How Lucifer Attempted to Destroy the Order of Saint Francis
Source: Angelo of Clareno, Historia septem tribulationum ordinis minorum.
By Angelo de Clareno (d. 1337)
(34) By his dignity, he revealed these things in a marvelous way to a holy and venerable priest of Massa Trabaria, rector of a certain parish, named Sir Bartholomew, to whom Saint Francis, because of the excellence of his holiness, had entrusted his charge in all things and entirely. He was a very prudent man, a consoler of the afflicted, full of mercy, of admirable piety and charity. The brothers approached him with confidence, as to a most benevolent father and a guide of their souls. He received brothers into the Order, reconciled those who had been expelled or had withdrawn from it, and he demonstrated, by divine and evident reasons as well as by the example of his life, that the counsels of human wisdom, when they depart from the path of perfection and from the intention of the founder, are not only useless but infected with a deadly poison.
(35) This man, pleasing to God, being rapt in spirit while he was praying, was led, by the command of Christ, to the lower regions of hell. There he saw Lucifer standing upon the seat of his punishments, and around him all the principal infernal spirits. The prince of darkness put a question to them with complaint, asking their counsel, and said:
“We have received news from the desert of the world, from those who hold our place there: it is not pleasant, but most grievous. Indeed, men have suddenly appeared in the world, despising and trampling underfoot the world, the flesh, and vices, and occupying the rights and places of our dominion. If they are not resisted, we shall suffer many injuries and losses from them. Therefore, reflect carefully on what we must do against them. You will better understand their condition from those who have returned from among them.”
And, at Lucifer’s command, they began to recount and report their life and perfection.
(36) Then a great demon arose, who waged a singular combat against the blessed Francis and his Order with the evil spirits subject to him, and he said:
“Although, as our prince has set forth, many have recently risen against us in various ways, yet one man of humble condition, unlettered and simple, with a small company of similar men, has stood against us with such strength of spirit that he seems to struggle personally against us not only like a holy man, but like Jesus of Nazareth Himself. Indeed, no subtlety of our art, no violence of our snares, however strong, can deceive or overthrow him, nor any of his followers. We cannot catch them in our traps laid to the right or to the left, nor can we defeat them. But what is more painful, if some of our faithful approach them, they become our adversaries and our mortal enemies. As for their faithful, we cannot take a single one from them.”
(37) A silence having fallen among them, each of the princes proposed various counsels and different means to obtain a swift victory over them. I pass over their opinions for the sake of brevity. But when the tempting demons had proposed many and diverse methods founded on vices, and had given examples of unexpected victories won by such means against great saints whom they thought impregnable, a second demon, after all the others, spoke by Lucifer’s command:
“Although you have all said many subtle and effective things, none of you has found the means by which, if you believe me, we shall win a brilliant victory over them.”
(38) And as all awaited his counsel, he added:
“We shall not triumph over these men unless all our industry, our solicitude, our subtlety, and our action are employed to inspire and instill, by every possible means, the desire for penance and for the service of the Lord into proud, vain, curious, deceitful, fraudulent, covetous, envious, presumptuous, and false men whom we know to be ours. For when we have our share among them, and strive to increase it daily, we shall thus disturb them, infect their Order, overturn their vows, their words, their customs, and their works, and we shall cause their reputation to spread a stench throughout the world, so that those who approach them, instead of exhaling a life-giving fragrance unto life, will exhale a deadly infection.”
(39) This speech of subversive counsel pleased Lucifer and all his princes, and from that time it was decided among them to pursue with all their strength this last plan. God, however, permitting it by the secret and hidden judgment of His design, the demons impelled men conformable to their inventions and similar to their malice, and incited them with all their strength to enter this Order which they chiefly hated and which they felt to be most opposed to them.
(40) For although at the beginning, when Saint Francis alone received the brothers, the demons were unable to accomplish the wicked designs of their fraud, because, illuminated like a cherub by the Holy Spirit, he saw before and behind, within and without; nevertheless, when the ministers had multiplied throughout the world, lacking the measure of the spirit of perfection necessary to guard against such hidden snares of the demons, and when each of the ministers, under the pretext of the salvation of souls and the expansion of the Order, was driven by the desire to increase the number of the brothers, they multiplied the people but did not increase joy, associating many wicked men with the innocent. These, trusting in their own prudence, sought to govern rather than to be governed, to establish for themselves and for others a rule according to their own judgment and will, instead of humbly observing the Rule by mortifying their will. From this arose for the founder and for the others who walked simply, labor, sorrow, and affliction of spirit; for the lukewarm, danger; for the restless, joy; for the malicious, an increased confidence in doing evil.
(41) And these evils grew so greatly before the death of Saint Francis that he himself, who was the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, could bring no remedy by his words, his examples, his signs, and his miracles. After praying, he chose, as a safer way, to devote himself to himself and to God, and to renounce the charge of the brothers.