[5] It is St. Bonaventura, the biographer of St. Francis, who
speaks. He became General of the Order in 1256, and died in 1276.

[6] By whom, through one of his brethren.


"The army of Christ, which it had cost so dear to arm afresh,[1]
was moving slow, mistrustful, and scattered, behind the
standard,[2] when the Emperor who forever reigns provided for the
soldiery that was in peril, through grace alone, not because it
was worthy, and, as has been said, succored his Bride with two
champions, by whose deed, by whose word, the people gone astray
were rallied.

[1] The elect, who had lost grace through Adam's sin, were armed
afresh by the costly sacirifice of the Son of God.

[2] The Cross.


"In that region where the sweet west wind rises to open the new
leaves wherewith Europe is seen to reclothe herself, not very far
from the beating of the waves behind which, over their long
course, the sun sometimes bides himself to all men, sits the
fortunate Callaroga, under the protection of the great shield on
which the Lion is subject and subjugates.[1] Therein was born the
amorous lover of the Christian faith, the holy athlete, benignant
to his own, and to his enemies harsh.[2] And when it was created,
his mind was so replete with living virtue, that in his mother it
made her a prophetess.[3] After the espousals between him and the
faith were completed at the sacred font, where they dowered each
other with mutual safety, the lady who gave the assent for him
saw in a dream the marvellous fruit which was to proceed from him
and from his heirs;[4] and in order that he might be spoken of
as he was,[5] a spirit went forth from here[6] to name him with
the possessive of Him whose he wholly was. Dominic[7] he was
called; and I speak of him as of the husbandman whom Christ
elected to his garden to assist him. Truly he seemed the
messenger and familiar of Christ; for the first love that was
manifest in him was for the first counsel that Christ gave.[8]
Oftentimes was he found by his nurse upon the ground silent and
awake, as though he said, 'I am come for this.' O father of him
truly Felix! Omother of him truly Joan, if this, being
interpreted, means as is said![9]

[1] The shield of Castile, on which two lions and two castles are
quartered, one lion below and one above.

[2] St. Dominic, born in 1170.

[3] His mother dreamed that she gave birth to a dog, black and
white in color, with a lighted torch in its mouth, which set the
world on fire; symbols of the black and white robe of the Order,
and of the flaming zeal of its brethren. Hence arose a play of
words on their name, Domini cani, "the dogs of the Lord."

[4] The godmother of Dominic saw in dream a star on the forehead
and another on the back of the head of the child, signifying the
light that should stream from him over East and West.

[5] That his name might express his nature.

[6] From heaven.

[7] Dominicus, the possessive of Dominus, "Belonging to the
Lord."

[8] "Sell that thou hast and give to the poor."--Matthew, xix.
21.

[9] Felix, signifying "happy," and Joanna, "full of grace."


"Not for the world,[1] for which men now toil, following him
of Ostia and Thaddeus,[2] but for the love of the true manna, be
became in short time a great teacher, such that he set himself to
go about the vineyard, which quickly fades if the vinedresser is
bad; and of the Seat[3] which was formerly more benign unto the
righteous poor (not through itself but through him who sits there
and degenerates[4]), he asked not to dispense or two or three
for six,[5] not the fortune of the first vacancy, non decimas,
quae sunt pauperum Dei,[6] but leave to fight against the errant
world for that seed[7] of which four and twenty plants are
girding thee. Then with doctrine and with will, together with the
apostolic office,[8] he went forth like a torrent which a lofty
vein pours out, and on the heretical stocks his onset smote with
most vigor there where the resistance was the greatest. From him
proceeded thereafter divers streams wherewith the catholic garden
is watered, so that its bushes stand more living.

[1] The goods of this world.

[2] Henry of Susa, cardinal of Ostia, who wrote a much studied
commentary on the Decretals, and Thaddeus of Bologna, who, says
Giovanni Villani, "was the greatest physician in Christendom."
The thought is the same as that at the beginning of Canto XI,
where Dante speaks of "one following the Laws, and one the
Aphorisms."



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