ELIAS
384
ELIAS
eral in 1247, he sent Fra Gerardo da Modena to Cor-
tona to beg Elias to submit, promising that he would
be treated with the utmost clemency. But Elias, who
seems on the one hand to have feared imprisonment
by the pope and on the other to have been unwill-
ing to renounce the favour of Frederick II, declined.
During Passiontide, 1253, the lonely old man, — for
Elias had lost his protector by Frederick's death in 1250
— fell seriously ill. We learn from the sworn testi-
mony of several witnesses that Bencius, Axchpriest of
Cortona, recognizing at once the gravity of Ehas's con-
dition and the reality of his repentance, absolved him
on Holy .Saturday, 19 April; that two days later Elias
received Holy Communion at the hands of Fra Diote-
fece, but that he could not be anointed, since, Cortona
being then under interdict, no holy oil was to be
found. On Easter Tuesday Elias died, reconciled
indeed with the Church, but outside the order. He
was buried at Cortona in the church he had built,
which two years later — his followers having returned
to obedience — passed into the hands of the order.
But Elias's bones were not suffered to rest at S.
Francesco, for a later guardian dug them up and flimg
them out.
Elias is perhaps the most difficult character to esti- mate in all Franciscan history. In the first place it is wellnigh impossible, with the documents at our dis- posal, to obtain even a clear idea of his chequered career. There is no contemporary life of Elias, and, with the exception of Celano's Vita Prima ", which is said to have been wTitten under the influence of Elias, none of the early biographies of St. Francis make any allusion to him. In the second place, considerable bias has to be reckoned with in what is recorded of Elias in later works, especially in the writings of the Zelanti, which are often influenced less by historical considerations than by party spirit. Many stories have gathered around the life of Ehas which are largely inventions. Yet these fictions have been in- discriminately reproduced by subsequent writers, with the result that Elias has come to be depicted by too many modern biographers of St. Francis as a traitor to his master's interests, as a mere tool of the Curia in transforming the order and destroying the manner of life intended by the Poverello. But if some have branded Elias as another Judas, others, going to the opposite extreme, have not hesitated to call him the St. Paul of St. Francis. Laying undue stress on some words of St. Antoninus, they have sought to exculpate Elias altogether, to justify his conduct at all hazards, even where it is wholly unjusti- fiable; they would fain make him appear as a second founder of the order, to whose ability its great success was mainly due. It is just because so few have writ- ten calmly about Elias that it becomes additionally difficult to form a just estimate of the real motives which guided him. He has been too much abused and too much lauded. Between the two extremes it seems necessary, if we would judge with fairness, to distinguish two periods in the life of Elias, namely, before the death of St. Francis and after it. In spite of the account of Elias's early pride and frowardness given by the " Fioretti " — which may be set aside as a picturesque slander introduced for artistic effect — there is nothing to show that Elias was other than a good religious during the lifetime of St. Francis, else it is hard to understand how the latter could have en- trusted him with so much responsibility, and how he could have meritefi the special death-bed blessing of the Poverello. On the other hand that Elias really loved St. Francis there can be no doubt, and so far as we have means of ascertaining there never was any breach between them. At the same time it would be difficult to imagine two characters more widely differ- ent than Elias and St. Francis. Their religious ideals were as far apart as the poles. The heroic ideal of poverty and detaclmient which the Poverello con-
ceived for his friars Elias regarded as exaggerated and
unpractical. Hence, while St. Francis did not desire
large loci for his friars, Elias multiplied spacious con-
vents. Again, Elias's views with regard to learning
among the friars were very far removed from those of
St. Francis. " Hoc solum habuit bonum frater
Helias ", writes Salimbene, " quia Ordinem fratrum
Minorum ad studium theologice promovit. " But
Ehas did more than this. In particular the extension
of the Franciscan missions among the infidels owes
more to his work than is commonly admitted. For
the rest, Elias was no doubt guided throughout by
what he thought to be the glory of the order. On the
other hand it would be idle to deny that Elias was
utterly lacking in the true spirit of his master. Am-
bition was Elias's chief fault. So long as he re-
mained under the influence of Francis his ambition
was curbed, but when he came to govern, forgetting
his own past life, the example of St. Francis, and the
obligations of his office, Elias so far allowed ambition
to dominate him that when it was thwarted he had
not the humility to submit, but, reckless of conse-
quences, plunged to his ruin.
It is no doubt owing to his fall and disgrace that in an order so prolific in early biographies Elias remained so long without a biographer. It would be difficult, however, to exaggerate the importance of his influence upon the history of the Franciscan Order. Even his opponents concedeti that Elias possessed a remarkable mind, and none doubted his exceptional talents. "Who in the whole of Christendom", asks Eccleston, " was more gracious or more famous than Ehas? " Matthew of Paris dwells on the eloquence of his preaching, and Bernard of Besse calls him one of the most erudite men in Italy. We know that good as well as great men sought the friendship of Elias, and, strange as it may seem, he appears to have retained the confidence of St. Clare and her companions.
Nothing that can really be called a portrait of Ehas remains, Ciiunta Pisano's picture of him " taken from life" in 1236 having disappeared in 1624; but a seven- teenth-century replica in the Municipio at Assisi is be- lieved to have been more or less copied from it. In the latter, Elias is represented as a small, spare, dark- haired man, with a melancholy face and trim beard, and wearing an .\rmenian cap. With the exception of his letter to the order announcing the death of Francis, no writing of Elias has come down to us; several works dealing with alchemy, formerly circulated under his name, are undoubtedly supposititious. Whether or not Elias was himself the architect of S. Francesco, the fact remains that if the tomb of the Poverellohas become the "cradle of the Renaissance", the "first flower and the fairest of Italian Gothic", and the glory of .4ssisi, it is to Elias we owe this, and it constitutes his best monimient.
Biographies of Elias: Anon'IMO Cortonese (Venuti), Vita di irate Elia (2nd ed., Leghorn, 1763); Arro, Vita di frate Elia (2nd ed., Parma. 1819); RvBK.\, Elias von Cortona (Leipzig, 1874); these may still be read with interest, but they have been to a certain extent superseded by Lempp, Frfre Elic de Cortone (Paris. 1901) in Collection d'etudes et de documents sur I'histoire reliffieuse et lilteraire du moyen dge. Vol. III. Dr. Lempp has attempted to put order into the undigested mass of details handed down about Elias, and his monograph is thoroughly "document^", but its objective value is greatly spoilt by the author's apparent anxiety to read a gospel of his own into the beginnings of Franciscan history. Those who wish to go behind these biographies to some of the original authorities from which our knowledge of Elias is derived, may consult; Celano, Legrnda Prima B. Francisci, ed. d'Alenjon (Rome. 1906), p. .xx\-iii with references to text; Eccleston, De Adventu 'n Angliam in Anal. Francis., I {Quaracchi, 1885),
Bullar. Francis.. 1
230 and pa.ssim; Chronica fr. .Jordani, ibid.. J, IS sqq.; Besse,
Calatoaus Oi-nernlium. ibiil Til (1897), 695; Glassberger,
Chronica, ibid.. I Msv7- I :. -.[.< -. Salimbene, Chronica in Mon.
Germ. Hist.: Sen :■! . \\\]\ i Hrexo. Historia Tribulationum,
ed. DoLLi.VGEKii /. .,' MuTuch. 1890), II, Prima efSfcunda
tribulationes: Chron. .\X1\ Ucnrralium in Anal. Franci.'<.. Ill
(1897), 297 sqq.; I'isASUs. Liber conformitalum, ibid., IV
(1906), p-a-ssim. See also RonULpHius. Hislor. Seraph. Re-
ligionis (Venice, 1.'>S6), II, 177 sqq.; WAnniNG, Annate: Minor.,
I. ad an. 1221, n. 9. XI, an. 1253, n. 30; Scriptores, ed. NardeC:
chia (Rome, 1906), 72-73; Sbaral
