From the Monastery to the City: Hildegard of Bingen and Francis of Assisi (Past Light on Present Life: Theology, Ethics, and Spirituality) [1 ed.] 1531506011, 9781531506018

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[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-13 02:10 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

FROM THE MONASTERY TO THE CITY

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Past Light on Present Life: Theology, Ethics, and Spirituality Roger Haight, SJ, Alfred Pach III, and Amanda Avila Kaminski, series editors These volumes are offered to the academic community of teachers and learners in the fields of Christian history, theology, ethics, and spirituality. They introduce classic texts by authors whose contributions have markedly affected the development of Christianity, especially in the West. The texts are accompanied by an introductory essay on context and key themes and followed by an interpretation that dialogically engages the original message with the issues of ethics, theology, and spirituality in the present.

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From the Monastery to the City HILDEGARD OF BINGEN AND FRANCIS OF ASSISI

Edited and with Commentary by Roger Haight, SJ, Alfred Pach III, and Amanda Avila Kaminski

Fordham University Press  New york 2024

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Copyright © 2024 Fordham University Press This series has been generously supported by a theological education grant from the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. Selections from The Book of Divine Works are reprinted from St. Hildegard of Bingen: The Book of Divine Works, translated by Nathaniel Campbell (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2018). Reprinted with permission from The Catholic University of America Press. Selections from Francis of Assisi: Early Documents are reprinted from Francis of Assisi: Early Documents: Volume 1 (Regis J. Armstrong, OFM, J.A. Wayne Hellman, OFM, and William J. Short, OFM, eds.; Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2002). Used with permission. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Fordham University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Fordham University Press also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Visit us online at www.fordhampress.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available online at https://catalog.loc.gov. Printed in the United States of America 26 25 24   5 4 3 2 1 First edition

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Contents

HILDEGARD OF BINGEN I – Introduction to Hildegard and the Texts

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II – The Texts 15 Hildegard on the Prologue Selection from Part I, Vision 4  of The Divine Works 17

Hildegard on Creation Selection from Part II, Vision 1  of The Divine Works 39 III – Retrieving Hildegard for Christian Life Today

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FRANCIS OF ASSISI I – Introduction to Francis and the Texts

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II – Foundational Texts of Francis

85 87

The Earlier Rule Later Admonition and Exhortation   to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance The Canticle of Creatures A Letter to the Entire Order The Testament

118 129 133 141

v

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viCONTENTS

III – Retrieving Francis for Christian Life Today

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Further Reading 161 About the Series 163 About the Editors 169

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FROM THE MONASTERY TO THE CITY

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HILDEGARD OF BINGEN

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I Introduction to Hildegard and the Texts

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Hildegard of Bingen was born of noble and wealthy parents in Germany in 1098 and lived to be eighty-­one. She spent all but the first eight years of her life either in monastic tutelage or as a vowed religious in the Benedictine tradition. It is hard to resist the series of “firsts” that Barbara Newman, a Hildegard scholar, has assembled to communicate in direct fashion her astonishing accomplishments: Hildegard was the only woman of her age to be accepted as an authoritative voice on Christian doctrine; the first woman who received express permission from a pope to write theological books; the only medieval woman who preached openly before mixed audiences of clergy and laity, with the full approval of church authorities; the author of the first known morality play and the only twelfth-­ century playwright who is not anonymous; the only composer of her era (not to mention the only medieval woman) known both by name and by a large corpus of surviving music; the first scientific writer 5

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to discuss sexuality and gynecology from a female perspective; and the first saint whose official biography includes a first-­person memoir.1 One cannot adequately introduce Hildegard and the two texts presented here in a short space. But an overview of her life will help set a context. Also, calling attention to the style or character of her meditative thinking and the large framework of her theological vision will help the reader of the texts appreciate the content. Hildegard lived and wrote at a great distance from life outside monastic walls in a busy, secular, and cosmopolitan twenty-­first-­century environment. But a Christian today shares the texts on which she comments, and she can lead anyone into their contemplative depth.

Phases in Hildegard’s Life At the age of eight, Hildegard’s parents offered her to be the companion of another high-­born young woman, the six-­years-­ older Jutta of Sponheim, when she entered religious life as a cloistered recluse. Jutta thus assumed the role of Hildegard’s teacher. A few years later, in 1112, Jutta, along with the fourteen-­year-­old Hildegard and one or two other girls, formally took vows in a monastery connected with the Benedictine Monastery of men, St. Disibod, which was under the religious authority of the archbishop of Mainz. Hildegard thus formally began her long life as a Benedictine nun. A chronology of the events and transitions of Hildegard’s life does not reproduce their existential drama, but it provides a narrative structure for her accomplishments and situates her texts. Her relatively secluded life of monastic prayer, study, and observation of nature began early. But Hildegard was a visionary from her childhood. She spoke of a field of perception filled with a luminosity that she called “the reflection of

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the living Light” and that gifted her with visions. The content of these ranged from human forms to elaborate architectural models, which she was able to interpret with the aid of a “voice from heaven.”2 Newman indicates that her visions were related to physical illness and migraines, but Hildegard interpreted her experiences as a gift from God. Her visions became the stimulus for her writing, a source of revelation, but it was not until after she assumed the position of abbess that she began writing. In 1136, when Jutta died, Hildegard, at thirty-­eight, became the mistress of the monastery, which was still under the authority of the abbot of St. Disibod, and assumed responsibility for the school. A turning point in Hildegard’s life, which she reported in her first major work, occurred in 1141. In the “Declaration” or preface of Scivias, she wrote an account of the vision that authorized her writing. “In the forty-­third year of my earthly course, as I was gazing with great fear and trembling attention at a heavenly vision, I saw a great splendor in which resounded a voice from Heaven, saying to me, . . . ‘Say and write what you see and hear . . . speak and write these things not by a human mouth, and not by the understanding of human invention, and not by the requirements of human composition, but as you see and hear them on high in the heavenly places in the wonders of God.’ ”3 The voice commanded her to expound and interpret the visions themselves: “ ‘And write them not by yourself or any other human being, but by the will of Him Who knows, sees and disposes all things in the secrets of His mysteries.’ ”4 She described the experience, saying, “Heaven was opened and a fiery light of exceeding brilliance came and permeated my whole brain, and inflamed my whole heart and my whole breast, not like a burning but like a warming flame, as the sun warms anything its rays touch. And immediately I knew the meaning of the exposition of the Scriptures. . . .5 This vision occurred while I was awake and seeing with a pure mind and the eyes and

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ears of the inner self, in open places, as God willed it. How this might be is hard for mortal flesh to understand.”6 Thus began Hildegard’s desire to write, but nothing is so simple. Volmar, the monk St. Disibod delegated to accompany the nuns during the time of Jutta, became the confessor, teacher, confidant, friend, and advocate of Hildegard. Volmar testified to the authenticity of Hildegard’s visions and won the abbot’s approval so that Hildegard could write. Further witness was gained from Bernard of Clairvaux and even Pope Eugenius, former Cistercian from Bernard’s monastery, who read portions of her writing and encouraged her. It took Hildegard ten years to finish her first large work. During the 1140s, after Hildegard had assumed leadership of her community, she began to be bothered by the pervasive presence of the men’s community, and in 1148, she received a revelation that she should move. This required overcoming political, economic, religious, and communitarian opposition. But from 1150 to 1152, she and her sisters helped build and found a new Benedictine monastery, Mount St. Rupert, near the town of Bingen in the Rhine Valley. Although the monastery remained dependent on St. Disibod, Hildegard had space, retained ecclesiastical protection, and even secured part of her community’s endowment. Hildegard continued writing. The three works of her trilogy “are comparable to other great works of doctrinal synthesis which emerged in the twelfth century.”7 She composed Scivias between 1141 and 1151; her Book of Life’s Merit was written between 1158 and 1163; she worked on the Book of Divine Works from 1163 to 1173. She composed other works on nature, music, and drama besides amassing an extensive correspondence. In sum, especially after Scivias, she lived a busy life and gradually became a person of fame. Today she appeals to a wide range of interests from the worlds of feminism, music, art, literature and drama, medicine, spirituality, and theology.

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A Visionary Who Comments on Scripture Hildegard wrote her three principal doctrinal works in a form quite different from the analytical thinking of the schools or an early university theologian. She had lucid visions; her revelations compelled her to write and communicate what she saw and heard. These descriptive transcriptions became the symbolic focus for extended meditative interpretation and commentary. As a symbolist she used images and descriptive mosaics as prompts to explore basic doctrines and, by association, to expound the significance of fundamental Christian teachings. That she survived the scrutiny of other medieval theologians testifies to her theological knowledge and subtlety. In two notable places in her Book of Divine Works Hildegard shifts her method from commentary on the content of her visions to reflection on the texts of scripture.8 In Part I of Divine Works, attached to her commentary on Vision 4, she explores the text of the prologue of John’s Gospel. Then, further on in Part II, Vision 1, nos. 17–49 of the same work, she offers a substantial commentary on the text of the creation narratives in Genesis. We begin there. Her commentary on creation has a definite form. She takes one day at a time, so to speak, but not without repetitions as she moves forward. Also, the reflection on each day proceeds according to a three-­fold structure. She turns first to the plain sense of the scriptural text, then probes an ecclesiological sense that interprets its teaching for the church, and finally examines a moral sense of the text responding to what it means for the Christian life. The excerpt from that commentary on creation is short, but it illustrates well the style of the whole. Kathryn Kerby-­ Fulton describes Hildegard’s monastic style as “the product of a leisurely, richly digressive, meditative approach to the Scriptures—the mental world of the cloister, not the schools.”9

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Her mind works by association; one thing leads to another as in an imaginative and cumulatively contemplative sequence. A single insight or impression moves her, and reflection keeps circling around it. It is not theology by deductive syllogism but an imaginative contemplation that unfolds with her dictation.

The Texts We turn now to the texts. The Prologue. Hildegard begins her commentary on the first verse of John’s Gospel by speaking in the voice of the creator of all things: I am before all things, God says, I lit up the sun. “I am also Reason,” the very source of rationality (244). I am also the creator of the human person, “that garment in which my Son was clad with royal power to reveal himself as God of all creation and Life of life itself’ ” (245). In view of the incarnation, creation unfolds within the intimate relationship of God with humankind. “For the flesh cannot move itself apart from the rational soul; rather, the soul moves the flesh and causes it to live. For the flesh is to the rational soul as all creatures are to the Word” (248). As its creator, God encompasses all reality in foreknowledge and in its very being. “For God foresaw all his works before ever they were formed” (259). “So everything that God made is life in him . . .” (250). Incarnation also set forth the destiny of all humankind. The Word of God gave life to everything by creating each one; but by the incarnation, when he put on the tunic of flesh, the Word also communicated Spirit so that people could live for God and not for what is physical (250). In this cosmic story, then, the end is the beginning. “For the Word that existed in the Father outside of time and before the ages did not change within itself, but only put on flesh” (261). But what is entailed in the Word becoming flesh? Hildegard responds: “God had formed Man from the clay and

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sent into him the breath of life. So too the Word of God assumed in Man the royal vesture with a rational soul; he drew it completely unto himself and abode within it” (262). The Genesis account of creation.10 We move back, as it were, to the creation of the human. On the sixth day of creation, God created human beings: “Let us, who are in three persons the one force of divinity’s one substance, make Man in our image” (331). “God created Man according to the form of human flesh, in which his Son was to be clothed without sin, just as one makes one’s tunic according to one’s own likeness—that is, according to the form that God foreknew before the ages” (332). A metaphysical narrative lies within Hildegard’s conception of creation and shows her continuity with Augustine. It consists of an exitus and reditus, a coming forth from the creator and a return. “For the heavenly Father willed that I [the Son] exist in time and in the world and live with humans, so that through my words, they might return to salvation as I draw them back with me to heaven” (338). God gives human beings the task of ruling the world with reason and justice. “God sees that this is good, and with supreme sweetness takes great delight when a person seeks him in the primal justice that he established for humankind” (340). On the seventh day, God rested, having accomplished God’s work of creation in the forms of created things. But the work of God continues in the Son and those conjoined with him, for through the Son “God completes good work in a person with all the perfected virtues” (346).

Deep Structure Underlying the Commentary Theologians in the Middle Ages discussed the following hypothetical question: if Adam had not sinned, would the Word of God have taken flesh? The question seems unduly speculative and unable to be answered with unanimity, despite the

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New Testament texts that affirm that Christ died for our sins. But an answer to the question frequently rests upon a comprehensive vision or worldview that profoundly differs from its alternative. Hildegard looked at all reality from the perspective of the prologue of John’s Gospel. Creation itself provided the means to achieve the end of God assuming human form, “becoming flesh,” and thus appropriating especially human existence as God’s own. Incarnation controls Hildegard’s imagination: “ ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, and we beheld his glory.’ Here lies Hildegard’s centering truth, the theme around which all her brilliant variations endlessly circle. The living Light that made us is also the singing Word that took our flesh; he made us because we were eternally his and he wished to be revealed as ours. We are his mirrors, his marvels, his fellow workers, and the work of his hands.”11 This means that incarnation and creation correlate with each other; they mutually imply each other in Hildegard; each includes the other. “The Word Made Flesh is the mainspring for creation from beginning to end.”12 Notes

1. Barbara Newman, “ ‘Sibyl of the Rhine’: Hildegard’s Life and Times,” in Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard von Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 1. 2. Barbara J. Newman, “Introduction,” in Hildegard of Bingen: Scivias (New York and Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1990), 11. The word “scivias” is an abbreviation of “scito vias Domini” or “know the ways of the Lord.” 3. Hildegard, “Declaration,” in Hildegard of Bingen: Scivias, 59. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., 60. 7. Constant Mews, “Religious Thinker: ‘A Frail Human Being’ on Fiery Life,” in Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard von Bingen

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and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 68. 8. Hildegard of Bingen, St. Hildegard of Bingen: The Book of Divine Works, trans. Nathaniel M. Campbell (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018). The selection of these texts provides more direct access to Hildegard’s thinking than would commentary on her visions. The commentaries on scripture are a break from her prevailing style in these works, which require the same imaginative attention in reading that is reflected in their writing. The page numbers in the text refer to the pagination of The Book of Divine Works. 9. Kathryn Kerby-­Fulton, “Prophet and Reformer: ‘Smoke in the Vineyard,’ ” in Newman, Voice of the Living Light, 76. 10. Hildegard’s commentary on the creation story is folded into Divine Works, Part 2, Vision 1, nos. 17–49, 287–347. The text in this volume is limited to the sixth and seventh days, nos. 43–49, 330–47. 11. Barbara Newman, “Commentary on the Johannine Prologue: Hildegard of Bingen,” Theology Today 60 (2003): 21. 12. Nathaniel M. Campbell, “Introduction,” in Campbell, St. Hildegard of Bingen: Book of Divine Works, 6.

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II The Texts

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Hildegard on the Prologue

[Selection from Part I, Vision 4 of Hildegard of Bingen, St. Hildegard of Bingen: The Book of Divine Works, trans. Nathaniel M. Campbell (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018), 244–63] 105. “In the beginning was the Word.”1 This is open to understanding thus: I who am without beginning and from whom all beginnings proceed, who am the Ancient of Days,2 I speak:3 “I am in myself the Day—I came not from the sun, but the sun was set alight from me. I am also Reason, which took its sound from no one else, but from which all rationality breathes. To behold my face, therefore, I created mirrors in which I consider all the never-­failing wonders of my antiquity.4 These mirrors I made to sing together in praise, for mine is the voice as of thunder with which I move the whole circle of the earth with the living sounds of all creatures. I, the Ancient of Days, make them, for through my Word, which without beginning ever was and is in me, I bade a great brightness to come forth, and with it countless sparks—the angels. But as they awakened to their own light, they forgot 17

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me and wished to be as I am. And so, with a great thunderbolt, my zealous vengeance cast them out in the presumption in which they opposed me—for there is only one God and there can be no other.5 “And so I composed within myself a little work, which is Man, and I made it according to my image and likeness,6 so that he might work with another but in accordance with me—for my Son was to be at work in Man with a garment of flesh.7 I also made this work rational out of my own rationality, and in it I sealed my potential,8 just as human rationality comprehends with its skill all things by name and number—for the only way Man distinguishes anything is by name, and he understands the multiplicity of things only by number.9 I am also the angel of might, for I make myself known in wonders through the angelic ranks, and I reveal myself in faith to all creatures when they recognize that I am their Creator; yet I cannot be perfectly declared by any. “Man is indeed that garment in which my Son was clad with royal power to reveal himself as God of all creation and Life of life itself.10 But none besides God can number the host of angels who wait specifically upon his royal power; nor can anyone find the end of those who profess individually that he is God of all creation; nor can any tongue suffice to reckon those who have specifically declared him the Life of all life. So blessed are those who dwell with him.” Moreover, God signified his entire work in the human form, as described above and as also shown here through examples within the human person.11 For in the circle of the human brain God reveals his lordship, for the brain masters and rules the whole body.12 In the hairs of the head he signifies his potential, which is his beauty, just as the hair beautifies the head.13 In the eyebrows he also demonstrates the might of his own eyes, for the eyebrows protect a person’s eyes as they turn anything harmful away from them and reveal the face’s beauty.14 And they are like the wings of the winds that lift them up and sustain them, as

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a bird that sometimes flies upon its wings and sometimes ceases from flying—for the wind blows from God’s might, and the breezes are the wings of that wind.15 Furthermore, in the human eyes he declares his knowledge by which he foresees and foreknows all things. The eyes display many things within themselves because they are lucid and watery, just as the reflected shadow of various creatures appears in water.16 For with sight the human person recognizes and discerns all things—and if he lacked sight, he would be like a corpse among them.17 In human hearing God discloses all the sounds of praise of the hidden mysteries and angelic hosts in which God himself is praised. For it would be unworthy of God if he were known only to himself, since one person can be recognized by another by hearing, while also understanding all things within himself; and he would be as if hollow if he lacked hearing.18 In the nostrils, moreover, God shows the Wisdom that is the aromatic principle of order in all skills, so that a person recognizes through its odor what Wisdom ordains.19 For the sense of smell is diffused in all things and then draws them back to know what are the qualities of each thing.20 But through the human mouth God signifies his Word through which he created all things, as too all words are pronounced by the mouth with rationality’s sound.21 For a person declares many things by utterance, just as the Word of God made many things by creating them in the embrace of his love, so that his work would lack nothing that it needs. And as the cheeks and chin surround the mouth, so when that Word resounded, the beginning of all creation was present before it, when all things were created. And so, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”22 This is open to understanding thus: In the beginning of the very beginning, when God’s will disclosed that it was now ready to make creation—which existed without beginning within him, though it had not yet unfolded—there was the Word without a beginning of any beginning. “And the Word

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was with God,” as language exists in rationality, for rationality has language within itself and language exists in rationality, and they cannot be separated from each other.23 For before the beginning and within the beginning of creation, the Word was without beginning, and before and within that beginning of creation, the Word was with God and in no way separated from God. For God willed in his Word that his Word should create all things, as he had foreordained before the ages. And why is it called, “Word”? Because with a resounding voice it awakened all creatures and called them to itself. For what God composed in the Word, the Word bade in its sounding; and what the Word bade, God composed in the Word. And so, “the Word was God.” For the Word was in God, and in the Word God composed his whole will in secret; and the Word sounded and brought forth all parts of creation, and thus the Word and God are one. When the Word sounded, it called to itself all creation that was foreordained and arranged in God before time; and through its voice, all things were awakened unto life. This too he signified in the human person, who composes a word hidden in his heart before uttering it, though it remains with him in its uttering—and thus the composition of the word exists within the word. For when the Word of God resounded, that Word appeared in all creation, and its sound was life in all creation.24 So too, out of that very word a person’s rationality enacts its works;25 and out of that very sound it produces its works in speaking, shouting, and singing—for through the keenness of his skill in working with created things, a person makes music with stringed instruments and drums, because the human person is like God, rational through the living soul.26 With its warmth this soul draws to itself the flesh in which appears the first figure of God’s finger, which he had formed in Adam.27 The soul permeates the flesh to bring it to life and fill it up with its fullness in growth. For the flesh cannot move itself apart from the rational soul; rather, the soul moves the flesh and causes it to live. For the flesh is to the rational soul

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as all creatures are to the Word. This is why the Word created Man in the Father’s will. But as Man would not be human without the network of blood vessels, so too he could not live without creation; and because he is mortal, he does not furnish life to his own work, for his life begins from God. Indeed, God gives life to his work, for he himself is the Life of life without beginning. “This Word was in the beginning with God,”28 in that beginning of which my servant Moses speaks, inspired by me, saying: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.”29 For the Word that sounded, “Let there be!” where it is written, “And God said, ‘Let there be light!’ ”30 existed in that God and with that God—that is, in a single equality of divinity—in the beginning when creation received its beginning from the Creator. For that Word that is with God is equal to him in divinity, because the Word that is in God is inseparable from God and exists consubstantial with him.31 So “all things were made by him,”32 for all parts of creation were made through the Word of God as the Father willed, as there is no Creator except God alone. For all useful things that have form and are alive were made by him. In a person’s arms and its attached joints he also shows the strength of the firmament, together with its signs that bear and govern that firmament, as the arms with the joints of their fingers manifest the rule and activity of the whole body. For the right is like the south wind and the left like the north, which uphold the firmament to keep it from passing beyond its placement.33 As it is written, “And in all of this, between us and you, there is fixed a great chasm,”34 lest the darkness snuff out the light and the light drive out the dark.35 “And without him was nothing made.”36 For without the Word of God, no creature was made, because through the Word of God was made all creation, both visible and invisible, that exists with any type of being, whether of living spirit or viridity or virtue. Without him was not anything made except evil, which is of the devil and therefore was cast away from

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God’s eyes and reduced to nothing. For there is only one God, and there is no other. Rational Man, in whom God placed the capability to work, also committed sin, which amounts to nothing because it was not created by God. For this nothing, God established the endless darkness because it rejected and fled from the light.37 But “what was made in him was life.”38 For all things that were created appeared in the reason of their Creator, because they existed in his foreknowledge. Yet they are not coeternal to him; rather, they are foreknown, foreseen, and foreordained. For God is the unique Life that does not receive its beginning from any life that has a beginning.39 Therefore, everything that was made was life in him, because it had been foreknown by him and was alive to God, such that God never began to hold everything in his memory, because he had never forgotten it, since it was in his foreknowledge, even though it did not yet exist temporally in its own forms.40 For as it cannot be but that God exists, so it cannot be but that through him those works that had been foreknown and foreordained in his wisdom should have come forth as creation. What was made in creation existed in God as life without loss, for it was to be created such that when it was done, creation would lack nothing, but rather would possess the fullness of its development as it grew. Likewise, the things a person enacts for himself are his life, in that they sustain his life, for by them he subsists and is perfected. But because God is full Life without beginning and without end, so his work is also life in him, and it is in no way to be mocked. Likewise, God signified this within the human chest, where a person gathers his thoughts to desire, compare, and grade each thing, whether good or bad, and to consider whether what he finds is pleasing or displeasing. For what pleases a person, he gladly keeps to preserve his life; and what displeases him, he casts away in indignation, lest it harm his life. So everything that God made is life in him, for that which is from God is alive in its nature. Thus, as the Word of the

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Father gave a life of flesh to humans when he created them, so too when he put on his tunic, he gave them the life of the spirit, that they might walk by a different form of life and not according to the flesh, and so grow into throngs of spiritual people.41 And so the Word holds each people in his hand, because that Son of God is both God and Man. Indeed, he embraces a spiritual people with love, because he is the Son of God; but because he is the Son of Man, he holds a secular people to justice, by which it was said, “Grow and multiply.”42 “And the life was the light of humankind,”43 because the life that awakened creation is the Life of human life, for through it humankind lives.44 In reason and knowledge it gave to humankind the light in which they look upon God with faith, acknowledging him as their Creator and perfused with that light as daylight illuminates the world. For by the sky that bears both sun and moon, a person understands the wings of conscience—for the day signifies good knowledge, and the night, evil knowledge, as the sun manifests the day, and the moon, the night.45 As both humankind and all creation would be as if blind in the function of their life without these lights, and as the human body could not live without the spirit, so too a person could not understand what he is without the wings of conscience. Thus, “the light shines in the darkness,”46 as the daylight shines at night through the moon, so that among his good works a person might recognize the wicked works that are cut off from the light. For a good conscience supported by reason reproaches an evil conscience and drives it far away. “And the darkness did not overcome it,”47 as night cannot overshadow the day—for evil does not wish to know or understand that which is good, but rather flees from it. God declares this in the human heart, which is the life and firmament of the whole body and upholds the whole body, for in the heart a person’s thinking is ordered and the will nourished. So too the will is like “the light of humankind,” for as light

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penetrates all things, so too the will abounds in what it ­desires—and often in that desire that it thinks is a light, it walks in the darkness of the wicked works it wishes to perform. But the darkness does not so overcome that will that it tears away from it knowledge of the good—for a person knows the good even though he does not do it.48 “There was a man sent from God”49 who had not the taste of soil, because he was sent by the supernal Creator and not by a human. For the warmth of God’s Word made verdant the withered flesh of those who bore this man, so that his flesh would work many things as one estranged from the customs of those born in sin.50 For those who bore him were touched by God’s grace in his procreation, so that he came forth by God’s grace, sent in witness of the Son of God. This is also why the angel named him John.51 “His name was John,”52 because the works he did accorded with his name, for God’s grace came before him, followed after him, and strengthened him. For the grace of the Word that is God sent John without the disturbance of moral instability that floods the wandering ways of humans born in sin. For this reason, he kept that particular stability like the righteousness of the spirits, who have neither the moral wanderings of humans nor the desire to sin. But God, who is wonderful, molded the wonders that he did in John to the form of the human belly. For the belly seeks the energies of the creatures that it ingests and passes on, to be fed from their juices, as God established.53 Yet in all creatures—animals, reptiles, birds and fishes, grasses and fruit-­bearing plants—lie hid certain unknown mysteries of God, which neither a human person nor any other creature knows or perceives, except inasmuch as it is granted them by God. But John was sent miraculously into the elements and miraculously fed by them; as he had been withdrawn in a way from the habit of sin, so too by abstinence he was kept miraculously alive by the elements.54 He was a pure man, a worthy and commendable messenger before the hidden Son of God, through whom the

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world was put in place with its countless number of creatures, all created by him. This also is signified in the belly, for as the world contains all things, so too the belly takes into itself the rest of creation in digestion.55 Furthermore, as every created thing came forth from God, so Adam bore all humans in his form; and to them the Son of God served true food when he bore humankind in his humanity. “He came in testimony, to bear witness to the light, that through him all might believe.”56 For in the miraculous circumstances of his birth, wondrous as to the custom of the flesh, John was made man. A wondrous man, he came with divine dispensation in testimony of God’s mysteries, to bear witness, through the virtues enacted in him, of the light—of God, from whom all lights are lit—that all who are on fire by the Holy Spirit might believe in God through his testimonies, which he uttered wondrously. He came indeed to testify that divinity had been clothed in human form. And as he was born in a withered nature with no viridity of its own, so he spoke of my Son, born of the Virgin Mary without sin. This was my will, that through this miracle that I performed in John, humans might believe the miracles of my Son. And as this witness appeared in John, so in the thighs of the human person is declared a true witness—for the thighs are witness to all who are born and the procreative source of the whole body, which sees, touches, thinks and chooses, and accounts in its knowledge for all that it does. For the human person is a wonder of God—and so it is just that a person should give witness to God’s wonders.57 “He was not that light, but was to bear witness of the light.”58 For John was not that light that is never divided nor changed—that light that is God. Rather, he came, sent by God to give witness of him who is the true Light that kindles all lights—for God exists within and of himself, nor wanting nor needing anything, since he would enact all in all.59 So too it is that he exists within the crafting of his every work. Hence John announced his testimony and witness concerning Christ,

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for as a fruit witnesses to the quality of its root, so he rose up within God’s wonders. Therefore, he also testified to God’s wonders. Man, moreover, is the signature work and light of God—one that begins its life and then in the flesh passes away. And this is why John bears witness to God, because God is not like this. “He was the true light”60 that is never darkened by any shade and has no time of serving or ruling, of decreasing or increasing.61 Rather, it is the ordering principle of all order, the light of every light, and it shines of itself. For God did not arise in any morning, any dawn, but existed ever before the ages. “It enlightens every person who comes into this world.”62 For this light floods with the breath of life every person who has flesh and blood and comes through the place of conception into the present world of waxing and waning flux, that when the sun welcomes him with its lights, he might behold and come to know creation. For with the soul’s living spark God awakened the first Man, whom he formed from the clay,63 so that through that spark of the soul, from clay he was transformed into flesh and blood. So too his descendants: when the semen’s foam has been teased out by human nature, it is wholly transformed into flesh and blood by the soul’s fiery spark.64 For were it not awakened in this way by the soul’s heat, it would not be wholly transformed into flesh and blood, just as the first Man’s matter would have remained clay had it not been changed by the soul. For as bread is made from flour through water and fire, so too flesh and blood come to be through the soul’s fire. For humankind is as a light for the other creatures that abide with them upon the earth, especially those that run to them and fawn on them with great affection. So too humans usually seek whatever they wish affectionately from the creature that they dearly love. But a creature that does not love humans flees from them and tramples and scatters all things that belong to them, because, terrified by its fear of

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them, it considers their very existence a source of distress. This is why such a creature often attacks people, to tear their life from them.65 “He was in the world,”66 because he put on the royal garment of the Virgin’s flesh when the holy divinity lay down in her womb.67 For he was made Man in a foreign nature, not as any other person, for his flesh was inflamed by holy divinity. Therefore, after the Last Day, when each person has been transfigured, the souls of the elect will lift up their bodies— those that once existed in the world—by faith into heaven. This God will enact of his own accord and virtue, which no created thing can destroy. For then each person, as described above, will be clothed with flesh, their bones filled up with marrow; but even more, they will never suffer want of food and drink and life, for then they will go forth with the powers of divinity, without any wavering or variance. For each is in goodness a member of Christ, who endured in this world many sufferings and even more reproaches, despite being the Son of God. This was a fact the devil—the inventor of all falsehood68—could not know as a creature with a beginning who hastened to deny Christ with all his members who reject God. Yet even he could not stop humankind from being lifted up into unending life. “And the world was made by him,”69 such that the world originated from him, not he from the world. For creation came forth through the Word of God—all parts of creation, both invisible and visible, since some things exist that can be neither seen nor touched, while others are both seen and touched. But Man has both within himself—soul and body— because he was made in the image and likeness of God.70 So too a person bids in word and enacts with the hands. Thus God ordained humankind after himself, because he willed his Son to be incarnate of humankind. “And the world knew him not,”71 because the sons of the world—those who follow the world because of their ignorant blindness—knew not of his coming nor recognized his

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working, like an infant unaware of knowledge and working. Wherefore God demonstrates the ignorant infancy of unbelievers in the human thighs and knees. For infants, fed with milk and ground-­up food, cannot walk because their marrow and bones are not yet strengthened; and adults cannot walk upon thighs and knees without calves and feet. Likewise, because the knowledge and perception of unbelievers were empty of the Holy Spirit’s fire—through which they ought to have acknowledged God—they could not walk upon the way of rightness. “He came to his own,”72 for he had created the world and put on human flesh. So too all creation reveals him, as a coin shows its temporal ruler.73 For God created the world, which he wished to prepare as a tabernacle for Man; and because it was his will that he should be clothed in humankind, he made Man in his own image and likeness. This is why all things were his own. “And his own received him not,”74 those who were his own because he had created them and made them specially in his own image. Yet they neglected him when they failed to recognize that he was their Maker, and to understand that they were created by him alone. For unbelievers did not receive his humanity, nor did they recognize that he was God in human form, because of the blindness of their unbelief. So too a person’s youth—foolish and wasteful—is signified in his calves. For at that time his marrow and bones are fully strengthened, as he attends to the rest of creation with its verdant blooms and thinks himself wiser than others. That is how the Jews and pagans acted: in love with the vanity of the world, they thought they knew what they did not know and were what they were not, and they did not attend by faith to him who had given them flesh and blood. For as a youth is deceived into taking pleasure in created things, so the world at that time lived in vanity; and so it was necessary that God reveal himself to them and gather them to himself, as too he

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commanded the ass and its colt be untied and brought to him when he sat upon them with the law of truth.75 “But as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become children of God.”76 For to all people of both sexes who received him by believing him to be God and Man—for first one grasps God by faith, and then perceives that God became Man—he gave in potential, by his own power and will, the power to become children of his Father in the heavenly kingdom; that is, to be made heirs of his inheritance and possess a share with him in his kingdom, by that power that makes a child his father’s heir.77 For because they acknowledged him as God and their Creator, and embraced him with love and kissed him with faith, and diligently and carefully sought everything from him, the dew of the Holy Spirit fell upon them, so that the whole Church began to sprout from them and bear the fruit of supernal joys. Therefore, it was given to them, by virtue of their true faith, to become children of God. “To those who believe on his name”:78 for to those who have this faith by believing that they can be saved in his name through baptism, is given a share in the heavenly kingdom. For all their works they do with burning love as if they see God; and they worship God’s name not in the shadow of faith without works, but actively casting away foreign gods that cannot make themselves and do not exist of themselves, but are merely fellows of human company. This name, moreover, in which there is true belief, is such that it has no beginning; through it all creation arose; and it is the life through which all life breathes. Therefore, it is worshiped by its whole creation. In accordance with these three powers that exist in this name, every creature that has a name consists of three powers. A creature that is withered and decaying, however, lacks a name because it is no longer alive. But of the three powers that are present in a living creature’s name, one is seen and one is known, but the third is unseen. For the body of a living

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thing is seen, and that it procreates is known, but the source of its vitality is neither known nor seen. So too God manifested his great wonders in the human feet, for as the feet uphold the entire body and carry it wherever it wants, so faith forcefully holds up and everywhere bears nobly God’s name with miracles, both seen and unseen, known and unknown.79 And though a person’s body and his works are seen, there is much more within him that is neither seen nor known. But since so much is obscure in a human being, how should he who created humankind be made manifest? For no person living in the world can know him as he really is. “Those who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”80 For the Son of God said, “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.”81 For flesh born of flesh was conceived in sin;82 but because God is spirit, through him all spirits arose. Spirit is not turned into flesh, nor flesh into spirit—but through flesh and spirit, Man is perfected, for otherwise he would neither be nor be called human. Indeed, God fashioned Adam to live eternally without change, but he transgressed in disobedience by listening to the serpent’s advice. That is why the serpent thought he would perish entirely—yet such was not God’s will, and he prepared for Adam the exile of the world, in which he would conceive and bear his children in sin. And so he, together with his every offspring, became mortal, turned to decay by conception’s sinful foam, until the Last Day, when God will renew humankind, afterwards to live life unchanging, as Adam had been created. But this life could not in any way come into existence within children conceived and born in sin; rather, it arose in the humanity of God’s Son, through whom the supernal Father remembered to deliver humankind, who had been lost. For those who are made children of God by virtue of good works do not possess this power to be children of God because of the coagulation of their parents’ blood—in which they themselves are bloody—nor of the will

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of the weaker flesh that buds forth to give birth, nor of the will of the flesh’s stronger part that is robust in begetting.83 Rather, they receive it from the recompense of divine revelation, in the washing of baptism and the fiery outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In that way they are born of God and made heirs of his kingdom. For God foresaw all his works before ever they were formed. When afterwards their forms were formed in creation, they did not remain empty within, but were brought to life. For flesh without life is not flesh, since it fades away in decay when life has left it. But the breath that God sent into Adam was fiery and intelligible and life. So through its heat the earth’s red clay became blood. And as every creature existed in God’s foreknowledge before time, so too all humans yet to be born exist in his foreknowledge. Furthermore, the human person is intelligible and sensible— intelligible because he understands all things, sensible because he perceives what is present to him—for God fills a person’s whole flesh with life when he sends the breath of life into it. Therefore, through the knowledge of good and evil, he chooses what pleases him and rejects what displeases him. Moreover, God takes consideration of whatever a person proposes for himself. If he has proposed for himself what is not of God, God withdraws his presence from him, and soon he is met by those who conceived the first evil—that is, those who wished to destroy heaven. But this did not affect God, because it would be unfitting for God to destroy himself.84 But if a person sighs for the name of his Father and calls upon him with a good desire, the angelic guards will come to him to keep him from being hindered by the enemy. Through the delight of desiring good works, God at first rears that person gently as with milk, and then pours upon him the rain of his grace, through which he boldly mounts from virtue unto virtue.85 In this way such a person is ever new in those virtues, all the way until his death. One who can do something only small and not great always sets out impetuously to accomplish what

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he can; but the one who can do many great things keeps in them moderation and balance. For the devil wants just one thing—to seduce souls to their death. He neither seeks nor is able to do anything else, and he can barely stand it until he accomplishes what he wants to do. But because God is powerful in and through all things, he keeps moderation in all his works and executes them with discretion’s balance, so that humankind might become ever stronger and more ready in the stability of good works. For any who set out impetuously usually bring themselves to ruin. But the human person is the hallmark86 of God’s complete honor, for the good conscience within him demonstrates the angelic hosts that serve God in praise; while the evil conscience he has manifests God’s power, because God conquered it when he expelled the first Man from paradise. So it is in every human person: in the one who through a good conscience chooses and enacts the good is shown God’s goodness, and in the one who seizes upon evil to accomplish it is declared God’s power. For God sometimes brings judgment upon an action, and sometimes pardon. And so in this way, as already described, humankind is life, and all that pertains to them is alive because of them. For God created Man with all creation connected to him beneath the sun, so that he would not be alone upon the earth,87 just as God himself is not alone in heaven, but is glorified in all the heavenly harmonies. Moreover, all that surrounds humankind upon the earth endures with them upon the earth, until that number is fulfilled that God established to be fulfilled.88 But after the resurrection to come, the blessed person will not need to grow or be fed by anything, for then he will exist in that brilliance that will never pass away, never be changed. Indeed, then the blessed person will be clothed with brilliance by the Holy Trinity, to gaze upon him who never had a finite boundary of beginning or end. Because of this, he will never suffer senility or boredom, for he will make music upon the harp and sing praises ever new.89

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Indeed, as described above, the flesh lives through life, and it would not fully be flesh except through life—and so flesh is one with life and life one with flesh. To this unity God attended when he empowered the flesh and blood in Adam by the breath that he sent into him. For God then looked upon the flesh that he would one day wear, and held it with burning love.90 “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”91 For the Word that was eternally with God before time and that was God, assumed flesh from the Virgin’s womb by the Holy Spirit’s fire. He put on the flesh just as the veins are the framework of the flesh and carry the blood, even though they are not themselves blood. For God created Man so that all creation might serve him. So too it befits God that he should receive the garment of flesh in Man. Indeed, the Word is clothed with flesh such that Word and flesh are one—yet not such that one is transformed into the other, but rather that they are one in the unity of person. But the body is also the garment of the soul, and the soul functions by working with the flesh.92 Yet the body would be nothing without the soul, and the soul could do nothing without the body. So they are one in Man and are Man; and thus the work of God—Man— was made in God’s image and likeness. For when a person’s breath is sent forth from God, that breath and the flesh become one person. The Word of God, moreover, assumed flesh from the Virgin’s unplowed flesh, without the heat of fiery passion, so that the Word would be Word and the flesh would be flesh, and they would be one.93 For the Word that existed in the Father outside of time and before the ages did not change within itself, but only put on flesh. “And dwelt among us,”94 because he became Man without sin to dwell as Man among us, not neglecting our humanity, since we too are humans with the breath of life, made in his image and likeness. Therefore, we also dwell in him, because we are his work and because he has held us forever in his foreknowledge and not forgotten us.

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“And we have seen his glory,”95 because we who were with him saw him specially come in a nature wondrously without any sin, revealing “the glory as of the Only-­Begotten of the Father.”96 For he was born, the Only-­Begotten of the Father, wondrously before the ages,97 and then, coming wondrously from the Father, he revealed his glory when a Virgin conceived him from the Holy Spirit’s fire—for she had no need of a man’s work, even though every other human is sown with sin from a man, that is, from his father. For God had formed Man from the clay and sent into him the breath of life.98 So too the Word of God assumed in Man the royal vesture with a rational soul; he drew it completely unto himself and abode within it. For the breath that is called the human soul permeates the flesh and possesses it as a delightful garment and beautiful ornament. Wherefore the soul loves the flesh and consents to it, even though it cannot be seen within it. By the soul’s nature and desire, the human person seeks the clothing of life; and because God created no creature devoid of energy, so the human always works wonders. And that Word is “full of grace and truth.”99 For he was in complete grace in creating all things in his divinity and redeeming them in his humanity; and he exists in complete truth, for no wicked lie of sin touched him, nor did he ally himself to it, because he is the Lord who in his battle conquered evil, which without him is nothing. For that Word—the true Son of God—is full of grace as he gives and remits according to his mercy. He was not emptied in his divinity,100 but put on humanity; and his humanity is full, for no wrinkle of sin touched him in his human nature. He is also full of truth, because he gives, remits, and judges as is just; and this mere humans do not do, because they were conceived and born in the wrinkle of sin. Thus God is round like a wheel as he creates all things, wills the good, and perfects the good.101 For God’s will prepared all that God’s Word created. And so all who fear and love God should lay open the devotion of their hearts to these words and know that they

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have been offered for the saving of humans in body and soul, not indeed by a human being, but by me, the One who am.102 Notes

1. Jn 1:1. 2. Dn 7:9–14. 3. Cf. Love’s opening speech in 1.1.2; the first paragraph of God’s speech here also echoes heavily in the opening of the exorcism rite that Hildegard composed for the possessed woman Sigewize ca. 1169; see Let. 68r (1:149), and Life 3.21. 4. Cf. 3.1.6; the notion of angels as mirrors can be rooted in Ws 7:26; cf. also Ps.-­Dionysius, Divine Names 4.22. 5. Cf. Hildegard, Explanatio Symboli Sancti Athanasii 115. 6. Gn 1:26–27. 7. Cf. 2.1.43 and 3.2.9. 8. Cf. ch. 11. 9. Cf. Gn 2:19–20. 10. “Garment . . . clad”: a verbal echo of Rev 4:4; Dronke references Eriugena, Periphyseon 5.25: “When the Word of God received human nature, he did not omit any created being that he had received in that nature. Therefore, in receiving human nature, he received all creation.” 11. The following expands especially on the ladder of the senses from ch. 14. 12. Cf. chs. 14 and 23–29. 13. Cf. chs. 46–47. 14. Cf. ch. 38. 15. Cf. Pss 17:11 (18:10) and 103 (104):3; and 1.1.2, 1.2.24, and ch. 49. 16. Cf. 1.1.6 and 3.3.2. 17. Cf. chs. 35–37 and 98 (on the fifth month). 18. Cf. ch. 98 (on the sixth month). 19. Cf. Wis 8:6. 20. Cf. chs. 35–37 and 98 (on the seventh month). 21. Cf. chs. 37, 40, and 98 (on the eighth month). 22. Jn 1:1. 23. “Language”: uerbum. 24. Cf. The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen 374 (3:161).

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25. Cf. Letters, 31r (1:98). 26. Cf. Hildegard, Liber Vitae Meritorum, 4.46 (59); and Letters, 23 (1:76–79)—Hildegard’s apologia for music against the interdict imposed in the last year of her life. 27. Cf. Hildegard’s antiphon Cum processit factura (Symphonia 13). 28. Jn 1:2. 29. Gn 1:1. 30. Gn 1:3. 31. Cf. Explanatio Symboli Sancti Athanasii 124; “consubstantial” comes from the Nicene Creed. 32. Jn 1:3. 33. Cf. the placement of Adam in ch. 97. 34. Lk 16:26. 35. Cf. ch. 96. 36. Jn 1:3. 37. Cf. Letters 31r (1:96–97); and Explanatio Symboli Sancti Athanasii 118, lines 253–60; Hildegard suggests that the “nothing” that was made “without the Word” is the impossible contradiction of God willing himself to come to an end—and that, then, is the “nothing” of Satan’s disobedience and human sin that followed it: for a rational creature to want to be God is to will God to come to an end. Cf. Hildegard, Causes and Cures 1.17: “Nothing has no quality of existence, and that is why it is nothing—so then any creatures who voluntarily join themselves to nothing lose their qualities and become nothing.” 38. Jn 1:3–4. 39. Cf. Liber Vitae Meritorum 5.39 (53); and Let. 31r (1:95). 40. Cf. 1.1.6. 41. Cf. Liber Vitae Meritorum 4.24(32). 42. Gn 1:28. 43. Jn 1:4. 44. Cf. verse 1a of Hildegard’s sequence O ignis Spiritus Paracliti (Symphonia 28). 45. Cf. chs. 25–30 above; and Letters 155r (2:100–102). 46. Jn 1:5. 47. Ibid. 48. Hildegard interprets the light as the Incarnation, a purity untouched by the darkness of sin, which in turn cannot comprehend the light.

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49. Jn 1:6. 50. Cf. Letters 389 (3:185). 51. Cf. Lk 1.7–25; Dronke notes that Jerome interpreted the Hebrew name “John” to mean “one in whom there is grace; or, the grace of the Lord.” 52. Jn 1:6. 53. Cf. ch. 98 (the eighth month). 54. Cf. Scivias 2.5.16. 55. Cf. ch. 71. 56. Jn 1:7. 57. Cf. Liber Vitae Meritorum 5.77 (96). 58. Jn 1:8. 59. Cf. 1 Cor 15:28. 60. Jn 1:9. 61. As the sun rules the moon and the moon serves the sun; and as the moon waxes and wanes—but also an allusion to Jn 3:30: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” 62. Jn 1:9. 63. Gn 2:7. 64. Cf. Cause 2.57 (59): “For when a person’s blood boils in the ardor and heat of sexual desire, it emits itself as a foam that we call semen, as when a pot placed on the fire produces foam from the water because of the fire’s intensity.” 65. Cf. Liber Vitae Meritorum 6.23 (24). 66. Jn 1:10. 67. Cf. Hildegard’s antiphon O quam magnum miraculum (Symphonia 16). 68. Cf. Jn 8:44. 69. Jn 1:10. 70. Gn 1:26–27. 71. Jn 1:10. 72. Jn 1:11. 73. Cf. Mt 22:18–21; Letters 297r (3:100) uses the same simile; cf. Scivias 3.2.20. 74. Jn 1:11. 75. Mt 21:2. 76. Jn 1:12. 77. Cf. Rom 8:17. 78. Jn 1:12. 79. Cf. ch. 92.

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80. Jn 1:13. 81. Jn 3:6. 82. Ps 50:7 (51:5). 83. “Weaker . . . stronger”: male and female, respectively. 84. Hildegard writes on Jn 1:3: “God cannot be brought to an end, but the notion that God wanted himself to be brought to an end was nothing, because this could not happen.” 85. Ps 83:8 (84:7). 86. Significatio. 87. Gn 2:18–20. 88. Cf. 3.5.8 = Ordo, Finale (180–81). 89. Cf. Rev 14:2–3; and ch. 104. 90. Cf. ch. 14. 91. Jn 1:14. 92. Cf. Causes and Cures 2.130. 93. Cf. 2.1.44, on Gn 1:29–30; Letters, 170r (2:127) and 389 (3:189–90). 94. Jn 1:14. 95. Ibid. 96. Ibid. 97. Cf. the Nicene Creed: “begotten of the Father before all ages.” 98. Gn 2:7. 99. Jn 1:14. 100. Cf. Phil 2:7. 101. Cf. 1.2.2. 102. Ex 3:14.

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Hildegard on Creation

[Selection from Part II, Vision 1 Hildegard of Bingen, St. Hildegard of Bingen: The Book of Divine Works, trans. Nathaniel M. Campbell (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018), 330-­347] 43. “And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind: cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds.’ ”1,2, 3,4 This should be considered thus: In his inextinguishable Word, God bade the earth to bring forth living animals in their kind, that is, the various kinds of animals in their forms: the cattle to serve Man, the creeping things for Man to learn to keep fear of God, and beasts to show him how to honor God—each animal having the appearance of its kind.5 So too it was fulfilled, that Man should have complete fullness with them, to choose what would be beneficial for his needs and disregard what would be harmful to himself; and in this way his honor would be full. For cattle yoke themselves to Man, while creeping things shrink back from him and beasts flee from him—and over all of them he rules.6 39

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“And God made the beasts according to their kinds, and the cattle, and everything that creeps upon the earth in its kind.”7 That is, the beasts that strike fear in Man with their wildness; the cattle that serve him; and the creeping things that hide before him, as just described. “And God saw that it was good; and he said, ‘Let us make Man in our image and likeness, and let him rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and the beasts, and the whole creation, and every creeping thing that moves upon the earth.’ ”8 With the gaze of his goodness he saw that it was good and useful for earth’s entire globe to possess the fullness of Man’s honor, and he spoke as if calling Man to a meal, “Let us, who are in three persons the one force of divinity’s one substance, make Man in our image, that is, according to that tunic that will sprout in the Virgin’s womb—the tunic the person of the Son will put on for Man’s salvation, to go forth from her womb as she herself remains untouched; and from which tunic divinity will never withdraw.9 Rather, because of Man’s redemption, the human soul will strip off its body in death and then take it back up again, awakened by divinity’s power. Let us also make him in our likeness, with knowledge and wisdom to understand and discern what he is to enact with his five senses,10 so that through the rationality of his life, hidden within him and which no embodied creature can see, he may know that he is to rule the fish that swim in the waters, and the birds hung in the air, and the untamed beasts, and the whole of creation that dwells upon the earth, and the creeping thing that moves upon the earth—for human rationality surpasses all these things.” “And God created Man in his own image: in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them and said, ‘Grow and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and all living things that move upon the earth.’ ”11 God created Man according to the form of human flesh, in which his Son was to be clothed without sin, just as

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one makes one’s tunic according to one’s own likeness—that is, according to the form that God foreknew before the ages. He created humankind, making the male with greater force but the female with softer strength,12 and ordering in proper proportion the length and breadth of all their limbs. Likewise, he positioned the height, depth, and breadth of the rest of creation in its proper state, lest any part exceed another inappropriately. So too God marked out all creation in humankind and ordained within them the likeness of the angelic spirit—the soul that works in the human form, unseen by any embodied creature, just as the divinity cannot be seen by any mortal creature. For the soul is of heaven while the body is of earth; and the soul is recognized by faith, while the body through sight. God indeed created male and female—but the male first, and afterward the female, taking from the man her who was to give birth, as too the male generates by the strength of the powers hidden within him. For through winter and summer fruits grow and are brought forth, and without them no fruit could mature. It is also through the tree’s root, which keeps viridity within itself, that flowers and fruits are nurtured, and they are from a single source. So are many produced by male and female, yet they come forth from a single Creator. For if there were only male or only female, no human person could be born. So too man and woman are one, for man is like the soul, while woman is like the body.13 And he, on whom the angels gaze to know and praise, blessed them and commanded them to grow with their increase and to progress in their multitude, and to fill up the earth under their command and to make it subject to themselves, so that, as it is cultivated by humankind, it might burst forth in fruit; and to rule over the things that swim in the waters and fly in the air, for they excel them with the extension of their five senses, and all living things that have the movement of vital air upon the earth, for rationality’s glory surpasses them all.14

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For when humankind is perfected in the full number as God established them, they will arrive at that land that for earthly humans is called “the land of living,” and then they will have fellowship with the Lamb in the heavens. Oh, how great is the joy, that God deigned to become Man—divine among the angels, human among humans! So truly one must believe that he is God and Man. Therefore, too, God established humankind in his own tunic and in that full number that never withdraws from them, for he treated them as a father does his son: he granted them an inheritance for their care when he made subject to them the fish and the birds and all living things that move upon the earth by living without rationality. “And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed upon the earth, and all the trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be food for you; and to all the animals of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to all things that move upon the earth and in whom there is a living spirit, to have to feed upon.’ And it was so.”15 In his inextinguishable Word, God said that he would give to humankind seed-­bearing plants, as well as trees that produce seed from within, to be food for them—not that humankind should eat all plants and trees, but that they should be fed by those animals that eat plants and the fruits of trees. He also allowed them to have as food animals that live upon the earth, as well as birds and all that are carried about here and there upon the earth by their movements and in which is found the vital air. For all things that live on the earth are known to feed upon that viridity that bursts forth from the earth, not so that every animal uses plants or the fruits of trees, but that, as one creature produces in itself food for another, each is fed through the use of sprouts and verdant sprigs. And God’s bidding was fulfilled in this way, for everything that exists was subject to God’s will, and God’s every arrangement was accomplished in creation on behalf of humankind. For after the Last Day, the human person, whose soul does not pass away, shall see God, who never began and never suffers

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ending. For as long as a person waxes and wanes like the moon—as long as he is mortal—he shall not see God, except insofar as he reveals himself to humans as he pleases in the shadow of prophecy. For when God made the beginning of humankind, he also foresaw in that moment the end of their time, as well as that time when each person born of his mother’s womb would be reborn anew by water in the Holy Spirit.16 “And God saw all that he had made; and they were very good,”17 for he had created all creatures in complete perfection, without any deficiency; and it was good that they would have no defect. “And there was evening and morning, the sixth day.”18 With the end of that beginning that God had made in creation and in Man, whom he had predestined in place of the fallen angel, the sixth day cast light upon Man perfected—and it also foreshadowed that Man would enact diverse works throughout the six ages of the world.19 In another sense: 44. “And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind: cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds.’ And it was so.”20 This should be considered thus: Let the earth—my Church—bring forth all the living virtues that I established through the apostles’ teaching in all the virtues’ kinds.21 Let the married, who are under the yoke of the law,22 live rightly indeed. Let those, too, who crawl along in the abstinence from carnal desires exhaust their bodies in vigils, fasts, and prayers.23 Let those, moreover, who offer their entire substance to God24 also place their souls before him, casting away all unlawful things in their works, so to please God their Savior by being subject to his precepts, which were established for them.25 And as beasts of the earth do not transgress the nature established for them according to their kinds, so let such people keep the form established for them according to their faculties. Thus in these virtues will abstinence from worldly affairs be accomplished.

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“And God made the beasts according to their kinds, and the cattle, and everything that creeps upon the earth in its kind.”26 By God’s grace in the Holy Spirit, all these great virtues of spiritual institutions, all the orders of secular people, and all the faculties of those who abstain were made in the Catholic faith. “And God saw that it was good; and he said, ‘Let us make Man in our image and likeness, and let him rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and the beasts, and the whole creation, and every creeping thing that moves upon the earth.’ ”27 And likewise God saw that all these virtues were good, and he said to himself, “Now let us make humankind in our image and likeness, for the building of the Church. How? Let us make them for the Church’s edification, to raise her up with humankind in their every construction, that, adorned with her form, they might be formed with rationality—in our image—and with knowledge and wisdom—in our likeness. So humankind is to build the Church with divine work and righteous human deeds, that she might receive the law in my Son, who was born from my heart, and be set on fire with the Holy Spirit. And let humankind rule over the Church with their knowledge in earthly matters, with the observance of the Gospel that God gave, and with the virtues that fly to the good. Let them also place before God their substance and soul with submission to God’s commandments and with all the other virtues of the heavens, and let them exhaust their bodies in abstinence from things of the flesh, so to accomplish these virtues. Let these virtues also perfect humankind in observance of all God’s commandments, since humans can never be sated by them as they mount from virtue unto virtue,28 and are ever mobile in retreating from evil and doing the good.” “And God created Man in his own image: in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them and said, ‘Grow and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea, and the

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birds of the sky, and all living things that move upon the earth.’ ”29 God created humankind in the Church to recognize his divinity, to be able to enact in their soul the heavenly virtues with the soul’s sighs, with which the Church was adorned together with the gems of the virtues. He created them in God’s image, which is the Son, to be surrounded with burning love so as to accomplish all good things in chastity with the more excellent virtues, that God’s Church might be perfected with God’s works. So therefore, God created the peoples to possess in the heavenly virtues manly strength— the male person; and also to live in the fear of God when the soul suffers the difficulties of secular life and caring for children—the female person—so that the Church might be built with that care. In these matters God blessed them with the full blessing of the holy Incarnation, in that the Son of God was clothed with humanity, and so all the kinds of virtues needed to be powerfully distilled within the spiritual and secular affairs that are accomplished out of love for God—for God is God and Man, and from him all holy viridity springs forth. And in the admonition of the Holy Spirit, he told the peoples growing in the Church with overflowing and just desires to go forth in each of their lives following the fear of God, and to multiply and be fruitful in these their endeavors, and by ever renewing the virtues within themselves, not to wither. So they are to fill the earth—the Church—and subdue her to Christ and rule over her, so that they follow the Gospel and raise themselves up to heavenly things with the flying and living virtues that move away from earthly matters and remain fixed in the good. “And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed upon the earth, and all the trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be food for you; and to all the animals of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to all things that move upon the earth and in whom there is a living spirit, to have to feed upon.’ And it was so.”30 God said within the entire establishment of the Church, “Behold,

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I have now given and sent to you the right faith through my Son, whom you have seen born upon the earth in the viridity of unplowed earth—in the Virgin’s womb—so that untouched earth might spring forth blooms.31 My Son, moreover, yielded the seed of God’s word, to be sown upon the Promised Land of Holy Church, upon which the heavenly Jerusalem is built. He also yielded the law of the married, who keep the propagation of their seed within their progeny, as to how they ought to live following the fear of my commandments. My law was given to you as for food, so be fed in your soul’s construction as the body is fed with food; for my Son said, ‘My food is to do the will of my Father.’ ”32 This should be considered thus:33 “I am the Son of God, and my food is to submit myself physically to the suffering by which, after the devil is conquered according to my Father’s will, I will lead humankind back to the paradise out of which they were cast, because my Father sent me into the world for this, to save them. For I was sent by the Father to take up flesh in my mother’s womb without a man’s moisture. That food, therefore, in which I am equal outside of time to my Father, is better than this food that I eat presently according to the flesh;34 for the heavenly Father willed that I exist in time and in the world and live with humans, so that through my words, they might return to salvation as I draw them back with me to heaven. For such is my work, because I redeemed humankind in my humanity, so that they might also work according to me. Be fed, therefore, with my law, that your souls not falter. For I established for you the time for food in God’s law, in which you will find the pastures of life35 where you will not fail in anything if you have watched over them; rather, you will live forever.” “When humans have also submitted through the virtues to the commandments of the living God and been made imitators of Christ in the heavenly warfare,36 they remove themselves from earthly affairs and strive with full devotion towards righteousness; as they mount from virtue unto virtue37

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(which move towards the good) into the land of promise,38 they have different kinds of food and seasons of time, which were established for them by their leaders.39 The people ought to observe according to the law’s institution those seasons in which feasts are to be celebrated and fasts to be completed. Differences of food must also be maintained, so that more is not eaten than the propriety of need requires; and to each it should be properly dispensed according to the measure by which each has been strengthened and instructed in the Holy Spirit.40 Let the Christian person—the Church’s building material—listen to this, so as rightly to consent to his Captain.” And this was so, for God’s words and the virtues were made the food of life among the Christian people in the Church.41 “And God saw all that he had made”;42 that is, he approved all the commandments as established and the seasons given for all the virtues just described; “and they were very good,”43 for they were completed in the fullness of Almighty God’s choicest grace, so that they would lack nothing. Each virtue existed first as the only good, but thereafter all were equally good because all equally appeared,44 as a banquet is full when it is executed in all its just courses. “And there was evening and morning, the sixth day.”45 The flux of instability, when the Church did not yet have the firmness of her established precepts, began to sink down to the morning of the firm justice of all established law, like the day strengthened by the sun’s powers while the sun stands fixed in its order, so that then there was the sixth day, and, as in the sixth light of firm faith, the people fulfilled God’s commandments according to his will and the teaching of their leaders in the Church. And again, in another sense: 45. “And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind: cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds.’ And it was so.”46 This should be considered thus: In the admonition of the Holy Spirit, God says to people who furnish themselves in all the matters just described, in that they diligently join themselves

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to God in the desire of their soul: “Now let the earth—the human person—bring forth the living virtues of the soul,”47 so that the outer person, attending to the soul’s business, sighs ever for God, that soul and body might be obedient to God in the mightiest virtue’s kind—obedience,48 which, hidden in God, took power away from death. Likewise are the cattle subdued in their submission to humankind; the creeping things, too, are subject to them in their useful function; and the beasts of the earth serve humankind, as one person submits himself to another in the subjection of humility. For obedience is the punishment for pride, confounding it completely.49 “And God made the beasts according to their kinds, and the cattle, and everything that creeps upon the earth in its kind.”50 From Almighty God arises fear in the person who once had freely sinned through pride, so that that person begins to seek God, just as the first Man received from God the precept of obedience. And so God causes a person to overthrow his self-­will in submission to others because of his love for God, just as beasts are penned up, fed, and directed by humans as they will. Likewise, people are reckoned in their submission to their masters according to the kind of holy humility—bound to obedience in the form of cattle and even in that base nature of the reptile, so that they are crushed in their self-­will according to the will of their masters, just as the reptile’s base nature is crushed underfoot in its kind.51 46. “And God saw that it was good; and he said, ‘Let us make Man in our image and likeness, and let him rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and the beasts, and the whole creation, and every creeping thing that moves upon the earth.’ ”52 God sees that this is good, and with supreme sweetness takes great delight when a person seeks him in the primal justice that he established for humankind. And he says to himself, “In overcoming his illicit desires, this person touches me with the full inception of justice. With a shining desire for my primal constitution, which I established in that first daybreak when Man ought to have been obedient to me,

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he stands up with good works. Now let us three persons—the force of single being that touched the first Man to create him in its image and likeness—make it so that this person is given great honor because of his holiness and recognition of divine things. Let him be considered a patron and keep for his neighbor the love of the holy Incarnation, as in God’s image; and exhibit in his conscience honor for the divinity, as in God’s likeness; so that, by putting the institution of the Gospel and the virtues first in temporal affairs, he might sacrifice even himself unto God. That is, let him afflict his body through abstinence and push himself away from the earthly and towards the heavenly, to act with those virtues that have been fulfilled within him, that those virtues might act with him in turn; and in this preference for God, to fear and love him.”53 “And God created Man in his own image: in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them and said, ‘Grow and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and all living things that move upon the earth.’ ”54 And now God creates the human person to honor him, so that he might be known within him entirely in his deity and in his humanity. How? The power of the deity that creates and governs all things appears for humankind’s instruction, who were made in his image according to the reason by which they rule over the rest of creation. His mercy, by which he rescued the world in his humanity, is recognized in a person’s compassion, by which people ought according to their ability to spare and have mercy upon their neighbor. And these are the good examples of God’s Word, as the psalmist David says, “I have said you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.”55 This should be understood thus: I have said to you humans, “In this you are gods: that humankind governs all creation, subduing it to their every need as they desire.56 For just as you hold Almighty God in faith and fear and love, so a creature looks upon humankind as a god in the instruction of fear, and loves

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them when fed by them. Furthermore, you humans are also called sons of the One who is above the highest, for by the grace of the living God you were created as rational, as if you were born from him; and because you have from him all the knowledge that is necessary for you—but the irrational animal does not know anything except what it perceives through sensation.”57 God also created in Man—that is, in a person’s living conscience—the force and strength of clear-­sighted justice, so that he would not corruptly yield to iniquity in any way whatsoever, either for himself or for others; and in this respect, humankind is as if manly. He also created [this aspect] in Man, through the gift of divine grace to spare with mercy the person wounded by sin, and to attend to his sufferings so as to pour upon them the wine of repentance and anoint them with the oil of mercy58—and this such that that person neither falls beneath an excessive measure of unpardonable penitence, nor, being lukewarm,59 is enveloped in the emptiness of corrupted works; and in this respect, humankind is as if feminine.60 And this God blesses because it touches upon his Son’s humanity, as that same Son of God says in the Gospel, “Whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, is my brother, sister, and mother.”61 This should be considered thus: “Every person who, propped up by God’s grace, with a good intention does the will of my Father, who is my Father by divinity, dwelling in heaven—I who am the son of a Virgin—such that, repudiating what they were born to, they fly to God with the inner person: that person is my brother in a nature different from that of their conception,62 as they imitate God and look ever to him with the veneration of perfect fear. They are also my sister in this devotion as they faithfully hold God in the embrace of constant charity. And in all their works, as they climb to my Father with the will for perfection and often carry him within heart and body, they are my mother—for thus they give me birth when, with the full zeal of holiness,

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I blossom in my Father through the fullness of the blessed virtues.” Then God says to himself, “May these people grow in the powers of the mightiest virtues, and let the multiplication of those virtues be cherished within them; so that the earth— other people—is filled up by hearing about and understanding the precious spices of these people’s good works, and those others submit to their precepts. And may these people rule over their desires with surpassing felicity, withdrawing in these virtues from all worldly pomp, which is as the sea; and may they run with supernal desire to heaven with the virtues and with those who in their powers move toward the good,63 so that these virtues draw illicit desires, which are as the earth, away from that person.” “And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed upon the earth, and all the trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be food for you; and to all the animals of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to all things that move upon the earth and in whom there is a living spirit, to have to feed upon.’ And it was so.”64 And now God also says in the Holy Spirit, “Behold, all the sprouts of the virtues described above, yielding the seed of my Word upon the desires of the flesh of that person who thus keeps restraint. And I have placed all the mightier virtues ascending to the greater precepts, so that, as the virtues have with a right desire within themselves a good seed of their own kind in my Word, they might be for that person food for the soul’s refreshment. All the virtues are also subject to God in humility and fly in the heavenly warfare, and move a person away from earthly affairs and toward those of heaven, for in them are living powers planted by the Holy Spirit; they are pastured with that person in his soul, and that person is also nourished with them in all things.”65 And all this comes to be in that person who thus advances in God. “And God saw all that he had made; and they were very good.”66 God sees now too that all things that the Holy Spirit

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grants are very good, for they have been accomplished in the fullness of all the virtues. Though each virtue was at first within itself the only single good, now they are all equally good, because they are fulfilled by appearing simultaneously in a person.67 “And there was evening and morning, the sixth day.”68 And now from God it comes to be in a person that a good end, together with a good beginning, of the sixth virtue— obedience—brightly shines as if the sixth day. 47. “So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their ornament.”69 This should be considered thus: The upper and lower elements, together with all the powers assigned to them, were finished with such fullness and perfection that they rejoiced in the abundance of fitting use, for all need had been taken away. “And on the seventh day God completed his work that he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.”70 The completion of the six separate works already described was called the seventh day, because God brought to perfection all that he had foreordained to create. And so he rested on the seventh day, ceasing from his activity, for he had accomplished his every work in their forms. “And he blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work that God had created and made.”71 God blessed the seventh day with praise and hallowed it with an honorable solemnity, for all creation came forth fully created in him, as God had foreordained that it should be, and from it all begotten things proceed. So too the whole angelic host and all the hidden mysteries of divinity72 blessed God because of the finishing of God’s work, and they praised him because he had perfected all his work with the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Again, in another sense: 48. “So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their ornament.”73 This should be considered thus: Finished were all the heavenly works that, in the transitoriness of earthly things, strive for heaven with the earthly things that

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the needs of children born of humans keep; and so all that perfected beauty of heavenly works was established in the Church. “And on the seventh day God completed his work that he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.”74 This entire establishment was completed in all respects—and this such that I determined my every activity in my Son, the seventh day—that is, in the fullness of the entire good—so that the whole churchly people should know well, by seeing, listening to, and probing through teaching, what they are to do according to my precepts.75 And my entire establishment was so wonderful that I could reveal it in nobody but my Son, sent by me. He fulfilled in open action by his teaching and by his apostles all my arrangements, which the prophets had earlier seen in shadow. Then too the seventh day of my rest gleamed in the Church, so that afterwards, I would enact nothing else in open action—neither in proclamation nor with wondrous signs, nor with the vision of the saints of old—except that I disclose in my Son the works of life and many other secrets, both past and present and to come; and I kindly admonish my elect to imitate my Son’s Incarnation, which blossomed in the primal bud. “And he blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work that God had created and made.”76 I blessed and hallowed this seventh day with the salvation of souls, as I sent my Son to be incarnate in the Virgin’s womb. And I blessed and hallowed it, for in that, my day, I was greatly pleased—that is, in those who, as the blooms of roses and lilies,77 freed from the yoke of the law and with me as their only inspiration, began freely to constrain themselves, as too my Son’s Incarnation, promised first in prophecy, was not liable to the law’s precept. And I rested from acting in such a way in the Church, which with its full establishment was already perfected in holy work, as it still shines now. For my Son, who is my seventh work, proceeding from the Virgin’s womb through humanity, accomplished all these things with

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me in the Holy Spirit, according to what it says in the Gospel: “All authority was given to me in heaven and on earth.”78 This should be understood thus: By God the Father was given to me, who am the son of a Virgin, all authority by hereditary right to act in heaven and to determine on earth what is to be done and to be determined—not, however, to transgress my Father’s will, but to observe it in all things, for I am in the Father and he is in me.79 And again, in another sense: 49. “So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their ornament.”80 This should be understood thus: The heavenly and earthly virtues and all their ornament are finished in a person in justice and truth with good works. “And on the seventh day God completed his work that he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.”81 By means of the seventh day—which is his Son, in whom all fullness of good work originated—God completes good work in a person with all the perfected virtues, like an artisan setting precious stones into the work he was to make; for all good works are fully adorned in the person who enacts them through the Holy Spirit’s grace. Then too God rests in his Son from all the work—that is, from that work in which a person has now been perfected; for God began to enact righteous works with his Son, who was the seventh work, in the Virgin Mary’s womb. “And he blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work that God had created and made.”82 In the perfection of good works, God blesses the seventh day—the person who is a member of his Son in him.83 How? That person is to follow the inner blessing—God’s Son, who came forth from God’s heart, so that through his example of becoming obedient to God the Father,84 he might be returned to life. In that person God also hallows the heavenly works described above, for he grants him with himself the glory and honor to forgive his neighbor each debt as he will.85 And because of this, the Father now rests from the severity of works according to which he allowed no one before his

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Son’s Incarnation to enter the heavenly kingdom. But now he throws open the entrance of supernal joys in his Son, because through that Son he forgives each debt that a person confesses from the heart. Therefore, let the faithful person understand these things faithfully and not spurn in them the One who is truthful. Notes

1. Cf. Rev 14:4–5. 2. Gn 1:21–22. 3. Gn 1:23. 4. Gn 1:24. 5. Speciem generis sui: in the Douay-­Rheims version of Gn 1:24, “kind” translates genus in the first half of the verse but species in the second half. 6. Cf. Gospel Homilies 1, 22, and 39 (30–33, 101–4, and 158–61). 7. Gn 1:25. 8. Gn 1:25–26, in a variant that reads creaturae (“creation”) for terrae (“earth”), found also in Eriugena’s Periphyseon 4.5 and 4.10; and Rupert of Deutz’s De sancta Trinitate et operibus eius 33.2 (“On the Four Gospels”), on the sixth age of the world. 9. Cf. 1.4.100 and 105, passim; and Liber Vitae Meritorum 4.24 (32). 10. Cf. Scivias 3.2.22. 11. Gn 1:27–28. 12. Cf. Liber Vitae Meritorum 4.24 (32); Let. 26r (1:88); and Cause 2.89 and 91 (77 and 79). 13. Cf. 1.4.100; and Scivias 1.2.12. 14. Cf. Gospel Homilies 7 (50–52). 15. Gn 1:29–30. 16. Jn 3:4–5. 17. Gn 1:31. 18. Ibid. 19. Cf. 1.2.42; and Augustine, On Genesis Against the Manichees 1.23.35–40. 20. Gn 1:24.

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21. On the orders of the Church, cf. Scivias 2.5, esp. chs. 26–28 and 37–38. 22. The Latin coniugatus (“married”) literally means “yoked together.” 23. I.e., clerics; cf. Liber Vitae Meritorum 6.22 (23). 24. Cf. Song 8:7. 25. I.e., monastics. 26. Gn 1:25. 27. Gn 1:25–26. 28. Ps 83:8 (84:7). 29. Gn 1:27–28. 30. Gn 1:29–30. 31. Cf. 1.4.105, on Jn 1:14; Letters 170r (2:127) and 389 (3:189–90). 32. Jn 4:34, in a variant used as an antiphon for Friday in the third week of Lent. 33. See Widmer, 180–81; this is parenthetical to the main elaboration of Gn 1:29–30, which continues in the next paragraph. 34. Cf. Letters 381 (3:172), with the Eucharistic overtones made explicit against the Cathars. 35. Cf. Jn 10:9. 36. Cf. 2 Tm 2:3. 37. Ps 83:8 (84:7). 38. Heb 11:9. 39. Cf. 1.4.99. 40. Cf. Explanation of the Rule of Saint Benedict 34, 37.2–3, and 39–40. 41. See Widmer, 168–73. 42. Gn 1:31. 43. Ibid. 44. See n. 380 below. 45. Gn 1:31. 46. Gn 1:24. 47. Cf. Augustine, Confessions 13.21.29. 48. Cf. Explanation of the Rule of Saint Benedict, Prol. 3. 49. Cf. Liber Vitae Meritorum 3.10 (14). 50. Gn 1:25. 51. Cf. Gn 3:15; and Explanation of the Rule of Saint Benedict 7.50–52.

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52. Gn 1:25–26. 53. Cf. Explanation of the Rule of Saint Benedict 7.68–69. 54. Gn 1:27–28. 55. Ps 81 (82):6. 56. Cf. Gospel Homilies 7 (esp. p. 51). 57. Cf. 3.3.2. 58. Cf. Lk 10:33–34; ch. 9 above, of the black horse; 3.5.28; Gospel Homilies 2 (esp. p. 34); Letters 164r, 179, 189 (2:116, 141, 154) and 291 (3:89). 59. Cf. Rev 3:16. 60. See Elisabeth Gössman, “Hildegard of Bingen,” in A History of Women Philosophers, vol. 2, Medieval, Renaissance, and Enlightenment Women Philosophers, A.D. 500–1600, ed. Mary Ellen White (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press, 2012), 53. 61. Mt 12:50. 62. Cf. Hildegard’s sequence O virga ac diadema, verses 1b–2a (Symphonia 20). 63. Cf. Ws 7:22. 64. Gn 1:29–30. 65. In Augustine’s Confessions 13.25.38, the earth’s fruits are works of mercy owed to ministers of spiritual teaching, comparable here to the paradigmatically virtuous person. 66. Gn 1:31. 67. This conception of the virtues draws on the description of Wisdom’s spirit as both unicus (singular, unique) and multiplex (manifold) in Ws 7:22; and, more broadly, on neo-­Platonic notions of each successive and more manifold level of being emanating from prior, simpler levels, and ultimately from the unitary One. 68. Gn 1:31. 69. Gn 2:1. 70. Gn 2:2. 71. Gn 2:3. 72. Cf. the opening of the Easter proclamation, the Exsultet. 73. Gn 2:1. 74. Gn 2:2. 75. Cf. Scivias 3.8.15 and 3.11.23. Hildegard departs from the traditional scheme of the seven ages of the world (as in Augustine, e.g., Confessions 13.35–37, or On Genesis Against the Manichees

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1.23.35–40), in which the Incarnation and time of the Church comprise the sixth age, while the seventh is reserved for the “eternal Sabbath” at the end of time. See Widmer, 128–29; Rauh, 505; and Dronke, LDO, lxvii–lxviii, esp. n. 86. 76. Gn 2:3. 77. A similar phrase describes the figure of Virginity within Mother Church’s bosom in Scivias 2.5; it recalls Sir 50:8, adapted in the refrain of the responsory for the first nocturn of Matins on the Feast of the Assumption, Vidi speciosam sicut columbam ascendentem. 78. Mt 28:18. 79. Cf. Jn 14:10–11. 80. Gn 2:1. 81. Gn 2:2. 82. Gn 2:3. 83. Cf. 1 Cor 6:15 and elsewhere. 84. Phil 2:8. 85. Cf. Mt 6:12 and 18:27.

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III Retrieving Hildegard for Christian Life Today

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Hildegard lived through the greater part of the twelfth century. Her prolific writings shine as a beacon of creativity within monastic discipline. She stands in dramatic contrast to Francis, who was born two or three years after her death. Both are poised on the threshold of the university theology that flourished in the thirteenth century, classically represented by Thomas Aquinas. Reading Hildegard’s texts and studying her spark different appreciations of her contribution to Christian theology, ethics, and spirituality. This reflection moves in two ways beyond historical interest and admiration to lessons in spiritual depth for our time. The first focuses on her person and life as a Benedictine. She lived in the wake of the Gregorian reform when monastic life was flourishing, and she communicates the creative possibilities of monastic life. The second appeals to her theological vision represented in her exegetical work. This focus bypasses much of the essential Hildegard contained in her reflections on her visions, but it provides a clear pathway to her direct relevance for life today.

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Hildegard as Christian Witness The presentation of early monasticism in Western Monastic Spirituality sets up at least a formal context for understanding the life of Hildegard. Consideration of Cassian and Benedict’s rule, and not least the rule for religious women of Caesarius of Arles, establishes the theological vision of life within the monastery itself. This is where Hildegard lived, where she slept and ate, prayed the office, measured time by the seasons of nature and the liturgical year, where she studied, taught, had visions, wrote, felt responsible for and administered care to her sisters. Ordinarily one thinks that the routine would wear down sensitivity to the new; in Hildegard’s case it released uncommon creativity. Those who have studied Hildegard point to her Benedictine character. “Throughout Hildegard’s works . . . the foundational virtues are humility, obedience and discretion, which, like Benedict, she called ‘the mother of virtues.’ ”1 The narrative of her life offers something to be appreciated and imitated today. One has to be nuanced here in order to respect the balance between dependence and determined agency. As a Benedictine she reverenced the rule and then mediated it. She remained dependent on the abbot of Disibod and under the authority of the bishop of Mainz. She bore no abhorrence of hierarchy; it was part of her world, and she took her own place in its working. The lesson lives precisely there: the order of things, whether of nature, the monastery, or the church, reflected a set of values, an ecology of interdependence, an intended harmony or arrangement that could be marshaled against corruption. Where did Hildegard find the spiritual leverage and fearless secular courage to criticize the emperor, which she did publicly, if not from the sacred order of things? This does not justify the negativities that hierarchy tends to spawn, but it reminds us that norms that represent values are positive and enable prophetic action, especially in times of chaos and deviant leadership.

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Another area where Hildegard may have representative value for people today relates to the themes of contemplation and action. Like her contemporary, the Cistercian monk Bernard of Clairvaux, she was hyperactive inside and outside the monastery, even though this way of life was confined and minutely regulated by the order of the day. She lived in a medieval, feudal, classist, and elitist monastery. Newman reminds us of the obvious sources of her influence: “She enjoyed the inestimable advantages of wealth, high birth, membership in a large and well-­connected family and easy access to the holders of political and ecclesiastical power.”2 In the tension between contemplation and action, the pole of contemplation invites consideration of the role of the imagination in the spiritual life. As a visionary Hildegard obviously had an active religious imagination. But the function of the imagination in Hildegard’s spirituality bears little resemblance to Ludolph of Saxony (1295–1378) using the senses as a way to insert oneself into the situations and narratives of Jesus’ ministry in the gospel stories. She was more a prophet than one who sought religious experience for its own sake. She seemed unconcerned about her own experience and her personal subjectivity. She had visions and described them, but the point always seemed to be “the meaning of the things seen.”3 Her visions were a vehicle of God’s revelation, and the point lay in the content that was communicated through commentary. Later, in Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), use of the imagination became a way of personally appropriating the impact of Jesus’ teaching and action; in Hildegard, we have a person whose imagination allowed her symbolically to represent to others the content of God’s revelation.

Hildegard’s Incarnational Theology We turn now to Hildegard’s thought and particularly to the core of her theology as it is manifested in her two scriptural

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commentaries on the Prologue of John’s Gospel and the creation narratives of Genesis. The following interpretation of Hildegard proceeds on the basis of double vision. We have before our eyes the text of Hildegard written in a monastery of twelfth-­century Germany; but we read it wondering whether it releases meaning that can be appropriated as relevant for a developed twenty-­first century world. If such meaning does appear, it will bear an analogous structure, partly or structurally similar but also different because of its situation in a new horizon and context. Hildegard’s incarnational theology perfectly resonates with this proposition because of the classic character of the subject matter within Christian thought. This reflection first explores the platform of Hildegard’s fundamental conviction and then draws out several stimulating implications. Commentators converge on the relationship between the Prologue of John’s Gospel and the story of God creating as the center of Hildegard’s thought-­world, the framework of her vision of all reality. Several formulas define that relationship. One says that the purpose of God creating was or is the incarnation, the Word becoming flesh. Incarnation does not follow because of sin; God’s incarnation was intended from the beginning and causes creation by supplying its purpose. Nathaniel Campbell puts it as follows: “Within this quite conventional reading of the Incarnation as reparation for sin, however, Hildegard introduces the more fundamental concept of its eternal predestination—the idea that God willed from eternity to become Man and that the Incarnation is the final cause of all being.”4 The insight that lies behind this conception seems to be embedded within a profoundly expansive conception of the reality of God. God as creator encompasses all reality; all of reality pre-­existed within the mind of God before God created it. Campbell expands on this: “The perfect ordering of all that exists, foreknown in their forms by God before creation ever

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came to be, reaches from the outmost edges of the cosmic spheres into the very smallest organisms—and all of it is ordered on behalf of and therefore within humankind, precisely because that human form was one day to contain divinity.”5 But the relationship between creation and incarnation transcends purpose and becomes reality. In other words, the very character of reality as Hildegard viewed it involved the immanence and presence of God within it as that became epitomized and revealed in Jesus, the Word become flesh. Constant Mews puts it directly: “Hildegard identifies divinity as the fiery life that shines on the waters, in the sun, moon, and stars and all things. This fiery life is rationality itself, through which all things exist, and in which the Word resonates through creation.”6 It follows that: “Divinity is omnipresent in all creation, which existed in the mind of God even before the beginning of time. All things are brought into being through this rational light that emanates from God and gives all creatures life.”7 The conclusion of these reflections lies in seeing the implications of how Hildegard interconnects incarnation and creation as unified within the mind of God. They are not related sequentially; incarnation is enveloped within creative intent; becoming flesh defines the inner character of creator God. One can say that the very character of creation is incarnational. Hildegard’s exegesis of the prologue turns incarnation from an external intervention of God into the human condition to a revelation and “the full manifestation of an inherently natural process” of God being immanent to the world.8 The inherent character of creation has to be understood in the terms of the Word becoming flesh and revealing that which is the structure of reality from the beginning. Hildegard is Christocentric and does not propose a creation theology over against redemption; but as an incarnational theologian, she proposes a Christic naturalism intrinsically constituted by the divine and revealing Word, Wisdom, and

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Rationality itself. She knows no creation theology or naturalism over against Christ’s redemption but a naturalism wholly within it. “Her central concern is not so much with the Incarnation as with the fundamental unity behind all creation, which existed in the mind of God even before it came into being.”9 This naturalistic wholeness of reality releases implications that fit a present-­day outlook on reality and current consciousness of forgotten truths.10 Hildegard viewed creation in all its natural functions as good; her ideas contradict a negative appreciation of physicality, the sort of dualism that characterized the Cathar theology prevalent at the time. Her correlation of creation with incarnation gave her a love of physicality and the world. Hildegard wrote commenting on Genesis 1:27–28 that God created human beings “according to the form of human flesh, in which his Son was to be clothed without sin.”11 On this idea Newman comments: “This divine cherishing of human flesh is perhaps the most surprising and unexpected doctrine to emerge from—of all places—a twelfth-­century Platonist’s commentary on the Johannine Prologue.”12 Her interest in the workings of nature fits with this positive worldview. It translates into a present-­day acceptance of the secular sphere, the search for spiritual meaning within it, and an acceptance of the human body as sacred. The integral unity of creation and redemption counters the contentious issue of the relation between grace and freedom that runs through the Western Christian tradition after Augustine. One finds little trace of any competition between grace and freedom in Hildebrand’s texts. Grace is God’s mercy, compassion, and forgiveness; God loves what God has created. Hildegard’s conception of the unity of creation and incarnation circumvents the lengthy discussion of Bernard of Clairvaux of whether grace or freedom leads the way. Hildegard is completely comfortable in a monastic life where one strove to do God’s will without worrying in

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Augustinian fashion about the absolute priority of grace. Everything about Hildegard’s vision of reality was incarnational. Hildegard, in fact, communicates a cosmology and history in which God intends human beings to work together with God—hand and glove. God’s names are Creator, Word, Wisdom, and Rationality, and humans are God’s image who participate in God with their own rationality and creativity and, in so doing, act as God’s agents. Human beings are God’s “mirrors, his marvels, his fellow workers, and the work of his hands.”13 These contemplative ideas and words of Hildegard take on surprising new meaning in an evolutionary worldview. In such a setting they begin to sound like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. On the one hand, God works for humanity; on the other hand, human beings are the agents of God in the world. This conjunction contains several subthemes. “The human likeness to God is the rationality that spurs his creative activity, the reason wherefore he enacts creation by his Word. . . . God ‘established humankind to be able to think, to compose first all their works in their hearts before doing them.’ ”14 God’s resting on the seventh day means that God turned the work of creation over to humans. This positive view of humanity stems from incarnation; the human body will become the “tunic” of the Word of God, so that in turn the Word incarnate reveals the natural or divinely planned condition of human existence. “Just as God’s rationality contains the impulse to creativity, so human rationality—as the divine likeness—is oriented to action within that creation.”15 The soul permeates the body entirely with ­rationality in order “to act with it in the same way as the Word permeated all things in creating them.”16 Rationality also includes discretion, prudence, the moral sense of discerning right from wrong, “by which the rational person determines what he ought and ought not to do, what is useful

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for him in the wide world of creation and what is useless or harmful.”17 These theological ideas are imaginative, lofty, and even mystical. But they stimulate inner convictions that resonate with the empirical side of the imagination of Hildegard the observer of nature. They can easily be transformed into our scientific age to find God at work in the intricate workings of our physical world today. God is not up there or out there but all around and within. Notes

1. Barbara J. Newman, “Introduction,” in Hildegard of Bingen: Scivias (New York and Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1990), 19. “She placed a premium on unity, and her teaching is pervaded with classical monastic themes: spiritual warfare, knowledge of good and evil, the conflict between soul and body, the acquisition of virtues, the special merit of chastity” (ibid.). She was original and endlessly creative, but she also “represented a rather old-­fashioned type of monasticism” (Ibid.). “In sum, Hildegard’s opus presents us with a synthesis of classical Benedictine theology, exegetics and spirituality as they stood in the mid-­twelfth century . . .”; ibid., 45. 2. Ibid., 10. 3. Ibid, 17. 4. Nathaniel M. Campbell, “Introduction,” in St. Hildegard of Bingen: The Book of Divine Works, trans. Nathaniel M. Campbell (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018), 15. Theologians will recognize this principle as fundamental to the theology of Karl Rahner. It rearranges common ideas about the relationship between a natural and a supernatural order. 5. Ibid., 11. 6. Constant Mews, “Religious Thinker: ‘A Frail Human Being’ on Fiery Life,” in Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard von Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 64. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid., 66.

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9. Ibid., 67. 10. Note, for example, the following phrase from Hildegard’s text: “So everything that God made is life in him . . .”; The Book of Divine Works 1.4.105. She thus combines theology of creation and incarnation into what today would be called “panentheism.” It has, of course, an imaginative theological rather than a philosophical basis. 11. Hildegard, The Book of Divine Works 2.1.43. 12. Barbara Newman, “Commentary on the Johannine Prologue: Hildegard of Bingen,” Theology Today 60 (2003): 19. 13. Ibid., 21. 14. Campbell, “Introduction,” in St. Hildegard of Bingen: The Book of Divine Works, 8. 15. Ibid., 13. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid.

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FRANCIS OF ASSISI

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[128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-13 02:10 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

I Introduction to Francis and the Texts

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Two or three years after the death of Hildegard, Francis of Assisi was born to a middle-­class merchant’s family of some wealth. The two could not have been more different. Francis lived on the other side of the Alps; in a class society, Francis did not enjoy noble status; his religious life did not unfold within monastic enclosure; his theological sophistication scarcely transcended popular religion; he wrote, but not much; and he lived a shorter life by thirty-­five years. Yet he may have had more religious impact than any other medieval figure. Francis represents another side of the high medieval Christianity just as the rise of the universities and the influence of Aristotle began to shape intellectual life. The prevalence of ascetic penitents, not to mention the rigorous but heretical Cathars, was an implicit criticism of ongoing corruption in church life. Like Dominic de Guzmán who founded the Dominicans in 1216, Francis would establish the Franciscans in 1223, and together their movements would transform the landscape of Western Christendom. But Francis’s spirituality uniquely affected inner Christian sensibilities.

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The second half of this volume contains seminal writings by Francis that expressed his own spirituality and defined and inspired people’s lives well beyond his religious order. We begin by introducing Francis and providing the context for reading these texts. Francis was born in 1181 or 1182 and lived for only forty-­ five years. Yet in his lifetime, he developed an enormous reputation and affected all of Western Christianity. The reason for this influence is no mystery: he touched a deep Christian sensibility in a way that commentators almost always call radical but that Francis simply referred to as reminiscent of Jesus. We will first trace important phases of Francis’s life and then situate the texts within the narrative.

Key Phases in Francis’s Life Assisi was a small walled city of about two or three thousand people on a mountain side overlooking a valley floor a little east of a line half-­way between Rome and Florence. Francis’s father, Pietro di Bernardone, prospered as a member of the merchant class that constantly struggled with the nobility for control of the city.1 It is said that young Francis was attracted to military life. Early in the thirteenth century, when Francis was barely twenty and a member of the city’s militia, along with those of other towns, he fought in a battle with Perugia to the north. His forces were defeated, and he was imprisoned for a year or more. “Prison was hard on Francis, physically and mentally.”2 His health was damaged, and he suffered a long illness after his release. For eighteen months, from the fall of 1203 to the spring of 1205, the “broken veteran began wandering listlessly about the house; he took no joy in the beauties of nature that had previously delighted him.”3 In 1205, he joined another band of soldiers for a new battle, but, before too long

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and prior to another engagement, he abandoned the soldier’s life and returned to Assisi. The year 1205 marks a decisive turning point in Francis’s life. “Conversion” may not describe the transition. He went back to work with his merchant father but was unsettled; he did not meet his father’s expectations. He went on pilgrimage to Rome; he sought counsel from the bishop of Assisi; he turned to prayer and a certain asceticism. “Francis moved out of the family home and took up residence at San Damiano in late 1205, about six months after his return to Assisi. Over those six months, his parents had watched as their son’s behavior went from moody and distracted to withdrawn and isolated and finally to bizarre and self-­ destructive.”4 In the winter of 1205–6, Francis made an official break with his family. His relationship with his father was being mediated by the bishop. In one famously dramatic encounter, Francis renounced his family and inheritance by undressing completely and throwing aside the clothes of his station. He first turned to a monastery and then to a leprosarium near Assisi, where he lodged and earned his keep by caring for the lepers. This encounter with lepers turned out to be an important event in Francis’s story. The opening words of his last “Testament” articulates its importance: “The Lord gave me, Brother Francis, thus to begin doing penance in this way: for when I was in sin, it seemed too bitter for me to see lepers. And the Lord Himself led me among them and I showed mercy to them. And when I left them, what had seemed bitter to me was turned into sweetness of soul and body. And afterwards I delayed a little and left the world.”5 Thompson, his biographer, describes the transition: “His experience with [the lepers] had nothing to do with choices between wealth and poverty, knightly pride and humility, or even doing service instead of conducting business. It was a dramatic personal reorientation that brought forth spiritual fruit. As Francis

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showed mercy to those outcasts, he came to experience God’s own gift of mercy to himself.”6 The years from 1206 to 1210 can be considered the “take off” period of what would become the Franciscan movement. He first worked as a solitary penitent committed to rebuilding the crumbling San Damiano and other churches. As such, he gradually gained a reputation. In 1208, two men joined him in his life of prayer, penance, and work. Because their life together was public and seemed to require some authorization, Francis consulted a priest in Assisi and then, through the bishop, gained access to the papal court where Francis submitted a plan of life. The proposal essentially described a life of prayer, work, and preaching penance, all expressed in the gospel texts that inspired it. After a certain time, Pope Innocent III approved the formula in 1209 or 1210. “Francis was now sure that his mission was not something of his own choosing, but was the will of the Church and of God.”7 Although Francis’s first formula of a way of life was lost, all agree that it lies within the draft rule of 1221. The lead sentence of Chapter 1 of this rule written by Francis reads as follows: “The rule and life of these brothers is this, namely: ‘to live in obedience, in chastity, and without anything of their own,’ and to follow the teaching and footprints of our Lord Jesus Christ.”8 The essence of Francis’s conception of his movement shines in the sentences of the same rule. “Let all the brothers strive to follow the humility and poverty of our Lord Jesus Christ and let them remember that we should have nothing else in the whole world except, as the Apostle says: having food and clothing, we are content with these. They must rejoice when they live among people considered of little value and looked down upon, among the poor and the powerless, the sick and the lepers, and the beggars by the wayside.”9 On his return from Rome, in 1210, Francis and his companions moved to an abandoned chapel owned by the Benedictines called Holy Mary of the Angels in the valley below

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Assisi. They built cells around the chapel, and a priest, who had joined the group, provided Mass. From here the movement grew, at first slowly, and then rapidly. It was more a movement than an official religious order, and the criteria of membership were not formulated in a firm way. They were following a man more than a rule. Francis’s “First Letter to All the Faithful,” written during this time and addressed to his followers as well as all penitents, shows that he had assumed an active role of leadership in the movement.10 Gradually they expanded around the area in central Italy. After a few years, Francis began to have general meetings of his followers and companions at Pentecost at Holy Mary of the Angels; he also sent out bands of friars on missions of preaching to other countries.11 Francis also required political support, which he found in the bishop of Assisi. After a time, his movement became known in Rome, and he gained a cardinal protector who helped guide the movement forward. The profile of the movement during the period from 1210 to 1220 includes rapid growth and gradual consolidation. Members gave up everything; clerics recited the office; and all did manual work. Francis favored working to begging, as in his own case of repairing abandoned chapels. They were penitents associated with Assisi rather than a religious order; they had a center, but the friars were itinerant. They were hardly regimented. They preached a simple lesson that urged people to confess their sins and reform their moral lives.12 They came from all social classes; some were not formally trained or were uneducated or illiterate; they had little to say on theological matters. Francis did not have a program of reform other than the submission to God that he exemplified. They also urged peace and reconciliation, which would take on specific meanings in different circumstances.13 After the Pentecost Chapter of June 1219, Francis conceived a plan to leave Assisi to travel to the Holy Land and to Egypt on a mission of peace between Christians and Muslims. He appointed two vicars in July and began his journey.

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The idea was to meet with Sultan Malik al-­Kamil, the head of the Muslim resistance to the Crusaders. The meeting took place, during which Francis sought to explain Christianity to the Sultan, and, after it, they parted amicably.14 Francis remained in Egypt for two or three months. When he arrived back in Italy in the early spring of 1220, he found that the two delegates he had appointed had adjusted some of Francis’s policies. Several things became clear in the second half of 1220. The growth in the size of the movement required more structure and direction, and the pope gave the cardinal protector the power to exercise direct authority in the movement. The brothers also required an official rule. In the fall of 1220, Francis formally resigned his leadership of the nascent order and committed himself to developing the rule. By the spring and the Pentecost chapter, Francis had drafted the so-­called “Earlier Rule” of 1221. Two important features of this rule help define its character. First, Francis did not create it out of whole cloth. In many ways it represents his original formula, but it had developed by increment over the past decade of decisions and new practices. Second, this version, some of it phrased in the first person, lacked the objective character needed for a formal ecclesiastical document. It thus functioned as a draft to be transformed into the proper universal language of a governing rule. But at the same time, it preserved with resonant accuracy the intentions of the founder. Francis had help from a canonist while revising the “Earlier Rule” into the much shorter and more formal “Later Rule” of 1223. Despite the transformation of the style and language, Francis accepted his ownership of the final product. Thus, with the formal papal approval of the “Later Rule” in November of that year, the Franciscan movement became an established religious order in the Catholic Church. The last three years of Francis’s life were marked by sickness, gradual decline, and transferal from place to place within the

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region according to the season, his deterioration, and the availability of care. In 1225, he composed “The Canticle of the Creatures,” which sings nature’s gratitude to God. The added verses at the end reflect the time of his own death. He also wrote “A Letter to the Entire Order” in 1225 or 1226. And, perhaps most importantly, he composed “The Testament” as death drew near. In it, Francis pleaded with the brothers to hold on to the generative experience they shared together despite the difficulties its radicality invited. At the end, he was carried back to the community surrounding the small chapel of Holy Mary of the Angels outside of Assisi. He died there during the night of October 3, 1226.

The Texts Perhaps more than any other of Francis’s written work, “The Earlier Rule” goes back to his initial inspiration and sets out the foundational affect underlying his charism. The initial experience developed over the years, and the rule expanded it, but the reader can project it back into the early narrative. The core dispositions plainly manifest themselves: poverty, humility, simplicity, and devotion to the Eucharist.15 Francis’s “Later Admonition and Exhortation to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance” exemplifies Francis reaching for a broader audience. It implies a concern for the message that the whole church offers to the world. It represents the way one might imagine Francis preaching and what his Franciscans brought to Europe in the thirteenth century. The short poetic prayer of praise to God called “The Canticle of Creatures” first praises the creator, then praises God in the creatures that function for our well-­being, and finally in the people who reflect God in their relation to others. The penultimate verses, 12–13, were added on his deathbed: praise to God even in death and blessed be those who die united with God.

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The last two texts serve as a recapitulation of Francis’s spirituality. In “A Letter to the Entire Order” of 1225–26 his devotion to the Eucharist comes to the fore. “I implore all of you brothers to show all possible reverence and honor to the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ” (no. 12). “The Final Testament” has particular poignancy in our day as history destabilizes everything and nothing remains the same. He begs his followers to keep faith and not change anything. Notes

1. Michael F. Cusato, “Francis and the Franciscan Movement,” in The Cambridge Companion to Francis of Assisi (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 18. 2. Augustine Thompson, Francis of Assisi: A New Biography (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2012), 10. 3. Ibid. 4. Ibid., 14. 5. Francis, “The Testament,” in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, I, The Saint, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (New York: New City Press, 1999), nos. 1–3, 124. Cited hereafter as The Saint. 6. Thompson, Francis of Assisi, 16–17. 7. Ibid., 28. Pope Innocent III approved the formula orally and with encouragement to live and preach a life of penitence. “The pope thought of them as a group of lay preachers. Francis’s praepositum had been approved implicitly, rather than explicitly, by this commission to preach penance” (ibid., 27). The pope had been approving such groups of lay preachers over the years. Nevertheless, the authorization satisfied Francis’s deference to authority and the “brotherhood was to be profoundly changed by the commission to preach”; ibid. 8. Francis, “The Earlier Rule (1209/10–1221),” in The Saint, Chap 1.2, 63–64. The statement is followed by a series of quotations from the Gospels. 9. Ibid., chap. 7.1–2, 70.

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10. This letter and the one following it responded to a broad desire of the laity for a spirituality parallel to and challenging the supremacy of monastic flight from the world and countering a spirit of avarice; Michael J. P. Robson, “Introduction,” in Cambridge Companion to Francis of Assisi, 5. 11. The chapter of 2017 began to establish institutional structures of authority and accountability. “These structures took the form of delineating various zones of action for these missions called ‘provinces’ and of designating certain individuals to serve as leaders of these roving bands of friars”; Cusato, “Francis and the Franciscan Movement,” 26. 12. The Franciscan message is seen in Francis’s text “Later Admonition and Exhortation to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance,” which is a second version of the earlier “Letter to All the Faithful.” 13. Thompson, Francis of Assisi, 36–41. 14. Robson associates Francis’s attachment to Jesus’ mission of reconciliation among warring parties to his own experience of being a prisoner of war; Robson, “Introduction,” in Cambridge Companion to Francis of Assisi, 9. 15. Why did Francis not adopt a rule that was available, as did the Dominicans, in choosing the Rule of Augustine? He answers this question in his “Testament” with the mantra “The Lord gave me. . . .” The distinctiveness of Francis lay in his insistence on evangelical preaching (v. disputation), mobility in service of ordinary and lowly people, a literal kind of evangelical ministry, a softer kind of obedience as in the service of the ministers to the brothers, and of course the radical poverty and mendicant way of life; William J. Short, “The Rule and Life of the Friars Minor,” in Cambridge Companion to Francis of Assisi, 59. In other words, he did not want an existing rule because this was a new form of community given by God.

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II Foundational Texts of Francis

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The Earlier Rule

[Francis of Assisi: Early Documents: The Saint, ed. Regis J. Armstrong et al. (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1999), 63–86.]

The Earlier Rule (The Rule Without a Papal Seal)1 (1209/10–1221)

This document has its origins in the simple form of life that Francis brought to Pope Innocent III for his approval in 1209 or 1210. During the following years, it developed in light of the experiences of the brothers, the teaching of the Church, especially the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council, and the teachings of Francis himself. The final stage of its composition occurred at the Chapter of 1221, the last Pentecost Chapter at which all the brothers gathered.

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[Prologue]

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 2 This is the life of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that Brother Francis petitioned the Lord Pope to grant and confirm for him; and he did grant and confirm it for him and his brothers present and to come. 3 Brother Francis—and whoever is head of this religion— promises obedience and reverence to the Lord Pope Innocent and his successors.2 4 Let all the brothers be bound to obey Brother Francis and his successors. 1

[Chapter I: The Brothers must live without anything of their own and in chastity and in obedience]

The rule and life of these brothers is this, namely: “to live in obedience, in chastity, and without anything of their own,”3 and to follow the teaching and footprints of our Lord. Jesus Christ, Who says: 2If you wish to be perfect, go, sell everything you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me. 3And: If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 4Again: If anyone wishes to come to me and does not hate father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 5 And: Everyone who has left father or mother, brother or sisters, wife or children, houses or lands because of me, will receive a hundredfold and will possess eternal life. 1

[Chapter II: The Reception and the Clothing of the Brothers] 4

(1) If anyone, wishing by divine inspiration to accept this life, comes to our brothers, let him be received by them with kindness.5  2If he is determined to accept our life, let the brothers be very careful not to [become involved in his temporal affairs] but present him to their minister as quickly as possible. 3On his part, let the minister receive him with

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kindness, encourage him and diligently explain the tenor of our life to him. 4 When this has been done, let the above-­mentioned person— if he wishes and is capable of doing so spiritually without any difficulty—sell all his belongings and be conscientious in giving everything to the poor. 5Let the brothers and the minister of the brothers be careful not to interfere in any way in his [temporal affairs,] 6nor to accept money either by themselves or through an intermediary.6  7Nevertheless, if the brothers are in need, they can accept, like other poor people, whatever is needed for the body excepting money. 8 When he has returned, the minister may give him the clothes of probation for a year, that is, two tunics without a hood, a cord, trousers, and a small cape reaching to the cord. 9 When the year and term of probation has ended, he may be received into obedience. 10After this it will be unlawful for him to join another Order or to “wander outside obedience” according to the decree of the Lord Pope and the Gospel, for no one putting his hand to the plow and looking to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.7 11 However, if anyone comes who cannot give away his belongings without difficulty and has the spiritual will to do so, let him leave them behind, and it will suffice for him. 12 No one may be received contrary to the rite and practice of the Holy Church. 13 All the other brothers who have already promised obedience may have one tunic with a hood and, if it is necessary, another without a hood and a cord and trousers. 14Let all the brothers wear poor clothes and, with the blessing of God, they can patch them with sackcloth and other pieces, for the Lord says in the Gospel: Those who wear expensive clothing and live in luxury and who dress in fine garments are in the houses of kings. 15Even though they may be called hypocrites, let them nevertheless not cease doing good nor seek expensive clothing in this world, so that they may have a garment in the kingdom of heaven.

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[Chapter III: The Divine Office and Fasting] 8

The Lord says: This kind of devil cannot come out except through fasting and prayer; 2and again: When you fast do not become gloomy like the hypocrites. 3For this reason let all the brothers, whether clerical or lay, recite the Divine Office, the praises and prayers, as is required of them. 4 Let the clerical brothers recite the Office and say it for the living and the dead according to the custom of clerics. 5Every day let them say the Have mercy on me, O God with the Our Father for the failings and negligence of the brothers; 6and let them say the Out of the depths with the Our Father for the deceased brothers. 7They may have only the books necessary to fulfill their office. 8 The lay brothers who know how to read the psalter may have one. 9Those who do not know how to read, however, may not be permitted to have any book. 10Let the lay brothers say the Creed and twenty-­four Our Fathers with the Glory to the Father for Matins; for Lauds, let them say five; for Prime, the Creed and seven Our Fathers with the Glory to the Father; for each of the hours, Terce, Sext and None, seven; for Vespers, twelve; for Compline, the Creed and seven Our Fathers with the Glory to the Father; for the deceased, seven Our Fathers with the Eternal Rest; and for the failings and negligence of the brothers three Our Fathers each day.9 11 Similarly, let all the brothers fast from the feast of All Saints until the Nativity, and from the Epiphany, when our Lord Jesus Christ began to fast, until Easter. 12However, at other times, according to this life, let them not be bound to fast except on Fridays. 13In accordance with the Gospel, it may be lawful for them to eat of all the food that is placed before them. 1

[Chapter IV: The Ministers and the Other Brothers and How They Are Related] 10

In the name of the Lord!11 2 Let all the brothers who have been designated the ministers and servants of the other brothers assign their brothers in the 1

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provinces and places where they may be, and let them frequently visit, admonish and encourage them spiritually. 3Let all my other brothers diligently obey them in those matters concerning the well-­being of their soul and which are not contrary to our life. 4 Let them behave among themselves according to what the Lord says: Do to others what you would have them do to you; 5and “Do not do to another what you would not have done to you.”12 6 Let the ministers and servants remember what the Lord says: I have not come to be served, but to serve; and because the care of the brothers’ souls has been entrusted to them, if anything13 is lost on account of their fault or bad example, they will have to render an account before the Lord Jesus Christ on the day of judgment. [Chapter V: The Correction of the Brothers at Fault]

Keep watch over your soul, therefore, and those of your brothers, because it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 2If anyone of the ministers commands one of the brothers something contrary to our life or to his soul, he is not bound to obey him because obedience is not something in which a fault or sin is committed. 3 On the other hand, let all the brothers who are under the ministers and servants consider the deeds of the ministers and servants reasonably and attentively. 4If they see any of them walking according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit in keeping with the integrity of our life, if he does not improve after a third admonition, let them inform the minister and servant of the whole fraternity at the Chapter of Pentecost regardless of what objection deters them. 5 Moreover, if, anywhere among the brothers, there is a brother who wishes to live according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit, let the brothers with whom he is living admonish, instruct and correct him humbly and attentively. 6 If, however, after the third admonition he refuses to improve, let them send or report him to their minister and servant as 1

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soon as they can; and let the minister and servant deal with him as he considers best before God. 7 Let all the brothers, both the ministers and servants as well as the others, be careful not to be disturbed or angered at another’s sin or evil because the devil wishes to destroy many because of another’s fault. 8But let them spiritually help the one who has sinned as best they can, because those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. 9 Likewise, let all the brothers not have power or control in this instance, especially among themselves; 10for, as the Lord says in the Gospel: The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and the great ones make their authority over them felt; it shall not be so among the brothers. 11Let whoever wishes to be the greater among them be their minister and servant. 12 Let whoever is the greater among them become the least. 13 Let no brother do or say anything evil to another; 14on the contrary, through the charity of the Spirit, let them serve and obey one another voluntarily. 15This is the true and holy obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ. 16 As often as they have turned away from the commands of the Lord and “wandered outside obedience,”14 let all the brothers know, as the Prophet says, they are cursed outside obedience as long as they knowingly remain in such a sin. 17 When they have persevered in the Lord’s commands—as they have promised by the Holy Gospel and their life, let them know they have remained in true obedience and are blessed by the Lord. [Chapter VI: The Recourse of the Brothers to the Minister; Let No Brother Be Called “Prior”]

If the brothers, wherever they may be, cannot observe this life, let them have recourse to their minister as soon as they can, making this known to him. 2Let the minister, on his part, endeavor to provide for them as he would wish to be provided for him were he in a similar position. 1

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Let no one be called “prior,” but let everyone in general be called a lesser brother.15  4Let one wash the feet of the other. 3

[Chapter VII: The Manner of Serving and Working]16

None of the brothers may be treasurers or overseers in any of those places where they are staying to serve or work among others. They may not be in charge in the houses in which they serve nor accept any office which would generate scandal or be harmful to their souls; 2Let them, instead, be the lesser ones and be subject to all in the same house. 3 Let the brothers who know how to work do so and exercise that trade they have learned, provided it is not contrary to the good of their souls and can be performed honestly. 4 For the prophet says: You shall eat the fruit of your labors; you are blessed and it shall be well for you. 5The Apostle says: Whoever does not wish to work shall not eat. 6and Let everyone remain in that trade and office in which he has been called. 7 And for their work they can receive whatever is necessary excepting money. 8And when it is necessary, they may seek alms like other poor people. 9And it is lawful for them to have the tools and instruments suitable for their trades.17 10 Let all the brothers always strive to exert themselves in doing good works, for it is written: “Always do something good that the devil may find you occupied.”18  11And again: “Idleness is an enemy of the soul.”19  12Servants of God, therefore, must always apply themselves to prayer or some good work. 13 Wherever the brothers may be, either in hermitages or other places, let them be careful not to make any place their own or contend with anyone for it. 14Whoever comes to them, friend or foe, thief or robber, let him be received with kindness. 15 Wherever the brothers may be and in whatever place they meet, 20they should respect spiritually and attentively one 1

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another, and honor one another without complaining. 16Let them be careful not to appear outwardly as sad and gloomy hypocrites but show themselves joyful, cheerful and consistently gracious in the Lord. [Chapter VIII: Let the Brothers Not Receive Money]

The Lord teaches in the Gospel: Watch, beware of all malice and greed. 2Guard yourselves against the anxieties of this world and the cares of this life. 3 Let none of the brothers, therefore, wherever he may be or go, carry, receive, or have received in any way coin or money, whether for clothing, books, or payment for some work—indeed, not for any reason, unless for an evident need of the sick brothers; because we should not think of coin or money having any greater usefulness than stones.21 4The devil wants to blind those who desire or consider it better than stones. 5May we who have left all things, then, be careful of not losing the kingdom of heaven for so little. 6 If we find coins anywhere, let us pay no more attention to them than to the dust we trample underfoot, for vanity of vanities and all is vanity. 7If by chance, which God forbid, it happens that some brother is collecting or holding coin or money, unless it is only for the aforesaid needs of the sick, let all the brothers consider him a deceptive brother, an apostate, a thief, a robber, and as the one who held the money bag, unless he has sincerely repented. 8 Let the brothers in no way receive, arrange to receive, seek, or arrange to seek money for leper colonies or coins for any house or place;22 and let them not accompany anyone begging money or coins for such places. 9However, the brothers can perform for those places other services not contrary to our life with the blessing of God. 10Nevertheless, the brothers can beg alms for a manifest need of the lepers. 11But let them beware of money. 12Similarly, let all the brothers be careful of going throughout the world for filthy gain. 1

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[Chapter IX: Begging Alms]

Let all the brothers strive to follow the humility and poverty of our Lord Jesus Christ and let them remember that we should have nothing else in the whole world except, as the Apostle says: having food and clothing, we are content with these. 2 They must rejoice when they live among people considered of little value and looked down upon, among the poor and the powerless, the sick and the lepers, and the beggars by the wayside. 3 When it is necessary, they may go for alms. 4Let them not be ashamed and remember, moreover, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the all powerful living God, set His face like flint and was not ashamed. 5He was poor and a stranger and lived on alms—He, the Blessed Virgin, and His disciples. 6 When people revile them and refuse to give them alms, let them thank God for this because they will receive great honor before the tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ for such insults. 7 Let them realize that a reproach is imputed not to those who suffer it but to those who caused it. 8Alms are a legacy and a justice due to the poor that our Lord Jesus Christ acquired for us. 9The brothers who work at acquiring them will receive a great reward and enable those who give them to gain and acquire one; for all that people leave behind in the world will perish, but they will have a reward from the Lord for the charity and almsgiving they have done. 10 Let each one confidently make known his need to another that the other might discover what is needed and minister to him. 11Let each one love and care for his brother as a mother loves and cares for her son in those matters in which God has given him the grace. 12Let the one who does not eat not judge the one who does. 13 Whenever a need arises, all the brothers, wherever they may be, are permitted to consume whatever food people can eat, as the Lord says of David who ate the loaves of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat. 1

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Let them remember what the Lord says: Be careful that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that the day catches you by surprise; 15for that day will assault everyone who lives on the face of the earth like a trap. 16Similarly, in time of an obvious need, all the brothers may do as the Lord has given them the grace to satisfy their needs, because necessity has no law.23 14

[Chapter X: The Sick Brothers] 24

If any of the brothers falls sick, wherever he may be, let the other brothers not leave him behind unless one of the brothers, or even several of them, if necessary, is designated to serve him as “they would want to be served themselves.”25 2In case of the greatest need, however, they can entrust him to someone who should do what needs to be done for his sickness. 3 I beg the sick brother to thank God for everything and to desire to be whatever the Lord wills, whether sick or well, because God teaches all those He has destined for eternal life “by the torments of punishments,” sicknesses, “and the spirit of sorrow,” as the Lord says: Those whom I love, I correct and chastise.26 4 If anyone is disturbed or angry at either God or his brothers, or perhaps anxiously and forcefully seeks medicine with too much of a desire to free the flesh that is soon to die and is an enemy of the soul: this comes to him from the Evil One and is carnal. He does not seem to be one of the brothers because he loves his body more than his soul. 1

[Chapter XI: The Brothers Should Not Revile or Detract, But Should Love One Another]

Let all the brothers be careful not to slander or engage in disputes; 2let them strive, instead, to keep silence whenever God gives them the grace. 3Let them not quarrel among themselves or with others but strive to respond humbly, saying: 1

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I am a useless servant. 4Let them not become angry because whoever is angry with his brother is liable to judgment; whoever says to his brother “fool” shall be answerable to the Council; whoever says “fool” will be liable to fiery Gehenna. 5 Let them love one another, as the Lord says: This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. 6Let them express the love they have for one another by their deeds, as the Apostle says: Let us not love in word or speech, but in deed and truth. 7 Let them revile no one. 8Let them not grumble or detract from others, for it is written: Gossips and detractors are detestable to God. 9Let them be modest by showing graciousness toward everyone. 10Let them not judge or condemn. 11As the Lord says, let them not consider the least sins of others; 12 instead, let them reflect more upon their own sins in the bitterness of their soul. 13Let them struggle to enter through the narrow gate, for the Lord says: The gate is narrow and the road that leads to life constricted; those who find it are few. [Chapter XII: Impure Glances and Frequent Association with Women]

Wherever they may be or may go, let all the brothers avoid evil glances and association with women. 2No one may counsel them, travel alone with them or eat out of the same dish with them. 3When giving penance or some spiritual advice, let priests speak with them in a becoming way. 4Absolutely no woman may be received to obedience by any brother, but after spiritual advice has been given to her, let her do penance wherever she wants. 5 Let us all keep close watch over ourselves and keep all our members clean, for the Lord says: Whoever looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart; 6and the Apostle: Do you not know that your members are a temple of the Holy Spirit? Therefore, whoever violates God’s temple, God will destroy. 1

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[Chapter XIII: Avoiding Fornication]

If, at the instigation of the devil, any brother commits fornication, let him be deprived of the habit he has lost by his wickedness, put it aside completely, and be altogether expelled from our Order.27  2Afterwards he may do penance.28 1

[Chapter XIV: How the Brothers Should Go Through the World]

When the brothers go through the world, let them take nothing for the journey, neither knapsack, nor purse, nor bread, nor money, nor walking stick. 2Whatever house they enter, let them first say: Peace to this house. 3They may eat and drink what is placed before them for as long as they stay in that house. 4Let them not resist anyone evil, but whoever strikes them on one cheek, let them offer him the other as well. 5Whoever takes their cloak, let them not withhold their tunic. 6Let them give to all who ask of them and whoever takes what is theirs, let them not seek to take it back. 1

[Chapter XV: The Brothers May Not Ride Horses]

I command all my brothers, both cleric and lay, that when they go through the world or dwell in places they in no way keep any animal either with them, in the care of another, or in any other way. 2Let it not be lawful for them to ride horseback unless they are compelled by sickness or a great need.29

1

[Chapter XVI: Those Going Among the Saracens and Other Nonbelievers] 30

The Lord says: Behold I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves. 2Therefore, be prudent as serpents and simple as doves. 3 Let any brother, then, who desires by divine inspiration to go among the Saracens and other nonbelievers, go with the permission of his minister and servant.31  4If he sees they are fit to be sent, the minister may give them permission and not oppose them, for he will be bound to render an accounting to the Lord if he has proceeded without discernment in this and other matters. 1

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As for the brothers who go, they can live spiritually among the Saracens and nonbelievers in two ways. 6One way is not to engage in arguments or disputes but to be subject to every human creature for God’s sake and to acknowledge that they are Christians. 7The other way is to announce the Word of God, when they see it pleases the Lord, in order that [unbelievers] may believe in almighty God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Creator of all, the Son, the Redeemer and Savior, and be baptized and become Christians because no one can enter the kingdom of God without being reborn of water and the Holy Spirit. 8 They can say to them and the others these and other things which please God because the Lord says in the Gospel: Whoever acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. 9Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father. 10 Wherever they may be, let all my brothers remember that they have given themselves and abandoned their bodies to the Lord Jesus Christ. 11For love of Him, they must make themselves vulnerable to their enemies, both visible and invisible, because the Lord says: Whoever loses his life because of me will save it in eternal life.32  12Blessed are they who suffer persecution for the sake of justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 13If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. 14If they persecute you in one town, flee to another. 15 Blessed are you when people hate you, speak evil of you, persecute, expel, and abuse you, denounce your name as evil and utter every kind of slander against you because of me. 16 Rejoice and be glad on that day because your reward is great in heaven. 17 I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of them 18and do not fear those who kill the body and afterwards have nothing more to do. 19See that you are not alarmed. 20For by your patience, you will possess your souls; 21whoever perseveres to the end will be saved. 5

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[Chapter XVII: Preachers]

Let no brother preach contrary to the rite and practice of the Church or without the permission of his minister. 2Let the minister be careful of granting it without discernment to anyone. 3Let all the brothers, however, preach by their deeds. 4 No minister or preacher may make a ministry of the brothers or the office of preaching his own, but, when he is told, let him set it aside without objection.33 5 In the love that is God, therefore, I beg all my brothers— those who preach, pray, or work, cleric or lay—to strive to humble themselves in everything, 6not to boast or delight in themselves or inwardly exalt themselves because of the good words and deeds or, for that matter, because of any good that God sometimes says or does or works in and through them, in keeping with what the Lord says: Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you. 7We may know with certainty that nothing belongs to us except our vices and sins. 8We must rejoice, instead, when we fall into various trials and, in this world, suffer every kind of anguish or distress of soul and body for the sake of eternal life. 9 Therefore, let all the brothers, beware of all pride and vainglory. 10Let us guard ourselves from the wisdom of this world and the prudence of the flesh. 11Because the spirit of the flesh very much desires and strives to have the words but cares little for the activity; it does not seek a religion and holiness in an interior spirit, 12 but wants and desires to have a religion and a holiness outwardly apparent to people. 13They are the ones of whom the Lord says: Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. 14 The Spirit of the Lord, however, wants the flesh to be mortified and looked down upon, considered of little worth and rejected. 15It strives for humility and patience, the pure, simple and true peace of the spirit. 16Above all, it desires the divine fear, the divine wisdom and the divine love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 1

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Let us refer all good to the Lord, God Almighty and Most High, acknowledge that every good is His, and thank Him, “from Whom all good comes, for everything.”34 18 May He, the Almighty and Most High, the only true God, have, be given, and receive all honor and respect, all praise and blessing, all thanks and glory, to Whom all good belongs, He Who alone is good. 19 When we see or hear evil spoken or done or God blasphemed, let us speak well and do well and praise God Who is blessed forever.35 17

[Chapter XVIII: How the Ministers Should Meet One Another] 36

Once a year on the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, each minister can come together with his brothers wherever they wish to treat of those things that pertain to God. 2 All the ministers who are in regions overseas and beyond the Alps may come to the Chapter of Pentecost in the church of Saint Mary of the Portiuncula once every three years, and the other ministers once a year, unless it has been decreed otherwise by the minister and servant of the entire fraternity. 1

[Chapter XIX: That the Brothers Live as Catholics] 37 1

Let all the brothers be, live, and speak as Catholics.

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If someone has strayed in word or in deed from Catholic faith and life and has not amended his ways, let him be expelled from our brotherhood. 3 Let us consider all clerics and religious as our masters in all that pertains to the salvation of our soul and does not deviate from our religion, and let us respect their order, office, and administration in the Lord. 2

[Chapter XX: Penance and the Reception of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ] 38

Let all my blessed brothers, both clerics and lay, confess their sins to priests of our religion.39  2If they cannot, let them confess to other discerning and Catholic priests, knowing with certainty that, when they have received penance and absolution from any Catholic priest, they are without doubt absolved from their sins, provided they have humbly and faithfully fulfilled the penance imposed on them. 3 If they have not been able to find a priest, however, let them confess to their brother, as the Apostle James says: Confess your sins to one another.40  4Nevertheless, because of this, let them not fail to have recourse to a priest because the power of binding and loosing is granted only to priests. 5 Contrite and having confessed in this way, let them receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ with great humility and respect remembering what the Lord says: Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life 6and Do this in memory of me. 1

[Chapter XXI: The Praise and Exhortation That All the Brothers Can Make] 41

Whenever it pleases them, all my brothers can announce this or similar exhortation and praise among all peoples with the blessing of God: 1

Fear and honor, praise and bless,

2

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give thanks and adore the Lord God Almighty in Trinity and in Unity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Creator of all. 3 Do penance, performing worthy fruits of penance because we shall soon die. 4 Give and it will be given to you. 5 Forgive and you shall be forgiven. 6 If you do not forgive people their sins, the Lord will not forgive you yours. Confess all your sins. 7 Blessed are those who die in penance, for they shall be in the kingdom of heaven. 8 Woe to those who do not die in penance, for they shall be children of the devil whose works they do and they shall go into everlasting fire. 9 Beware of and abstain from every evil and persevere in good till the end. [Chapter XXII: An Admonition to the Brothers] 42

All my brothers: let us pay attention to what the Lord says: Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you 2for our Lord Jesus Christ, Whose footprints we must follow, called His betrayer a friend and willingly offered Himself to His executioners. 3 Our friends, therefore, are all those who unjustly inflict upon us distress and anguish, shame and injury, sorrow and punishment, martyrdom and death. 4We must love them greatly for we shall possess eternal life because of what they bring us. 5 And let us hate our body with its vices and sins, because by living according to the flesh, the devil wishes to take away from us the love of Jesus Christ and eternal life and to lose himself in hell with everyone else. 6Because, by our own fault, 1

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we are disgusting, miserable and opposed to good, yet prompt and inclined to evil, for, as the Lord says in the Gospel: 7From the heart proceed and come evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, theft, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, false witness, blasphemy, foolishness. 8All these evils come from within, from a person’s heart, and these are what defile a person. 9 Now that we have left the world, however, we have nothing else to do but to follow the will of the Lord and to please Him. 10Let us be careful that we are not earth along the wayside, or that which is rocky or full of thorns, in keeping with what the Lord says in the Gospel: 11The word of God is a seed. 12 What fell along the wayside and was trampled under foot, however, are those who hear the word and do not understand it. 13The devil comes immediately and snatches what was planted in their hearts and takes the word from their hearts that they may not believe and be saved. 14 What fell on rocky ground, however, are those who, as soon as they hear the word, receive it at once with joy. 15But when tribulation and persecution come because of the word, they immediately fall away. These have no roots in them; they last only for a time, because they believe only for a time and fall away in time of trial. 16 What fell among thorns, however, are those who hear the word of God and the anxiety and worries of this world, the lure of riches, and other inordinate desires intrude and choke the word and they remain without fruit. 17 But what was sown in good soil are those who hear the word with a good and excellent heart, understand and preserve it and bear fruit in patience. 18 Therefore, as the Lord says, brothers, let us let the dead bury their own dead. 19 And let us beware of the malice and craftiness of Satan, who does not want anyone to turn his mind and heart to God. 20And prowling around he wants to

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ensnare a person’s heart under the guise of some reward or assistance, to choke out the word and precepts of the Lord from our memory, and, desiring a person’s heart, [he wants] to blind it through worldly affairs and concerns and to live there, as the Lord says: 21When an unclean spirit goes out of a person, it roams through arid and waterless regions seeking rest; 22and not finding any, it says: “I will return to my home from which I came.” 23And coming upon it, it finds it empty, swept, clean and tidied. 24And it goes off and brings seven other spirits more wicked than itself, who move in and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. 25 Therefore, all my brothers, let us be very much on our guard that, under the guise of some reward or assistance, we do not lose or take our mind away from God. 26But, in the holy love which is God, I beg all my brothers, both the ministers and the others, after overcoming every impediment and putting aside every care and anxiety, to serve, love, honor and adore the Lord God with a clean heart and a pure mind in whatever way they are best able to do so, for that is what He wants above all else. 27 Let us always make a home and a dwelling place there for Him Who is the Lord God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Who says: Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man. 28When you stand to pray say: Our Father in heaven. 29And let us adore Him with a pure heart, because it is necessary to pray always and not lose heart; 30for the Father seeks such people who adore Him. 31 God is Spirit and those who adore Him must adore Him in Spirit and truth. 32Let us have recourse to Him as to the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls, Who says: “I am the Good Shepherd Who feeds My sheep and I lay down My life for my sheep.” 33 All of you are brothers. 34Do not call anyone on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. 35Do not call

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yourselves teachers; you have but one Teacher in heaven. 36If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. 37Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. 38Behold I am with you until the end of the world. 39The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 40 I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 41 Let us, therefore, hold onto the words, the life, the teaching and the Holy Gospel of Him Who humbled Himself to beg His Father for us and to make His name known saying: Father, glorify Your name and glorify Your Son that Your Son may glorify You. 42 Father, I have made Your name known to those whom You have given me. The words You gave to me I have given to them, and they have accepted them and truly have known that I came from You and they have believed that You sent me. 43I pray for them, not for the world, 44but for those You have given me, because they are Yours and everything of mine is Yours. 45Holy Father, keep in Your name those You have given me that they may be one as We are. 46I say this while in the world that they may have joy completely. 47I gave them Your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world as I do not belong to the world. 48I do not ask you to take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. 49Glorify them in truth. 50Your word is truth. 51 As You sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. 52And I sanctify myself for them that they also may be sanctified in truth. 53I ask not only for them but also for those who will believe in me through them, that they may be brought to perfection as one, and the world may know that You have sent me and loved them as You loved me. 54I shall make known to them Your name, that the love with which You loved me may be in them and I in them. 55Father, I wish that those whom You have given me may be where I am that they may see Your glory in Your kingdom.

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[Chapter XXIII: Prayer and Thanksgiving]

All-­powerful, most holy, Almighty and supreme God, Holy and just Father, Lord King of heaven and earth we thank You for Yourself for through Your holy will and through Your only Son with the Holy Spirit You have created everything spiritual and corporal and, after making us in Your own image and likeness, You placed us in paradise.

1

2

Through our own fault we fell.

We thank You for as through Your Son You created us, so through Your holy love with which You loved us You brought about His birth as true God and true man by the glorious, ever-­virgin, most blessed, holy Mary and You willed to redeem us captives through His cross and blood and death.

3

We thank You for Your Son Himself will come again in the glory of His majesty to send into the eternal fire the wicked ones who have not done penance and have not known You and to say to all those who have known You, adored You and served You in penance:

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“Come, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.” Because all of us, wretches and sinners, are not worthy to pronounce Your name, we humbly ask our Lord Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son, in Whom You were well pleased, together with the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, to give You thanks, for everything as it pleases You and Him, Who always satisfies You in everything, through Whom You have done so much for us. Alleluia!

5

Because of Your love, we humbly beg the glorious Mother, the most blessed, ever-­virgin Mary, Blessed Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, all the choirs of the blessed seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominations, principalities, powers, virtues, angels, archangels, Blessed John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, Peter, Paul, the blessed patriarchs and prophets, the innocents, apostles, evangelists, disciples, the martyrs, confessors and virgins, the blessed Elijah and Henoch, all the saints who were, who will be, and who are to give You thanks for these things,

6

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as it pleases You, God true and supreme, eternal and living, with Your most beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, world without end. Amen. Alleluia! All of us lesser brothers, useless servants, humbly ask and beg those who wish to serve the Lord God within the holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and all the following orders: priests, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, lectors, porters, and all clerics, all religious men and women, all penitents and youths,43 the poor and the needy, kings and princes, workers and farmers, servants and masters, all virgins, continent and married women, all lay people, men and women, all children, adolescents, young and old, the healthy and the sick, all the small and the great, all peoples, races, tribes, and tongues, all nations and all peoples everywhere on earth, who are and who will be to persevere in the true faith and in penance for otherwise no one will be saved. 7

With our whole heart, our whole soul,

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our whole mind, with our whole strength and fortitude with our whole understanding with all our powers with every effort, every affection, every feeling, every desire and wish let us all love the Lord God Who has given and gives to each one of us our whole body, our whole soul and our whole life, Who has created, redeemed and will save us by His mercy alone, Who did and does everything good for us, miserable and wretched, rotten and foul, ungrateful and evil ones. Therefore, let us desire nothing else, let us want nothing else, let nothing else please us and cause us delight except our Creator, Redeemer and Savior, the only true God, Who is the fullness of good, all good, every good, the true and supreme good, Who alone is good, merciful, gentle, delightful, and sweet, Who alone is holy, just, true, holy, and upright, Who alone is kind, innocent, clean, from Whom, through Whom and in Whom is all pardon, all grace, all glory of all penitents and just ones, of all the blessed rejoicing together in heaven.

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Therefore, let nothing hinder us, nothing separate us, nothing come between us.

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Wherever we are, in every place, at every hour, at every time of the day, every day and continually, let all of us truly and humbly believe, hold in our heart and love, honor, adore, serve, praise and bless, glorify and exalt, magnify and give thanks to the Most High and Supreme Eternal God Trinity and Unity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Creator of all, Savior of all Who believe and hope in Him, and love Him, Who, without beginning and end, is unchangeable, invisible, indescribable, ineffable, incomprehensible, unfathomable, blessed, praiseworthy, glorious, exalted, sublime, most high, gentle, lovable, delightful, and totally desirable above all else for ever. Amen.

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[Chapter XXIV: Conclusion] 44

In the name of the Lord! I ask all my brothers to learn and frequently call to mind the tenor and sense of what has been written in this life for the salvation of our souls. 2I beg God, Who is All-­powerful, Three and One, to bless all who teach, learn, retain, remember, and put into practice these things, each time they repeat and do what has been written there for the salvation of our soul, 3 and, kissing their feet, I implore everyone to love, keep, and treasure them greatly. 4 On behalf of Almighty God and of the Lord Pope, and by obedience, I, Brother Francis, firmly command and decree that no one delete or add to what has been written in this life. The brothers may have no other Rule. 5 Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen. [128.104.46.196] Project MUSE (2024-04-13 02:10 GMT) UW-Madison Libraries

1

Notes

1. David Flood’s study of this document, Die Regula non bullata der Minderbrüder, initiated a series of studies, including that of Kajetan Esser, which formed the basis of this translation; cf. David Flood, Die Regula non bullata der Minderbrüder, Franziskanische Forschungen, Heft 19 (Werl i. W.: 1967); Kajestan Esser, Textkritische Untersuchungen zur Regula non bullata der Minderbrüder, Spicilegium Bonaventuianum 9 (Grottaferrata: 1974). 2. Religio [religion] refers to any religious community yet implies less of a sense of a religious Ordo [Order] than that of Saint Benedict or that of the Cistercians. The reference to Pope Innocent III (+July 16, 1216) suggests that the roots of this document are the propositum vitae, the primitive document, that the pope approved orally in 1209. 3. Innocent III used this formula in approving the Rule of the Trinitarians, December 17, 1198. 4. Three stages of development appear in this chapter: (a) verses 1 and 14 suggest the propositum vitae of 1209/1210; (b) verses 2 and 4, which speak of the role of a minister, suggest the period

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after 1217 when the fraternity was divided into provinces; and (c) verses 8, 11–13, which show the influence of the papal decree Cum secundum consilium, thus a period after November 22, 1220. 5. The phrase “divine inspiration” suggests the dynamic principle of vocation and can also be found in the Later Rule II.1 in this same context and in Earlier Rule XVI and Later Rule XII.11 in the context of those going among the Saracens. It may well be a biblical allusion to 2 Tm 3:16, a text that was used concerning the inspiration of sacred scripture: “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for right living.” 6. At this period of history money was seen as a medium of exchange that represented concentrated mobile wealth or wealth in safekeeping. Because it created tensions between morality and behavior, religion and life itself, many moralists of the early generations of the profit-­seeking monetary economy advocated its avoidance by anyone seeking to live a spiritual life. 7. Cf. Honorius III, Cum secundum consilium (1220). 8. This chapter seems to have two stages of development: (a) verses 1–3, 11–13, which may have been part of the propositum vitae; and (b) verses 4–10, which may have been added at a later date. 9. The directives offered for those lay brothers who are unable to read show the influence of the Propositum Humiliatorum 10, 13, which received papal approval on June 7, 1201. 10. The following three chapters clearly come from a period after 1217 when the primitive fraternity was divided into geographical jurisdictions or provinces in which ministers were appointed to serve the brothers. 11. A traditional formula used at the beginning of legal documents suggesting the insertion of this lengthy section into the propositum vitae. 12. Benedict, Rule, LXI 14; LXX 7. 13. Esser notes that the majority of the manuscripts, following the lead of Angelo of Clareno, contain aliquis/anyone. He chooses, however, to follow the more ancient manuscript tradition, which has aliquid/anything. 14. Honorius III, Cum secundum consilium (1220). 15. “Prior” was a term used in the earlier tradition of religious life for one who was a vicar or a delegate of a monastery that had

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no abbot. At the time of Francis, a prior was the superior of a small house and in this sense was adopted by the Friars Preachers, the Augustinians, et al. Apart from this reference, the oldest acknowledgment of the title “Friars Minor” or “Lesser Brothers” appears in the Chronicles of the Premonstratensian Burchard of Urspurg (+1230) who encountered the brothers in 1210 and writes of a change in their name from “Poor Minors” to “Friars Minor.” 16. While many commentators suggest that this chapter formed part of the propositum vitae, others see verses 1–2 coming at a later stage of development—that is, after the brothers had been achieving success in their work. 17. While all the early manuscripts contain the word necessaria [necessary], in preparing his critical edition of the text Esser chose to follow the earliest edition of this document, Angelo Clareno’s Expositio Regulae Fratrum Minorum, c. 1321–23, which has opportuna [suitable]; Cf. Angelo Clareno, Expositio Regulae Fratrum Minorum, ed. Livarius Oliger (Quaracchi Ad Aquas Claras, Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1912). 18. Francis alludes to the teachings of Saint Gregory the Great, Homilia XIII in Evangelica (PL 76:1123); Saint Jerome, Epistola 125 (PL 22:1078); Ionae Aureliano, Institutito Laicalis 3:6 (PL 106:2450); and Saint Anselm, Epistola 3:49 (PL 159:81A). 19. Cf. Benedict, Rule, Chapter XLVIII: 1. 20. Francis uses an unusual word in this passage, revidere, to indicate the encounters of the brothers. It has the sense of seeing one another anew and may have been intended to emphasize the new appreciation of one brother for another after an absence. 21. Cf. Earlier Rule, II, 64, c. 22. This verse suggests three locations in need of alms: hospices for the poor or for lepers are particularly singled out. 23. Decretum Gratiani P. II, C.q.l glossa ante c.40. 24. The following chapters, X–XIII, seem to offer clarifications or warnings that were added at a later date. They flow from the material contained in Chapter VII. 25. Augustine, Epistola Cl. II.40.IV.4; cf. Mt 7:12. 26. Cf. Gregory the Great, Homilia in Evangelia XVIII.18; PL 76, 1148. This is a homily on Luke 10:1–10, the missionary discourse. Francis adds “sicknesses” to the text.

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27. The only use of habitus [habit] suggests that this chapter was written after November 22, 1220, the promulgation of Cum secundum consilium, which contains the phrase habitus vitae vestrae [the habit of your life]. 28. The harsh juridical tone of this chapter reflects Paul’s reproach of similar sins in 1 Corinthians 5: lb–2: “It is widely reported that there is fornication among you. . . . The one who did this deed should be expelled from your midst.” 29. These pieces of legislation were also found in the other itinerant forms of life of this period, e.g., the Humiliati, for traveling on horseback or keeping pets were seen as signs of affluence. 30. The inspiration for the following initiative is the urging of Pope Innocent III, whose letter De negotio Terrae Sanctae in 1213, and exhortation at the beginning of the Fourth Lateran Council encouraged “the recovery of the Holy Land for the reformation of the Universal Church.” 31. Esser chose to follow the edition of Angelo Clareno, which does not contain the phrase “divine inspiration.” 32. Prince Peter of Portugal notes that the desire for martyrdom characterized the lives of the early brothers, who were initially received with kindness by the Muslims and were martyred mainly because of their unbending zeal. “Therefore, according to the form of their Rule, they requested permission to go among the Saracens so that, if possible, they might be able to bring forth fruit among them”; cf. Peter of Portugal, Martyrum, quinque fratrum; also Roger of Wendover, Chronicle, and the Gesta Senonensis ecclesiare. 33. These opening three verses are probably the result of the Fourth Lateran Council, which attempted to restrict the office of preaching to those who were qualified. The remaining section of this chapter may have been written at an earlier period when Francis was eager to teach his brothers how they should react to the successful unfolding of their ministries. 34. Oration of Fifth Sunday after Easter. 35. Many manuscripts conclude this chapter with “Amen,” suggesting that Earlier Rule, in one of its earlier forms, came to an end at this point. 36. This chapter shows the influence of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, which, in its twelfth canon, ordained that “in

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every ecclesiastical province there shall be held every three years, saving the rights of the diocesan ordinaries, a general chapter of abbots and priors having no abbots, who have not become accustomed to celebrate such chapters”; cf. Herbert J. Schroeder, Disciplinary Decrees of the General Councils (St. Louis: Herder and Herder, 1938), 253. 37. The following directive also reflects the influence of the Fourth Lateran Council: in this instance, canon 1, which speaks of the “Catholic faith,” canon 2 of the errors of Joachim of Fiore, and canon 3, which excommunicated and condemned “everyone professing heresy against the holy, orthodox, catholic faith. . . .” 38. Canon 21 of the Fourth Lateran Council prescribed, “All the faithful of both sexes, after they have reached the age of discerning, shall faithfully confess all their sins to their own priest at least once a year and perform the penance imposed to the best of their abilities, receiving reverently at least at Easter the sacrament of the Eucharist, unless perchance, at the advice of their priest, they may abstain for a time after its reception for a good reason; otherwise, they shall be cut off from the Church during life and deprived of Christian burial at death. Wherefore, let this salutary decree be published frequently in the churches that no one may find in the pleas of ignorance a shadow of excuse. Let the priest be discerning and cautious that he may pour wine and oil into the wounds of the one injured after the manner of a skillful physician, carefully inquiring into the situation of the sinner and the sin, from the nature of which he may understand what kind of advice to give and what remedy to apply, making use of different experiments to heal the sick one.” 39. The need for priests of one’s religion inevitably led to the gradual clericalization of the primitive fraternity, a refinement of the Fourth Lateran Council, Canon 21. 40. The practice of confessing sins to another Christian in the absence of a priest was common in the Middle Ages. It was seen as a means of expressing reconciliation among the community of the faithful. 41. The nature and origin of these verses have been interpreted in a variety of ways. Most authors agree, however, that they suggest the influence of the Fourth Lateran Council’s concern for

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orthodox preaching as well as Francis’s own eagerness to promote the embrace of a life of penance. 42. Although some authors see this chapter as a “testament” that Francis left his followers prior to his departure for the Middle East in the later summer of 1219, others maintain that it is a statement or synthesis of his understanding of Gospel discipleship or a “catechism” of prayer and, in this context, a summary of Franciscan life. 43. The word here is conversi [penitents], those lay penitents who became associated with Cistercian monasteries in positions of service. 44. The presence of this chapter in the propositum vitae or in a very early edition of The Earlier Rule has been widely debated.

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Later Admonition and Exhortation

[Francis of Assisi: Early Documents: The Saint, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, et al. (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1999), 45–51].

Later Admonition and Exhortation to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance (Second Version of the Letter to the Faithful)1 (1220?)

This writing may have been written upon Francis’s return from his journey to the Middle East in the Spring of 1220, for not only does it speak of his weakened condition but also suggests the post-­conciliar concerns of Pope Honorius III. At the same time, it recalls Francis’s earlier exhortation to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance and encourages its observance in light of many of the teachings of the Fourth Lateran Council. 1 In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 118

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Brother Francis, their servant and subject, sends esteem and reverence, true peace from heaven and sincere love in the Lord to all Christian religious people: clergy and laity, men and women, and to all who live in the whole world.2 2 Because I am the servant of all, I am obliged to serve all and to administer the fragrant words of my Lord to them.3  3Therefore, realizing that I could not visit each one of you personally because of sickness and the weakness of my body, I decided to offer you in this letter and message the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the Word of the Father, and the words of the Holy Spirit, which are spirit and life.4 4 The most high Father made known from heaven through His holy angel Gabriel this Word of the Father—so worthy, so holy and glorious—in the womb of the holy and glorious Virgin Mary, from whose womb He received the flesh of our humanity and frailty.5  5Though He was rich, He wished, together with the most Blessed Virgin, His mother, to choose poverty in the world beyond all else.6 6 And as His Passion was near, He celebrated the Passover with His disciples and, taking bread, gave thanks, blessed and broke it, saying: Take and eat: This is My Body. 7And taking the cup He said: This is My Blood of the New Covenant which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. 8Then He prayed to His Father, saying: Father, if it can be done, let this cup pass from me. 9And His sweat became as drops of blood falling on the ground. 10Nevertheless, He placed His will in the will of His Father, saying: Father, let Your will be done; not as I will, but as You will. 11His Father’s will was such that His blessed and glorious Son, Whom He gave to us and Who was born for us, should offer Himself through His own blood as a sacrifice and oblation on the altar of the cross: 12not for Himself through Whom all things were made, but for our sins, 13leaving us an example that we might follow His footprints. 14 And He wishes all of us to be saved through Him and receive Him with our heart pure and our body chaste. 15But,

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even though His yoke is easy and His burden light, there are few who wish to receive Him and be saved through Him. 16 Those who do not wish to taste how sweet the Lord is and who love the darkness more than the light, not wishing to fulfill God’s commands, are cursed; 17it is said of them by the prophet: Cursed are those who stray from your commands. 18 But how happy and blessed are those who love God and do as the Lord Himself says in the Gospel: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. 19Let us love God, therefore, and adore Him with a pure heart and a pure mind, because He Who seeks this above all things has said: True adorers adore the Father in Spirit and Truth. 20For all who adore Him must adore Him in the Spirit of truth.7  21And day and night let us direct praises and prayers to Him, saying: Our Father, Who art in heaven . . . for we should pray always and not become weary. 22 We must, of course, confess all our sins to a priest and receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ from him.8  23Whoever does not eat His flesh and drink His blood cannot enter the kingdom of God. 24But let him eat and drink worthily because anyone who receives unworthily, not distinguishing, that is, not discerning, the Body of the Lord, eats and drinks judgment on himself. 25 In addition, let us produce worthy fruits of penance. 26 And let us love our neighbors as ourselves. 27And if anyone does not want to love them as himself, let him at least not do them any harm, but let him do good. 28 Let whoever has received the power of judging others pass judgment with mercy, as they would wish to receive mercy from the Lord. 29For judgment will be without mercy for those who have not shown mercy. 30 Let us, therefore, have charity and humility and give alms because it washes the stains of our sins from our souls. 31For, although people lose everything they leave behind in this world, they, nevertheless, carry with them the rewards of

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charity and the alms they have given for which they will receive a reward and a fitting repayment from the Lord. 32 We must also fast and abstain from vices and sins and from an excess of food and drink and be Catholics.9 33 We must also frequently visit churches and venerate and revere the clergy not so much for themselves, if they are sinners, but because of their office and administration of the most holy Body and Blood of Christ which they sacrifice upon the altar, receive and administer to others. 34And let all of us know for certain that no one can be saved except through the holy words and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which the clergy pronounce, proclaim and minister.10  35And they alone must minister and not others.11  36Religious, however, who have left the world, are bound to do more and greater things, but not to overlook these. 37 We must hate our bodies with their vices and sins because the Lord says in the Gospel: All evils, vices and sins come from the heart. 38 We must love our enemies and do good to those who hate us. 39 We must observe the commands and counsels of our Lord Jesus Christ. 40 We must also deny ourselves and place our bodies under the yoke of servitude and holy obedience as each one has promised to the Lord.12  41And let no one be bound to obey another in anything in which a crime or sin would be committed. 42Instead, let the one to whom obedience has been entrusted and who is considered the greater be the lesser and the servant of the other brothers.13  43And let him have and show mercy to each of his brothers as he would want them to do to him were he in a similar position. 44Let him not become angry at the fault of a brother but, with all patience and humility, let him admonish and support him. 45 We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh, but, instead, we must be simple, humble and pure. 46And let us hold our bodies in scorn and contempt because, through

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our own fault, we are all wretched and corrupt, disgusting and worms, as the Lord says through the prophet: I am a worm and not a man, the scorn of men and the outcast of the people.14 47 We must never desire to be above others, but, instead, we must be servants and subject to every human creature for God’s sake. 48 And the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon all those men and women who have done and persevered in these things and It will make a home and dwelling place in them. 49And they will be the children of the heavenly Father, Whose works they do. 50And they are spouses, brothers and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ. 51 We are spouses when the faithful soul is united by the Holy Spirit to our Lord Jesus Christ. 52We are brothers, moreover, when we do the will of His Father Who is in heaven; 53 mothers when we carry Him in our heart and body through love and a pure and sincere conscience; and give Him birth through a holy activity, which must shine before others by example. 54 O how glorious and holy and great to have a Father in heaven!15  55O how holy, consoling, beautiful and wonderful to have such a Spouse! 56O how holy and how loving, gratifying, humbling, peace-­giving, sweet, worthy of love, and above all things desirable it is to have such a Brother and such a Son: our Lord Jesus Christ, Who laid down His life for His sheep and prayed to His Father, saying: Holy Father, save in your name those whom you have given me. 57Father, all those whom you have given me in the world were yours and you have given them to me. 58The words that you gave me, I have given to them; they have accepted them and known in truth that I have come from you and they have believed that you have sent me. I pray for them and not for the world; bless and sanctify them.16  59I sanctify myself for them that they may be sanctified in being one as we are one.

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And I wish, Father, that where I am, they may be with me that they may see my glory in your kingdom. 60

Let every creature in heaven, on earth, in the sea and in the depths, give praise, glory, honor and blessing To Him Who suffered so much, Who has given and will give in the future every good, 62 for He is our power and strength, Who alone is good, Who alone is almighty, Who alone is omnipotent, wonderful, glorious and Who alone is holy, worthy of praise and blessing through endless ages. Amen. 61

All those, however, who are not living in penance, who do not receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, 64 who practice vice and sin and walk after evil concupiscence and wicked desires, who do not observe what they have promised, 65and who serve the world with their bodies, the desires of the flesh, the cares and anxieties of this world, and the preoccupations of this life 66[all these] are deceived by the devil whose children they are and whose works they do.17 They are blind because they do not see the true light, our Lord Jesus Christ. 67They do not have spiritual wisdom because they do not possess the Son of God, the true wisdom of the Father, within them. It is said of them: Their wisdom has been swallowed up. 68They see, recognize, know, and do evil; and, knowingly, they lose their souls. 69 See, you blind ones, deceived by your enemies, that is, the flesh, the world, and the devil, for it is sweet for the body to commit sin and bitter to serve God, because every evil, vice and sin flow and proceed from people’s hearts, as the Lord says in the Gospel. 70And you have nothing in this world or in that to come. 71You think you possess the vanities of the 63

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world for a long time, but you are deceived because a day and an hour are coming of which you do not think, do not know, and are not aware. 72 The body becomes weak, death approaches, relatives and friends come saying: “Put your affairs in order.” 73Look, his wife and children, relatives and friends pretend to cry. 74 Glancing about, he sees them weeping and is moved by an evil impulse. He says, thinking to himself, “See, I place my soul and body, all that I have in your hands.” 75In fact, that man is cursed who entrusts and places his soul and body and all he has in such hands; 76for, as the Lord says through the prophet, Cursed is the one who trusts in another. 77And immediately they make a priest come. The priest says to him: “Do you want to receive penance for all your sins?” 78“I do,” he responds. “Do you wish to make satisfaction, as far as you can, out of your wealth, for what you have done and the ways in which you have cheated and deceived people?” 79 “No,” he responds. 80“Why not?” the priest asks. “Because I have placed everything in the hands of my relatives and friends.” 81And the wretched man begins to lose his speech and so dies. 82 But let everyone know that whenever and however someone dies in mortal sin without making amends when he could have [done so] and did not, the devil snatches his soul from his body with such anguish and distress that no one can know [what it is like] except the one experiencing it. 83 And every talent and power and knowledge that he thought he had will be taken away from him.18  84And he leaves his relatives and friends and they take and divide his wealth and, afterwards, they say: “Let his soul be cursed because he could have given us more and acquired more than he distributed to us!” 85Worms eat his body and so he loses his body and soul in this brief world and goes to hell where he will be tortured without end. 86 In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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I, brother Francis, your lesser servant, with a wish to kiss your feet, beg and implore you in the love that is God, to receive, to put into practice, and to observe, as you should, these words and the others of our Lord Jesus Christ with humility and love.19  88And may the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit bless all those men and women who receive them with kindness, understand them and send copies of them to others, if they have persevered to the end in them. Amen. 87

Notes

1. The titles of this particular text suggest that it is a commonitorium and an exhortation, a work reminding and encouraging its recipients to fulfill a commitment previously undertaken. While Kajetan Esser’s critical edition of the text identifies this work by the more generic title Letter to All the Faithful, this designation does not appropriately indicate either the recipients or the contents of the texts. 2. It is difficult to identify the recipients of this work since the earliest manuscripts read: Universis christianis religiosis clericis et laicis masculis et feminis omnibus qui habitant in universo mundo. Since these manuscripts contain no punctuation, the meaning of the sentence is unclear. In his critical edition, Kajetan Esser placed a comma after Universis christianis religiosis and argued that Francis was addressing not all Christians but rather “all Christian religious: clergy and laity, men and women. . . ,” that is, Christians who had committed themselves to living more intensely their baptismal commitment through a life of penance. 3. A special bond of union between Francis and the recipients of this exhortation is expressed in this paragraph, an interpretation which is strengthened in verse 40 when the saint writes of “the yoke of service and holy obedience,” as well as the special love and responsibility which characterize their relationships. This bond is further underscored in Francis’s repeated use of the first-­person plural throughout verses 19 to 47. 4. Offhanded comments of Francis’s biographers suggest that the deterioration of his health was a long process aggravated by

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his imprisonment in Collestrada (1202) and in San Damiano (1207–8). Prior to his journey to the Middle East, illness struck Francis in Spain (1214/15) and in Assisi (1216/17). After his return from the Middle East, the infirmity of his eyes began to intensify. 5. In these verses, 4–13, Francis presents a catechetical tool against the Christological teachings of the Cathars who viewed matter and the flesh as evil. Thus he accentuates the central mysteries of Christian belief in graphically concrete incarnational expressions, leading to the conclusion that Christians are called to follow the footsteps of the Word made flesh, a fundamental concern of the saint. 6. The phrasing of this passage “cum dives esset, super omnia voluit” makes its interpretation difficult. It could be translated “Though He was rich beyond all things . . .” or, as in this edition, “He wished . . . to choose . . . beyond all else. . . .” 7. This passage begins a series of ten commands, all of which contain the word debere, and explanations of what is implied in each command. 8. This emphasis of the role of the priest may well be directed against the Waldensians, who embraced the principle that their system of life made them the real depositories of the Gospel and gave them the right to preach. The confession of sins to a priest, and the reception of the Eucharist, became primary concerns of the IV Lateran Council, canon 21; cf. Earlier Rule, XX, 7, b. 9. In this and the following verses, Francis addresses abuses found in the Cathars and the Waldensians, who maintained that fasting and abstaining should be practiced because of a dualistic concept of the world which sees the body and material things as evil. The penitents should fast and abstain according to the directives of the Church. The insistence on being Catholic also reflects a concern of the IV Lateran Council, which addressed the theme in its first three canons; cf. Earlier Rule, XIX, 77. a. 10. By using these three verbs, “dicunt, annuntiant et ministrant,” Francis emphasizes the role of the priest as the only ordained minister able to consecrate the Eucharist, preach the Word, and administer the sacraments.

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11. This emphasis clearly addresses the position of the Waldensians, who maintained that the power to consecrate the Eucharist and to administer the sacraments was based not upon ordination but on the worthiness of the person. 12. “Body” here signifies the whole person. The penitents must place themselves under the yoke of service and holy obedience, that is, they must overcome self-­centeredness. 13. The nullus homo of this text is stronger than nemo found in verse 34. This text also suggests a development in the organizational structure of the penitential communities. While the First Letter to the Faithful speaks only of a promise (cf. 2:4), this text presupposes communities which are structured with a vow of obedience and which need, therefore, to guard against abuses of obedience and of authority. 14. Corpora nostra [our bodies] signifies the personal “I,” the egotistical self. 15. Cf. First Letter to the Faithful, 42, c. 16. The omission of John 17:20, “Not only for these do I pray, but for those who through their words will believe in me . . . ,” is significant. It may have been prompted by the numerous questions and conflicts concerning the role of lay preachers within the penitential movement and the right to preach. Thus this Johannine passage may have been omitted to avoid its possible interpretation as a support of non-­authorized lay preaching. This may also explain Francis’s insistence on the unique role of the clergy in this regard, as we can see in this document, verses 34–35. 17. The word detenti found in the First Letter to the Faithful has been changed to decepti. While detenti may be understood as a variation of the Italian detenere, meaning to imprison or to hold prisoner, it follows the sense of the general concept of being possessed. However, such a meaning might have seemed too severe in this context and was perhaps theologically unsatisfactory. Its force, then, was weakened to the more acceptable decepti. 18. Francis’s use of this threefold formula, “every talent and power and knowledge,” may well suggest a symbolism highlighting the total loss of all things.

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19. A number of manuscripts contain an additional sentence at this point, one which parallels the conclusion of the First Letter to the Faithful: “Let those who cannot read have [this letter] read to them frequently and, with a holy activity, preserved among them to the end for [its words] are spirit and life” (cf. Jn 6:63).

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The Canticle of Creatures

[Francis of Assisi: Early Documents: The Saint, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, et al. (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1999), 113–14.]

The Canticle of the Creatures (1225)

Chronologically, there are three stages to consider in the development of this poetic praise of God, each of which reveals a side of Francis’s vision of God, creation, and the human soul. Francis’s companions tell us of the composition of the first part of this piece, verses 1–9, in which the saint sings the praises of creation in glorifying God. While suffering intensely from his physical infirmities, he announced, “I wish to compose a new hymn about the Lord’s creatures, of which we make daily use, without which we cannot live, and with which the human race greatly offends its Creator.”1A short while later, after hearing of a quarrel that had broken out between 129

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the civil and religious authorities of Assisi, Francis asked the brothers to go before them singing these verses, but added two more, verses 10–11.2 He composed the final verses 12–13 on his death bed.3 Verse 14 may well be a refrain used after each verse of the entire Canticle. Most High, all-­powerful, good Lord,   Yours are the praises, the glory, and the honor,   and all blessing, 2 To You alone, Most High, do they belong,   and no human is worthy to mention Your name.4 3 Praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures,   especially Sir Brother Sun,   Who is the day and through whom You give   us light.5 4 And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor;   and bears a likeness of You, Most High One. 5 Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,   in heaven You formed them clear and precious   and beautiful.6 6 Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,   and through the air, cloudy and serene, and   every kind of weather,   through whom You give sustenance to Your  creatures. 7 Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,   who is very useful and humble and precious   and chaste. 8 Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,    through whom You light the night,   and he is beautiful and playful and robust   and strong. 9 Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth,   who sustains and governs us, 1

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  and who produces various fruit with colored   flowers and herbs. 10 Praised be You, my Lord, through those who give pardon for Your love,   and bear infirmity and tribulation.7 11    Blessed are those who endure in peace     for by You, Most High, shall they be  crowned. 12 Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,   from whom no one living can escape.8 13    Woe to those who die in mortal sin.   Blessed are those whom death will find in   Your most holy will,      for the second death shall do them no harm.9 14 Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks   and serve Him with great humility. Notes

1. Cf. The Assisi Compilation, 83 (hereafter AC). 2. Cf. AC 84. 3. Cf. AC 7. 4. It would seem that in these first nine verses Francis envisioned this as a song of God’s creatures in which human beings, because of sin, had no part, a theme about which he hints in other writings, e.g., Earlier Rule, XIII. While the first verse directs praise, glory, honor, and blessing to God alone, a sentiment underscored in the first part of this second verse, its second part is quite clear in denying any role to a human being. 5. In Francis’s use of the passive voice, “Praised be you . . . ,” and his linking the praise of the Lord with that of creatures, this verse provides many insights into the interpretation of the entire Canticle. While the sun, moon, and stars, wind, water, fire, and earth may be seen as instruments of praise or as reasons for praise, praising them also implies praising the God Who created them and acknowledging that they are symbols of their Creator.

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Thus Francis’s poetic use of adjectives is important to comprehend his images of God. 6. Per suggests a variety of meanings: (a) a corruption of the Latin per, (b) the French pour, or (c) the developing Italian par. Thus, it may be translated “for,” offering an attitude of thanksgiving; “by,” expressing a sense of instrumentality; or “through,” suggesting instrumentality and, at the same time, a deeper sense of praising God’s presence in the creatures mentioned. This translation follows the last possibility based on verse 3, “Praised be you, my Lord, with all your creatures. . . .” 7. The second section of the Canticle introduces humanity into the praise of God. However, such praise is only achieved through identifying with the suffering Servant of God, Jesus, who endured weakness and tribulation in peace. In this way, reconciliation is achieved in light of the Paschal Mystery. 8. These two verses, 12 and 13, composed in Francis’s last hours, indicate an understanding of death much different from that of the First Letter to the Faithful, 2:14ff, the Second Letter to the Faithful, 72ff, and Letters to the Rulers of the Peoples, 2–4. Rather than fearing death, Francis greets it as yet another expression of God’s presence. 9. Fulgentius of Ruspe comments on these verses in his treatise on forgiveness: “Here on earth they are changed by the first resurrection, in which they are enlightened and converted, thus passing from death to life, sinfulness to holiness, unbelief to faith, and evil actions to holy life. For this reason the second death has no power over them. . . . As the first resurrection consists of the conversion of the heart, so the second death consists of unending torment; cf. Fulgentius of Ruspe, On Forgiveness, Liber 2, 11, 1–2,1. 3–4; Corpus Christianorum 91A, 693–95).

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A Letter to the Entire Order

[Francis of Assisi: Early Documents: The Saint, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, et al. (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1999), 116–21.]

A Letter to the Entire Order (1225–1226)

The promulgation of the papal document Quia populares tumultus on December 3, 1224, granting the friars permission to celebrate the Eucharist in their churches and oratories, may well have occasioned this letter. At the same time, its themes reflect many of the concerns of The Testament which was written during the last days of Francis’s life.1 While a number of manuscripts entitle the work “A Letter to a General Chapter,” others prefer the present title, since it reflects more accurately the universal audience of all the brothers mentioned in verse 2.

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In the name of the most high Trinity and holy Unity: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 2 To all my reverend and dearly beloved brothers: to Brother A.,2 the General Minister of the Order of Friars Minor, its lord, and the other general ministers who will come after him, and to the ministers, custodians, humble priests of this same brotherhood in Christ, and to all simple and obedient brothers, from the first to the last: 3Brother Francis, a worthless and weak man, your very little servant sends his greetings in Him Who has redeemed and washed us in His most precious blood. 4 When you hear His name, the name of that Son of the Most High, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is blessed forever, adore His name with fear and reverence, prostrate on the ground!5 Listen, sons of the Lord and my brothers, pay attention to my words.3  6Incline the ear of your heart and obey the voice of the Son of God. 7Observe His commands with your whole heart and fulfill His counsels with a perfect mind. 8 Give praise to Him because He is good; exalt Him by your deeds; 9for this reason He has sent you into the whole world: that you may bear witness to His voice in word and deed and bring everyone to know that there is no one who is all-­ powerful except Him. 10Persevere in discipline and holy obedience and, with a good and firm purpose, fulfill what you have promised Him. 11The Lord God offers Himself to us as to His children. 12 Kissing your feet, therefore, and with all that love of which I am capable, I implore all of you brothers to show all possible reverence and honor to the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ 13in Whom that which is in heaven and on earth has been brought to peace and reconciled to almighty God. 14 I also beg in the Lord all my brothers who are priests, or who will be, or who wish to be priests of the Most High that whenever they wish to celebrate Mass, being pure, they offer the true Sacrifice of the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ with purity and reverence, with a holy and 1

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unblemished intention, not for any worldly reason or out of fear or love of anyone, as if they were pleasing people. 15 But let all their will, as much as grace helps, be directed to God, desiring, thereby, to please only the Most High Lord Himself because He alone acts there as He pleases, 16for He Himself says: Do this in memory of me. If anyone acts differently, he becomes Judas the traitor and guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. 17 My priest brothers, remember what is written in the law of Moses: whoever committed a transgression against even externals died without mercy by a decree of the Lord. 18How much greater and more severe will the punishment be of the one who tramples on the Son of God, and who treats the Blood of the Covenant in which he was sanctified as unclean and who insults the Spirit of grace?4  19For a person looks down upon, defiles and tramples upon the Lamb of God when, as the Apostle says, not distinguishing and discerning the holy bread of Christ from other foods or actions, he either unworthily or, even if he is worthy, eats It in vain and unworthily since the Lord says through the prophet: The person is cursed who does the work of the Lord deceitfully. 20He will, in truth, condemn priests who do not wish to take this to heart, saying: I will curse your blessings. 21 Listen, my brothers: If the Blessed Virgin is so honored, as is becoming, because she carried Him in her most holy womb; if the Baptist trembled and did not dare to touch the holy head of God;5 if the tomb in which He lay for some time is held in veneration, 22how holy, just and fitting must be he who touches with his hands, receives in his heart and mouth, and offers to others to be received the One Who is not about to die but Who is to conquer and be glorified, upon Whom the angels longed to gaze.6 23 See your dignity, [my] priest brothers, and be holy because He is holy. 24As the Lord God has honored you above all others because of this ministry, for your part love, revere and honor Him above all others. 25It is a great misery and a

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miserable weakness that when you have Him present in this way, you are concerned with anything else in the whole world! Let everyone be struck with fear, let the whole world tremble, and let the heavens exult when Christ, the Son of the living God, is present on the altar in the hands of a priest! 27 O wonderful loftiness and stupendous dignity! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! The Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles Himself that for our salvation He hides Himself under an ordinary piece of bread! 28 Brothers, look at the humility of God, and pour out your hearts before Him! Humble yourselves that you may be exalted by Him! 29 Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, that He Who gives Himself totally to you may receive you totally! 26

I admonish and exhort you in the Lord, therefore, to celebrate only one Mass a day according to the rite of the Holy Church in those places where the brothers dwell. 31But if there is more than one priest there, let the other be content, for the love of charity, at hearing the celebration of the other priest;7  32because our Lord Jesus Christ fills those present and absent who are worthy of Him. 33Although He may seem to be present in many places, nevertheless, He remains, undivided and knows no loss; but One everywhere, He acts as He pleases, with the Lord God the Father and the Holy Spirit the Paraclete for ever and ever. Amen. 30

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Because whoever belongs to God hears the words of God, we who are more especially charged with divine responsibilities must not only listen to and do what the Lord says but also care for the vessels and other liturgical objects that contain His holy words in order to impress on ourselves the sublimity of our Creator and our subjection to Him. 35I, therefore, admonish all my brothers and encourage them in Christ to venerate, as best as they can, the divine written words wherever they find them. 36If they are not well kept or are carelessly thrown around in some place, let them gather them up and preserve them, inasmuch as it concerns them, honoring in the words the Lord Who spoke them. 37For many things are made holy by the words of God and the sacrament of the altar is celebrated in the power of the words of Christ. 38 Moreover, I confess all my sins to the Lord God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to the blessed ever Virgin Mary, all the saints in heaven and on earth, to Brother8 the Minister of our Order as my venerable lord, to the priests of our Order and all my other blessed brothers. 39I have offended the Lord in many ways by my serious faults especially in not observing the Rule that I have promised Him and in not saying the Office as the Rule prescribes either out of negligence or by reason of my weakness or because I am ignorant and stupid. 40 Therefore, I beg by all means, as best I can, Brother H., the General Minister, my lord, to have the Rule observed inviolably by everyone, 41to have the clerics say the Office with devotion before God not concentrating on the melody of the voice but on the harmony of the mind, that the voice may be in harmony with the mind, the mind truly in harmony with God.9  42[Let them do this] that they may be able to please God by their purity of heart and not just charm the ears of people by their sweetness of voice. 43 For my part, I firmly promise to observe these things, as God shall give me the grace, and I pass them on to the brothers 34

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who are with me to be observed in the Office and the other prescriptions of the Rule. 44 I do not consider those brothers who do not wish to observe these things Catholics or my brothers; I do not even wish to see or speak with them until they have done penance. 45 I even say this about all those who wander about, having put aside the discipline of the Rule, 46for our Lord Jesus Christ gave His life that He would not lose the obedience of His most holy Father. 47 I, Brother Francis, a useless man and an unworthy creature of the Lord God, speak through the Lord Jesus Christ to Brother H., the General Minister of our entire Order and to all the general ministers who will come after him, and to the other custodians and guardians of the brothers, who are and who will be, that they might keep this writing with them, put it into practice and eagerly preserve it. 48I exhort them to guard what is written in it carefully and to have it observed more diligently according to the pleasure of the all-­powerful God, now and forever, as long as the world lasts. 49 Blessed by the Lord are you who do these things and may the Lord be with you forever. Amen. [Prayer]10 Almighty, eternal, just and merciful God, give us miserable ones the grace to do for You alone what we know you want us to do and always to desire what pleases You. 51 Inwardly cleansed, interiorly enlightened and inflamed by the fire of the Holy Spirit, may we be able to follow in the footprints of Your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, 52 and, by Your grace alone, may we make our way to You, Most High,

50

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Who live and rule in perfect Trinity and simple Unity, and are glorified God almighty, forever and ever. Amen. Notes

1. Ubertino da Casale indicates that the letter was written “at the end of [Francis’s] days” in his Arbor vitae crucifixae Iesu Christi. 2. It is difficult to identify the friar referred to in this passage. The majority of the manuscripts simply refer to him as unknown, although they do suggest his being the General Minister of the Order. Since Peter Catanii had died in March 1221, Elias, who was appointed at that time, is most likely the recipient of this letter. This may well be confirmed by the further reference in lines 38, 40, and 47 to Brother H (Latin [H]elias). A number of manuscripts indicate Elias as the name that should be inserted in these places. 3. This is a difficult phrase to translate because of the obscurity of the Latin text: Audite domini filii et fratres mei. . . . The comma may be placed in different places: Audite, domini filii et fratres mei . . . or Audite, domini, filii et fratres mei. . . . Thus the passage has been translated: “Listen, my lord, sons and brothers . . .”; “Listen, sons of the Lord and my brothers . . .”; and “Listen, lords, sons and my brothers . . .” All are acceptable. 4. This passage reflects the influence of Honorius III, Sane cum olim. 5. A reference to the work of Psuedo-­Bernard of Cluny, Tractatus de Corpore Domini. 6. This passage shows the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermo I, Epiphania Domini as well as the Psuedo-­Bernard of Cluny, Instructio sacerdotis, seu praeparatio eius ad digne celebrandum tantum mysterium. 7. While questions arise concerning the interpretation of this passage, it should be remembered that the rite of concelebration was not practiced at this point of history, and private mass was

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only beginning to be a common occurrence. Thus, Francis encourages the social or communal character of the Eucharist as the center of Gospel life. 8. Cf. supra, verse 2. 9. This passage parallels the Benedictine Rule XIX: “Let us, therefore, consider in what state one must be in the sight of God and his angels; we shall, then, stand while chanting, so that our hearts will be in harmony with our voices.” It also resonates with this sentiment of Saint Augustine: “While you are praying to God during the chanting of the psalms and hymns, what you express on your lips should also be alive in your hearts”; Epistola 48:3; Epistola 221:7. 10. Although the Assisi Codex 338, the oldest collection of Francis’s writings, places this prayer at the end of this letter, many manuscripts consider it a separate piece.

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The Testament

[Francis of Assisi: Early Documents: The Saint, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, et al. (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1999), 124–27.]

The Testament (1226)1

Those “who were with him,” the brothers who write in The Assisi Compilation, tell of a number of documents or “testaments” that Francis dictated as his health deteriorated and death drew near: that of Siena in which he outlined the basic principles of his Gospel vision, that concerning the Portiuncula in which he asked his brothers to care for this special symbol of their life, and another in which he provided guidelines for building new dwellings.2 This document, which has come to be known as “The Testament,” has remained a primary expression of Francis’s profound wisdom and vision. While popular tradition maintains that it was written at the 141

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Portiuncula while he was dying, the document’s different styles of writing suggest that it was written at different moments of those final days and was prompted by different questions swirling around his simple Gospel vision. 1 The Lord gave me, Brother Francis, thus to begin doing penance in this way: for when I was in sin, it seemed too bitter for me to see lepers. 2And the Lord Himself led me among them and I showed mercy to them.3  3And when I left them, what had seemed bitter to me was turned into sweetness of soul and body. And afterwards I delayed a little and left the world. 4 And the Lord gave me such faith in churches that I would pray with simplicity in this way and say: 5“We adore You, Lord Jesus Christ, in all Your churches throughout the whole world and we bless You because by Your holy cross You have redeemed the world.”4 6 Afterwards the Lord gave me, and gives me still, such faith in priests who live according to the rite of the holy Roman Church because of their orders that, were they to persecute me, I would still want to have recourse to them. 7And if I had as much wisdom as Solomon and found impoverished priests of this world, I would not preach in their parishes against their will. 8And I desire to respect, love and honor them and all others as my lords. 9And I do not want to consider any sin in them because I discern the Son of God in them and they are my lords. 10And I act in this way because, in this world, I see nothing corporally of the most high Son of God except His most holy Body and Blood which they receive and they alone administer to others. 11 I want to have these most holy mysteries honored and venerated above all things and I want to reserve them in precious places. 12Wherever I find our Lord’s most holy names and written words in unbecoming places, I want to gather them up and I beg that they be gathered up and placed in a becoming place. 13And we must honor all theologians and those who minister the most holy divine

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words and respect them as those who minister to us spirit and life. 14 And after the Lord gave me some brothers, no one showed me what I had to do, but the Most High Himself revealed to me that I should live according to the pattern of the Holy Gospel. 15And I had this written down simply and in a few words and the Lord Pope confirmed it for me. 16And those who came to receive life gave whatever they had to the poor and were content with one tunic, patched inside and out, with a cord and short trousers. 17We desired nothing more. 18We clerical [brothers] said the Office as other clerics did; the lay brothers said the Our Father; and we quite willingly remained in churches. 19And we were simple and subject to all. 20 And I worked with my hands, and I still desire to work; and I earnestly desire all brothers to give themselves to honest work. 21Let those who do not know how to work learn, not from desire to receive wages, but for example and to avoid idleness. 22And when we are not paid for our work, let us have recourse to the table of the Lord, begging alms from door to door. 23The Lord revealed a greeting to me that we should say: “May the Lord give you peace.” 24 Let the brothers be careful not to receive in any way churches or poor dwellings or anything else built for them unless they are according to the holy poverty we have promised in the Rule.5 As pilgrims and strangers, let them always be guests there. 25 I strictly command all the brothers through obedience, wherever they may be, not to dare to ask any letter from the Roman Curia, either personally or through an intermediary, whether for a church or another place or under the pretext of preaching or the persecution of their bodies.6  26But, wherever they have not been received, let them flee into another country to do penance with the blessing of God. 27 And I firmly wish to obey the general minister of this fraternity and the other guardian whom it pleases him to give

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me. 28And I so wish to be a captive in his hands that I cannot go anywhere or do anything beyond obedience and his will, for he is my master. 29 And although I may be simple and infirm, I nevertheless want to have a cleric always with me who will celebrate the Office for me as it is prescribed in the Rule. 30 And let all the brothers be bound to obey their guardians and to recite the Office according to the Rule. 31And if some might have been found who are not reciting the Office according to the Rule and want to change it in some way, or who are not Catholics, let all the brothers, wherever they may have found one of them, be bound through obedience to bring him before the custodian of that place nearest to where they found him.7  32And let the custodian be strictly bound through obedience to keep him securely day and night as a man in chains, so that he cannot be taken from his hands until he can personally deliver him into the hands of his minister. 33And let the minister be bound through obedience to send him with such brothers who would guard him as a prisoner until they deliver him to the Lord of Ostia, who is the Lord, the Protector and the Corrector of this fraternity. 34 And the brothers may not say: “This is another rule.”8 Because this is a remembrance, admonition, exhortation, and my testament, which I, little brother Francis, make for you, my blessed brothers, that we might observe the Rule we have promised in a more Catholic way. 35 And let the general minister and all the other ministers and custodians be bound through obedience not to add to or take away from these words. 36And let them always have this writing with them together with the Rule. 37And in all the chapters which they hold, when they read the Rule, let them also read these words. 38And I strictly command all my cleric and lay brothers, through obedience, not to place any gloss upon the Rule or upon these words saying: “They should be understood in this way.” 39But as the Lord has given me to speak and write the Rule and these words simply and purely,

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may you understand them simply and without gloss and observe them with a holy activity until the end. 40 And whoever observes these things, let him be blessed in heaven with the blessing of the Most High Father, and on earth with the blessing of His Beloved Son with the Most Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, and all the powers of heaven and with all the saints. 41And, as far as I can, I, little brother Francis, your servant, confirm for you, both within and without, this most holy blessing. Notes

1. It is difficult to determine the meaning of testamentum (testament) as the title of this work. Its profane or legal sense suggests a last will and “testament” concerning one’s goods or possessions. Pope Gregory IX, in the papal document Quo elongati (1230), suggests this meaning when he states, “Toward the end of his life [Francis] made a command, which is called a ‘Testament.’ ” In 1295 Peter Olivi, in a letter to Conrad of Offida, claims the title was given by others and calls it simply a letter. A short time later, Ubertino da Casale reflects upon the tension between the title and the text when he writes, “. . . in his Testament, as he himself calls the document. . . .” In recent times, Auspicius van Corstanje has suggested a biblical interpretation and interpreted the work as an expression of God’s covenant (testamentum) with the poor Francis and his brothers; cf. van Corstanje, The Covenant with God’s Poor (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1966). 2. Cf. The Assisi Compilation, 59, 56, 106, 23. 3. The phrase feci misericordiam [I showed mercy] has a rich biblical tradition, one that is frequently associated with penance. Forms of the phrase facere misericordiam appear almost fifty times in the Vulgate edition, most of them in the Old Testament. Of these the editors have chosen to suggest a reference to Sirach 35:4 “qui faciet misericordiam offert sacrificum [whoever shows mercy offers sacrifice].” 4. This prayer is made up of a liturgical formula recited on the feast of Good Friday and the Exaltation of the Cross: “We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because by your cross you have

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redeemed the world.” To this formula, however, Francis made three additions: (a) the name, Jesus Christ; (b) the phrase, in all your churches throughout the world; and (c) the adjective, holy, to describe the cross. 5. The Testament takes a decidedly different direction at this point as Francis ceases to reminisce about the early days of his life and those of his brothers and begins a series of exhortations and commands. This change has led some to conclude that the document was written at different times and, perhaps, with the assistance of different brothers who took his dictation. In this instance, while recognizing the gradual development of accepting churches and residences, a step away from his original view of poverty introduced by the papal document Cum secondum consilium (1220), which established the year of probation, Francis encourages the brothers to keep the ideal of poverty before them. 6. The encouragement of the previous section becomes a strong command prohibiting the active search for churches or residences regardless of the reason. The papal document In eo quod audivimus, sent to the archbishop of Pisa and the abbot of Saint Paul’s on October 4, 1225, provides some insight into the persecution encountered by religious and the protection promised by the Holy See. Three papal documents written during the last years of Francis’s life, Vineae Domini custodes (October 7, 1225), Urgenti officii nostri (February 20, 1226) and Ex parte vestra (March 17, 1226) promise the itinerant brothers the same type of protection and threaten sanctions on those who persecute them. 7. This passage parallels Francis’s Letter to the Entire Order, 44–46 and accentuates his insistence that the Liturgy of the Hours forms a strong link binding the brothers to one another and to the church. 8. This passage introduces the question of the nature of this document, a question that Francis himself must have suspected would arise in light of the exhortations and commands contained in its final paragraphs. The answer to the question is found in Francis’s calling to mind the ideals of the primitive fraternity in light of the reality of its growth. Thus, rather than establish new legislative positions, he strongly reinterprets many of the ideals articulated in the Rule.

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III Retrieving Francis for Christian Life Today

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Francis stands as an iconic figure even in today’s culture. The contrast with Hildegard is apparent. But rather than drawing out that comparison, this reflection asks what he proposes to our contemporary secular culture in its exhaustingly busy life on the surface. This world offers a challenge to bring Francis forward into our own sphere and, without negating it, fill it with deeper spiritual sensibility. Poverty lies at the center of Francis’s meaning for any age. The analysis would miss other relevant lessons if it considered poverty as his only generative quality. But radical poverty comes close to the essence of Francis’s symbolic meaning. The focus, then, does not rest on poverty in itself but on Francis’s faith in it and what it entails. The retrieval begins there and draws other themes into this center of gravity. An iconic figure radiates complexity in its simplicity, and many facets of the Francis phenomenon attract attention. As a Franciscan, Leonardo Boff opened up Francis as someone who spoke to the modern world, and this reflection draws from his work.1 He shows that “poverty” in Francis’s witness bears a multidimensional richness that applies in any culture. 149

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In order to give this discussion a semblance of order, the topics move expansively from the depth to the comprehensiveness of Francis’s testimony.

Radicality Francis’s relatively short life exhibits so many different faces that deciding a place to start seems arbitrary. Boff’s examination of the Francis event honors his simplicity and his complexity. But one quality that runs through the whole story is irresistible: Francis’s radicality. He responded to reality more through feeling and affectivity than through analytical reason. Feeling in this context does not oppose reason but subsumes Hildegard’s rationality into itself. “To live is to feel, and to feel is to capture the value of things; value is the precious character of things, that which makes them worthy of being and . . . appealing.”2 More precisely, Francis’s radicality embraces his other virtues and gives them intensity, thoroughness, and depth, down to the roots of his being. One can appreciate Francis’s radicality by comparing his life and the expressions of his values to what Dietrich von Hildebrand described as fundamental moral attitudes.3 A fundamental moral attitude consists of an inner self-­disposition that responds to and corresponds with a comprehensive value that characterizes reality. Their being “fundamental” means that they orient the whole demeanor and behavior of a person. For example, a “reverence for life” describes a personal orientation that combines wonder, amazement, and respect for life itself, for the different kinds of life and the indigenous value of each living thing. Value responses also reveal reality; because they transcend personal subjectivity and correspond to an objective invitation for the response, they open up aspects of reality that lie beneath the surface. Value responses, and thus fundamental moral attitudes, do not necessarily yield to rational analysis; perception of value may be spontaneous.

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To understand Francis, one has to attend to and then examine the values that shaped his life’s radicality. It should be clear that “radical” here refers to the inner conviction and steadfastness that characterized Francis. Poverty meant real poverty. Why does Francis capture the attention of all? Where does his authenticity as a witness lie? A first answer to that question is plain. Francis was radical, and he stands above the horizon of Christian history because he represented the values of Jesus in their radicality. His message rings true; it challenges in an uncompromising way because he took Jesus seriously. Francis’s witness bears universal relevance because it is radical and thus always takes on particular meaning. It causes division because, as radical, it applies to all even when it is interpreted differently. But Francis’s radicality was not his own; it always referred back to Jesus of Nazareth. Through Jesus, it always breaks through the surface meanings of contrasting situations and many external and physical conditions of human existence to a deeper level of appreciation. Francis’s radicality mainly appears in the concrete forms of poverty, humility, and simplicity.

Poverty Francis assumed the pattern of Jesus’ life. Jesus was poor. Francis internalized Jesus’ poverty and represented it to his society in a dramatic way. At the center of Francis lies poverty. This is true, and it means many different things.4 The question that guides this discussion revolves around intrinsic meanings of poverty released by Francis that can have broad relevance for the self-­understanding of human existence and spirituality today. For the most part, poverty in today’s world refers to an evil, a condition that diminishes or destroys human life and is massively widespread. The sheer fact of considering poverty as some form of virtue shows that this discussion is entering into a distinctive sphere of meaning, one called spirituality,

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that includes how human beings live morally and how they understand their relationship to God. Boff clarifies the discussion of the radical centrality of poverty for understanding Francis by setting out a number of different meanings of poverty for spirituality in our time.5 At bottom, poverty has to refer to the deprivation of the fundamental means of life such as food, water, clothes, and shelter. It is an evil, and it stands in contrast, in various degrees, to the possession of these means. Theology reckons the social condition of poverty a sin of structural injustice, in contrast to an equitable distribution of resources. Ignacio Ellacuría puts it well: “Some actions kill (divine) life, and some actions give (divine) life; some belong to the kingdom of sin, others to the kingdom of grace. Some social and historical structures objectify the power of sin and serve as vehicles for the power against humanity, against human life; some social and historical structures objectify grace and serve as vehicles for that power in favor of human life.”6 Poverty in Christian spirituality often means a way of life that accepts dispossession in order to be free for service of others. Poverty can also be a personal virtue that is intentionally cultivated in order to free the human spirit from attachment to material things. By extension, Boff reflects on “becoming poor” as a liberating action of entering into solidarity with the poor to fight against their poverty. One can draw Francis into an association with all of these meanings, but their grounding in a deeper radical appreciation opens up a symbolic level that can make them all the more meaningful today. Drawing Francis faithfully into our world today requires a two-­step process: the first involves a critique of our culture, and the second builds on that insight. Boff contrasts Francis’s basic attitude toward the world with an appreciation of today’s aggressive, impersonal, and entrepreneurial spirit. This ethos of instrumental reason colors all practical knowledge; it

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co-­exists with and conditions much of Western Christian spirituality simply by being the air we breathe. To live and take part in the world that produces things, sells them, consumes them, and builds up an ever-­more-­complex constructed world on top of nature requires that we internalize the values that allow us to succeed. These active values fuel a spontaneous desire for wealth, goods, and power. Pragmatic immediacy itself drives human life and, given the systems in place, generates inequality, human suffering, and degradation as a by-­product.7 The second step consists of reading Francis on poverty in a radical way as a fundamental moral attitude reacting against the seductive mechanisms of society. This corresponds with Francis’s own practical reasoning of challenging culture head on as he did in relation to his own family, business, and class. But a radical interpretation of poverty opens up a feasible universal appropriation across vastly different cultures around the world today. It has three dimensions. The first dimension of a radical sense of poverty can be called “ontological poverty”: we do not have within ourselves the power of our own being. This value response recognizes what only humans can know: we exist as radically dependent in our being. We are radically contingent. A sense of mortality, of the precarious character of life, and the uncertainty of every possible future feed into a sense that Francis expresses in his Canticle of Creation; it is deeper than and responsible for his desire to follow Jesus in the way he did. “Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us.” A second dimension of radical poverty as a value can be seen in contrast with its opposite, a desire to live on the basis of what classical theology calls idols. These replace that from which human beings absolutely depend: things at hand to which we cling for existence, but that will always ultimately disappoint. Buddhists consistently remind Christians that a

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spirituality of clinging to things of this world cannot provide ultimate meaning; poverty is a form of letting go. Third, accepting poverty in relation to God sets one free.8 This point reveals Francis’s radicality more than any other. He was a free person. He did not want to participate in society in a commercial way. He experienced God in a way that made him aware of what he had to do in his life and those of his followers: “No one showed me what I should do.” He did not want to follow any of the traditional rules. He distanced himself from one of the deepest structures of society itself: money. Only a radical sense of dependence on God can allow one so radically and unreasonably to cut the bond with social structures and commit the self to their victims. Entering into such a relation to others implies a relation to God on a level deeper than actual consciousness may achieve. Poverty becomes a radical ideal that enables a countercultural commitment to others.9 The personal freedom mediated by dependence on God at the same time bound Francis to others. Universal dependence on the creator God grounded Francis’s concern for reconciliation and for peace.

The Two Wings of Poverty: Humility and Simplicity One may make a list of the religious and spiritual virtues that Francis embodied in his life and codified in his relatively small corpus of writing. The title of this section suggests that the humility and simplicity that resonate with the very name of Francis of Assisi are also grounded in his embodiment of poverty and may be the same poverty in different guises. Humility. As with the case of poverty, one should not translate the meaning of humility in Francis in terms of some of his obvious behaviors. He stands for much more than his deference to authority.10 Francis lived unreservedly within the hierarchical system, but what he means by humility completely

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transcends a command/obey ethic and finds its grounding in Jesus Christ in at least two ways. Francis interprets the very incarnation of Jesus Christ as an act of condescension. He thought that the mystery of incarnation itself should be “understood as kenosis, the humbling and identification by God with the most despised.”11 He believed that “God made Himself [in Jesus] our brother in poverty and humility.”12 This theological interpretation contrasts with Hildegard. She never suggests in her commentary on the Prologue that incarnation represents God’s self-­ negation or limitation. Another aspect of Francis that looks like humility attaches to his asceticism and life as a penitent. One obvious interpretation of asceticism lies in self-­control or discipline; one needs strong guardrails to stay on the right path. But, here too, “Francis wanted to reproduce and re-­present the life of ­Jesus.”13 Francis meant this in a literal way, even to the point of reliving dramatically the sufferings of Jesus. This understanding coincides with a specific Christology of a particular time and cannot be universalized.14 But when the deepest meaning of humility finds its roots in “ontological poverty” and an honest recognition of human dependence on God, humility makes sense in itself and as a radical negation of ontological pride. Simplicity. Simplicity too grows from its roots in Francis’s sense of poverty. Simplicity points to something universally attractive about the man. It is not psychological but refers to a projection of an absence of complications and division into parts, and more positively to an integral oneness that can be apprehended with clear definition. Francis’s Christian faith was simple in the sense of popular religion’s freedom from theological complexity. It was also simple in the sense that he focused on the one necessary thing. At this point, simplicity resonates with depth. Here the roots of Francis’s simplicity penetrate into ontological poverty. Simplicity at this level cuts

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through social rationalization, diversity of opinion, and rank, and it opens up in countercultural witness. Single-­mindedness in following Jesus allowed Francis to appear as an authentic Christian voice in the face of cultural compromise—that is, accepted Christian customs or norms. He proffered an antithesis to a domineering authority, clericalism, monastic superiority, supercilious learned-­Christianity, legalism, paternalism, and monarchical classism.15 Francis did not frame this as countercultural. He simply thought that this was the Gospel.

Nature, Mobility, and Action These three words open up space for interpretations of Francis that further expand his relevance for the world of today. His example relative to his time offers inspiration relative to our own. The pacific, fraternal relationship that Francis may have enjoyed with the natural world relies more on the early hagiographic depictions of legendary scenes in his life than on hard fact. What exactly lay behind these stories is hard to say, but they obviously invite reflection on how present human behavior is destroying our habitat and so many species of life. Francis represents a reverence for the natural world, a dialogue between faith and science, and differentiation between responsibility for creation and human degradation of nature. What has been called “ontological poverty” correlates neatly with a creation theology, and Francis’s “The Canticle of the Creatures” runs imaginatively along the track of a creation spirituality. The Canticle echoes the fundamental moral attitude of reverence for being, of receiving nature as it is discovered to be from the hands of the creator, understood today in an evolutionary framework. “Ontological dependence” counsels use of creation and militantly rejects domination of creation. Making Francis directly relevant for

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technological problems today requires an imaginative stretch, but his fundamental sense of being in communion with creation provides a solid foundation for spirituality. Francis, along with Dominic, let loose a new dynamic spirituality, not opposed to monasticism, but decidedly different with respect to enclosure, immobility, and withdrawal from the world. It would be easy to exaggerate the distance of many forms of monastic life from the world around them; there was a good deal of traffic back and forth in a positive symbiotic way. But Francis unleashed a movement aimed at bringing the message of Jesus Christ from the farms of Europe into the streets of its cities and towns in a new, vital, and active way. He aimed at crossing social boundaries and animating popular spirituality with an ecclesial presence that attended to the marginalized. This opens up the potential power of poverty, humility, and simplicity, for these are not unintended consequences but the practical dimension of Francis’s outward vision.

Francis and the Church Calling Francis an icon makes sense. But he can also be looked upon as a utopian archetype. Despite his individuality, an aura of otherworldliness, impossibility, or even irrationality hovers over the content of his message. His radicality made him a nonthreatening and endearing living hyperbole. This turned out to be divisive in some cases because it does not quite add up pragmatically. It presents an ideal standard that cannot actually be lived out on any large scale. He proposes something so countercultural that it cannot work for all and can only be striven for by a few. It goes against every realistic grain and creates problems when one tries to make it a norm. As such, it resembles the Gospel of Jesus. But this means that Francis’s message “does not reside in that which is or can be measured, but much more in that which is possible and which

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may be in the future.”16 The meaning of “utopian” here refers to an ideal that draws one forward in hope and at the same time serves both as a criticism of what is and a suggestion of concrete possibilities in particular circumstances for individuals or groups to launch new projects in society. So it was in Europe from Francis’s time right up into the sixteenth century Reformation. Poverty became a critical norm for judging the church. He held a mirror to church and society. Francis and Erasmus in his In Praise of Folly, so distant from each other in time and station, were in this respect doing the same thing. Reform in many ways describes everybody’s wish all the time and is thus a constant desire. In response, Francis formulated a new concrete way of measuring the hypocrisy in the church; it was not finely calibrated but was tellingly accurate. Whether it be the wealth of the churches with their land or the lifestyle of their hierarchy and those associated with them, Francis gave new life to the example of Jesus, and it was subversive. According to most theologians, this is what Jesus meant his message to be. Notes

1. The analysis that follows lies indebted to Leonardo Boff, Saint Francis: A Model for Human Liberation (1982; repr. New York: Crossroad, 1985). Boff does not exhaust the relevance of Francis, but the socially conscious and engaged interpretation of this former Franciscan catches the orientation of this series. 2. Ibid., 11. 3. Dietrich von Hildebrand, Fundamental Moral Attitudes (New York: Longmans, Green, 1950). 4. This discussion does not consider Francis’s personal experience or existential motivation. Many factors complicated his life: psychological, an economic class ethos, personal tragedy, his implicit theological understanding of Jesus Christ, and how poverty entailed the virtues of humility and deference to authority. The analysis that follows focuses on the meanings that he symbolizes rather than his actual experience so that they may be exported. The

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discussion of poverty still remains extraordinarily complicated. The goal here is not resolution of many problems but some clarifications of the symbolic resources of poverty drawn from Francis’s lead. 5. Boff, Saint Francis, 59–63. 6. Ignacio Ellacuría, “The Historicity of Christian Salvation,” in Mysterium Liberationis: Fundamental Concepts of Liberation Theology, ed. I. Ellacuría and J. Sobrino (Maryknoll: N.Y.: Orbis, 1993), 275. “To think that sin exists only when and insofar as there is personal responsibility is a mistaken and dangerous devaluation of the dominion of sin”; ibid. 7. Boff, Saint Francis, 6–7. 8. Not free from the responsibility of engagement with society or from response to the radical unfreedom that society imposes on so many people, but freedom for creativity and new actions in one’s responses to reality. 9. Boff states it well: “To be poor like the poor is superseded by being with the poor in deep solidarity. Francis voluntarily becomes poor to be able to live together with the poor and to form a community of life with them”; Saint Francis, 95. This suggests in Francis a deeper grounding in a creation theology that binds all reality together. Reality itself is poor, absolutely dependent on God. 10. Francis wrote in his “Later Admonition and Exhortation to the Brothers and Sisters of Penance” that they should revere the clergy “not so much for themselves, if they are sinners, but because of their office and administration of the most holy Body and Blood of Christ which they sacrifice upon the altar, receive and administer to others”; no. 33, p. 47. 11. Citing Boff here, in Saint Francis, 26. But the idea is drawn directly from Francis’s writing. Francis wrote with feeling in his “Letter to the Entire Order” about the Eucharist in terms of an analogy with incarnation: “He hides Himself under an ordinary piece of bread! Brothers, look at the humility of God . . . . Humble yourselves that you may be exalted by Him!”; nos. 27–28, p. 118. 12. Ibid. 13. Boff, Saint Francis, 25.

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14. At the same time, it was shared by Ignatius of Loyola as manifested in his meditation in his Spiritual Exercises on what he called “The Third Degree of Humility.” See his Spiritual Exercises, no. 167. 15. Boff, Saint Francis, 114–17. 16. Ibid., 157.

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Further Reading

Boff, Leonardo. Saint Francis: A Model for Human Liberation. New York: Crossroad, 1985 (Orig. 1982). [This appreciation of Francis by a Franciscan liberation theologian brings Francis into the present situation as an advocate of the poor.] Campbell, Nathaniel M. “Introduction.” In St. Hildegard of Bingen: The Book of Divine Works. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018. [Nathan Campbell, who translated this third volume of Hildegard’s trilogy, provides a lucid introduction to her work.] Flanagan, Sabina. Hildegard of Bingen: A Visionary Life. London: Routledge, 1998 (online). [This life of Hildegard makes use of early sources to describe the many different kinds of activity for which this extraordinary woman was known.] Newman, Barbara. “Commentary on the Johannine Prologue: Hildegard of Bingen.” Theology Today 60 (2003): 16–33. [This essay on Hildegard’s writing shows how the unity of creation and incarnation form the two center-­points of Hildegard’s elliptical world view.] ———. “Introduction.” In Hildegard of Bingen: Scivias. New York and Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1990. [The introduction to Hildegard’s first major work by this most knowledgeable scholar provides a pointed synopsis of her life and creativity.] ———, ed. Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard von Bingen and Her World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998 (online). [This work is a collection of appreciations of Hildegard from the perspectives of the many different projects she

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undertook from leadership of her community to her creativity in arts and study of nature.] Robson, Michael J. P., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Francis of Assisi. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011 (online). [This wide-­ranging collection of articles about Francis focuses on the essential aspects of his life and the key writings, events, and relationships that defined his symbolic impact.] Thompson, Augustine. Francis of Assisi: A New Biography. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2012. [This relatively recent biography is sparely and clearly written; it provides a realistic portrait of Francis. It also contains an extensive bibliography.]

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About the Series

The volumes of this series provide readers direct access to important voices in the history of the faith. Each of the writings has been selected, first, for its value as a historical document that captures the cultural and theological expression of a figure’s encounter with God, and second, as “classics,” the primary materials witness to the “transcendent” in a way that has proved potent for the formation of Christian life and meaning beyond the particularities of the setting of its authorship. Recent renewed interest in mysticism and spirituality have encouraged new movements, contributed to a growing body of therapeutic-­moral literature, and inspired the recovery of ancient practices from Church tradition. However, the meaning of the notoriously slippery term “spirituality” remains contested. The many authors who write on the topic have different frameworks of reference, divergent criteria of evaluation, and competing senses of the principal sources or witnesses. This situation makes it important to state the operative definition used in this series. Spirituality is the way people live in relation to what they consider to be ultimate. So defined, spirituality is a universal phenomenon: everyone has one, whether they can fully articulate it or not. Spirituality emphasizes lived experience and concrete expression of one’s principles, attitudes, and convictions, whether rooted in a defined tradition or not. It includes not only interiority and devotional practices but also the real outworkings of people’s 163

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ideas and values. Students of spirituality examine the way that a person or group conceives of a meaningful existence through the practices that orient them toward their horizon of deepest meaning. What animates their life? What motivates their truest desires? What sustains them and instructs them? What provides for them a vision of the good life? How do they define and pursue truth? And how do they imagine and work to realize their shared vision of a good society? The “classic” texts and authors presented in these volumes, though they represent the diversity of Christian traditions, define their ultimate value in God through Christ by the Spirit. They share a conviction that the Divine has revealed God’s self in history through Jesus Christ. God’s self-­communication, in turn, invites a response through faith to participate in an intentional life of self-­transcendence and to co-­labor with the Spirit in manifesting the reign of God. Thus, Christian spirituality refers to the way that individuals or social entities live out their encounter with God in Jesus Christ by a life in the Spirit. Christian spirituality necessarily involves a hermeneutical task. Followers of Christ set about the work of integrating knowledge and determining meaning through an interpretative process that refracts through different lenses: the life of Jesus, the witness of the scripture, the norms of the faith community, the traditions and social structures of one’s heritage, the questions of direct experience, the criteria of the academy and other institutions that mediate truthfulness and viability, and personal conscience. These seemingly competing authorities can leave contemporary students of theology with more quandaries than clarity. Thus, this series has anticipated this challenge with an intentional structure that will guide students through their encounter with classic texts. Rather than providing commentary on the writings themselves, this series invites the audience to engage the texts with an informed sense of the context of their authorship and a dialog with the text that begins a conversation about how to make the text meaningful for theology, spirituality, and ethics in the present.

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Most of the readers of these texts will be familiar with critical historical methods that enable an understanding of scripture in the context within which it was written. However, many people read scripture according to the commonsense understanding of their ordinary language. This almost inevitably leads to some degree of misinterpretation. The Bible’s content lies embedded in its cultural context, which is foreign to the experience of contemporary believers. Critical historical study enables a reader to get closer to an authentic past meaning by explicitly attending to the historical period, the situation of the author, and other particularities of the composition of the text. For example, one would miss the point of the story of the “Good Samaritan” if one did not recognize that the first-­century Palestinian conflict between Jews and Samaritans makes the hero of the Jewish parable an enemy and an unlikely model of virtue! Something deeper than a simple offer of neighborly love is going on in this text.   However, the more exacting the critical historical method becomes, the greater it increases the distance between the text and the present-­day reader. Thus, a second obstacle to interpreting classics for contemporary theology, ethics, and spirituality lies in a bias that texts embedded in a world so different from today cannot carry an inner authority for present life. How can we find something both true and relevant for faith today in a witness that a critical historical method determines to be in some measure alien? The basic problem has two dimensions: how do we appreciate the past witnesses of our tradition on their own terms, and, once we have, how can we learn from something so dissimilar?   Most Christians have some experience navigating this dilemma through biblical interpretation. Through Church membership, Christians have gained familiarity with scriptural language, and preaching consistently applies its content to daily life. But beyond the Bible, a long history of cultural understanding, linguistic innovation, doctrinal negotiations, and shifting patterns of practices has added layer upon layer of

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meaning to Christian spirituality. Veiled in unfamiliar grammar, images, and politics, these texts may appear as cultural artifacts suitable only for scholarly treatments. How can a modern student of theology understand a text cloaked in an unknown history and still encounter in it a transcendent faith that animates life in the present? Many historical and theological aspects of Christian spirituality that are still operative in communities of faith are losing traction among swathes of the population, especially younger generations. Their premises have been called into question; the metaphors are dead; the symbols appear unable to mediate grace; and the ideas appear untenable. For example, is the human species really saved by the blood of Jesus on the cross? What does it mean to be resurrected from the dead? How does the Spirit unify if the church is so divided? On the other hand, the positive experiences and insights that accrued over time and added depth to Christian spirituality are being lost because they lack critical appropriation for our time. For example, has asceticism been completely lost in present-­day spirituality, or can we find meaning for it today? Do the mystics live in another universe, or can we find mystical dimensions in religious consciousness today? Does monasticism bear meaning for those who live outside the walls? This series addresses these questions with a three-­fold strategy. The historical first step introduces the reader to individuals who represent key ideas, themes, movements, doctrinal developments, or remarkable distinctions in theology, ethics, or spirituality. This first section will equip readers with a sense of the context of the authorship and a grammar for understanding the text. Second, the reader will encounter the witnesses in their own words. The selected excerpts from the authors’ works have exercised great influence in the history of Christianity. Letting these texts speak for themselves will enable readers to encounter the wisdom and insight of these classics anew. Equipped with the necessary background and language from

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the introduction, students of theology will bring the questions and concerns of their world into contact with the world of the authors. This move personalizes the objective historical context and allows the existential character of the classic witness to appear. The goal is not the study of the exact meaning of ancient texts, as important as that is. That would require a task outside the scope of this series. Recommended readings will be provided for those who wish to continue digging into this important part of interpretation. These classic texts are not presented as comprehensive representations of their authors but as statements of basic characteristic ideas that still have bearing on lived experience of faith in the twenty-­first century. The emphasis lies on the existential depth of meaning rather than an adequate representation of an historical period that can be supplemented by other sources. Finally, each volume also offers a preliminary interpretation of the relevance of the author and text for the present. The methodical interpretations seek to preserve the past historical meanings while also bringing them forward in a way that is relevant to life in a technologically developed and pluralistic secular culture. Each retrieval looks for those aspects that can open realistic possibilities for viable spiritual meaning in current lived experience. In the unfolding wisdom of the many volumes, many distinct aspects of the Christian history of spirituality converge into a fuller, deeper, more far-­reaching, and resonant language that shows what in our time has been taken for granted, needs adjustment, or has been lost (or should be). The series begins with fifteen volumes, but, like Cassian’s Conferences, the list may grow.

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About the Editors

Roger Haight is a Visiting Professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He has written several books in the area of fundamental theology. A graduate of the University of Chicago, he is a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and recipient of its John Courtney Murray Award for Theological Achievement. Alfred Pach III is an Associate Professor of Medical Sciences and Global Health at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in Madison and an MDiv in Psychology and Religion from Union Theological Seminary. Amanda Avila Kaminski is an Assistant Professor of Theology at Texas Lutheran University, where she also serves as Director of the program in Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship. She has written extensively in the area of Christian spirituality.

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Past Light on Present Life: Theology, Ethics, and Spirituality Roger Haight, SJ, Alfred Pach III, and Amanda Avila Kaminski, series editors Available titles: Western Monastic Spirituality: John Cassian, Caesarius of Arles, and Benedict On the Medieval Structure of Spirituality: Thomas Aquinas Grace and Gratitude: Spirituality in Martin Luther Spirituality of Creation, Evolution, and Work: Catherine Keller and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Spiritualities of Social Engagement: Walter Rauschenbusch and Dorothy Day Retrieving the Spiritual Teaching of Jesus: Sandra Schneiders, William Spohn, and Lisa Sowle Cahill From the Monastery to the City: Hildegard of Bingen and Francis of Assisi

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