But if the Franciscans, in their desire to obey the wishes of their Founder, found a difficulty in combating the passion of the time for sumptuous buildings, they had even less success in struggling against the passion of the time for learning. Their vow of poverty ought to have denied them the possession even of books. "I am your breviary! I am your breviary!" S. Francis had cried passionately to the novice who desired a Psalter. And yet it is a matter of common knowledge that Grosseteste, the great patron of the Franciscans, brought Greek books to England, and in conjunction with two other Franciscans, whose names are known--Nicholas the Greek and John of Basingstoke--gave to the world Latin versions of certain Greek documents. Foremost among these is the famous early apocryphal book, _The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs_, the Greek manuscript of which is still in the Cambridge University Library. There is no better statement, perhaps, of those gaps in the knowledge of Western Christendom, which the scholars of the Franciscan Order did so much to fill, than a passage in the writings of the greatest of all English Franciscans, Roger Bacon, which runs to this effect:-- "Numberless portions of the wisdom of God are wanting to us. Many books of the Sacred Text remain untranslated, as two books of the Maccabees which I know to exist in Greek: and many other books of divers Prophets, whereto reference is made in the books of Kings and Chronicles. Josephus too, in the books of his _Antiquities_, is altogether falsely rendered as far as concerns the Chronological side, and without him nothing can be known of the history of the Sacred Text. Unless he be corrected in a new translation, he is of no avail, and the Biblical history is lost. Numberless books again of Hebrew and Greek expositors are wanting to the Latins: as those of Origen, Basil, Gregory, Nazianzen, Damascene, Dionysius, Chrysostom, and other most noble Doctors, alike in Hebrew and in Greek. The Church therefore is slumbering. She does nothing in this matter, nor hath done these seventy years: save that my Lord Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, of holy memory did give to the Latins some part of the writings of S. Dionysius and of Damascene, and some other holy Doctors. It is an amazing thing this negligence of the Church; for, from the time of Pope Damasus, there hath not been any Pope, nor any of less rank, who hath busied himself for the advantaging of the Church by translations, except the aforesaid glorious Bishop."[18]