These thirteenth-century saints were in fact true prophets. Apostles
like St. Paul, not as the result of a canonical consecration, but by the
interior order of the Spirit, they were the witnesses of liberty against
authority.

The Calabrian seer, Gioacchino di Fiore, hailed the new-born revolution;
he believed in its success and proclaimed to the wondering world the
advent of a new ministry. He was mistaken.

When the priest sees himself vanquished by the prophet he suddenly
changes his method. He takes him under his protection, he introduces his
harangues into the sacred canon, he throws over his shoulders the
priestly chasuble. The days pass on, the years roll by, and the moment
comes when the heedless crowd no longer distinguishes between them, and
it ends by believing the prophet to be an emanation of the clergy.

This is one of the bitterest ironies of history.

Francis of Assisi is pre-eminently the saint of the Middle Ages. Owing
nothing to church or school he was truly _theodidact_,[3] and if he
perhaps did not perceive the revolutionary bearing of his preaching, he
at least always refused to be ordained priest. He divined the
superiority of the spiritual priesthood.

The charm of his life is that, thanks to reliable documents, we find the
man behind the wonder worker. We find in him not merely noble actions,
we find in him a life in the true meaning of the word; I mean, we feel
in him both development and struggle.

How mistaken are the annals of the Saints in representing him as from