s were born--this one, who will be among the best of men,
and another, who will be among the worst"--of having been
invented by the _zelanti_ against Brother Elias. It is evident
that such a story is aimed at some one. Whom, if not him who was
afterward to appear as the Anti-Francis?) We have sufficient
details about the eleven first disciples to know that none of
them is here in question. There is nothing surprising in the
fact that Elias does not appear in the earliest years of the
Order (1209-1212), because after having practised at Assisi his
double calling of schoolmaster and carriage-trimmer (_suebat
cultras et docebat puerulos psalterium legere_, Salimbene, p.
402) he was _scriptor_ at Bologna (Eccl., 13). And from the
psychological point of view this hypothesis would admirably
explain the ascendency which Elias was destined always to
exercise over his master. Still it remains difficult to
understand why Celano did not name Elias here, but the passage,
1 Cel., 6, differs in the different manuscripts (cf. A. SS. and
Amoni's edition, p. 14) and may have been retouched after the
latter's fall.

Beviglia is a simple farm three-quarters of an hour northwest of
Assisi, almost half way to Petrignano. Half an hour from Assisi
in the direction of Beviglia is a grotto, which may very well be
that of which we are about to speak.

[11] 1 Cel., 6; 2 Cel., 1, 5; 3 Soc., 8, 12; Bon., 10, 11, 12.

[12] 3 Soc., 7; 1 Cel., 7; 2 Cel., 1, 3; 3 Soc., 13.

[13] 3 Soc., 8-10; Bon., 13, 14; 2 Cel., 1, 4.

[14] To this day in the centre and south of Italy they kiss the
hand of priests and monks.

[15] See the Will. Cf. 3 Soc., 11; 1 Cel., 17; Bon., 11; A. SS.,
p. 566.

[16] 3 Soc., 11; Bon., 13.

* * * * *

CHAPTER III

THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209

St. Francis was inspired as much as any man may be, but it would be a
palpable error to study him apart from his age and from the conditions
in which he lived.

We know that he desired and believed his life to be an imitation of
Jesus, but what we know about the Christ is in fact so little, that St.
Francis's life loses none of its strangeness for that. His conviction
that he was but an imitator preserved him from all temptation to pride,
and enabled him to proclaim hi