“Not for the world,[1] for which men now toil, following him of Ostia and Thaddeus,[2] but for the love of the true manna, be became in short time a great teacher, such that he set himself to go about the vineyard, which quickly fades if the vinedresser is bad; and of the Seat[3] which was formerly more benign unto the righteous poor (not through itself but through him who sits there and degenerates[4]), he asked not to dispense or two or three for six,[5] not the fortune of the first vacancy, non decimas, quae sunt pauperum Dei,[6] but leave to fight against the errant world for that seed[7] of which four and twenty plants are girding thee. Then with doctrine and with will, together with the apostolic office,[8] he went forth like a torrent which a lofty vein pours out, and on the heretical stocks his onset smote with most vigor there where the resistance was the greatest. From him proceeded thereafter divers streams wherewith the catholic garden is watered, so that its bushes stand more living. [1] The goods of this world. [2] Henry of Susa, cardinal of Ostia, who wrote a much studied commentary on the Decretals, and Thaddeus of Bologna, who, says Giovanni Villani, “was the greatest physician in Christendom.” The thought is the same as that at the beginning of Canto XI, where Dante speaks of “one following the Laws, and one the Aphorisms.” [3] The Papal chair. [4] The grammatical construction is imperfect; the meaning is that the change in the temper of the see of Rome is due not to the fault of the Church itself, but to that of the Pope. [5] Not for license to compound for unjust acquisitions by de. voting a part of them to pious uses. [6] “Not the tithes which belong to God's poor.” [7] The true faith; “the seed is the word of God.”—Luke, viii. 11. [8] The authority conferred on him by Innocent III. If such was one wheel of the chariot on which the Holy Church defended itself and vanquished in the field its civil strife,[1] surely the excellence of the other should be very plain to thee, concerning which Thomas before my coming was so courteous. But the track which the highest part of its circumference made is derelict;[2] So that the mould is where the crust was.[3] His household, which set forth straight with their feet upon his footprints, are so turned round that they set the forward foot on that behind;[4] and soon the quality of the barvest of this bad culture shall be seen, when the tare will complain that the chest is taken from it.[5] Yet I say, he who should search our volume leaf by leaf might still find a page where he would read, 'I am that which I am wont:' but it will not be from Casale nor from Acquasparta,[6] whence such come unto the Written Rule that one flies from it, and the other contracts it. [1] The heresies within its own borders. [2] The track made by St. Francis is deserted. [3] The change of metaphor is sudden; good wine makes a crust, bad wine mould in the cask.