At the same time he introduced another important idea, namely the idea that the lay people must be brought into the circle of the holy. In the sacramental system the clergy and the monks were the real representatives, while the laymen were only passive. Now he wanted to bring them into the circle and he did this by creating the so-called “third order” of St. Francis, the tertiarii. The first is the male order, the monks; the second is the corresponding female order, the nuns; the third is the laymen who remain laymen and remain married, but subject themselves to some of the principles of the monastic orders, and are directed by members of these orders.
But all this, St. Francis subjected to the authority of the Pope. The famous Giotto picture in which the greatest pope, Innocent III, and the greatest saint of the Roman church met in 1250, depicts a classical moment in world history.
Nevertheless all this was dangerous for the hierarchical system. And the danger became actual first in the revolution of the Franciscan radicals who tried to unite St.
Francis and Joachim di Fiore, and who became the prototypes of many later anti- ecclesiastical and anti- religious revolutions. It was also dangerous because of the emphasis on the lay principle, because this lay principle could mean the end of the absolute authority of the hierarchy. And it was dangerous because/the new relationship to nature and the vision of the Divine ground in it, which in the long run was able to undermine the Catholic supernaturalism.
Now all this was Francis. Generally speaking, he belongs to the Augustinian- Anselmian-Bernardian tradition of the mystical union of Christianity with the elements of culture and nature.
In contrast to Francis, we have no such original personality in St. Dominic. Instead we have a special task, which was the task of a special person; namely the task of preaching to the people – -in this they did the same thing as the Franciscans – and of defending the faith. This was something new – defending either by mediation or by conversion or by persecution, I. e., either in terms of apologetic or in terms of missions or in terms of Church power. In all three ways they became the order of the Inquisition and of the Counter-Reformation later on, until the Jesuits took over.
Therefore they produced the classical system of mediation, of apologetic theology – namely, Thomas Aquinas – and they produced the greatest preachers, among them Meister Eckhardt. More than any other school, they brought Aristotle to the West.
Their instrument was the intellect, even in their mysticism, while the Franciscan- Augustinian tradition emphasized more the will. Finally, the will of the Franciscans broke down the intellect of the Dominicans and opened the way for Duns Scotus, Occam, and the nominalists.
Now this was the spiritual background for the tremendous development of the 13th century. Without permanent reference to these movements, the theology of this period cannot be understood. And if we think especially of Thomas Aquinas, then we must understand him as a mediator. He has understood, as nobody else, the mediating function of theology. In Germany we had the term Vermittlungstheologen – this was a term despisingly applied to many of the 19th century. I tried to defend them by saying that all theology is a mediation, namely the mediation of the message, which is given in the Gospel, with the categories of the understanding as we have them in every period of history and of Church history. In this sense theology is and always will remain mediation.
