Abstract

Appealing to Romans 10:17, Summa Halensis states, "'faith comes from hearing' and preaching is the exterior medium whereby people are instructed and moved to receive grace."1 Given this claim it may come as a surprise to many, that Francis of Assisi did not necessarily understand his propositum vitae to focus on the ministry of preaching. In his musings in the Testament two years before his death in 1226, he claims that the vocation of the brothers was to live according to the form of the holy gospel.2 Even after Innocent III granted permission to him and his fellow paupers from Assisi in 1209 to continue their Gospel experiment and added that they could also preach penance, the exempla of lived experience took...