The Writings of St. Francis of Assisi - + Saints' Works

Fragments of other rules
[Frag]
THE WRITINGS OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI
APPENDIX
The student of the Rule of St. Francis will find it useful to compare these fragments with the text of the
Regula non-Bullata. Mostly of scholarly interest, they serve to shed some light, however obscure, on the
development of St. Francis' expression of what was essential to Franciscan life. One group of fragments
have been salvaged from the Codex of Worcester (fol 158v-159v) and another from the writings of Hugo
of Digne, in his Exposition of the Rule, written between 1245-1255 A.D., and still another from Bl. Thomas
of Celano's Vita Secunda, written in the winter of 1226-7.A.D..
I. From the Codex of Worcester 513
1-5 [XXII,1-7] [Let us attend, all friars that the Lord says: Love (dilectio) your enemies
and do good to those who hate you (cf. Mt 5:44 par.), because Our Lord Jesus Christ, whose
footsteps we must follow (cf. 1 Pt 2:21), called His own betrayer friend and offered Himself
willingly to His own crucifiers. · Therefore all those are our friends "who unjustly bring upon us"
tribulations, difficulties,] embarrassments, 514 injuries and sorrows and torments, martyrdom and
death; (these are the ones) whom we ought to love much, because from this, which they bring
upon us, we have eternal life. · And let us castigate our body, crucifying it together with (its)
vices and concupiscence and sins, because by living carnally it wants 515 to bear away from us the
love (amor) of Jesus Christ and eternal life and to send its very self with the soul into Hell; ·
because we through our own fault were stinking, contrary to the good, prompt and willing to
evil; · because as the Lord says: "From the heart proceed and come forth wicked thoughts" (Mk
7:21) etc..
6-8 [XXII,9-12,17] ...but however, after we have dismissed the world, we have nothing
else to do, except to be solicitous to follow His will and please Him; · let us beware much, lest
we be as the rocky and thorny ground situated along the road, according to that which the Lord
says in the Gospel: "The seed is the word of God" (Lk 8:11); "which fell along the road, and was
trampled upon" (cf. Lk 8:5) and etc. through to: · "they bear fruit in patience" (Lk 8:15).
9-13 [XXII,18-24] And on that account, all friars, as the Lord says: "Let us dismiss the
dead ... their (dead)" (cf. Mt 8:22); · and let us beware much of the wickedness and subtlety of
Satan, who wants, that a man not have his virtue and his heart (turned) toward the Lord; · and
going around, he desires to bear off the heart of a man under the appearance of some wage or
help and to suffocate the word and precepts of the Lord from (his) memory and wanting to
inhabit and blind the heart of a man through secular business and cares, · as the Lord says:
513 To facilitate reference, each paragraph is identified, in italics, with the corresponding versenumber
of the Latin text (as it appears in K. Esser, pp. 361-6) and comparable verse location in
the Regula non-Bullata [RegNB]. For other notes, refer to these corresponding sections in that
Rule. This first section of the Fragments comprises part I.
514 lit. verecundias, things that make us ashamed.
515 St. Francis speaks metaphorically here, for the body, by the effects of original sin, is inclined
to inordinate desires.
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