[17] My references to the Psalms are according to the notation of the Vulgate. Perhaps it may be necessary to state for the benefit of readers not well acquainted with the Vulgate, that “Eccli.” is a reference to Ecclesiasticus or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, and not to Ecclesiastes (Eccl.) or the Wisdom of the Preacher.
[18] This chapter is wanting a title in all the Codexes. I have taken the liberty of styling it “In Praise of Poverty.”
[19] In contradistinction, e.g. to the Meek who shall possess the Land (Matt. v. 4). Only the persecuted for Justice’s sake have the same immediate privilege as the Poor in Spirit (Matt. v. 10). We shall see later on that Persecution is the noblest and most helpful of all the Lady Poverty’s sisters.
[20] Though the Author here quotes Psalm xxiii. 10, “Dominus Virtutum,” he is, from the context which follows, obviously not referring to the Lord of Hosts or Sabaoth, nor to the Virtues as one of the Orders of Angels, but to God as the Lord of the Moral Perfections.
[21] “Non sum rudis,” I am not raw or new, says the Writer, quoting Matt. ix. 16: “Nemo autem immittit commissuram panni rudis in vestimentum vetus”: No man putteth a piece of new or raw cloth into an old garment.
[22] So that Man’s first transgression after his original Sin, was, by this, his first acquisition of property, a Sin against the High Doctrine of the Lady Poverty.
[23] King James’ Bible has “ten thousand times ten thousand.”
[24] There is in a part of this Chapter so intricate an interweaving of Pauline phrases, that I make no attempt to indicate them by references.
[25] In this terrible picture of Religious life at its lowest ebb, some allowance must be made for the fervid imagination and righteous wrath of the holy writer (“quidam sanctus doctor hujus sanctae Paupertatis professor et zelator strenuus”). But even with sloth, gluttony, intemperance, greed of gain, hypocrisy, and ungodliness running riot in a whole Community, it is profitable to the historian to note that there is not a hint of unchastity, the truth being that a Community wholly unchaste is one of those rarities of history sought in the past, and desired, I fear, by certain historians, but scarcely existing outside the cruel inventions of interested despoilers. And lest any be amazed that the Religious life should ever have fallen even half as low as is here portrayed, let them remember that the higher the ideal, the further the fall when it comes, and that the Lady Poverty has ever punished her betrayers by the completest degradation.
[26] “Terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata.” This occurs in the Chapter at Prime in the Office of Our Lady, and hence it is here used in connection with that other Lady, Madonna Povertà. The translator of the “Meditazione,” finding it would have no associations in Italian (as of course it has none in English), quietly drops it, but I cannot take so great a liberty, nor allow myself to hide the vivid and touching imagination which the pious author thus betrays. Throughout the whole allegory the influence of the Liturgy is conspicuous.