Houses of the Poor Men of the Lord covered the face of Italy, Spain, the
two Gauls and the Teutonic lands. In the good town of Viterbo arose a
House of peculiar sanctity. In it Fra Giovanni took the vows of Poverty,
and lived humble and despised, his soul a garden of flowers fenced about
with walls.
He had knowledge by revelation of many truths that escape clever and
world-wise men. And ignorant and simple-minded as he was, he knew things
unknown to the most learned Doctors of the age.
He knew that the cares of riches make men ill-conditioned and wretched,
and that coming into the world poor and naked, they would be happy, if
only they would live as they were born. He was poor and merry-hearted.
His delight was in obedience; and renouncing the making of plans of any
sort for the future, he relished the bread of the heart. For the weight
of human actions is a heavy load, and we are trees bearing poisoned
fruit. He was afraid to act, for is not all effort painful and useless?
He was afraid to think, for thought is evil.
He was very humble, knowing how men have nothing of their own that they
should boast of, and that pride hardens the heart. He knew, moreover,
that they who possess for all wealth only the riches of the spirit, if
they make boast of their treasure, so far lower themselves to the level
of the great ones of the earth.
And Fra Giovanni outdid in humility all the Monks of the House of
Viterbo. The Superior of the Monastery, the holy Brother Silvester, was
less righteous than he, forasmuch as the master is less righteous than
the servant, the mother less innocent than the babe.
Observing that Fra Giovanni had a way of stripping himself of his gown
to clothe the suffering members of Jesus Christ, the Superior forbade
him, in the name of holy obedience, to give away his garments to the
poor. Now the same day this command was laid on him, Giovanni went, as
his wont was, to pray in the woods that cover the slopes of Monte
Cunino. It was Winter time; snow was falling, and the wolves coming down
into the villages.
Fra Giovanni kneeling down at the foot of an oak, spoke to God, as
might one friend to another, and besought Him to take pity on all
orphans, prisoners and captives, to take pity on the master of the
fields sorely harried by the Lombard usurers, to take pity on the stags
and hinds of the forest chased by the hunters, and on all trapped
creatures, whether of fur or feathers. And lo! he was rapt away in an
ecstasy, and saw a hand pointing in the sky.
When presently the sun had slipped behind the mountains, the man of God
arose from his knees and took the path to the Monastery. On the white,
silent road thither, he met a beggar, who asked him an alms for the love
of God.
"Alas!" he told him, "I have nothing but my gown, and the Superior has
forbidden me to cut it in two so as to give away the half. Therefore I
cannot divide it with you. But if you love me, my son, you will take it
off me whole and undivided."
On hearing these words, the beggar promptly stripped the Friar of his
gown.
So Fra Giovanni went on his way naked under the falling snow, and
entered the city. As he was crossing the Piazza with nothing on but a
linen cloth about his loins, the children who were running at play in
the Great Square made mock at him. In derision, they shook their fists
in his face with the thumb stuck between the first and middle fingers,
and threw snow at him mixed with mud and small stones.
Now there lay in the Great Square some logs of timber for the woodwork
of a house, and one of the logs happened to be balanced across another.
Two children ran and took their places, one at each end of the beam, and
began playing see-saw--two of the same children who had made mock of the
holy man and thrown stones at him.
He went up to them now smiling, and said:
"Dear little children, will you suffer me to share your game?"
And sitting down on one end of the beam, he see-sawed up and down
against the two little ones.
And some of the citizens happening to pass that way, said, wondering:
"Truly and indeed the man is out of his wits."
But after the bells had rung the _Ave Maria_, Fra Giovanni was still at
see-saw. And it chanced that certain Priests from Rome, who had come to
Viterbo to visit the Mendicant Friars, whose fame was great through the
world, just then crossed the Great Square. And hearing the children
shouting, "Look! little Brother Giovanni's here," the Priests drew near
the Monk, and saluted him very respectfully. But the holy man never
returned their salute, but making as though he did not see them, went
on see-sawing on the swaying beam. So the Priests said to each other:
"Come away; the fellow is a mere dunce and dullard!"
Then was Fra Giovanni glad, and his heart overflowed with joy. For these
things he did out of humility and for the love of God. And he put his
joy in the scorn of men, as the miser shuts his gold in a cedarn chest,
locked with a triple lock.
At nightfall he knocked at the Monastery door, and being admitted,
appeared among the Brethren naked, bleeding, and covered with mire. He
smiled and said:
"A kind thief took my gown, and some children deemed me worthy to play
with them."
But the Brothers were angry, because he had dared to pass through the
city in so undignified a plight.
"He feels no compunction," they declared, "about exposing the Holy Order
of St. Francis to derision and disgrace. He deserves the most exemplary
punishment."
The General of the Order, being warned a great scandal was ruining the
sacred Society, called together all the Brethren of the Chapter, and
made Fra Giovanni kneel humbly on his knees in the midst of them all.
Then, his face blazing with anger, he chid him harshly in a loud, rough
voice. This done, he consulted the assembly as to the penance it was
meet to impose on the guilty Brother.
Some were for having him put in prison or suspended in an iron cage from
the Church steeple, while others advised he should be chained up for a
madman.
And Fra Giovanni, beaming with satisfaction, told them:
"You are very right, my Brethren; I deserve these punishments, and worse
ones still. I am good for nothing but foolishly to waste and squander
the goods of God and of my Order."
And Brother Marcian, who was a man of great sternness both of life and
doctrine, cried:
"Hear him! he talks like a hypocrite; that honeyed voice of his issues
from a whited sepulchre."
And Fra Giovanni said again:
"Brother Marcian, I am indeed capable of every infamy--but for God's
good help."
Meantime the General was pondering over the strange behaviour of Fra
Giovanni, and he besought the Holy Spirit to inspire the judgment he was
to give. And lo! as he prayed, his anger was changed into admiration. He
had known St. Francis in the days when that Angel of Heaven, born of a
woman, was a sojourner in this world, and the ensample of the favourite
follower of Christ had taught him the love of spiritual perfection.
So his soul was enlightened, and he recognized in the works of Fra
Giovanni a divine innocency and beauty.
"My brethren," he said at length, "far from blaming our Brother, let us
admire the grace he receives so abundantly from God. In very truth he is
a better man than we. What he has done, he has done in imitation of
Jesus Christ, who 'suffered the little children to come unto Him,' and
let the Roman soldiers strip Him of His garments."
Then he thus addressed the kneeling Fra Giovanni:
"This, Brother, is the penance I lay upon you. In the name of that holy
obedience you owe St. Francis, I command you go forth into the country,
and the first beggar you meet, beg him to strip you of your tunic. Then,
when he has left you naked, you must come back into the city, and play
in the Public Square With the little children."
Having so said, the General of the Order came down from his chair of
state, and, raising Fra Giovanni from the ground, fell on his own knees
before him and kissed his feet. Then, turning to the assembled Monks, he
said to them:
"In very truth, my Brethren, this man is the good God's plaything."
II
THE LAMP
In those days the truth was revealed to Fra Giovanni that the riches of
this world come from God and should be the heritage of the poor, who are
the favourite children of Jesus Christ.
Christian folk were busy celebrating the Saviour's birth; and Fra
Giovanni had come to the town of Assisi, which is set upon a
mountain-top, and from this mountain first rose the Sun of Charity.
Now the day before Christmas eve, Fra Giovanni was kneeling in prayer
before the Altar under which St. Francis sleeps in a stone coffin. And
he was meditating, dreaming how St. Francis was born in a stable, like
Jesus. And while he was pondering, the Sacristan came up to him and
asked him of his goodness to look after the Church while he ate his
supper. Church and Altar were both loaded with precious ornaments; gold
and silver were there in abundance, for the sons of St. Francis had
long fallen from their early poverty, and had received gifts from the
Queens of the Earth.
Fra Giovanni assured the Sacristan:
"Go, Brother, and enjoy your meal. I will guard the Church, as Our Lord
would have it guarded."
And so saying, he went on with his meditations. And as he knelt there
alone in prayer, a poor woman entered the Church and asked an alms of
him for the love of God.
"I have nothing," the holy man replied; "but the Altar is loaded with
ornaments, and I will go see if I cannot find something to give you." A
golden lamp hung above the Altar, decked about with silver bells.
Examining the lamp, he said to himself:
"Those little bells are but idle vanities. The true ornament of yonder
Altar is the body of St. Francis, which reposes naked under the flags
with a black stone for a pillow."
And drawing his knife from his pocket, he detached the little silver
bells, one after the other, and gave them to the poor woman.
Presently, when the Sacristan, his meal finished, returned to the
Church, Fra Giovanni, the holy man of God, said to him:
"Never trouble, my brother, about the little bells that belonged to the
lamp. I have given them away to a poor woman who had need of them."
Now Fra Giovanni did in this wise, because he knew by revelation that
all the things in this world, belonging to God, belong of rights to the
poor.
And he was blamed on earth by men whose thoughts were given over to
riches. But he was found praiseworthy in the sight of the Divine
Goodness.
III
THE SERAPHIC DOCTOR
Fra Giovanni was not proficient in the knowledge of letters, and he
rejoiced in his ignorance as being an abundant source of humiliations.
But after watching one day in the Cloister of Santa Maria degli Angeli a
number of Doctors of Theology in meditation on the perfections of the
Most Holy Trinity and the Mysteries of the Passion, he began to doubt
whether they did not possess the love of God more fully than he, by
reason of their wider knowledge.
He was afflicted in his soul, and for the first time in his life fell
into melancholy. But sadness was unnatural to one in his estate; for joy
is the inheritance of the poor.
He resolved to carry his difficulty to the General of the Order, to be
rid of it as of a galling burden. Now Giovanni di Fidanza was General of
the Order in those days.
In the cradle he had received from St. Francis himself the name of
Bonaventure. He had studied Theology at the University of Paris; and he
excelled in the science of Love, which is the science of God. He knew
the four degrees which lift the creature to his Creator, and he pondered
on the mystery of the six wings of the Cherubim. This was the reason why
he was called the Seraphic Doctor.
And he was well aware that Science is vain without Love. Fra Giovanni
found him walking in his garden, on the terrace overlooking the city.
It was a Sunday; and the handicraftsmen of the town and the peasants who
work in the vineyards were climbing, at the foot of the terrace, the
steep street that leads to the Church.
And Fra Giovanni, seeing Brother Bonaventure in the garden, in the midst
of the lilies, drew near and said:
"Brother Bonaventure, free my mind of the doubt that is tormenting me,
and tell me: Can an ignorant man love God with as great love as a
learned Doctor of the Church?"
And Brother Bonaventure answered:
"I will tell you the truth, Fra Giovanni; a poor old woman may not only
equal but surpass all the Doctors of Theology in the world. And seeing
the sole excellence of man lies in loving, I tell you again--the most
ignorant of women shall be exalted in Heaven above the Doctors."
Fra Giovanni, on hearing these words, was filled with great joy; and,
leaning out over the low wall of the garden, looked lovingly at the
passers-by. Then he cried out at the top of his voice:
"Ho! you poor women, ignorant and simple-minded, you shall be set in
Heaven above Brother Bonaventure."
And the Seraphic Doctor, hearing the good Brother's proclamation, smiled
sweetly where he stood among the lilies of his garden.
IV
THE LOAF ON THE FLAT STONE
Forasmuch as the good St. Francis had bidden his sons to "Go, beg your
bread from door to door," Fra Giovanni was one day sent to a certain
city. Having passed the Gate, he went up and down the streets to beg his
bread from door to door, according to the rule of the Order, for the
love of God.
But the folk of that city were more covetous than the men of Lucca, and
harder than they of Perugia. The bakers and tanners who were dicing
before their shop-doors, repulsed the poor man of Jesus Christ with
harsh words. Even the young women, holding their new-born babes in their
arms, turned their faces from him. And when the good Brother, whose joy
was in dishonour, smiled at the refusals and insults he received,
"He is laughing at us," said the townsmen to each other. "He is a born
fool--or say rather a vagabond impostor and a drunkard. He has
over-drunk himself with wine. It were a sin and a shame to give him so
much as a crumb of bread from our hutch."
And the good Brother answered:
"You say true, my friends; I am not worthy to stir your pity, nor fit to
share the food of your dogs and your pigs."
The children, who were just then coming out of school, overheard what
was said, and ran after the holy man shouting:
"Madman! Madman!"--and pelted him with mud and stones.
Then Fra Giovanni went forth into the country. The city was built on the
slope of a hill, and was surrounded by vineyards and oliveyards. He
descended the hill by a hollow way, and seeing on either side the grapes
of the vines that hung down from the branches of the elms, he stretched
out his arm and blessed the clusters. Likewise he blessed the olive and
the mulberry trees and all the wheat of the lowlands.
Meantime he was both hungry and thirsty; and he took delight in thirst
and hunger.
At the end of a cross-road, he saw a wood of laurels; and it was the
habit of the Begging Friars to go and pray in the woods, amongst the
poor animals cruel men hunt and harry. Accordingly Fra Giovanni entered
the wood, and fared on by the side of a brook that ran clear and
singing on its way.
Presently he saw a flat stone beside the brook, and at the same moment a
young man of a wondrous beauty, clad in a white robe, laid a loaf of
bread on the stone, and disappeared.
And Fra Giovanni knelt down and prayed, saying:
"O God, how good art Thou, to send Thy poor man bread by the hand of one
of Thy Angels; O blessed poverty! O very glorious and most sumptuous
poverty!"
And he ate the loaf the Angel had brought, and drank the water of the
brook, and was strengthened in body and in soul. And an invisible hand
wrote on the walls of the city: "Woe, woe to the rich!"
V
THE TABLE UNDER THE FIG-TREE.
Following the example of St. Francis, his well-beloved Father, Fra
Giovanni used to visit the Hospital of Viterbo to help the lepers,
giving them to drink and washing their sores.
And if they blasphemed, he used to tell them, "You are the chosen sons
of Jesus Christ." And there were some lepers of a very humble spirit
whom he would gather together in a chamber, and with whom he took
delight as a mother does surrounded by her children.
But the Hospital walls were very thick, and daylight entered only by
narrow windows high up above the floor. The air was so fetid the lepers
could scarce live in the place at all. And Fra Giovanni noted how one of
them, by name Lucido, who showed an exemplary patience, was slowly dying
of the evil atmosphere.
Fra Giovanni loved Lucido, and would tell him:
"My brother, you are Lucido, and no precious stone is purer than your
heart, in the eyes of God."
And observing how Lucido suffered more sorely than the others from the
poisonous air they breathed in the Lepers' Ward, he said to him one day:
"Friend Lucido, dear Lamb of the Lord, while the very air they breathe
in this place is pestilence, in the gardens of Santa Maria degli Angeli
we inhale the sweet scent of the laburnums. Come you with me to the
House of the Poor Brethren, and you will find relief."
So speaking, he took the Leper by the arm, wrapped him in his own cloak
and led him away to Santa Maria degli Angeli.
Arrived at the gate of the Monastery, he summoned the Doorkeeper with
happy shouts of exultation:
"Open!" he cried, "open to the friend I am bringing you. His name is
Lucido, and a good name it is, for he is a very pearl of patience."
The Brother opened the Gate; but the instant he saw in Fra Giovanni's
arms a man whose face, livid and all but expressionless, was covered
over with scales, he knew him for a leper, and rushed off in terror to
warn the Brother Superior. The latter's name was Andrea of Padua, and
he was a man of very holy life. Nevertheless when he learned that Fra
Giovanni was bringing a leper into the House of Santa Maria degli
Angeli, he was very wroth, and coming to him with a face burning with
anger, bade him:
"Stay there outside, with the man. You are a senseless fool to expose
your brethren thus to contagion."
Fra Giovanni only looked on the ground without venturing any reply. All
the joy was gone from his face; and Lucido, seeing him troubled:
"Brother!" said he, "I am grieved you are made sad because of me."
And Fra Giovanni kissed the leper on the cheek.
Then he said, turning to the Superior:
"Will you suffer me, my Father, to stay outside the Gate with this man,
and share my meal with him?"--to which the Father Superior answered:
"Even do as you please, seeing you set up yourself above the holy rule
of obedience."
And with these harsh words he went back again into the Monastery.
Now in front of the Gate was a stone bench under a fig-tree, and on this
bench Fra Giovanni set down his bowl. But while he was supping with the
Leper, the Father Superior had the Gate thrown open, and came and sat
under the fig-tree and said:
"Forgive me, Fra Giovanni, for having given you offence. I am come
hither now to share your meal."
VI
THE TEMPTATION
Then Satan sat him down on the brow of a hill, and gazed down at the
House of the Poor Brethren. He was black and beautiful, like a young
Egyptian. And he thought in his heart:
"Forasmuch as I am the Enemy of Mankind and the Adversary of God,
therefore will I tempt these Monks, and I will tell them what is kept
hid by Him who is their Friend. Lo! I will afflict these men of Religion
by telling them the truth, and I will darken their spirit, uttering to
them words of verity and reasonableness. I will plunge reflexion like a
sword in their reins; and so soon as they shall know the reality of
things, they will be unhappy. For joy there is none but in illusion, and
peace is only to be found in ignorance. And because I am the Master of
such as study the nature of plants and animals, the virtue of stones,
the secrets of fire, the courses of the stars and the influence of the
planets, for this reason men have named me the Prince of Darkness.
Likewise they call me the Wily One, because by me was constructed the
plummet-line whereby Ulpian straightened out the Law. And my kingdom is
of this world. Well then, I will try these Monks, and I will make them
to know their works are evil, and that the tree of their Charity bears
bitter fruit. Yea! I will tempt them without hate and without love."
Thus said Satan in his heart. Meantime, as the shades of evening were
lengthening along the base of the hills and the cottage chimneys were
smoking for the evening meal, the holy man Giovanni issued from out the
wood where he was wont to pray, and turned into the road leading to
Santa Maria degli Angeli, saying:
"My house is the house of joy and delight, because it is the house of
poverty."
And seeing Fra Giovanni wending his way homewards, Satan thought:
"Lo! here is one of those men I am come to tempt";--and drawing his
black cloak over his head, he advanced along the high road, which was
bordered with terebinths, to meet the holy man.
Now Satan had made himself like a widow-woman with a veil, and when he
had joined Fra Giovanni, he put on a honeyed voice and asked an alms of
him, saying:
"Give me an alms for the love of Him who is your friend, and whom I am
not worthy so much as to name."
And Fra Giovanni answered:
"It happens so, I have with me a little silver cup a nobleman of the
countryside gave me, to have it melted down and used for the Altar of
Santa Maria degli Angeli. You may take that, lady; and I will go
to-morrow and ask the nobleman to let me have another of the same weight
for the Blessed Virgin. Thus will his wishes be accomplished, and over
and above, you will have gotten an alms for the love of God."
Satan took the cup and said:
"Good brother, suffer a poor widow-woman to kiss your hand. For verily
the hand that gives gifts is soft and fragrant."
Fra Giovanni replied:
"Lady, be heedful not to kiss my hand. On the contrary, begone with all
speed. For, methinks, you are winsome of face, albeit black as the
Magian King that bore the frankincense and myrrh; and it is not becoming
I should look on you longer, seeing how danger is forever dogging the
lonely man's steps. Wherefore suffer me now to leave you, commending
you to God's care. And forgive me, if I have failed aught in politeness
towards you, lady. For the good St. Francis was used to say: 'Courtesy
shall be the ornament of my sons, as the flowers bedeck the
hill-sides.'"
But Satan said again:
"Good Father, inform me at the least of a guest-house, where I may pass
the night honestly."
Fra Giovanni replied:
"Go, mistress, to the House of St. Damian, where dwell the poor ladies
of Our Lord. She who will welcome you is Clare, and indeed she is a
clear mirror of purity; the same is the Duchess of Poverty."
And Satan said again:
"My Father, I am an adulterous woman, and I have lain with many men."
And Fra Giovanni said:
"Lady, if I really deemed you laden with the sins you tell of, I would
crave of you as a high honour to kiss your feet, for I am less worth
than you, and your crimes are little compared with mine. Yet have I
received greater favours of Heaven than have been accorded to you. For
in the days when St. Francis and his twelve disciples were still upon
earth, I lived with Angels of Heaven."
And Satan returned:
"My Father, when I asked you an alms for the love of Him who loves you,
I was cherishing in my heart a wicked intent, and I am fain to tell you
what this was. I wander the roads a-begging, in order to collect a sum
of money I destine for a man of Perosa who is my paramour, and who has
promised me, on handling this money, to kill traitorously a certain
knight I hate, because when I offered my body to him, he scorned me.
Well! the total was yet incomplete; but now the weight of your silver
cup has made it up. So the alms you have given me will be the price of
blood. You have sold a just man to death. For the Knight I told you of
is chaste, temperate and pious, and I hate him for this cause. 'Tis you
will have brought about his murder. You have laid a weight of silver in
the scale of crime, to bear it down."
Hearing these words, the good Fra Giovanni wept, and drawing aside, he
fell on his knees in a thorn-brake, and prayed the Lord, saying:
"O Lord, make this crime to fall neither on this woman's head nor on
mine nor on that of any of Thy creatures, but let it be put beneath Thy
feet, which were pierced with the nails, and be washed in Thy most
precious blood. Distil on me and on this my sister of the highway a drop
of hyssop, and we shall be purified, and shall overpass the snow in
whiteness."
But the Enemy fled away, thinking:
"This man I have not been able to tempt by reason of his utter
simplicity."
VII
THE SUBTLE DOCTOR