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The Treatise on the Miracles of Saint Francis
Chapter I
THE BEGINNING OF HIS RELIGION WAS MIRACULOUS
1We have undertaken to write down
the miracles of our most holy father Francis;
and we have decided to note in first place in this account,
before all the others,
that sacred miracle by which the world was warned,
by which it was roused, and by which it was frightened.
That miracle was the beginning of the religion:
the sterile made fruitful,
giving birth to a varied people.
People observed
that the old world was growing filthy with a mange of vices,
that Orders were slipping away from the footprints of the apostles,
that the night of sinners had reached mid-course in its journey,
and silence had been imposed on sacred studies.
Just then, suddenly, there leapt upon the earth
a new man;
a new army quickly appeared;
and the peoples marveled at the signs of an apostolic newness.a
Quickly there came to light
the long-buried perfection of the primitive Church:
the world read of its marvels,
but did not see any examples of it.
Why, therefore, should the last not be called the first,
since now the hearts of fathers are wondrously turned to their children
and the hearts of children to their fathers?
Sould the mission of the two Orders,b
so well-known and famous,
- Thomas returns to a theme found throughout his earlier works, that of newness. While it is most prominent in 1C in which novus [new] appears thirty-nine times, it is proportionately less so in 2C where it appears twenty-four times. In this work, it appears thirteen times. In this instance, the theme of the "newness" found in the "new man" appears to indicate the wonders brought by the saint and the "new Orders" founded by him. Cf. FA:ED I 196 c.
- A reference to the Order of Friars Minor and that of Saint Damian, the Poor Ladies. Solet annuere, the papal decree of Pope Honorius III confirming the Later Rule with a papal seal (cf. FA:ED I 99-106), declared the Lesser Brothers an Order. In the papal document, Cum omnis vera religio (August 6, 1247), Pope Innocent IV called the Poor Ladies, the followers of Clare of Assisi (+1253), the "Order of Saint Damian." It was not called the Order of Saint Clare until the papal decree of Pope Urban IV in 1256. Thomas omits mention of the Third Order, the Order of Penitents.