The Immorality of the Decameron

The Black Plague struck Europe in the 17^th century, and modern historians estimate that it wiped out nearly one third of Europe’s total population. There was no cure – the people were helpless to save themselves. And many of them cried out to God – but there was no salvation. The Plague continued to spread.

The culture lost its faith in God. They began to revive the worldviews and thinking of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, renewing principles of logic and reason, and throwing themselves to enjoy things of the physical world, for they knew they could die at any moment. They lost a sense of morality found in Scripture – they drifted from the religious devotion of the earlier medieval periods because they felt that God had abandoned them.

Using the system of thinking I have learnt to adopt in this course, the changes become more marked and easier to see.

#1 – Sovereignty – In earlier periods, the people would have looked to God as their sovereign, but now they were going through hard times and believed that God had abandoned them. Even though God still held a position of sovereignty over them, they chose to ignore Him. The people didn’t realize that hard times may also come after choosing to follow God, as a test of faith.

#2 – Authority – As a result of the above points, the people switched from relying on both the Church and the State, to simply relying on the State.

#3 – Law – In spite of the fact that the laws of the land still existed and the State was in control, many officials were incapable of enforcing said laws, because of the great sickness and confusion. Moral law, however, was a different story – there was NO control, because the Church had lost its power in the eyes of the people. Since the people had decided that they didn’t want God to be their sovereign, they simply decided not to follow his moral laws. This led to an extreme moral deterioration in which adultery, murder, and theft abounded, and was often even glorified through the literature.

To quote “The Decameron” … “whereby every man was free to do what was right in his own eyes.”

To quote the Bible … “every man did what was right in his own eyes.”

The Israelites also fell prey to this mindset, yet God did not give up on them. The Europeans should have learned their lesson from the Israelites.

#4 – Sanctions – No one was getting punished for disobeying the moral laws that the nations had once held to, because there was no longer any punishment for disobedience of those moral laws. (Reason #1 – Moral decline. Reason #2 – Most potential enforcers of correct moral sanctions were unable to actually enforce them.) New sanctions were being presented, such as: If one should choose to commit adultery, let him – he may die soon anyway.

#5 – Inheritance – When faced with the bleak prospect of imminent death by an incurable virus, people lost heart. According to them, the end was near. They had no desire to work towards the future, because they had lost hope in the future. This resulted in many people living “for the moment”, doing whatever they wanted, regardless of the consequences. This calls to mind the age-old phrase, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.”

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Boccaccio invoked the name of God in order to hide what he was really dishing out, which was smut literature, for the purpose of the satisfaction of sexual desires. I will not be reading the more unsavory parts of the Decameron, but the mere fact that in one chapter God’s name is called upon, and then in the next a sexual scene is described, impresses upon me that perhaps Boccaccio was not himself a man of moral uprightness and perfect character.

In general, the Decameron emphasized that religion required reason and sincere faith. According to the book, actions didn’t matter, as seen in the chapters in which impure conduct is described. Yet biblically, deeds displayed true faith. Moral uprightness shows the world that we believers truly are different and have a different spirit inside of us.

We even have this problem today. People believe that as long as they have faith in God, say that He is the lord of their lives, and accept the fact that Christ will forever be the only perfect man, they can do whatever they want. They say that actions don’t much matter to their faith – that, as long as they are sincere in merely their thoughts, they are “all good” under heaven. This is certainly not the case – but people didn’t get it in the 1700s, and they still don’t get it today.

Sadly, even contemporary literature displays this theme – a book may refer to God, in passing, but yet the characters themselves may act just like the world, with debauchery and impure swearing – in other words, like non-Christians. One example is the popular and exciting ‘Divergent’ series – yes, full of adventure, and it does throw a few bones to a supreme deity – yet full of moral decay to the foundations.

“People can’t read your thoughts to see if you have a truly sincere faith. A truly sincere faith is shown by the deeds and actions of the believer.”

Makayla

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The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi

English 145: “If you had been listening to these stories in 1300, what would you have concluded from them is the way to gain eternal life?”

“The Little Flowers of Saint Francis of Assisi” were written in order to share some of the notable works that St Francis performed during his time, and also included several stories of the other brethren in his convent. He was born into a wealthy family, and lived a normal life of the average rich young man, which included setting off to war. But that excursion was cut short when a vision sent him back to Assisi, where he began to feel convicted of his sins and, in order to do penance, he resolved to give up ownership of material things and to enter the line of work I like to term as “evangelistic begging”. He abandoned house and business in order that he might preach about God and spread the word about the life of poverty, and simply relied on the people of the towns he entered to give him sustenance.

His ministry grew to gigantic proportions – He founded the Orders of the Friars Minor, Third Order of St Francis, ands the Order of St Clare. At first, he only had twelve followers – but as he continued to spread the word about the glory of a life in poverty, many more people, often rich, joined the brotherhood. Women were directed to the women’s convent, under the order of St. Clare, one of St. Francis’ earlier converts.

In “The Little Flowers”, he and his disciples are quoted for many speeches and beliefs, most of which used the act of “penance” (which included fasting, praying, wearing uncomfortable garments, etc), and the life of extreme poverty (living in a convent, but when out on the road, relying on the whims of the people for sustenance and shelter), as a ways to become the holiest of men. In the book, there was no concept of Christ’s sacrifice as paying for their sins – instead, the Friars Minor appeared to believe that merely by fasting, praying, discussing holy things, and living a self-abusive life in poverty, would eventually cause them to be regarded as saints and give them access to the Kingdom of heaven.

Many key stories do not discuss the issue of “repentance” – the only specific changes that converts made to their lifestyle was to enter the convent – a structure of man-made rules and traditions. Although the main rule of the Order of St Francis was “To follow the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and to walk in his footsteps,” they could not show those who did not wish to give up everything they had, how they could be saved. In the story of the town of Gubbio, the St. Francis established the Third Order of St Francis, a more relaxed order for those who still needed to dwell in one place, and attend business – but it is still not said how these people attained their salvation and there is no mention of Jesus. This concept of “salvation through Christ and Christ alone” is not mentioned in the book.

Reading through the stories, I noticed several recurring themes.

1. The Friars Minor were not to question or even wonder about why St Francis made certain decisions. In fact, the curious thoughts in their minds were considered to be thoughts put there by the devil! (This is a problem, because, if the friars could not understand how the St Fracis made his decisions, then how would they know how to make decisions in the future?)

2. The life of poverty was glorious, and made sinful men holy. (Scripturally speaking, the word “holy” is mistranslated. At it’s root, the Hebrew word actually means “set-apart”. Nowhere in scripture does it state that living a life of poverty would “make you holy” … in contrast, the only lifestyle that God said would “set his people apart from the nations (state reference)” was the lifestyle of following the Law of God. The Israelites lived very different lives from the nations around them and were “set apart”, because of the blessings of obeying the Law.)

3. St Francis , and his closest followers, such as Brothers Ruffino and Bernard, were holy men. St Francis closest followers were considered to be the most holy men since the apostles. (I confess, I have a hard time accepting that these men were equal, or even ‘close’, in holiness set-apartness when compared to the apostles. One fundamental difference between the apostles and the followers of St Francis, was their preaching. The apostles preached Jesus, God, Law, Salvation, Grace, and Love. The Friars Minor preached Penance, Abstinence, Tradition, Poverty, Sainthood, and Passivity.)

An issue resides in the rules of the convent. The Bible only says to avoid certain meats – however, the Fransiscans were not to eat ANY meat. The Bible said not to have a love of money – the Fransiscans abandoned money altogether. The Bible stated not to commit adultery or abominable sexual relations – the Fransiscans set up certain boundaries for biblical marriage itself, saying that those devoted to a husband or wife cannot be fully devoted to Christ and the Church.

The Fransiscan lifestyle may fit some people, but to say “obeying these rules makes you holy” is to side with the Pharisees of old. The traditions of the Friars mirrored the purpose of the trradition of the Phariesses – redefining holiness, in their eyes, a better definition. But holiness needs no new definition – the definition of “set-apartness” will always and forever involve being different from the the nations, in obedience to God’s commands.

Makayla