The Mendicant friars won their fame by faithful and earnest labors.
Men admired them because they identified themselves with the lowest of
mankind and heroically devoted themselves to the poor and sick. These
“sturdy beggars,” as Francis called his companions, were contrasted
with the lazy, rich, and, too often, licentious monks of the other
orders. Everywhere the friars were received with veneration and joy.
The people sought burial in their rags, believing that, clothed in the
garments of these holy beggars, they would enter paradise more
speedily.
Instead of seeking the seclusion of the convent to save his own
soul, the friar displayed remarkable zeal trying to save mankind. He
became the arbiter in the quarrels of princes, the prime mover in
treaties between nations, and the indispensable counselor in political
complications. The pope employed him as his authorized agent in the
most difficult matters touching the welfare of the church. His
influence upon the common people is thus described by the historian
Green: “The theory of government wrought out in the cell and
lecture-room was carried over the length and breadth of the land by the
Mendicant brother begging his way from town to town, chatting with the
farmer or housewife at the cottage door and setting up his portable
pulpit in village green or market-place. The rudest countryman learned
the tale of a king's oppression or a patriot's hope as he listened to
the rambling, passionate, humorous discourse of the beggar friar.”
By these methods the Mendicants were enabled to render most
efficient service to their patrons at Rome in their efforts to
establish their temporal power. They were, in fact, before the
Reformation, just what the Jesuits afterwards became, “the very soul of
the hierarchy.” Yes, they were immensely, prodigiously successful. The
popes hastened to do them honor. Because the friars were such
enthusiastic supporters of the church, the popes poured gold and
privileges into their capacious coffers. Thankful peasants threw in
their mites and the admiring noble bestowed his estates.
The secular clergy, with envy and chagrin, awoke to the alarming
fact that the beggars had won the hearts of the people; their hatred
was increased by the fact that when the Roman pontiffs enriched these
indefatigable toilers and valiant foes of heresy, they did so at the
expense of the bishops and clergy, which, perhaps, was robbing Paul to
pay Peter.
Baluzii says: “No religious order had the distribution of so many
and such ample indulgences as the Franciscans. In place of fixed
revenues, lucrative indulgences were placed in their hands.” So
ill-judged was the distribution of these favors that discipline was
overturned. Many churchmen, feeling that their rights were being
encroached upon, complained bitterly, and resolved on retaliation. It
is just here that a potent cause of the Mendicant's fall is to be
found. He helped to dig his own grave.
Having elevated monasticism to the zenith of its power, the
Mendicant orders, like all the other monastic brotherhoods, entered
upon their shameful decline. The unexampled prosperity, so inconsistent
with the original intentions of the founders of the orders, was
attended by corruptions and excesses. The decrees of councils, the
denunciations of popes and high ecclesiastical dignitaries, the satires
of literature, the testimony of chroniclers and the formation of
reformatory orders, constitute a body of irrefragable evidence proving
that the lowest level of sensuality, superstition and ignorance had
been reached. The monks and friars lost whatever vigor and piety they
ever possessed.
It is again evident that a monk cannot serve God and mammon. Success
ruins him. Wealth and popular favor change his character. The people
slowly realize the fact that the fat and lazy medieval monk is not
dead, after all, but has simply changed his name to that of Begging
Friar. As Allen neatly observes: “Their gray gown and knotted cord
wrapped a spiritual pride and capacity of bigotry, fully equal to the
rest.”
Here, then, are the “sturdy beggars” of Francis, dwelling in
palatial convents, arrogant and proud, trampling their ideal into the
dust. Thus it came to pass in accordance with the principle stated at
the beginning of this chapter, that when the ideal became a cloak to
cover up sham, decay had set in, and ruin, even though delayed for
years, was sure to come. The poor, sad-faced, honest, faithful friar
everybody praised, loved and reverenced. The insolent, contemptuous,
rich monk all men loathed. So a change of character in the friar
transformed the songs of praise into shouts of condemnation. Those
golden rays from the morning sun of the Reformation are ascending
toward the highest heaven, and daybreak is near.
In many respects it would be perfectly proper to consider the Mendicant orders as the last stage in the evolution of the monastic institution. Although the Jesuitical system rests upon the three vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience, yet the ascetic principle is reduced to a minimum in that society. Father Thomas E. Sherman, the son of the famous general, and a Jesuit of distinguished ability, has declared: “We are not, as some seem to think, a semi-military band of men, like the Templars of the Middle Ages. We are not a monastic order, seeking happiness in lonely withdrawal from our fellows. Our enemies within and without the church would like to make us monks, for then we would be comparatively useless, since that is not our end or aim.... We are regulars in the army of Christ; that is, men vowed to poverty, chastity and obedience; we are a collegiate body with the right to teach granted by the Catholic church[G].”
[Footnote G: Appendix, Note G.]
The early religious orders were based upon the idea of retirement from the world for the purpose of acquiring holiness. But as has already been shown, the constant tendency of the religious communities was toward participation in the world's affairs. This tendency became very marked among the friars, who traveled from place to place, and occupied important university positions, and it reaches its culmination in the Society of Jesus. Retirement among the Jesuits is employed merely as a preparation for active life. Constant intercourse with society was provided for in the constitution of the order. Bishop John J. Keane, a Roman Catholic authority, says: “The clerks regular, instituted principally since the sixteenth century, were neither monks nor friars, but priests living in common and busied with the work of the ministry. The Society of Jesus is one of the orders of clerks regular.”
Other differences between the monastic communities and the Jesuits are to be observed. The Jesuit discards the monastic gown, and is decidedly averse to the old monastic asceticism, with its rigorous and painful treatment of the body. While the older religious societies were essentially democratic in spirit and government, the monks sharing in the control of the monastic property and participating in the election of superiors, the Jesuitical system is intensely monarchical, a despotism pure and simple. In the older orders, the welfare of the individual was jealously guarded and his sanctification was sought. Among the Jesuits the individual is nothing, the corporate body everything. Admission to the monastic orders was encouraged and easily obtained. The novitiate of the Jesuits is long and difficult. Access to the highest grades of the order is granted only to those who have served the society many weary years.
[Illustration: IGNATIUS DE LOYOLA
AFTER GREATBACH'S ENGRAVING FROM THE WIERZ PRINT
BENTON: ALBERT BRANDT, PUBLISHER, 1900]
But in spite of such variations from the old monastic type, the Society of Jesus would doubtless never have appeared, had not the way for its existence been paved by previous monastic societies. Its aims and its methods were the natural sequence of monastic history. They were merely a development of past experiences, for the objects of the society were practically the objects of the Mendicants; the vows were the same with a change of emphasis. The abandonment of austerities as a means of salvation or spiritual power was the natural fruit of past experiments that had proved the uselessness of asceticism merely for the sake of acquiring a spirit of self-denial. The extirpation of heresy undertaken by Ignatius had already been attempted by the friars, while the education of the young had long been carried on with considerable success by the Benedictine and Dominican monks. The spirit of its founder, however, gave the Society of Jesus a unique character, and monasticism now passed out from the cell forever. The Jesuit may fairly be regarded as a monk, unlike any of his predecessors but nevertheless the legitimate fruit of centuries of monastic experience.