JOHN XXII. AROUSED TO ANTAGONISM. 133 more zeal than discretion. His passions were fairly aroused, and he proceeded to treat the Franciscans as antagonists. In Decem- ber of the same year he dealt them a heavy blow in the bull Ad conditorem, wherein with remorseless logic he pointed out the fal lacy of the device of Innocent IV. for eluding the provisions of the Rule by vesting the ownership of property in the Holy See and its use in the Friars. It had not made them less eager in acquisi- tiveness, while it had led them to a senseless pride in their own as- serted superiority of poverty. He showed that use and consump- tion as conceded to them were tantamount to ownership, and that pretended ownership subject to such usufruct was illusory, while it was absurd to speak of Rome as owning an egg or a piece of cheese given to a friar to be consumed on the spot. Moreover, it was humiliating to the Roman Church to appear as plaintiff or de- fendant in the countless litigations in which the Order was in- volved, and the procurators who thus appeared in its name were said to abuse their position to the injury of many who were de- frauded of their rights. For these reasons he annulled the pro- visions of Nicholas III., and declared that henceforth no owner- ship in the possessions of the Order should inhere in the Roman Church and no procurator act in its name.* The blow was shrewdly dealt, for though the question of the poverty of Christ was not alluded to, the Order was deprived of its subterfuge, and was forced to admit practically that ownership of property was a necessary condition of its existence. Its mem- bers, however, had too long nursed the delusion to recognize its fallacy now, and in January, 1323, Bonagrazia, as procurator spe- cially commissioned for the purpose, presented to the pope in full consistory a written protest against his action. If Bonagrazia had not arguments to adduce he had at least ample precedents to cite in the long line of popes since Gregory IX., including John himself. He wound up by audaciously appealing to the pope, to
- Franz Ehrle, Archiv fur Litt.- u. K. 1887, pp. 511-12.— Baluz et Mansi II.
279-80.— Nicholaus Minorita (Ibid. III. 208-13). Curiously enough, in this John did exactly what his special antagonists, the Spi rituals, had desired. Olivi had long before pointed out the scandal of an Order vowed to poverty litigating eagerly for property and using the transpa- rent cover of papal procurators (Hist. Tribulat. ap. Archiv fur Litt.- u. K. 1886, p. 298).
