6.
CHAPTER VI
THE COMPLAINT OF BOOKS AGAINST THE
MENDICANTS
POOR in spirit, but most rich in faith, off-scourings
of the world and salt of the earth,
despisers of the world and fishers of men, how
happy are ye, if suffering penury for Christ ye
know how to possess your souls in patience! For
it is not want the avenger of iniquity, nor the
adverse fortune of your parents, nor violent necessity
that has thus oppressed you with beggary, but a
devout will and Christ-like election, by which ye
have chosen that life as the best, which God
Almighty made man as well by word as by example
declared to be the best. In truth, ye are the
latest offspring of the ever-fruitful Church, of late
divinely substituted for the Fathers and the Prophets,
that your sound may go forth into all the earth, and
that instructed by our healthful doctrines ye may
preach before all kings and nations the invincible
faith of Christ. Moreover, that the faith of the
Fathers is chiefly enshrined in books the second
chapter has sufficiently shown, from which it is
clearer than light that ye ought to be zealous lovers
of books above all other Christians. Ye are commanded
to sow upon all waters, because the Most
High is no respecter of persons, nor does the Most
Holy desire the death of sinners, who offered Himself
to die for them, but desires to heal the contrite
in heart, to raise the fallen, and to correct the perverse
in the spirit of lenity. For which most salutary
purpose our kindly Mother Church has planted
you freely, and having planted has watered you with
favours, and having watered you has established you
with privileges, that ye may be co-workers with
pastors and curates in procuring the salvation of faithful
souls. Wherefore, that the order of Preachers
was principally instituted for the study of the Holy
Scriptures and the salvation of their neighbours, is
declared by their constitutions, so that not only from
the rule of Bishop Augustine, which directs books to
be asked for every day, but as soon as they have read
the prologue of the said constitutions they may know
from the very title of the same that they are pledged
to the love of books.
But alas! a threefold care of superfluities, viz., of
the stomach, of dress, and of houses, has seduced these
men and others following their example from the
paternal care of books, and from their study. For,
forgetting the providence of the Saviour (who is
declared by the Psalmist to think upon the poor and
needy), they are occupied with the wants of the
perishing body, that their feasts may be splendid and
their garments luxurious, against the rule, and the
fabrics of their buildings, like the battlements of
castles, carried to a height incompatible
with poverty. Because of these three things, we books, who have
ever procured their advancement and have granted
them to sit among the powerful and noble, are put
far from their heart's affection and are reckoned
as superfluities; except that they rely upon some
treatises of small value, from which they derive
strange heresies and apocryphal imbecilities, not for
the refreshment of souls, but rather for tickling the
ears of the listeners. The Holy Scripture is not
expounded, but is neglected and treated as though it
were commonplace and known to all, though very
few have touched its hem, and though its depth is
such, as Holy Augustine declares, that it cannot be
understood by the human intellect, however long it
may toil with the utmost intensity of study. From
this he who devotes himself to it assiduously, if only
He will vouchsafe to open the door who has established
the spirit of piety, may unfold a thousand
lessons of moral teaching, which will flourish with
the freshest novelty and will cherish the intelligence
of the listeners with the most delightful savours.
Wherefore the first professors of evangelical poverty,
after some slight homage paid to secular science, collecting
all their force of intellect, devoted themselves
to labours upon the sacred scripture, meditating day
and night on the law of the Lord. And whatever
they could steal from their famishing belly, or intercept
from their half-covered body, they thought it
the highest gain to spend in buying or correcting
books. Whose worldly contemporaries observing
their devotion and study bestowed upon them for
the edification of the whole Church the books which
they had collected at great expense in the various
parts of the world.
In truth, in these days as ye are engaged with all
diligence in pursuit of gain, it may be reasonably
believed, if we speak according to human notions,
that God thinks less upon those whom He perceives
to distrust His promises, putting their hope in human
providence, not considering the raven, nor the lilies,
whom the Most High feeds and arrays. Ye do not
think upon Daniel and the bearer of the mess of
boiled pottage, nor recollect Elijah who was delivered
from hunger once in the desert by angels, again in
the torrent by ravens, and again in Sarepta by the
widow, through the divine bounty, which gives to all
flesh their meat in due season. Ye descend (as we
fear) by a wretched anticlimax, distrust of the divine
goodness producing reliance upon your own prudence,
and reliance upon your own prudence begetting
anxiety about worldly things, and excessive anxiety
about worldly things taking away the love as well as
the study of books; and thus poverty in these days
is abused to the injury of the Word of God, which
ye have chosen only for profit's sake.
With summer fruit, as the people gossip, ye attract
boys to religion, whom when they have taken the
vows ye do not instruct by fear and force, as their age
requires, but allow them to devote themselves to
begging expeditions, and suffer them to spend the
time, in which they might be learning, in procuring
the favour of friends, to the annoyance of their
parents, the danger of the boys, and the detriment of
the order. And thus no doubt it happens that those
who were not compelled to learn as unwilling boys,
when they grow up presume to teach though utterly
unworthy and unlearned, and a small error in the
beginning becomes a very great one in the end. For
there grows up among your promiscuous flock of
laity a pestilent multitude of creatures, who nevertheless
the more shamelessly force themselves into the
office of preaching, the less they understand what they
are saying, to the contempt of the Divine Word and
the injury of souls. In truth, against the law ye
plough with an ox and an ass together, in committing
the cultivation of the Lord's field to learned and
unlearned. Side by side, it is written, the oxen were
ploughing and the asses feeding beside them: since
it is the duty of the discreet to preach, but of the
simple to feed themselves in silence by the hearing of
sacred eloquence. How many stones ye fling upon
the heap of Mercury nowadays! How many marriages
ye procure for the eunuchs of wisdom! How
many blind watchmen ye bid go round about the
walls of the Church!
O idle fishermen, using only the nets of others,
which when torn it is all ye can do to clumsily repair,
but can net no new ones of your own! ye enter on
the labours of others, ye repeat the lessons of others,
ye mouth with theatric effort the superficially repeated
wisdom of others. As the silly parrot imitates the
words that he has heard, so such men are mere reciters
of all, but authors of nothing, imitating Balaam's
ass, which, though senseless of itself, yet became eloquent
of speech and the teacher of its master though
a prophet. Recover yourselves, O poor in Christ,
and studiously regard us books, without which ye can
never be properly shod in the preparation of the
Gospel of Peace.
Paul the Apostle, preacher of the truth and excellent
teacher of the nations, for all his gear bade three
things to be brought to him by Timothy, his cloak,
books and parchments, affording an example to
ecclesiastics that they should wear dress in moderation,
and should have books for aid in study, and parchments,
which the Apostle especially esteems, for
writing: and especially, he says, the parchments.
And truly that clerk is crippled and maimed to his
disablement in many ways, who is entirely ignorant
of the art of writing. He beats the air with words
and edifies only those who are present, but does
nothing for the absent and for posterity. The man
bore a writer's ink-horn upon his loins, who set a
mark
Tau upon the foreheads of the men that sigh
and cry,
Ezechiel ix.; teaching in a figure that if
any lack skill in writing, he shall not undertake the
task of preaching repentance.
Finally, in conclusion of the present chapter, books
implore of you: make your young men who though
ignorant are apt of intellect apply themselves to
study, furnishing them with necessaries, that ye may
teach them not only goodness but discipline and
science, may terrify them by blows, charm them by
blandishments, mollify them by gifts, and urge them
on by painful rigour, so that they may become at
once Socratics in morals and Peripatetics in learning.
Yesterday, as it were at the eleventh hour, the prudent
householder introduced you into his vineyard.
Repent of idleness before it is too late: would that
with the cunning steward ye might be ashamed of
begging so shamelessly; for then no doubt ye would
devote yourselves more assiduously to us books and to
study.
