Peter Olivi on the Early Christian Community (Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32-35): The Christian Way with Temporalities

Peter Olivi on the Early Christian Community (Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32-35): The Christian Way with Temporalities Introduction The early Franciscans worked out the agreements of their common journey and wrote them down. In the years from 1209 to 1221 they produced what we now call the Early Rule. In the Early Rule they severed their connections to property as property was held in central Italy. They needed things, all the same, and they got them by working and by begging. The longer they persevered in their intentions, the more bothersome things became because of the things they had and used, but did not own. Gradually they elaborated the system whereby they continued not holding property while making sure they had what they needed to survive and to get things done. When Bonaventure of Bagnoregio replaced John of Parma as head of the Order in 1257, he first wrote a severe letter to his brothers. In it he  It is a shame that members of the Franciscan Family are largely unacquainted with the treasures contained in the late thirteenth century biblical commentaries by Peter John Olivi. Medievalists, too, need to become more familiar with Olivi’s commentaries . This article has as its aim to introduce people to Peter Olivi the exegete by providing an annotated translation with Introduction of his commentary on two key passages that have played an important role in the history of the exposition of the Acts of the Apostles and in the history of religious life. The Introduction is by David Flood, OFM. Robert J. Karris, O.F.M. provides the annotated translation that has benefited from the suggestions of David Flood.  This rule is the one prior to the rule sanctioned by Pope Honorius III in 1223.  See “Epistula I,” in S. Bonaventurae Opera Omnia. Volume VIII. Quaracchi: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1898, pp. 468-69. See also St. Bonaventure’s Writings Concerning the Franciscan Order. Introduction and Translation by Dominic Monti. WSB V (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute, 1994), 58-62. 251 Franciscan Studies 65 (2007) 11.KarrisFlood.indd 251 11/28/07 18:04:15 Robert J. Karris and David Flood 252 drew up a list of unseemly practices on their part. From the list we readily conclude that many were far from content with the material stringencies of their Rule. Bonaventure singled out for censure the impressive buildings they were putting up. To finance their ways of living they begged with an insistence that made people shudder at the thought of meeting them. Bonaventure held everyone responsible for these practices, for the brothers generally did not censure and correct such goings-on. Disturbed himself by the tone of his letter, he apologized, but felt his hand forced by the Rule “we have vowed.” Peter Olivi began putting his mark on the discussion about the Order’s poverty in the late 1270s. He drew on those who preceded him. However, whereas those before him had defended poverty against criticisms from without, Olivi focused on the role it played in Franciscan life. So he not only drew on Bonaventure’s defense of the Order’s poverty. He recalled as well Bonaventure’s moving plea for more fidelity to a materially simple life. In his Tractatus de usu paupere Olivi tells how he heard Bonaventure, in Paris in pleno capitulo, inveigh against laxity in the Order. For Olivi as well, Franciscan poverty was more than an argument in which he engaged. It lay at the heart of the Franciscan way, to which he was committed. Olivi laid out his theoretical argument for Franciscan poverty in great detail in his Quaestiones de perfectione evangelica. In this series of studies he justifies the structures of Franciscan life. Central to the series are his argument for the Franciscan way of temporalities (Quaestio VIII) and the inclusion of usus pauper in handling them (Quaestio IX). In the first of the two he explains that the appropriation of things accords property a role in social life. Our concern for things then troubles our relations to others. It injects a primary estrangement into human encounters. For that reason such a way with temporalities as practiced by Franciscans belongs to...