The Runaway Abbot
G. K. CHESTERSTON
Some miles from the monastery of Monte Cassino stood a great crag or cliff, standing up like a pillar of the Apennines. It was crowned with a castle that bore the name of The Dry Rock, and was the eyrie in which the eaglets of the Aquino branch of the Imperial family were nursed to fly. Here lived Count Landulf of Aquino, who was the father of Thomas Aquinas and some seven other sons. In military affairs he doubtless rode with his family, in the feudal manner; and apparently had something to do with the destruction of the monastery. But it was typical of the tangle of the time, that Count Landulf seems afterwards to have thought that it would be a tactful and delicate act to put in his son Thomas as Abbot of the monastery. This would be of the nature of a graceful apology to the Church, and also, it would appear, the solution of a family difficulty.
For it had been long apparent to Count Landulf that nothing could be done with his seventh son Thomas, except to make him an Abbot or something of that kind. Born in 1226, he had from childhood a mysterious objection to becoming a predatory eagle, or even to taking an ordinary interest in falconry or tilting or any other gentlemanly pursuits. He was a large and heavy and quiet boy, and phenomenally silent, scarcely opening his mouth except to say suddenly to his schoolmaster in an explosive manner, “What is God?” The answer is not recorded but it is probable that the asker went on worrying out answers for himself. The only place for a person of this kind was the Church and presumably the cloister; and so far as that went, there was no particular difficulty. It was easy enough for a man in Count Landulf’s position to arrange with some monastery for his son to be received there; and in this particular case he thought it would be a good idea if he were received in some official capacity, that would be worthy of his worldly rank. So everything was smoothly arranged for Thomas Aquinas becoming a monk, which would seem to be what he himself wanted; and sooner or later becoming Abbot of Monte Cassino. And then the curious thing happened.
In so far as we may follow rather dim and disputed events, it would seem that the young Thomas Aquinas walked into his father’s castle one day and calmly announced that he had become one of the Begging Friars, of the new order founded by Dominic the Spaniard; much as the eldest son of the squire might go home and airily inform the family that he had married a gypsy; or the heir of a Tory Duke state that he was walking tomorrow with the Hunger Marchers organised by alleged Communists. By this, as has been noted already, we may pretty well measure the abyss between the old monasticism and the new, and the earthquake of the Dominican and Franciscan revolution. Thomas had appeared to wish to be a Monk; and the gates were silently opened to him and the long avenues of the abbey, the very carpet, so to speak, laid for him up to the throne of the mitred abbot. He said he wished to be a Friar, and his family flew at him like wild beasts; his brothers pursued him along the public roads, half-rent his friar’s frock from his back and finally locked him up in a tower like a lunatic.
It is not very easy to trace the course of this furious family quarrel, and how it eventually spent itself against the tenacity of the young Friar; according to some stories, his mother’s disapproval was short-lived and she went over to his side; but it was not only his relatives that were embroiled. We might say that the central governing class of Europe, which partly consisted of his family, were in a turmoil over the deplorable youth; even the Pope was asked for tactful intervention, and it was at one time proposed that Thomas should be allowed to wear the Dominican habit while acting as Abbot in the Benedictine Abbey. To many this would seem a tactful compromise; but it did not commend itself to the narrow medieval mind of Thomas Aquinas. He indicated sharply that he wished to be a Dominican in the Dominican Order, and not at a fancy-dress ball; and the diplomatic proposal appears to have been dropped.
Thomas of Aquino wanted to be a Friar. It was a staggering fact to his contemporaries; and it is rather an intriguing fact even to us; for this desire, limited literally and strictly to this statement, was the one practical thing to which his will was clamped with adamantine obstinacy till his death. He would not be an Abbot; he would not be a Monk; he would not even be a Prior or ruler in his own fraternity; he would not be a prominent or important Friar; he would be a Friar. It is as if Napoleon had insisted on remaining a private soldier all his life. Something in this heavy, quiet, cultivated, rather academic gentleman would not be satisfied till he was, by fixed authoritative proclamation and official pronouncement, established and appointed to be a Beggar. It is all the more interesting because, while he did more than his duty a thousand times over, he was not at all like a Beggar; nor at all likely to be a good Beggar. He had nothing of the native vagabond about him, as had his great precursors; he was not born with something of the wondering minstrel, like St. Francis; or something of the tramping missionary, like St. Dominic. But he insisted upon putting himself under military orders, to do these things at the will of another, if required. He may be compared with some of the more magnanimous aristocrats who have enrolled themselves in revolutionary armies; or some of the best of the poets and scholars who volunteered as private soldiers in the Great War. Something in the courage and consistency of Dominic and Francis had challenged his deep sense of justice; and while remaining a very reasonable person, and even a diplomatic one, he never let anything shake the iron immobility of this one decision of his youth; nor was he to be turned from his tall and towering ambition to take the lowest place.
The first effect of his decision, as we have seen, was much more stimulating and even startling. The General of the Dominicans, under whom Thomas had enrolled himself, was probably well aware of the diplomatic attempts to dislodge him and the worldly difficulties of resisting them. His expedient was to take his young follower out of Italy altogether; bidding him proceed with a few other friars to Paris. There was something prophetic even about this first progress of the travelling teacher of the nations; for Paris was indeed destined to be in some sense the goal of his spiritual journey; since it was there that he was to deliver both his great defence of the Friars and his great defiance to the antagonists of Aristotle. But this his first journey to Paris was destined to be broken off very short indeed. The friars had reached a turn of the road by a wayside fountain, a little way north of Rome, when they were overtaken by a wild cavalcade of captors, who seized on Thomas like brigands, but who were in fact only rather needlessly agitated brothers. He had a large number of brothers: perhaps only two were here involved. Indeed he was the seventh; and friends of Birth Control may lament that this philosopher was needlessly added to the noble line of ruffians who kidnapped him. It was an odd affair altogether. There is something quaint and picturesque in the idea of kidnapping a begging friar, who might in a sense be called a runaway abbot. There is a comic and tragic tangle in the motives and purposes of such a trio of strange kinsmen. There is a sort of Christian cross-purposes in the contrast between the feverish illusion of the importance of things, always marking men who are called practical; and the much more practical pertinacity of the man who is called theoretical.
Thus at least did those three strange brethren stagger or trail along their tragic road, tied together, as it were, like criminal and constable; only that the criminals were making the arrest. So their figures are seen for an instant against the horizon of history; brothers as sinister as any since Cain and Abel. For this queer outrage in the great family of Aquino does really stand out symbolically, as representing something that will forever make the Middle Ages a mystery and a bewilderment; capable of sharply contrasted interpretations like darkness and light. For in two of those men there raged, we might say screamed, a savage pride of blood and blazonry of arms, though they were princes of the most refined world of their time, which would seem more suitable to a tribe dancing round a totem. For the moment they had forgotten everything except the name of a family, that is narrower than a tribe, and far narrower than a nation. And the third figure of that trio, born of the same mother and perhaps visibly one with the others in face or form, had a conception of brotherhood broader than most modern democracy, for it was not national but international; a faith in mercy and modesty far deeper than any mere mildness of manners in the modern world; and a drastic oath of poverty, which would now be counted quite a mad exaggeration of the revolt against plutocracy and pride. Out of the same Italian castle came two savages and one sage; or one saint more pacific than most modern sages. That is the double aspect confusing a hundred controversies. That is what makes the riddle of the medieval age; that it was not one age but two ages. We look into the moods of some men, and it might be the Stone Age; we look into the minds of other men, and they might be living in the Golden Age; in the most modern sort of Utopia. There were always good men and bad men; but in this time good men who were subtle lived with bad men who were simple. They lived in the same family; they were brought up in the same nursery; and they came out to struggle, as the brothers of Aquino struggled by the wayside, when they dragged the new friar along the road and shut him up in the castle on the hill.
When his relations tried to despoil him of his friar’s frock he seems to have laid about them in the fighting manner of his fathers, and it would seem successfully, since this attempt was abandoned. He accepted the imprisonment itself with his customary composure, and probably did not mind very much whether he was left to philosophise in a dungeon or in a cell. Indeed there is something in the way the whole tale is told, which suggests that through a great part of that strange abduction, he had been carried about like a lumbering stone statue. Only one tale told of his captivity shows him merely in anger; and that shows him angrier than he ever was before or after. It struck the imagination of his own time for more important reasons; but it has an interest that is psychological as well as moral. For once in his life, for the first time and the last, Thomas of Aquino was really hors de lui; riding a storm outside that tower of intellect and contemplation in which he commonly lived. And that was when his brothers introduced into his room some specially gorgeous and painted courtesan, with the idea of surprising him by a sudden temptation, or at least involving him in a scandal. His anger was justified, even by less strict moral standards than his own; for the meanness was even worse than the foulness of the expedient. Even on the lowest grounds, he knew his brothers knew, and they knew that he knew, that it was an insult to him as a gentleman to suppose that he would break his pledge upon so base a provocation; and he had behind him a far more terrible sensibility; all that huge ambition of humility which was to him the voice of God out of heaven. In this one flash alone we see that huge unwieldy figure in an attitude of activity, or even animation; and he was very animated indeed. He sprang from his seat and snatched a brand out of the fire, and stood brandishing it like a flaming sword. The woman not unnaturally shrieked and fled, which was all that he wanted; but it is quaint to think of what she must have thought of that madman of monstrous stature juggling with flames and apparently threatening to burn down the house. All he did, however, was to stride after her to the door and bang and bar it behind her; and then, with a sort of impulse of violent ritual, he rammed the burning brand into the door, blackening and blistering it with one big black sign of the cross. Then he returned, and dropped it again into the fire; and sat down on that seat of sedentary scholarship, that chair of philosophy, that secret throne of contemplation, from which he never rose again…
The Runaway Abbot
G. K. CHESTERSTON
Some miles from the monastery of Monte Cassino stood a great crag or cliff, standing up like a pillar of the Apennines. It was crowned with a castle that bore the name of The Dry Rock, and was the eyrie in which the eaglets of the Aquino branch of the Imperial family were nursed to fly. Here lived Count Landulf of Aquino, who was the father of Thomas Aquinas and some seven other sons. In military affairs he doubtless rode with his family, in the feudal manner; and apparently had something to do with the destruction of the monastery. But it was typical of the tangle of the time, that Count Landulf seems afterwards to have thought that it would be a tactful and delicate act to put in his son Thomas as Abbot of the monastery. This would be of the nature of a graceful apology to the Church, and also, it would appear, the solution of a family difficulty.
For it had been long apparent to Count Landulf that nothing could be done with his seventh son Thomas, except to make him an Abbot or something of that kind. Born in 1226, he had from childhood a mysterious objection to becoming a predatory eagle, or even to taking an ordinary interest in falconry or tilting or any other gentlemanly pursuits. He was a large and heavy and quiet boy, and phenomenally silent, scarcely opening his mouth except to say suddenly to his schoolmaster in an explosive manner, “What is God?” The answer is not recorded but it is probable that the asker went on worrying out answers for himself. The only place for a person of this kind was the Church and presumably the cloister; and so far as that went, there was no particular difficulty. It was easy enough for a man in Count Landulf’s position to arrange with some monastery for his son to be received there; and in this particular case he thought it would be a good idea if he were received in some official capacity, that would be worthy of his worldly rank. So everything was smoothly arranged for Thomas Aquinas becoming a monk, which would seem to be what he himself wanted; and sooner or later becoming Abbot of Monte Cassino. And then the curious thing happened.
In so far as we may follow rather dim and disputed events, it would seem that the young Thomas Aquinas walked into his father’s castle one day and calmly announced that he had become one of the Begging Friars, of the new order founded by Dominic the Spaniard; much as the eldest son of the squire might go home and airily inform the family that he had married a gypsy; or the heir of a Tory Duke state that he was walking tomorrow with the Hunger Marchers organised by alleged Communists. By this, as has been noted already, we may pretty well measure the abyss between the old monasticism and the new, and the earthquake of the Dominican and Franciscan revolution. Thomas had appeared to wish to be a Monk; and the gates were silently opened to him and the long avenues of the abbey, the very carpet, so to speak, laid for him up to the throne of the mitred abbot. He said he wished to be a Friar, and his family flew at him like wild beasts; his brothers pursued him along the public roads, half-rent his friar’s frock from his back and finally locked him up in a tower like a lunatic.
It is not very easy to trace the course of this furious family quarrel, and how it eventually spent itself against the tenacity of the young Friar; according to some stories, his mother’s disapproval was short-lived and she went over to his side; but it was not only his relatives that were embroiled. We might say that the central governing class of Europe, which partly consisted of his family, were in a turmoil over the deplorable youth; even the Pope was asked for tactful intervention, and it was at one time proposed that Thomas should be allowed to wear the Dominican habit while acting as Abbot in the Benedictine Abbey. To many this would seem a tactful compromise; but it did not commend itself to the narrow medieval mind of Thomas Aquinas. He indicated sharply that he wished to be a Dominican in the Dominican Order, and not at a fancy-dress ball; and the diplomatic proposal appears to have been dropped.
L’Abate Fuggiasco
G. K. CHESTERSTON
A qualche miglio dal monastero di Montecassino sorgeva una grande rupe o rocca, che si ergeva come un pilastro degli Appennini. Era coronata da un castello che portava il nome di Roccasecca, ed era il nido d’aquila in cui gli aquilotti del ramo aquinate della famiglia imperiale venivano allevati per volare. Qui viveva il Conte Landolfo d’Aquino, che era il padre di Tommaso d’Aquino e di altri sette figli circa. Nelle faccende militari egli cavalcava senza dubbio con la sua famiglia, alla maniera feudale; e a quanto pare ebbe qualcosa a che fare con la distruzione del monastero. Ma era tipico del groviglio di quel tempo che il Conte Landolfo sembri in seguito aver pensato che sarebbe stato un atto pieno di tatto e di delicatezza collocare suo figlio Tommaso come Abate del monastero. Ciò sarebbe stato della natura di una graziosa scusa alla Chiesa, e anche, a quanto pare, la soluzione di una difficoltà familiare.
Poiché era da tempo apparso chiaro al conte Landolfo che nulla si poteva fare del suo settimo figlio Tommaso, se non farne un Abate o qualcosa del genere. Nato nel 1226, egli aveva fin dall’infanzia una misteriosa avversione a diventare un’aquila predatrice, o anche solo a prendere un ordinario interesse per la falconeria, per la giostra o per qualsiasi altra occupazione da gentiluomo. Era un ragazzo grande, pesante e quieto, e fenomenalmente silenzioso, che a stento apriva bocca se non per dire improvvisamente al suo maestro, in maniera esplosiva: «Che cos’è Dio?» La risposta non è registrata, ma è probabile che colui che chiedeva continuasse a scervellarsi da sé per trovare le risposte. L’unico posto per una persona di questa specie era la Chiesa e presumibilmente il chiostro; e per quel che riguardava ciò, non c’era particolare difficoltà. Era abbastanza facile per un uomo nella posizione del conte Landolfo accordarsi con qualche monastero affinché suo figlio vi fosse accolto; e in questo caso particolare egli pensò che sarebbe stata una buona idea che vi fosse accolto in qualche veste ufficiale, degna del suo rango mondano. Così tutto fu agevolmente predisposto perché Tommaso d’Aquino diventasse monaco, il che sembrava essere quanto egli stesso desiderava; e prima o poi diventasse Abate di Montecassino. E poi accadde la cosa curiosa.
Per quanto possiamo seguire eventi piuttosto oscuri e controversi, sembrerebbe che il giovane Tommaso d’Aquino entrasse nel castello di suo padre un giorno e annunciasse con calma di essere diventato uno dei Frati Mendicanti, del nuovo ordine fondato da Domenico lo Spagnolo; proprio come il primogenito dello squire potrebbe tornare a casa e informare con leggerezza la famiglia di aver sposato una zingara; o l’erede di un Duca Tory dichiarare che l’indomani avrebbe marciato con i Marciatori della Fame organizzati da presunti comunisti. Da questo, come già si è notato, possiamo misurare abbastanza bene l’abisso tra il vecchio monachesimo e il nuovo, e il terremoto della rivoluzione domenicana e francescana. Tommaso era parso desiderare di essere un Monaco; e le porte gli erano silenziosamente aperte e i lunghi viali dell’abbazia, il tappeto stesso, per così dire, steso per lui fino al trono dell’abate mitrato. Egli disse che desiderava essere un Frate, e la sua famiglia gli si avventò contro come bestie feroci; i suoi fratelli lo inseguirono lungo le pubbliche strade, gli strapparono a metà il saio da frate dalla schiena e infine lo rinchiusero in una torre come un pazzo.
Non è molto facile ricostruire il corso di questa furiosa lite familiare, e come alla fine essa si esaurì contro la tenacia del giovane Frate; secondo alcune storie, la disapprovazione di sua madre fu di breve durata ed ella passò dalla sua parte; ma non erano soltanto i suoi parenti a essere coinvolti. Potremmo dire che la classe dirigente centrale d’Europa, che in parte era costituita dalla sua famiglia, era in subbuglio per il deplorevole giovane; persino al Papa fu chiesto un tattico intervento, e a un certo momento fu proposto che a Tommaso si permettesse di indossare l’abito domenicano pur agendo da Abate nell’Abbazia benedettina. A molti questo parrebbe un tattico compromesso; ma non si raccomandò alla ristretta mente medievale di Tommaso d’Aquino. Egli fece capire seccamente che desiderava essere un domenicano nell’Ordine domenicano, e non a un ballo in maschera; e la proposta diplomatica sembra essere stata lasciata cadere.
Thomas of Aquino wanted to be a Friar. It was a staggering fact to his contemporaries; and it is rather an intriguing fact even to us; for this desire, limited literally and strictly to this statement, was the one practical thing to which his will was clamped with adamantine obstinacy till his death. He would not be an Abbot; he would not be a Monk; he would not even be a Prior or ruler in his own fraternity; he would not be a prominent or important Friar; he would be a Friar. It is as if Napoleon had insisted on remaining a private soldier all his life. Something in this heavy, quiet, cultivated, rather academic gentleman would not be satisfied till he was, by fixed authoritative proclamation and official pronouncement, established and appointed to be a Beggar. It is all the more interesting because, while he did more than his duty a thousand times over, he was not at all like a Beggar; nor at all likely to be a good Beggar. He had nothing of the native vagabond about him, as had his great precursors; he was not born with something of the wondering minstrel, like St. Francis; or something of the tramping missionary, like St. Dominic. But he insisted upon putting himself under military orders, to do these things at the will of another, if required. He may be compared with some of the more magnanimous aristocrats who have enrolled themselves in revolutionary armies; or some of the best of the poets and scholars who volunteered as private soldiers in the Great War. Something in the courage and consistency of Dominic and Francis had challenged his deep sense of justice; and while remaining a very reasonable person, and even a diplomatic one, he never let anything shake the iron immobility of this one decision of his youth; nor was he to be turned from his tall and towering ambition to take the lowest place.
The first effect of his decision, as we have seen, was much more stimulating and even startling. The General of the Dominicans, under whom Thomas had enrolled himself, was probably well aware of the diplomatic attempts to dislodge him and the worldly difficulties of resisting them. His expedient was to take his young follower out of Italy altogether; bidding him proceed with a few other friars to Paris. There was something prophetic even about this first progress of the travelling teacher of the nations; for Paris was indeed destined to be in some sense the goal of his spiritual journey; since it was there that he was to deliver both his great defence of the Friars and his great defiance to the antagonists of Aristotle. But this his first journey to Paris was destined to be broken off very short indeed. The friars had reached a turn of the road by a wayside fountain, a little way north of Rome, when they were overtaken by a wild cavalcade of captors, who seized on Thomas like brigands, but who were in fact only rather needlessly agitated brothers. He had a large number of brothers: perhaps only two were here involved. Indeed he was the seventh; and friends of Birth Control may lament that this philosopher was needlessly added to the noble line of ruffians who kidnapped him. It was an odd affair altogether. There is something quaint and picturesque in the idea of kidnapping a begging friar, who might in a sense be called a runaway abbot. There is a comic and tragic tangle in the motives and purposes of such a trio of strange kinsmen. There is a sort of Christian cross-purposes in the contrast between the feverish illusion of the importance of things, always marking men who are called practical; and the much more practical pertinacity of the man who is called theoretical.
Tommaso d’Aquino voleva essere un Frate. Era un fatto sbalorditivo per i suoi contemporanei; ed è un fatto piuttosto intrigante anche per noi; poiché questo desiderio, limitato alla lettera e in senso stretto a questa affermazione, fu l’unica cosa concreta cui la sua volontà restò avvinta con adamantina ostinazione fino alla morte. Non voleva essere Abate; non voleva essere Monaco; non voleva nemmeno essere Priore o superiore nella propria fraternità; non voleva essere un Frate eminente e importante; voleva essere un Frate. È come se Napoleone avesse insistito per rimanere soldato semplice tutta la vita. Qualcosa in questo gentiluomo pesante, quieto, coltivato, piuttosto accademico, non si sarebbe acquietato finché non fosse stato, per fissa e autorevole proclamazione e ufficiale pronunciamento, stabilito e nominato Mendicante. È tanto più interessante perché, pur facendo mille volte più del proprio dovere, non aveva nulla che somigliasse a un Mendicante; né era affatto probabile che fosse un buon Mendicante. Non aveva nulla del vagabondo di natura, come l’ebbero i suoi grandi precursori; non era nato con qualcosa del menestrello errante, come san Francesco; o con qualcosa del missionario girovago, come san Domenico. Ma insistette per porsi sotto ordini militari, per fare queste cose secondo la volontà d’altri, ove fosse richiesto. Lo si può paragonare ad alcuni tra i più magnanimi aristocratici che si sono arruolati negli eserciti rivoluzionari; o ad alcuni tra i migliori poeti e studiosi che si offrirono volontari come soldati semplici nella Grande Guerra. Qualcosa nel coraggio e nella coerenza di Domenico e di Francesco aveva sfidato il suo profondo senso della giustizia; e, pur restando persona molto ragionevole, e persino diplomatica, non lasciò mai che nulla scuotesse la ferrea immobilità di quest’unica decisione della giovinezza; né si sarebbe lasciato distogliere dalla sua alta e torreggiante ambizione di occupare l’ultimo posto.
Il primo effetto della sua decisione, come abbiamo visto, fu ben più stimolante e persino sorprendente. Il Generale dei Domenicani, sotto il quale Tommaso si era arruolato, era probabilmente ben consapevole dei tentativi diplomatici di scalzarlo e delle mondane difficoltà nel resistervi. Il suo espediente fu di portare il giovane seguace fuori dall’Italia del tutto, ordinandogli di recarsi con pochi altri frati a Parigi. C’era qualcosa di profetico persino in questo primo cammino del maestro itinerante delle nazioni; poiché Parigi era davvero destinata a essere in un certo senso la meta del suo viaggio spirituale; giacché fu lì che avrebbe pronunciato tanto la sua grande difesa dei Frati quanto la sua grande sfida agli avversari di Aristotele. Ma questo suo primo viaggio a Parigi era destinato a essere interrotto assai bruscamente. I frati avevano raggiunto una svolta della strada presso una fontana lungo la via, un poco a nord di Roma, quando furono raggiunti da una selvaggia cavalcata di rapitori, che si avventarono su Tommaso come briganti, ma che in realtà erano soltanto fratelli inutilmente agitati. Egli aveva un gran numero di fratelli: forse qui ne erano coinvolti soltanto due. In effetti egli era il settimo; e gli amici del Controllo delle Nascite potranno rammaricarsi che questo filosofo fosse stato aggiunto senza necessità alla nobile schiera di manigoldi che lo rapirono. Fu, tutto sommato, una faccenda bizzarra. C’è qualcosa di curioso e pittoresco nell’idea di rapire un frate mendicante, che in un certo senso si potrebbe chiamare un abate fuggiasco. C’è un groviglio comico e tragico nelle motivazioni e negli intenti di un simile terzetto di strani parenti. C’è una sorta di cristiano controsenso nel contrasto tra la febbrile illusione dell’importanza delle cose, che sempre contrassegna gli uomini detti pratici; e la ben più pratica pertinacia dell’uomo che vien detto teorico.
Thus at least did those three strange brethren stagger or trail along their tragic road, tied together, as it were, like criminal and constable; only that the criminals were making the arrest. So their figures are seen for an instant against the horizon of history; brothers as sinister as any since Cain and Abel. For this queer outrage in the great family of Aquino does really stand out symbolically, as representing something that will forever make the Middle Ages a mystery and a bewilderment; capable of sharply contrasted interpretations like darkness and light. For in two of those men there raged, we might say screamed, a savage pride of blood and blazonry of arms, though they were princes of the most refined world of their time, which would seem more suitable to a tribe dancing round a totem. For the moment they had forgotten everything except the name of a family, that is narrower than a tribe, and far narrower than a nation. And the third figure of that trio, born of the same mother and perhaps visibly one with the others in face or form, had a conception of brotherhood broader than most modern democracy, for it was not national but international; a faith in mercy and modesty far deeper than any mere mildness of manners in the modern world; and a drastic oath of poverty, which would now be counted quite a mad exaggeration of the revolt against plutocracy and pride. Out of the same Italian castle came two savages and one sage; or one saint more pacific than most modern sages. That is the double aspect confusing a hundred controversies. That is what makes the riddle of the medieval age; that it was not one age but two ages. We look into the moods of some men, and it might be the Stone Age; we look into the minds of other men, and they might be living in the Golden Age; in the most modern sort of Utopia. There were always good men and bad men; but in this time good men who were subtle lived with bad men who were simple. They lived in the same family; they were brought up in the same nursery; and they came out to struggle, as the brothers of Aquino struggled by the wayside, when they dragged the new friar along the road and shut him up in the castle on the hill.
When his relations tried to despoil him of his friar’s frock he seems to have laid about them in the fighting manner of his fathers, and it would seem successfully, since this attempt was abandoned. He accepted the imprisonment itself with his customary composure, and probably did not mind very much whether he was left to philosophise in a dungeon or in a cell. Indeed there is something in the way the whole tale is told, which suggests that through a great part of that strange abduction, he had been carried about like a lumbering stone statue. Only one tale told of his captivity shows him merely in anger; and that shows him angrier than he ever was before or after. It struck the imagination of his own time for more important reasons; but it has an interest that is psychological as well as moral. For once in his life, for the first time and the last, Thomas of Aquino was really hors de lui; riding a storm outside that tower of intellect and contemplation in which he commonly lived. And that was when his brothers introduced into his room some specially gorgeous and painted courtesan, with the idea of surprising him by a sudden temptation, or at least involving him in a scandal. His anger was justified, even by less strict moral standards than his own; for the meanness was even worse than the foulness of the expedient. Even on the lowest grounds, he knew his brothers knew, and they knew that he knew, that it was an insult to him as a gentleman to suppose that he would break his pledge upon so base a provocation; and he had behind him a far more terrible sensibility; all that huge ambition of humility which was to him the voice of God out of heaven. In this one flash alone we see that huge unwieldy figure in an attitude of activity, or even animation; and he was very animated indeed. He sprang from his seat and snatched a brand out of the fire, and stood brandishing it like a flaming sword. The woman not unnaturally shrieked and fled, which was all that he wanted; but it is quaint to think of what she must have thought of that madman of monstrous stature juggling with flames and apparently threatening to burn down the house. All he did, however, was to stride after her to the door and bang and bar it behind her; and then, with a sort of impulse of violent ritual, he rammed the burning brand into the door, blackening and blistering it with one big black sign of the cross. Then he returned, and dropped it again into the fire; and sat down on that seat of sedentary scholarship, that chair of philosophy, that secret throne of contemplation, from which he never rose again…
Così almeno quei tre strani fratelli barcollarono o si trascinarono lungo la loro tragica strada, legati insieme, per così dire, come criminale e poliziotto; salvo che erano i criminali a compiere l’arresto. Così le loro figure si vedono per un istante contro l’orizzonte della storia; fratelli sinistri quanto nessuno da Caino e Abele in poi. Poiché questo bizzarro oltraggio nella grande famiglia d’Aquino spicca davvero simbolicamente, come rappresentante di qualcosa che renderà per sempre il Medioevo un mistero e uno sconcerto; capace di interpretazioni nettamente contrastanti come tenebra e luce. Poiché in due di quegli uomini infuriava, potremmo dire strepitava, un selvaggio orgoglio di sangue e di blasone d’armi, benché fossero principi del mondo più raffinato del loro tempo, che parrebbe più adatto a una tribù danzante attorno a un totem. Per il momento avevano dimenticato ogni cosa tranne il nome di una famiglia, che è più angusto di una tribù, e assai più angusto di una nazione. E la terza figura di quel trio, nata dalla stessa madre e forse visibilmente una con gli altri nel volto o nella forma, aveva una concezione della fratellanza più ampia della più moderna democrazia, poiché non era nazionale ma internazionale; una fede nella misericordia e nella modestia assai più profonda di ogni mera mitezza di modi nel mondo moderno; e un drastico voto di povertà, che ora sarebbe considerato addirittura una folle esagerazione della rivolta contro la plutocrazia e l’orgoglio. Dallo stesso castello italiano uscirono due selvaggi e un savio; o un santo più pacifico della maggior parte dei savi moderni. È questo l’aspetto duplice che confonde cento controversie. È questo che costituisce l’enigma dell’età medievale; che essa non era un’età sola ma due età. Guardiamo negli umori di certi uomini, e potrebbe essere l’Età della Pietra; guardiamo nelle menti di altri uomini, e potrebbero vivere nell’Età dell’Oro; nella più moderna specie di Utopia. Vi furono sempre uomini buoni e uomini cattivi; ma in questo tempo uomini buoni che erano sottili vivevano con uomini cattivi che erano semplici. Vivevano nella stessa famiglia; erano allevati nella stessa nursery; e uscivano a lottare, come lottarono i fratelli d’Aquino lungo il cammino, quando trascinarono il nuovo frate lungo la strada e lo rinchiusero nel castello sull’altura.
Quando i suoi parenti tentarono di spogliarlo del saio da frate, pare che egli menasse le mani contro di loro alla maniera guerresca dei suoi avi, e a quanto sembra con successo, poiché quel tentativo fu abbandonato. La prigionia stessa l’accettò con la consueta compostezza, e probabilmente non gl’importava granché se lo si lasciava a filosofare in un sotterraneo o in una cella. Anzi, vi è qualcosa nel modo in cui l’intera vicenda è narrata che suggerisce come, per gran parte di quello strano rapimento, egli fosse stato trasportato come una pesante statua di pietra. Un solo racconto della sua prigionia ce lo mostra semplicemente adirato; e ce lo mostra più adirato di quanto fosse mai stato prima o dopo. Esso colpì l’immaginazione del suo tempo per ragioni più importanti; ma ha un interesse tanto psicologico quanto ben morale. Per una volta nella vita, per la prima volta e l’ultima, Tommaso d’Aquino fu davvero hors de lui; travolto da una tempesta fuori da quella torre d’intelletto e di contemplazione in cui abitualmente dimorava. E ciò avvenne quando i suoi fratelli introdussero nella sua stanza una cortigiana particolarmente sfarzosa e imbellettata, con l’idea di sorprenderlo con un’improvvisa tentazione, o almeno di coinvolgerlo in uno scandalo. La sua ira era giustificata, anche secondo criteri morali meno rigorosi dei suoi; poiché la meschinità era ancora peggiore della turpitudine dell’espediente. Anche sul piano più basso, egli sapeva che i suoi fratelli sapevano, ed essi sapevano che egli sapeva, che era un insulto a lui come gentiluomo supporre che avrebbe infranto il proprio voto per una provocazione tanto vile; e aveva dietro di sé una sensibilità assai più terribile; tutta quella immensa ambizione di umiltà che era per lui la voce di Dio dal cielo. In quest’unico lampo soltanto vediamo quella figura enorme e goffa in un atteggiamento di attività, o addirittura di animazione; ed era davvero assai animato. Balzò dal suo seggio e afferrò un tizzone dal fuoco, e restò a brandirlo come una fiammeggiante spada. La donna, non innaturalmente, urlò e fuggì, il che era tutto ciò che egli voleva; ma è curioso pensare a ciò che ella dovette pensare di quel folle di mostruosa statura che giocolava con le fiamme e minacciava, a quanto pareva, d’incendiare la casa. Tutto ciò che egli fece, però, fu di avanzare a grandi passi dietro di lei fino alla porta e sbatterla e sbarrarla alle sue spalle; e poi, con una sorta d’impulso di violento rituale, conficcò il tizzone ardente nella porta, annerendola e scorticandola con un grande nero segno della croce. Poi tornò, e lo lasciò cadere di nuovo nel fuoco; e sedette su quel seggio di sedentaria erudizione, quella cattedra di filosofia, quel segreto trono di contemplazione, dal quale mai più si levò…