[6] 3 Soc., 6; 2 Cel., 1, 2; Bon., 8. [7] 1 Cel., 5; 3 Soc., 5; 2 Cel., 1, 2; Bon., 9. [8] 3 Soc., 6; Bon., 9; 2 Cel., 1, 2. [9] 3 Soc., 6; 2 Cel., 1, 2. [10] These days are recalled by Celano with a very particular precision. It is very improbable that Francis, usually so reserved as to his personal experience, should have told him about them (2 Cel., 3, 68 and 42, cf. Bon., 144). On the other hand, nothing forbids his having been informed on this matter by Brother Elias. (I strongly suspect the legend which tells of an old man appearing on the day Francis was born and begging permission to take the child in his arms, saying, "To-day, two infants were born--this one, who will be among the best of men, and another, who will be among the worst"--of having been invented by the _zelanti_ against Brother Elias. It is evident that such a story is aimed at some one. Whom, if not him who was afterward to appear as the Anti-Francis?) We have sufficient details about the eleven first disciples to know that none of them is here in question. There is nothing surprising in the fact that Elias does not appear in the earliest years of the Order (1209-1212), because after having practised at Assisi his double calling of schoolmaster and carriage-trimmer (_suebat cultras et docebat puerulos psalterium legere_, Salimbene, p. 402) he was _scriptor_ at Bologna (Eccl., 13). And from the psychological point of view this hypothesis would admirably explain the ascendency which Elias was destined always to exercise over his master. Still it remains difficult to understand why Celano did not name Elias here, but the passage, 1 Cel., 6, differs in the different manuscripts (cf. A. SS. and Amoni's edition, p. 14) and may have been retouched after the latter's fall. Beviglia is a simple farm three-quarters of an hour northwest of Assisi, almost half way to Petrignano. Half an hour from Assisi in the direction of Beviglia is a grotto, which may very well be that of which we are about to speak. [11] 1 Cel., 6; 2 Cel., 1, 5; 3 Soc., 8, 12; Bon., 10, 11, 12. [12] 3 Soc., 7; 1 Cel., 7; 2 Cel., 1, 3; 3 Soc., 13. [13] 3 Soc., 8-10; Bon., 13, 14; 2 Cel., 1, 4. [14] To this day in the centre and south of Italy they kiss the hand of priests and monks. [15] See the Will. Cf. 3 Soc., 11; 1 Cel., 17; Bon., 11; A. SS., p. 566. [16] 3 Soc., 11; Bon., 13. * * * * * CHAPTER III THE CHURCH ABOUT 1209 St. Francis was inspired as much as any man may be, but it would be a palpable error to study him apart from his age and from the conditions in which he lived.