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A UTHOR: 
 
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 Marlait, Earl Bowman, 1 8 9 2- 
 
 Protestant saints, by Earl Marlatt. New York, H. Holt 
 and company £'1928j 
 
 xy p.. 3 1., 5-101 p. front., plates. 19 J« 
 
 Contents.— Saint Augustine.— Saint Bernard.— Saint Francis. 
 
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 l4.AuRustinus, Aurelius, Saint, bp. of Hippo. 2. Be rnard de Clairraux. 
 Saint. 1091-1153. 3. F rancesco d'Asslsi, Saint, 11^1226. i. Title. 
 
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AUGUSTINE AND MONNICA 
 
 (Reproduced from the painting by Ary Schcffer in the Hanfstaengl 
 
 Collection, London) 
 
AUGUSTINE AND MOXXICA 
 
 (Reproduced from the painting by Ary Scheffer in the Hanfstaengl 
 
 Collection, London) 
 
2.^-^2STfl 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1928, 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 TO 
 MY TWIN-BROTHER 
 
 ERNEST FOSTER MARLATT 
 
 
 PRINTED IN THE 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Must a Christian be either a Catholic or 
 a Protestant? And if he is one must he, 
 in consistency, anathematize or ostracize 
 the other? Have men ever been both 
 without compromising the essential truth 
 of either? Are Catholicism and Prot- 
 estantism counter-currents causing reli- 
 gious, social, and political whirlpools at 
 every confluence? Or do they, perhaps, 
 flow in parallel channels from a single 
 source to a single sea of profounder truth ? 
 Are there any grounds of agreement 
 between the two this side of unconditional 
 surrender on the part of one and arrogant 
 self-assertion on the part of the other ? Is 
 there any possibility of religious peace 
 without victory? 
 
 These are the stubborn questionings 
 that Protestant Saints attempts to voice 
 and to answer. In a sense, then, it is a 
 reply to the encyclical letter issued by 
 
 [vii] 
 
I'! 
 
 i 
 
 I'! 
 
 t-l 
 
 ! 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Pope Pius XI on January 6, 1928, as well 
 as a commentary on the more discourag- 
 ing aspects of the Lausanne Conference 
 held in the summer of 1927. Those 
 events, taken together, indicate that for 
 the present Catholics and Protestants, or 
 even Protestants and Protestants, cannot 
 unite as Christians on grounds of doctrine 
 and polity. Both major groups agree that 
 
 fixed" and each is agreed within itself that 
 the other is the Dives-margin of that 
 "gulf." 
 
 Meanwhile a pagan world laughs com- 
 placently at the dilemma of Christianity. 
 It mistakes divisions among Christians 
 for contradictions in Christianity and 
 congratulates itself on the superior con- 
 sistency of Mohammedanism, Confucian- 
 ism, or Buddhism. It appropriates Jesus, 
 giving him a place among its Prophets and 
 Arhats, because he preached unselfishness 
 and peace, and, by the same token, exco- 
 riates the Church and the militant nations 
 which presume to be its spokesmen. It is 
 
 [viii] 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 not unthinkable that the sowing of Philip 
 may yet come to harvest and bring, out 
 of Ethiopia or India, a revival of Apostolic 
 Christianity. 
 
 All of this suggests that personalities 
 rather than polities or doctrines are the 
 only practical basis for Christian unity 
 and international amity. Thinkers are 
 beginning to realize that "God is a spirit" 
 and to respect reflections of that Spirit 
 whether they shine forth in a Jeremiah, a 
 Jeanne d'Arc, a Lincoln, or a Gandhi. 
 Institutions, creeds, sacraments, move- 
 ments, become too easily static. Persons 
 and their memories are growingly dynam- 
 ic. They carry a magnetism that attracts 
 people of all eras and temperaments and 
 holds them together as if welded by 
 cosmic rays or solar tidal waves or "God 
 energizing." 
 
 Archbishop Soderblom of Upsala in- 
 sists that "one may doubt the divinity 
 of God but hardly of Jesus." He has 
 in mind the credalized, sacramentalized 
 God-of-wrath-poured-out, under which 
 
 [ix] 
 
 
PREFACE 
 
 priests of all religions sometimes mask the 
 gracious Spirit of the universe. Similarly 
 one may doubt the Christianity of the 
 Church, whether Protestant or Catholic, 
 but hardly that of Augustine, Bernard, or 
 Francis. They divined the spirit of the 
 common Christ, whom both groups profess 
 to revere, and in that spirit may, eventu- 
 ally, lead all groups into Christian tolera- 
 tion for each other. In any case their 
 broad-minded gentleness is a continuing 
 rebuke to Protestant and Catholic bigots 
 of the sort who say, "Within the Church 
 there is only slave-morality," and, "Out- 
 side of the Church there is no salva- 
 tion." 
 
 These biographies are admittedly cross- 
 sectional portraits of Augustine, Bernard, 
 and Francis. They deliberately accent 
 the Protestant aspects of their lives with- 
 out intending to suggest by such em- 
 phases that these saints were any the less 
 Catholic for being protestant. They were 
 thoroughly Catholic in their respect for 
 organized Christianity and their loyalty 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 to the Roman Church. Their Catholicity 
 is indubitably attested by their canoniza- 
 tion. At the same time there is nothing 
 in their essential teaching to which tol- 
 erant Protestants can take exception and 
 there is much in their lives to indicate 
 that spiritual crises were resolved by 
 Protestant principles. Augustine thought 
 his way through to a vivid experience of 
 God outside of the visible Church. Bap- 
 tism only sealed a reality already revealed 
 by reason and a mystical, or natural, 
 voice which said, "To//<?, legey' "Take up 
 and read." Ordination gave added au- 
 thority to the revelation but no validity 
 beyond that already unveiled in its trans- 
 formation of a soul alone with God in a 
 garden. Bernard wondered about the 
 finality of certain dogmas and argued for 
 "consideration" as the ultimate test of 
 truth. He obviously questioned the in- 
 fallibility of the Roman bishop by pre- 
 suming to advise him on matters of 
 doctrinal as well as ecclesiastical import. 
 The very title of his tractate, "The Ideal 
 
 [xi] 
 

 P R E r A C E 
 
 Pope," implies that all of those had not 
 been that and that the fallible judgment 
 of others might be made less so by private 
 counsel rather than ex-cathedra pro- 
 nouncements. Francis naively relied upon 
 his own interpretation of the Scriptures to 
 found his order and subsequently sought 
 and obtained the grudginglanctio'n of L 
 Papal See, All of them found God not in 
 Churches or ceremonies or triumphant 
 assertions of temporal power, but in 
 persons — Monnica, an "ideal pope," 
 "Brother Sun" — or in crucifixions — a 
 lingering fever, the Second Crusade, dis- 
 illusionment, La Verna, They expressed 
 His spirit in humility, toleration, and a 
 consuming desire for brotherhood. Ac 
 cordingly this review of their lives may 
 persuade Protestants that Catholics have 
 frequently been fearless champions of 
 independent thinking and that some of 
 them are supremely worthy of the canon- 
 ization which the Church and time have 
 given them. EquaUy it may remind 
 Catholics that they cannot anathematize 
 
 [xii] 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Protestants en masse without compromis- 
 ing the greatest of their saints, Augustine, 
 Bernard, Francis. 
 
 It should be added that these papers 
 were originally written as units with no 
 thought of their supporting a single thesis. 
 Consequently the logic which relates them 
 is more cogent for being accidental. 
 
 In keeping with modern psychographi- 
 cal method materials for these biographies 
 have been taken, for the most part, from 
 the writings of their subjects, Augustine's 
 Confessions^ and Bernard's T>e Considera- 
 Hone, or from documents giving first-hand 
 information on their lives as in the case 
 of Francis, where the principal source was 
 the Fioretti, written by "the little poor 
 man's" closest disciples. These data have 
 been confirmed and supplemented by 
 standard biographies, notably those of 
 Louis Bertrand, St. Augustin, R. S. 
 Storrs, Bernard of ClairvauXy and Paul 
 Sabatier, St. Francis of Assisi. Permis- 
 sion to quote from these works has been 
 graciously granted by their publishers, 
 
 [ xiii ] 
 
PREFACE 
 
 
 D. Appleton and Co., and Charles Scrib- 
 ner's Sons, respectively. 
 
 The author is further grateful to Dr. 
 Albert C. Knudson, Dr. George Croft 
 Cell, Dr. Walter Scott Athearn, Dr. 
 Edgar Sheffield Brightman, Mrs. James 
 Cavanagh, and Miss Katharine Lee Bates, 
 without whose instruction, encourage- 
 ment, and friendly counsel this book 
 would never have come to publication. 
 
 — Earl Marlatt 
 
 Boston, September 1, 1928. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Saint Augustine : A study of the cir- 
 cumstances by which **a beggar in 
 rags" became the sainted Bishop of 
 Hippo 
 
 Saint Bernard: A comparison of the 
 maps of Christendom charted by 
 Gregory VII (Hildebrand) and Ber- 
 nard of Clairvaux .... 
 
 Saint Francis: A frankly poetic treat- 
 ment of a truly poetic life — "Giovanni 
 Bernadone better known as Fran- 
 
 cesco 
 
 99 
 
 37 
 
 71 
 
 [xiv] 
 
 [xv] 
 
\H 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 AUGUSTINE AND MONNICA (Frontispiece) 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 SAINT BERNARD 38 
 
 SAINT FRANCIS 72 
 
m 
 
 
 SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO 
 
 
A 
 
 laughing boy^ 
 
 He loved columns ^ 
 
 Because they towered skyward. 
 
 A passionate youthy 
 
 He loved beauty 
 
 And lost his way in the clouds. 
 
 A learned many 
 
 He found his sky again 
 
 Andy higher than the mists of midnight^ 
 
 Built the City of God 
 
 With towers that touched the stars. 
 
 11 '' I 
 
ij 
 
 ! 
 
 I 
 
 "TOLLE. LEGE!" 
 
 a study of the circumstances by which 
 
 "a beggar in rags" became the sainted 
 
 bishop of hippo 
 
 Men are incurable alchemists. They 
 treasure things as they are because they 
 think they can make them something 
 more, something better. Like Omar, they 
 flaunt their cynicisms only to acknowl- 
 edge, in unguarded moments, a "sovereign 
 Alchemist that in a trice life's leaden 
 metal into Gold" transmutes. And when 
 they find human beings fathoming His 
 formula they canonize them. 
 
 "Where," said Erasmus, "is there more 
 gold and grandeur than one may find in 
 the writings of Aurelius Augustinus? I do 
 not believe that the Holy Spirit has 
 lavished more gifts and talents on any of 
 its beneficiaries than upon Augustine." 
 
 It was the medieval way of describ- 
 ing the alchemy of the universe, which, 
 
 [5] 
 
"TOLLE, LEGE! 
 
 t y 
 
 t 
 
 i 
 
 whether by transmutation or conversion 
 or evolution, gives life a spiritual magic 
 that is unmistakable. Omar felt it and, 
 "never deep in anything but wine," re- 
 ferred it, intoxicatingly, to "the veritable 
 juice of the grape."- Goethe, less super- 
 ficially and more surely, found its secret 
 not in Something, however ravishing, but 
 in Someone, perhaps the all-pervading 
 Source of his rhapsodic testimony, "God 
 sleeps in the stone, dreams in the flower, 
 and wakes in man." 
 
 Augustine's life, like the life of the 
 world, began with a stone age and its 
 savage accompaniments. Thagaste, where 
 he was born in 354 a.d., was a free city, 
 morally as well as politically. Swart dem- 
 agogues, proud of their Roman citizenship, 
 vied with each other in the celebration 
 of pagan revels. Bizarre sins, exquisitely 
 committed, made it difficult for Libyan 
 youths to appreciate the teachings of "a 
 crucified sophist," whose followers — ^'^poor 
 wretches !"— met in sepulchers adorned 
 with crude carvings of a fish or wheat or 
 
 [61 
 
 « V 
 
 "TOLLE, LEGE! 
 
 t 9 
 
 Stone grapes. Thagastan grapes were not 
 stone. They ripened early and fermented 
 rapidly. They kindled delicious twinkles 
 in dry throats and lackluster eyes. Nor 
 was their wine the only hazard in Tha- 
 gaste. Hot winds and quickened passions 
 fanned strange enthusiasms. In the sign 
 of the dog-star the sirocco blew sand from 
 the desert and prayers from the lips of 
 dark-skinned lads in the catechetical 
 school. Thereafter the stone benches re- 
 served for younger catechumens were 
 accusingly vacant. And in shadowy 
 corners, before statues of the Good 
 Shepherd, mothers prayed for black lambs 
 of the flock, lost among the wolves. 
 
 With such an environment Augustine's 
 boyish mind was an unfertile field for 
 spirituality. In fact it was almost as 
 barren of religious impulses as the desert 
 beyond the palm-fringe. In its sensuality 
 it was positively bestial so that Augustine 
 later said of it: "I know not whence I 
 came into this dying life (shall I call it?) 
 or living death." 
 
 [7] 
 
1 . 
 
 
 ''TOLLE, LEGE!'* 
 
 This spiritual aridity that was Augus- 
 tine's adolescent portion is easily ex- 
 plained. It mirrors the early life of the 
 Christian Church, a thing ideal in itself 
 all but overwhehned by forces opposed to 
 idealism. In Augustine's case the latter 
 agencies were represented by his loves, 
 which, rather than one's knowledge, as he 
 himself was soon to write, form one's 
 character and determine one's destiny. 
 
 He "loved to play." "Nuts, hand-ball, 
 and birds" were his ruling passion. These 
 amusements were innocent enough when 
 properly followed; but Augustine and his 
 companions — Bertrand pictures them as 
 "young wild-cats" — did not follow them 
 that way. "They cheated with a calm 
 shamelessness; Augustine cheated too.'' 
 This was dishonesty of a subtle type 
 which ultimately led to "crime" ... at 
 least it seemed that to the regenerate 
 Augustine. 
 
 "I lusted to thieve," he confesses, and 
 did it, compelled by no hunger nor 
 poverty, but through a cloyedness of well- 
 
 [8] 
 
 "TOLLE, LEGE!" 
 
 doing, and a pamperedness of iniquity. 
 For I stole that of which I had enough, 
 and much better. Nor cared I to enjoy 
 what I stole, but joyed in the theft and 
 sin itself. A pear tree there was near our 
 vineyard, laden with fruit, tempting 
 neither for colour nor taste. To shake 
 and rob this, some lewd young fellows of 
 us went, late one night (having according 
 to our pestilent custom prolonged our 
 sports in the streets till then), and took 
 huge loads, not for our eating, but to fling 
 to the very hogs, having only tasted 
 them.'' 
 
 There came a day when Augustine re- 
 gretted with tears the laughing revelry of 
 that Numidian night and sighed, with 
 episcopal fervor, that "so small a boy" 
 had been "so great a sinner." 
 
 It was inevitable that this childish 
 flair for unripe pears should yield, eventu- 
 ally, a mature desire for more forbidden 
 fruit. The spoils of that early adventure 
 were "bitter" but later conquests were 
 "sweet'' to Augustine. In his Confessions 
 
 [9] 
 
 1 
 
 I 'I 
 

 "TOLLE, LEGE!" 
 
 he describes them ruefully: "To love, 
 then, and to be loved, was sweet to me. I 
 defiled the pure spring of friendship with 
 the sewage of lust and beclouded its 
 brightness with the hell of passion. I took 
 pleasure not only in the pleasure of the 
 deed but in the praise. My life, being 
 such, was it life, O my God?" 
 
 It was not religious life, but it was 
 natural, the natural outcome of the pagan 
 environment in which Augustine lived 
 his youth. Everything around him fed 
 his instinctive passion for carnal beauty 
 and carnal pleasure. At Thagaste men 
 were praised, "when in rich and adorned 
 and well-ordered discourse they related 
 their own disordered life and, being 
 praised, they gloried." At Madaura and 
 Carthage "shameful loves bubbled like 
 boiling oil." Accordingly it is to be re- 
 gretted but not to be wondered at that 
 Augustine and Alypius, his dearest friend, 
 "plunged headlong into love*' and "al- 
 lowed the love prelude to be deliciously 
 prolonged." As Bertrand graphically 
 
 [10] 
 
 **TOLLE, LEGE!'* 
 
 describes it, "these future shepherds of 
 Christ roamed the streets with the lost 
 sheep. They spent the nights in the open 
 spaces of the town, playing or wantonly 
 dreaming before cups of cool drinks. 
 They lounged there stretched out on 
 mats, with crowns of leaves on their 
 heads, jasmine garlands around their 
 necks, and roses or marigolds thrust 
 above their ears. They never knew what 
 to do next to kill time." The flesh was 
 keeping them away from God. 
 
 And while Augustine wallowed in a 
 welter of sensual egoism "God said 
 nothing." 
 
 This is one of the most enlightening 
 revelations in the Confessions. It illu- 
 minates the darkness over the desert that 
 was the boyhood and youth of Augustine. 
 "Thou, O my God, saidst nothing." The 
 statement proves irrefutably that the 
 silence of God was no more actual than 
 His presence. He was sleeping "in the 
 stone." Just as.surely as certain agencies 
 in Augustine's life represented forces op- 
 
 [11] 
 
"TOLLE, LEGE! 
 
 f t 
 
 posed to idealism, so others just as surely 
 represented a slumbering idealism one 
 day to come to awakening. The same 
 boy who cheated at "nuts, birds, and 
 hand-ball" refused as a young man to 
 steal an honor or accept a prize won by 
 chicanery. To the libertine who promised 
 him such unmerited distinction he re- 
 turned the answer: "If the prize is a 
 crown of immortal gold not a fly shall be 
 sacrificed to help me win it." The same 
 boy who pilfered pears from a neighbor's 
 garden "prayed earnestly that he should 
 not be whipped at school," and when he 
 was ill with the fever "begged for baptism."* 
 "Wild-cat," that he was, "that acting 
 most pleased him which drew tears from 
 him." And the conceited student who 
 praised the pagan rhetoric of Hortensius 
 still lamented that he "found nothing of 
 Christ in it." There was a God-sub- 
 consciousness here which needed only a 
 suggestion to catapult it into the fore- 
 ground of consciousness. 
 
 This suggestion was constantly given 
 
 [12] 
 
 "TOLLE, LEGE!" 
 
 to Augustine by his mother, Monnica. 
 Quietly but effectively she sought by pas- 
 sive virtues to offset the active influences 
 of a pagan father and a vicious environ- 
 ment. "It was her earnest desire," 
 Augustine wrote, "that Thou, my God, 
 rather than he shouldst be my father. For 
 she by that faith and spirit which she had 
 from Thee, discerned the death wherein I 
 lay, and Thou heardest her, O Lord; 
 Thou heardest her and despisedest not 
 her tears, when, streaming down, they 
 watered the ground under her eyes in 
 every place where she prayed." 
 
 The Bishop of Thagaste was right. "It 
 could not be," he said, "that the son of 
 such tears should perish."- They "wa- 
 tered" the desert places in Augustine's 
 heart and eventually inspired the re- 
 freshing confession: "And whose but 
 Thine were these words which by my 
 mother. Thy faithful one. Thou sangest 
 in my ears?" 
 
 Something of Monnica*s spiritual love 
 for him Augustine gave to his noblest 
 
 [13] 
 
"TOLLE, LEGE! 
 
 t f 
 
 friends: a nameless youth whose faith in 
 God was a fearsome thing; Alypius; 
 Nebridius; and Romanianus. Almost 
 these splendid friendships redeem the 
 shameful loves that made his youth seem 
 in after-years a blot on the episcopal 
 escutcheon. Of these associations, which 
 were "sweet to him above all sweetness of 
 that his life," he writes further: "There 
 were other things which in them did more 
 take my mind; to talk and jest together, 
 to do kind offices by turns; to read to- 
 gether honied books; to play the fool or be 
 earnest together; to dissent at times with- 
 out discontent, as a man might with his 
 own self; and even with the seldomness of 
 these dissentings, to season our more 
 frequent consen tings; sometimes to teach 
 and sometimes learn; long for the absent 
 with impatience; and welcome the coming 
 with joy. These and the like expressions, 
 proceeding out of the hearts of those that 
 loved and were loved again, by the 
 countenance, the tongue, the eyes, and a 
 thousand pleasing gestures, were so much 
 
 [14] 
 
 c c 
 
 TOLLE, LEGE!'* 
 
 fuel to melt our souls together, and out of 
 many make but one." 
 
 Surely one who loved men so humanly 
 would love God divinely if once he came 
 to feel the cool caress of His presence. 
 
 Perhaps Alypius and Nebridius, with 
 something of the prescience that Thomas 
 Hood was to reveal centuries later, sensed 
 in the life of their friend, even at this 
 early time, "the Rose above the Mould."' 
 In any case, whether perceived or un- 
 noticed, it came suddenly to fragrant 
 efflorescence. In the rhetoric-schools of 
 Thagaste, Carthage, Rome, and Milan, 
 Augustine came to represent the flower of 
 ancient learning, culture, and person- 
 ality. "His charming manners made him 
 a welcome guest in the homes of the ultra- 
 rich." His mind, he himself said piously 
 but pointedly, "was phenomenal." Dr. 
 E. B. Pusey has added: "And amid 
 everything it burst upward toward his 
 God."^ 
 
 This aspiration, even as the dissipation 
 against which it revolted, may be, not 
 
 [15] 
 
I ill 
 
 "TOLLE, LEGE! 
 
 » » 
 
 improperly, referred to Augustine's early 
 environment. He lived his boyhood in 
 porticoes and colonnades. "A column," 
 it is said, "even injured or scarcely 
 cleansed from wrack and rubbish has 
 about it something impressive. It is like 
 a free melody singing among the heavy 
 masses of the building." Unconsciously 
 one's eyes follow its flutings from the 
 blocked base to the sculptured capital 
 and the sky above it. Bertrand naively 
 remarks, "There were columns in Tha- 
 gaste." 
 
 In Augustine's early manhood there 
 were unmistakable evidences of deepen- 
 ing spirituality. His soul, satiated with 
 sensual beauty, was groping toward spir- 
 itual truth. He fell an easy prey to the 
 Manichees, because, as he testifies in the 
 preface to his monograph, "On the 
 Benefit of Believing,'- they promised an 
 explanation of spiritualities; "and who 
 would not be attracted by such promises, 
 especially such as they then found me, a 
 youthful mind longing for the truth." 
 
 [16] 
 
 "TOLLE, LEGE!'* 
 
 Augustine would be satisfied with nothing 
 less than finality. When he found fal- 
 lacies in the Manichean system he pointed 
 them out to the "Bishops" and demanded 
 explanations or corrections. Baffled by 
 his acumen, they urged him to wait for 
 Dr. Faustus, who would "make every- 
 thing clear."- Dr. Faustus came. Augus- 
 tine saw, heard, and was disillusioned. 
 The Manichean demigod talked squarely 
 but thought in circles. "The most he 
 could do was to discourse pleasantly on 
 literature."- Augustine was concerned 
 
 with verities. 
 
 His restlessness led him inevitably to 
 Rome. His departure from Africa was 
 not without significance. It is recorded 
 that he "smiled sadly when Marcianus 
 admonished him. This day which brings 
 another life to thee, demands that thou 
 another man shall be;'" also that he 
 grieved on shipboard because he had "lied 
 to his mother, and such a mother.'' 
 
 At Rome there were new disappoint- 
 ments and disillusionments. The "eternal 
 
 " [17] 
 
"TOLLE, LEGE!'* 
 
 city" was grossly temporal in its ideals 
 and appetites. "It should have made a 
 vivid appeal," says Louis Bertrand, "to 
 this cultured man, this esthete, so alive to 
 beauty." But he was more than that 
 now. Because of the new aspiration "he 
 despised the Romans: they thought of 
 nothing but eating and drinking and 
 lewdness; they were only interested in 
 sports, to race, to arrange races, to breed 
 horses, to train athletes and gladiators." 
 
 Suddenly into this florid, almost hectic, 
 life there came a fever-dream. Augustine 
 fell ill, desperately ill. The iEsculapians 
 said he would die. They erred; but in 
 days of convalescence he shuddered "that 
 he had been so near to death at a moment 
 when he was so far from God." 
 
 In this susceptible mood he went up to 
 Milan to be rhetoric-master in the im- 
 perial schools there. Ambrose was at 
 Milan. Augustine "heard the bishop with 
 pleasure." He was learned, a logician; he 
 was also the observed of all observers. 
 The aspiring rhetorician saw in Ambrose 
 
 [181 
 
 
 "TOLLE, LEGE!" 
 
 the eminence he coveted for himself and 
 believed himself able to attain. More 
 than this he admired the bishop because 
 his judgment coincided with his own; the 
 prelate praised the piety of Monnica, who 
 was now at Milan with her son; this un- 
 doubtedly gave him added favor in 
 Augustine's eyes. 
 
 There was still another sign of deepen- 
 ing spirituality in the dialectician of 
 Milan: he who had once cared only for 
 the pleasure of "sin" was now concerned 
 about its nature and its place in the 
 scheme of things. An investigation of sin 
 is frequently a prelude to its abandon- 
 ment. It was to be that for Augustine. 
 God was "dreaming in the flower." 
 
 But its roots continued to be earth- 
 bound. In the half-spiritual Augustine 
 sensuality still survived and at times con- 
 trolled his life. Pride and passion moti- 
 vated much of his conduct at Milan. 
 When he went up to the city it pleased 
 him "to travel in imperial carriages."- 
 Established there, he counted Ambrose 
 
 [191 
 

 il 
 
 m 
 
 "TOLLE, LEGE!" 
 
 one of the happy ones of this world, 
 "because he was held In such honor by 
 the great. Only it seemed to him that 
 celibacy must be a heavy burden. He 
 thought that he would be too miserable 
 unless folded in female arms." 
 
 Eventually, yielding to Monnica*s en- 
 treaties, he dismissed his mistress, the 
 mother of Adeodatus. She left him with 
 reluctance but with redemption for her- 
 self, if not for Augustine. Realizing that 
 she stood between him and his better self, 
 she went back to Africa swearing eternal 
 fidelity to the father of her child. Augus- 
 tine was unworthy of such devotion; 
 "when he discovered that he could not 
 marry at once, he did not hesitate; he 
 found another mistress." 
 
 As formerly, not reason but the flesh 
 was keeping him from God. He was dis- 
 contented with himself and his way of 
 living but he lacked the courage to change 
 either. "I knew the way," he wrote, "the 
 Savior Himself, but I shrunk from going 
 through its straitness. My mistresses de- 
 
 [20] 
 
 < < 
 
 TOLLE, LEGE!" 
 
 tained me. They pulled me by the coat * 
 of my flesh and murmured in my ear, 
 *What ! Are you leaving us ? Shall we 
 be no more with you forever?' " And 
 Augustine, hearing them, answered God: 
 "Wait a bit yet! The things you despise 
 have a charm of their own; they bring 
 even no small sweetness — gaming, elabo- 
 rate entertainments, music, song, per- 
 fumes, books, poetry, flowers, the cool- 
 ness of forests" ... the desert had blos- 
 somed; and divine winds were rufiling its 
 snowy fragrance. 
 
 As he later confessed, Augustine was at 
 this period in his life "a drunken beggar 
 in rags." The debonair egoist had become 
 a doctrinaire skeptic. He was less con- 
 cerned with himself than with life but he 
 still believed that life could be caught in 
 a syllogism. He was to learn presently 
 that knowledge is sometimes less reliable 
 than restless doubt and faith; for restless- 
 ness and dreams presage awakening and 
 
 God. 
 Augustine was plainly "restless." There 
 
 [211 
 

 '! 
 
 I 
 
 -TOLLE, LEGE! 
 
 t f 
 
 had come over him in the midst of his 
 Milanese triumphs a seemingly "causeless 
 melancholy and sadness, an immense 
 yearning for 'anywhere but here."- He 
 was obsessed with the notion that "no 
 man cared for his soul." "If/' he 
 lamented in retrospect, "anyone should 
 have been found then to trouble about 
 instructing me, he would have had a most 
 willing and docile pupil." After appear- 
 ing as municipal orator and winning ap- 
 plause on his eulogy of the emperor, he 
 was strangely unhappy. The year was 
 "at the spring," meadows and crooked 
 streets alike were carnivals of color, but 
 Augustine was comfortless. All this 
 brave glory was as evanescent as his 
 happiness had been. With April every- 
 where it was autumn in his heart; and 
 after that there would be frost, and snow 
 on the barren mountains. 
 
 Out of this experience Augustine 
 learned a truth of life that was deeper 
 than logic. He expressed it later when he 
 said of God, "Is it, then, a slight woe to 
 
 122] 
 
 € < 
 
 TOLLE, LEGE! 
 
 » f 
 
 love Thee not?" And through his woe an 
 instinct whispered, "There is something 
 else — suppose that were true? — perhaps 
 you might be able to find out." If he had 
 looked he might have seen, might have 
 found out. But "his pufFed-up face 
 closed up his eyes."- He had become 
 sensitive to good but he was still skeptical, 
 skeptical of happiness, skeptical of love, 
 skeptical of life and God. "There half 
 arose in me a thought," he wrote, "that 
 those philosophers whom they call Aca- 
 demics were wiser than the rest, for that 
 they held men ought to doubt everything 
 and laid down that no truth can be 
 comprehended by man." 
 
 As with Kant, so with Augustine: he 
 was "destroying knowledge to make room 
 for faith." The "beggar in rags" all but 
 "stripped to his foolish hide" was ready 
 to receive the gift of redeeming grace 
 from the Great Almoner of the Universe. 
 
 The Confessions portray his mood at 
 Milan even more graphically. "Thus, 
 with the baggage of this world,"- they 
 
 [23] 
 
 > f 
 
"TOLLE, LEGE! 
 
 » f 
 
 
 > 
 
 read, "was I held down pleasantly as If in 
 sleep: and the thoughts wherein I medi- 
 tated on Thee were like the efforts of such 
 as would awake, who, yet overcome with 
 a heavy drowsiness, are again drenched 
 therein. And as no one would sleep for- 
 ever, and in all men's sober judgment, 
 waking is better, yet a man for the most 
 part, feeling a heavy lethargy in all his 
 limbs, defers to shake off sleep, and, 
 though half displeased, yet, even after it 
 is time to rise, with pleasure yields to it, 
 so was I assured, that much better were 
 it for me to give myself up to thy charity, 
 than to give myself over to mine own 
 cupidity; but though the former course 
 satisfied me and gained the mastery, the 
 latter pleased me and held me mastered, 
 nor had I anything to answer Thee calling 
 to me, 'Awake, thou that sleepest, and 
 arise from the dead, and Christ shall give 
 thee light/ And when Thou didst on all 
 sides show me that what Thoii saidst 
 was true, I, convicted by the truth, had 
 nothing at all to answer, but only those 
 
 [24] 
 
 « ( 
 
 TOLLE, LEGE!" 
 
 dull and drowsy words, 'Anon, anon,' 
 'presently'; 'leave me but a little/- But 
 'presently, presently,' had no present and 
 my 'little while' went on for a long while: 
 in vain I delighted in Thy law according 
 to the inner man, when another law 
 in my members rebelled against the 
 law of my mind, and led me captive 
 under the law of sin which was in my 
 members. Who then should deliver me 
 thus wretched from the body of this 
 death, but Thy grace only, through Jesus 
 Christ our Lord?" 
 
 It was Augustine's Pauline way of say- 
 ing that the God who "sleeps in the 
 stone" and "dreams in the flower" eventu- 
 ally "wakes in man."- 
 
 "After Thou hadst soothed my head," 
 he continues, "and closed mine eyes that 
 they should not behold vanity, I ceased 
 somewhat of my former self, and in my 
 phrenzy was lulled to sleep; I awoke in 
 Thee and saw Thee infinite." 
 
 The awakening was not a sudden flash 
 of insight such as redeemed another florid 
 
 [25] 
 
 kl t 
 
1 .1 
 
 ''TOLLE, LEGE! 
 
 f 9 
 
 "TOLLE, LEGE! 
 
 f f 
 
 
 ' 1 
 
 il 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 egoist, Saul of Tarsus. It was rather a 
 gradual journey. "It is one thing," he 
 wrote of the progress, "from some wooded 
 height to behold the land of peace; an- 
 other thing to march thither along the 
 high road.'- His "high road" had mile- 
 stones: Monnica, Ambrose, Victorinus, 
 Simplicianus, Pontitianus, God in the 
 voice of a child and the writings of a man, 
 who, like and unlike himself, had traveled 
 the road to Damascus. 
 
 In one of his most inspired moments 
 Augustine wrote of his mother: "She loved 
 my being with her, as mothers do, but 
 much more than many"; and again, with 
 equal poignancy: "My mother followed 
 me over sea and land in all perils confiding 
 in Thee." Monnica knew that she repre- 
 sented a certain idealism in Augustine's 
 life. , She followed him not only because 
 she loved him but because she loved "his 
 being with her." There was always the 
 hope that her weak humanity, supple- 
 mented by Something stronger, might 
 make the vain rhetorician a humble 
 
 [261 
 
 Christian. Her intuition proved more 
 valid than his reason; for at Milan her 
 piety attracted Augustine to Ambrose and 
 Ambrose to Augustine. The association 
 induced that restlessness of spirit which 
 knew no comfort "until it found rest in 
 God." 
 
 The great discovery, paradoxically, had 
 its beginning in paganism. In some way 
 Augustine began the study of Plato's 
 Dialogues^ as translated by Victorinus. 
 The reasoning was a revelation to him. 
 It was like the Christian Scriptures. Its 
 all-pervading Spirit was the Logos of St. 
 John and its redeeming Beauty the glory 
 of a dream beyond the rim of Patmos. 
 Here was a sublime philosophy which saw 
 in nature not evil but good and which 
 found God in personality. Augustine 
 reveled in its idealism and came to rever- 
 ence its writers, Plato and Victorinus. 
 They were men worth emulating. Faustus 
 talked about literature. Victorinus ap- 
 praised life. 
 
 While still under the spell of his new 
 
 [27] 
 
I 
 
 \ 
 
 I ' 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 "TOLL'E, LEGE!" 
 
 idol— or was it an ideal ?— Augustine 
 visited Simplicianus, the spiritual father 
 of Ambrose. They talked of many things 
 and eventually of Victorinus. Augustine's 
 eyes glowed as he spoke of the culture, 
 acumen, and nobility of the master, who 
 had not only understood but translated 
 the works of Plato. Simplicianus agreed 
 with him and added casually a story lately 
 come from Rome: Victorinus had ac- 
 cepted the God of the Christians; he had 
 been admitted to" the Church and bap- 
 tized; "he had pronounced the true faith 
 with an excellent boldness" while "Rome 
 wondered and the Church rejoiced"; as he 
 had risen from his knees the crowds had 
 shouted, "Victorinus! Victorinus!'- 
 
 Augustine was impressed. Here was a 
 man to be envied ... the wonder of 
 Rome and the joy of the Church. The 
 thought of a similar attitude toward him- 
 self appealed to his dying egoism; also to 
 the equally normative altruism struggling 
 for birth in his awakened consciousness. 
 "He pronounced the faith with an excel- 
 
 [28] 
 
 "TOLLE, LEGE!" 
 
 lent boldness."- Augustine liked that, too. 
 There was something upstanding about 
 it, something suggestive of "columns in 
 Thagaste.'* 
 
 Simplicianus had supplied the why of 
 conversion — an emulation of Victorinus — 
 but the whither . . . that came from 
 Pontitianus. 
 
 On a day when Augustine was especi- 
 ally disgusted with "the emptiness of 
 popular praise, theatrical applauses, poetic 
 prizes, strifes for grassy garlands, the 
 follies of shows, and the intemperance 
 of desires," he was sought out by "one 
 Pontitianus, a countryman, so far as 
 being an African, in high office in the 
 Emperor's Court." After the usual pre- 
 liminaries the conversation was given a 
 religious turn by Pontitianus's discovery 
 of a part of Paul's epistles among Augus- 
 tine's books. Both surprised and pleased, 
 he ventured to relate the story of Antony, 
 the Egyptian monk, and others, who, like 
 him, had found life most satisfying when 
 lived in solitude. Especially did he dwell 
 
 [29] 
 
t i 
 
 *TOLLE, LEGE! 
 
 f f 
 
 N 
 
 on the experience of two courtiers who 
 had left the imperial porticoes for the 
 shadowy silence of the cloister. "And 
 they were betrothed." 
 
 Augustine could not forget the story. 
 Here was a goal for conversion . . .medi- 
 tation, Platonic contemplation of Truth, 
 "rest" in the eloquent stillness of stark 
 walls and "columns." But desert pas- 
 sions still flowered in his sense-ploughed 
 mind. They clambered over his dream of 
 heaven and kept him earthbound, a stone, 
 static, but aspiring. "I neither willed en- 
 tirely," he later said of himself, "nor nilled 
 entirely. Therefore was I at strife with 
 myself, and rent asunder by myself." This 
 fever of unrest continued until an after- 
 noon, when Augustine, like One he chose 
 to follow, went down "into the Garden." 
 
 And while he was speaking— "How 
 long? How long, * tomorrow and to- 
 morrow?* Why not now? Why is there 
 not this hour an end to my uncleanness ?" 
 —and "weeping in most bitter contrition 
 of heart," he "heard from a neighboring 
 
 1301 
 
 •'TOLLE, LEGE!" 
 
 house a voice, as of boy or girl, I know 
 not, chanting and oft repeating, ^Tolle, 
 lege,' Take up and read.' " It seemed to 
 him "a voice from heaven" and, like 
 another traveler on another Damascus 
 road, he obeyed. Hurriedly opening his 
 volume of Paul's epistles, which lay on a 
 table near by, he read in silence the verse 
 on which his eyes first fell: "Not in rioting 
 and drunkenness, not in chambering and 
 wantonness, not in strife and envying: 
 but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 make not provision for the flesh to fulfill 
 the lusts thereof." 
 
 As he finished the reading "alFthe dark- 
 ness of doubt vanished away." The road 
 had been long and perilous, but it had 
 been worth the taking; for at the end of 
 it there was light. Augustine had "found 
 rest for his soul." God had "waked In 
 man." 
 
 The new life began officially on the 
 2Sth of April, a.d. 387, when Augustine 
 was "quietly baptized together with his 
 son, Adeodatus, and his friend, Alypius." 
 
 [31] 
 
f 
 
 i 
 
 I' ii 
 
 hi 
 
 > 
 
 r ' 
 
 PI 
 
 m 
 
 1^ 
 
 "TOLLE, LEGE!" 
 
 The usually insignificant adverb is here 
 determinative. It is evidence of the 
 changed and changing Augustine. Al- 
 ready he had learned to dislike ostenta- 
 tion and adulation. The process was 
 destined to continue until the man who 
 had once "loved only himself* could 
 write sincerely: "I love only God and the 
 
 soul." 
 "Do you not then love your friends?*' 
 
 Reason asked him. 
 
 "I love the soul," came the answer; 
 "how, therefore, should I not love them?" 
 
 These are not the observations of a 
 sensualist, an egoist, or a skeptic. Augus- 
 tine was none of these after the agony in 
 the garden. Having glimpsed the dawn 
 he so far forgot the twilight that he could 
 say, "I was Aurelius Augustinus, but am 
 now no longer he; for my old evil self is 
 
 dead." 
 
 After a pastoral interlude at Cassicium, 
 where he sang his swan-song to beauty, 
 Augustine determined to seek the quie- 
 tude of the cloister in the desert-places 
 
 [32] 
 
 ''TOLLE, LEGE! 
 
 t f 
 
 beyond Thagaste. As before, his mother 
 "followed him to the sea"; but only to the 
 sea. At Ostia she was seized with a fever. 
 Her illness followed a vision too lumi- 
 nous to last. It came on an afternoon 
 when she and Augustine "stood leaning 
 in a certain window which looked into the 
 garden of the house where they were 
 staying at Ostia. They were discoursing 
 there together, alone, very sweetly. They 
 passed through one after another all the 
 things of a material order into heaven 
 
 itself." 
 
 Ary Scheffer's painting of this ecstasy 
 is matched in artistry by Bertrand's 
 description of it. "Two faces," he writes, 
 "pale, bloodless, in which live only the 
 burning eyes cast upward to the sky — a 
 dense sky, baffling, heavy with all the 
 secrets of eternity — no visible object, 
 nothing, absolutely nothing distracts them 
 from their contemplation. The sea itself 
 almost blends into the blue line of the 
 horizon — two souls and the sky." 
 
 In that instant as complete as eternity 
 
 [33] 
 
1 1 
 
 V. 
 
 > ..' 
 
 ■ 
 
 ••TOLLE, LEGE!'' 
 
 idealism triumphed over the forces op- 
 posing it in the life of Augustine; for it 
 was a spiritual moment more exquisitely 
 pleasurable than all the orgies of sensual- 
 ity at Carthage or Madaura or along the 
 Via Veneris at Milan. 
 
 It is small wonder that Monnica asked 
 a few days later: "What do I here any 
 longer?" Her work was finished. Au- 
 gustine the materialist had grown to 
 Augustine the mystic. Her prodigal child 
 had achieved spiritual manhood. "Lay 
 this body anywhere," she said — the voice 
 was weak in volume but strong in pur- 
 pose — ; "Let not the care for that in any 
 way disquiet you: this only I request, that 
 you would remember me at the Lord's 
 altar, wherever you may be." 
 
 Augustine told the end of her story 
 when he wrote, "I closed her eyes." The 
 sentence is poignant with significance. 
 He "closed her eyes"; also a chapter in 
 his own life. Augustine the sensualist 
 died with Monnica. Reverence for her 
 spirit, unforgettably revealed in the ec- 
 
 [34] 
 
 I 
 
 "TOLLE, LEGE!" 
 
 stasy at Ostia made a spiritual life im- 
 perative. 
 
 In her last suflFering Monnica had called 
 him "dutiful." It became his ruling 
 passion to make his spirit worthy of that 
 coronal. He went back to Thagaste. 
 "There," Bertrand records, "he made 
 himself popular at once by giving alms to 
 the poor." This was significant, since he 
 had once made himself comfortable by 
 accepting gifts from the rich. Then he 
 had reveled in the gardens of a villa; now 
 he was content with "a house and some 
 little meadows."- 
 
 He lived out his life like that. Monk 
 at Thagaste, presbyter and bishop of 
 Hippo, champion of God against gold, 
 schismatics, and barbarians, always he 
 "longed for solitude" and always "till the 
 end God charged him with the care of his 
 brethren." He fulfilled the mission mag- 
 nificently. Loving God as passionately 
 as he had once loved Beauty in its most 
 voluptuous forms, and teaching men 
 with the same intellect that had dazzled 
 
 [35] 
 
f 
 
 i 
 
 
 ! 
 
 "TOLLE, LEGE!" 
 
 Milan, the "great lover" became the 
 "greater" lover "laying down his life for 
 his friends." 
 
 It is a tribute to God that "so great a 
 sinner" became, under His alchemical 
 touch, "so much gold and grandeur" . . . 
 Saint Augustine. 
 
 SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 
 
 
 i •: j- i 
 
 i ■ f 
 
 [361 
 
 n\ i 
 
t ■ 
 
 I 
 
 l! 
 
 
 I 
 
 ! 
 
 'I! 
 
 SAINT BERNARD 
 (Reproduced from the painting by Guide Reni in the Uffizi, Florence) 
 
 
 
 

 i 
 
 SAINT BERNARD 
 
 (Reproduced from the painting by Guide Reni in the Uffizi, Florence) 
 

 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 if t 
 
 J 
 
 .|, 
 
 
 i 
 
 t 
 
 ■li 
 
 . ^^ 
 
 ■ 
 
 ;' 
 
 J 
 
 t' \ 
 
 .J 
 
 I.} 
 
 i 
 
 
 H, 
 
 e knew the friendliness 
 Of love-illumined scrolls 
 Curling caressingly 
 Around ascetic fingers; 
 The lure of phantom-nymphs 
 At dusk in a lonely cell; 
 The scented balm of silence 
 Under the healing stars; 
 Andy in moments of adoration — 
 "MisererCy Domine!** — 
 The embrace of the mind of God, 
 Small wonder the Brothers called him 
 *'The mellifluous doctor' 
 And found in his canticles 
 ^A river from paradise^ 
 
 <c 
 

 f 
 
 > » 
 
 "THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 A COMPARISON OF THE MAPS OF CHRISTENDOM, 
 
 CHARTED BY GREGORY VII (hILDEBRAND) AND 
 
 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX 
 
 Men are often focuses of history. At 
 moments of crisis lines of light will con- 
 verge in a single personality and emerge a 
 shaft of light, less illuminating, perhaps, 
 but so concentrated as to be doubly pene- 
 trating and doubly powerful. 
 
 Such a focal character was Hildebrand, 
 "the son of a plain citizen," who "rose to 
 an eminence hardly surpassed^ by man- 
 kind,"only to be canonized by his enemies 
 as "Saint Satan" and to leave the world- 
 forsaken by his friends, almost alone — 
 with the bitter benediction: "I have loved 
 justice and hated iniquity; therefore I die 
 
 in exile." 
 
 And yet the Roman Catholic Church 
 draws its polity, even today, from this 
 thin-chested man who died in exile and, 
 
 [41] 
 
"THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS*' 
 
 with Dr. R. S. Storrs, reveres him as "the 
 magnificent idealist of his time, its sover- 
 eign transcendentalist in the sphere of 
 aiiairs* 
 
 His elevation to the throne of St. Peter 
 was prophetic of the sway which he has 
 since held over the hearts and minds of 
 Romanists. It came in 1073 while he was 
 singing the death-mass for Alexander IL 
 Suddenly in the hush of the solemn cere- 
 monial, louder than the whisper of incense 
 and the prayers of cardinals, rose the 
 shout of the populace: "St. Peter has 
 made the archdeacon Pope! Hildebrand 
 is Pope!" Despite his objections the 
 arch-deacon was subsequently carried to 
 the Church of St. Peter in Chains, robed 
 with the sacred scarlet and crowned with 
 the mitred tiara. And, like another 
 Pastor, Gregory "wept" as he felt the 
 burden of shepherdship laid by "the 
 decision of heaven" upon his stooped but 
 competent shoulders. 
 
 Centuries were moulded that day; for 
 the arch-deacon became the Arch-Pope, 
 
 [421 
 
 •'THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 directing the destinies of nations by a 
 document, his Dictatus Papae. 
 
 This monograph carrying Gregory's 
 formula for papalism, became the consti- 
 tution of the Holy Catholic Church, un- 
 challenged in its philosophy and un- 
 checked in its authority until there arose 
 one mightier than Gregory, "the son of a 
 knight named Tecelin," neither a pope 
 nor a cardinal, but a humble abbot living 
 far from the glamor of the Eternal City 
 in a dingy monastery, Clairvaux. From 
 this more-than-papal eminence Bernard 
 wrote another thin pamphlet which in- 
 augurated an age-long "battle of the 
 books," a strife of systems that eventu- 
 ally diffracted the Gregorian shaft of light 
 and gave the Church a more effulgent 
 radiance. 
 
 In comparing, or, better, contrasting, 
 such epoch-making documents as the 
 Dictatus Papae and De Consideratione it is 
 advisable that one should be as scientific 
 as possible. Accordingly the enquiry 
 
 [43] 
 
 I 
 
"THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 > » 
 
 should begin with an application of the 
 so-called genetic method or test of origins. 
 The Dictates arose from a mood of ar- 
 rogance dominated by a determination to 
 extend the authority of an institution. 
 They were formerly believed to be the 
 work of Cardinal Deusdedit but recent 
 research has established the Gregorian 
 authorship. They were written by the 
 papal secretary at Gregory's dictation and 
 inserted in the Papal Register between 
 one letter dated March 3rd and another 
 dated March 4th, 1075. This implies that 
 their principles were formulated on the 
 eve of Gregory's conflict with Henry IV 
 and during a period of unusual papal con- 
 fidence: less than two years before, their 
 author, Hildebrand, had been proclaimed 
 Pope with unprecedented vociferocity; 
 his pontificate had opened auspiciously: 
 the reform-policies of Leo IX, assiduously 
 pursued by his more famous friend and 
 successor, had brought a new purity and 
 power into Romanism; everywhere the 
 Church was emerging from the weUnigh 
 
 [44] 
 
 *'THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS'^ 
 
 total eclipse of the tenth century into 
 Clugniac light and vigor. There was only 
 one cloud on the horizon — Germany. 
 Here lay-investiture and simony were still 
 rife. Here, too, a boy-emperor, with more 
 wit than wisdom, was suggesting that the 
 imperial purple might be more sovereign 
 than the papal scarlet. 
 
 Gregory, shrewd to the point of presci- 
 ence, sensed the situation and anticipated 
 its crisis. The Dictates were preparedness 
 for Tribur and Canossa. They were to be 
 the papal platform in Gregory's campaign 
 for primacy in Christendom. They grew 
 out of the former's desire to eflfect two 
 ends: The enfranchisement of the Church 
 through its established and unquestioned 
 supremacy over secular powers; the re- 
 form of it to purer morals and to what 
 was to his mind a majestic and beneficent 
 spiritual life. 
 
 In Its inception, then, the Dictatus Papae 
 was concerned primarily with the Church, 
 its inward life and its outward power. 
 
 Not so the De Considerations It had 
 
 [45] 
 
 H 
 
"THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS*' 
 
 its origin in a desire to safeguard the 
 rights of individuals, a desire born in the 
 mind of a man humbled by a great 
 tragedy. The Second Crusade, which 
 Bernard had preached, and the success of 
 which he had confidently predicted, had 
 failed. The bravest hearts in Europe had 
 been pierced by scimitars and left to rot 
 on the yellow sands. All the disappoint- 
 ment and grief of a great adventure which 
 terminated in a great disaster, had broken 
 forth in a storm of protest against the 
 shepherd who had led his sheep into the 
 shambles and watched them die heroi- 
 cally, horribly, on soil already hallowed 
 by an earlier Crucifixion. 
 
 But Bernard cared little for his own 
 reputation. He thought rather of the 
 liberty of others. This was being men- 
 aced by restrictions on the use of the 
 Scriptures which prohibited them to lay- 
 men. The Crusaders were free in death. 
 The pilgrims, for whom they had died, 
 I were fettered in life. This, for Bernard, 
 was even more depressing than the horror 
 
 [461 
 
 *'THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 in the desert. That destroyed men's bod- 
 ies. This enslaved their souls. The only/ 
 solution of both problems was a proper use 
 of the mind, thinking, "consideration." 
 
 Out of such circumstances the abbot of 
 Clairvaux wrote (1152) De Consideratione 
 to a former pupil of his. Pope Eugenius 
 III, as a protest against influences in the 
 Church which were exalting papalism 
 over personalism. 
 
 In the light of these origins even a 
 synoptic view of Gregory and Bernard's 
 masterpieces will show the motives that 
 prompted their promulgation. Clearly 
 the Dictates were dominated by the 
 thought of right predetermined by tradi- 
 tion and represented by an institution, 
 the papacy. Nor was "right," as Gregory 
 conceived it, entirely wrong. 
 
 "It must always be remembered," Dr. 
 Storrs cautions, "that it was not a corrupt 
 Church, as he recognized corruptness, it 
 was not a Church of simoniacal ecclesi- 
 astics, of licentious, ignorant, and indolent 
 priests, of woridly luxurious, half-military 
 
 [47] 
 
 h 
 
 \ 
 
-THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS'' 
 
 prelates, which he thus sought to make 
 universal. He meant to make it pure, as 
 I have said, through a return to austere 
 discipline, and by the promotion of an 
 ascetic piety. He meant that its purity 
 should match its supremacy; that piety 
 should be fostered, the poor be protected, 
 a celestial life be presented in the world, 
 by that divine organism, as to him it ap- 
 peared, against which the power of the 
 most audacious and insolent ruffian, of 
 the haughtiest baron, of the proudest 
 sovereign, if his plans could be realized, 
 should dash itself in vain." 
 
 At the same time Gregory's system was 
 reprehensible in its autocracy, as the same 
 writer concedes when he writes: "In com- 
 parison with so colossal a scheme. Na- 
 poleon's conception of a universal empire 
 on the continent, with France at its head, 
 appears coarse and commonplace. Com- 
 pared with it the subjugation of nations 
 to ancient imperial Rome had been a 
 matter wholly superficial." 
 As against this thought of right, crystal- 
 
 148] 
 
 "THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 lized in an institution, Bernard advanced 
 the right to think inherent in the in- 
 dividual. "Piety is leaving time for con- 
 sideration," he admonished Eugenius (III, 
 vii, 8). "There must be consideration 
 lest haply affairs which, foreseen and pre- 
 meditated, might turn out well, may, if 
 precipitated, be fraught with peril. It is 
 consideration that brings order out of dis- 
 order, puts in the links, pulls things to- 
 gether, investigates mysteries, traces the 
 truth, weighs probabilities, exposes shams 
 and counterfeits." This quotation carries 
 Bernard's fundamental thesis: Religion is 
 deeper than consonance with the Pope; 
 religion is consideration; that is, as Dr. 
 George Croft Cell states it, "I believe in 
 thinking." 
 
 With such differences in the viewpoints 
 and motives of their authors it is not 
 strange that the following striking an- 
 titheses are to be found when one analyzes 
 the Dictatus Papae and De Consideratione 
 and arranges their principles of Church 
 authority in parallel columns: 
 
 [49] 
 
 ^ 
 
"THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 I. Administration 
 a. The Nature of the Pope 
 
 Dictatus Papae 
 
 1. "The Roman Church 
 was established by God 
 alone." 
 
 2. "The Roman pontifF 
 alone is rightly called 
 universal." 
 
 3. "He alone has the 
 right to depose and re- 
 instate bishops." 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 II, viii, 15 — "You err if 
 you reckon that your 
 apostolic power is not 
 only supreme but the 
 only power ordained of 
 God." 
 
 II, ix, 18— "While you 
 think of yourself as su- 
 preme pontifF, bear in 
 mind as well that you 
 not only were but are 
 worthless ashes." 
 IV, viii, 23— "Before all 
 consider that the Holy 
 Roman Church of which 
 God has made you 
 head, is the mother of 
 Churches, not their 
 mistress; but that you 
 are not sovereign lord of 
 the bishops, but one of 
 them, the brother, too, 
 of those who love God, 
 and a partaker with 
 those that fear Him." 
 
 "THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS'* 
 
 b. The Pope^s Representative 
 
 'Dictatus Papae 
 
 4. "His legate even if 
 he be of lower ecclesi- 
 astical rank, presides 
 over bishops in council 
 and has the power to 
 give sentence of deposi- 
 tion against them." 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 IV, V, 16— "Your at- 
 tendants ridiculously 
 try to take precedence 
 of their fellow-presby- 
 ters. This is contrary 
 to reason, to antiquity 
 and to the general con- 
 sent of authority. And 
 if trickery works, as is 
 commonly the ca§p, its 
 own downfall, surely 
 better this than that 
 the highest order be 
 despised. In the Gos- 
 pels we read that 'there 
 arose a strife among the 
 disciples as to which of 
 them might seem to 
 be the greatest.* You 
 would be happy, Eu- 
 genius, if the rest of the 
 things around you could 
 be controlled after the 
 same pattern." 
 
 r. Executive Powers of the Pope 
 
 [50] 
 
 Dictatus Papae 
 
 5. "The pope has the 
 power to depose those 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 As against these powers 
 dogmatically delegated 
 
 l|i 
 
 if i'^l 
 
 [51] 
 
€ < 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 Dictatus Papae 
 
 who are absent (that is 
 without giving them a 
 hearing)." 
 
 6. "Among other things 
 he ought not to remain 
 in the same house with 
 those whom he has ex- 
 communicated." 
 
 7. "He alone has the 
 right, according to the 
 necessity of the occa- 
 sion, to make new laws, 
 to create new bish- 
 oprics, to make a mon- 
 astery of a chapter of 
 canons and vice-versa, 
 and either to divide a 
 rich bishopric or unite 
 several poor ones." 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 to the pope by Gregory, 
 Bernard sets forth his 
 privileges in IV, vii, 23 
 —"The Ideal Pope": 
 "As for the rest, con- 
 sider that you ought to 
 be a model of righteous- 
 ness, a mirror of holi- 
 ness, a pattern of piety, 
 the asserter of truth, 
 the defender of the 
 faith, the teacher of 
 nations, the guide of 
 Christians, the friend 
 of the bridegroom, the 
 leader of the bride to 
 her spouse, the ordainer 
 of the clergy, the shep- 
 herd of the people, the 
 instructor of the foolish, 
 the refuge of the op- 
 pressed, the advocate 
 of the poor, the hope of 
 the wretched, the pro- 
 tector of the fatherless, 
 the light of the world, 
 the priest of the Most 
 High, the vicar of Christ, 
 and lastly the God of 
 Pharaoh." 
 
 [52] 
 
 ••THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 'Dictatus Papae 
 
 12. "He has the power 
 to depose emperors." 
 
 (The terse absolute- 
 ness of this statement 
 shows conclusively that 
 The Dictates do not 
 prove the Church's su- 
 periority over the State; 
 they presuppose it.) 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 Commenting upon 
 the pope's relation to 
 the State Bernard urges 
 mercy if not humility 
 in contrast with the 
 hauteur advised by 
 Gregory. In II, v, 8, 
 he admonishes Eugenius 
 to say to himself re- 
 peatedly: 
 
 "Who am I or what 
 is my father's house 
 that I should sit above 
 dignitaries?" 
 
 Again in IV, iii, 7, 
 he seems to suggest a 
 separation of Church 
 and State rather than 
 the superiority of the 
 Church so boldly as- 
 serted by Gregory. 
 
 "Why," he asks Eu- 
 genius, "should you 
 again try to use the 
 sword which you were 
 once for all bidden to 
 put into its sheath? * * * 
 Both swords belong to 
 the Church, the spiritual 
 and the material; the 
 
 [53] 
 
C ( 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 Dictatus Papae 
 
 13, "He has the right 
 to transfer bishops from 
 one see to another when 
 it becomes necessary." 
 
 14. "He has the right 
 to ordain as a cleric 
 anyone from any part 
 of the Church whatso- 
 
 ever. 
 
 15. "Anyone ordained 
 by him, may rule (as 
 bishop) over another 
 church but cannot serve 
 (as priest), in it, and 
 such a cleric may not 
 receive a higher rank 
 from any other bishop." 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 one is to be used to 
 defend the Church, but 
 the other must be even 
 banished from the 
 Church; the one is 
 wielded by the priest, 
 the other by the soldier, 
 but of course with your 
 consent and at the com- 
 mand of the Emperor." 
 
 While not denying 
 the pope's power of de- 
 position and ordination 
 Bernard insists that it 
 should be used spar- 
 ingly and with discrim- 
 ination and that papal 
 exemptions should not 
 be allowed to corrupt 
 the morale of the clergy. 
 
 "Abbots," he asserts, 
 (III, iv, 14), "are ex- 
 empted from their bish- 
 ops, bishops from arch- 
 bishops, archbishops 
 from patriarchs and 
 primates. Does this 
 look well? I should be 
 surprised if any justi- 
 fication could be found 
 
 [54] 
 
 c < 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 Dictatus Papae 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 for such doings. The 
 practice shows that you 
 have authority, but, 
 possibly, not so keen 
 a sense of justice. You 
 do this because you 
 have the power but 
 whether you have the 
 right is open to ques- 
 tion." 
 
 d. Special Prerogatives of the Pope 
 
 Dictatus Papae 
 
 8. "He alone may use 
 the imperial insignia." 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 II, vi, 9 — "Learn the 
 lesson that if you are to 
 do the work of a proph- 
 et, what you want is not 
 a scepter but a hoe." 
 II, ix, 18 — "Away then 
 with these hereditary 
 girdles which have been 
 accursed from the be- 
 ginning. Tear to pieces 
 the covering of leaves 
 that conceals the shame 
 but does not cure the 
 wound. Strip off the 
 disguise of this fleeting 
 honor, and the tinsel of 
 this sham glory, so that 
 
 [55] 
 
 It 
 
•'THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 Dictatus Papae 
 
 9. "AH princes shall kiss 
 the foot of the pope 
 alone. 
 
 t* 
 
 i 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 you may consider your- 
 self in your bare naked- 
 ness." 
 
 If kissing the pope's 
 foot may be conceived 
 of as ministering to 
 papal pride Bernard re- 
 bukes it subtly but no 
 less successfully, when 
 he writes (II, vi, 13): 
 
 "Humility is a good 
 estate; founded thereon 
 the whole spiritual edi- 
 fice grows into a holy 
 temple in the Lord. 
 Through humility some 
 have even possessed the 
 gates of their enemies; 
 the more distinguished 
 its possessor the more 
 distinction it confers. 
 It is eminently so in the 
 case of the chief pontiff. 
 No gem in all his gor- 
 geous attire shines with 
 a clearer and purer light. 
 For the higher he is 
 above his fellows, the 
 more through his hu- 
 mUity he conspicuously 
 
 [56] 
 
 € t 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 Dictatus Papae 
 
 10. "His name alone is 
 to be recited in the 
 churches. 
 
 11. "The name applied 
 to him belongs to him 
 alone." 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 surpasses not only other 
 men but himself also." 
 
 Bernard insists that 
 the precedence of the 
 pope should be not 
 nominal but actual. 
 
 "I would have you so 
 take precedence," he 
 counsels (III, i, 2), 
 "that you may provide, 
 minister, serve. Let 
 your precedence be prof- 
 itable to others; take 
 precedence like a faith- 
 ful and wise servant, 
 'whom his lord hath set 
 over his household.* For 
 what purpose? That 
 you may give them food 
 in due season; in other 
 words, may manage, 
 not command." 
 
 an this advice Bernard anticipates 
 Milton's charge against the clergy in 
 "Lycidas," that they were "blind mouths" 
 unworthy to be shepherds. Their duties 
 were to see to the needs of their sheep and 
 feed them. Instead they were content to 
 
 [57] 
 
"THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 be seen and to be fed, to be not pastors 
 but parasites, sapping the vitality of the 
 Church and making its formal honor a 
 disgraceful sham.) 
 
 II. Legislation 
 Dktatus Papae 
 
 16. "No general synod 
 may be allied without 
 his order." 
 
 17. "No action of a 
 synod and no book shall 
 be regarded as canoni- 
 cal without his au- 
 thority." 
 
 18. "His decree can be 
 annulled by no one and 
 he can annul the de- 
 crees of anyone." 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 Bernard constantly 
 deplores the absorption 
 of the Church in "law- 
 business." In his at- 
 tack upon it he elabo- 
 rates the main thesis of 
 his book — "Men's am- 
 bitions have undergone 
 a great change and I 
 would that the change 
 were not for the worse." 
 
 More specifically he 
 writes (III, i, 5) : 
 
 "Is not the enriching 
 of ambition the object 
 of the whole toiline: 
 practice of the laws and 
 canons? Is not all 
 Italy a yawning gulf of 
 insatiable avarice and 
 rapacity for the spoil it 
 offers? How often has 
 this restless and dis- 
 
 [58] 
 
 I 
 
 "THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 f 9 
 
 Dscfatus Papae 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 quieting mischief caused 
 your holy and faithful 
 leisure to miscarry! It 
 is one thing for the op- 
 pressed to appeal to 
 you; it is quite another 
 for ecclesiastical am- 
 bition to make a tool of 
 you by seating itself on 
 the throne." 
 
 III. Judiciary 
 a. Papal Immunity 
 
 Dictatus Papae 
 
 19. "He can be judged 
 by no one." 
 
 Be Consideratione 
 
 This Bernard con- 
 cedes repeatedly; then, 
 with exquisite irony, he 
 proceeds to judge Eu- 
 genius and not only 
 Eugenius, but the popes 
 who had preceded him 
 and the popes who 
 would follow him. De 
 Consideratione carries 
 his judgment of them; 
 they are successful or in- 
 efficient as they meet or 
 fail to meet the stand- 
 ards of his "ideal pope." 
 
 159] 
 
-•THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS'* 
 b. Papal InfallibiHty 
 
 Dictaius Papae 
 
 22. **Thc Roman 
 Church has never erred 
 and will never err to all 
 eternity according to 
 the testimony of the 
 Holy Scriptures." 
 
 23. "The Roman pon- 
 tiff who has been canon- 
 ically ordained is made 
 holy by the merits of St. 
 Peter according to the 
 testimony of St. En- 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 III,iv,15— "Mustitnot 
 be unbecoming in you to 
 make your will the law?" 
 Ill, iv, 16-~"The tree 
 (exemptions granted by 
 the Roman Church) is 
 not good that bears 
 such fruit as acts of 
 arrogance, the breaking 
 up of houses, rivalries, 
 the squandering of re- 
 sources, so many scan- 
 dals, so much hatred. 
 You see how true are 
 the words, *A11 things 
 are lawful to me but all 
 things are not expedi- 
 ent.* But suppose the 
 thing is not even lawful. 
 Pardon; I shall not 
 readily allow that the 
 source of so much law- 
 lessness can be lawful." 
 
 Bernard hesitates to 
 accord the pope full 
 share in God's most dis- 
 tinctive attribute, holi- 
 ness. 
 
 "For who," he com. 
 
 [601 
 
 "THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 Dictatus Papae 
 
 nodius, bishop of Pavia, 
 which is confirmed by 
 many of the holy fa- 
 thers, as is shown by 
 the decree of the blessed 
 pope, Symmachus." 
 
 26. "No one can be re- 
 garded as Catholic who 
 does not agree with the 
 Roman Church." 
 
 Be Consideratione 
 
 ments (II, vii, 14) "is 
 free from defects? What 
 if you are sovereign 
 pontiff? Does it follow 
 that because you are 
 sovereign pontiff you 
 are supremely perfect? 
 Let me tell you that you 
 are at the bottom if you 
 think you are at the top. 
 You bear the title of 
 'supreme* not absolutely 
 but relatively.** 
 
 Bernard's protest is 
 at all times, not against 
 the Church but against 
 its identification with 
 the papacy. He be- 
 lieved in the right to 
 think but not unre- 
 servedly. This was 
 shown by his merciless 
 attitude toward Abe- 
 lard, the Albigenses, and 
 the Waldenses. While 
 drifting toward Prot- 
 estantism in thought he 
 lacked in action the 
 Lutheran courage to 
 deny the Cyprianic dog- 
 
 |:, 
 
 ■ 
 
 [61] 
 
"THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 > 9 
 
 •'THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 Dictatus Papae 
 
 Be Consideratione 
 
 ma, ^^Extra eccksiam 
 nulla salusJ 
 
 »f 
 
 c. Papal Jurisdiction 
 
 Dictatus Papae 
 
 20. "No one shall dare 
 to condemn a person 
 who has appealed to the 
 Apostolic seat." 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 III, ii, 6 — "Men appeal 
 to you from all over the 
 world. It is proof of 
 your singular primacy. 
 But if you are wise you 
 will rejoice not in your 
 primacy, but in its 
 fruitfulness." 
 Ill, ii, 8— "And do you 
 ask why the victims of 
 these appeals do not 
 come to prove their in- 
 nocence, and show the 
 malice of their oppo- 
 nents? I will tell you 
 what the usual answer 
 is — *We don't care to be 
 troubled for nothing. In 
 the court there are men 
 too ready to favor the 
 appellants and foster ap- 
 peals. If we are to give 
 way at Rome, it is 
 better to give way at 
 home.* I confess I 
 partly believe this." 
 
 [62] 
 
 Dictatus Papae 
 
 21. "The important 
 cases of any church 
 whatsoever shall be re- 
 ferred to the Roman 
 Church (that is to the 
 pope)." 
 
 25. "He can depose and 
 re-instate bishops with- 
 out the calling of a 
 synod." 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 Bernard accepts this 
 but presumes to define 
 "important" in a highly 
 illuminating passage (I, 
 vi,7): 
 
 **I read that the 
 Apostles stood to be 
 judged,not thattheysat 
 to judge. *Who made 
 me a judge?* said our 
 great Lord and Master. 
 And shall any wrong 
 be done to the servant 
 and disciple if he does 
 not judge all mankind? 
 Your jurisdiction, there- 
 fore, is over criminal 
 cases notover property." 
 
 Bernard approves the 
 pope's power over bish- 
 oprics and commends 
 Eugenius (III, iii, 13) 
 because he had exer- 
 cised it so justly in the 
 case of "a poor bishop" 
 who might otherwise 
 have fallen a prey to 
 those churchmen, "more 
 mighty to receive than 
 to give." 
 
 [63] 
 
''THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 Dictatus Papae 
 
 24. "By his command 
 or permission subjects 
 may accuse their rulers." 
 27. "He has the power 
 to absolve subjects from 
 their oath of fidelity to 
 wicked rulers." 
 
 De Consideratione 
 
 While asserting the 
 pope's power over 
 princes and the subjects 
 of princes, Bernard 
 nevertheless insists that 
 it should be used dis- 
 creetly lest "in all this 
 painted pomp" the pon- 
 tiff should become "not 
 Peter's successor but 
 Cons tan tine's." Ber- 
 nard realized centuries 
 before Shakespeare ex- 
 pressed it that "the 
 scepter shows the force 
 of temporal power" but 
 that "men" and popes 
 "show likest God," are 
 most spiritual, "when 
 mercy seasons justice." 
 
 And here it is not impertinent to ask 
 with Bernard {De Consideratione y III, iv, 
 14), "Are you wondering what my drift 
 is? I will not keep you in suspense any 
 longer." ^ 
 
 Such a paralleled survey of the prin- 
 ciples of Church government set forth in 
 The Dictates and De Consideratione y makes 
 
 [64] 
 
 •'THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS'* 
 
 possible a synthesis in which the all- 
 important test of values may be applied. 
 
 "The Dictates^' says Dr. Cell, "present 
 a bold assertion of authority untempered 
 by obligation. ^Servus servorum Dei* is 
 only a masked expression of a papal 
 absolutism akin to imperialism."- 
 
 The Gregorian system presupposed the 
 superiority of the Church over the State 
 and predicated the absolute authority of 
 the pope within the Church. It made the 
 papacy the validating principle of every 
 ecclesiastical function. The power dele- 
 gated by the Apostles to the charisma and 
 by the Church-Fathers to the episcopacy 
 was given by The Dictates to a single man 
 chosen not by the Church at large but by 
 the College of Cardinals and becoming, 
 by that choice, infallible and invincible. 
 Gregory sincerely believed that he and 
 his successors were destined to be world- 
 sovereigns with political as well as spiritual 
 powers. The schema was dazzling in its 
 audacity and majesty but dangerous in 
 its absorption of the individual in an in- 
 
 [65] 
 
II 
 
 ••THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS'; 
 
 stitution with more than leanings toward 
 autocracy. 
 
 And yet The Dictates had a positive 
 value for medieval life. They represented 
 the high noon of papal presumption, it is 
 true, but, at the same time, they exalted 
 authority in an age of anarchy and so 
 preserved the prestige of both Church and 
 State through the perilous years of the 
 Dark Ages. 
 
 The De Consideratione was as surely a 
 plea for democracy as the Dictatus Papae 
 was a brief for autocracy. It magnified 
 the Church but decried papalism by hold- 
 ing that "the supreme pontifF' was, after 
 all, only an individual; that his chief 
 function was to fulfill obligations to in- 
 dividuals rather than to assert the au- 
 thority of an institution; and that his 
 power was at all times managerial, not 
 imperial. Bernard believed that the pope 
 should exercise judgment, but judgment 
 dictated by personal discrimination rather 
 than papal tradition. He accepted the 
 principle of papal authority only with 
 
 [66] 
 
 "THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 reservations such as would personalize its 
 machinery. Accordingly, despite the fact 
 that his ideas were so conservative as to 
 be regulative rather than revolutionary, 
 he heralded the dawn of personal liberty 
 and made possible the continuation of the 
 Church in the modern era. 
 
 Strangely, with all of his passion for the 
 Catholic Church, Bernard became the 
 prophet of Protestantism. The indi- 
 vidualism expressed in De Consideratione 
 became a fertile field for the sowing of 
 Wyclif and Huss, while his doctrine of 
 personal responsibility was not far from 
 Luther's "justification by faith." This 
 attitude of thought manifested itself not 
 so much in his writings as in the most 
 dramatic episode of his life. 
 
 Christmas, 1146, found "the beloved 
 abbot" at Spires. Konrad III was there 
 and with him thousands of knights who 
 had refused to "take the Cross" even at 
 the bidding of "the supreme pontifF," 
 Eugenius III. The Second Crusade was 
 
 [671 
 
••THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 languishing. Bernard, frail but unafraid, 
 made the palace his pulpit; with words of 
 scathing tenderness he denounced the 
 Emperor and his henchmen and hurled in 
 their teeth the challenge of the Master: 
 
 "What is there, O Man, what is there 
 which I ought to have done for thee and 
 have not done?"- 
 
 Konrad, impressed by his words and 
 even more by the saintliness of his mien, 
 burst into tears. 
 
 "I shall henceforth not be found un- 
 grateful for God's mercy," he answered 
 brokenly and then courageously: "I am 
 ready to serve Him." ^ 
 
 Thereafter he and his knights marched 
 out to fight and to fall before the battle- 
 ments of Edessa. Bernard had succeeded 
 where a pope had failed and with an ap- 
 peal that implied man's direct dependence 
 on God for grace and mercy. This was 
 potential Protestantism. 
 
 The event is typical of Bernard's role 
 in history. His task at Spires was the 
 elevation of the Cross above the imperium 
 
 1681 
 
 •'THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS" 
 
 and the sacerdotium. He has continued 
 to fulfill that mission in the lives of others, 
 who, like himself, have seen the futility 
 of imperalism or papalism as opposed to 
 personalism. Luther spoke of him as "the 
 most God-fearing and spiritual of monks" 
 whom he "held in higher love than all 
 others." Calvin revered him as "a pious 
 and holy writer above his time, pungent 
 and discriminating in rebuke of its errors"; 
 while Neander "pronounced an encomium 
 on his century for having submitted itself 
 to his moral authority." In the work of 
 these reformers, all of whom have ac- 
 knowledged their indebtedness to Ber- 
 nard, Clairvaux vanquished the Vatican 
 and an abbot demonstrated that an in- 
 dividual might be more powerful than an 
 institution. 
 
 And so, by one of the exquisite paradoxes 
 of history "the son of a carpenter in a small 
 Tuscan town" became the arch-advocate 
 of autocracy while "the son of a knight 
 named Tecelin" became just as surely the 
 prophet of democracy . . . Saint Bernard. 
 
 [69] 
 
 t 
 
 
SAINT FRANCIS 
 
 (Reproduced trom the painting by Zurbaran in the Alte Pinakothek 
 
 Munich) ' 
 
 '"-'!■ 
 
 ' 1 ! I 
 
 1 i 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
\h 
 
 w 
 
 n 
 
 I - i 
 
 III 
 
 SAINT FRANCIS 
 
 (Reproduced from the painting hy Zurbaran in the Alte Pinakothek 
 
 Munich) ' 
 
i 
 
 L 
 
 ittle Brother of the Sun, 
 The birds of Bevagna, 
 And the wolf of Gubbio, 
 He gave up gold and scarlet pomp 
 To marry Poverty 
 And went adventuring: 
 Singing, jesting. 
 Rebuking lords. 
 And kissing lepers. . . . 
 Living a life as fragrant as lilac-time 
 And leaving the memory of a soul 
 Suffused with holy loveliness. 
 
BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 A FRANKLY POETIC TREATMENT OF A TRULY 
 -"GIOVANNI BERNADONE BETTER 
 
 POETIC LIFE- 
 KNOWN AS FRANCESCO' 
 
 In the lives of nations as in the lives 
 of men there is a lilac-time. It came to 
 Italy in the early years of the thirteenth 
 century. From the Bay of Biscay to the 
 Adriatic and northward from Sicily to 
 Assisi, poetry, chivalry, dreams of love, 
 minstrelsy, great achievements, and 
 greater enthusiasms — fragile but fragrant 
 — burst suddenly into radiant efflores- 
 cence. Everywhere there was upward 
 striving, strangely mingled with a pagan 
 gaiety not unlike dust-grains on a sun- 
 beam. 
 
 The spirit was not without its spokes- 
 man. 
 
 "St. Francis," says Paul Sabatier, "was 
 the incarnation of the Italian soul at the 
 beginning of the thirteenth century as 
 
 [75] 
 
 
BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 Dante was to be its Incarnation a hundred 
 years later." There was about his life 
 "that air of liberty, that perfume of the 
 fields, which make it as different from the 
 piety of the sacristy as from that of the 
 drawing-room." Holy men before him 
 had renounced the world as evil, and had 
 withdrawn to solitude or cloistered social- 
 ity. Francesco looked at life and found 
 it good because God had made it. He had 
 a flair for livingness. He reveled in^ the 
 rough brown earth of Umbria. He liked 
 the feel of it In his fingers. The meadows 
 and all their creatures were his God- 
 hallowed diocese. He was the unmitred 
 bishop of the wild. "Like the lark,"- 
 Sabatier continues, "with which he so 
 much loved to compare himself, he was at 
 his ease only in the open sky." He loved 
 it because from it he could see the things 
 of earth in their proper perspective and 
 because through it he could hear the 
 language of heaven. He encouraged his 
 friars to "such a communion with nature 
 that Umbria, with the harmonious poetry 
 
 [76] 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 of its skies, the joyful outbursts of Its 
 springtime, is still the best document 
 from which to study them." 
 
 If this reasoning is right, St. Francis was 
 most himself when he was most identified 
 with things that speak of God: the swal- 
 lows at Bevagna; "Brother Hawk," who 
 called him to Matins on La Verna; all 
 things that crave flights into the purple 
 empyrean ; and especially the sun, to whom 
 he wrote what Renan has called "the 
 most perfect utterance of modern religious 
 sentiment," the Canticle to the Sun. Its 
 first strophe after the salutation reads: ^ 
 
 "Praised be my Lord God with all His 
 creatures and especially our brother, the 
 Sun, who brings us the light; fair is he and 
 shines with a very great splendor: O Lord, 
 he signifies to us Thee."- 
 
 For Francis the sun was a personality, 
 his comrade, "Brother Sun." Possibly 
 then he best expressed his dream of 
 service when he wrote to St. Clara from 
 a bed where "legions of rats and mice 
 made an infernal uproar": "A single sun- 
 
 [77] 
 
 !' k 
 
fll 
 it 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 beam is enough to drive away many shad- 
 ows." That was his mission in life: to be 
 something illuminating, purifying, ener- 
 gizing ... a "little brother" of the Sun. 
 It seems a far cry from Francesco 
 Bernadone to Omar Khayyam; and yet 
 the Persian "sinner" and the Christian 
 saint were brothers under the skull, at 
 least in their belief that 
 
 **. . . this I know whether the one true Light 
 Kindle to love or wrath-consume me quite, 
 
 One flash of it within the tavern caught 
 Better than in the Temple lost outright." 
 
 Francis's religion was a philosophy of the 
 market-place rather than of the lecture- 
 hall. It demanded ministry to men-of- 
 the-tavern type and launched a vigorous 
 protest against the prevailing hall-marks 
 of "the Temple," learning, law, and 
 luxury. They left one isolated from life. 
 And he was, according to "His Brother in 
 Christ, Urban Timotheus of Padua, Jong- 
 leur of the Lord," speaking through Mr. 
 Joseph Auslander, 
 
 [78] 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 "As living a man as may be met: 
 No stuffed and feathered effigy; 
 No saintly silhouette." 
 
 It is recorded that the priests of San 
 Giorgio taught Francis "a little Latin"; 
 also that "he was not a diligent scholar." 
 For him faith was not of the intellectual 
 "but of the moral domain— consecration 
 of the heart." He preferred pilgrimages 
 of love to "the ephemeral laurels of learn- 
 ing" and frequently admonished his friars 
 {Admonitioy v): "Suppose that you had 
 subtility and learning enough to know all 
 things, that you were acquainted with all 
 languages, the courses of the stars, and 
 all the rest, what is that to be proud of? 
 A single demon knows more on these sub- 
 jects than all the men in the world put 
 together. But there is one thing that the 
 demon is incapable of, and which is the 
 glory of man: to be faithful to God." 
 
 His contempt for law, a rule, other than 
 the law of love and the rule of God — 
 "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
 self — was equally marked. Many times 
 
 [79] 
 
BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 he was urged by priests, prelates, even 
 popes, to accept the rule of Benedict or 
 form a new law with Dominic, and always 
 his answer was the same: "I will not be- 
 come an executioner to strike and punish 
 as political governors must." 
 
 Sunlight was free. The lark could not 
 be caged. When more subtle snares were 
 laid for him he side-stepped them until 
 he was finally brought to bay. At the 
 Chapter-General of 1218, in the presence 
 of Cardinal Ugolini and *The Hammer of 
 the Heretics," he declared with passionate 
 vehemence: "My brothers, the Lord has 
 called me into the ways of simplicity and 
 humility. In them he has shown me the 
 truth for myself and those who desire to 
 believe and follow me; do not, then, come 
 to me speaking of the rule of St. Benedict, 
 of St. Augustine, of St. Bernard, or of any 
 other, but solely of that which God in His 
 mercy has seen fit to show to me, and of 
 which He has told me that He would, by 
 its means, make a new covenant with the 
 world, and He does not will that we should 
 
 [801 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 friars was not the "holiness" presumptu- 
 ously professed by certain fanatical sects 
 of the present day. It was, as Dr. Cell 
 implies, "going on to perfection," not sin- 
 lessness, "sanctification," as the term has 
 come to be misused. 'The lark" might 
 soar into azure auras where men com- 
 mune with God but its nest was on the 
 ground; its feet must always be soiled 
 with the mud and dust of earth. Even 
 after the vision of the Little Portion, 
 Francesco sinned so grievously that he 
 "lay himself supine on the ground" while 
 Friar Bernard, "setting one foot on his 
 neck and the other on his mouth," re- 
 peated: "Lie there, churl, son of Peter 
 Bernadone! Whence cometh such pride 
 to thee that art so vile a creature?" And 
 even in those holy days when he was "re- 
 ceiving" the scars of his crucifixion he 
 frequently cried out in fervor of spirit: 
 "Who art Thou, my God, most sweet? 
 What am I? Thy unprofitable servant 
 and vilest of worms." 
 It is not unthinkable that remembrance 
 
 [83] 
 
 1 
 
II 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 of such confessions as these led Friar 
 Giles to write (Sayings, iii) in rebuke of 
 those who believe themselves incapable of 
 sin: "If a man were the most perfect and 
 holiest man in the world and yet deemed 
 and believed himself the most miserable 
 of sinners and the vilest wretch on earth — 
 therein is true humility." 
 
 Franciscan holiness was not "sanctifi- 
 cation." Its roots are rather to be found 
 in "the little patch of garden" at St. 
 Damian's where St. Clara "tended her 
 favorite flowers— the lily, symbol of 
 purity; the violet, of humility; the rose, 
 of love for God and men"; or in the char- 
 acter of Friar Egidio, "after St. Francis 
 the finest incarnation of the Franciscan 
 spirit"; his life "commanded respect be- 
 cause it was at once so original, so gay, so 
 spiritual, and so mystical." Indeed the 
 holiness ideal has been even more directly 
 stated; for it is recorded in the Fioretti 
 (Sayings, i) that "once upon a time Friar 
 Giles asked another friar saying, 'Tell me, 
 dearest, is thine a good soul?' That friar 
 
 [841 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 answered. This I know not.' Then said 
 Friar Giles, *My brother, I would have 
 thee to know that holy contrition and holy 
 humility and holy charity and holy de- 
 votion and holy joy make the good and 
 blessed soul.' " 
 
 These exhibits clearly imply that holi- 
 ness, as conceived by Francis and the 
 "Little Brothers," was not sinlessness so 
 much as consonance with the will of God, 
 a personal life dominated by ideals rather 
 than circumstances. Holiness was "holy 
 obedience'* of which Friar Giles wrote 
 (Sayings, xvii): "Obedience is the way 
 that leadeth to every good and every 
 
 virtue.*' 
 
 To analyze such an attribute is like 
 dissecting a May-apple blossom or a 
 rue anemone; nevertheless it is justified 
 if it reveals the secret of its being, its 
 fragrance, and surpassing loveliness; or, 
 changing the figure, one may without 
 profanation use the prism of truth to dif- 
 fract "the one true light" and thereby dis- 
 close the colors of its spectrum — holy pov- 
 
 [85] 
 
 ,! 
 
 
r I 
 
 1 1 ' li 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 erty, holy faith, holy folly, holy diligence, 
 and holy joy-comprising in combination 
 the white radiance of hoLss. 
 
 No event in the life of St. Francis was 
 more self-revelatory than the last faran- 
 dole at Assisl. He was his old self again, 
 "singing or fluting" through the lavender 
 dusk while comrades rejoiced at his return 
 to happiness. And then, suddenly, a 
 silence fell upon "the king of the revels.'' 
 The flute dropped from his listless fingers 
 as the last echoes of his lovesong died 
 away in the purple mountains. His 
 friends were puzzled. 
 
 One said: "The sickness. It is return- 
 ing. ' 
 
 But another replied more joculariy: 
 "No, nt^an't you see? He is thinking 
 of taking a wife." 
 
 "Yes," Francesco admitted dreamily, 
 his eyes aglow with a strange light; "I am 
 thinking of taking a wife, more beautiful, 
 more rich, more pure than you could ever 
 imagine." 
 
 Thereafter he brooded alone under the 
 
 [86] 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 stars — his wedding-night with his "bride 
 of silence, bride of love." 
 
 The marriage was never revoked. From 
 the last farandole forward the cavalier of 
 God loved Lady Poverty with the same 
 chivalric faithfulness that lesser knights 
 lavished on jewelled ladies. It was his 
 ruling passion, his sine qua non of holiness. 
 
 Naturally Peter Bernadone objected. 
 He had contemplated a rich marriage 
 for Francesco; for he was the son of 
 a merchant-prince. After the boy had 
 given away all that he had — "a few pieces 
 of gayly colored stuffs" — the father at- 
 tempted to discipline him. The results 
 were disastrous; they culminated in the 
 tense scene at the Bishop's house, when 
 Francis, throwing his mantle at the prel- 
 ate's feet, stood naked before his father 
 and addressed a gaping crowd: "Listen, 
 all of you, and understand it well; until 
 this time I have called Pietro Bernadone 
 my father, but now I desire to serve God. 
 This is why I return to him this money 
 (here he threw a purse at his father's feet) 
 
 [87] 
 
 I 
 

 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 for which he has given himself so much 
 trouble, as well as my clothing, and all 
 that I have had from him; for from hence- 
 forth I desire to say nothing else than 
 *Our Father, who art In heaven/ " 
 
 He had left his father's house to cleave 
 to Lady Poverty — ^Lady Poverty and the 
 vision of the agonizing Jesus vouchsafed 
 to him before the crucifix at St. Damian's. 
 
 Eventually his "mad infatuation" be- 
 came the first tenet of his Rule; for on a 
 day Francesco and Bernard of Quinta- 
 valle "set forth and went to the bishop's 
 house; and after they had heard mass and 
 had remained in prayer until tierce, the 
 priest at the entreaty of St. Francis, took 
 the book, and having made the sign of the 
 holy cross, opened it thrice in the name 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ. And at the first 
 opening he happened on those words that 
 Christ in the gospel spake to the young 
 man who asked concerning the perfect 
 way: *If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell 
 that thou hast and give to the poor and 
 follow me.' " 
 
 188] 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 The "foul contagion" spread to Ber- 
 nard, to Sylvester, to all of "the little poor 
 man's" disciples until the chronicler who 
 recorded their pilgrimage to Rome (1210) 
 could say of them : "They craved a strange 
 privilege, the right of having nothing." 
 
 It was not without reason that Francis 
 spoke of poverty (F., XIII) as "the pearl 
 of the angels." It was his assertion of the 
 superiority of personality over property, 
 "which was the cage with gilded wires, 
 to which the poor larks are sometimes 
 so thoroughly accustomed that they no 
 longer even think of getting away to soar 
 up into the blue." 
 
 When urged by the Bishop of Assisi to 
 explain his penchant for "a way of living 
 without owning anything" St. Francis re- 
 plied: "My lord, if we possessed property, 
 we should have need of arms for its de- 
 fense; for it is the source of quarrels and 
 law-suits, and the love of God and one's 
 neighbor usually finds many obstacles 
 therein; this is why we do not desire 
 temporal goods." 
 
 [89] 
 
 i 
 
BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 And so it happened that the son of a 
 merchant-prince, who had once reveled in 
 "eayly colored stufFs," donned an ill- 
 fif4 rob. of "d,.. brown wid, its in- 
 finite variety of shades, which the Italians 
 call beast-color" and became in fact as 
 well as fancy the lord of Lady Poverty. 
 
 Throughout his ministry hi^ love never 
 wavered. Poverty remained the light 
 that lured him on to triumph at Rome, 
 and later, along the via dolorosa, to his 
 "place of a skull," La Verna. In 1220 he 
 wrote to St. Clara (Spec, Morin, Tract, 
 iii, 226-b): "I, Little Brother Francis, 
 desire to follow the life and the poverty 
 of Jesus Christ, our most high Lord, and 
 of his most holy Mother, persevering 
 therein until the end; and I beg you all 
 and exhort you to persevere always in this 
 most holy life and poverty, and take good 
 care never to depart from it upon the ad- 
 vice or teachings of anyone whomsoever." 
 
 Again, out of the passion that left him 
 stigmatized (1224), he cried out piteously : 
 "My dearest friars, God hath called us to 
 
 [90] 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 this holy rule of life for the salvation of 
 the world, and hath made this covenant 
 between us and the world that we give 
 good example to the world and the world 
 provide for our needs. Let us persevere, 
 then, in holy poverty, because that is the 
 way of perfection, and the earnest and 
 pledge of everlasting riches." 
 
 Finally, in his Will, dictated in 1226, he 
 thus urged the Little Brothers to observe 
 the rule which he described quietly, 
 tragically in view of the forces even then 
 at work to overthrow it: "I caused a short 
 and simple formula to be written, and the 
 lord pope confirmed it for me. Those who 
 presented themselves to observe this kind 
 of life distributed all that they might have 
 to the poor. They contented themselves 
 with a tunic, patched within and without, 
 with the cord and breeches, and we desired 
 to have nothing more.'* 
 
 It was the Poverello's last plea for his 
 first love. Lady Poverty, his final eulogy 
 of what was for him the essence of re- 
 ligion, holy poverty. 
 
 [91] 
 
if! 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 Inherent in the Franciscan ideal of 
 poverty is the second element in the 
 saint's "transfiguring light/' faith, which 
 Dr. Cell asserts is always "linked with 
 holiness." When Francis persuaded an- 
 other to renounce property it was always 
 with the added admonition: "My brother, 
 commit yourself to God with all your 
 cares and He will care for you." This was 
 the splendid hazard that he himself had 
 taken at the Bishop's house and in the 
 porch of the Little Portion. It was action 
 on the second injunction given to him at 
 Quintavalle: "Take nothing for your 
 journey, neither staves nor scrip, neither 
 shoes nor money." 
 
 And "all the brothers were valiant"; 
 for, "possessing nothing of their own in 
 this world, after the manner of birds, they 
 committed their lives wholly to the provi- 
 dence of God." They, too, realized that 
 "in the spiritual world one can attain in 
 holiness only what he has already seen by 
 
 faith." 
 A strong light always throws a shadow. 
 
 [92] 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 This is as true in the realm of thought as 
 in the world of nature. It may explain 
 why genius sometimes drifts over the 
 border-line into insanity; also why faith 
 is frequently fringed with folly as it was 
 in the life of Francis and his friars. In 
 fact "the worldly judge" rendered a true 
 judgment when he said to Friar Giles 
 (Sayings, ii): "God has filled thee with 
 wise and divine foolishness." 
 
 Francesco became "the pigeon" of As- 
 sisi. He gave alms prodigally, foolishly. 
 In his zeal to help where he could not heal, 
 he kissed the sores of lepers, while "those 
 who were whole" laughed at him. But 
 the sick called him "the angel of the 
 lazaretto" and lisped a Pater Noster as he 
 passed by. If it was folly, it was splendid 
 folly; for it showed that the haughty son 
 of Peter Bernadone had lost his pride to 
 find his soul. St. Francis was one of 
 God's fools. So, too, was Peter drawing 
 his sword in the Garden; Paul, defying 
 the silver-smiths at Ephesus; Ignatius, 
 hurrying to Rome that the lions' teeth 
 
 [93] 
 
BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 might "grind the wheat of his faith" into 
 "white-bread for Christ"; Huss, trusting 
 the signature of Sigismund; and Luther 
 insisting that he would go to Worms if 
 every tile on the housetops were a devil. 
 In such a company of "fools" 'tis folly to 
 be wise. Also it is hardly to be wondered 
 that his disciples followed in his train so 
 assiduously that it was necessary to 
 caution them against macerations and 
 other excesses that might violate "holy 
 temperance." 
 
 Under the classification of "holy follies" 
 certain biographers of St. Francis place 
 the most unique event in his life, the 
 episode of the holy stigmata. It came, 
 they assert, in the twilight of the Pover- 
 ello. The visionnaire had given place to 
 the diplomat in the councils of the "little 
 poor men." At Chapter-Generals Friar 
 Elias presided while "Francis sat at his 
 feet and pulled at his robe when he wished 
 to put something before the brothers." 
 Learning and luxury were becoming more 
 and more alluring, and law, as represented 
 
 [94] 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 bv "The Rule," was already blowing the 
 bloom from "holy faith" and "holy love. 
 The Little Portion given of God was be- 
 coming, gradually but surely, the great 
 oppormr^ty for cardinals and prelates 
 who were not averse to riding to prestige 
 on the popularity of the friars. 
 
 Francis had been wholly unable to 
 check the change. Too poe«c to be 
 powerful, his mystical protests had fallen 
 as silently as sand in an hour-glass while 
 Ugolini and Elias, just as silently but 
 more successfully were papalizing the 
 
 order. . . 
 
 Saintly souls are always sensitive, es- 
 pecially to failure. As Francis saw the 
 approaching collapse of his ideals his 
 whole world turned suddenly black. In 
 despair he retired to La Verna to find 
 his sky again. And there, after days of 
 fasting and prayer among the tangled 
 cyclamen, he "received" the scars of the 
 crucified Jesus in his hands and feet and 
 
 riven side. , 
 
 How? There has been much specuia- 
 
 [951 
 
' I 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 tion. It IS possibly significant, exponents 
 of this theory say, that he reproved Friar 
 Leo for "spying" on him in his mountain 
 hermitage (F., L, iii); that he predicted 
 with unusual confidence (F., L, iii) a 
 miracle, in which "God should do things 
 new and strange such as never had been 
 done to any creature in this world"; that 
 "by reason of the stigmas of Christ his 
 bodily strength little by little ebbed away" 
 (F., L, iv) ; and that it seemed necessary 
 for him to appear after death to Friar Mat- 
 thew with this revelation about the stig- 
 mata (F., L, viii) : "Go then and tell these 
 things confidently to thy minister; for this 
 is the work of God and not of man." 
 
 And yet the holy scars of St. Francis 
 have been so sacred in history and tradi- 
 tion that, like Sabatier's "most beautiful 
 things in nature, the flower and the butter- 
 fly," they "should be touched only with 
 delicate hands." If, like the sermon to 
 the birds at Bevagna and the legends of 
 the lazarettos, the stigmata may be at- 
 tributed to "divine foolishness," it must 
 
 [96] 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 still be remembered that "God has chosen 
 the foolish things of the world to confound 
 the wise, and the weak things to confound 
 the things that are mighty." It is a 
 matter of no importance as to whether 
 Francis did or did not receive the stig- 
 mata in his hands and feet and riven side 
 and as to whether they were self-inflicted 
 or vouchsafed of God. But it is tre- 
 mendously significant that he had lived a 
 life so much like Christ's that men of his 
 day and for seven hundred years since 
 then have not found it hard to believe 
 that he bore the marks of Him in his body 
 • . . that the spirit of Jesus can still shine 
 through the lives of men and make them 
 sacrificially redeeming. 
 
 It is only fair to place beside Franciscan 
 follies the Franciscan wisdom which 
 placed "holy diligence" in the category of 
 religious duties. It was the outgrowth of 
 the third Scriptural injunction received at 
 the Bishop's house in Quintavalle (F., II) : 
 "If any man will come after me let him 
 take up his cross and follow me." 
 
 [97] 
 
Ill 
 
 ili 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 St. Francis with all of his medievalism 
 was thoroughly modern in his meta- 
 physics. He knew that holiness to be 
 real must be active; that light to be life- 
 giving must be energizing. Accordingly 
 he taught that "a mystic should always 
 be willing to quit an ecstasy to help a 
 brother." He himself left the vision of 
 the Crucified to rebuild the walls of St. 
 Damian's. Always he ministered to 
 others in the most menial tasks or the 
 most difficult labors. "Poverty, not 
 mendicancy, was his ideal. He repeatedly 
 urged the friars to earn their living by 
 honest work and to beg only exception- 
 ally." 
 
 The Brothers caught his vision so com- 
 pletely that Friar Giles could write: 
 "Virtue and good works are healing 
 treacle" (Sayings, i); "The noblest art in 
 the world is the art of working well" 
 (Sayings, vi) ; "Holy diligence is the way 
 that leads to heaven" (Sayings, vi) ; and 
 Sabatier could say of their friary: "If 
 Portiuncula was a monastery it was also 
 
 198] 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 a workshop where each brother practiced 
 the trade which had been his before he 
 entered the order." For such was the 
 wish of the Poverello expressed in his Last 
 Will and Testament: "I worked with my 
 hands and would continue to do so; and 
 I will also that all other friars work at 
 some honorable trade; let those that have 
 none learn one, not for the purpose of re- 
 ceiving the price of their toil but for their 
 good example and to flee idleness." 
 
 In spite of his insistence on "holy faith" 
 and "holy diligence" St. Francis was any- 
 thing but "a sour puritan." "He was the 
 most joyous of saints," says Okey, "would 
 have no sad faces about him and always 
 rebuked any friar who was gloomy or 
 melancholy. His friars were to be Jocu- 
 latores Beiy scattered about the world to 
 sing the Gospel truths." 
 
 "Is it not true," he once remarked 
 (Spec, 124-a), "that the servants oi God 
 are really like jugglers, intended to revive 
 the hearts of men and lead them into 
 spiritual joy?" 
 
 199] 
 
BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 That was the Poverello's dream for 
 himself and every one of the Little Broth- 
 ers .. . to be God's jongleuVy radiating 
 holy happiness and holy love in lazarettos, 
 the huts of peasants, the scented haunts 
 of courtesans — wherever there was dark- 
 ness or the shadow of sin. 
 
 St. Francis was admirably qualified to 
 fulfill such a mission. As Thomas of 
 Celano has portrayed him, he was "of a 
 kindly aspect with a joyful countenance, 
 fearless without arrogance. His voice was 
 eager, sweet, clear, and sonorous." "Many 
 times," Friar Masseo adds naively, "he 
 made a joyous sound like the cooing of a 
 dove." To men in the autumn of the 
 twentieth century this sounds childish. 
 But Francis and his friars lived in the 
 lilac-time of life when poetry was in 
 flower and men were not afraid to be 
 sentimental. For them all that was lively 
 or lovely was good, even Friar Juniper's 
 holy "hotch-potch." When he served it 
 — a stew made of unplucked fowls and 
 unpeeled vegetables-Francis dismissed 
 
 [100] 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 the protesting friars with the twinkling 
 comment: "Would to God, my brethren, 
 that I had a forest of such Junipers!" 
 
 So well did the Poverello teach the duty 
 of holy humor or happiness that "the 
 word joy is," according to Thomas of 
 Celano, "the word which comes most 
 often to the pen of Franciscan authors; in 
 the history of their missions there are 
 bursts of laughter which ring out high 
 and clear. "- 
 
 Nor was it merely a mood of riotous 
 youth which made "the little poor man'* 
 God's minstrel. He was to be that to the 
 end of his journeying. Along his Via 
 CruciSy in the Calvaric passion of La 
 Verna, and even when the darkness came 
 at St. Mary's of the Angels, "notwith- 
 standing his sickness he ofttimes sang 
 certain lauds of Christ."- 
 
 In a tragic way these swan-songs re- 
 called the days of his first enthusiasm 
 when he "went his way deeply inhaling 
 the odors of spring, singing at the top of 
 his voice a chanson of French chivalry.'* 
 
 [101] 
 
 
' ! i' 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 They also presaged the nightfall at the 
 Little Portion (October 3, 1226) when 
 "innumerable larks alighted singing on 
 the thatch of his cell, as if to salute the 
 soul of the little poor man, which had 
 just taken flight." The spiritual life 
 which had begun in holy poverty and 
 continued in holy faith, holy folly, and 
 holy diligence, had gone out in holy joy. 
 The Poverello had been his own best 
 witness, an incarnation of love and 
 holiness. 
 
 When, in the last year at the Little 
 Portion, a doctor of theology asked 
 Francis if he should reproach men for 
 their vices the saint answered: "Yes, the 
 true servant unceasingly rebukes the 
 wicked, but he does it most of all by his 
 conduct, by the truth which shines forth 
 in his words, by the light of his example, 
 by all the radiance of his life." The state- 
 ment was evidence that the Poverello was 
 still following the dream of lilac-time— to 
 be "a single sunbeam driving away many 
 shadows." He had praised God for 
 
 [102] 
 
 BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 "Brother Sun" because he brought him 
 light and "shone with a very great 
 splendor." Even so his friars must have 
 been grateful for Brother Francis; for his 
 words had been "the language of the 
 heart bringing life and health in its 
 beams"; his love had "changed their 
 souls and shed over their whole persons a 
 radiance of light and joy." 
 
 If Francis had meant this to the Broth- 
 ers he had meant even more to the Holy 
 Catholic Church. Innocent's dream was 
 probably a myth signifying the truth: 
 "As he (Innocent III) lay in his bed he 
 beheld the great basilica of St. John 
 Lateran tottering to its fall; and while he 
 stood paralyzed with terror and unable to 
 stir, lo, a little poor man, barefoot and clad 
 in a peasant's garb, strode up and applied 
 his shoulders to the falling church, and 
 ever growing to a mighty stature, he set 
 the building erect again, and left it more 
 firmly founded than before." 
 
 By giving the Church the Imago Christie 
 St. Francis substituted service for cere- 
 
 [103] 
 
 i 
 
BROTHERHOOD WITH THE SUN 
 
 mony and suggested that religion was ex- 
 perimental rather than ritualistic. "He 
 saved Catholicism from shipwreck," Dr. 
 Cell insists, "with his practical program 
 and his chivalric devotion to Lady Pov- 
 erty." Innocent wielded "the scepter" 
 which "shows the force of temporal 
 power." Francis exemplified "the quality 
 of mercy," never "strained," pure and 
 purifying in its effects on those who give 
 and those who take. 
 
 A cynic has said that man's life is only 
 dust dancing in the light. Francesco's 
 life was like that. And yet — as Phyllis 
 Bottome says of another "servant of 
 reality" — after so many years, "the dust 
 is forgotten; there is only the memory of 
 light" ... a Little Brother of the Sun 
 . . . Saint Francis- 
 
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