Abstract
From the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries, untold numbers of penitents emerged throughout Christian Europe. Enthusiastic God-seekers all, most embraced a lifestyle of evangelical poverty, imitating, in what they took to be a literal fashion, the ministry of Jesus and his disciples. The practices of these holy men and women inevitably thrust a challenge to the power, authority, and wealth of the institutional church that appeared to be compromising the purity of the gospel message by comparison. Some, such as the Humiliati, were able to implement their vision with the support and approval of the institutional church. Others, such as the Waldensians, began their penitential work of preaching with the approbation of the institutional church, but eventually their enthusiasm led some to espouse practices and teachings unacceptable to the institutional church. And finally others, notably those called the Cathars—Albigensians in France and Bogomils in Eastern Europe, adopted dualistic doctrines to nurture their evangelical lifestyle with the result that many were slaughtered as heretics by the church that originally inspired them.
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Notes
This is his Legenda maior, which was commissioned at the general chapter of Narbonne in 1260, presented to the Franciscan leadership at the chapter of Pisa in 1263, and approved at the chapter of Paris in 1266 as the official version of Francis’s life for the order. Subsequent references will be the standard chapter and paragraph numbers. A good translation, with helpful annotations to earlier documents on Francis, may be found in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Vol. II, The Founder, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, J. A. Wayne Hellmann, William J. Short (New York: New City Press, 2000), pp. 525–649. For Bonaventure’s Itinerarium mentis in Deum and the Lignum vitae, I recommend the English translation by Ewert Cousins as found in The Soul’s Journey into God; The Tree of Life; The Life of St. Francis (New York: Paulist Press, 1978).
Paul Sabatier, Vie de saint François d’Assise (Paris: Librarie Fischbacher, 1931.
John Moorman, The Sources for the Life of St. Francis of Assisi (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1940), p. 141.
So called by the Franciscan chroniclers, Jordan of Giano and Thomas of Eccleston. See Dominic Monti, “Introduction,” in St. Bonaventure’s Writings Concerning the Franciscan Order (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 1994), pp. 17–19.
Laud 31 in Jacopone da Todi, The Lauds, trans. Serge and Elizabeth Hughes (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), p. 123.
This motif of the significance of religious experience for the theology of Bonaventure is a characteristic feature in the writings of Zachary Hayes, the foremost English language interpreter of the theology of Bonaventure. See, e.g., his “Bonaventure of Bagnoregio: A Paradigm for Franciscan Theologians?” in The Franciscan Intellectual Tradition (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 2002), pp. 49
See Zachary Hayes, “Foreword” in The Disciple and Master: St. Bonaventure’s Sermons on St. Francis of Assisi, ed. and trans. Eric Doyle (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), pp. x–xi.
Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity, trans. Zachary Hayes (St. Bonaventure: Franciscan Institute, 1979), I,2. See also Zachary Hayes, “Bonaventure and the Mystery of the Triune God,” in Kenan B. Osborne, ed., The History of Franciscan Theology (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 1994), p. 49.
See Zachary Hayes, “Incarnation and Creation in the Theology of St. Bonaventure,” in Romano Stephen Almagno and Conrad Harkins, eds., Studies Honoring Ignatius Charles Brady Friar Minor (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 1976), pp. 309–329
For this view, see E. Randolph Daniel, “St. Bonaventure: A Faithful Disciple of St. Francis? A Reexamination of the Question,” in S. Bonaventura 1274–1974. II: Studia de vita, mente, fontibus et operibus Sancti Bonaventurae (Grottaferrata [Rome]: Collegio S. Bonaventura, 1973), pp. 181–82.
In this reading I am accepting the conclusion of J. A. Wayne Hellmann, who has argued that Thomas of Celano was the source of the use of this image for interpreting the vision of Francis on Mt. Alverna. For an example of his treatment of this thesis, see “The Seraph in Thomas of Celano’s Vita Prima” in Michael F. Cusato, OFM and F. Edward Coughlin, OFM, eds., That Others May Know and Love: Essays in Honor of Zachary Hayes, OFM (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 1997), pp. 23–41.
This reflects the interpretation of Bonaventure’s eschatology, particularly the difficult passage from Hexaemeron XXII, 22–23, proposed by Eric Doyle. See “St. Bonaventure and St. Francis: The Disciple and The Master,” in The Disciple and the Master: St. Bonaventure’s Sermons on St. Francis of Assisi (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), pp. 14–22.
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© 2009 Cynthia Ho, Beth A. Mulvaney, and John K. Downey
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Apczynski, J.V. (2009). What has Paris to do with Assisi? The Theological Creation of a Saint. In: Ho, C., Mulvaney, B.A., Downey, J.K. (eds) Finding Saint Francis in Literature and Art. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230623736_6
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