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Francisus: Inter Minores Minimus

by Regis J. Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap.

"Translation is a tricky art form: the choice of a single word can determine the arc of an entire

work," Bea Basso declared emphatically. The National Public Radio interview of the award-

winning, professional translator continued: “There is no such thing as a literal translation. By

nature of choosing one word or another, you influence the next step. It does not start from within

the artist. Instead, the translator must perform an act of alchemy upon an existing work, using his

or her vision to channel it from one language and just as importantly, one culture, to another.”1

Ordo fratrum minorum seems a pretty straight-forward phrase and, therefore, one easily

translated into English as “The Order of Friars Minor.” That is until you attempt to express

“friars” and, particularly, “minor” into a more contemporary idiom, specifically as “The Order of

Lesser Brothers.” One might judge that translation as going against the tradition of being known

as “’Friars Minor,” or another that, among other difficulties, it would require changes to civil,

legal documents, while yet another stated, in reference to the translation of minor, he found it

“both condescending and offensive”.

If the purpose of Constitutions is “to show us how best to observe the Rule in the changing

circumstances of life in order to safeguard our identity and to give it concrete expression,” then

how the title of the Rule is translated becomes a key describing its gifts, i.e., its charisms. If we

accept Pope Francis’s observation—“The charism is not a bottle of distilled water. It needs to be

lived energetically as well as reinterpreted culturally…”—then this first step of the translation

process is important.2

The Quandary

An initial historical question may be: what was Honorius III intending in 1223 by placing the

1 Bea Basso, “The Art of Translation.” All Things Considered. National Public Radio, November 20,

2008. 2 Anthony Spadarro, «WAKE UP THE WORLD!» Conversation with Pope Francis about Religious

Life. URL (Dec 1, 2013) http://www.laciviltacattolica.it/articoli_download/extra/Wake_up_the_world.pdf

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papal seal on a document entitled the Regula Ordinis Fratrum Minorum? To approve an Ordo was

in many ways to approve “an ordered structure of cultural systems by which religious explain

their identity to themselves and to outsiders.”3 That Honorius III gave a more definitive, written

approval to a form of life that his predecessor, Innocent III, had given orally in 1209 is surprising,

given that the thirteenth decree of the Fourth Lateran Council six years later would prohibit such

an action. 4 What is more surprising is the ‘capricious’ nature of this particular ordo whose

members were not to have any place they would call their own, not to take provision for the

morrow, and not to establish an “ordered” system of government, i.e., all were equally brothers

ministering to or serving one another. Idealistic as it seemed, the members of this Ordo vowed

themselves to observe the Gospel ad litteram and sine glossa.

From this vantage point, the challenge of translating the simple word frater into

contemporary idiom has important consequences. Frater: living in “this gospel culture”—“this

ordo”— as a frater implies being a frater vis-à-vis a monacus, a frater-presbyter vis-à-vis a frater-

laicus, and in a fraternitas vis-à-vis a communitas, all of which distinctions touch on a variety of

role-models and styles of life. One approach to resolving this difficulty has been acceptance of the

old English translation of frater or frère, that is “friar.” Another approach might be to drop frater

from the title and fall back on the formula Ordo Minorum by using this argument:

Fratres Minores are two substantives. Fratres can stand alone and it refers to brotherliness; Minores can also stand alone and refers to minority. Minores is not an adjective describing Fratres. This is attested to in the longstanding Capuchin tradition of using the letters O.Min [Order of Minors], previous to the adoption of OFM Cap. As recent as Benedict XVI, popes have referred to the Franciscan Family as “the Order of Minors”, e.g., the 2011 Decree of Benedict XVI honoring the 800th anniversary of the Poor Clare Nuns (Prot. N. 503/11/I) in which he stated, ‘the noble virgin Clare...established the Poor Ladies of the Order of Minors.’ So, just as Fratres indicates part of our core identity, so too does

3 Patricia Wittberg, “Deep Structure in Community Cultures: The Revival of Religious Orders in Roman

Catholicism,” Sociology of Religion, 58:3 (1997): 239-259 4 Fourth Lateran Council, Decree XIII: “Lest too great a variety of religious orders leads to grave

confusion in God's church, we strictly forbid anyone henceforth to found a new religious order. Whoever wants to become a religious should enter one of the already approved orders. Likewise, whoever wishes to found a new religious house should take the rule and institutes from already approved religious orders. We forbid, moreover, anyone to attempt to have a place as a monk in more than one monastery or an abbot to preside over more than one monastery.”

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Minores.”5

Minor is fraught with modern-day interpretations. Because of its nature—a comparative or

diminutive adjective of parvus—it is far more problematic. As we shall see, it was Francis of

Assisi who wanted his brothers to be called minores and, oddly enough, never clearly explained,

at least in writing, what he meant by it. Is translating minor literally as “lesser” in the context of

Ordo Fratrum Minorum really as “condescending and offensive” as that one critic asserts?6 Here

too, a translator might simply leave the English phrase as “Order of Friars Minor,” arguing that it

is more traditional, the civil term that is used, that it is more acceptable, and that it has no

adequate English translation.

Yet if Francis’s ordo is “an ordered structure of cultural systems through which religious

explain their identity to themselves and to outsiders,” 7 finding an adequate contemporary

translation of the opening phrase of his Rule is important. There is wisdom in accepting Basso’s

observation that “the choice of the translation of one single word can determine the arc of an

entire work”, particularly in this instance. The importance of the translation of the title, Ordo

Fratrum Minorum may easily influence the remainder of the text it hopes to “channel from one

language and just as importantly, one culture, to another.” The phrase introduces, in a manner of

speaking, “…the next step." We, Capuchins, maintain that “our Constitutions have always

retained the spiritual character and fundamental intention of Saint Francis.” How its “arc,” in this

5 Benedict XVI may have used the ambiguous term “Order of Minors” to straddle the narrow line of Franciscan origins of the Poor Clares. The use of O. Min., an abbreviated form of Ordo Fratrum Minorum ceased to be used during that epoch particularly after the Leonine Union in 1897 and more emphatically after 1909 when Pius X wrote Septimo iam in which reminded the friars of all three branches of the decrees of Leo X and Leo XIII concern the identification of their families as Order of Minors: sed tamen non sic hoc nomen interpretandum est, quasi in ipsa tantum familia omnis Ordo Minoricitus videatur consistere. Patet interpretationem huiusmodi et longe abesse a vero, et valde reliquis Minoritis non paucis esse iniuriosam […this name should not be interpreted in this way, namely, that it would seem that the entire Order of Minors is represented only in this family(i.e., the Order of Friars Minor of the Leonine Union). Such an interpretation is very far away from the truth, and it is highly insulting to the other Minors]. See Pope Pius X, Septimo iam, in Acta Apostolica Sedis 1,18 (1909) 732-733. See Noel Muscat, «’Septimo Iam’ and the Order of Friars Minor ‘of the Leonine Union’». http://i-tau.com/wp/?p=119#more-119 (accessed April 21, 2010).

6 “By identifying ourselves as ‘lesser’,” the same person asks, “are we using terminology that marks us as being among the “haves” in distinction to the very people with whom we want to identify?”

7 Wittberg, Deep Structures, 240.

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case, its title, is translated is pivotal to how we live our life as fratres minores.

A phrase from Francis’s Regula non bullata, the Earlier Rule VII 1, became the title for a

collection of articles devoted to the theme: “Minores et Subditi Omnibus:” Tratti Caratterizzanti

dell’Identità Francescana [“Lesser and Subject to All:” Characteristic Traits of Franciscan Identity]. 8

By far, the most thorough of these article is that of Fernando Uribe who studied minor from every

conceivable perspective—semantic, historical, and etiological. 9 Yet, even with the insights

provided in this first-of-its-kind study of the significance of being a frater minor, the phrase

continues to present problems.

Understanding the “Arc”

In his writings, Francis seems deliberately ambiguous about the adjective describing his brothers:

emphatic about its use, enigmatic about its meaning. Minor appears fourteen times in Esser’s

critical edition of his writings.10 Uribe goes out of his way to note that one of these is a reference

to intervals of time (RegB VIII 3); the remaining thirteen he divides into two sections:

• those that speak directly to the identity of the brothers themselves: (EpCust I 1; EpCus II

1; RegB I T, 1; RegNB V 12, VI 3; EpOrd 2; II EpFid 42; Adm XII 3;). In one of these

instances, Francis refers to himself as “minus servus vester [your minus servant]” (EpFid II

8 "Minores et Subditi Omnibus:" Tratti Caratterizzanti del’Identita Francescana, ed. Luigi Padovese (Roma: Laurentianum, 2003). The work contains articles by Frederick Raurell, "La Minorita degli Anawim nell'Antico Testamento, " Michele Mazzeo, "Sottomissione e minorità nel Nuovo Testamento: dai Vangeli all 1 Pietro," "Minores et Subditi Omnibus:" Tratti Caratterizzanti del’identità Francescana, ed. Luigi Padovese (Roma: Laurentianum, 2003): 43-78. Paolo Martinelli, "La Minorità: Segno dell'Amore Kenotico di Dio nella Chiesa e nella Societa," "Minores et Subdlti Ommbus:" Tratti Caratterizzanti del’identità Francescana, ed. Luigi Padovese (Roma: Laurentianum, 2003): 186-210. Yannis Spiteris, "'Hypotaghe" o "Minorita" nel Monachesimo Anticho," " Minores et Subditi Ommbus: " Tratti Caratterizzanti del’identita Francescana, ed. Luigi Padovese (Roma: Laurentianum, 2003: 79-97. Leonardo Lehmann, '"Sed Sint Minores:' La Minorità nella Regula non Bullata, Proposte e Reazioni," " Minores et Subditi Omnibus:" Tratti Caratterizzanti del ídentita Francescana, ed. Luigi Padovese (Roma: Laurentianum, 2003): 98-118. Bernard Holter, "'Sacerdotes Fraternitatis Humiles" (EpOrd 2). Il Sacerdozio Minoritico nella Visione di S. Francesco," " Minores et Subditi Ommbus: " Tratti Caratterizzanti del’Identita Francescana, ed. Luigi Padovese (Roma: Laurentianum, 2003): 161-174. Marco Bartoli, "La Minorità in Chiara d'Assisi, " "Minores et Subditi Omnibus:" Tratti Caratterizzanti del/identita Francescana, ed. Luigi Padovese (Roma: Laurentianum, 2003): 175-186.

9 Fernando Uribe, "'Omnes vocentur Fratres Minores" (Reg NB 6,3). Verso un identificazione della Minorita alla Luce degli Scritti di S. Francesco d'Assisi, " "Minores et Subditi Omnibus:" Tratti Caratterizzanti del/1dentita Francescana, ed. Luigi Padovese (Roma: Laurentianum, 2003): 119-160. I am indebted to the author for many of the insights in the article.

10 See Corpus des Sources Franciscaines V. Edited by Jean-François Godet and Georges Mailleux (Louvain: Université Catholique de Louvain, 1976), 173.

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87);

• those referring to what it means for the brothers to be minor in their dealing with one

another: “Et qui maior est inter eos fiat sicut minor [Let whoever is the greater among them

be as the minor] (Lk 22:26; RegNB V 12); “Let no one be called “prior [the first]” but let

everyone be called a frater minor [lesser brother]” (RegNB VI 3); “Let them instead be

minores and be subject to all…” (RegNB VII 2); “Let the one to whom obedience has been

entrusted and who is considered the maior be the minor and the servant of the others (Lk

22:26; II EpFid 42); and “…[let a brother] regard himself the more worthless and esteem

himself minorem than all others” (Adm XII).

Leonard Lehmann, using primarily Francis's Earlier Rule as the source and possibly relying

on an earlier interpretation of Dino Dozzi, recently analyzed the ways of being minor from two

perspectives: ad intra, that is within the fraternity itself, and ad extra, in serving, working and

living among others. Both authors, Lehmann and Dozzi, find being minor at "the core of poverty."

Lehmann’s article suggests: “It is not a question of an abstract ideal for which to strive, but of a

concrete way to express our following of Christ, who, although he was rich, became poor.”11

Analyzing the significance of being fratres minores from the perspective of poverty is certainly

valid. Francis's writings, however, are not so clear.

As early as 1216, Jacques de Vitry writes in his personal letters of the fratres et sorores minores

whom the pope and his court held in great esteem.12 Within four or five years, Jacques provided a

fuller description of “the religious way of life of the true poor of the Crucified One and of the

order of preachers whom we call fratres minors.” He elaborated: “They are truly minores, for they

are more humble than all present-day religious in their habit, in their poverty, and in their

11 Leonard Lehmanns, “Minority: The Core of Poverty," The Cord 52 (2002), 218; Dino Dozzi, Il Vangelo

nella Regola non Bollata di Francesco d’Assisi. Biblioteca Seraphico-Cappuccina (Roma: Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, 1989).

12 Jacques de Vitry, Letter I (1216), The Saint. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Vol. I. Edited by Regis J. Armstrong, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short. (Hyde Park, London, Manila: New City Press, 1999), 578-80. Hereafter FA:ED I.

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contempt of the world.”13 The Premonstratention, Burchard of Ursperg, made public between

1225 and 1227 the journal he kept of a journey he made to Italy in 1210 in which he noted that

Francis’s followers were initially called pauperes minores but later realized that “their name could

possibly lead to self-glorification under the cover of great humility and that, as many bear the

title of ‘poor’ to no purpose, …they preferred to be called fratres minores.14 Other references come

from authors writing within fifteen years of Francis’s death, e.g. Caesar of Heisterbach (+1235),15

Roger of Wendover (+1235),16 and the anonymous author of a life of Gregory IX.17 None of these

authors, however, attempted to offer an explanation for the choice of the term.

The search for meaning becomes more daunting when the term is examined in Francis's

biographers. In most instances minor appears, as in Francis's writings, in their considerations of

the title of the Order post factum, i.e., Ordo Fratrum Minorum. Nowhere in those portraits of

Francis written between 1228 and 1365 is there a consideration of its meaning. There are, instead,

treatments of the more traditional virtues, e.g., humility, prayer, charity, and, of course, poverty,

the virtue to which the greatest attention is given. Little attention is paid to what it means to be

minor. In light of the poverty controversies that afflicted the brothers both from without and from

within, the neglect of this defining characteristic of the brotherhood may be understandable, but

not helpful. Two authors, however, are initially worthy of attention: Thomas of Celano and

Bonaventure, but for different reasons.

13 Jacques deVirtry, Historia Occidentalis 3, FA:ED I 582. 14 Burchard of Ursperg, Chronicon: “ In place of these [Poor Men of Lyons] the Lord Pope approved

certain others then on the rise who called themselves ‘Poor Minors.’ …later on these men realized that their name could possibly lead to self-glorification under the cover of great humility and that, as many bear the title “poor” to no purpose, they could boast in vain before God; therefore, obedient to the Apostolic See in all things, they preferred to be called ‘Fratres Minores instead of Pauperes Minores.’” S e e FA:ED I, 593-4. If Burchard’s witness is to believed, minor implies more of an attitude of humility, which led Lazaro Iriarte to conclude that minoritas captures “the two words ‘poverty and humility’ that we find in the writings of Saint Francis expressing the gospel attitude of not occupying the first place, of not being above others, of not imposing upon anyone, but of being at the service of all, always available to do good without expecting compensation, gratitude, honor, or glory.” See Lazaro Iriarte, “L’Amore alla Povertà e ai Poveri nella Legislazione e nella Vita dei Primi Cappuccini,” in Temi di Vita Francescana (Roma: Istituto Francescano di Spiritualità, 1987), 384.

15 Caesar of Heisterbach, FA:ED I, 578-80. 16 Roger of Wendover, FA:ED I, 578-80. 17 Anonymous, Life of Gregory IX, FA:ED I, 578-80.

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In his Life of Saint Francis (1228), Thomas describes how the saint came to give his brotherhood

its name.18 While he uses the word minor four times in that one paragraph, four other uses of the

word are scattered throughout the text to refer to the Order itself or, in one instance, as a

diminutive adjective. In the Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul (1244), however, Thomas uses the

word twenty-eight times.19 Some of these instances come directly from the Assisi Compilation

which forms the foundation of the lengthy second part of Thomas's second portrait. Most are

Thomas's own insertions and give the impression that he realized the oversight of his earlier

work and attempted to rectify it. Thomas, therefore, writes of being minor or minores from the

perspectives of poverty, especially in the context of begging; of humility, in which personal short-

comings or deficiencies in everyday life are highlighted; and of dealings with clergy and other

religious resulting in being taken advantage of or abused. He undoubtedly provides the sharpest

contours to his consideration of what it means to be minor in an example set in the context of his

life with his brothers that resonates with his story exemplifying true joy:

Here I am, a prelate of the brothers, and I go to the chapter. I preach to the brothers and admonish them, and, in the end, they speak against me: 'An uneducated and despicable man is not right for us; we do not want you to rule over us. You cannot speak; you are simple and ignorant.' So, in the end, I am thrown out in disgrace, looked down upon by everyone. I tell you, unless I hear these words with the same expression on my face, with the same joy in my heart, and with the same resolution for holiness, then I am not in any sense a minor [lesser] brother.20

Humility, it would seem, is the context for this articulation of what it means to belong to the Ordo

Fratrum Minorum, a phenomenon that makes sense in light of Thomas's overall theology of the

Franciscan virtues. While devoting more attention to different dimensions of what it means to be

minor in this second portrait of Francis, it is curious that Thomas does not devote a number of

paragraphs to describing it more fully, particularly in light of the wide variety of virtues that he

does consider.

18 Thomas of Celano, Life of Saint Francis 38. See FA:ED I, 217. 19 Thomas of Celano, The Remembrance of the Desire of a Soul 18, 27, 45, 61, 70, 71, 73, 75, 109, 114, 139, 140,

145, 148, 173, 185, 287, 288, 292. FA:ED II 239-393. 20 Thomas Remembrance 145, FA:ED II 341.

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Bonaventure's discussion of the adjective, however, is more academic. The Seraphic Doctor is

the first to coin the noun minoritas in the vocabulary of the Franciscan spiritual life and does so in

understanding the nature of the call to be fratres minores. On October 4, 1255, two years before his

election as general minister, Bonaventure commented on the Gospel of the day, Matthew 11:29,

"Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart." The Morning Sermon is devoted to what

might be considered the pedagogical approach of the Franciscan Regent Master within the

University of Paris and appears to have been delivered, as one might expect, before the larger

academic community. 21 Francis is presented as one who has learned well from Christ and,

therefore, has become the ideal teacher. The Evening Collatio, however, takes a different

approach, undoubtedly because Bonaventure's audience is now composed of his confreres living

at the Couvent des Cordeliers on Paris's West Bank.22 Turning once again to the Gospel of the day,

Bonaventure picks up where he left off with his commentary on Learn from me:

Learn, that is, from my example so that you may be meek and humble. A person is meek per affectum fraternitatis and humble per affectum inferioritatis sive minoritatis. Therefore, to be meek is to be a brother of all; to be humble is to be minorem [less] than everyone.

After this forthright statement of how to mature as a frater minor [lesser brother], the Collatio

continues with a fourfold consideration of the meekness required of brotherhood—the pursuit of

truth, the inward and outward practice of virtue, the ability to make right judgments, and the

attainment of eternal life; and three fourfold reflections on the humility required of minority from

the perspectives of: its fruits, the means of acquiring it, and the means by which it is

maintained.23

21 Bonaventure, "The Morning Sermon on Saint Francis: October 4, 1255," The Founder. Francis of Assisi:

Early Documents Volume II. Edited by Regis J. Armstrong, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, William J. Short. (Hyde Park, London, Manila: New City Press, 2000), 508-16.

22 Bonaventure, "The Evening Sermon on Saint Francis: October 4, 1255," FA:ED II, 517-524. 23 Bonaventure's interpretation highlights the precise relative or comparative nature of minority and, in

a sense, underscores the challenge of its flexible, changing dynamic. Bonaventure’s consideration of humility per affectum inferioritatis sive minoritatis is a challenge offered to his academic fratres minors. Initially his commentary on the Matthean text—"Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart"— might be construed as encouraging a sense of inferiority, that which, in the words of one author, "rules the mental life

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Within ten years of that 1255 celebration of the Feast of Saint Francis, Bonaventure had not

only been elected general minister of his brothers but was also called upon to fulfill a neglected

mandate of a previous chapter (1248) to compile from existing portraits one that would be

acceptable to a more universal audience. The theologian commissioned by his brothers to compile

a "definitive" portrait of Francis, Bonaventure wove together incidents from the Thomas trilogy

as well as insights that he garnered from those who knew Francis personally. When his Legenda

major is read through the prism of the Fifth Book of his Breviloquium, which anticipates it by only

two or three years, the genius of Bonaventure's theological understanding of Francis becomes

clear: his portrait of Francis emerges as a configuration of earlier texts built on the solid

foundations of his theology of grace. This becomes most obvious in his arrangement of the saint's

virtues, a program of development that Bonaventure places before his confreres whom he

challenges to emulate their Founder. Curiously, virtues that have become celebrated in our

contemporary understanding of the Gospel vision of Francis, such as brotherhood and minority,

are mentioned only in passing and, once again, without analysis. Bonaventure stands in the

shadow of Thomas of Celano, content to allow being minor emerge, for the most part, through the

lens of humility, and, in only one instance, as an expression of poverty. Four of his references to

being a frater minor appear in the fifth paragraph of chapter six dedicated to the pursuit of

humility and obedience where he incorporates the of words of Francis as quotes by Thomas

describing what it means to be a frater minor:

He once said to his companion: “I wouldn’t consider myself a frater minor unless I had the attitude I will describe to you. Suppose, as a prelate of the brothers, I go to the chapter, preach and admonish the brothers, and, at the end, they speak

and can be clearly recognized as the sense of incompleteness and lack of fulfillment." Acceptance of such inferiority would hardly be a quality encouraged by a teacher, particular one of the character of Bonaventure. It is precisely Bonaventure's use of the word inferioritas as a synonym of minoritas, however, that provides a key to this theologian's appreciation of Francis's use of the term. Quite simply: inferioritas is the noun based on the comparative form of the adjective, inferus, meaning low or below. Hence, to be inferior means to be lower or to be further below. It implies an important question: to be lower than what or whom? In a similar way minoritas is the noun based on the comparative form of the adjective, parvus, meaning little or small, and minor, the comparative adjective, describes something or someone who is lesser; but, again, lesser than what or to whom? It is relative.

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against me: ‘You are not suitable for us, because you are uneducated, inarticulate, unlettered, and simple!’ So, in the end, I am thrown out in disgrace, looked down upon by everyone. I tell you, unless I hear these words with the same expression on my face, with the same joy, and with the same resolution for holiness, I am in no sense a frater minor!” And he added: “In a prelacy there is a fall, in praise a precipice, in the humility of a subject profit for the soul. Why, then, do we pay more attention to dangers than to profits, while we have time for profit?’’24

As if to underscore the importance of this statement, Bonaventure in his own words adds:

For this reason, Francis, the pattern of humility, wanted his brothers to be called minores and the prelates of his Order to be called ministri, that he might use the words of the Gospel he had promised to observe, and that his followers might learn from this very name that they had come to the school of the humble Christ to learn humility. The teacher of humility, Jesus Christ, to instruct his disciples in true humility, said: “Whoever wishes to become great among you, let him be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you will be your slave.”25

When the testimonies of Jacques de Vitry, Burchard of Ursberg, Thomas, and Bonaventure are

placed side-by-side, however, Francis’s use of the comparative adjective minor to describe how

his brothers were to relate to one another is again not clear.

Since the nineteenth century the study of history and the methodology used in its discipline,

that is, the development of the science of historiography, were less inclined to accept this more

spiritual, hagiographical, or “medieval” interpretation. From this perspective, questions began to

be raised not only about the sources of Francis’s life, the selection of particulars from materials

judged authentic, and the synthesis of particulars into a narrative that would stand the test of

critical methods. It should not be surprising, then, that statements as the following arise:

“Minores, as we know [sic], has its roots in the social class system of Francis’ time: the maiores–or upper class, and the minores–or lower class. Charism-wise, the friars were not the focal point or determining referent of the phrase Fratres Minores. It wasn’t the friars who defined what minores meant, it was the actual minores – the lower class of Francis’ time – who exemplified what minority is all about and Francis wanted himself and his brothers to emulate them.”26

24 Bonaventure, Major Life VI 5, see FA:ED II, 572. 25 Ibid. For the use of the word “ministers”, see infra, p. 20, n. 50. 26 The argument continues: “In fact, the most accurate translation of Fratres Minores, in my opinion, is

“Lower Class Brothers” - which preserves the substantive nature of both words. Our identity and ministry is rooted in the “lower class”. By ‘lower class’ I do not simply mean some sociological entity, but all the attributes commonly associated with the “lower class”, e.g., people who are not power-, prestige- or glory-hungry; hardworking ‘ordinary’ folk; people who are down-to-earth, are glad to be just simple, ordinary people, who do not put on airs and aren’t megalomaniacs; people who are not haughty or too uppity to roll

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This interpretation seems to flow from the conviction that fratres and minores are two substantives:

fratres can stand alone and refer to brotherliness; minores can also stand alone and refer to

minority. Minores, in other words, is not an adjective describing fratres but a noun onto itself, an

interpretation influenced by models of social stratification. What is the source of that

interpretation and, more importantly, can it be substantiated?

Toward a Socio-Economic Interpretation

At the beginning of the twentieth-century the medieval understanding of minor piqued the

interest of Michele Faloci-Pulignani (+1940) who had discovered the words major and minor in an

eleventh-century papal bull of Gregory VII describing the clergy and people of Fiesole, and in

other papal documents of the following century.27 In his brief study the diocesan priest-historian

made this admission and posed the question: “I am of the opinion that what is meant by the

word “minor” at the time of Saint Francis has not yet been sufficiently studied. Is it a sign of

humility or, were the minori class of citizens well established and legally distinct from the

maggiori?”28 This may have prompted Arnaldo Fortini (+1970) to pay closer attention to how the

adjective minores was used to contrast the majores canons of San Rufino to the minores canons of

Santa Maria Maggiore as well as the fighting men, townsmen, merchants, et al. Fortini later used

the same adjective to describe the late twelfth, early thirteenth century Assisi protagonists in

these terms: “…the homines populi against the boni homines, the minori against the maggiori,” and

later applied these same contrasting relative adjectives to describe Assisi’s merchants, artisans,

and workers.17 ”This pact between the maggiori and minori,” Fortini declared, “was a means of

revitalizing the aggrandizement of the commune by solidifying its offensive and defensive

strength. In it we are very far from the humility of the Servants of Poverty, who saw the

up their sleeves for hard work; people who can laugh at themselves and their foibles, and who know there is still a lot to learn; and people who don’t think they’re self-made but who join their energies to a common effort, etc. For the Minores, those attributes do not make them feel in any sense “lesser” people, in fact, those very attributes are points of pride.”

27 Michele Faloci-Pulignani, “I Maggiori e i Minori,” in Miscellanea Franciscana 13 (1911): 184-1891. 28 Ibid., 184.

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renunciation as the means of salvation.” He concluded:

So, therefore, it was not from the name of a class or faction in the city that Francis took the name ‘minors’ for his brothers. It was an adjective, used in its common significance, one that indicates, even among nobles and religious, the lowest, the inferiors, those who take orders rather than give them. This is the sense that the word ‘least’ is used in the Gospels themselves.29

It was not class-distinction, Fortini realized, that prompted Francis to identify the dynamic of the

men who followed him. It was the Gospel that, as he had stated, “the Lord himself revealed to

me…”30

After Fortini, a number of historians took up socio-economic interpretations, 31 among them

David Flood whose influence in the English-speaking world in this regard has been significant.32

In his Francis of Assisi and the Franciscan Movement and Work for Every One: Francis of Assisi and The

Ethic of Service, Flood approached minor from these more class-conscious, socio-economic

perspectives. Flood argued that the poverty of the early Franciscan brotherhood developed out of

a conscious effort on the part of Francis and his first followers to separate themselves from the

peace initiative of 1203 and the civil charter of 1210. The Earlier Rule, he maintained, was

progressively crafted as a response to a society and an economy which excluded the poor and

legislated privilege. By focusing on Assisi’s “two sides, the minores (the business party) and the

maiores (the feudal party),” Flood insisted, contrary to Fortini, that Francis’s minority has its roots

in the social class system of his time: the maiores—or upper class, and the minores—or lower class.

His perspective on early Franciscan self-understanding sees it, not in the sense of an ascetical

29 Arnaldo Fortini, Francis of Assisi: A Translation of Nova Vita di San Francesco by Helen Moak, (New

York: Crossroad, 1981), 313-4. 30 Francis, Testament 14. See FA:ED I 125. 31 W. Van Dijk, “Signification sociale du Franciscanisme naissant”, Études Franciscaines, t. XV 35, (1965):

1-12 ; Jacques Le Goff, “Le vocabulaire des catégories sociales chez saint François d'Assise et ses biographes du xiiie siècle”, Ordres et Classes: Colloque d'Histoire sociale, Saint-Cloud, 24- 25 mai 1967, (Paris: La Haye, 1969), 93-123 ; Lester K. Little, «L'utilité sociale de la pauvreté volontaire », dans M. Mollat, Etudes sur l'Histoire de la pauvreté, Paris, 1974, t. I, p. 447-459.

32 David E. Flood, Francis of Assisi and the Franciscan Movement (Quezon City: FIA Contact Publications, 1989); Work for Every One: Francis of Assisi and The Ethic of Service, (Quezon City, Philippines, 1997); “Peace in Assisi in the early Thirteenth Century” (Franziskanische Studien 64: 1982); “Assisi’s Rule and People’s Needs” (Franziskansche Studien 66: 1984). David Flood, Thadée Matura, The Birth of a Movement (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1975).

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practice, but in the sense of social criticism and an alternative economic practice in contrast to

that of the Commune of Assisi. It is understandable that those who embrace Flood’s class-

struggle interpretation suggest that the most accurate translation of fratres minores might be

“lower-class brothers” which preserves the substantive nature of both words and, they see, [as]

more faithful to Franciscan identity and ministry that are rooted in the “lower class.”33 But is this

historically the case?

Meanwhile Michel Mollat’s The Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History examined

many of the same issues as those of David Flood.34 “The friar,” the French historian contended,

“lost himself in the anonymous crowd of the poor. To insure that his friars would be even more

available (one is tempted to write: even more malleable), Francis would have preferred not to

found an order at all.”35 Mollat went out of his way to underscore how both the mendicant

orders, the Franciscans and the Dominicans, sought out the poor but identified their orders

differently: Dominic by what his followers did, an Order of Preachers, and Francis by who they

were, un Ordre de Frères Mineurs. Mollat writes:

Among the first to call upon the services of the mendicants were certain bishops, starting with the bishop of Toulouse. In Metz another bishop proclaimed “the presence of the Preachers profitable to laymen and clerics alike.” James of Vitry stated as early as 1216 that “[the lesser ones] was truly the religion of the poor Christ.”36

The indefatigable scholar Jacques LeGoff (+2014) devoted two detailed chapters in his Saint

33 My critic writes: “I would ask you to consider how the maiores of today – (the ‘haves’) refer to the

‘have nots’ in contrast to how the minores (the ‘have nots’ of today) refer to themselves. With every intention of being humanly sensitive and politically correct, the “haves” often enough use language like ‘the needy’, ‘those poor people’, the ‘unfortunates’ or ‘the less fortunate’, ‘the underprivileged’...in short, they use comparative adjectives and the comparison is always to themselves (the ‘haves’). They consider today’s minores as lesser than themselves and thereby denigrate the human dignity of the minores, even without realizing that that’s what they’re doing. The very terminology they use is condescending and offensive. On the other hand, you simply don’t hear the poor or the marginalized talk about themselves as being ‘lesser’ than anyone else (they would be offended by that suggestion), because one of the traits of the minores is not to compare themselves with those who have more and more especially, with those who think they are more.”

34 Michel Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History, translated by Arthur Goldhammer (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1978).

35 Mollat, Poor 123. 36 Mollat, Poor 124.

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Francis of Assisi not only to the vocabulary of the social categories but also to the cultural models

in which Francis’s ordo arose.37 The influence of LeGoff’s scholarship is difficult to dispute and

can be seen more recently in André Vauchez’s monumental Francis of Assisi: the Life and Afterlife

of a Medieval Saint which offers one of the most recent perceptive insights into understanding

minor:

We have often asked ourselves whether the word ‘Minors’ (literally, minor, lesser in Latin) refers to the social and political class of the city of Assisi, where up to the peace treaty of 1210, the minores—that is, the social classes on the rise—were in conflict with the majores, the aristocracy of feudal origin who had up to then governed the city. It is not obvious since the minors of Assisi—Francis knew it better than anyone, since he came from that class—were not the poor but people whose wealth had a different origin than that of the nobility.38 More probably, the term, without being stripped of its social connotations, refers to minoritas—that is, to the condition and spiritual state of those who were deprived of power and influence by the fact of their poverty, but also to their lack of learning, their physical illness, or their marginality: in short, the neglected and little people who depended for their survival on Providence and the charity of others. However, for the friars, the essential was not the name, since every label risked engaging them in a process of institutionalization which a priori they distrusted.39

Mollat, LeGoff, and Vauchez, then, make more measured judgments on the socio-economic

significance of the adjective minor [lesser] which echo those of their fellow French historian, Paul

Sabatier, who has influenced in many ways portraits of Francis in the English-speaking world.

In what may be the definitive study of the pro’s and con’s of these authors, Uribe concluded:

The hypothesis presented by this group is appealing and could even be probable. Unfortunately, however, it does not find any support in the writings of the saint, in the hagiographical sources of his life, and in the chronicles of his time. Moreover there are different scholars who express their skepticism about the inference of the word “minor” or who totally reject the possibility of an authentic influence of the social situation, affirming that the humility that inspired the Frati Minori was in stark contrast with the arrogance of the minori of the Commune of Assisi who aspired to assume the governance of the city and became a clique.

37 Jacques Le Goff, Saint Francis of Assisi, trans. Christine Rhone (London and New York: Routledge,

2004), 63-131. While LeGoff maintains that the choice of the name “minor” was inspired primarily by the quintessential example of the humility of Christ, he does not exclude the influence of the less privileged classes of the city and accentuates Francis’s desire to have his brothers recall the lowly washing of the feet as the lasting memory of his presence.

38 André Vauchez, La Spiritualité du Moyen Âge occidental (VIIIe-XIII3 siècle) (Paris: 1994), 191-192 (Engl. Trans.: The Spirituality of the Medieval West: The Eighth to the Twelfth Century; trans. Colette Friedlander [Kalamazoo, MI, 1993] 110-112.

39 André Vauchez, Francis of Assisi: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Saint. Translated by Michael F. Cusato (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2009), 64-5.

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This twofold position created an ambiguous situation and is inconsistent with the certainty of the sociological origin in the term.

This superficial review of Francis’s use of the controversial comparative adjective minor reflects

some of the challenges of translating. If we accept Francis’s admission in his Testament at face

value (Test 14), then living as fratres minores has more gospel-oriented implications than socio-

economic as Faloci-Pugliani, Fortini, LeGoff, and Vauchez suggest. The experiences of the past

decades has taught us how the “asceticism” Francis offers in chapters four, five, and six of the

Earlier Rule is difficult, especially when living authentically in smaller, non-institutional

fraternities. Yet there are frequently overlooked nuances in that phrase of Francis: “the Most

High himself (a) revealed (b) to me that I must live according (c) to the pattern of the Holy Gospel.”

The process of having the “veil removed”—revelation—remains an activity of the Holy Spirit

depending upon each one’s receptivity. Living what is perceived as “revealed” as the pattern of

the Holy Gospel” is verified or authenticated when living as brothers.

The Admonitions

In this biblical light, it is difficult to ignore the evidence of the manuscripts of Francis’s writings,

particularly his Admonitions.40 Curiously this collection of twenty-eight biblical reminders and

exhortations has attracted attention only in recent times, while the thorough examination of

Kajetan Esser and Rémy Oliger shows that they were among the five most reproduced

manuscripts of the century of the saint’s own life. In both critical editions of Francis’s writings

(1976, 1978) Esser presented them in the same order in which those thirteenth century

manuscripts present them. Contemporary English interprets admonition as a warning action or

an authoritative act of reproof or correction. At Francis’s time an admonitio was an act of

reminding or of making a recommendation or correction. The recent study by the biblical scholar,

Robert J. Karris, The Admonitions of St. Francis: Sources and Meanings, confirms the observation that

40 La tradition manuscrite des opuscules de Saint François d'Assise, ed. Kajetan Esser, Rémy Oliger

(Roma: Institut Historique dei Cappuccini, 1972).

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the Admonitions became expressions of Francis’s mystagogy, through which he hoped to

challenge his brothers to live the gift of the Spirit that united them.41

In his 1978 introduction to the Admonitions Esser wrote:

In these twenty-eight admonitions, we can discover precious pearls of wisdom that are extremely valuable for Franciscan asceticism and for the life of fratris minoris. They have not yet been sufficiently explored. These admonitions form, in fact, an encomium of poverty of spirit and, for that reason, an encomium of a truly fraternitatis minoriticae.42

Esser’s comment prompted me to write a lengthy article in preparation for the Fifth Capuchin

Plenary Council in 1986: “The Prophetic Implications of the Admonitions”.43 By that time the

interpretations of the Regula non bullata of Flood were gaining prominence, at least in the English-

speaking world, as, in the Italian, were those of Dino Dozzi in which being minor was considered

as a virtue to be lived within the brotherhood (ER V 12; VI 3) and, in the context of their

employment, among others (ER VII 1).44 Both authors tended to interpret being a minor in those

socio-economic categories examined above and seemingly embraced by those who object to its

translation as “lesser”. In preparation for the Seventh Plenary Council of the Order in 2004, I

revisited the theme once more; it was later published as “Minority, the Sacramental Intuition of

Francis of Assisi”.45 In both articles my starting point was the twelfth Admonition even though it

is the only instance in which minor appears in the Admonitions. My conviction in both articles

remained the same: the Admonitions provide insight into the depths of being a lesser brother,

particularly when they are explored through the first Admonition that offers a positive

perspective, and the second Admonition that does the same from a negative.

41 Robert J. Karris, The Admonitions of St Francis: Sources and Meanings (St Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan

Institute, 1999). 42 Opuscula Sancti Patris Francisci Assisiensis. Biblioteca Francescana Ascetica Medii Aevi. Tomus XII. Ed.

Kajetan Esser (Grottaferrata, Rome: Editiones Collegii S. Bonaventurae Ad Claras Aquas, 1978), 58. 43 See Regis J. Armstrong, “The Prophetic Implications of the Admonitions”, Franciscanesimo e Profezia

(Roma: Laurentianum, 1986): 188-256. 44 See David Flood and Thadée Matura, The Birth of a Movement (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press,

1975); Dino Dozzi, Il Vangelo nella Regola non Bollata di Francesco d’Assisi. Biblioteca Serafico-Cappuccina 36 (Roma: Istituto Storico dei Cappuccini, 1989).

45 Regis J. Armstrong, “Minority: The Sacramental Intuition of Francis of Assisi,” Collectanea Franciscana 74(2004): 469-491.

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It is not simply the Christological focus as much as the Trinitarian that draws attention to the

first Admonition, one of the most theologically profound of Francis’s writings.46 Its first six verses

form a tapestry of New Testament texts that draw the reader through the humanity of Christ,

“the way, the truth, and the life” into a Trinitarian life in which knowing Jesus through the

working of the Spirit is paramount:

The Lord Jesus says to his disciples: I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me. If you knew me, you would also know my Father; and from now on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip says to him: Lord, show us the Father and it will be enough for us. Jesus says to him: Have I been with you for so long a time and you have not known me? Philip, whoever sees me sees my Father as well.

The Father dwells in inaccessible light, and God is spirit, and no one has ever seen God. Therefore He cannot be seen except in the Spirit because it is the Spirit Who gives life; the flesh has nothing to offer. But because He is equal to the Father, the Son is not seen by anyone other than the Father or other than the Holy Spirit.

The final sentence of that paragraph presents an insight into what one author has described as

“The Epistemological Relevance of the Holy Spirit” which aptly described the “activity of the

Spirit of the Lord” that Francis saw as what “must be desired above all else” (LR X 8).47 Thus

Francis offers a remarkable twist in the ninth verse by joining knowledge of the Son of God [sic]

with that of “the most sacred body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ” in the Eucharist. How he

described this is worth noting:

All those who saw the Lord Jesus according to the humanity, therefore, and did not see and believe according to the Spirit and the Divinity that He is the true Son of God were condemned. Now in the same way, all those who see the Sacrament sanctified by the words of the Lord upon the altar at the hands of the priest in the form of bread and wine, and who do not see and believe according to the Spirit and the Divinity that it is truly the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, are condemned. [This] is affirmed by the Most High Himself Who says: This is my Body and the Blood of my new covenant [which will be shed for many]; and Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.

This same “epistemological activity of the Spirit emerges in the next two verses: “It is the

Spirit of the Lord, therefore, Who dwells in His faithful, Who receives the Body and Blood of the

Lord. All others who do not have this same Spirit and presume to receive Him eat and drink

46 There are many questions surrounding the first Admonition: its dating, its place among the

Admonitions—a careful study of the manuscripts reveals instances when it left on its own, and its inspiration. 47 Thomas F. Torrance, “The Epistemological Relevance of the Spirit”, in God and Rationality. Oxford

Scholarly Classics Series. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 165-192.

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judgment on themselves.” Because of the two verbs—“dwells” and “have” Francis used in these

verses Karris points out the influence of Romans 8:8-9 in these two verses and links it with the

earlier citation of John 6:64 “It is the Spirit Who gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer.”48

Karris’s reading confirms Francis’s parallel of Paul’s contrast between the spirit and the flesh and

arriving at the same conclusion: “All others who do not share in this same Spirit and presume to

receive Him eat and drink judgment on themselves” (1Cor 11:29).

Karris devotes considerable attention to Francis’s use of the unde [whence or therefore] that

introduces the exhortative section that follows and, in particular, what Esser interpreted as two

separate sentences: “Therefore: sons of men, how long will you be hard of heart? Why do you not (Ps

4:3) know the truth and believe in the Son of God?” After studying the construction of Psalm

4:3— “Therefore, sons of men, how long will you be hard of heart so that you do not you love

vanity and pursue falsehood?”—Karris reads the two sentences as one: places in the context of

earlier section and “Therefore: sons of men, how long will you be hard of heart so that you do not (Ps

4:3) know the Truth (Jn 14: 1) and believe in the Son of God (Jn 9:35)?” What follows are three

carefully crafted sets of quotidie [daily, each day]: (1) Behold, each day He humbles Himself as

when He came from the royal throne (Wis 18:15) into the Virgin’s womb; (2) each day He Himself

comes to us, appearing humbly; (3) each day He comes down from the bosom of the Father (Jn

1:18) upon the altar in the hands of a priest.49 Each of these daily [quotidie] events resonate with

what Paul summarized as Christ’s embrace of kenosis (see Phil 2: 6-11), but that Francis sees

carefully entwined with the mystery of faith, the Eucharist, as if to accentuate God’s daily

embrace of being lesser to reveal Himself: “As He revealed Himself to the holy apostles in true

flesh, so He reveals Himself to us now in sacred bread…” Once more he concludes with the

flesh/spirit nuances that are present throughout this Admonition:

And as they saw only His flesh by an insight of their flesh, yet believed that He

48 Rom 8:8-9 “Those, however, who are in the flesh, cannot please God. You, however, are not in the

flesh but in the spirit, provided that the Spirit of God dwells in you (habitat in vobis). If anyone, however, does not have (habet) the Spirit of Christ, that one does not belong to him.” See Karris, Admonitions, 27.

49 Francis, Admonition I: 15-18, see FA:ED I, 129.

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was God as they contemplated Him with their spiritual eyes, let us, as we see bread and wine with our bodily eyes, see and firmly believe that they are His most holy Body and Blood living and true. And in this way the Lord is always with His faithful, as He Himself says: Behold I am with you until the end of the age.

Reading the first Admonition in this way, as Francis’s “sacramental intuition”, may help to explain

why devotion to the Real Presence was promoted so actively by the first generation of Francis’s

followers. In this struggle to translate what it means to be a frater minor, however, Francis’s Second

Letter to the Custodes may provide a helpful insight. This much overlooked letter reflects what

commentators have frequently called “Francis’s Eucharistic Campaign” and bolsters his

insistence on deepening and promoting reverence for the “little things” of the Eucharist. How

Francis describes himself also provides a glimpse into how he understood his calling: frater

Franciscus, minimus servorum Dei...[Brother Francis, the least of the servants of God…].50

The second Admonition seems to be that which many commentators, unfortunately, tend to

overlook in their analysis of Francis’s vision of life. Yet not only does it identify what he saw as

the cause of the sin of the first human but, like the first Admonition, introduces the program of

remaining twenty-six:

1The Lord said to Adam: Eat of every tree; you may not eat, however, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (cf. Gen 2: 16,17). 2 He was able to eat of every tree of paradise because he did not sin as long as he did not go against obedience. 3In fact, that person eats of the tree of the knowledge of good who makes his will his own and, in this way, exalts himself over the good things the Lord says and does in him. 4And so, through the suggestion of the devil and the transgression of the command, it became the fruit of the knowledge of evil. 5From that moment it is appropriate that he suffer the punishment.

Riddled with many contrasts, changes, and implications, Francis shifts from the past or perfect

tense in the first two verses (dixit, poterat, venit, peccavit) to the present in the third (comedit,

50 I attempted to articulate this vision in “Minority: The Sacramental Intuition of Francis of Assisi,”

Collectanea Franciscana 74(2004): 469-491.

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appropriat, exaltat, dicit).51 He returns to the perfect tense in the fourth verse (factum est) when

describing what happened: “…through the suggestion of the devil and the transgression of the

command, [eating of the tree of the knowledge of good] became the fruit of the knowledge of

evil”, and, in the fifth verse, to the present and the subjunctive. At the same time he shifts from

the biblical Adam to the impersonal pronoun ille [that person], and highlights “eating of the tree

of the knowledge of good” that becomes in the fourth verse “the apple of the knowledge of

evil.”52 The very foundation of the peace and harmony of the first creation that flows from the

generosity the Most High is shattered by the grasping, power-hungry human.

Francis identifies the dynamics of disobedience to which humanity is heir: “…that person

eats of the tree of the knowledge of good who makes his will his own [appropriat] and, in this way,

se exaltat [exalts himself] over the good things the Lord says and does in him.” Appropriare is the

first Latin verb Francis used to describe the action of being disobedient: a Latin phrase that has a

variety of nuances revolving around the basic act of taking and making something one’s own.53

Exaltare is the second, as Francis identifies what appropriation brings: the drive for higher status.

In both instances, the results of disobedience come to the fore: the self-centered tendencies of

“that person” as Francis changes from the “Adam” of biblical history to the human of everyday

life. Succinctly put: it is the desire for more not for less, for a higher place not a lower.

51 The Dixit Dominus that begins the second Admonition is one of the rare instances when Francis

describes God’s speech in the past tense. Dixit, the perfect tense of dicere, appears only six times in the writings attribute to Francis: in this instance, in two biblical citations (Mt 26:27; Jn 4:23; see II EpFid 7, 19) and in his Prayer Based on the Our Father (ExpPat 6). Of the 140 times that dicere appears it is generally in the present or subjunctive tense.

52 By the divine command to Adam not to eat of “the tree of the knowledge of good”, Francis understood the implication that, while he would enjoy its goodness, its fruit would become “the knowledge of evil.” From that moment, the punishment for his disobedience would be the burden of distinguishing between the two. Life, as it flowed from the hands of the Creator, was meant to be spent wallowing in goodness—the Itinerarium’s in paradiso deliciarum—it became an to discern between the good and the bad.52 In the Prologue to his Second Book of Commentary on the Sentences Bonaventure wrote in a similar vein using the words of Ecclesiastes: “Only this have I found that God made man upright, and he has entangled himself in an infinity of questions” (Eccl 7:30). Both Francis and his disciple, the Parisian Master, sensing the enervating loss of simplicity!!

53 DuGange, Glossarium ad Scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis, t. I 333 offers as its definition of appropriare to make something propriam to oneself and to turn its use to one’s own convenience. It also points to its specific use in the civil and ecclesiastic worlds of the thirteenth century.

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In contrast to the appropriat of the second Admonition, Francis reminds his brothers of Jesus’

call of discipleship: renuntiaverit [renounces], relinquit [leaves], perdit [loses], and praebet

[surrenders], all verbs requiring their practitioner to become subditus [placed under] in the hands

of a praelatus [placed before/above].54 From this perspective Jacques LeGoff contextualized what

he saw as the “new social order” envisioned by Francis: “…this man, contemptuous of

inequalities and hierarchies, was also, and in his Order in the first place, a passionate apostle of

obedience [sic]. This ideal of obedience underlay the choice of submission, and was the justification

and the ideal of the voluntary subditus [sic].”55 Francis then points the way to another dimension

of minority: “Non veni ministrari, sed ministrare [I did not come to be ministered to, but to

minister]” (Mt 20:28). Its images are quite clear: those constituti super alios [placed above others]

find themselves abluendi fratrum pedes [washing the feet of their brothers]. “And if they are more

upset at having their place super alios [over others] taken away from them than at losing their

place at their feet, the more they store up a money bag to the peril of their soul.”56

Since the noun or verb forms minister [minister] appear quite frequently in Francis’s

writings— eighty-four times, eleven of which are linked with the word servant—it influences the

saint’s vision of our relations with one another as brothers. The Oxford English Dictionary offers an

interesting etymological insight into the word by pointing out that it comes from the joining of

the adjective minus/minor with the suffix -ter which points to its antonym magister, i.e., the lesser

and the greater. 57 The little known Legenda monacensis accentuates this same nuance as its

Benedictine author identifies, through its exercise, the unique struggle for equality that

54 This third Admonition concludes with two of the strongest statements in the entire corpus of Francis’s writings: “In fact, there are many religious who, under the pretext of seeing things better than those which the praelatus [prelate] commands, look back, and return to the vomit propriae voluntatis [of their own will]. These people are murderers and, because of their bad example, cause many to lose their souls.” Francis, Admonitiones III 10-11.

55 Le Goff, Saint Francis, 92-96. 56 Francis, Admonition IV “I did not come to be served, but to serve, says the Lord. Let those who are

placed over others boast about that position as much as they would if they were assigned the duty of washing the feet of their brothers. And if they are more upset at having their place over others taken away from them than at losing their position at their feet, the more they store up a money bag to the peril of their soul.” See FA:ED I, 130.

57 Uribe points out the same nuance when examining the word through Giuseppe Devoto’s Dizionario etimologico: Avviamento alla etimologica italiana (Milano, n.p., 1968, 262, 269). See Uribe, Omnes, 149.

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characterized the Franciscan “community” [sic] in which the greater were united with the

lesser.58

The biblical thrust continues by focusing on two sets of contrasts: first to the human person,

all other creatures, and the demons; and, second, to the Good Shepherd, those who followed

Him, and “we, His servants.” In both instances, however, the contrasts point to humans who,

despite their endowments, cooperate with the demons by delighting in vice and sin and in

boasting of their own deeds to augment personal glory by simply recounting those of others

(Adm V 3-8; VI 1-3). Once again contrasting implications surface: wanting to know the words of

Sacred Scripture for self-promotion vis-à-vis learning from them to promote acknowledging God

as the source of all good;59 and, in the same vein, the accentuation of the other-centered activities

of the Spirit vis-à-vis the self-centered tendencies of the human who invidet [resents] the good

that the Lord says and does in his brother, which Francis does not hesitate to write as a “sin of

blasphemy…”60

In that context, however, the phrase “we, His servants” is significant. It initiates Francis’s

focus on the servant of God, the image that dominates the remainder of the Admonitions and, as

the eleventh points out explicitly, the meaning of living sine proprio and humbly, that are the

underpinnings of the life of a lesser brother. To the pursuit of poverty (Adm XI, XII, XIV) and of

humility (Adm XVII, XIX, XXI,XXII, XXIII), Francis repeatedly adds that of the patient suffering

or vulnerability to which they lead (Adm XIII, XV, XVIII, XXVIII). The virtues they present—

58 See LeGoff, Saint Francis, 91. For the Legenda monacensis, see FA:ED III, 858. 59 Adm VII: “The apostle says: The letter kills, but the spirit gives life. Those people are put to death by

the letter who only wish to know the words alone, that they might be esteemed wiser than others and be able to acquire great riches to give to their relatives and friends. And those religious are put to death by the letter who are not willing to follow the spirit of the divine letter but, instead, wish only to know the words and to interpret them for others. And those people are brought to life by the spirit of the divine letter who do not attribute every letter they know, or wish to know, to the body but, by word and example, return them to the most high Lord God to Whom every good belongs.” See FA:ED I

60 The seventeenth chapter of the Earlier Rule sheds light on how Francis understood these contrasts: “In the love that is God, therefore, I beg all my brothers—those who preach, pray, or work, cleric or lay—to strive to humble themselves in everything, not to brag or be pleased with themselves, nor to extol themselves smugly over the good words and deeds and by no means over any good that God ever does or says or performs in and through them, according to what the Lord says: Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you. We may know with certainty that nothing belongs to us except our vices and sins.” Francis, Earlier Rule XVII 5-7. See FA:ED I 75.

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becoming poor, humble, and suffering patiently—are lived, in Francis’s Admonitions, most

challengingly through the inter-connectedness of the daily life of brotherhood in which one

strives to serve or be less than others.61 With the exception of the twenty-seventh Admonition, all

the others form what might be seen as Francis’s “Beatitudes of the Servant of God” whose

physiognomy are determined by the teachings of the Gospel, in particular, the Sermon on the

Mount.

Minor: The Inconspicuous Virtue

In the final analysis, then, how do we translate minor into English? Is “minor” acceptable? Latin-

English Dictionaries generally translate minor as “lesser” in terms of “size, extent, or

importance, or being or noting the lesser of two.”62 The Oxford English Dictionary does define

“minor” as “lesser (in a relative sense),” as a post-modifier with a wide variety of associations

from music to math, from baseball to biology,63 and, finally, as “the designation of the lesser (in

any sense) of two things, classes, etc., that have a common designation.”64 It also offers “minor”

as a noun which refers to twelve different entities, e.g. a “minor” in philosophy, the protection

of “minors,” etc. The American Merriam-Webster Dictionary also shows “minor” as a noun, and,

in one instance, interprets it as modifying a baseball league or team, i.e., implying the sense of

the adjective. In both “English” dictionaries, i.e. the British and the American, the authors point

to the Latin minor as the etymological root of each noun and point to it as a comparative

61 While I attempted to demonstrate their inter-connectedness from the perspective of the Franciscan

prophetic call in “The Prophetic Implications of the Admonitions,” in Franciscanesimo e Profezia (Roma: Laurentianum, 1986): 188-256, Ferdinando Uribe followed a similar pattern in his study “Omnes vocentur fratres minors”, see particularly pp. 140-156.

62 See The Oxford Latin Dictionary, Harpers' Latin Dictionary edited by Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short. See also Aegidio Forcellini, Lexicon totius latinitatis, Albert Blaise, Dictionnaire latin-français des auteurs chrétiens, Du Cange, Dictionnaire Universel Francois Et Latin. All these essential reference works suggest that the Latin word minor is a comparative adjective. Only one, that of Albert Blaise, cites it use as an abbreviated reference of the Ordo Fratrum Minorum. URL: http://clt.brepolis.net/dld/Default.aspx.

63 While the first of these entities is used to refer to Franciscans, the “Minors”, the reader is directed to the comparative adjective form to discover the sense of the word.

64 The critic observes: “In English, “lesser” is a comparative adjective, not a substantive. It cannot stand alone, and has no reference in itself to anything; i.e., it is incapable of conveying the notion of minority. Since the only substantive in the phrase is “brothers”, “lesser” would seem – at least linguistically – to indicate that our brotherhood is somewhat lacking.”

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adjective: minor [lesser] is a diminutive of parvus [little] and its diminutive minimus [least].

Yet it must be asked: is its translation in the phrase Ordo Fratrum Minorum as “lesser”

offensive? If being minor [lesser] is, as we have seen, a comparative adjective, it has also that

relational quality indicated by the Oxford English Dictionary, i.e., it has a connection with or a

necessary dependence on another thing. To express this in another way, “lesser” is not a word

that is absolute or that can stand by itself, e.g. great, high, weak, little; it is always in comparison

with something else. Of necessity, therefore, minor [lesser] has a dynamic quality to it, one that

demands its point of comparison, is never static but is always aware of its shortcomings.

What needs to be kept in mind, in both instances—relational and dynamic, is the overarching

ideal of a life as a baptized follower of Christ. As the dynamism of the Spirit intensifies, so too

does the inaccessible light of God revealing in Christ how a “lesser one” discovers in Him how

far he falls from the mark of being an adopted son of the Most High. And as one strives to

express more forcefully the Spirit of Christ among his brothers, being “lesser” presents the ever-

inconspicuous, unassuming challenges of our daily interactions with one another as brothers in

Christ. As our fraternities grow smaller in this “vocationally-challenged world” those challenges

become more demanding between a brother from one nationality vis-à-vis one from another or,

within one nationality, a brother from one class of society vis-à-vis one from another, or, within

one fraternity, a clerical brother vis-à-vis a lay. 65 Awareness of these two qualities of being

lesser—relational and dynamic—raises a number of questions and prompts turning to Francis for

answers. Was his intention to describe those with whom we are called as brothers, that is, with

one another, as in the Earlier Rule VI 3, or those to whom we are called to minister or work, as in

the Earlier Rule VII 2? Is “lesser” better suited to refer to poverty or to humility or, more

generally, to each and every dimension of our fraternal life? Is the underpinning or the

65 One has to wonder about Bonaventure’s challenge to his confreres in the Couvent des Cordeliers

when, in 1255, he introduced the concepts of brotherhood and minority/inferiority in a fraternity devoted to academic formation. See supra, footnote 23.

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overarching point of reference—the “arc”— that Francis had in mind prompting each of us to

grow each day in virtue, particularly in fraternal life?66 Did Bonaventure perceive that Francis

called his brothers fratres minores in order to challenge them not to be comfortable, staid, or

stagnant? Was the neglect of both Francis and Bonaventure in defining the concept deliberately

aimed at prodding us to keep in mind the relational character of our lives as brothers, that is, at

prodding us to ask ourselves: Who are we before one another? If so, frequent reflection on “being

lesser” than others can be an uncomfortable measuring rod. How did a brother express being

lesser among those human beings with whom Francis encouraged him to rejoice—"among people

considered of little value and looked down upon, among the poor and the powerless, the sick and

the lepers, and the beggars by the wayside"—if he could not live as “lesser” among his brother?67

Day-to-day living the Gospel as brothers is a great leveler unwittingly teaching self-knowledge

and humility.

Michael de Cervantes places on the lips of Don Quixote a remarkable description of the art of

translating:

…[I]t seems to me that translation from one language into another…is like looking at Flemish tapestries on the wrong side; for though the figures are visible, they are covered by threads obscure them, and cannot be seen with the smoothness and the color of the right side; translating easy languages does not argue for either talent or eloquence, just as transcribing or copying from one paper to another does not argue for those qualities.68

The figure at the center of the tapestry attempting to portray the meaning of minor is obviously

Francis, the Forma Minorum, whom Thomas of Celano portrayed in his earliest “tapestry” as Inter

Minores Minimus (1C 140). Were that translated “Least among the Lesser”, would that be

offensive? The theological acumen of Bonaventure would suggest not. The Seraphic Doctor

appears to perceive that there are a variety of threads in the “Franciscan Tapestry.” In the Major

66 It is argued: So when we talk about people as “the lesser ones” (see nn. 14,2; 35,4; 46,3; 78,5; 123,5, etc.) or we identify ourselves as “lesser”, we’re using terminology that marks us as being among the “haves” in distinction to the very people with whom we want to identify.”

67 Francis, Earlier Rule IX 1. See FA:ED I 68 Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote. Translated by Edith Grossman. Introduction by Harold Bloom

(New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 485.

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Legend he retells an incident first described by Thomas in which Francis tells a brother that, when

the brothers hears him praised, he had to remind him of his true condition in these words:

“…rusticum et mercenarium, imperitum et inutilem diceret [a boor and a mercenary, unskilled and

useless].”69 It would seem that, as he drew ever closer to Christ, Francis took as his own the

words of the Baptist to whose mission both Thomas and Bonaventure point: “illum oportet crescere

me autem minui [He must crescere (increase) but I must minui (decrease)] (Jn 3:30).”

69 Bonaventure, Major Legend VI 1. See FA:ED II