On St.

Francis’s Conversion: the Knight of Christ

Unique ID: 0702270

Church History CH 750

November 19, 2018

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St. Francis, hailed around the world as an agent of God’s holiness, offers the

Church a unique and enduring charism of humility, holy poverty, and devotion. St.

Bonaventure provides an early biography of the twelfth-century Saint, The Life of St.

Francis, written as a sort of apology and devotional reading for the early Franciscan

Orders.1 Although in this text God reveals Himself to Francis through a number of

visions and encounters throughout his early life, his capacity for their proper

interpretation is unattainable outside the presence of God’s gracious Spirit. Francis is

made prepared for God’s grace through the experience of a mystifying ‘illness’ and

reversals which serve to collapse Francis’s worldly projects. The erosion and inversion

of Francis’s worldly identities, namely as wealthy merchant and aspiring knight, is

underscored by his exchanges with marginal neighbors. Once these worldly identities

are rendered, for Francis, abysmal and void, he is fully prepared for their heavenly

corollaries: knight of Christ, spiritual merchant, spouse of Lady Poverty. To come to this

conclusion, we will observe the ways in which these neighborly encounters and visions

make possible a new spiritual imagination and awareness for Francis via Christ’s

revealing presence.

Bonaventure describes for us a young Francis who is enamored by worldly

pleasures and profits that come with a wealthy, mercantile existence and knightly

aspirations. Francis is depicted as both “ignorant of God’s plan for him. And he was

distracted by the external affairs of his father’s business.” 2 These twin aspects of

distraction and ignorance are set in direct contradistinction to his converted life of

compassion and contemplation. Even in the prologue Francis is mentioned not as given

1 Bonaventure and Ewert H. Cousins, “Prologue” in The Life of St. Francis.

2 Bonaventure and Ewert H. Cousins, “Chapter 1, Section 2” in The Life of St. Francis.
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“over to the drives of the flesh” or to greed but to seemingly lesser, venial sins of

pleasure-seeking and profit-seeking in the midst “worldly sons of men.” 3 His election is

likened to that of prophets and holy persons in Scripture, having “foreordained goodly

blessings” and being “mercifully snatch[ed] from the dangers of this present life and

richly fill[ed] with… grace.”4 This minimal emphasis of Francis’s sins and maximal

emphasis of his election serves both to highlight the gravity and radicality of his

conversion and his utter reliance upon God’s grace throughout.

The transition from Francis’ worldliness to holiness is signaled by an enigmatic

‘illness’. Immediately following Francis’s description as distracted by the world,

Bonaventure writes “Since affliction can enlighten our spiritual awareness (Isa. 28:19)…

God afflicted his body with a prolonged illness in order to prepare his soul for the

anointing of the Holy Spirit.”5 This is the only line that explicitly mentions an illness, but it

may serve to implicitly reveal the nature of Francis’s conversion. The verse in Isaiah

above, around which he frames his illness, is from a passage oracling judgement

against the corruption of the rulers, priests, and prophets reigning over a corrupted

Israel. The affliction which Bonaventure mentions is, in Isaiah, achieved by an

“overwhelming scourge”, which is an instrument of justice against a culture of death and

infidelity.6 In both this Isaiah passage and in the account of Francis’s illness, God

exacts judgement that may prove salvific by providing a path of redemptive suffering.

This biblical backdrop cues us to not only the bodily, but the spiritual dimensions of his

redemptive illness and affliction; like the scourge in Isaiah, his illness did not occur in a

3 Bonaventure and Ewert H. Cousins, “Prologue” in The Life of St. Francis.

4 Ibid.,
5 Bonaventure and Ewert H. Cousins, “Chapter 1, Section 2” in The Life of St. Francis.
6 Isaiah 28:15, 18-19
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social vacuum, but is a consequence of the worldliness which imprisons those in Assisi.

Essentially, Francis was undergoing the birthpangs of his penitential ministry “to call

men to weep and mourn… signing them with the cross of penance.”7

Linked together in the same paragraph, Francis’s recovery from illness is then

substantiated by an encounter with a poor knight. This knight is introduced as a foil to

Francis: “when [Francis] had dressed as usual in his fine clothes, he met a certain

knight who was of noble birth, but poor and badly clothed.”8 Littered throughout his

work, Bonaventure symbolizes Francis’s politics of identity and relationship by the

exchange of clothing. Francis clothes the knight with his own garments because he

was “moved to compassion for his poverty.” 9 While the prologue and the first chapter’s

title mentions Francis in ‘secular attire’10, this occasion indicates Francis’s first disavowal

of his old clothes. Bonaventure seems to be flagging for us here, quite obviously,

Francis’s first step towards sanctification. Not simply is this a pious act of almsgiving,

but perhaps also a moment of clarification. Francis’s aspirations, as evidenced in his

dreaming and later enlistment to the knighthood, are confounded here by an encounter

with a failed knight— one who requires a “covering over [of his] embarrassment [as] a

noble knight and relieving [his] poverty [as] a poor man.” 11 Perhaps Francis was, in a

way, not only redeeming the knight’s embarrassment with his garments, but also in

effect covering up his own infantile, chivalric pretensions. This encounter does not serve

to wholly dissolve Francis’s affinity towards the knighthood, but perhaps to reshape it

and provide a means to later transcend it. This knight may prove to be an early mirror

7 Bonaventure and Ewert H. Cousins, “Prologue” in The Life of St. Francis.

8 Bonaventure and Ewert H. Cousins, “Chapter 1, Section 2” in The Life of St. Francis, (italics mine)
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
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and stumbling block for Francis, one who’s worldly project of wealth and knightly honor

are insufficient and whose only rest is in the merits of poverty.

While Bonaventure does not explicate this inner transformation or reflection

following this encounter, we are given implicit clues in his subsequent dream of a

knightly palace. One night, Francis dreams of an extravagant palace full of military

weapons. God indicates to him both that this palace is a reward for his compassionate

work towards the knight, and that it belongs to him and his knights. Assuming that this

dream ensures worldly prosperity and justifies enlistment as a knight, Francis is shown

by Bonaventure to be incapable of interpreting this dream spiritually. In the dream, God

tells him that his compassionate almsgiving is “for love of the Supreme King.” 12

Confounding his loyalties, Francis is caught between the service of worldly kings and

the Sovereign King, between the allure of ‘fine clothes’ and the poverty of Christ.

Although God in the dream attempts to bring Francis’s focus back to his transformative

encounter with the knight, to the sign of Christ’s Cross and the homage of the Supreme

King, Francis’s distraction and ignorance in the world blinds him to these revelations.

The very encounter that had likely generated this very dream and his luxurious reward

recedes in Francis’s memory only to reawaken in due time, set as a providential pledge

of grace.

Ostensibly on his way to join the knighthood, Francis hears God’s voice,

providing him a prophetic word and yet another summons of reorientation. God

challenges Francis, questioning his loyalty towards humanly power and prestige and

heavenly Providence. Just as in the dream, God here is countering Francis’s earthly

allegiances and worldly vocation for those of God’s kingdom, and this time Francis

12 Bonaventure and Ewert H. Cousins, “Chapter 1, Section 3” in The Life of St. Francis.
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begins to obey. Effectively, God attempts thrice to compel Francis of the impotence of

his worldliness, first in the illness and encounter with the poor knight, second in the

dream of the palace, and third in this prophetic word during his knightly journey. The

Lord, however, does not wholly undermine Francis’s knightly aspiration and mercantile

profession, but rather transforms it; Francis’ personhood in the world is not wholly

extinguished in the flames of God’s Spirit, but is rather transfigured: “to be a spiritual

merchant one must begin with contempt for the world and to be a knight of Christ one

must begin with the victory over one’s self.” 13 Here we find that Francis’s identities are

not merely exhausted of their power, but are imbued with a heavenly modality.

Once back in Assisi, Francis enters into a fervent season of prayer and

encounters a leper. Upon seeing the leper, Francis was struck “with horror. But he

recalled…that he must first conquer himself if he wanted to become a knight of Christ.” 14

This linkage back to his prior revelatory episodes serves as a bridge to characterize

how Francis is beginning to see himself and others, especially the poor. Francis must

remember and bear his new identity as a knight of Christ, and the leper, like the poor

knight, should be shown compassion, which is fitting obedience to the Supreme King

revealed in his dream. Francis gifts the leper not only alms, as with the poor knight, but

also a kiss. Although he is horrified by this leper, he soon after is “clothed… with a spirit

of poverty… now he rendered humble services to the lepers… because of Christ

crucified, who… was despised as a leper.”15 God here is beginning to transcend within

Francis the vainglory of the knight, the greed of the merchant, and the horror towards

the lepers into one wholly identified with Christ. While Francis’s dream and prophetic

13 Bonaventure and Ewert H. Cousins, “Chapter 1, Section 4” in The Life of St. Francis.
14 Bonaventure and Ewert H. Cousins, “Chapter 1, Section 5” in The Life of St. Francis.
15Bonaventure and Ewert H. Cousins, “Chapter 1, Section 6” in The Life of St. Francis.
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counsel provide him ample spiritual edification, these encounters with the poor knight

and the leper, chiefly the latter, prove almost theophanic in their intensity and

ramification.

Written as a theological apology and devotional text for early Franciscanism and

thirteenth-century Christendom, Bonaventure obviously has a vested interest in

protecting Francis’s image from compromising or indecent episodes or descriptions

regarding his childhood. He likewise avoids the episodes of Francis’s military

campaign, imprisonment, and lavish partying in his adolescence. In the beginning of

the first chapter, likening Francis to a lesser Christ, he seemingly assumes

unequivocally that Francis “did not give himself over to the drives of the flesh… nor

even among greedy merchants did he place his hope.”16 It therefore appears that

whereas early biographers, such as Celano and Julian, may have written more ‘realistic’

biography that aims slightly more towards precise ‘objective history’, Bonaventure’s is

one of a polished, venerating hagiography. Whereas other biographers may have had

the luxury of writing a hagiography which aims at devotion and imitation, Bonaventure’s

seeks to justify the Franciscan movement as revealed by Christ, embodied by Francis,

and enduring within Francis’ enduring Tradition.

Secondly, whereas Francis’s commitment to poverty, humility, and devotion are

clearly present throughout the accounts in his converted life, Bonaventure’s emphasis

upon his virtuousness so early in life is alarming. as well as minor events such as his

spontaneous veneration by a stranger and his adolescent compassion and

“superhuman affability” make Francis more of a flat character, glossing over what must

16 Bonaventure and Ewert H. Cousins, “Chapter 1, Section 1” in The Life of St. Francis.
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have been a truly remarkable conversion.17 Seeing as though Bonaventure states in the

prologue the non-ordered and thematic approach to this work, and upon looking at the

chapter titles, he appears to be almost avoiding Francis’s adolescence, minimizing both

the effect and the measure of Francis’s worldliness, thereby maximizing the Franciscan

appeal to the medieval Church.18 As a Franciscan Doctor of the Church, one of the first

major intellectuals of his Order, Bonaventure had a difficult task of ordering an account

which would reconcile the Church’s and galvanize the Order by remedying questions

about Francis’ life and the nature of the Friars Minor after his death.

Francis’s conversion into a life of prayer, of holiness and poverty hangs by the

providential threads of a sequence of encounters and divine counsels. Francis’s

encounters with both a poor knight and a leper are punctuated by a dream, a divine

oracle, and seasons of devout prayer. Although Francis was blinded to the divine truth

revealed in the first dream by his worldly preoccupations, his eyes were illumined by

God’s gracious presence abiding in the midst of mundane exchanges; in the poor

knight, he beheld what he would later hear after leaving for knightly glory and what was

revealed in the dream: that he is to become a knight of Christ and no longer a knight of

the world. This inversion of vocation and renewal of identity in this account are the

germs from which Francis’s heavenly life comes to flourish. Francis was not simply a

contemplative, although he was that, but was deeply compassionate, full of works of

mercy. His life, and not surprisingly, his early conversion, is firmly predicated upon

relationships and encounters with the radically marginal neighbor, the one who is

embarrassing, who is horrifying, whose illness makes obvious one’s own illnesses. By

17 Bonaventure and Ewert H. Cousins, “Chapter 1, Section 1” in The Life of St. Francis.
18 Bonaventure and Ewert H. Cousins, “Prologue” in The Life of St. Francis.
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identifying with the poor and suffering Christ, Francis issues a mandate for the Church

to meet Christ in the hands and feet of the poor all around us.

You’ve done a good job recounting the early life of Francis and his spiritual

conversion. I enjoyed reading the paper. Your writing is rich and elegant, packed with

insightful observations. Yet let me make a pitch for the harmony of poetic clarity—keep

your sophisticated language but use big words and constructions when truly necessary,

so that they don’t clutter but inspire. Also note that for a non-Christian, phrases like

“neighborly encounter” may not ring the bell you want.

Like we said in class, the challenge of using this text is how to rise above a mere

retelling of the narrative. You made good effort in this direction. I especially appreciate

how you use spiritual progress and visions as interpretive aids, and they work fairly well.

One way to add more analytical depth is to tease out a more consistent theme and to

establish clear critical junctures. In other words, you want your readers to know that

Francis changed (or not) for this reason (why), at this point (when), or on this matter

(what). For example, how did Francis use and attitude towards money changed over

time and how did it impact his spiritual sight? How can you use (as you’ve touched on)

the theme of knighthood as an overarching theme to trace his spiritual journey with a

clear focus, and then weave into it all the ironies/reversals/God’s work of

transformation? This would also give your more voice in assessing the text and make

your interpretation more memorable.

Bibliography
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Bonaventure, and Ewert H. Cousins. The Life of St. Francis. San Francisco:

HarperSanFrancisco, 2005.

Criteria for Grading 90/A-

Strong Introduction (9/10 points)

1. Identifies the author(s) and text(s) on which the paper will focus.
2. Defines the problem or question that the paper will address.
3. Offers a clear thesis statement. In the thesis paragraph, be sure to mention the main
issues or themes in the text that you will examine in order to prove your thesis.
4. Gives a “roadmap” laying out the major steps in your argument, i.e. a quick list of the
major issues you need to address in order to prove your thesis.

Clarity and Cogency (21/25 points)

1. Clarity: Does the student explain the main ideas of the text in a way makes sense and reads
smoothly?
a. Do not clutter your paper with "big" words and highly technical terminology.
b. Keep your sentences short and to the point.
c. Use the Queen's English.
2. Cogency: Do the passages cited from the text support the student's thesis? Do the steps of the
argument build upon each other leading to the conclusion asserted in the thesis? At the end of the
day, does the argument hold together? Is the paper persuasive?
Close Sympathetic Reading (39/40 points)
A sympathetic treatment is concerned with a fair representation of the author’s argument, i.e.
what the text says explicitly.
1. Does the student give a reasonably accurate presentation of the author's argument?
2. Does the student cite and discuss the important details of the text that are key to justifying their
interpretation of the text?
3. Does the paper address passages from the text or alternative interpretations which might
contradict the paper’s thesis?
Critical Analysis (11/15 points)
Critical analysis explores the issues of social and historical context and the implicit assumptions
that influenced the author’s argument and reasoning.
1. Who is his audience? What rhetorical strategy is he using to make his point more persuasive to
his readers?
2. Why does he choose to make certain theological claims?
3. What is the logic of his overall argument? Does the logic of his argument hold together?
4. What are the unspoken assumptions behind his particular claims? How do they influence his
argument?
5. What objections might someone raise against his position? How might the theologian answer
these objections?
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Insightful Conclusion (10/10 points)

The conclusion does not merely repeat the introduction. It tries to sum up the paper’s argument.
1. It shows how the evidence and arguments presented in the body of the paper supports the thesis
put forward in the introduction.
2. It suggests the importance of the claim made in the thesis. This often is expressed in the form of a
final question.