The Encyclopedia of World Religions

158 S Frazer, James George

of all of creation has inspired countless persons. The Roman Catholic Church remembers him as a saint annually on October 4. Further reading: T. W. Arnold, trans., The Little Flowers of St. Francis (New York: Dutton, 1940); John R. H. Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968); Michael Robson, St. Francis of Assisi: The Legend and the Life (London: Chapman, 1997); Donald Spoto, Reluctant Saint: The Life of Francis of Assisi (New York: Viking, 2002). Frazer, James George (1854–1941) pioneering British anthropologist and author of the influential book The Golden Bough Frazer was an “armchair ethnologist.” He wrote about peoples all around the globe, but he never visited them. Instead, he based his ideas on printed materials, letters, reports, and conversations with travelers. His most famous work is The Golden Bough. It was first published in two volumes in 1890; by 1915 it had grown to 12 enormous tomes. Frazer called his volumes “A Study in Magic and Religion.” For him, MAGIC was misguided sci ence. When people used magic, they were trying to apply the laws of nature. They just applied the wrong laws. They thought that there was a natu ral connection between objects that either looked alike or had been in contact. When magic failed, people adopted a differ ent attitude: religion. They concluded that per sonal beings controlled the world. They pleaded with those beings for personal favors. Actually, Frazer said, religion and magic are often found together. RITUALS connected with springtime and harvest—dying and rising gods—were especially prominent. Frazer’s successor, Bronislaw M ALINOWSKI , started an entirely different way of thinking about cultures and religions. As a result, Frazer’s ideas are discredited today. But they have been very influential. For example, the American-British poet, T. S. Eliot, gave Frazer the credit for inspiring some of his greatest poems.

felt that all of G OD ’s creatures were members of the same family. That meant that all human beings, of whatever class or nationality, were brothers and sisters. So were natural phenomena: brother sun, sister moon, even sister death. As a result, Francis is often associated in the popular mind with wild animals and gardens. In the centuries after Francis’s death, his first order, the order of monks, fragmented. The basic problem was the extent to which brothers should be expected to live a life of poverty. In the 1300s the Pope recognized a group known as the Conven tuals as the official Franciscan group. Its lifestyle is less strict, and it emphasizes preaching and study. But today it is the smallest of the major Franciscan groups. The largest group, the Observants, emerged in the 1400s. It stands for a strict observance of Francis’s discipline. A third group, the Capuchins, arose in the 1500s. Its members adopted an even more austere life-style that inclined to the isolated life of the hermit. The Franciscans do not often receive much publicity. That is partly because of their interests in the poor, and partly because of their manner of working. But there are more Franciscan monks and nuns in the Roman Catholic Church than monks and nuns of any other order. Throughout history women have been particularly active not only as nuns but also as members of the “third order,” the order for those who do not renounce their ordinary lives. Some Franciscans have, however, become prominent. When Dominican theologians such as Thomas A QUINAS began to use the writings of Aristotle in developing their theologies, the Fran ciscans strenuously opposed them. Those who did so included the theologian Bonaventure (1221–74) and the philosophers Duns Scotus ( c. 1265–1308) and William of Ockham ( c. 1280–1349). John of Capistrano (1386–1456), best known in North America for a mission in California to which swal lows return regularly, was a Franciscan. The most famous member of the “third order,” the order still in the world, must surely be Christopher Colum bus. In addition to moving people to join one of his orders, Francis’s vision of poverty and of the unity