Dominic de Guzman

St. Dominic de Guzman (1170-1221) was the founder of the Dominicans, a religious order of priests within the Roman Catholic Church.

St. Dominic was a native of Old Castille in Spain and a contemporary of St. Francis of Assisi. It is said that while Francis appealed to men's hearts, Dominic appealed to their minds. He was called an intellectual who translated God's truth into a rational ideology. The Dominicans were founded as a mendicant order (relying on donations) which went directly to the people with their teachings and emphasized education of the poor. St. Dominic worked in the Albigensian territories, trying to bring back that heretical sect to the church through his power of persuasion.

Alfred Wishart says of Dominic de Guzman, in his A short history of Monks and Monastries, the following:

Half-way between Osma and Aranda in Old Castile, Spain, is a little village known as "the fortunate Calahorra." Here was the castle of the Guzmans , where Dominic was born. His family was of high rank and character, a noble house of warriors, statesmen and saints. If we accept the legends, his greatness was foreshadowed. Before his birth, his mother dreamed she saw her son under the figure of a black-and-white dog, with a torch in his mouth. "A true dream," says Milman, "for he will scent out heresy and apply the torch to the faggots;" but, as will be seen later, this observation does not rest on undisputed evidence.

In the year 1191, when Spain was desolated by a terrible famine, Dominic was just finishing his theological studies. He gave away his money and sold his clothes, his furniture and even his precious manuscripts, that he might relieve distress. When his companions expressed astonishment that he should sell his books, Dominic replied: "Would you have me study off these dead skins, when men are dying of hunger?" This utterance was the first Dominican saying that has passed to posterity.

Dominic was educated in the schools of Palencia, afterwards a university, where he devoted six years to the arts and four to theology. In 1194, when twenty-five years of age, Dominic became a canon regular, at Osma , under the rule of St. Augustine. Nine years after he accompanied his bishop, Don Diego , on an embassy for the king of Castile. When they crossed the Pyrenees they found themselves in an atmosphere of heresy. The country was filled with preachers of strange doctrines, who had little respect for Dominic, his bishop, or their Roman pontiff. The experiences of this journey inspired in Dominic a desire to aid in the extermination of heresy. He was also deeply impressed by an important and significant observation. Many of these heretical preachers were not ignorant fanatics, but well-trained and cultured men. Entire communities seemed to be possessed by a desire for knowledge and for righteousness. Dominic clearly perceived that only preachers of a high order, capable of advancing reasonable argument, could overthrow the Albigensian heresy.

In 1208 Dominic visited Languedoc a second time, and on his way he encountered the papal legates returning in pomp to Rome, foiled in their attempt to crush this growing schism. To them he administered his famous rebuke: "It is not the display of power and pomp, cavalcades of retainers, and richly-houseled palfreys, or by gorgeous apparel, that the heretics win proselytes; it is by zealous preaching, by apostolic humility, by austerity, by seeming, it is true, but by seeming holiness. Zeal must be met by zeal, humility by humility, false sanctity by real sanctity, preaching falsehood by preaching truth." It is extremely unfortunate for the reputation of Dominic that he ever departed from the spirit of these noble words, which so clearly state the conditions of true religious progress.

Dominic now gathered about him a few men of like spirit and began his task of preaching down heresy. But "the enticing words of man's wisdom" failed to win the Albigensians from what they believed to be the words of God. So, unmindful of his admonition to the papal legates, Dominic obtained permission of Innocent III. to hold courts, before which he might summon all persons suspected of heresy. When eloquence and courts failed, the pope let loose the "dogs of war." Then followed twenty years of frightful carnage, during which hundreds of thousands of heretics were slain, and many cities were laid to waste by fire and sword. "This was to punish a fanaticism," says Hallam, "ten thousand times more innocent than their own, and errors which, according to the worst imputations, left the laws of humanity and the peace of social life unimpaired." Peace was concluded in 1229, but the persecution of heretics went on.

What part Dominic personally had in these bloody proceedings is litigated history. His admirers strive to rescue his memory from the charge that he was "a cruel and bloody man." It is argued that while the pope and temporal princes carried on the sanguinary war against the heretics, Dominic confined himself to pleading with them in a spirit of true Christian love. He was a minister of mercy, not an avenging angel, sword in hand. It has to be conceded that the constant tradition of the Dominican order that Dominic was the first Inquisitor, whether he bore the title or not, rests upon good authority. But what was the nature of the office as held by the saint? As far as Dominic was concerned, it is argued by his friends that the office "was limited to the reconciliation of heretics and had nothing to do with their punishment." It is also claimed that while Dominic did impose penances, in some cases public flagellation, no evidence can be produced showing that he ever delivered one heretic to the flames. Those who were burned were condemned by secular courts, and on the ground that they were not only heretics but enemies of the public peace and perpetrators of enormous crimes.

But while it may not be proved that Dominic himself passed the sentence of death or applied the torch to the faggots with his own hand, he is by no means absolved from all complicity in those frightful slaughters, or from all responsibility for the subsequent establishment of the Holy Inquisition. The principles governing the Inquisition were practically those upon which Dominic proceeded; the germs of the later atrocities are to be found in his aims and methods. By what a narrow margin does Dominic escape the charge of cruelty when it is boasted "that he resolutely insisted on no sentence being carried out until all means had been tried by which the conversion of a prisoner could be effected." Another statement also contains an inkling of a significant fact, namely, that secular judges and princes were constantly under the influence of the monks and other ecclesiastical persons, who incited them to wage war, and to massacre, in the Albigensian war as in other crusades against heresy. No word from Dominic can be produced indicating that he remonstrated with the pope, or that he tried to stop the crusade. In a few instances he seems to have interceded with the crazed soldiery for the lives of women and children. But he did not oppose the bloody crusade itself. He was constantly either with the army or following in its wake. He often sat on the bench at the trial of dissenters. He remained the life-long friend of Simon de Montfort, the cruel agent of the papacy, and he blessed the marriage of his sons and baptized his daughter. Special courts for trying heretics were established, previous to the more complete organization of the Inquisition, and in these he held a commission.

The Holy Office of the Inquisition was made a permanent tribunal by Gregory IX., in 1233, twelve years after the death of Dominic, and curiously enough, in the same year in which he was canonized. The Catholic Bollandists claim that although the title of Inquisitor was of later date than Dominic, yet the office was in existence, and that the splendor of the Holy Inquisition owes its beginning to that saint. Certain it is that the administration of the Inquisition was mainly in the hands of Dominican monks.

In view of all these facts, Professor Allen is justified in his conclusions respecting Dominic and his share in the persecution of heretics: "Whatever his own sweet and heavenly spirit according to Catholic eulogists, his name is a synonym of bleak and intolerant fanaticism. It is fatally associated with the blackest horrors of the crusade against the Albigenses, as well as with the infernal skill and deadly machinery of the Inquisition."

In 1214, Dominic established himself, with six followers, in the house of Peter Cellani, a rich resident of Toulouse. Eleven years of active and public life had passed since the Subprior of Osma had forsaken the quietude of the monastery. He now resumed his life of retirement and subjected himself and his companions to the monastic rules of prayer and penance. But the restless spirit of the man could not long remain content with the seclusion and inactivity of a monk's life. The scheme of establishing an order of Preaching Friars began to assume definite shape in his mind. He dreamed of seven stars enlightening the world, which represented himself and his six friends. The final result of his deliberations was the organization of his order, and the appearance of Dominic in the city of Rome, in 1215, to secure the approval of the pope, Innocent III. Although some describe his reception as "most cordial and flattering," yet it required supernatural interference to induce the pope to grant even his approval of the new order. It was not formally confirmed until 1216 by Honorius III.

Dominic now made his headquarters at Rome, although he traveled extensively in the interests of his growing brotherhood of monks. He was made [pg 240] Master of the Sacred Palace, an important official post, including among its functions the censorship of the press. It has ever since been occupied by members of the Dominican order.

Throughout his life Dominic is said to have zealously practiced rigorous self-denial. He wore a hair shirt, and an iron chain around his loins, which he never laid aside, even in sleep. He abstained from meat and observed stated fasts and periods of silence. He selected the worst accommodations and the meanest clothes, and never allowed himself the luxury of a bed. When traveling, he beguiled the journey with spiritual instruction and prayers. As soon as he passed the limits of towns and villages, he took off his shoes, and, however sharp the stones or thorns, he trudged on his way barefooted. Rain and other discomforts elicited from his lips nothing but praises to God.

Death came at the age of fifty-one and found him exhausted with the austerities and labors of his eventful career. He had reached the convent of St. Nicholas, at Bologna, weary and sick with a fever. He refused the repose of a bed and bade the monks lay him on some sacking stretched upon the ground. The brief time that remained to him was spent in exhorting his followers to have charity, to guard their humility, and to make their treasure out of poverty. Lying in ashes upon the floor he passed away at noon, on the sixth of August, 1221. He was canonized by Gregory IX., in 1234.

Reference

Alfred Wesley Wishart. A Short History of Monks and Monasteries. 1900. Project Gutenburg EBook #13206