Life of St. Francis of Assisi
Paul Sabatier. The influential, and in its day controversial, modern critical life of St. Francis by a French Protestant scholar. It reshaped Franciscan studies, and Catholic historians have disputed parts of its reading of Francis and the Church.
By Paul Sabatier Non-Catholic Christian · Protestant (French Reformed). 1 edition, with a text you can read on this site.
Sabatier's Life is historically important and often moving, but it is not a Catholic hagiography. He tended to cast Francis as a Gospel free spirit later constrained by Rome and the Order. Catholic readers may profit from his source work and narrative gift while also reading Thomas of Celano, St Bonaventure, and later Catholic biographers, Chesterton among them, for an ecclesial reading of the saint.
Read also: Saint Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton, The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi by Candide Chalippe, O.F.M., and The Little Flowers of Saint Francis.
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Reading editions & sources
Related
- Author page: Francis of Assisi
- The hagiography shelf