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The Dominicans by Benedict M. Ashley, O. P. Contents Foreword 1 The Dominicans by Benedict M. Ashley, O. P. Contents Foreword 6. Debaters (1600s) 1. Founder's Spirit 7. Survivors (1700s) 2. Professor's (1200s) 8. Compromise (1800s) 3. Mystics (1300s) 9. Ecumenists (1900s) 4. Humanists (1400s) 10. The Future 5. Reformers (1500s) Bibliography Download a self-extracting, zipped, text version of the book, in MSWord .doc files, by clicking on this filename: ashdom.exe. Save to your computer and extract by clicking on the filename. Foreword In our pluralistic age we recognize many traditions have special gifts to make to a rich, well-balanced spirituality for our time. My own life has shown me the spiritual tradition stemming from St. Dominic, like that from his contemporary St. Francis, provides ever fresh insights. No tradition, however, can be understood merely by looking at its origins. We must see it unfold historically in those who have been formed by that tradition in many times and situations and have furthered its development. To know its essential strength, we need to see it tested, undergoing deformations yet recovering and growing. Therefore, I have tried to survey its eight centuries to give some sense of its chronology and its individual personalities, and of the inclusive Dominican Family. I have aimed only to provide a sketch to encourage readers to use the bibliography to explore further, but with regret I have omitted all documentation except to indicate the source of quotations. Translated 1 quotations are mine. I thank Sister Susan Noffke, O.P., Fr. Thomas Donlan, O.P., for encouraging this project and my Provincial, Fr. Donald Goergen, O. P., and my Prior, Joseph Gillespie, O. P., along with my brothers of St. Louis Bertrand Priory, St. Louis, especially Benjamin Russell, O.P., and also William Conlan, O.P., for reading the manuscript, and the faculty and staff of Aquinas Institute of Theology and PARABLE for supporting its completion. Benedict M. Ashley, O.P. A Michael Glazier Book THE LITURGICAL The cover and illustrations in this volume are the work of PRESS Brother Placid Stuckenschneider, O.S.B. Collegeville, Minnesota Religious Order Series Volume 3 The Copyright © 1990 by The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., Dominicans Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. No part of this A Michael Glazier book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, Book published by electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, THE LITURGICAL taping, or any retrieval system, without the written permission PRESS of The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321. Typography by Printed in the United States of America. Phyllis Boyd LeVane and Mary Brown. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ashley, Benedict M. The Dominicans / by Benedict M. Ashley. p. cm. - (Religious order series ; vol. 3) "A Michael Glazier book." Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8146-5723-0 1. Dominicans -- History. I. Title. II. Series. BX3506.2.A84 1990 271'.2-dc20 90-62034 COVER NEXT 2 1 Founder's Spirit Blessed Cecilia Caesarini, who was received by St. Dominic into his new order, in her old age described him thus: He was thin and of middle height. His face was handsome and somewhat fair. He had reddish hair and beard and beautiful eyes. From his forehead and eyes shown a sort of radiance which drew everyone to respect and love him. He was always cheerful and alert, except when he was moved to compassion at the sight of someone's troubles. His hands were long and fine and his voice pleasingly resonant. He never got bald, though he wore the full tonsure, which was mingled with a few grey hairs. Our knowledge of Dominic de Guzman's life is chiefly based on the Libellus of Jordan of Saxony, his successor as head of the Order of Preachers which Dominic founded. Jordan knew Dominic personally and wrote only about twelve years after his death, but had not been one of his close companions. The Libellus, although written to promote Dominic's canonization in 1234 is disappointingly sketchy. It tells us more about the origins of the Order than the personality of the founder. Unlike the Franciscans, the early followers of St. Dominic never showed much interest in their founder's cult and seemed to have feared that too much popular devotion to him might hinder the mission he had entrusted to them. Dominic was born between 1171 and 1173 in the Castilian village of Caleruega, son of Felix de Guzman and Jane of Aza of the Spanish nobility. Christian Spain was still struggling to free itself from Moorish occupation and, even for a knightly family, life was austere in that stark, dry region where Felix as local lord owned little more than range land, a few flocks of sheep, and the manor house and tower (still standing) which served to guard the land. Jane of Aza was noted for her concern for the poor and was regarded by the local people as a saint. 3 When Dominic was seven his education was put in charge of Jane's brother, a priest, and when he was fourteen he entered the school at Palencia, one of the few higher schools in Spain at that time and soon to become a university, where he studied liberal arts and theology for ten years. He lived a rather bookish life but during a time of famine sold his books to assist the poor. In 1196, when he was about 24, he joined the cathedral chapter of Osma. The canons of the Cathedral were priests associated with the bishop who had recently reformed their community life to live strictly in poverty according to the Rule of St. Augustine. The prior and reformer of this chapter was the remarkable Diego de Azevedo who in 1201 became bishop of the diocese. It was he who had noticed Dominic the student and obtained permission of the former bishop, Martin Bazan, for him to enter the chapter and in a few months to be ordained priest. Soon Dominic was appointed sacristan, then sub-prior, thus gaining useful experience in administration and the work of reform. In 1203 when Alfonso VIII of Castile requested Bishop Diego to travel to Denmark to arrange the marriage of his son to a Danish princess, the bishop naturally chose the young priest to be his companion on the long, dangerous journey. The journey proved the turning point in Dominic's life, opening his eyes to a wider world and its problems. As they passed through southern France they encountered a shocking situation. While Dominic knew of the Moors and Jews in Spain, here he met former Christians who had become alienated from the Church and converted to the religion of the Cathari (Pure Ones), often called Albigensians from their stronghold at Albi. This strange cult had its remote origins in the Gnosticism over which the Church had triumphed in the second century but had then passed through the Manichaeism of Persia to the Paulicians of Armenia, then in the ninth century to the Bogomils of Bulgaria, in the tenth to Constantinople, then in the twelfth with the Second Crusaders to northern Italy, France, and the Rhineland, and finally was achieving its greatest success among the nobility of southern France. There it took the form of a radical dualism according to which the visible creation was attributed to an evil god. Salvation for an elite of the "Perfect" or "Pure" was to be achieved by an extreme asceticism and poverty, but for the majority, who lacked the courage for such a life, by receiving in the hour of death a special sacrament, the consolamentum, administered by the Perfect. This doctrine permitted most of its adherents to live much as they pleased until death, while pointing to their Perfect as exemplifying a holiness which utterly discredited the worldly clergy of the Catholic Church. One night at an inn in Toulouse, Dominic engaged in a discussion about these doctrines with an innkeeper (who was probably a deacon of the Catharist church). Dominic was so moved by meeting this man deluded by the myth of two gods, one good but remote and hidden, and the other evil but creative, that, weary as he must have been after hours on horseback, he sat up all night talking with him and by dawn had won him back to the true God revealed in Jesus Christ. From Denmark, Diego and Dominic returned to Spain with news of their mission accomplished, only to be sent back two years later to fetch the princess, and then to find that she would not return. Their time in Scandanavia, however, taught them that to the east there were vast pagan territories waiting for the Gospel. Consequently, on their return journey they went first to Rome to beg the great Pope Innocent III to let them go on the missions together, but he refused, saying the bishop was needed back home. Diego, however, decided to return by way of the famous abbey at Citeaux in France and there received the Cistercian habit, 4 probably in order to induce some of the monks to work in his diocese. On the way back to Osma at the city of Montpellier in June 1206, Diego and Dominic met the Abbot of Citeaux and two of his monks who had been sent by Innocent to preach against Albigensianism. These three complained to Diego that they had no success in their preaching, chiefly because of the great reputation for holiness which the Perfect enjoyed among the people. Diego gave them a straight answer. They must not abandon their mission but must counter the Catholic clergy's bad example, by preaching as the Apostles had done, barefoot and begging.
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