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honour’.
A fatted calf for a Lesser Brother
A ‘fatted calf’ is killed and offered for a younger brother returning to the father who orders ‘a robe, the best robe’, to be given him. The first or elder brother neither deserved this robe nor was he able to regain it; no young goat was offered to him, as stated in Luke 15:29. A young goat represents penitence. Hence in Exodus 12:5: ‘You may take it from the sheep’ etc., Jerome[275] says that a young goat is always slaughtered for penitents. This elder brother had no young goat and on returning from the field did not go in to the father, but moved by envy said: ‘You have never given even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends’. Blinded in his mind he was unable to repent; he did not know how to pray to this most pleasant father, but rather reproved him for receiving the penitent younger son, defiantly attributing injuries to this gentlest father, disdaining to enter even at the request of the father. So he was most justly rejected in the same way as Esau returning from the field ‘when he wanted to inherit the blessing; he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent’, as the Apostle says, Hebrews 12:17.
Younger brothers are not farmers
Do you not see that the older brothers are farmers, as Cain and Esau? The younger do not seek to own land but heaven, since their ‘citizenship is in heaven’.[276] For these shall ‘feed your flocks and till your land, but you shall be called priests of the Lord, you shall be named ministers of our God’, as stated in Isaiah 61:5; the sons of Levi were not to have an inheritance or possessions in the land ‘among them’,[277] because the Lord was their portion. Esau was a wild man, while Jacob was a gentle person,[278] remaining at home. The elder was always busy in the field in which he strives like an enemy to sow weeds.[279]
The elder serves the younger
Abel was killed in the field by his elder brother, Genesis 4:8. So whoever lives in the household of Jacob has no reason to go into the field of the world, Jeremiah 6:25: ‘Do not go out into the field, or walk on the road; for the enemy has a sword, terror is on every side’. ‘The field is the world’, as the Lord says in Matthew 13:38, a field ‘bought’ at the price of the blood of Christ; Adam our first parent possessed and gave his field to us to be possessed as a reward for his sin which, since it is a potter’s field, became only a cemetery for those travelling from the true homeland.[280] In every way they have to be careful to remain within the Order, because now, as then, the elder brother would lead the younger to death. So, according to the statement of the Lord,[281] ‘the elder shall serve the younger’. Never could one have given such allegiance when acting out of hate, never could one have benefited as much from love as one benefits from imitation. Had Joseph not erred by going out into the field he would not have been sold into Egypt by his older brothers; hence Genesis 37:15 says that ‘a man found him wandering in the fields’ while he was looking for his ‘brothers’. Likewise Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, would never have been violated had she remained enclosed within her father’s house; but she went outside, it says, ‘to visit the women of the region’, Genesis 34:1.
The younger, the lord of his brothers
If you remain within this house truly fleeing the world you cannot doubt that ‘when a righteous man fled from his brother’s wrath’ the wisdom of God guided him on straight paths; she showed him the kingdom of God and gave him knowledge of holy things; she prospered him in his labours and increased the fruit of his toil’; but while she gave him an ‘arduous contest’ so as to crown him the victor ‘she did not desert the righteous man but delivered him from sin’; and if he happens to be in prison and in chains, she will be with him ‘until she brings him the sceptre of a kingdom and gives him everlasting honour’ as stated in Wisdom 10:10-14. It is the Lord who ‘will deliver you from the snare of the fowler’, as stated in a Psalm.[282] On this text Jerome says[283]: ‘Who are these fowlers? The giant Nimrod was a great hunter, and Esau was a hunter because he was a sinner; nowhere in the holy Scriptures is there a hunter among the holy people’. With justice, therefore, this younger brother was set as lord over his brothers before whom the sons of his mother had to bow down.
The lesser brothers are the house of God
The ‘fatted calf’ represents Christ full of grace. This is the ‘tender and good calf’ with which Abraham, that is, the heavenly Father, made a feast for the angels as related in Genesis 18:7. The high priest had to offer the calf, so as to pray ‘for himself and for his house’, as stated in Leviticus 16:6. Christ, therefore, the high priest and victim ‘entered once for all into the Holy Place, with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption’, Hebrews 9:12; he prayed in a special way for his house,[284] that is, for the lesser brothers. Hence, in Hebrews 3:6 Paul says: ‘Christ was faithful over God’s house as a son, and we are his house’, that is, Apostles and apostolic people, his inheritance, ‘his people, his treasured possession’, as stated there.[285] Of these a Psalm[286] says: ‘He chose our heritage for us’, but which? ‘The pride’, it says, ‘of Jacob whom he loves’. He chose us, not we him, as John 15:16 says: ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you’. He chose us, that is, for our benefit, not his, because he has no need of our possessions; ‘for the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel as his own possession’, as another Psalm[287] says; ‘has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom’, as James 2:5 says?
Christ calls the minors his brothers
This is therefore the rope of ‘the inheritance’ of Christ which being a threefold cord does not break;[288] this is ‘an immovable tent and none of its ropes will be broken’, as stated in Isaiah 33:20, because ‘there the Lord in majesty will be for us, the Lord our judge, the Lord our ruler, the Lord our king’, as follows in Isaiah. He is the ‘minister in the sanctuary and the true tent that the Lord and not any mortal has set up’, Hebrews 8:2, because ‘fair are your tents, O Jacob, your encampments, O Israel’, as stated in Numbers 24:5. This Order has to belong to Christ by a special title for he is its beginning, author and origin, since he in truth was the first and true lesser brother according to the perfection of the previously mentioned virtues which shone out in him in a most perfect way. Hence, when a ‘dispute arose among’ the disciples of Christ ‘as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest’, Jesus said to them: ‘But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves’, Luke 22:24-27. See how openly he calls himself a lesser brother, one who serves. In Matthew 25:35. 4-41 it is said that Christ ‘will say to those on his right hand: ‘Just as you did it to one of the least of these you did it to me’, and to those at his left hand: ‘Just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me’. Do you not see how he calls the lesser ones [the minors] in a special way his family?
St Francis the legate of Christ
And so this Order is not rightly referred to by the name of any saint but is called the Rule or Order of the Lesser Brothers, that is, of people imitating Christ perfectly.[289] The Order can be named after the blessed Father Francis, not as its beginning or author, but rather as a legate or minister of Christ. So he did not want to be called the first minister of the Order in accord with Matthew 20:26-28: ‘Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’.
And Luke 9:48 says: ‘The least among all of you is the greatest’. So Sirach 3:18 says: ‘The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself, for there are losses for the sake of glory and there are some who have raised their head from humble circumstances’, as stated in Sirach 20:11. For blessed Francis is truly a legate sent by the authority of Christ to the people of whom Jeremiah 49:14 and Obadiah 1:1 speak; the marks [stigmata] of the wounds of the passion of Christ which he carried on his body most clearly prove this.[290] And if you ‘seek’ diligently ‘in the book of the Lord’, what came from his mouth was what Christ ‘commanded and his spirit has gathered them’, as in Isaiah 34:16. This is Othoniel, which means sign of my God, ‘Caleb’s younger brother’, as in Judges 1:13; Caleph, however, means dog, representing the Apostles according to the Psalm[291]: ‘the tongues of your dogs’ etc.
The perfection of the virtues according to the Apostles
The Apostle wants us to come to this perfection of virtues and to attain to its completion when he says in Ephesians 3:17-18: ‘Being rooted and grounded in love, I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth’. Were this impossible, the Apostle would have been speaking in vain, which is no way to think of so great a teacher. Treating of this in the book De gratia Novi Testament, Augustine says[292]: ‘For this reason the poor are content with not seeking their own interests but “those of Jesus Christ”[293] which, he says, is the breadth so that troubles are borne with long suffering. Not without reason is one said to be content with the poverty of Christ who for the sake of justice calmly leaves behind all possessions, despises all earthly goods and even bears misfortunes patiently. The height, so that hope is put in an eternal reward which is above, not in something vain. The sign of the cross is shown in this mystery: he who chose to die, did not do so without reason for in it there was the mastery of length, breadth and depth’. Here he shows clearly that he has understood the Apostle and wished to state that virtues, perfect to the highest degree, were clearly made evident in the cross of Christ, namely, the highest poverty, the primacy of love and true humility.
9
WHAT IT MEANS FOR A LESSER BROTHER TO ADOPT THESE THREE VIRTUES IN THEIR HIGHEST DEGREE
What is longer than the earth?
Act then on what has been said. What is this length? ‘Longer’, he says,[294] ‘than the earth’; what is longer than the earth other than what surpasses the earth; what exceeds it? This is achieved by the highest poverty which, despising the world, searches far beyond the earth. This is the length longer than the earth; it is unlimited on earth and develops no love on earth. If the length has a limit, the limit is only a point; such a point can never reach up heaven, but rather goes down to the depths, because, according to the word of the Lord,[295] those with riches will not enter the ‘kingdom of heaven’; of these Job 21; 13 says: ‘They spend their days in prosperity, and in a moment[296] they go down to Sheol’.
This point is the earth and it is fixed in the earth, for the earth in relation to the sky is only a point. By earth I understand the love of things earthly. So the Apostle says in Philippians 3:7[297]: ‘Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ… For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead’. On this text Gregory says in Super Ezechielem:[298] ‘He “strained forward to what lies ahead, forgetting what lies behind”, because, despising temporal goods, he wanted only what are eternal’. And Paul continues: ‘Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind, and let us hold fast to what we have attained’; and there follows further: ‘Their glory is in their shame, their minds are set on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven’. Commenting on these words Augustine, The Trinity,[299] says: ‘Perfection in this life is nothing other than to forget “what lies behind”, and intend to strain forward towards what is before; this intention is kept most cautiously by the one seeking, until such time as the things for which we aim and for which we strain is grasped’.
The first dimension of longsuffering
No one can be truly poor for Christ while lacking the virtue of longsuffering which makes one longer than the earth. So it is said in Isaiah 58:14: ‘Then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob’. Who is this father Jacob and what his is heritage has already been stated. And in a Psalm[300]: ‘All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God’; on this text Jerome says[301]: ‘While we are on the earth we cannot see God; however, when we have, as it were, left the earth and are at its highest point, then we will merit to see God’. This is the first dimension.
What is broader than the sea?
The second dimension is breadth. What is breadth? Listen: it is ‘broader than the sea’.[302] For the sea understand carnal love. What does it mean to be broader than the sea, other than to exceed the sea and go beyond it? Carnal love is the love of blood relatives, neighbours, friends, who, without doubt, cannot cross the sea; it is in the sea and so cannot come to Christ. For as the Lord says in Matthew 5:46: ‘For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?’
True love crosses the sea
Who crosses the sea? The one who, having the love of Christ, loves not only neighbours, but strangers, even those far away, and all people indiscriminately, just as Christ suffered for everyone. Do you not see how it is wider than the sea, how it crosses the breadth of the sea? The breadth of the sea finishes in a line because every limit of breadth is a line. So one who loves only those joined to oneself in a line of consanguinity or affinity does not cross the sea, because the love finishes at the line; but whoever loves not only blood relatives, not only allies, not only friends, but strangers, enemies, and one’s persecutors, as shown above of Christ, has a love which crosses the breadth of the sea, does not finish at the line; in fact it has no limit, because love is the ‘limit to all perfection’.
A Psalm[303]says: ‘I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad’. Such a one truly loves and comes to Christ. So Augustine, Tractates on the First Epistle of John,[304] says: ‘Extend love to your neighbours, to those you do not know, who have done you no harm; but go beyond this and come to love your enemies’; and further in Sermon X[305]: ‘Extend love through the whole world if you wish to love Christ, because the members of Christ are throughout the whole earth’.
And the name brother, as already said, signifies this love which simply and without distinction joins all in a bond of love because this love makes everyone children of the one Father who is God. The Lord exhorts us to this love, Matthew 5:44-5. 48: ‘But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’. And lessed Francis put this text into his Rule.[306] A child is so called from φίλος, which means love, because a child is indeed the love of the parents. So the Lord says, Matthew 23:9: You are all children ‘and call no one on earth your father for you have one Father, the one in heaven. This is the second dimension.
What is deeper than hell?
The third dimension is height and depth. I think that these two represent one dimension. There are three dimensions to complete a body, namely, length, breadth and depth or height; there cannot be more as is clears to one proficient in mathematics and as the Philosopher shows in the beginning of the book, De Coelo et mundo.[307] Augustine also, in the book De gratia Novi Testamenti,[308] commenting on the verse of the Apostle: ‘What is the length’ etc.[309] says that ‘the common name of height is above or below’. For the peak and the depth are the same distance, using different names but meaning the same thing, just as there is only one distance from the sky to the earth and from earth to the sky; it is called height when referring to the sky and depth when referring to the earth. What is this distance? ‘Higher’, he says,[310] ‘than heaven, deeper than Sheol’. This is humility which is most deep and most high.
Since Sheol is the centre of the earth, which is the centre of the world, nothing can be deeper than Sheol. Job 17:16 says[311]: ‘All that I have shall go down to the deepest pit’; nothing is deeper than deepest. How then can it be said ‘deeper than Sheol?’ I think that while nothing can be deeper than Sheol, is depth has no limit, number or measurement. The limit of depth is nothing more other than its surface. A surface can reflect a certain external glory or pride. So every depth which has a limit cannot be entirely immune from ambition. But true humility never puts a limit to depth, because it seeks no surface, but subjects itself as far as possible and would subject itself further were that possible.
The name lesser brother truly signifies this limitless depth, which simply and without distinction puts itself below everything even the depth of Sheol. Who is it who goes beneath Sheol? The one who always thinks humbly, claims nothing of virtue or goodness, claims no skill in the pursuit of learning, congratulates oneself of no nobility or dignity or even of an office, always casts oneself down, genuinely rejoices over a lowly state, and thinks of oneself as the greatest of all sinners. Do you not see how such depth knows of no surface, as the Lord says in Luke 17:10: ‘So you also when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’ The worst sinners are placed in the deepest part of Sheol. So Bblessed Father Francis when asked by a brother who saw him honoured with the glorious throne, as has been said above,[312] what he felt of himself, replied: I see myself as the greatest of sinners’. Do you not see how the least of the lesser brothers, prostrated himself under Sheol? So he says in his Rule that ‘each one should condemn and despise himself’.[313]
I see myself as the greatest of sinners
But because, according to the teaching of the Lord,[314] ‘those who humble themselves shall be exalted’, then this depth is higher than heaven, because without doubt those who humble themselves under Sheol shall be high above the heavens; as they put themselves below sinners, so they are raised above the saints.
Nothing is higher than humility
This depth and height were well known to the one who said in the Psalm[315]: ‘He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people’. On this Jerome says[316]: ‘The saints are raised up, since while on earth they contemplated heavenly things; when they were humiliated in their actions, they were lifted up in their contemplation so that those who on earth were humble are exalted with God’. Jerome also says on the Psalm[317]: I have calmed and quieted my soul: ‘Indeed humble in heart but exalted in understanding; thinking humbly in the world but with the soul high in heaven’. And Gregory says in Pastoral Care[318]: ‘What is higher than humility which in putting itself with the lowest is joined to its Author in the heights; it will be said to the humble that when they put themselves down they rise up in the likeness of God’. The Lord clearly shows this in Matthew 18:3; when asked by the disciples: ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven’ he replied: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven’, that is, as this lesser brother, as this least one. ‘Humility goes before honour’, as stated in Proverbs 13:53 and 29:23: ‘One who is lowly in spirit will obtain honour’, and Job 22:29: ‘For he that has been humbled, shall be in glory’.[319] For this reason, Christ, to reach this humility, penetrating to the lower parts of the earth, went down to the underworld, he who later ascended above the heavens. So Ephesians 4:9-10 says: ‘When it says, ‘He ascended’, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things’.
John the Baptist the voice of one crying out
Judge whether blessed John the Baptist had this perfection of the virtues, he who in truth was a lesser brother; he who was so great and of such a kind that the crowds thought him to be the Christ, and, as the Saviour himself testifies about him in Matthew 11:11: ‘Among those born of women no one has arisen greater’. Asked, however, who he might be, as stated in John 1:19, he replied that he was not anything they knew nor did he wish to assert that he was hell or worthy of hell. For hell, even though it be most deep, is something, and whoever is worthy of hell, even though being most vile, is something and in so far as it is something, it is also good: for every creature of God is good, because ‘God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good’.[320] But whatever is nothing in itself has nothing of goodness itself. What therefore are you, most blessed John, so that I may respond to those who await me? ‘What do you say about yourself?’ He said,[321] ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord’. He did not say: I am one crying out with my voice, for this would be something great, but the voice of one ‘crying out’. What is this voice? Nothing at all for a voice is lost when it speaks nor can it be recaptured; indeed the sound of the vibrating ait vanishes in that vibration. ‘For the air struck passes, nor does it remain longer than it sounds’, as Augustine says in Christian Instruction.[322] A voice, however, of itself neither finishes in a point nor is it closed off by a line, nor is it covered with a surface. The earth does not love it because it cannot be in the earth but in the air; it recognizes no relatives but touches all equally who are nearby; it seeks neither honour nor glory for it reaches both the lowest and the highest points.
Among those born no one has arisen greater
So whoever pays attention can clearly see blessed John in no way lied in his answer, as some foolishly thought, but he covered his perfection with a humble voice, so that speaking the truth he might give no occasion for pride or glory. His voice was such that he could be thought of as the Christ and, had he not been solidly grounded in the virtue of humility, he could have been stupidly rapt above himself. Hence Gregory, in a homily on the Gospel,[323] says: ‘Since John did not want to encroach upon the name of Christ, he was made a member of Christ, because while he humbly strove to recognize his weakness, he truly merited to receive this honour’. So remaining in a desert place, exiled completely from the world and alone, rightly aiming himself on high like an arrow, he could not be troubled by any breath of wind. See also Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, says[324]: ‘No one is humbler than this herald: John had no merit as great as this humility, by which when people might mistake him for the Christ, “he confessed and did not deny it”’. Note, however, how you understand this word: ‘Among those born of women’, for you have to exclude Christ with Mary his Mother. The situation excludes Christ and the sex excludes Mary. The situation, because Christ did not fail in being born, so neither did he arise, because he was conceived and born without sin. Only Emmanuel born of a virgin ate ‘curds and honey’ so as ‘to refuse’ every ‘evil and choose the good’; as stated in Isaiah 7:15. John, however, did not fall, being conceived in sin, although he arose in the womb when sanctified by the grace of God; so it is stated: No one has arisen’. The sex, however, excludes Mary who was not born (natus) of women, but born (nata); so he said ‘Among those born (natos)’.
The third dimension of St Francis
You can see clearly, I think, from what has been said, how blessed Francis, walking strongly in the way of Christ found him perfectly, and so was assimilated into Christ because ‘everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher’;[325] ‘for you have one instructor, the Messiah’, as stated in Matthew 23:10. So what is said in Job 23:11-12 is true: ‘My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of his lips’. Gregory[326] correctly applies this text to the humility of Christ. So on Job 22:15: ‘Will you keep to the old way that the wicked have trod,’ Gregory says[327]: ‘Just as the way of the Redeemer is humility, so “the old way” is pride’. For just as three dimensions make a perfect body, so these three dimensions, which are the footsteps of Christ, transform a person perfectly into Christ; and so blessed Francis was transferred bodily into Christ himself, because Christ dwelt in him not only in his heart through faith, but perfectly in a bodily way according to the three above mentioned dimensions.
The triple grace of Christ
The divinity dwelt in Christ according to a triple grace, as if according to a threefold dimension, so the Apostle says in Colossians 2:9 that in him ‘the fullness of deity dwells bodily’. The divinity was in him through the grace of a single person, which is length stretched to its limit because ‘the Spirit’ was given ‘without measure’. ‘God anointed’ him ‘with the Holy Spirit and with power beyond your companions’;[328] Isaiah[329] also says that a seven fold spirit rested upon him. And in the Gospel of the Nazarenes is said[330]: ‘When Jesus came up from the water, there came down and rested upon him the whole fountain of the Spirit, and said to him I have been waiting for you, my son, in all the prophets that you might come and I could rest in you; for you are my rest’. By the grace of the head which is the most extensive width, Christ, as the Apostle says in Colossians 1:18 and Ephesians 1:22, is the head over every church, not only the church militant but also the church triumphant, not only the earthly but the heavenly, not only the human but the angelic, not only the temporal but also the eternal; ‘all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to’ him, as stated in Matthew 28:18. By reason of the grace of union, which is the lowest depth and the most extended height we call Christ Son of God, true God, equal indeed to the Father, yet crucified, dead, buried and descended into hell. Is not this the lowest depth? But according to the same grace he is the highest, so that we truly call him Jesus Christ, son of the Virgin Mother, true man of human flesh and a rational soul, risen from the dead, ascended into heaven, to sit at the right hand of God the Father from whence he will come to judge the living and the dead and he is the Son of God. This is what the Apostle says in Philippians 2:8-11: ‘He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’. And in Hebrews 2:9 he says: ‘But we do see Jesus who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour’ with all things subjected under his feet, who is ‘exalted above the heavens’, as said further on in Hebrews 7:26.
The infinite height of Christ
The highest poverty, eminent love and the deepest humility shone out in Christ especially at the time of the passion, as has been said, and these virtues were most truly in blessed Francis. By these virtues he was perfectly united to the crucified Christ, and strove to ‘strip off the old self with its practices and to clothe himself with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator’.[331] This was why he merited to be made one with and wondrously transformed into the Crucified Christ, as will be clearer further on.
On Lot and his daughters
Your, therefore, who call yourself a lesser brother, who are made ‘least among the nations, despised by humankind’, as stated in Jeremiah 49:15 and Obadiah 2, be careful lest, as is said there, ‘the terror you inspire deceive you and your proud heart’ puffs you up; be careful lest when you think ‘you soar aloft like the eagle’, as you reflect on high things, and ‘though your nest is set among the stars’ with chaste and angelic conversation, ‘from there’ the Lord ‘will bring you down’;[332]there will be said to you what was said to the proud in Isaiah 14:11: ‘Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, and the sound of your harps,; maggots are the bed beneath you, and worms are your covering’. This is what was said to that angel who would not be called lesser, but greater, as has been said above. Hence Origen says, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus,[333] of Lot and his daughters: ‘You ought to take care, lest as you flee the flames of the world and avoid the passions of the flesh, and also when you climb towards the peak of the mountain, namely, of knowledge or life, that you are not ambushed by these two daughters who never go away from you; they are vain glory and her elder sister pride; be careful lest as you sleep, while it seems to you that you neither feel nor understand, they grip you with their all too real embrace. They are called our daughters, because they are born from our actions, and are not imposed on us from outside. Watch out, therefore, that you do not become the father of sons from them, because all born from them will not enter the church of God’. For the sons and daughters of Lot are the Ammonites and Moabites who shall not ever ‘be admitted to the assembly of the Lord’, as stated in Deuteronomy 23:3.
Be what your name implies
But make it your principal care, your diligent watchfulness, to be what your name implies, namely, a lesser brother, impoverished in goods, clothed in poverty, excellent in charity and conspicuous for total honesty in conduct; become an imitator of Jesus Christ, of the true and first lesser brother, and of his chief follower our Father Francis, so that the world is crucified in you and you can truthfully say to the world: ‘May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ’, Galatians 6:14; be like him who ‘for the sake of the’ eternal ‘joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame’, as Paul says in Hebrews 12:2. This boast is symbolized by the rope of a bag which is a cord, for with a rope assess are tied and thieves are strung up; but you accept gladly the cross of Christ, namely, harsh penance, symbolized by the habit or tunic which is of rough and hard material shaped in the form of a cross. Wear trousers to hide the genitals so that nothing unclean, nothing unseemly of yourself may be seen. The less noble parts of the body are covered with more abundant honour, so that ‘those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour’, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:23; for this reason the high priests, when about to enter the temple of the Lord, were directed to wear ‘’ lest their shame be seen, as stated in Exodus 28:42 and Leviticus 16:4.
A fire burning in a bramble bush
To be able to climb the peaks of the virtues, you must climb the ladder which is the cross, on which ladder the Lord stood when appearing to Jacob on the mount of Bethel, that is, to blessed Francis, Genesis, 28:13. In that holy place in which the Lord truly lives, put off your shoes because, as is said in Exodus 3:5, this ‘place on which you are standing is’ truly ‘holy ground’. For the ‘religion that is pure and undefiled’ of the Lesser Brothers is ‘terrible as an army with banners’ to its spiritual enemies; it ‘is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven’, in which burns the fire of the love of God which the Son of God ‘came to bring to the earth’.[334] The fire in the bramble bush, that is, in the harshness and humility of life, burns and cannot be extinguished, because such a bramble bush is never burnt away. Whoever wishes to approach this fire must put off their shoes because that religion is truly ‘a holy place’, indeed, ‘most holy’.[335] This is in accord with the precept of the Lord given to Moses from the bramble bush, repeated by an angel to Joshua his assistant, Joshua 5:16, and later, so that ‘every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses’,[336] repeated to the Apostles through our Lord Jesus Christ. For truly ‘this is the place of the throne’ of the Lord ‘and the place for the soles of’ his ‘feet, where’ he resides ‘among the people of Israel for ever’, as stated in Ezekiel 43:7. Once you are adorned interiorly and exteriorly with all these ornaments, as you have heard, in truth you will be and will merit to be called a Lesser Brother.
The definition of a lesser brother
It is sufficiently clear, I think, from what has been said how a lesser brother through the act of perfect charity, namely, the love of God and neighbour, is a special worshipper of God. But, according to the word of the Lord,[337] ‘no one can serve two masters’, namely, God and the world or the wealth of wrongdoing; so one must choose one or the other, since the covering of charity is too narrow to cover both,[338] and though the highest poverty he must truly despise the world. But because the Lord abhors pride in the strongest way, anyone who follows the Lord has to flee pride totally and must despise oneself; a perfect servant of God abhors through charity all delights and pleasures of the flesh, rejects through poverty the riches of the world and refuses completely through true humility honours and glory.
This is, therefore, the definition of a lesser brother which has been looked for in all that has been said above; it contains nothing superfluous or diminished: the lesser brother is first of all a worshipper of God having a genuine contempt for the world, a careful despiser of himself, and is clothed in a habit that is a sign of the cross.
The last point made is like an accident because although it does not determine the substance it does state and make it clear. According to the Philosopher,[339] ‘an accident leads one to the knowledge of what something is’. So this detail of being clothed in a habit which is a sign of the cross, although it does not make a lesser brother, does identify him and distinguish him from other religious. For although others have the above mentioned virtues, they do not have them in the perfect way Christ showed on the cross, and as the lesser brothers hold on to them, as has been declared in what has gone before; so no other religious habit so clearly bears the sign of the cross as the apt garment of the holy lesser brothers of whom the holy doctor Gregory Nazianzen,[340] many years ago, spoke in a kind of prophetic vein: ‘I longed and sought with eyes intent and cast down to see that choir of saints singing the praise and glory offered to God, who meditate on the law of the Lord day and night,[341] whose lives give everyone an example, a reminder, and a knowledge of the better life, preachers of the law of God and the Gospel of Christ, whose habit is a sign of virtue, bare feet like the Apostles, and whose poor clothing condemns the arrogance and pride of the world’.
Prophetic definition of a lesser brother
The lesser brothers are named by the titles of these virtues because the parts of a definition are named from the thing being defined. If they are called simply ‘the poor of Christ’, they and no others are rightly understood; if they are called ‘brother’ with no further qualification only they would be indicated; however, it is clear to all that the word ‘lesser’ properly applies only to them. A name ought to apply to nothing other than what is referred to in the definition, and the definition ought to be nothing else than what the true name of the thing signifies, according to the text of the Philosopher.[342] Let each person then ‘interpret their name and having defined the name strive to be what it says’ as Jerome said To Nepotian.[343]
10
ON THE DEGREES OF THE VIRTUES
The high perfection of St Francis
All that has been said above, unless I am mistaken, can be clearly understood by an intelligent person, namely, how blessed Father Francis became a follower of our supreme master, the Lord Jesus Christ, and took on the principal virtues in the highest degree, that degree, namely, in which they shone forth in Christ himself at the time of the passion. For this reason he merited to be conformed perfectly to the Crucified and to be adorned wonderfully with his wounds. Reflect, therefore, whoever you are, whether you can understand to what a peak of perfection Christ came who began from the highest degree of the virtues. For my part, because I know only as much as I grasp, as Jerome says[344]: ‘This only do I know, namely, I do not know’, I acknowledge I do not grasp or understand this; but I believe it necessary here to repeat the prophetic and apostolic saying that ‘no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him’.[345] ‘Who has heard of such a thing, or who has seen such things’, Isaiah 66:8.
Seek not what is too difficult
Perhaps it is better to pass over this sign in silence than to explore it with curiosity. For I know it is written that ‘it is not good … to seek honour on top of honour’, Proverbs 25:27, and Sirach 3:21: ‘Neither seek what is too difficult for you, nor investigate what is beyond your power’. I firmly believe that there lies hidden in this sign such a difficult and high mystery that, by reason of its dignity, it is not lawful for us to speak of it. Blessed Francis himself, since he would only disclose with much fear the vision of the Seraph who impressed on him the stigmata, added that ‘the one who appeared to him said some things which’ he did not consider himself worthy to reveal.[346]
Although, therefore, I cannot examine this from within, let me say some things from the outside in a round about way, so as to give some satisfaction from my poor abilities, and also to offer something to the wise who can consider it more deeply as ones who know how to draw much out of little, and to search out carefully the highest starting from the lowest. Nor should what I say prejudice anyone else because each is free to offer in the temple of the Lord whatever each person can or may wish to offer. I offer all I have said and will say to the praise and honour of our Lord Jesus Christ and of our blessed Francis and of all the holy Lesser Brothers who have been, are, and will be, and I humbly beg them to enable me and others to savour the truth and to deign to increase the number who understand truly.
The four degrees of the virtues
To make this a little clearer, one should remember, according to the common opinion of those who investigate many subtle questions about the virtues, that there are four degrees of virtues[347]: the first degree is called political virtues; the second purgative; the third is for those already purified; the fourth and last is called a pattern, that is, a model. These are not degrees of different virtues but of each and of all the virtues. All the virtues are connected nor can one truly be had without another; and whoever loses one knows that all are lost. Perhaps here can be applied the word of James 2:10: ‘Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it’. So, on the Psalm[348]: ‘Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre’, Jerome says[349]: ‘No chord of the virtues may be broken. The lyre has many chords, but if one be broken, it cannot be played. So a holy person, lacking in one virtue, in spite of being holy, cannot utter a word’. And I refer here to the definition of Augustine[350] who states that ‘virtue is the good quality of the mind by which one lives correctly, which no one can put to a wrong purpose, for it is something ‘God does in us without us’; also, according to the Philosopher, Ethica,[351] virtue is ‘what perfects the one having it and makes actions good’.
‘From strength to strength’
The text of Job 31:37: ‘I would give him an account of all my steps’, can be applied to the steps or degrees; on this text Gregory says[352]: ‘One bears witness to the omnipotent God by “all” one’s “steps”, when through the increase of virtues which one accepts, one always gives God the praise of one’s piety’. Gregory also says[353] on Ezekiel 40:6: ‘going up its steps’: ‘There are steps from virtue to virtue when each and every virtue is increased, as it were by steps, and so through the increase of merit is led to perfection’. The Psalmist[354] says of these holy people: ‘They go from strength[355] to strength; the God of gods will be seen in Zion’. It is not to be thought that they go from one virtue to another since, as has been said, they must have all of them, but from strength to strength, that is, from one degree of virtue to another degree of the virtues by going up and progressing according to the steps mentioned before. This is said of those who live in ‘the valley’ of tears ‘in whose heart’ by divine help ‘are the highways’, as it says in the same Psalm. And to what degree is this true? Listen: Until ‘the God of gods will be seen in Zion’, that is, until you come to a clear view of God and the Lord of virtues, for Zion is understood as a vantage point for viewing.[356]
Our inner nature is renewed
When we will see God clearly, then we will be perfectly like him. So 1 John 3:2 says: ‘What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him for we will see him as he is’. Commenting on this text, Augustine[357] says in the letter To Italica: ‘To the degree that we will see, so will we be similar; hence we will see there where we will be similar, and we will be made more like him to the degree that we grow in the knowledge and love of him because if “the outer nature is wasting away”, the “inner nature is being renewed”’. And Paul says, 2 Corinthians 3:18: ‘And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit’.
He grew in age and wisdom
This is to grow to the full stature of Christ, according to which our inner nature, ‘created according to the likeness of God, is being renewed day by day’;[358] it grows in virtue until it arrives at perfection, to the measure of the age of the full stature of Christ, as the Apostle says in Ephesians 4:13: ‘Until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ’. So it is written in Luke 2:40 that: ‘The child Jesus grew and became strong, filled with wisdom’, before God and the people. But is there a person who does not grow in age in childhood? Why then should this be understood as something wonderful about the Lord Jesus? I say this to you who understand in a bodily way that Jesus grew in age. Understand that he advanced in the age of his soul, and his soul became great because of his great and strong deeds of virtue. Likewise, it was said of John the Baptist while still a child in Luke 1:15 that this child ‘will be great in the sight of the Lord’, and in the same place[359]: he ‘grew and became strong’ in spirit. Ambrose says[360] on this text: ‘John knew nothing of the hindrances of childhood, he who while in the womb of his mother commenced from the measure of the age of the perfect fullness of Christ’.
Virtues make us like God
Therefore, this is the final and supreme degree of virtue by which you become in virtue like God and the Lord. So the Apostle says in Romans 8:29: ‘Be conformed to the image of his Son’.
In accord with a reasonable and true reflection, in so far as something is said to share more in the nature of something else, to that degree is it said to approach the centre and origin of that nature, not in terms of place and space, but in likeness or imitation. In so far as something shares in the nature of light, to that degree is it made more like the source and origin of light, namely, the sun. Conversely, in so far as something is said to be more like the sun, to that degree is it known to share more fully in the nature of light. Likewise, in so far as people grow in virtue, to that degree do they come closer to the peak of virtues, to their source and origin which, according to the Philosophers, is called ‘the virtue of virtues’. The likeness is not in terms of place and space because the Lord of virtues is everywhere but in likeness and imitation. Hence Bernard, in the book De conscientia,[361] says” ‘In so far as you have more virtue in yourself, to that degree are you nearer to God and bear more strongly the likeness of your Creator’. Hence virtues in their highest degree are called models or copies, because they copy in a perfect way the virtue of virtues. Ambrose says, in the book Flight from the world[362]: ‘To be like God is to have justice, wisdom and to be perfect in virtue’. For, as stated in the book De causis,[363] ‘all virtues depend on the single first virtue which is the virtue of virtues’.
Happiness is to be immortal
If anyone were to reach the degree of perfection by which the virtues are possessed namely, the degree called models and copies, such a person would be perfectly virtuous and blessed. And so the Philosophers said, not, as some think, erring in this, that a perfectly virtuous person is truly happy; they placed happiness in the completeness of virtues because the effect of virtues is to make happy.
They were wrong, however, in thinking that this happiness can be had in the present life; this is clearly false, as is clear to all and needs no proof since we see that all die in the same way. As do the learned, so do the unlettered die, and for both, namely, wise and stupid, there is ‘the same fate’ as stated in Ecclesiastes 2:14, because ‘the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same’, as in Ecclesiastes 3:19. ‘There is for all one entrance into life, and one way out’, Wisdom 7:6. But mortality and perfect happiness cannot go together. So Jerome on Beati Immaclati, says,[364] that blessed and immortal are the same, and Augustine, De Trinitate,[365] that: ‘Blessed without immortality cannot be’; he proves this at length in chapter 8. So it follows that one who is not immortal cannot be blessed; one who is unable to lose or fears to lose what one has, can never be happy. Hence Augustine, The City of God, says[366]: ‘To be blessed is to enjoy with ease the unchangeable good which is God, and to remain in God for eternity without being held back by any doubt’; and in the Confessions,[367] he says: ‘you will be blessed if, beset by no unease, you will rejoice in that one truth through which all things are true’. One who fears is not perfect ‘in love’ because fear is a torment, ‘but perfect love casts out fear’, as stated in 1 John 4:18. Torment necessarily makes one miserable and unhappy. So it is clear to everyone that it is impossible to be happy and yet fear, as the same time to be both happy and unhappy, blessed and miserable.
Because we are good we do good things
Virtues are not said to be given by God but a virtuous habit is acquired by frequent acts. Hence the greatest of the Philosophers, Aristotle,[368] says that one who is perverse, but is ked to act in a better way, becomes virtuous. This is not completely true for in truth virtuous actions are only possible when empowered by the habit of the virtue. Augustine says,[369] we are not good because we do good things; on the contrary because we are good, we do good things. Wisdom says, Proverbs 8:14, speaking specifically of the four virtues: ‘I have good advice and sound wisdom; I have insight, I have strength’. On this text a Gloss says[370]: ‘Human presumption is not to exalt itself; only the Wisdom of God has the fullness of the virtues and human weakness accepts from this Wisdom whatever it has of virtue’. Sp Proverbs rightly continues: ‘By me kings reign’ etc. Also in wisdom 8:7 there is said of the Wisdom of God: ‘se teaches self-control’, that is, temperance, ‘and prudence, justice, and courage’, that is fortitude; ‘nothing in life is more profitable for mortals than these’. In a Gloss Rabanus says[371]: ‘He names these as the four principal virtues which no one has unless God, the source of all virtues, confers them at any time, by any law, by any people; for Christ alone, the virtue and wisdom of the Father, ‘found the whole way to knowledge and gave her to his servant Jacob’.
Who is said to be truly just?
And I accept here that virtues, as said above, perfect the person having them and make deeds good; they make a person virtuous and lead to true happiness. Augustine, Soliloquies, says[372]: ‘Perfect virtue is the reason for reaching to the very end aimed at by a blessed life’. The virtues are not merely habits, as he Philosophers asserted, who ‘holding to the outward form of godliness’ were completely unaware of its ‘power’; for which reason ‘suffering shipwreck in the faith’[373] they are totally excluded from true happiness. Nor is everyone who does an act of justice to be called just; even the unjust sometimes do this. One is truly called just who, loving justice, has the will and purpose to act rightly in every circumstance and this only from a love of justice, even if an act of justice is not always done. So Augustine, in the letter To Armentarius says[374]: Justice is to wish perfectly; for justice to be perfect nothing more is required than a perfect will’; and in the letter To Macedonius[375]: ‘character is usually judged from what a person loves, for only good or wrong love makes good or bad character’; and in The Trinity, he says[376]: ‘That person is just who knows and loves justice perfectly, even when there is no outside pressure to act justly’.
Justice is correctness of the will
So Wisdom 1:1 says: ‘Love righteousness,[377] you rulers of the earth’; Gloss[378]: ‘Do not act alone’. Justice is not the correctness of the action, but of the will, according to the definition of Anselm[379]: ‘Justice is correctness of the will kept for its own sake, that is, for the sake of correctness’. Sight is not called keen because one sees keenly, but rather the contrary; one sees keenly because the eye is keen. So one is not called just for acting justly, but rather because, being just, one can act only in a just way. Augustine says in Super Psalmum 110[380]: that ‘people cannot act justly unless they first are justified’. The same things can be said and held of the other virtues. The Lord says in Matthew 7:17: ‘Every good tree bears good fruit but the bad tree bears bad fruit’.
The trees of the soul according to Origen
Origen, in the last homily in Homilies on Leviticus,[381] shows that these trees are to be understood of virtues, saying: ‘We have trees within us which can be good or bad: not a fig or apple tree or a vine, but a tree called justice, another prudence, another fortitude, and another temperance. If you wish learn of many more which perhaps it was thought fit to put in the paradise of God. There is a tree of piety, another of wisdom, another of discipline, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but especially the tree of life. Do you not think that the heavenly Father, as a gardener, cultivates such cuttings in your soul and puts such plants in your mind, where good trees cannot bear bad fruit? Justice cannot bear the fruit of injustice, and so on for the others. But if on the contrary you have within you a root of malice, it cannot bear good fruit; if there be a plant of folly, it will not produce the flower of wisdom; if there is a tree of injustice or evil, never is such able to enjoy good fruits’. In Luke 6:45 the Lord says: ‘The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks’.
Of these four cardinal virtues Augustine says in the letter To Macedonius[382]: ‘From these virtues given by God, a good life is lived now, and afterwards comes its reward which can only be eternal, and so a blessed life is concluded; these virtues are here in actions, there in their effect, here in doing, there in reward, here in duty, there completed’.
The virtues of St Francis
Blessed Francis, as shown above, had in the highest degree the virtues which shone forth during the crucifixion of Christ. Because the highest degree of the virtues is that they be models or likenesses of the source of virtues, it was necessary for blessed Francis to become perfectly like Christ in his passion and crucifixion; not a model or likeness of Christ as a glorified man or God - because such a likeness which would make a person perfectly blessed cannot be had perfectly in this life, as said already. Francis, however, has this now as he lives in glory in the company of he saints, engulfed in the light of glory, made blessed by the clear vision of the eternal light, eternally perfected by a sharing in the divinity. Francis was like Christ at the time when Christ showed the perfection of the virtues in the weakness of his flesh and suffering, which flesh he assumed for us, as declared above. And so blessed Francis not only in soul but in the limbs of his body, namely, the hands and feet and side, was decorated with the marks of the wounds of Christ and so was perfectly conformed to the Crucified.
PART II
I
JOHN ON THE SIXTH SEAL
On the sixth age of the world
I think Christ showed to the beloved disciple, namely, to John the Evangelist, to whom heavenly secrets were revealed,[383] the sacred mystery, the high sacrament, ‘that has been hidden throughout the ages, but was revealed at the end of the ages’;[384] it was revealed to John in Revelation, chapter 7, in the opening of the sixth seal. According to the saints this seal is to be understood as the time of the sixth age of the world, that is, the present time from Christ to the end of the world. In the first creation, after the completion of all the other works, the first humans were made on the sixth day in ‘the image and likeness’ of God,[385] but they sinned on the same day, because on that day it is said that God ‘rested from all the work that he had done’, Genesis 2:2. In a similar way, the Son of God, the beginning of all things, was made man, the final and last of the works of God; this happened at the end of the age, namely, in the sixth age of the world and humans were restored to paradise on the same day. This is how some understand the word spoken to the thief in Luke 23:43: ‘Today you will be with me in paradise’; by this word the door to enter paradise was unlocked for all who believe in and acknowledge the Lord; hence Paul says, Galatians 4:4: ‘But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law’; on the sixth day he became incarnate and on the same day, some years later, he was crucified and died, then rested in the grave on the following Sabbath. So God says, Isaiah 44:6: ‘I am the first and I am the last; beside me there is no god’ or true saviour; and Revelation 1:8 says ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, the beginning and the end, that is, God and man, God the beginning of all things, man the last of all things because made last.
St Francis, a second Adam
It is said in 1 John 2:18: ‘Children, it is the last hour!’ And Paul says, 1 Corinthians 10:11: We are the ones ‘upon whom the ends of the ages have come’. This is the last time, namely, the sixth age of the world, after which follows a sabbath which has no evening, a sabbath which is the perfect rest of the saints and which will not end in nightfall. This is the celebration of the sabbath, poorly understood by the Jews, which, as stated in Hebrews 4:9, ‘remains for the people of God’. On the sixth day God made man in God’s image and likeness’, a likeness which is in the soul, not the body; ‘God is spirit’[386] and the image of God is in the soul. God became man in the sixth age, on the sixth day, so that by dying he might redeem the humans who were made on the sixth day and who, by sinning on the same day, were cast out of paradise. God then made blessed Francis in the image and likeness of the body which Christ had assumed; the body of Francis had the same appearance as did Christ’s on the sixth day when he died on account of our sins. Christ again took up this body to justify us and restore us to paradise by his resurrection, because he was ‘handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification’, as stated in Romans 4:25.
St Clare, another Eve
Nor is it free of mystery that God on the same day created for the first man ‘a helper as his partner’.[387] Because God also made for blessed Francis ‘a helper as his partner’ from his side, that is, from his own people, from his own town. This is the most blessed virgin Clare who can be called woman,[388] that is, acting strongly because her virtuous deeds, shining with the clear light of the virtues, light up this world with a wondrous light. This is that woman who, according to the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 11:6, covers her head with a veil because blessed Clare, a virgin dedicated to God, since she was of his Order, wore a veil as her habit. But the man, blessed Francis, did not cover his head but had it shaved and bald because he is ‘the image and reflection’ of God by reason of his clear likeness to the crucified Christ our God, a reflection which shone out in him alone; and hence this man is tightly ‘the head’, the guided of the ‘woman’ who is ‘the reflection of man’,[389] following his steps and his guiding exhortations. Hence image is a kind of imitation, for the Philosopher says[390] that ‘an image is brought about by imitation’. This is that ‘capable’ woman who, according to the wisdom of Solomon, comes from ‘far and from the uttermost coasts’,[391] who ‘struck’[392] the poisonous head of the ancient serpent which had filled the whole world with its deadly poison through the charming of the senses. This is the woman who with her own hands ‘plants a vineyard’, which produces such wonderful wine that, according to a clear prophecy, she does not cease to bring forth ‘young women’, ‘the chaste generation with glory’,[393] the beauty of whose brightness the wisdom of Philo both admired and venerated.
John sees in a vision of the mind
John says in the opening of this seal[394]: ‘I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God’. Think carefully, note the words, recognize the mysteries; Jerome says[395] that every word of his book is full of meaning and laden with signs. John ‘saw’, not with his physical eyes which see visible things, nor in imagination in which is seen likenesses of bodies as in dreams, but by a third kind of seeing, by which things are seen by a gazing of the mind.[396] The prophets in the Old Testament were said to see in this way, that is, to understand; Jerome, in the beginning of Super Isaiam, says[397] they understood because ‘it was not a voice striking the air which came to them but God spoke to them in their soul’. Also in Prologus magnus super Apocalypsim he says[398]: ‘John saw not only images in his spirit but he understood their meaning in his mind’. And Adamantius, the expositor, in Glossa super principium Apocalypsis,[399] says: ‘John did not see these things in bodily form but by the inspiration of a divine flame discerned with his mind signs apt for expressing events’.
2
ANOTHER ANGEL
What did he see? He says, ‘another angel’. Why did he not say simply an angel, as he often does in the same book, but he says ‘another angel?’ Nor has he referred back to some particular angel, so that he could say another angel making a distinction from the one mentioned earlier. What does he mean when he says ‘another’? I think the meaning is that what John saw was not an angel but ‘another angel’. This is a way of speaking familiar to us: if we see a person who is too officious, we say this is another Alexander; if we see a person notably wise, we say this is another Solomon; these are clearly not Solomon nor Alexander, but like them, having the same qualities.
St Francis, like an angel
John saw ‘another angel’, not indeed an angel, but a man, namely, blessed Francis like an angel. Before his conversion he showed angelic qualities of purity of heart, the guarding of bodily integrity, and he lived innocently and simply, in his father’s house, like the patriarch Jacob.[400] It is commonly said of such who meekly, humbly and innocently live among people, that they are other angels.
St Francis, a lesser preacher
Or perhaps he is called ‘another angel’ to distinguish him from any other angel, because blessed Francis is called ‘another’ by the ‘angel of great counsel’,[401] who is Christ, of whom Francis was made an exact likeness, perfectly ‘comprehending his footsteps’,[402] as shown above. And so John says of him, Revelation 14, 6:
‘I saw another angel’, that is, a lesser preacher, who is other than Christ, carrying out his office, as a Gloss explains;
‘flying’, that is, removing himself from things of the earth;
‘in midheaven’, that is, in the whole church, which he attracts by words and example, or by the middle way, that is through the catholic faith, not forming a sect, nor turning aside to the right or left of the true way which is Christ;
‘with’, that is, from the office given him; ‘an eternal gospel’, that is a preaching promising things eternal;
‘to proclaim to those who live on the earth’, that is, to those living and holding the world in contempt. All this is explained in the Gloss.[403]
Also, he could have been called another angel to distinguish him from the one who went before Christ to prepare the way, namely John the Baptist, of whom the Saviour says, Mt 11, 10: ‘Behold I am sending my messenger[404] ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you’; because, as is clear from what has been said above, John was truly a lesser brother, but blessed Francis having ‘the seal of the living God’[405] is called ‘another’, that is, distinct from John the Baptist.
St Francis, the herald of God
If we wish to say that in our language ‘angel’ means the same as messenger, this will not be in any way contrary to what I have said. blessed Francis is that ‘slave’ whom the Lord ‘at the time for the dinner’, that is, in the evening of the world, sent out ‘to say to those who had been invited’, that is, called to life, to hasten to the meal of the nuptials of the Lamb, ‘for everything is ready now’, as said in Luke 14, 17. Of this the words of John in Revelation 19:17 can be understood: ‘Then I saw an angel standing in the sun’, that is, in Christ, ‘and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly in mid heaven’, that is, to the faithful contemplating things heavenly and remaining in the true and sincere faith of the Church: ‘Come, gather for the great supper of God’.
3
ASCENDING FROM THE RISING OF THE SUN
But this other angel is said to ‘ascend from the rising of the sun’, which makes clear the state of Francis’ conversion and way of life. What do you think is the reason why this other angel is said to ‘ascend’, not stand in ‘the rising of the sun’, which indeed is the region of light and warmth? In many texts of Scriptures, also in the book of Revelation,[406] you find angels standing. And what does it mean to ‘ascend’ rather than to descend? Jacob claims that he saw the angels of God ascending and descending, Genesis 28, 12, and in many other texts of Scripture[407] you find angels descending. What, further, is the significance of ‘from the rising of the sun’, not from its setting or another part of the world? I think that each of these points is to be pondered if I would wish to have some understanding of this other angel about whom these things are said.
Born from the rising of the sun, not from Christ
I have heard some claim that ‘the rising of the sun’ refers to the birth of Christ, and blessed Francis is said to ‘ascend from the rising of the sun’, because his conversion and way of life began from the birth of the sun of justice, Christ our Lord. But I boldly deny this, I always refute it. It has been shown above that blessed Francis accepted the call from Christ not as a youth, but at an age when his virtues, as in a strong person, shone forth more perfectly. For although Christ the Lord was always perfect, he sometimes, in sympathy with the weak, ‘acted as one who is weak, as appears in his flight and the use of a purse, so that both to the perfect and to the imperfect’ he might give an example and ‘he did not condemn the ways of the weak.’[408] But blessed father Francis was not one weak among the imperfect, but as a strong athlete followed Christ in the most perfect way.
From the rising of the sun, that is, from the east
I think ‘from the rising of the sun’, that is, from the east, should be understood as referring to the wealth and prosperity of this world. According to the Philosophers and some saints it is spiritual forces which move the heavenly bodies in their orbits, and these forces are thought to reside in the east where movement first appears. The Philosopher calls the east the right side of the sky, for in it is a more powerful and nobler source of light and warmth than in any other part of the world. The birth and death of all earthly things depend on the movement of these heavenly bodies, especially of the sun; so the Philosopher[409] says that, because the generation and corruption in things occurs according to the movement of the sun in an oblique circle, the sun is called the father of plants.[410] Rightly then is the eastern region said to be more fertile and abundant in things precious than other parts of the world. The paradise of delights was placed in that region; and we know definitely that gold abounds there as Scripture[411] testifies: ‘and the gold of that land is good’; there also are discovered precious stones, and other valuable goods are brought from there. The Philosopher[412] also says that rivers, which flow towards the east, yield gold and precious stones.
The east, a land of riches
For this reason it is correct to think of this eastern region as ‘the rising of the sun’ representing the wealth and prosperity of this world. Job 1: 3 says: ‘This man was the greatest of all the people of the east’; a Gloss[413] on this text says: ‘That is, richer in wealth, because the eastern people are considered to be more wealthy’. So ‘the sixth angel dried up the great river Euphrates’, which means fertility, ‘in order to prepare the way for the kings from the east’, as stated in Revelation 16:12. These kings are the poor of Christ, to whom belong the kingdom of heaven; in the judgment they are to be placed on thrones, because ‘he gives judgment to the poor’, he ‘places kings on the throne’, and they shall ‘be bound with the cords of poverty’, as stated in Job 36:6-8.[414] Whoever, therefore, seeks riches and prosperity goes down to the east, and sets out towards the rising of the sun; those who have these things, holding on to them and loving them, stand in the rising of the sun and dally in the east.
St Francis departs from the east
Blessed Francis does not stand in the east, nor go down to the rising of the sun, but ‘ascends from the rising of the sun’, departs from the rising of the sun, flees the east, disdains the world, and completely leaves behind the prosperity and riches of the world. Genesis 13:11 says: ‘And Lot chose to himself the country about the Jordan, and he departed from the east’.[415] Lot means ‘being free of or turning from;’ Lot represents blessed Francis who, to be open freely to God, ‘departed from the east’, leaving behind all the riches of the world. He is Elisha upon whom ‘a double share of the spirit’ of Elijah rested. When Elisha went up from there to Bethel, that is to the Order of Lesser Brothers, which is truly a house of God, as shown above, small boys jeered at his baldness, a sign of the poverty of Christ in the place of execution,[416] calling out with derision: ‘Go away, baldhead! Go away, baldhead!’, 2 Kings 2:23. Truly he is bald, shorn, stripped of all the things of the world; which is literally what the young people did to blessed Francis in the beginning of his conversion, not only jeering in words, but also ‘threw stones and mud from the streets at him’, as recorded in his Legend.’[417]
Forty two, the number of the power of the beast
These are people young in understanding, whose ‘wisdom does not come
down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish’, as stated in James 3:15,
earthly in avarice, unspiritual in wantonness, and devilish in pride. These are
‘the descendants of Hagar, who seek for understanding on the earth, the merchants’
of the world, who ‘have not learned the way to wisdom’. And what follows? ‘They
perished because they had no wisdom, they perished through their folly’.[418] Those show their
folly who open their mouth ‘to utter blasphemies’.[419] Wherefore ‘two
she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys’.[420] This is the number of
the power of the beast, to which ‘was given a mouth uttering blasphemous
words’, as in Revelation 13: 5: ‘It was allowed to exercise authority for
forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God,
blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven’;
they blaspheme only those who leave the world for the sake of God and seek
heaven. But in hell they will recognize their stupidity and will say: ‘We thought that their lives were madness and that their end was
without honour. Why have they been numbered among the children of God? And why
is their lot
among the saints? What has our arrogance profited us? And what good has our
boasted wealth brought us? All these things have vanished like a shadow’,
as stated in Wisdom 5:4-9.
The bald ascend, not descend
One is truly bald who is called ‘to weeping
and to baldness and putting on sackcloth’, as in Isaiah
22:12; one who uses ‘instead of a sash, a rope; and
instead of well-set hair, baldness; and instead of a rich robe, a binding of
sackcloth’, as stated in Isaiah 3: 24.[421]
For God ‘raised up the just one from the east’, and ‘called him to follow him’,
as stated in Isaiah 41:2.[422]
He is said to ‘ascend’, not descend, because you will not find it said in
Scripture that anyone ascends from a good place to evil, but rather descends,
nor that anyone descends from a bad place to good, but rather ascends. So
Scripture speaks of going up from Egypt, and going down to Egypt,[423] as in Lk 10, 30: ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers’, etc. Search the Scriptures and
you will see that what I say is true.
4
OF THE LIVING GOD
God is a living God
This other angel is said to have the seal of the living God. Hence
there follows:
‘having the seal of the living God’, which shows the state of the perfection
and development which brought blessed Francis to an exact likeness of the
crucified One. We are not told what this seal might be but it is left to us to
search further. For myself I am more interested in the meaning of ‘the living
God’. Would it not have been sufficient to say only ‘of God’, but he adds
‘living’? Could God be other than living? I do not think so. According to
Augustine, Christian Instruction,[424]
‘all who think of God are thinking of something living’. The Gentiles who
worshipped idols, which according to the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 8:4 do not
‘really exist’, thought of them as gods and also as living. So Bel, the idol of
the Babylonians, which the holy prophet Daniel destroyed, was believed to be
and was venerated as a ‘living God’ by the Babylonians who worshipped it, as
stated in Daniel 14:5[425] ‘But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God’, as in Jeremiah
10:10 and, according to the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 8:5, for many nations in
ancient times there were ‘many gods and many lords’, but for those converted to
the true God there is but one God and Lord.
Nothing can be better than God
This God cannot be other than living, for according to the Philosopher,[426] for living things to
be alive is to exist. If then God is not living, undoubtedly there is no God,
just as a person not living is not a person. Further, according to the common
understanding, God is that of which nothing better can be thought, as Anselm says,
in the Monologion;[427]
and Augustine, in the Confessions,[428]
says: ‘No one, 0 Lord, has ever or ever will be able to think of something
better than yourself, who are the highest and best good’; likewise, in Christian
Instruction[429]:
‘All eagerly contend for the excellence of God nor can anyone be found who
believes there could be anything better than this God, and so all agree this
God to be what they put before all other things’. Anything living is so much
better than something not living, as Anselm in the Monologion,[430] and Augustine, in The
Literal Meaning of Genesis, say;[431]
so ‘a living dog is better than a dead lion’, as written in Ecclesiastes 9:4,
because life belongs only to the most noble forms. Hence, God undoubtedly has
to be living.
Inexact adjectives used of God
It is to be noted also that all adjectives such as living, wise, powerful, good, great and so on, as Dionysius states,[432] are used inexactly of God. All these imply a joining together and development; but the divine essence, totally simple and completely perfect in itself, is truly simple in the sense that it is what it has. Augustine, The City of God,[433] says: ‘Within the Godhead God is whatever belongs to God, so God is said to be living by having life and God is that life; for this reason also God’s nature is said to be simple, when what it has is not other than itself, not other than God’. God cannot develop nor be added to nor receive any perfection from outside; otherwise, as the Philosopher says, Metaphysicorum liber[434] God would own something, that is, would receive something from someone nobler; what perfects something is nobler that what is being perfected. But God is most noble, perfecting all things, and cannot be perfected by another. This I say is truly God. So is has to be said that these adjectives in no way imply a development or joining together in God, but rather an abstraction and simple essence; God is wise, that is wisdom itself, powerful because power itself, a living God, that is, God’s life is God. God neither lives from another, nor accepts life from another. Augustine, Christian Instruction[435] says: ‘Only those who think of God as life itself do not think absurd and unworthy things of God’. For a human being is rightly said to be living, even though it is the soul and not the human being which is alive, with a life received from God, not from oneself, Genesis 2:7: ‘The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’.
God lives from the Godhead, not from any other
Further, as Boethius says in the book De Trinitate,[436] ‘all the categories in God are God’s substance, with the exception of relationship’; all the categories in God represent substance, the only exception being the relation by which the Persons are distinguished. Hence the wisdom of God is the essence of God, and likewise power is God’s essence. So Augustine, Confessions[437]: ‘For you, O Lord, it is not one thing to be and another to be living’. And as the essence of God is God, which is not something received from another, so God is life itself not life received from another. Every essence depends on the essence of God, which is first and highest, and whatever is alive has life from God; from the life of God, which is the first and highest, all life comes, so that whatever is living, lives from God and has life and being. So Augustine, Confessions,[438] says: ‘You, O Lord God, are the life of souls, the life of living things, living from yourself, and you do not change, life of my soul.
God is life
Therefore, if God is life, and in God essence is life, what does it mean to say ‘of the living God’? Here I think it should be noted that God, the true life, took on death. Death is inflicted on us through sin and death could be destroyed in no more effective way than by the true life which death could not overcome; the true life took on death into itself and killed it: ‘Death is then dead when life was dead on the tree’.[439] As Augustine says in he sermon De martyribus which begins ‘In omnibus Scripturis’[440]: ‘On the cross of Christ death was killed; the lord is always alive, but to kill death he was clothed in death. Death could not die except in life: bitterness does not die except in sweetness, cold does not die except in heat, death does not die except in life. But who is life? Christ our God. This life was clothed in death, died and rose; the whole life was killed by death and swallowed up by death, but life rose’.
Christ is clothed in death
A person while living in this mortal life cannot be said to be truly alive. Who can claim to be truly living while fearing death’s approach at any hour and all the time hastening towards death? So Gregory, in a homily says[441] ‘Is not the daily weakness of corruption nothing other than a certain closeness of death?’ And James 4:15 says[442]: ‘What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes’. And that wise woman compares our life to water flowing and running when she says, 2 Samuel 14:14: ‘We must all die; for we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered’. Note the wisdom of the woman who truly speaks as one of the wise women.[443] For just as water continues to run on, so each of us continues to die until we arrive at the point of death, and then we do not die but are dead. The Philosopher[444] considers that at the point of death there is no movement, but rather one has moved; movement is while on the way or in he middle of something. As when something is decaying, from the moment it begins to decay it is said to be decaying; when at the point of decay, then it is not decaying, but has decayed; likewise of death which is a decay. While we are on the way to the point of death, we are truly said to be dying; but when we will be at that point, then we are not said to be dying, but to be dead, according to Wisdom 5:13[445]: ‘So we also, as soon we are born, ceased to be, as when an arrow is shot at a target’.
Each person dies continuously
Who then can be said to be living who, while continuously living in death, is dying? So Augustine, The City of God[446]: ‘From the fact that someone begins in this body which will die, there is never question that death may come; one’s changeableness for the whole time of life, if indeed it is to be called life, sees to this and one comes to death; for whatever time one has lived is taken from the span of life and daily what remains becomes less, so that the remaining span of this life is nothing other than a journey to death. For what else could it be in the days, hours and single moments until death is complete and one begins then to be after death which, while life continued, was in death? Never, therefore, during life is one living from the fact that one in this body is dying rather than living’. For the sentence of death imposed by God can be true and can in no instance be infringed, Genesis 2:17: ‘For in the day you eat of it you shall die’.
Life a journey towards death
The first parents did not die immediately when they tasted the forbidden fruit but they immediately began to die, continuously began to corrupt, and immediately experienced the necessity of death. So Augustine, in book 1 De baptismo parvulorum[447]: When Adam sinned in not obeying God, he experienced the disorder of a sudden and pernicious corruption, and lost the stability in which he was created; going though the ageing process he would move towards death, even though he might live afterwards for many years. Life was not lost immediately or at that point time, but it slips away ceaselessly as something which, by constant change, moves not towards completion but towards a wasting away’.
So the Apostle says in Romans 8:10: ‘The body is dead because of sin’; he does not say has to die, but ‘is dead’; one can be said to be dead while always expecting death from which there can be no escape. So John, Revelation 3:1, says: ‘You have a name of being alive, but you are dead; as if to say, although you may say you are alive while in this mortal life, you are not truly alive but rather dying. For ‘life is a continuous action flowing from a tranquil being and for ever’.[448]
More dead than alive
Therefore, all things subject to time, are movable and changeable nor can they remain motionless; and since time26 is only the ‘measurement of motion’ which is incomplete in itself, it is necessary that they be corruptible and weakened by a continuous corrupting; for this reason they cannot endure for ever since everything corruptible at some time is brought to nought. So Sir 14, 2027 says: ‘Every work decays and ceases to exist, and the one who made it will pass away with it’. And Augustine, Confessions,28 says: ‘There are some who rise up and kill and increase in order to be complete, and yet once complete they grow old and die; the quicker they increased in life, the faster they lose it’. Time puts at a distance what is; so time is said to be the cause of corruption. So Wis 2, 5 says: ‘For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow’; and Augustine, in The City of God,29 says: ‘God handed humans to time after they sinned’, that is to continuous corruption. So in Rev 10, 630 the angel ‘swore by him that lives for ever and ever, that time shall be no longer’ for the saints who will be impassible and immortal; because of the evils from which death continuously feeds, it is written in the Psalm31: ‘their time shall be for ever’.
More dead than alive
Therefore, all things subject to time, are movable and changeable nor can they remain motionless; and since time[449] is only the ‘measurement of motion’ which is incomplete in itself, it is necessary that they be corruptible and weakened by a continuous corrupting; for this reason they cannot endure for ever since everything corruptible at some time is brought to nought. So Sirach 14: 20[450] says: ‘Every work decays and ceases to exist, and the one who made it will pass away with it’. And Augustine, Confessions,[451] says: ‘There are some who rise up and kill and increase in order to be complete, and yet once complete they grow old and die; the quicker they increased in life, the faster they lose it’. Time puts at a distance what is; so time is said to be the cause of corruption. So Wisdom 2:5 says: ‘For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow’; and Augustine, in The City of God,[452] says: ‘God handed humans to time after they sinned’, that is to continuous corruption. So in Revelation 10:6[453] the angel ‘swore by him that lives for ever and ever, that time shall be no longer’ for the saints who will be impassible and immortal; because of the evils from which death continuously feeds, it is written in the Psalm[454]: ‘their time shall be for ever’.
True life comes after the resurrection
But in the resurrection when we will take
up immortal and everlasting bodies,
we will indeed be living and can truly be said to be alive. Our Lord Jesus
Christ
wishing to prove the resurrection of the dead says, Matthew
22:31, Mark 12:26, Luke 20:37:
‘And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to
you by God, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”?
He is God not of the dead, but of the living’. From this the Lord wishes to
conclude that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob must rise so as to be truly living, and
he would be their God. The Apostle says 1 Corinthians 15:24-28: God will ‘be all in all’, ‘when he hands over the kingdom
to God the Father; the last enemy to be destroyed is death. When this
perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on
immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been
swallowed up in victory”’,[455]
because ‘we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is
mortal may be swallowed up by life’, 2 Corinthians 5:4.
Christ is truly the living God
Christ, therefore, is said to be truly living according to the humanity after he rose from the dead on the third day; he killed death in himself, so that it would ‘no longer have dominion over him’. The Apostle says Romans 6:9-10: ‘We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God’. ‘The vanquishing of death is nothing other than the resurrection from the dead’, as holy Hilary says in The Trinity;[456] wherefore he is called a living God. For Christ ‘abolished death and brought life and immortality to light’, as stated in 2 Timothy 1:10. Ambrose, in De Trinitate[457]: ‘How could the bonds of death be loosened except through the death of a body? For death was killed by Christ taking on death’. Hosea 13:14 says: ‘0 death, I will be thy death’;[458] and Jerome[459] says on a Psalm: ‘Who has kept us among the living’: ‘Lest we be destroyed by a perpetual death, death killed death, that is the death of Christ killed our death’. So the angels say to the women seeking Christ in the sepulchre, Luke 24:5: ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?’
He always lives to make intercession
So Christ is rightly said to be a living God, God according to the divinity, and living according to the humanity now truly risen and for ever victorious. For through him death is destroyed and life restored, as the Apostle says 1 Corinthians 15:22: ‘as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ’. He rose from the dead, ‘the first fruits of those who have died, for since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being’, so that he might give us the hope of rising - because if Christ is risen, we too will rise, and ‘if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised’, as the Apostle concludes, 1 Corinthians 15:16. Consequently ‘many bodies of the saints were raised’ with him ‘and entered the holy city and appeared to many’, as stated Matthew 27:53. Because, although we may ‘have died’, our ‘life is hidden with Christ in God’, as stated in Colossians 3:3 which would show that humans can return to paradise. And so his true humanity is placed above the heavens at the right hand of God, where, according to the Apostle, Hebrews 7:25: ‘he always lives to make intercession for’ us; he ‘will give life to our mortal bodies through the Spirit that dwells in’ us, according to Romans 8:11; if, however, ‘we walk in newness of life, as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. For, if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his’, because if we have died with Christ, ‘we will also live with him’, as Paul says, Romans 6:4-8. For Christ by rising from the dead swallowed ‘down death, that we might be made heirs of life everlasting’, as stated in 1 Peter 3,22[460]. Hence Revelation 1:17-18 says: ‘I am the first and the last’, that is God and man, as explained above, ‘I was dead, and see, I am alive for ever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades’. And so when we pray, we always say of Christ: ‘Who lives and reigns for ever and ever’, that is for eternity; because, although a period of time is set and determined, when the word is doubled and we say for ever and ever, according to Rabbi Moyses,[461] eternity is meant.
What is the seal of the living God
The seal of this God, ‘who lives for ever and ever’,[462] that is of the true God and the man Jesus Christ rising from the dead, is on the other ‘angel ascending from the rising of the sun’, namely, blessed Francis, since John ‘says having the seal of the living God’. I consider it most important to decide what this seal might be, because Scripture speaks of many signs. It is not the sign given by the angel to the shepherds at the birth of Christ, when it is said in Luke 2:12: ‘This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger’. By this sign Christ is found in the form of the imperfect and weak, as one whose infant and weak limbs are wrapped in small cloths, lying in a manger under the roof of the shelter; this implies he could be recognized by simple people. The beasts, namely, the ox and the donkey associated with the manger, are a symbol of the simplicity both of the Jews and Gentiles. The prophet reproached the unbelieving for not recognizing Christ, Isaiah 1:3: ‘The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand’; on this text a Gloss says,[463] by the ox, a clean animal, ‘the people of Judah, who carried the yoke of the law, is understood’, while the donkey, an unclean animal suitable for burdens, ‘represents the Gentile people weighed down with burdens’.
It is to be noted that a sign is something which is apparent to the senses ‘but which brings to mind something other than how it appears to the senses’, as Augustine says, in Christian Instruction.[464] We will see, therefore, what this sign, which the other angel is said to have, brings to mind. Surely, only that of which it is a sign.
The seal or sign of Christ rising
It is said to be the sign of ‘the living God’, that is of the true
God and of the man Jesus Christ risen from the dead. When the Scribes and
Pharisees asked the Lord for a sign, saying, Matthew 12:38-40: ‘Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you’, because the
‘Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom’, 1 Corinthians
1:22, the Lord replied: ‘An evil and adulterous
generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of
the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the
belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man
will be in the heart of the earth’.
And John 2:18-21: ‘Destroy this
temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But he was speaking of the temple
of his body’. Do you note that he says he will give no sign by which he can be
recognized other than the resurrection from the dead? This is the sign foretold
through Isaiah 7: 11: ‘Ask a
sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven’. By his
resurrection from the dead, Christ rose from the depths of hell to above the
heavens; he took away the gates of hell and opened the eternal gates of
paradise, which ‘with death destroyed opened for us the way to eternity’.[465]
The apostle Thomas, a true peripatetic
We must look for the sign by which Christ
risen from the dead can be recognized. Pay attention to the blessed and
glorious apostle Thomas, who, to take away all doubt from the hearts of the
faithful concerning the resurrection of Christ, most carefully wanted to look
for this sign. He became a true peripatetic, a searcher for truth, so as to
meet all the fallacies of the unbelievers, and to show clearly to the senses,
as if analytically, the acknowledged truth. In John 20:25-29, when the Lord, after the resurrection, came to the
disciples in the absence of Thomas, and the disciples had said to him ‘We have
seen the Lord’, Thomas replied:
‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark
of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe. Jesus came again to
the disciples and Thomas was with them. He said to Thomas, “Put your
finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe”’. Then
Thomas recognized him, believed, and said: ‘My Lord and my God’. Because he saw
the signs of death, he believed that Christ had risen and was truly alive, so
the Lord said to him: ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are
those who have not seen and yet have come to believe’. Blessed Thomas, having
become a genuine witness of this truth so clearly recognized, added to the
Apostles’ Creed the verse: He descended into hell and on the third day rose
from the dead.[466]
The marks of the wounds are the sign
Does it not seem to you then that the marks of the wounds are the
true sign by which Christ risen from the dead can be recognized? For, as
follows in John 20:30-31:
‘Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not
written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe
that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and through believing you may have
life in his name’. This is the principal sign of our faith, namely, the
injuries of his death, the marks of his wounds, by which Christ risen from the
dead is recognized; this is the sign of the salvation of those who are healed
by ‘the Saviour of all’, by which ‘you convinced our enemies that it is you who
deliver from every evil’, as stated in Wisdom 16: 8. Truly this is the other ‘angel having the seal of the living
God’, who carries in his body ‘the marks of’ our Lord ‘Jesus’ Christ,[467] as set out in the
preceding pages.
5
HAVING THE SEAL OF THE LIVING GOD
Alive from a second gift of life
We can understand this text in another way because of those who oppose it. We can understand the word ‘living’ in the way it is used of life not in its first state but its second state;[468] for example, we are accustomed to say in everyday speech when we see someone who is pale, weak, languid, careless, lazy and in poor condition, unable to do worthwhile work, that they are not only dying, but are dead; and on the contrary, when we see someone who is ruddy, resolute, confident, brave, strong, active, doing everything strongly, we call such a one living or lively, like that most flexible silver which is called quicksilver. Because ‘wisdom is more mobile than any motion’, as stated in Wisdom 7:24, because it ‘reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other and orders all things well’, as in Wisdom 8:1, this wisdom says in Proverbs 8:35-36: ‘For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favour from the Lord; and all who hate me love death’, because ‘she is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; ose who hold her fast are called happy’, as in Proverbs 3:18. So it is said in Sirach 4:12-13f[469]: ‘Wisdom teaches her children, whoever seeks her loves life, and whoever holds her fast inherits glory’.
Christ, the model of perfection
Christ however, ‘the power and the wisdom of God’,[470] as shown above, bending down to the sick and weak, sometimes acted in a weak and imperfect way making himself sick with the sick. He came[471] as one who took on a weak and mortal body, to call sinners to penance, to cure the sick, and to direct the wandering, so that all might be saved. Brave and ardent in spirit, he showed a completeness and perfection[472] in all he did, especially during the passion. He reached ‘mightily from one end to the other’,[473] because he is power; he reached from the passion to the resurrection, from mortality to immortality, from the depth of hell to the highest heaven, because he ‘touched heaven while standing on the earth’, Wisdom 18:16. He ‘orders all things well’,[474] because he is the wisdom of God, while to all, according to their various states and diverse conditions, he shows himself the model of perfection. He showed his power when he overcame the enemy with strength, his wisdom when he mercifully freed his own who were held in hell. So he says, Matthew 26:41: ‘the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak’.
The spirit is willing, but the flesh weak
Whose, I ask, is the voice saying: ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death’,[475] and the often repeated: ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me’. This can be no other than the voice of weak human flesh, of one in bitter suffering, and of one struck by the natural horror of imminent death, to the extent that, enduring in this agony, he sweated drops of blood which flowed to the ground, as in Luke 22:44. Although ‘all things are possible’[476] to the Father, ‘it is impossible for a human being not to be overcome by the terror of suffering’, as Hilary says in The Trinity.[477] But strong and confident in the spirit he says to the Father[478] ‘not my will but yours be done’; the spirit is to be subject to the Father and the flesh to the spirit, and never be rebellious even in the fear of death. To those who were to crucify him he went forward and said to them: ‘Whom are you looking for? I am he’, John 18:4-5. When he foretold to his disciples that he must ‘undergo great suffering’ and be crucified in Jerusalem, Peter said to him: ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you’. He said to Peter: ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things’, Matthew 16:22. Ambrose says in De Trinitate[479]: ‘Christ as man is agitated but his spirit is not agitated; the soul is agitated as in one who takes on human frailty, for by taking on a soul he took on also the passions of a soul’. So Christ says to the Father in the Psalm[480]: ‘You, who have made me see many troubles and calamities, will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again’. On this text Jerome[481] says: ‘Many tribulations were inflicted on him in the flesh for the salvation of the human race, but, brought back from the depths of hell, he came through them all alive’. And later on the cross, putting up calmly and with the utmost patience with taunts, blasphemies, whippings, wounds and a most harsh death, he overcame all by the power of his spirit; on the cross thirsting for the salvation of all and, wishing to draw all to himself, he prayed for them and for those crucifying him, and ‘with loud cries and tears’ offering up his spirit to the Father, he merited to be heard ‘because of his reverent submission’, as Paul says, Hebrews 5:7.
The words of St Hilary
Do you want to hear how Christ at the one time in his passion showed weakness of the flesh and possessed the vigour of the spirit? Hear what Hilary says, in The Trinity[482]: Who, he asks, commended his spirit into the hands of the Father and on the same day was in paradise? Who complained to the Father of being abandoned? The complaint of being abandoned is the weakness of one dying; the promise of the paradise of the living God is of one reigning. Commending the spirit is an act of trust by the one commending, the handing over of the spirit is the departure of one dying. I ask then, who dies other than the one who hands over the spirit? Who hands over the spirit other than the one who commends his spirit to the Father? So if it is one person commending the spirit, handing it over, giving paradise, and reigning while dying, then this one reigns while dead. When he had overcome the evils and sufferings and triumphed over all his adversaries, ‘he disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public examination of them, triumphing over them in’ himself, as the Apostle says, Colossians 2:15. Returning from the hell to which it had been handed over, and taking up again his body, his spirit on the third day conquered all as ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David’, that is to say with a strong hand, as in Revelation 5:5. In the same way the patriarch Jacob blessing his son Judah, and seeing what were future things in Christ, says in Genesis 49:9: ‘From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches down, he stretches out like a lion, who dares rouse him up?’ As if to say: No other, because Christ by his own power roused them up, not another power. So Ambrose in book III De Trinitate[483]: ‘How was he who raised others able to ask for help for his own body to be raised?’ As if to say, he was not able.
Who is this king of glory?
Christ truly appeared living, he can truly be called living, where, as has been said, the peaks of the virtues and of every perfection show their completion. 1 Peter 3:18 says: ‘Christ suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to Christ. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit’. For although ‘he was crucified in weakness, he lives by the power of God’, as stated 2 Corinthians 13:4. So Ambrose in book IV De Trinitate,[484] says: ‘The angels, on seeing the approach of the Lord of all who was the first and only one to triumph over death, ordered the princes to lift up the gates, saying with wonder: “Lift up your heads, 0 gates, and be lifted up, 0 ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in”.[485] But there were still those in heaven who were amazed, who wondered at the new solemnity, the new glory, and so asked: “Who is this king of glory?” An angel has a process of reasoning and a capacity to grow; only God is without any growth since God is eternal in all perfection. Others, those, namely, who were present when he rose, who had seen and already knew, were saying: “The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle”. Again a multitude of angels in triumphal procession were singing: “Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in”. Again others astonished were saying: “Who is this king of glory?” We have seen him, and he had neither form nor majesty;[486] if therefore it is not him, “Who is this king of glory?” Those knowing answered: “The Lord of hosts, he is the king of glory”’.[487] Jerome[488] says on this same text of the Psalm: ‘Rightly “the Lord of hosts”, who was made man for us, handed over to death, abandoned in the darkness of hell, which he meekly accepted, underwent with patience, strongly conquered, and wonderfully endured; he who, treading down what is below, returned in triumph to the higher places, and went up with glory to heaven.
Seek the things that are above
So the Apostle says, Romans 8:12-13: ‘So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh - for if you live according to the flçsh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live’. Because as he says, Galatians 6:8: ‘If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. If’, therefore, ‘we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit’, and if we ‘live by the Spirit’, we should ‘not gratify the desires of the flesh’, as stated in Galatians 5:16. 25. And in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 he says: ‘Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God’. Therefore the Apostle exhorts us in Colossians 3:1-2: ‘So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth’. For ‘by his great mercy God has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead’, as stated in 1 Peter 1:3; because as personified Wisdom says, Sirach 24:25-26: ‘In me is all grace of the way and of the truth, in me is all hope of life and of virtue. Come over’, therefore, ‘to me, all you that desire me and be filled with my fruits’.[489] So Gregory, Dialogues,[490] says: ‘Hence our weakness rose above itself, and the stability of God was weakened beneath itself’.
The weapons of St Francis are the sign of the cross
Because blessed father Francis was strong and alive in the spirit and a perfect follower of Christ, and took on the most perfect acts of the virtues of Christ, he was truly and wonderfully marked by ‘the seal of the living God’, as declared above. The seal of Christ victorious, triumphant and rising from the dead was the sacred stigmata of the Crucified. So he was justly called Francis, so named from a free[491] heart, or from francisca, which is a title of nobility formerly used by proconsuls, according to Papias.[492] So Francis was marked in a singular way. You, then, who belong to his army, be especially careful that your ‘weapons are not merely human’, but spiritual and ‘have divine power’.[493] This is in accord with what was shown to blessed Francis in a vision at the beginning of his conversion, namely, weapons bearing the sign of the cross of the Lord; it was said to him that these weapons were ‘all for him and his knights’.[494]
Paul, the tongue of the body of Christ
This therefore is the seal shown by that other ‘angel ascending from the rising of the sun’, namely blessed Francis, Similarly the blessed apostle Paul says of himself, not as an apostle, but rather as a prophet, as I learnt from my genuine and worthy master: ‘I’, he says, Galatians 6:17 ‘carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body’. We should not think blessed Paul literally had the stigmata of Christ, except in so far as he had ‘crucified the flesh with its passions and desires’,[495] so that he could say: ‘I have been crucified with Christ’, Galatians 2:19. But because blessed Paul, the master and the one called ‘a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth’,[496] was the tongue of the mystical body of Christ, whose members are all holy, he could speak of another member of the mystical body, namely blessed Francis, as if he were speaking of himself. This is the same as when my tongue says it is in pain, when in fact the suffering is not in the tongue but in another part of the body. ‘If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it’, as in 1 Corinthians 12:26. There follows in Galatians 6:18: ‘May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen’.
St Francis, a true image of Christ
This is therefore the angel, who had to lead the people of God as they fled from Egypt, freed from the slavery of Pharaoh, to bring them safely to ‘a place prepared by God’,[497] namely the promised land; this is ‘the land of the living’,[498] cut off by the sea, and by deserted paths, to which the angel successfully brought them by the staff of the cross of Christ, and by crossing the Jordan of death.[499] ‘Be attentive to him and listen to his voice; do not rebel against him, for my name is in him’, the Lord God says, Exodus 23:21. For he bears a sign so that he might be recognized as the leader and master of the army; this sign ‘showed he was to be venerated for his office, that he was authentic in doctrine and admirable in holiness’,[500] because ‘he has not beheld misfortune in Jacob; nor has he seen trouble in Israel. The Lord their God was with them, acclaimed as a king among them’, as Balaam prophesied, Numbers 23:21. Those then who would flee the darkness of the world, and not want to serve the princes of darkness, can follow securely this genuine image of Christ, as one in whom the banners of the high King are carried forward,[501] With this sign Christ our Lord ‘disarmed the rulers and authorities’,[502] triumphing, as it says, over all the enemies. None of these enemies ‘from now’ will be able to ‘make trouble’ for those who carry this sign; rather, according to the prophecy of the Apostle himself, all ‘who will follow this Rule’, will undoubtedly obtain ‘peace upon them, and mercy’.[503]
A teacher teaching those who stammer
See whether what has been said above does not move you to some degree. Christ is seen at times to be weak and imperfect, which might lead you to think that Christ in some ways is marked by imperfection; this is not due to imperfection but is proven to be consistent with a true and highest perfection. A prudent teacher and doctor imparts the content of knowledge in different ways adapted to the ability of the hearers, imparting higher things to the higher students, less to the lesser, so that sometimes when instructing beginners and those knowing little the teacher speaks with them as one as ignorant as they; for example a teacher teaching those who stammer may stammer with them. The wisdom of the teacher is not lessened by this, but rather, if it is done in a worthy way, the teacher’s doctrine and prudence are commended all the more.
Paul made himself all things
to all
Paul the apostle, the master and teacher of the Gentiles, did this.
He says, 1 Corinthians 9:20-22: ‘To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win
Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am
not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside
the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s law
but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the
weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to
all people, that I might by all means save some’. Wherefore he spoke ‘among the
mature’.[504]
‘God’s wisdom, secret and hidden’,[505]
but among the immature he ‘decided to know nothing except Jesus Christ, and him
crucified’, as he says in 1 Corinthians 2:2. And later in 3:1-2 he
adds:
‘And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people,
but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk,
not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still
not ready, for you are still of the flesh’. So Christ, the master of every perfection,
who began to do and to teach,[506]
always remaining perfect in himself, caring for the sick and the weak, and
knowing how to hasten their salvation, made himself like them, ‘eating and
drinking with sinners and tax collectors’.[507]
Christ did this to invite them to penance and to move them more strongly to
follow him, because, as he himself said[508]:
‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick’; ‘for
the Son of man is come to save that which was lost’,[509] as the evangelist
Matthew, if you read him closely, can instruct you carefully about himself and
others.
6
CALLED WITH A LOUD VOICE
St Francis, a papal legate
And what does that other ‘angel’ do, the one so esteemed, so decorated, so armed, so marked? Hear what follows: ‘And he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to damage earth and sea, saying’ etc. Do you not see that this angel has been made the messenger of God, the herald of Christ crucified rising from the dead? He wears a hood ruddy with blood, is adorned with the triumphal weapons of Christ, and carries the seal of the most high king, of the eternal emperor who rules over all things; he is the authentic proclaimer of the divine will and the main preacher of the law of God throughout the world. Is it not well said of him that he calls out, he to those to whom is committed the whole world for preaching, Dan 3, 4: ‘The herald proclaimed aloud, “You are commanded, 0 peoples, nations, and languages”?
I am the herald of the great king
Blessed Francis did indeed bring ‘a great multitude from all tribes and languages and peoples and nations’[510] to the throne of God, as John himself shows us below. So the Lord said to him, Isaiah 49:6: ‘I will give you as a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth’. In the beginning of his conversion he went naked and empty handed through lonely places and the dangers of solitude as another ‘teacher of the Gentiles’;[511] he sang, fervent in spirit and with a lively voice, the praises of God in the forest and in the cold snow. When captured by the thieves and asked who he was, he replied boldly: ‘I am the herald of the great king’; but they throwing him into a pit full of snow said: ‘Lie there, herald of God’.[512]
He calls out therefore with ‘a loud voice’. Has not the loud voice been heard throughout the entire world, is still heard and, I dare to say, will be heard until the end of the world? The Lord says to him, Isaiah 58:1: ‘Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion’, because this is the covenant of the Lord with him, as said in Isaiah 59:21: ‘This is my covenant with them, says the Lord: my spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouths of your children from now on and for ever’. Why is this? Surely because ‘they will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory’, as in Isaiah 61:3. So there follows: ‘I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Their descendants shall be known among the nations, and their offspring among the peoples; all who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.
The Minors are commissioned to preach
It is acknowledged that the office of preaching resides in the Order of Lesser Brothers and they are especially commissioned as apostolic men not in name only, as some others, but in reality. So in the Rule which they profess, as with other things essential to the Order, there is a special chapter on the office of preaching. Preaching is imposed on them as a precept by the Apostolic See: ‘Pope Innocent’, he says,[513] ‘gave mandates for preaching’, and[514]: ‘he gave a mandate to preach penance’; you cannot find this in any other Order.[515] For, as explained above, blessed Francis was that other ‘angel’ who has ‘an eternal gospel’, that is unfailing preaching, ‘to proclaim to those who live on the earth - to every nation and tribe and language and people’, saying ‘in a loud voice: “fear God and give him glory” as stated in Revelation 14:6-7, So at the very beginning when the number of brothers reached twelve, he divided them into the form of a cross, the form which the Lord gave to his disciples when sending them to preach, and directed them to the four parts of the world,[516] so that ‘their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world’.[517]
Living in his sons throughout the whole world
Do you not see that this father still lives today in his
children throughout the entire world, speaking words of praise and a shout of
preaching. I say to you: there is scarcely a village, hardly a corner of the
world, in which there is not the authentic voice[518] of the successors of
father Francis. The sign which he carries is truly that ‘signal’ which the Lord
raised ‘for the nations’, to ‘assemble the outcasts and the dispersed’ of the
people ‘from the four corners of the earth’, as stated in Isaiah 11:12. Like sheep when the
shepherd is struck, the people of the Lord were dispersed, but the Lord said:
‘I will turn my hand to the little ones and’ they ‘shall be in all the earth’,
as in Zechariah 13:7.[519]
The Hebrew has for our text: ‘I will turn my hand to
the poor ones’, which is the same; if you do not believe me, ask the Jews. This
is now truly fulfilled since the Lesser Brothers dispersed throughout the whole
world teach, preach, and convert sinners, by word and example, while the hand
of God ‘confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied’ them.[520] The Lord says to
blessed Francis, understood for Jacob, as explained above, Isaiah 43:1. 4-6: ‘Do not fear’, my
servant ‘Jacob; because you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love
you. Do not fear for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, “Give them up,”
and to the south, “Do not withhold”’. And why? There follows:[521]
‘I created him for my glory, I formed and made him; you are my witnesses, says
the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen; the people whom I formed for
myself so that they might declare my praise’.
7
TO THE FOUR ANGELS
The four main bad angels
Notice that he calls out to ‘the four angels’. I think these four angels, against whom he calls out, should not be thought of as the good angels but rather as the bad angels, on account of what follows: ‘who had been given power to damage’, etc. It is not to be thought that he who commissioned the angels to guard people and sent them ‘to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation’, as in Hebrews 1:14, would want them to damage and not to do good. In these four angels I see the whole crowd of bad angels ‘who had been given power to damage’. Here there is reference only to four, the four namely who are the main ones and hold the leadership over others for inflicting harm. When the children of darkness, who ‘are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation’, as the Lord says in Luke 16:8, see the Church, against which they are fighting, ‘terrible as an army with banners’,[522] and when they see the good angels carefully fulfilling their office for the sons of light, they then strive with care to carry out their evil work among them.[523] Among them are principalities and powers, commanders and rulers of others, against whom the Apostle warns us, Ephesians 6:10-12, saying: ‘Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not’ insert only, ‘against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places’.
Four for the four corners of the world
These are the four, therefore, who lead the others through the four corners of the earth, so that one is in the east, one in the west, another in the north, and another in the south, each with an army, so that they encircle the whole world and pass through every part of it; everywhere they try to overpower all the faithful by force. For this reason blessed father Francis directed his first brothers to these four parts of the earth.
These are literally the four angels of whom John says under the same
sixth seal, Revelation 7:1: ‘After this I saw four angels standing at
the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so that
no wind could blow on earth or sea or against any tree’.
On this text a Gloss says[524]: Understand the angels of darkness, who are called four ‘for the
four parts of the world’. ‘Standing’, that is waiting, ‘at the corners of the
earth’, that is in the most remote places. The four principal winds are so
named according to the four corners of the world. The significance of the
earth, the sea, and the trees will be explained below.
The four winds, four workers
These four winds are those ‘stirring up the great sea’, that is in
this world, ‘and the four beasts’ which ‘came up out of the sea’, as said in Daniel
7:3. On this a Gloss says[525]:
‘The four winds are angelic powers, hostile powers, which rule with their
kingdoms divided into four’.
These are the four angels ‘who are bound’ and are to be ‘released’ in the sixth
age; so John says Revelation 9:14-15, that when the sixth angel blew his
trumpet, he heard a voice saying to the sixth angel: “Release the four angels
who are bound at the great river Euphrates’ - Euphrates is a river of Babylon, that is, of confusion[526] - and ‘the four angels were released, who
had been held ready for the hour, the day, the month, and the year’, that is
continuously, without any interruption, ‘to kill a third of humankind’.
These are the four workmen, whom the angel of the Lord showed to Zechariah, who go ‘to terrify and strike down the horns’ of pride of all ‘the nations’ as stated in Zechariah 1:21.
8
TO WHOM IT IS GIVEN TO HARM
The just and ordered authority of damaging
So there follows: ‘who had been given power to damage’. There is no doubt that it is God who gives the authority to damage: ‘there is no authority except from God’, as Paul says in Romans 13:1. For just as every essence exists only by reason of the divine essence, so every authority is from the divine authority, where essence and authority are the same thing; so every authority has its power and existence from God. If then it is from God, it is just and ordered: ‘for those authorities that exist have been instituted by God’ as stated in Romans 13:1. So Augustine, in the beginning of The Literal Meaning of Genesis’:[527] ‘The desire to harm can come from a perverse mind; but authority can only be from God, and this is a hidden and high justice, because there is no evil in God’.
The demons in fact benefit the elect
If the authority to damage given to them is just and ordered, they can harm only those whom it is just and in order to harm; for as the Apostle says, Romans 13:3-4: ‘For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad’; they are God’s servants ‘for your good’; they are the servants of God ‘to execute wrath on the wrongdoer’. Augustine also, Super epistolarn ad Romanos, says[528]2: ‘The spirit of servitude holds power over no one except the one who is handed over to it by an order of divine providence, divine justice being given to each person; the Apostle accepted this power when he said of some[529]: “I have turned them over to Satan, so that they may learn not to blaspheme”’. Even though God allows them sometimes to inflict hurts on the elect, they cannot harm but rather benefit them, as Job and Tobias are able to instruct you clearly enough by word and example, because, as stated in Romans 8:28: ‘all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose’. And Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis,[530] says that the authority to harm is given to demons ‘either to upset or destroy the objects of wrath or to humiliate or test the objects of mercy’.
Only those, however, are rightly and justly harmed by them, who freely submit to their authority and so make themselves eligible to suffer harm from them. No one is said to be punished justly, except for those who freely commit a fault. These are sinners, who are ready to obey the promptings of the bad angels. For although ‘there is no power upon earth that can be compared with’ them, as Job 41:24 says,[531] they are constrained by the divine power exercised through the good angels, lest anyone be harmed, except for any one who freely transgresses a precept and submits to them; although the devil is most strong, he can overpower only one who allows him; so James 4:7 says: ‘Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you’.
9
THE EARTH
The earth, the sea and the trees
Listen to what follows in Revelation 7:2: ‘given power to damage earth and sea’ etc. The sky without a doubt is not given to them to harm, for the sky is those who live above, whose ‘conversation is in heaven’,[532] for whom here is not a homeland, but, as ‘aliens and transients’[533] in this world, always long for the future land and the city which is to come. So Revelation 12:12: ‘Rejoice then, you heavens and those who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!’ For ‘there are spirits that are created for vengeance, and in their fury they lay on grievous torments’, as stated in Sirach 39:33.[534]
I think it is most important to determine what he means when he
names these three, namely, the earth, the sea, and the trees; only these three
are given to the bad angels to harm. Trees are not mentioned here, but they are
understood and included with the earth. Just as trees come from the earth in
which they take root and from which they draw their nourishment and increase,
so pride, which the trees represent, takes its beginning, progress and end from
riches, represented by the earth, as will appear later. Here is explained what follows
in Revelation 7:3, namely: ‘Do not damage the earth or the sea or the
trees’ etc. I think that these three represent the multitude of sins; they are
the roots of all the vices and evils which are in the world. I do not want you
to believe my opinion, but listen to the same John in 1 John 2:15-17:
‘Do not love the world or the things in the world’, by this wishing to cut
out all evil desire. Explaining this he goes on: ‘for all that is in the world - the desire of the
flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches - comes not from the Father but
from the world. And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do
the will of God live for ever’.
They want as much as they see
‘The desire of the eyes’, which is avarice, is the earth, called ‘the desire of the eyes’ because the avaricious want as much as they can see. Ecci 1, 8: ‘The eye is not satisfied with seeing’, and Sirach 14:9: ‘The eye of the greedy person is not satisfied’, and Ecclesiastes 5:10-11: ‘The lover of money will not be satisfied with money; nor the lover of wealth, with gain. This also is vanity. And what gain has their owner but to see them with his eyes?’
The avaricious want the whole earth as their own nor do they want
anyone near them, The Lord says to such in Isaiah 5:8: ‘Ah, you who join
house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you,
and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land!’
So EccI 4, 7-8 says: ‘Again, I saw vanity under the sun: the case of
solitary individuals, without sons or brothers; yet there is no end to all
their toil, and their eyes are never satisfied with riches. “For whom am I
toiling”, they ask, “and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and
an unhappy business’. Such are indeed earthly and the earth.
My weight is my love
Do you not agree that those who think, speak, are concerned about, savour, and love only the earth, are the earth? ‘They became detestable like the thing they loved.’[535] Augustine, Tractates on the First Epistle of John, sermon II[536]: ‘A person is the same as what is loved: you love the earth, you-will be earth; you love God, what may I say, you will be God? I do not dare to say this of myself, but listen to the Scriptures: “I say: You are gods”’. What weight is to bodies, love is to spirits; the same Augustine says[537]: ‘My weight is my love, I am carried there, I am carried wherever’. And so if your heart loves things earthly, you sink down to the earth, if it loves heaven it climbs to heaven. The Lord says in Matthew 6:21: ‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’. So if you treasure what is of the earth, undoubtedly your heart will be there also, but if you treasure heaven, your heart will dwell in heaven. It is a good counsel of the Lord not to make treasure on earth, but ‘sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven’;[538] what is disbursed to the poor, undoubtedly becomes treasure in heaven. Blessed Laurence said to the tyrant: ‘The hands of the poor have carried off as heavenly treasure the possessions of the Church which you demand’.[539] Whoever ‘scatters abroad, and gives to the poor, his righteousness endures forever’.[540] Therefore ‘lay up your treasure according to the commandments of the Most High, and it will profit you more than gold’ as stated in Sirach 29:11. ‘For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?’[541]
What will it profit them if they gain the whole world
Reflect, and you too will see and ‘not be afraid when some become
rich, when the wealth of their houses increases. For when they die they will
carry nothing away; their wealth will not go down after them’ according to a
Psalm.[542]
and Job 27:19 says: ‘They go to bed with wealth, but will do so no more;
they open their eyes, and it is gone’. ‘Where’,[543] I ask, ‘are the
princes of the nations, that hoard up silver and gold wherein men trust, and
there is no end of their getting?’ And further on: ‘They are cut off, and are
gone down to hell, and others are risen up in their place’ as stated in Baruch
3:16-19. Whatever is earthly, is heavy: ‘for an earthly substance is
heavy’, Gregory says.[544]
Earth is the heaviest of all materials, and whatever savours the earth is
necessarily heavy; the more it shares in the earth, the heavier it is. Anything
heavy tends to the centre, which centre is hell. Necessarily then a soul which
loves the earth, which becomes earthly, goes down to hell since it it so heavy.
‘All that is of earth returns to earth’ as stated in Sirach 40:11. This
is the burden which each person has to carry, as the Apostle says, Galatians 6:5:
‘All must carry their own loads’. The person who does not love the earth, but
things heavenly, is undoubtedly heavenly and goes up to heaven. So Jerome, on
Psalm 133[545]:
‘As it is said to the sinner: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return”,[546] so is it said to the
saint: You are heaven and you will go up to heaven.’ In Greek a holy person is
called άγιος, that is, not of the earth.
But you perhaps will say to me, what certain deceivers are accustomed to say, namely, if God made all the things in the world for the sake of people, as is clear in the creation of all things, and if God gave authority to humans over all things as is stated: ‘The heavens are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth he has given to human beings’,[547] why should people not enjoy these things, when they are made for them? People are the reason for all things, and are the masters, owners and rulers of all things.
We have no lasting city
But note. Who but a fool would want to collect or treasure up wealth in a place from which he knows for certain he will be ejected, taking nothing with him? For this reason I say that this earth is for the dying. ‘For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come’, as the Apostle says, Hebrews 13:14. And Solomon, Ecclesiastes 5:13-15 says: ‘There is a grievous ill that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owners to their hurt, and those riches were lost in a bad venture; though they are parents of children, they have nothing in their hands. As they came from their mother’s womb, so they shall go again, naked as they came; they shall take nothing for their toil’. A wise person ought to build up treasure in the place where there will be life without death, like the person who said: ‘my portion is in the land of the living’,[548] unless perhaps you believe that you have ‘made a covenant with death’.[549] Listen to Isaiah 28:14-22 speaking against such: ‘Therefore, hear the word of the Lord, you scoffers who rule this people in Jerusalem. Because you have said, “We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement; when the overwhelming scourge passes through it will not come to us; for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter”’. He continues: ‘Therefore thus says the Lord God, I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet; hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter. Then your covenant with death will be annulled, and your agreement with Sheol will not stand; when the overwhelming scourge passes through, you will be beaten down by it. As often as it passes through, it will take you. For the bed is too short to stretch oneself on it and the covering too narrow to wrap oneself in it’. And further on: ‘Now therefore do not scoff, or your bands will be made stronger; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord God of hosts upon the whole land’.
Buy as one not owning anything
So Paul 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 says: ‘I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on let those who buy be as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away’. Commenting on this text Gregory says[550]: ‘One buys who, as though having no possessions, makes use of earthly things but looks ahead with the careful thought that one will quickly leave these things; to use the world but as one not using it, is to collect all things necessary for the external needs of life but in such a way as not to allow these things to dominate the mind, so that they may serve as slaves externally without ever disturbing the attention of the mind intent on higher things