Dante's Paradiso: Canto XI

St. Thomas recounts the Life of St. Francis. Lament over the State of the Dominican Order.

O Thou insensate care of mortal men,
   How inconclusive are the syllogisms
   That make thee beat thy wings in downward flight!

One after laws and one to aphorisms
   Was going, and one following the priesthood, 5
   And one to reign by force or sophistry,

And one in theft, and one in state affairs,
   One in the pleasures of the flesh involved
   Wearied himself, one gave himself to ease;

When I, from all these things emancipate, 10
   With Beatrice above there in the Heavens
   With such exceeding glory was received!

When each one had returned unto that point
   Within the circle where it was before,
   It stood as in a candlestick a candle; 15

And from within the effulgence which at first
   Had spoken unto me, I heard begin
   Smiling while it more luminous became:

"Even as I am kindled in its ray,
   So, looking into the Eternal Light, 20
   The occasion of thy thoughts I apprehend.

Thou doubtest, and wouldst have me to resift
   In language so extended and so open
   My speech, that to thy sense it may be plain,

Where just before I said, 'where well one fattens,' 25
   And where I said, 'there never rose a second;'
   And here 'tis needful we distinguish well.

The Providence, which governeth the world
   With counsel, wherein all created vision
   Is vanquished ere it reach unto the bottom, 30

(So that towards her own Beloved might go
   The bride of Him who, uttering a loud cry,
   Espoused her with his consecrated blood,

Self-confident and unto Him more faithful,)
   Two Princes did ordain in her behoof, 35
   Which on this side and that might be her guide.

The one was all seraphical in ardour;
   The other by his wisdom upon earth
   A splendour was of light cherubical.

One will I speak of, for of both is spoken 40
   In praising one, whichever may be taken,
   Because unto one end their labours were.

Between Tupino and the stream that falls
   Down from the hill elect of blessed Ubald,
   A fertile slope of lofty mountain hangs, 45

From which Perugia feels the cold and heat
   Through Porta Sole, and behind it weep
   Gualdo and Nocera their grievous yoke.

From out that slope, there where it breaketh most
   Its steepness, rose upon the world a sun 50
   As this one does sometimes from out the Ganges;

Therefore let him who speaketh of that place,
   Say not Ascesi, for he would say little,
   But Orient, if he properly would speak.

He was not yet far distant from his rising 55
   Before he had begun to make the earth
   Some comfort from his mighty virtue feel.

For he in youth his father's wrath incurred
   For certain Dame, to whom, as unto death,
   The gate of pleasure no one doth unlock; 60

And was before his spiritual court
   'Et coram patre' unto her united;
   Then day by day more fervently he loved her.

She, reft of her first husband, scorned, obscure,
   One thousand and one hundred years and more, 65
   Waited without a suitor till he came.

Naught it availed to hear, that with Amyclas
   Found her unmoved at sounding of his voice
   He who struck terror into all the world;

Naught it availed being constant and undaunted, 70
   So that, when Mary still remained below,
   She mounted up with Christ upon the cross.

But that too darkly I may not proceed,
   Francis and Poverty for these two lovers
   Take thou henceforward in my speech diffuse. 75

Their concord and their joyous semblances,
   The love, the wonder, and the sweet regard,
   They made to be the cause of holy thoughts;

So much so that the venerable Bernard
   First bared his feet, and after so great peace 80
   Ran, and, in running, thought himself too slow.

O wealth unknown! O veritable good!
   Giles bares his feet, and bares his feet Sylvester
   Behind the bridegroom, so doth please the bride!

Then goes his way that father and that master, 85
   He and his Lady and that family
   Which now was girding on the humble cord;

Nor cowardice of heart weighed down his brow
   At being son of Peter Bernardone,
   Nor for appearing marvellously scorned; 90

But regally his hard determination
   To Innocent he opened, and from him
   Received the primal seal upon his Order.

After the people mendicant increased
   Behind this man, whose admirable life 95
   Better in glory of the heavens were sung,

Incoronated with a second crown
   Was through Honorius by the Eternal Spirit
   The holy purpose of this Archimandrite.

And when he had, through thirst of martyrdom, 100
   In the proud presence of the Sultan preached
   Christ and the others who came after him,

And, finding for conversion too unripe
   The folk, and not to tarry there in vain,
   Returned to fruit of the Italic grass, 105

On the rude rock 'twixt Tiber and the Arno
   From Christ did he receive the final seal,
   Which during two whole years his members bore.

When He, who chose him unto so much good,
   Was pleased to draw him up to the reward 110
   That he had merited by being lowly,

Unto his friars, as to the rightful heirs,
   His most dear Lady did he recommend,
   And bade that they should love her faithfully;

And from her bosom the illustrious soul 115
   Wished to depart, returning to its realm,
   And for its body wished no other bier.

Think now what man was he, who was a fit
   Companion over the high seas to keep
   The bark of Peter to its proper bearings. 120

And this man was our Patriarch; hence whoever
   Doth follow him as he commands can see
   That he is laden with good merchandise.

But for new pasturage his flock has grown
   So greedy, that it is impossible 125
   They be not scattered over fields diverse;

And in proportion as his sheep remote
   And vagabond go farther off from him,
   More void of milk return they to the fold.

Verily some there are that fear a hurt, 130
   And keep close to the shepherd; but so few,
   That little cloth doth furnish forth their hoods.

Now if my utterance be not indistinct,
   If thine own hearing hath attentive been,
   If thou recall to mind what I have said, 135

In part contented shall thy wishes be;
   For thou shalt see the plant that's chipped away,
   And the rebuke that lieth in the words,

'Where well one fattens, if he strayeth not.'"

NOTES

1 - 1

The Heaven of the Sun continued. The praise of St. Francis by Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican.

4 - 4

Lucretius, Nature of Things, Book II. I, Good's Tr.: –

“How sweet to stand, when tempests tear the main,
On the firm cliff, and mark the seaman's toil!
Not that another's danger soothes the soul,
But from such toil how sweet to feel secure!
How sweet, at distance from the strife, to view
Contending hosts, and hear the clash of war!
But sweeter far on Wisdom's heights serene,
Upheld by Truth, to fix our firm abode;
To watch the giddy crowd that, deep below,
Forever wander in pursuit of bliss;
To mark the strife for honors and renown,
For wit and wealth, insatiate, ceaseless urged
Day after day, with labor unrestrained.”

16 - 16

Thomas Aquinas.

20 - 20

The spirits see the thoughts of men in God, as in Canto VIII. 87: –

“Because I am assured the lofty joy
Thy speech infuses into me, my Lord,
Where every good thing doth begin and end,
Thou seest as I see it.”

25 - 25

Canto X. 94: –

“The holy flock
Which Dominic conducteth by a road
Where well one fattens if he strayeth not.”

26 - 26

Canto X. 112: –

“Where knowledge
So deep was put, that, if the true be true,
To see so much there never rose a second.”

32 - 32

The Church. Luke xxiii. 46: “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit; and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.”

34 - 34

Romans viii. 38: “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

35 - 35

St. Francis and St. Dominic. Mr. Perkins, Tuscan Sculptors, I. 7, says: “In warring against Frederic, whose courage, cunning, and ambition gave them ceaseless cause for alarm, and in strengthening and extending the influence of the Church, much shaken by the many heresies which had sprung up in Italy and France, the Popes received invaluable assistance from the Minorites and the Preaching Friars, whose orders had been established by Pope Innocent III. in the early part of the century, in consequence of a vision, in which he saw the tottering walls of the Lateran basilica supported by an Italian and a Spaniard, in whom he afterwards recognized their respective founders, SS. Francis and Dominic. Nothing could be more opposite than the means which these two celebrated men employed in the work of conversion; for while St. Francis used persuasion and tenderness to melt the hard-hearted, St. Dominic forced and crushed them into submission. St. Francis,

'La cui mirabil vita
Meglio in gloria del ciel si canterebbe,' 

was inspired by love for all created things, in the most insignificant of which he recognized a common origin with himself. The little lambs hung up for slaughter excited his pity, and the captive birds his tender sympathy; the swallows he called his sisters, sororculae meae, when he begged them to cease their twitterings while he preached; the worm he carefully removed from his path, lest it should be trampled on by a less careful foot; and, in love with poverty, he lived upon the simplest food, went clad in the scantiest garb, and enjoined chastity and obedience upon his followers, who within four years numbered no less than fifty thousand; but St. Dominic, though originally of a kind and compassionate nature, sacrificed whole hecatombs of victims in his zeal for the Church, showing how far fanaticism can change the kindest heart, and make it look with complacency upon deeds which would have formerly excited its abhorrence.”

37 - 37

The Seraphs love most, the Cherubs know most. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol., I. Quaest. cviii. 5, says, in substance, that the Seraphim are so called from burning; according to the three properties of fire, namely, continual motion upward, excess of heat, and of light. And again, in the same article, that Cherubim, being interpreted, is plenitude of knowledge, which in them is fourfold; namely, perfect vision of God, full reception of divine light, contemplation of beauty in the order of things, and copious effusion of the divine cognition upon others.

40 - 40

Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican, here celebrates the life and deeds of St. Francis, leaving the praise of his own Saint to Bonaventura, a Franciscan, to show that in heaven there are no rivalries nor jealousies between the two orders, as there were on earth.

43 - 43

The town of Ascesi, or Assisi, as it is now called, where St. Francis was born, is situated between the rivers Tupino and Chiasi, on the slope of Monte Subaso, where St. Ubald had his hermitage. From this mountain the summer heats are reflected, and the cold winds of winter blow through the Porta Sole of Perugia. The towns of Nocera and Gualdo are neighboring towns, that suffered under the oppression of the Perugians.

Ampère, Voyage Dantesque, p. 256, says: “Having been twice at Perugia, I have experienced the double effect of Mount Ubaldo, which the poet says makes this city feel the cold and heat.

'Onde Perugia sente freddo e caldo,' 

that is, which by turns reflects upon it the rays of the sun, and sends it icy winds. I have but too well verified the justice of Dante's observation, particularly as regards the cold temperature, which Perugia, when it is not burning hot, owes to Mount Ubaldo. I arrived in front of this city on a brilliant autumnal night, and had time to comment at leisure upon the winds of the Ubaldo, as I slowly climbed the winding road which leads to the gates of the city fortified by a Pope.”

50 - 50

Revelation vii. 2: “And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God.” These words Bonaventura applies to St. Francis, the beautiful enthusiast and Pater Seraphicus of the Church, to follow out whose wonderful life through the details of history and legend would be too long for these notes. A few hints must suffice.

St. Francis was the son of Peter Bernadone, a wool- merchant of Assisi, and was born in 1182. The first glimpse we catch of him is that of a joyous youth in gay apparel, given up to pleasure, and singing with his companions through the streets of his native town, like St. Augustine in the streets of Carthage. He was in the war between Assisi and Perugia, was taken prisoner, and passed a year in confinement. On his return home a severe illness fell upon him, which gave him more serious thoughts. He again appeared in the streets of Assisi in gay apparel, but meeting a beggar, a fellow-soldier, he changed clothes with him. He now began to visit hospitals and kiss the sores of lepers. He prayed in the churches, and saw visions. In the church of St. Damiano he heard a voice say three times, “Francis, repair my house, which thou seest falling.” In order to do this, he sold his father's horse and some cloth at Foligno, and took the money to the priest of St. Damiano, who to his credit refused to receive it. Through fear of his father, he hid himself; and when he reappeared in the streets was so ill-clad that the boys pelted him and called him mad. His father shut him up in his house; his mother set him free. In the presence of his father and the Bishop he renounced all right to his inheritance, even giving up his clothes, and putting on those of a servant which the Bishop gave him. He wandered about the country, singing the praises of the Lord aloud on the highways. He met with a band of robbers, and said to them, “I am the herald of the Great King.” They beat him and threw him into a ditch filled with snow. He only rejoiced and sang the louder. A friend in Gubbio gave him a suit of clothes, which he wore for two years, with a girdle and a staff. He washed the feet of lepers in the hospital, and kissed their sores. He begged from door to door in Assisi for the repairs of the church of St. Damiano, and carried stones for the masons. He did the same for the church of St. Peter; he did the same for the church of Our Lady of Angels at Portiuncula, in the neighborhood of Assisi, where he remained two years. Hearing one day in church the injunction of Christ to his Apostles, “Provide neither gold nor silver, nor brass in your purse, nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves,” he left off shoes and staff and girdle, and girt himself with a cord, after the manner of the shepherds in that neighborhood. This cord became the distinguishing mark of his future Order. He kissed the ulcer of a man from Spoleto, and healed him; and St. Bonaventura says, “I know not which I ought most to admire, such a kiss or such a cure.” Bernard of Quintavalle and others associated themselves with him, and the Order of the Benedictines was founded.

As his convent increased, so did his humility and his austerities. He sewed his rough habit with pack-thread to make it rougher; he slept on the ground with a stone for his pillow; he drank water; he ate bread; he fasted eight lents in the year; he called his body “Brother Ass,” and bound it with a halter, the cord of his Order; but a few days before his death he begged pardon of his body for having treated it so harshly. As a penance, he rolled himself naked in the snow and among brambles; he commanded his friars to revile him, and when he said, “O Brother Francis, for thy sins thou hast deserved to be plunged into hell”; Brother Leo was to answer, “It is true; thou hast deserved to be buried in the very bottom of hell.”

In 1215 his convent was removed to Alvernia, among the solitudes of the Apennines. In 1219 he went to Egypt to convert the Sultan, and preached to him in his camp near Damietta, but without the desired effect. He returned to the duties of his convent with unabated zeal; and was sometimes seen by his followers lifted from the ground by the fervor of his prayers; and here he received in a vision of the Crucifixion the stigmata in his hands and feet and side. Butler, Lives of the Saints, X. 100, says: “The marks of nails began to appear on his hands and feet, resembling those he had seen in the vision of the man crucified. His hands and feet seemed bored through in the middle with four wounds, and these holes appeared to be pierced with nails of hard flesh; the heads were round and black, and were seen in the palms of his hands, and in his feet in the upper part of the instep. The points were long, and appeared beyond the skin on the other side, and were turned back as if they had been clenched with a hammer. There was also in his right side a red wound, as if made by the piercing of a lance; and this often threw out blood, which stained the tunic and drawers of the saint.”

Two years afterwards St. Francis died, exclaiming, “Welcome, Sister Death”; and multitudes came to kiss his sacred wounds. His body was buried in the church of St. George at Assisi, but four years afterwards removed to a church outside the walls. See Note 117 of this canto.

In the life of St. Francis it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the facts of history and the myths of tradition; but through all we see the outlines of a gentle, beautiful, and noble character. All living creatures were his brothers and sisters. To him the lark was an emblem of the Cherubim, and the lamb an image of the Lamb of God. He is said to have preached to the birds; and his sermon was, “Brother birds, greatly are ye bound to praise the Creator, who clotheth you with feathers, and giveth you wings to fly with, and a purer air to breathe, and who careth for you, who have so little care for yourselves.”

Forsyth, describing his visit to La Verna, Italy, p. 123, says: “Francis appears to me a genuine hero, original, independent, magnanimous, incorruptible. His powers seemed designed to regenerate society; but, taking a wrong direction, they sank men into beggars.”

Finally, the phrase he often uttered when others praised him may be here repeated, “What every one is in the eyes of God, that he is and no more.”

51 - 51

Namely, in winter, when the sun is far south; or, as Biagioli prefers, glowing with unwonted splendor.

53 - 53

It will be noticed that there is a play of words on the name Ascesi (I ascended), which Padre Venturi irreverently calls a concetto di tre quattrini.

59 - 59

His vow of poverty, in opposition to the wishes of his father.

61 - 61

In the presence of his father and of the Bishop of the diocese.

65 - 65

After the death of Christ, she waited eleven hundred years and more till St. Francis came.

67 - 67

The story of Caesar's waking the fisherman Amyclas to take him across the Adriatic is told by Lucan, Pharsalia, V.: –

“There through the gloom his searching eyes explored,
Where to the mouldering rock a bark was moored.
The mighty master of this little boat
Securely slept within a neighboring cot:
No massy beams support his humble hall,
But reeds and marshy rushes wove the wall;
Old, shattered planking for a roof was spread,
And covered in from rain the needy shed.
Thrice on the feeble door the warrior struck,
Beneath the blow the trembling dwelling shook.
'What wretch forlorn,' the poor Amyclas cries,
'Driven by the raging seas, and stormy skies,
To my poor lowly roof for shelter flies?'

”O happy poverty! thou greatest good,
Bestowed by Heaven, but seldom understood!
Here nor the cruel spoiler seeks his prey,
Nor ruthless armies take their dreadful way:
Security thy narrow limits keeps,
Safe are thy cottages, and sound thy sleeps.
Behold! ye dangerous dwellings of the great,
Where gods and godlike princes choose their seat;
See in what peace the poor Amyclas lies,
Nor starts, though Caesar's call commands to rise.“

Dante also writes, Convito, IV. 13: ”And therefore the wise man says, that the traveller empty-handed on his way would sing in the very presence of robbers. And that is what Lucan refers to in his fifth book, when he commends the security of poverty, saying: O safe condition of poverty! O narrow habitations and hovels! O riches of the Gods not yet understood! At what times and at what walls could it happen, the not being afraid of any noise, when the hand of Caesar was knocking? And this says Lucan, when he describes how Caesar came by night to the hut of the fisherman Amyclas, to pass the Adrian Sea.“

74 - 74

St. Francis, according to Butler, Lives of the Saints, X. 78, used to say that ”he possessed nothing of earthly goods, being a disciple of Him who, for our sakes, was born a stranger in an open stable, lived without a place of his own wherein to lay his head, subsisting by the charity of good people, and died naked on a cross in the close embraces of holy poverty.“

79 - 79

Bernard of Quintavalle, the first follower of St. Francis. Butler, Lives of the Saints, X. 75, says: ”Many began to admire the heroic and uniform virtue of this great servant of God, and some desired to be his companions and disciples. The first of these was Bernard of Quintaval, a rich tradesman of Assisium, a person of singular prudence, and of great authority in that city, which had been long directed by his counsels. Seeing the extraordinary conduct of St. Francis, he invited him to sup at his house, and had a good bed made ready for him near his own. When Bernard seemed to be fallen asleep, the servant of God arose, and falling on his knees, with his eyes lifted up, and his arms across, repeated very slow, with abundance of tears, the whole night, Deus meus et Omnia, 'My God and my All'..... Bernard secretly watched the saint all night, by the light of a lamp, saying to himself, 'This man is truly a servant of God'; and admiring the happiness of such a one, whose heart is entirely filled with God, and to whom the whole world is nothing. After many other proofs of the sincere and admirable sanctity of Francis, being charmed and vanquished by his example, he begged the saint to make him his companion. Francis recommended the matter to God for some time; they both heard mass together, and took advice that they might learn the will of God. The design being approved, Bernard sold all his effects, and divided the sum among the poor in one day.“

83 - 83

Giles, or Egidius, the second follower of St. Francis, died at Perugia, in 1272. He was the author of a book called Verba Aurea, Golden Words. Butler, Lives of the Saints, VII. 162, note, says of him: ”None among the first disciples of St. Francis seems to have been more perfectly replenished with his spirit of perfect charity, humility, meekness, and simplicity, as appears from the golden maxims and lessons of piety which he gave to others.“

He gives also this anecdote of him on p. 164: ”Brother Giles said, 'Can a dull idiot love God as perfectly as a great scholar?' St. Bonaventure replied, 'A poor old woman may love him more than the most learned master and doctor in theology.' At this Brother Giles, in a sudden fervor and jubilation of spirit, went into a garden, and, standing at a gate toward the city (of Rome), he looked that way, and cried out with a loud voice, 'Come, the poorest, most simple, and most illiterate old woman, love the Lord our God, and you may attain to an higher degree of eminence and happiness than Brother Bonaventure with all his learning.' After this he fell into an ecstasy, in which he continued in sweet contemplation without motion for the space of three hours.“

Sylvester, the third disciple, was a priest who sold stone to St. Francis for the repairs of the church of St. Damiano. Some question arising about the payment, St. Francis thrust his hand into Bernard's bosom and drew forth a handful of gold, which he added to the previous payment. Sylvester, smitten with remorse that he, an old man, should be so greedy of gold, while a young man despised it for the love of God, soon after became a disciple of the saint.

89 - 89

Peter Bernadone, the father of St. Francis, was a wool-merchant. Of this humble origin the saint was not ashamed.

93 - 93

The permission to establish his religious Order, granted by Pope Innocent III., in 1214.

96 - 96

Better here in heaven by the Angels, than on earth by Franciscan friars in their churches, as the custom was. Or perhaps, as Buti interprets it, better above in the glory of Paradise, ”where is the College of all the Saints,“ than here in the Sun.

98 - 98

The permission to found the Order of Minor Friars, or Franciscans, granted by Pope Innocent III., in 1214, was confirmed by Pope Honorius III., in 1223.

99 - 99

The title of Archimandrite, or Patriarch, was given in the Greek Church to one who had supervision over many convents.

101 - 101

Namely, before the Sultan of Egypt in his camp near Damietta.

104 - 104

In the words of Ben Jonson,

”Potential merit stands for actual,
Where only opportunity doth want,
Not will nor power.“ 

106 - 106

On Mount Alvernia, St. Francis, absorbed in prayer, received in his hands and feet and breast the stigmata of Christ, that is, the wounds of the nails and the spear of the crucifixion, the final seal of the Order.

Forsyth, Italy, p. 122: ”This singular convent, which stands on the cliffs of a lofty Apennine, was built by St. Francis himself, and is celebrated for the miracle which the motto records. Here reigns all the terrible of nature, – a rocky mountain, a ruin of the elements, broken, sawn, and piled in sublime confusion, – precipices crowned with old, gloomy, visionary woods, – black chasms in the rock where curiosity shudders to look down, – haunted caverns, sanctified by miraculous crosses, – long excavated stairs that restore you to daylight..... On entering the Chapel of the Stigmata, we caught the religion of the place; we knelt round the rail, and gazed with a kind of local devotion at the holy spot where St. Francis received the five wounds of Christ. The whole hill is legendary ground. Here the Seraphic Father was saluted by two crows which still haunt the convent; there the Devil hurled him down a precipice, yet was not permitted to bruise a bone of him.“

117 - 117

When St. Francis was dying, he desired to be buried among the malefactors at the place of execution, called the Colle d'Inferno, or Hill of Hell. A church was afterwards built on this spot; its name was changed to Colle di Paradiso, and the body of the saint transferred thither in 1230. The popular tradition is, that it is standing upright under the principal altar of the chapel devoted to the saint.

118 - 118

If St. Francis were as here described, what must his companion, St. Dominic, have been, who was Patriarch, or founder, of the Order to which Thomas Aquinas belonged. To the degeneracy of this Order the remainder of the canto is devoted.

137 - 137

The Order of the Dominicans diminished in numbers, by its members going in search of prelacies and other ecclesiastical offices, till it is like a tree hacked and hewn.

138 - 138

Buti interprets this passage differently. He says: ”Vedrai 'l corregger; that is, thou, Dante, shalt see St. Dominic, whom he calls corregger, because he wore about his waist the correggia, or leathern thong, and made his friars wear it, as St. Francis made his wear the cord; – che argomenta, that is, who proves by true arguments in his constitutions, that his friars ought to study sacred theology, studying which their souls will grow fat with a good fatness; that is, with the grace of God, and the knowledge of things divine, if they do not go astray after the other sciences, which are vanity, and make the soul vain and proud.“