JOHN OF PARMA. 9 The election of John of Parma marked a reaction in favor of strict observance. The new general was inspired with a holy zeal to realize the ideal of St. Francis. The exiled Spirituals were recalled and allowed to select their own domiciles. During the first three years John visited on foot the whole Order, sometimes with two, and sometimes with only one companion, in the most humble guise, so that he was unrecognized, and could remain in a convent for several days, observing its character, when he would reveal himself and reform its abuses. In the ardor of his zeal he spared the feelings of no one. A lector of the Mark of Ancona, returning home from Rome, described the excessive severity of a sermon preached by him, saying that the brethren of the Mark would never have allowed any one to say such things to them ; and when asked why the masters who were present had not in- terfered, he replied, " How could they ? It was a river of fire which flowed from his lips." He suspended the declaration of In- nocent TV. until the pontiff, better informed, could be consulted. It was, however, impossible for him to control the tendencies to relaxation of the Rule, which were ever growing stronger, and his efforts to that end only served to strengthen disaffection which finally grew to determined opposition. After consultation between some influential members of the Order it was resolved to bring before Alexander IY. formal accusations against him and the friends who surrounded him. The attitude of the Spirituals, in fact, fairly invited attack.* To understand the position of the Spirituals at this time, and dustry of the arts of Aristotle, and the seductive sweetness of Plato's eloquence are Egyptian plagues in the Church (lb. 264-5). It was an early tradition of the Order that Francis had predicted its ruin through overmuch learning (Amoni, Legenda S. Francisci, App. cap. xi.). Karl Miiller (Die Anfange des Minoritenordens, Freiburg, 1885, p. 180.) as- serts that the election of Crescenzio was a triumph of the Puritans, and that lie was known for his flaming zeal for the rigid observance of the Rule. So far from this being the case, on the very night of his election he scolded the zealots (Th. Eccleston Collat. xn.), and the history of his generalate confirms the view taken of him by the Hist. Tribulationum. Affo (Vita di Gioanni di Parma, pp. 31-2) as- sumes that he endeavored to follow a middle course, and ended by persecuting the irreconcilables.
- Hist. Tribulat. (loc cit. 1886, pp. 267-8, 274).— Affo, pp. 38-9, 54, 97-8.—
Wadding, ann. 1256, No. 2.
