To Govern Is to Serve by Jacques Dalarun;

To Govern Is to Serve by Jacques Dalarun;

Author:Jacques Dalarun;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3)


Rudolph starts with the subject of preaching, but then jumps suddenly to the chapter of 1220. What particularly caught this witness’s attention was Dominic’s call for his own removal from office, and then the humiliation he imposed upon himself. The traditional interpretation has been to see here a ritual proclamation of unworthiness by a worn out but universally accepted founder. But, reading between the lines, might it not be that Dominic offered his resignation, that the clerics did not accept it, and that they instead placed him under the strict control of the “diffinitors”? Like it or not, he was forced to accept this control: “It pleased Brother Dominic.” We might go so far as to suppose, given the chain of themes and events in Rudolph of Faenza’s testimony, that the question of the converts (which, thanks to John of Spain, we know was intimately linked to the subject of preaching) was at the heart of the conflict.

The Institutions issued by the chapter held at Bologna, the first general chapter ever held by the Order of Preachers, have not come down to us intact. The only surviving witness is the version in the early Dominican Constitutions, preserved in a manuscript from the convent of Rodez, which essentially combines the Customs of 1216, the Institutions of 1220, and many additions of subsequent chapters. The paramount importance of preaching is underlined in the prologue to the Constitutions:

In the convent the superior is to have the power to dispense the brothers when it will seem useful to him, especially in things which seem likely to obstruct study or preaching or the profit of souls. Because it is known that our order was founded in the beginning for preaching and the salvation of souls. And our studies ought to tend principally and ardently and in the highest degree to these ends, so that we might be useful to the souls of our neighbors.106



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