Two Franciscan Books
Brother John : A Tale of the First Franciscans. Vida D.
Scudder. (Dent and Sons. 76. aid:) Miss VIDA SCUDDER'S deep understanding of the Italian mystics has already been.shown by her admirable edition of the Letters of St. Catherine of Siena, and her imaginative study of the life and-times of the same saint.. Now she has moved back .to an earlier century ; and entered the crowded field of Franciscan history at the most difficult and controversial moment of the Order's life. Brother John has qualities which might entitle it to rank either as an historical novel or as a spiritual romance. It tells with great skill and knowledge,
and with conspicuous fairness, the troubled and intricate tale of those conflicts between the " observant " and the " miti-
gating " friars which raged with special fury from the ascendancy of Brother Elias to that of St. Bonaventura. It shows with equal candour the-vindictiveness of the "relaxed" party, the bitterness and fanaticism which marred the fervour of the Spirituals ; the mingling of loyalty, devotion, and eccentricity in their attitude towards the Rule of Poverty, the cloudy visions which blurred their appreciation of facts, yet the mystical beauty which hung about their ideals and the unspoilt heroism of their lives.
- Perhaps most of her readerS will be chiefly grateful for the way in which Miss Scudder interprets, and links with external action, the peculiar mysticism of the Spiritual friars. The story opens in England, ten years after the death of Francis ; and is concerned with the life of a young Cornish nobleman, John of Sanfort, from his entrance into the Order, to his death in prison as an adherent of the extreme Spiritual party in 1259. Miss Scudder's exceptional and sympathetic under- standing of Franciscan mysticism, perhaps the most profound and costly expression of the Christian life the world has ever known, is conspicuous throughout the book ; which has captured with astonishing success the expansive social spirit, the austere yet joyous outlook, the profound supernatural - implications that were united in the Franciscan concept of poverty. She gives us, to a. degree one seldom feels in modern Franciscan writings, the sense that she is on personal and friendly terms with the First Companions and their spiritual sons. Angelo and Rufino, Bernard and Sylvester, live again ; as real people, not as a special brand of saint. Peculiarly
• vivid and delightful is-her picture of Brother Giles in his old age, giving his cabbages expert care, and moving easily between gardening and contemplation. - " Do not be too much disappointed,' says Brother Thomas to John, ' if Brother Giles does not even speak to you. He is a very special person, Giles. Sometimes he is really in a trance, somet imps, I think, he.simply prefers not to say anything ! '
- And we are convinced that the incalculable Giles really was like that.
With a daring that will send. a shiver through the really historical mind, but which the • more imaginative will appre- ciate, Miss Scudder has taken, as the basis of her spiritual plot, the substance of some of the great mystical poems of Jacopone da Todi. More than this, she has ventured to place them, in paraphrase, upon the lips of friars who were mostly dead before they were composed. She claims in defence of this proceeding that "the spiritual states which they express must have been familiar to the common life . . . long before they were written down in formal verse." This explanation may be allowed in some cases. But it becomes very hard to accept when we find the simple and unlearned Brother Giles, whose dislike of scholarship was specially notorious, extolling the Three Heavens of Poverty in language directly derived from Dionysius the Areopagite. However, as the author reminds us, Brother John was in feeble health when he remembered these events ; and his memories may well have been confused.
A simple, full, and tolerable history of St. Francis for children is one of the few gaps in Franciscan literature which have remained unfilled. Plenty of Franciscan stories, stressing to tedium the zoological aspect of the saint's life, have been offered us ; but nothing which gave us the secret and charm of Franciscan holiness in a way that children could understand. Mrs. Duncan Jones has excellently performed this difficult task. Her book shows real comprehension of the Franciscan spirit, a sense of human character, a sufficient but not excessive instinct for the picturesque. She gives us the history of Francis and his First Companions, from the childhood to the death of the saint ; keeping a careful proportion between the interior and exterior aspects. All the favourite tales are here, together with a good deal of greater importance which Francis- can amateurs too often forget. Like Miss Scudder, Mrs. Duncan Jones is at pains to emphasize the fact that Holy Poverty and Holy Mendicancy are not the same ; and that Francis desired his sons to work for their bread. In an excellent little chapter on " How the Brothers Lived," she shows the great variety of labour to which the early friars set their hands, and the spirit in which they performed it. More difficult in a book of this kind is the treatment of those deeper aspects of the saint's life which are essential to any understanding of the rest. Conspicuously successful examples of Mrs. Duncan Jones's method here are her chapters upon the crib of Greccio, and the bestowal of the Stigmata ; and the beautiful little episode in which Brother Leo receives the benediction of St. Francis. Her evident familiarity with the Franciscan sites helps to give actuality to the scenes she describes ; and Miss Canziani's coloured drawings of Assisi and its neighbourhood complete the charm of a book which should make many friends this Christmas.
EVELYN UNDERHILL.
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