Part 50 (1/2)

These events gained an indescribable notoriety[26] all over Europe and threw the Order into profound disturbance. Many of the partisans of Elias became convinced that they had been deceived by an impostor, and they drew toward the group of Zealots, who never ceased to demand the observance pure and simple of the Rule and the Will.

Thomas of Celano was of this number.[27] With profound sadness he saw the innumerable influences that were secretly undermining the Franciscan inst.i.tute and menacing it with ruin. Already a refrain was going the rounds of the convents, singing the victory of Paris over a.s.sisi, that is, of learning over poverty.

The Zealots gained new courage. Unaccustomed to the subtleties of ecclesiastical politics, they did not perceive that the pope, while condemning Brother Elias, had in nowise modified the general course which he had marked out for the Order. The ministers-general, Alberto di Pisa, 1239-1240, Aymon of Faversham, 1240-1244, Crescentius de Jesi, 1244-1247, were all, with different shades of meaning, representatives of the moderate party.

Thomas of Celano's first legend had become impossible. The prominence there given to Elias was almost a scandal. The necessity of working it over and completing it became clearly evident at the chapter of Genoa (1244).

All the Brothers who had anything to tell about Francis's life were invited to commit it to writing and send it to the minister Crescentius de Jesi.[28] The latter immediately caused a tract to be drawn up in the form of a dialogue, commencing with the words: ”_Venerabilium gesta Patrum_.” So soon after as the time of Bernard de Besse, only fragments of this were left.[29]

But happily several of the works which saw the light in consequence of the decision of this chapter have been preserved to us. It is to this that we owe the Legend of the Three Companions and the Second Life by Thomas of Celano.

IV. LEGEND OF THE THREE COMPANIONS[30]

The life of St. Francis which has come down to us under the name of the Legend of the Three Companions was finished on August 11, 1246, in a little convent in the vale of Rieti, which appears often in the course of this history, that of Greccio. This hermitage had been Francis's favorite abode, especially in the latter part of his life. He had thus made it doubly dear to the hearts of his disciples.[31] It naturally became, from the earliest days of the Order, the headquarters of the Observants,[32] and it remains through all the centuries one of the purest centres of Franciscan piety.

The authors of this legend were men worthy to tell St. Francis's story, and perhaps the most capable of doing it: the friars Leo, Angelo, and Rufino. All three had lived in intimacy with him, and had been his companions through the most important years. More than this, they took the trouble to go to others for further information, particularly to Filippo, the visitor of the Clarisses, to Illuminato di Rieti, Ma.s.seo di Marignano, John, the confidant of Egidio, and Bernardo di Quintavalle.

Such names as these promise much, and happily we are not disappointed in our expectation. As it has come down to us, this doc.u.ment is the only one worthy from the point of view of history to be placed beside the First Life by Celano.

The names of the authors and the date of the composition indicate before examination the tendency with which it is likely to be in harmony. It is the first manifesto of the Brothers who remained faithful to the spirit and letter of the Rule. This is confirmed by an attentive reading; it is at least as much a panegyric of Poverty as a history of St. Francis.

We naturally expect to see the Three Companions relating to us with a very particular delight the innumerable features of the legends of which Greccio was the theatre; we turn to the end of the volume, expecting to find the story of the last years of which they were witnesses, and are lost in surprise to find nothing of the kind.

While the first half of the work describes Francis's youth, filling out here and there Celano's First Life, the second[33] is devoted to a picture of the early days of the Order, a picture of incomparable freshness and intensity of life; but strangely enough, after having told us so much at length of Francis's youth and then of the first days of the Order, the story abruptly leaps over from the year 1220 to the death and the canonization, to which after all only a few pages are given.[34]

This is too extraordinary to be the result of chance. What has happened?

It is evident that the Legend of the Three Companions as we have it to-day is only a fragment of the original, which was no doubt revised, corrected, and considerably cut down by the authorities of the Order before they would permit it to be circulated.[35] If the authors had been interrupted in their work, and obliged to cut short the end, as might have been the case, they would have said so in their letter of envoy, but there are still other arguments in favor of our hypothesis.

Brother Leo having had the first and princ.i.p.al part in the production of the work of the Three Companions, it is often called Brother Leo's Legend; now Brother Leo's Legend is several times cited by Ubertini di Casali, arraigned before the court of Avignon by the party of the Common Observance. Evidently Ubertini would have taken good care not to appeal to an apocryphal doc.u.ment; a false citation would have been enough to bring him to confusion, and his enemies would not have failed to make the most of his imprudence. We have at hand all the doc.u.ments of the trial,[36] attacks, replies, counter replies, and nowhere do we see the Liberals accuse their adversary of falsehood. For that matter, the latter makes his citations with a precision that admits of no cavil.[37] He appeals to writings to be found in a press in the convent of a.s.sisi, of which he gives sometimes a copy, sometimes an original.[38] We are then authorized to conclude that we have here fragments which have survived the suppression of the last and most important part of the Legend of the Three Companions.

It is not surprising that the work of Francis's dearest friends should have been so seriously mutilated. It was the manifesto of a party that Crescentius was hunting down with all his power.

After the fleeting reaction of the generalate of Giovanni di Parma we shall see a man of worth like St. Bonaventura moving for the suppression of all the primitive legends that his own compilation may be subst.i.tuted for them.

It is truly singular that no one has perceived the fragmentary state of the work of the Three Companions. The prologue alone might have suggested this idea. Why should it take three to write a few pages? Why this solemn enumeration of Brothers whose testimony and collaboration are asked for? There would be a surprising disproportion between the effort and the result.

More than all, the authors say that they shall not stop at relating the miracles, but they desire above all to exhibit the ideas of Francis and his life with the Brothers, but we search in vain for any account of miracles in what we now have.[39]

An Italian translation of this legend, published by Father Stanislaus Melchiorri,[40] has suddenly given me an indirect confirmation of this point of view. This monk is only its publisher, and has simply been able to discover that in 1577 it was taken from a very ancient ma.n.u.script by a certain Muzio Achillei di San Severino.[41]

This Italian translation contained only the last chapters of the legend, those which tell of the death, the stigmata, and the translation of the remains.[42] It was, then, made at a time when the suppressed portion had not been replaced by a short summary of the other legends.

From all this two conclusions emerge for the critics: 1. This final summary has not the same authority as the rest of the work, since the time when it was added is unknown. 2. Fragments of a legend by Brother Leo or by the Three Companions scattered through later compilations may be perfectly authentic.

In its present condition this legend of the Three Companions is the finest piece of Franciscan literature, and one of the most delightful productions of the Middle Ages. There is something indescribably sweet, confiding, chaste, in these pages, an energy of virile youth which the Fioretti suggest but never attain to. At more than six hundred years of distance the purest dream that ever thrilled the Christian Church seems to live again.

These friars of Greccio, who, scattered over the mountain, under the shade of the olive-trees, pa.s.sed their days in singing the Hymn of the Sun, are the true models of the primitive Umbrian Masters. They are all alike; they are awkwardly posed; everything in and around them sins against the most elementary rules of art, and yet their memory pursues you, and when you have long forgotten the works of impeccable modern artists you recall without effort these creations of those unknown painters; for love calls for love, and these vapid personages have very true and pure hearts, a more than human love s.h.i.+nes forth from their whole being, they speak to you and make you better.

Such is this book, the first utterance of the Spiritual Franciscans, in which we already see the coming to life of some of those bold doctrines that not only divided the Franciscan family into two hostile branches, but which were to bring some of their defenders to the heretic's stake.[43]