"My brothers, my brothers, God has called me by way of simplicity and humility, and has shown me in verity this path for me and those who want to believe and follow me; so I want you to talk of no Rule to me, neither Saint Benedict nor Saint Augustine nor Saint Bernard, nor any way or form of Life whatever except that which God has mercifully pointed out and granted to me. And God said that he wanted me to be a pauper [poverello] and an idiot—a great fool—in this world, and would not lead us by any other path of science than this. But by your science and syllogisms God will confound you, and I trust in God's warders, the devils, that through them God shall punish you, and you will yet come back to your proper station with shame, whether you will or no."
The narration continues: "Tunc cardinalis obstupuit valde et nihil respondit. Et omnes fratres plurimum timuerunt."
One feels that the reporter has not exaggerated a word; on the contrary, he softened the scandal, because in his time the Cardinal had gained his point, and Francis was dead. One can hear Francis beginning with some restraint, and gradually carried away by passion till he lost control of himself and his language: "'God told me, with his own words, that he meant me to be a beggar and a great fool, and would not have us on any other terms; and as for your science, I trust in God's devils who will beat you out of it, as you deserve.' And the Cardinal was utterly dumbfounded and answered nothing; and all the brothers were scared to death." The Cardinal Hugolino was a great schoolman, and Dominic was then founding the famous order in which the greatest of all doctors, Albertus Magnus, was about to begin his studies. One can imagine that the Cardinal "obstupuit valde," and that Dominic felt shaken in his scheme of school instruction. For a single instant, in the flash of Francis's passion, the whole mass of five thousand monks in a state of semi- ecstasy recoiled before the impassable gulf that opened between them and the Church.
No one was to blame—no one ever is to blame—because God wanted contradictory things, and man tried to carry out, as he saw them, God's trusts. The schoolmen saw their duty in one direction; Francis saw his in another; and, apparently, when both lines had been carried, after such fashion as might be, to their utmost results, and five hundred years had been devoted to the effort, society declared both to be failures. Perhaps both may some day be revived, for the two paths seem to be the only roads that can exist, if man starts by taking for granted that there is an object to be reached at the end of his journey. The Church, embracing all mankind, had no choice but to march with caution, seeking God by every possible means of intellect and study. Francis, acting only for himself, could throw caution aside and trust implicitly in God, like the children who went on crusade. The two poles of social and political philosophy seem necessarily to be organization or anarchy; man's intellect or the forces of nature. Francis saw God in nature, if he did not see nature in God; as the builders of Chartres saw the Virgin in their apse. Francis held the simplest and most childlike form of pantheism. He carried to its last point the mystical union with God, and its necessary consequence of contempt and hatred for human intellectual processes. Even Saint Bernard would have thought his ideas wanting in that "mesure" which the French mind so much prizes. At the same time we had best try, as innocently as may be, to realize that no final judgment has yet been pronounced, either by the Church or by society or by science, on either or any of these points; and until mankind finally settles to a certainty where it means to go, or whether it means to go anywhere,—what its object is, or whether it has an object,—Saint Francis may still prove to have been its ultimate expression. In that case, his famous chant— the "Cantico del Sole"—will be the last word of religion, as it was probably its first. Here it is—too sincere for translation:—
CANTICO DEL SOLE
… Laudato sie, misignore, con tucte le tue creature spetialmente messor lo frate sole lo quale iorno et allumini noi per loi et ellu e bellu e radiante cum grande splendore de te, altissimo, porta significatione.
Laudato si, misignore, per sora luna e le stelle in celu lai formate clarite et pretiose et belle.
Laudato si, misignore, per frate vento et per aere et nubilo et sereno et onne tempo per lo quale a le tue creature dai sustentamento.
Laudato si, misignore, per sor aqua
la quale e multo utile et humile et pretiosa et casta.
Laudato si, misignore, per frate focu
per lo quale enallumini la nocte
ed ello e bello et jocondo et robustoso et forte.
Laudato si, misignore, per sora nostra matre terra la quale ne sustenta et governa et produce diversi fructi con coloriti flori et herba. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Laudato si, misignore, per sora nostra morte corporale de la quale nullu homo vivente po skappare guai acquelli ke morrano ne le peccata mortali….