CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
SECOND POINT OF THE FouRTH ANSWER, IN
WHICH THE PROFESSION OF THE FRIARS MINOR Is
SHOWN To BE TRULY WITHOUT APPROPRIATION
OF REAL ESTATE OR FURNISHINGS, AND WITHOUT
OWNERSHIP OF MONEY, EITHER IN PRIVATE OR IN
CoMMON GEESE ere, Ned HE puffed-up minds of arrogant men, fed on the vanity of the world, lead them to believe that they have gained for themselves no little glory for hay~ ing accused of deceitful simulation the VARY -\Ce = a jp true holiness of simple souls, and reae proved their spiritual prudence as if it were insanity. In order to reach this goal more effectively, they often change good into evil and put a stain on the cf. Sir. 11:33 elect.'
Because of the corruption brought about by human weakness, there may hardly be found a single person or state exempt of any occasion of blame. Neither can we deny that among those who profess evangelical perfection, some are perverse and very many imperfect. Hence, if our opponent had been blaming the vices of the insolent, he would have been worthy of praise. Even if he had been heaping a general blame on individuals, evangelical men would have had to keep their mouths closed, particularly if he had been acting under divine inspiration: their duty would have been, then, to pray patiently for the detractor while covering up the cf. Lk. 6:28 insults. But now, because our opponent turns the poisoned
DEFENSE OF THE MENDICANTS
darts of his eloquence against the whole Order of the Poor of Christ, and accuses their profession of the crimes of error and simulation, we are forced to fight his impudence, not that we seek to return curse for curse, but that we hope to exonerate the religious Order effectively of the crimes imputed to it.
2. Speaking as if he were the Church itself, this man attacks the Mendicants as enemies of this same Church.
"But now," he writes, "they hold me in derision who are younger in years than I, whose fathers I should have disdained to rank with the dogs of my flock." Thus does he
|b. 30:1 clearly suggest that the religious he is accusing should be blamed as enemies of the Church, as insurgents against it, and as mocking despisers of it. He even ends up by saying:
"They were thought unworthy of life itself. Barren with want and hunger..., and not appearing at all upon the earth." This is no less than looking down in mockery upon ibid. 2, 3, 8* his own father, the Vicar of Christ, by whom this manner of life had been approved,f and to make fun of the offspring of Holy Mother Church the Bride of Christ.
To quote Solomon, his is the eye that will be plucked out by the ravens and the eagles, that is, by those who seek the cfePrv, 30:17 truth. Hence it is of him and his accomplices, the inventors of new dogmas, that the Church may say: "Now they hold me in derision who are younger in years than I."' His wicked eye is plucked out by his own blow, he is wounded with the very dart with which he attempts to strike.
]b. 30:1
But now, usurping the zeal and words of the apostles, while acting as an assailant of evangelical perfection rather than as its imitator, he continues: "Would to God that you
2 Cor. 11:1 f Cf. ch. VIL, | 14.
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could bear with me a little.... For I am jealous for you with a divine jealousy. Why do you boast of perfection more than others?"
3. These are his very words, by which, forgetting the humility of the apostles, he fails to see that he should have said instead: "Bear with a little of my foolishness, for while he believes that he is speaking not unwisely but with wisdom, by a just judgment of God he is made to be foolish,
2 Cor. 11:1 cf. Rom. 1:22 and falls headlong into many great follies.
In spite of what he says, we never boast of greater perfection than others, although we do commend the height of poverty as consonant with true perfection. Virginity is truly superior to any degree of modesty, but this does not prove necessarily that the state of the holy virgins should be considered any higher than that of prelates or even of men who are not held in the least to virginity. The same rea~ soning should apply to every level of poverty. The friar this man is fightingf never claimed that the state of the Mendicants was superior to that of other men who retain some private property, except with the qualification: "All other circumstances being identical." But a state in which all circumstances are identical to those of another simply does not exist.{ Hence it cannot be argued that the said friar is exalting his state above every or any other. It was, then, an act of great malice to take the words of a truthful and humble writer as an occasion to compose a book full of invectives and calumnies against the whole Mendicant Order, as + St. Bonaventure is referring here to the attack of his main adversary, Gerard of Abbeville, against a friar, presumed to be Thomas of York, author of the work entitled: 'The hand that is lifted against the Almighty."
Cf. footnotes to Prologue, { 2; ch. I, { 3; and evi 4.
¢ Cf. ch. IIL, { 20, ad finem.
DEFENSE OF THE MENDICANTS
if to this man of pride it had seemed too little to lay... upon Mardochai alone the hands of his speech. The detracEst. 3:6* tions of this pamphlet show that its author was prompted, not by zeal for God, but by the goading of the one by whose envy... death entered the world.
Wis. 2:24
4. Anyway, in order to throw confusion over all the states of the Church, this son of the confusion of Babel attempts with all his might to prove that the profession of poverty leads to no special level of perfection, and in cf. Gn. 11:1 ff. fact makes no difference whatsoever. After a few irrelevant statements, he continues: "In what, therefore, do you glory against the ministers of the Church? For these men, to whom is conceded the use, and not the ownership, of the Lord's possessions, are not endowed with private goods any more than you are. On the other hand, they are all the more blessed and to be preferred because they use things that are under eternal dominion, while your goods are under the power of earthly masters." Such are this man's words by which he confuses and perverts everything to such a point that no degree of perfection is left in poverty; or, if any remains, it is in the state of the clerics who abound in ecclesiastic revenues, a state which must be preferred to that of any of the poor, or of any of those who, for the love of Christ, do not wish to possess anything at all. The pretext is that the goods of the former are heavenly and owned by eternal dominion, while those of the latter are but earthly: as if Christ, the Lord of the Universe, were not the Master of things owned by laymen, and the Church had no true dominion over temporal things, the opposite of which has been demonstrated earlier.} This man falsely suspects the t CE ch. X, 4G Off.
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poverty of Mother Church herself, and actually attacks her power.
Finally, if it is true that the Church, together with its ministers, has no true dominion over things but only the right to use them, why the later calumny against the profession of those poor who claim to have no dominion over things, even though they do have the right to use them?
This man says that such a position appears ridiculous to anyone, since, as regards those things that are entirely consummated through their use, people make no distinction between this use and the use of dominion. And later he ironically asks: "Anyway, whose are these riches that you ceaselessly beg from the wealthy and gather throughout the provinces if you do not possess anything in common?"
5. In order to silence these and other malicious and deceitful sophisms, we should understand that since four things are to be considered in temporal goods
— ownership, possession, usufruct, and simple use—~and since the life of mortals is possible without the first three but necessarily requires the fourth, no profession may ever be made that renounces entirely the simple use of temporal goods. But that profession which implies the willful vow to follow
Christ to the extremities of poverty most fittingly calls for renouncement to dominion over anything whatsoever, and must be content with the limited use of things belonging to others and conceded to it. Thus it is said in the very rules:
"Let the Friars appropriate nothing for themselves, neither house nor land nor anything."
6. Now lest anyone believe that the ownership forbidden in these terms does not concern the collectivity but only private individuals, let him listen to what Gregory IX answers on this subject to a question of the Friars: '""We declare,"
242,
DEFENSE OF THE MENDICANTS
he says, "that they may have ownership neither in common nor in private, but that the Order must have the use of utensils, books, and other things permitted to it, and that the Friars may use such things by permission of the Ministers
General and Provincial. Nor are they to sell appurtenances, or to exchange or alienate them outside of the Order in any way whatsoever, unless the Cardinal of the Roman Church who, at the time, is the Protector of the Order, has given either authority or permission in this regard to the Ministers
General or Provincial.'* These are the words of the Papal Rescript in which the pious and wise Pontiff makes a dis~ tinction between ownership and use, retaining the former for himself and for the Church, while conceding the latter because of the Friars' needs, in a manner truly holy, wise, and kind. If, indeed, as it appears clearly in the third answer,t there is not the slightest loss of perfection in the case of prelates who possess and distribute temporal goods in the name of others, the perfection of the Supreme Pontiff is safeguarded in a much greater manner, and there is added to him some merit before God, when he does the same for the sake of extending his protection, and without expecting any temporal reward.
7. But if perchance someone tries to oppose this reasoning by claiming that there is a warning in civil law' that use cannot be separated perpetually from dominion, we will answer that this principle of civil law has no application here, since the law pronounces such a decree lest dominion become useless, and hence be nothing but an empty word.
Now, to retain this kind of dominion over things while the use of such things is conceded to the poor is not useless, t Cf. ch. VIII, 4§ 21f.
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since it is meritorious for the Father of the poor, and opportune for the profession of the sons who are serving Christ.
Neither is there any obstacle in the fact objected by our adversary that, in the case of things consumed through their use, dominion is not distinct from use: the same occurs, for instance, when a son receives from his father a sum of money, and makes use of it, without having dominion over it for a single instant.* The same is to be understood of the Order of the poor in its relationship with the Roman
Church. It is true that all the faithful of Christ are by common law the sons of the Supreme Pontiff, but the Friars are subject to obedience toward him and committed to his care through a certain special right. Hence while others may be compared to emancipated sons to whom, through the power
. of the rights granted to them, it is permitted to dispose of ecclesiastic goods as long as they do not dilapidate them, the Friars are like the little ones and the sons of the family entirely subject to the rule of the Supreme Pontiff. As the law cautions "that the sons of the family may not be seen to retain or recu~ perate the possession of any object in particular,' but that the father be seen as acting through them, so also in the case of the Mendicants we must understand that the dominion over
DEFENSE OF THE MENDICANTS
the things they receive for their sustainment is delegated to the Father of the Poor, while their use is conceded to them.
8. Certainly, as essential as it is to any religious state that no individual possess anything in proper,' so is it to the whole Mendicant Order, which is considered a single person as regards abdication of property. And so, in the measure in which a monk or any religious makes use of clothing, shoes, food, or of any other thing that is consumed through its use, he does so without appropriating anything, nor does he become its owner, for ownership is always reserved to the community. This is also how things must be understood by anyone who wishes to have an opinion both true and kind concerning the community of this manner of poor, and their relationship with the Pope.
And, therefore, as the gift of an object to a monk, whatever the intention of the giver may be, does not transfer the dominion to him but to the whole community and submits it to the dispositive authority of the abbot, even if the giver had nothing in mind concerning the community, so also whatever is given to the brotherhood of the Friars Minor passes under the law, dominion, and ownership of the Supreme Pontiff and of the Roman Church, particularly since the Friars have no intention whatsoever of acquiring for themselves a right to the ownership of any object.
9. What has been exposed is further supported by a command of natural law clearly developed through the civil laws. For there exists a legal warning that freedom cannot be acquired by a man who does not want it,* that "'a benefit is not conferred upon a man who is unwilling to receive it," and that no one is bound to receive a donation or accept an inheritance, either at a profit or at a loss. Furthermore, since a sum total of things, for instance an inheritance, is
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acquired through the sole acquiescing of the will, so also nothing more is required for its rejection than a contrary intention;? and as by means of a mere act of the will a Stranger becomes an heir, so also by means of the opposite disposition he is immediately cut off from the inheritance.
For this reason the jurisconsult Julian says: "To act as an heir is not so much a matter of fact as a matter of intention.'"° And another, the jurisconsult Paul, agrees with him when he says: ""A madman and a minor cannot begin to own without the authorization of a tutor, for they lack the disposition to possess, even though they may be in physical contact with the object, as would also be the case if something were placed in the hand of a man asleep.'
Thus through these express dispositions of the law it is clear that no one may acquire property, dominion, or even possession unless he actually or interpretatively intends to acquire it. But since the Friars Minor have no intention to acquire, but the very opposite intention, they obtain neither dominion nor possession even though they may be in physical contact with certain objects, and they cannot be called owners or masters of these objects.
10. Such is confirmed by Papal authority, an authority so eminent that it transcends all human power, and that in the Decretals "Extra," in the article "On Customs related to Precedence and Obedience," it is said: "For the enhancing of heaven, that is, for the universal Church, God made the Gn. 1:16 two great lights, that is, He instituted the two dignities: the pontifical authority and the imperial power. But the light that presides over the days, that is, over spiritual matters, is the greater; and that which presides over the nights, that is, over matters of the flesh, is the lesser; thus as great a difference as there exists between the moon and the sun
DEFENSE OF THE MENDICANTS
may be recognized as existing between kings and pontiffs.' While the imperial power has so much authority that it is not limited by law,t but is the very origin of law,—so great a power, in fact, that it can declare that actual events are to be considered as not having happened, as may be seen in the "Law of Homecoming" (Postliminium) by which a formerly enslaved prisoner of war is declared, upon his return home, to have been free and pres~ ent at all times;' and that things that did not happen are to be considered as having happened, as may be seen in the Codex in the article on the ""Undutiful Will' { wherein although no reference is made to a child born after his father's death, yet such reference is assumed to have been made'* — if, I mean, the power of a king is so great, much greater is the authority of a pontiff. Although, from the viewpoint of civil law, use and dominion as regards any object may be considered as one, the pontifical authority may decree that in certain persons they are separate. And, with the power of his authority, the Vicar of Christ has in fact decreed that this was the case with the Order of the said Friars,t} and to go against such a decision is never permitted. For Gregory says in the nineteenth distinction: "It is not good for anyone either to desire or dare to transgress the commands of the Apostolic See...: may the man who has chosen to oppose its decrees be humbled with the pain of his own downfall."
11. There is nothing, either in civil or canon law, that anyone could adduce to attack this state of poverty. For t Cf. footnote p. 234.
{ The '"'Testamentum Inofficiosum" is a will in which the testator neglects his nearest relatives. tt CE 76.
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in the Decretals "Extra," article "On Election," it is said:
"No councils have the power to impose a law upon the Roman Church, since it is through the authority of the Roman
Church that all councils are called and receive their power, and since, in the statutes of such councils, it is clearly the authority of the Church that is perceived.'?® And no de cisions from earlier pontiffs may oppose such a fact, as Innocent III states in the Decretals "Extra," article "On Election," beginning with the word "Innotuit": "No power was taken away from Us by Our predecessor, since this was not the intention of the one who established the prohibition, for in such matters he was quite unable to give rise to a precedent that would bind his successors and equals who were to receive the same power,'' since equals have no authority over one another."!*+ What has been said is enough to refute the sophisms of malicious men: for as regards the testimony of truth, sufficient are the example and the counsel of the supreme
Legislator, Christ, the Sun of Justice, who, since He is the Mal. 4:2* original source of natural, civil, canon, and divine law, sanc~ tioned with His sacred word the principle that it was fitting for the perfect to renounce dominion over temporal things, but also conceded, promised, and provided sufficiency as regards their use.
Furthermore, in order to confirm by f This whole paragraph, containing quotations from the Decretals, is a legalistic interpretation of the autocracy of Romanism — identifying the Church with the central power of the Pope and his court — which is being strongly opposed at present by the proponents of the progressive notion that the Church consists in the assembly of the faithful, and that its authority resides, not in the Pope alone, but in the Pope and the bishops —i. e., the principle of collegiality.
It is easy to understand why the Roman administration, fed on such traditions as expressed in the Decretals, would put up a hard fight against any aggiornamento.
DEFENSE OF THE MENDICANTS
example what he had taught by word, He chose to be sustained with food that belonged to another, as the story of the Gospel recounts, as Jerome points out to Nepotianus, and as evidently appears from the preceding answer.
12. Now, concerning dominion over money that is given for the sustaining of the said Friars, undoubtedly we should hold that it belongs not at all to their community, for their
Rule prescribes that "no Friar may, in any way at all, either directly or through an interposed person . . . receive coin or money."'? And in order to remove every occasion of calumny, we should understand that an interposed person to whom money is entrusted to be spent may have received the power to collect it and to hold it by authority either of the giver or of those for the care of whom it has been given.
If the interposed person holds it and spends it by authority of the giver, he is the proxy or agent of the giver, and the giver may claim and receive this money in return, and bring about a lawsuit against him to obtain this restitution; but not so the one in whose favor the money was given to be spent. And so the mendicant poor should not and could not be forbidden to have their needs taken care of by an interposed person, because it is perfectly absurd to assume that a rich man would not be free to make alms as he wished, either personally or by delegation. Now if money is held by authority of the one in favor of whom it is to be spent, it is to him that prosecution befalls together with the doing of the other things implied by the power of a man who claims for himself true dominion over an object; and since this is quite incompatible with the profession of the Friars, Blessed Francis expressly forbade it because in fact, t Cf. ch. VI, 4 6-8.
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so far as the ownership of an object is concerned, it makes no difference whether a man receives it in this case through his own hand or through that of another.
13. This distinction is at the same time indicated by natural reason, imposed by written law, and declared by papal rescript. Since important consequences derive from the fact that a man who serves another happens to be either his slave, or the servant of some higher personage by whose will and command this service is provided, as there is distinction between servile and liberal service, and between the service of men and that of angels, so also there is a great difference when the interposed agent takes the place either of the giver or of the receiver.
There is likewise a great difference in civil law, in the case of a debtor who entrusts the amount of his debt to an interposed person, when this person is the representative either of the debtor or of the creditor: if he is a representative of the creditor, and the money is lost before payment, it is lost to the creditor and is considered as having been paid; but if he is the representative of the debtor, it is lost to him, and is still to be paid, for it is not considered as having been acquitted."° And so the Lord Gregory IX, a man extremely well versed in law both human and divine, and intimately aware of the spirit of blessed Francis, gave this definitive answer:
"Tf the Friars desire to buy something they need, or to make payment for something they have acquired, they are permitted to present to anyone who is willing to make alms to them either a representative of the one from whom the object was purchased, or any other man who thus presented by the Friars is not their delegate, but the delegate of the one by whose command the payment is to be made, or of
DEFENSE OF THE MENDICANTS
the one who is to receive the payment; and this delegate is entitled, as would be the owner of the money, to deposit into the hands of a spiritual or close friend of the Friars the alms entrusted to him, so that such alms may be spent by this friend as it seems fit, at the time and place best suited to the Friars' needs."'** From this it appears clearly that the Rule of the Friars
Minor is not in disharmony with their way of life, nor their way of common life with the Rule. For they never profess that no one is to provide for them, or to make alms personally or through an interposed person, since this would be impossible and foolish for a community of mendicant poor: they merely profess that, in the manner handed down through the Gospel by evangelical men, they possess no money whatsoever.
14. And if anyone happens to object that there is absolutely no holiness in the lack of money, he is not only calumniating the Rule of the Mendicants, but even more so cf. Mt. 10:9 the Gospel of Christ, in which money was actually forbidden to the apostles, as the text expressly states, and the Mk. 6:8
Lk. 9:3 saints construe in their writings.f And so we should not believe in any way whatsoever that such a proposition was made to the most perfect men by the Master of Truth without His knowing that through it there would accrue to them the merit of perfect virtue and of outstanding holiness.
Since, indeed, it is very hard to travel through unknown regions and desert lands without sufficient resources, and since these men must necessarily go through life in hunger and thirst,...in cold and nakedness, if no increase in 2 Cor. 11:27 merit or holiness were to come from this manner of life, t Cf. ch. VIL, 4G 9-12.
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to teach, profess, or practice it would be nothing less than insanity.
15. But instead, as it appears from the last point of the preceding answer,f there are twelve reasons of the greatest and most wonderful value for the penurious poverty imposed upon the first twelve apostles, and these reasons are represented by the twelve gems of the ephod. And because this enemy of the poor ignored them, treading like a swine upon such pearls, he bursts out with these blasphemous words from his polluted lips: "Had blessed Francis believed that holiness consisted in the lack of money, or in abstention from it, or had he asserted that the Lord forbade money to the perfect, before the Lord, I dare to say that he was mistaken."
— But it is a fact that blessed Francis forbade the possession or contact of money to his imitators for no other reason than that he believed with pious conviction and knew with certain truth that there was some sanctity in this abstention: not that money would be evil, or that wealth would be formally or causally culpable," or that money could not be owned or touched without sin, but because, of all the things to be possessed, money is the most alluring, the most easily attractive and distracting, not only for the imperfect but also for the perfect; and because he perceived, under the dictation of the Holy Spirit, that sanctity consists not only in the avoidance of sin, but also in the flight from occasions of sin. Thus he rightly believed that there was holiness in this abstention, and he was not mistaken. And so, when a man asserts that this foremost imitator of Christ, signed with His stigmata, inscribed in the roster of the saints, and accepted with veneration by the + CE. ch. IX, (J 1341.
DEFENSE OF THE MENDICANTS
universal Church, has actually fallen into error, particularly as regards the profession and practice of evangelical life, he is attacking not only blessed Francis, but truly also the universal Church; and, which is more, he is also blaspheming against the teachings and life of the Master of Truth and of His disciples.
Furthermore, as another Aman filled with the greatest cf. Est. 3:6ff. pride, he even esteems that those who profess the rule are worthy of a sentence of death in time, and of damnation in eternity, as being approbators of error. As for this last absurdity which pious ears strongly abhor, we believe that the supporters of holy poverty should rather weep than speak, rather beg for the assistance of a spiritual Esther than indulge in a battle of words. cf. ibid. 4:1ff.
16. It is upon thee, O most holy Roman Church, like another Esther lifted up among nations as the mother of all churches, as their queen and teacher to propose and defend the truths of both morals and faith, it is upon thee that the mass of the Mendicants now trustingly call, so that those thou hast borne as a mother thou mayest now raise as a nurse, and also powerfully and justly defend as a queen, since for this purpose, through divine disposition, thou hast deserved to attain the supreme summit of pontifical and royal dignity, in order that thou mayest, in such straits, prepare the defense needed for the protection of Christ's people. Arise, therefore, Holy Mother, and defend your
Ps, 73:22 cause, for if this Order of Mendicant Friars Minor properly professes the truth of the Gospel, it concerns thee; and if in their profession they deviate from the truth thou hast sanc~ tioned, it also concerns thee. If an error is imputed to such a holy profession, it is thou, who hast sanctioned it, who art accused of error. Thou, who hast stood out so long as
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the teacher of truth, art now denounced as a proponent of error, and mocked by some presumptuous modern minds as being ignorant of divine and human right.
17. But thou, O most worthy Queen of the World,} defender of the poor and advocate of the humble, much more sublime than Esther in thine exaltation before the nations and in thy preparation throughout the times, be aroused by the cry of thy Mardochai, that is, Francis, so that thou mayest appeal to the King in order that, through thy sacred examples and merits, he may glorify and support the state of the Mendicants, which He desired to conform to thine own and unite with thee with special closeness. What, indeed, gives more fuel to the love of poverty, what more clearly declares its prerogatives and glory than thy manner of life, O most blessed Virgin and Mother of our Lord Jesus
Christ, whose poverty was so deep that, as witnessed by the sacred narrative of the Gospel, in the very act of the most holy childbearing, thou didst have no place to lay down the God of Heaven and Lord of Hosts but a public road for ef. ERE 2:7 travelers and a manger for beasts? And so, if thou, O most holy Virgin, art the exemplar of all perfection, as thy virginity is to be imitated by the perfect together with thy humility,"* so also is thy deep poverty. It is a fact, based on the strength both of the Gospel and of the declarations of Doctors, that thou hast lived in extreme want of temporal goods, since Chrysostom says that thou didst possess but one poor garment, not an ornament for beauty, but a covcf. ibid. ering against nakedness;** and Bede, that in offering and presenting the King of kings to the Temple, thou couldst not even afford to give a single small lamb, and hence, in t Preceding paragraph was addressed to Mother Church.
The author is now addressing the Mother of God.
DEFENSE OF THE MENDICANTS
the manner of the poor, thou gavest but a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons."® Those who, through their
Lk. 2:24 desire and their profession, through the outward sign of dress and truthful observance, make constant effort to conform to thee through poverty, really belong to thee: they are the spiritual Jews whose circumcision is not in the flesh but in the spirit, and consists in joyfully bearing a multiple want, and completely renouncing all temporal good. Deign,
O Queen of Mercy, especially and kindly to favor these, thine own; to protect them powerfully against the assaults cf. Rom. 2:28
Cawhil. 3:37. of the enemy; and to lead a triumphant battle against this man, their worst enemy: not that, like Aman, he should die by hanging, but that his pride may be lowered, his error condemned, his intelligence enlightened, his will straightened, and his spirit saved. eee Cor:5:5