The Writings of St. Francis of Assisi

[328] Cod. O. adds “to him who caused these words to be written, be all honor, all praise and glory forever and ever.”

[329] See 1 Cel. 34, for the blessing given by St. Francis on his deathbed to Elias and the Order.

[330] See Bonav. Leg. Maj., XII, 1, where the Saint is represented as discoursing on the relative merits and advantages of the active and contemplative life. Wadding gives this discourse among the Monastic Conferences he attributes to St. Francis. See Opuscula, Coll. XIV, p. 318.

[331] See Floretum S. Francisci, ed. Sabatier, cap. 16, p. 60. This chapter, which is one of the most interesting from a critical point of view, represents St. Francis as consulting St. Clare and Brother Sylvester on the subject of his doubt.

[332] See First Rule, chap. vii; also Speculum Perf., ed. Sabatier, pp. 25-26.

[333] As is most poetically described by the author of the Sacrum Commercium. Show me your cloister, asks the Lady Poverty of the friars. And they, leading her to the summit of a hill, showed her the wide world, saying: This is our cloister, O Lady Poverty. (See The Lady Poverty, by M. Carmichael, p. 128.)

[334] See 1 Cel. 1, 17; and Leg. III Soc. 55. Such grottoes may still be seen in St. Francis’ country; they serve as a shelter for beggars and gypsies.

[335] St. Francis habitually uses the word locus or place to designate the habitations of the friars (see above, Rule II, chap. vi, p. 68).

[336] See “Franciscus in admonitionibus suis” (fruct. xii, P. 11, cap. 30). It was from this text that Wadding took the Regulation for his edition of the Opuscula in which it figures under the heading Collationes Monasticae III.

[337] The figure which presents Mary and Martha as types of the contemplative and active life was already a familiar one. See Gregor., VI Moral., c. 37, n. 61: “Quid per Mariam, quae verba Domini residens audiebat, nisi contemplativa vita exprimitur? Quid per Martham exterioribus obsequiis occu patam nisi activa vita signatur?”

[338] Cod. As. after cloister reads: “in which each one shall have his own cell.”

[339] Cod. As. reads: “immediately after sunset.”

[340] Luke 12: 31.

[341] This is the reading of the Cod. As. and Is.; other texts read the “poorest beggars.”

[342] Cod. O. adds: “any woman or person whatsoever.”

[343] The text in Cod. As. ends here.

[344] See 2 Cel. 3, 113.

[345] On this letter see Appendix.

[346] Wadding drew on the Spanish text of Rebolledo (Chron, P. I, l. II, c. xxvii) and himself appears to have had misgivings, at least as regards the authenticity of Epistle VII.

[347] See Actus B. Francisci, etc., ed. Sabatier, p. 63. M. Sabatier attributes the authorship of this compilation (which contains, as is now known, among other matters, the original Latin text of the traditional Fioretti) to Fra Ugolino di Monte Giorgio, and believes its date to be between 1280 and 1320. It is, however, from Thomas of Celano that we know St. Francis to have written a letter to the Lady Giacoma (See Tr. de Miraculis in Anal. Bolland., t. xviii). See also Spec. Perf. (ed. Sabatier), c. XII, for reference to this letter. The narrative of Celano renders the text of the letter given in the Actus very doubtful. The fact that the expression “St. Mary of the Angels” is used in it to designate the Portiuncula is in itself sufficient to militate against its authenticity. Neither St. Francis nor his companions ever employed this term; they invariably said “St. Mary of the Portiuncula.” Any document, therefore, containing the former expression bespeaks a fourteenth century origin at earliest. See Frère Jacqueline: Recherches Historiques, by Fr. Edouard d’Alencon, Paris, 1899.

[348] The letter which Wadding translated from the Spanish, under this title and numbered XIV, appears to have been an incomplete version of the letter here given in full.

[349] Compare for example the passage on p. 101, beginning “Let us therefore love God,” etc., with Chapter XXII of the First Rule; and the prayer of Christ given on p. 105, with the conclusion of the same chapter.

[350] See Le Monnier, l.c., p. 202, and Knox Little, l.c., p. 164. Wadding, Annales, ad. an. 1213, places the writing of this letter two or three years earlier, which seems less probable.

[351] See Le Monnier, l.c., p. 203. To him I am indebted for these quotations.

[352] See his edition of Bartholi, Tractatus, Appendix, p. 132 seq.

[353] See Historiarum Seraphicae Religionis libri tres (Venice, 1585), fol. 194 r, for that part of the letter which Wadding gives as Epistola I.

[354] It has been adopted in the new French edition of St. Francis’ works. See Opuscules, pp. 122-135.

[355] It was from this fourteenth century MS. that M. Sabatier edited as a new opuscule the fragment above mentioned.

[356] Bartholomew of Pisa here inserts the greater part of the letter passim.

[357] Cod. O. reads: “all the words of the Lord.”

[358] Cod. O. reads: “by this present letter and now.”

[359] John 6: 64.

[360] See Luke 1: 31.

[361] See II Cor. 8: 9.

[362] See Matt. 26: 26-28; Luke 22: 19-20; I Cor. 11: 24-25.

[363] Matt. 26: 39.

[364] Luke 22: 44.

[365] See Matt. 26: 42 and 39.

[366] Cod. O. omits: “and was born for us.”

[367] John 1: 3.