St. Dominic characterized by Dante (Par. XII, 56) as "a
jealous lover of the Christian faith with mildness toward his disciples
but formidable to his foes," founded an order to be "the champions of
Faith and the true lights of the world." Even in its early days it gave
to the world eminent scholars such as Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas
Aquinas, and it has never ceased to number among its members great
thinkers, ardent apostles, stern ascetics and profound mystics. In
Dante's time it was the only order specially charged with the office of
preaching and from its founder's time down to the present day the one
who acts as the Pope's Theologian has been taken from the ranks of this
order. Besides preaching to all classes of Christian society and
evangelizing the heathen, the Dominicans in Dante's day fought against
heresy and schism, lectured in the universities, toiled among the poor,
activities in which the order is still engaged.
But perhaps the man whose spiritual influence was greatest in
medievalism, if not in all the history of Christianity, was Francis of
Assisi, who "all seraphical in order rose a sun upon the world." (Par.
XI, 37.) Born at Assisi in Umbria in 1182, the son of a wealthy cloth
merchant and of Pica, a member of a noble family of Provence, Francis
grew up a handsome, gay and gallant youth "the prime favorite among the
young nobles of the town, the foremost in every feat of arms, the leader
of civil revels, the very king of frolic.
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