The rebel Franciscans were persecuted because they were heretical, and it is important to note in what their heresy consisted. It was not because of Joachite tendencies—these might or might not exist, they were not a criterion—it was because of disobedience pure and simple. To disobey the constitution _Quorundam_, to dispute its ruling as to the wearing of a habit and the question of ownership of property—that was heresy. It is true that the motive which induced the recalcitrant to refuse obedience to the bull was a repudiation of papal authority to lay down such a regulation regarding the Franciscan Rule, and that such repudiation was connected with Joachite views as to the degeneracy of the Church and the unique reforming rôle of the Franciscan order. None the less the fact remained that in running directly counter to the ruling of the bull _Exiit qui seminat_ and the decisions of the Council of Vienne John XXII had actually created a new heresy, had asserted that what had seemed most Christian and laudable to Nicholas III and Clement V was an error in the faith. The persecution had the result of actually encouraging Joachitism. ‘As well to be hanged for a sheep as a lamb’ is a proverb of very general validity. If it was heresy to disobey a papal bull—granted that that _had_ to be disobeyed—why not go to the full length of rejecting the papacy and declaring it superseded by the era of St. Francis and the Holy Ghost? The papal pronouncement made the fanatical Spirituals more and more convinced that the Roman Church was indeed ‘the whore of Babylon,’ the Pope veritable Antichrist. And certainly we may regard the extremists latterly, under the goad of persecution, as having developed into a sect, definitely believing itself to be the true Church—that of St. Francis and the Holy Ghost. But such fanatical Spirituals were exceedingly small in numbers, their influence very restricted, and their extinction was brought about without very much difficulty.