might
indeed be defended if these marks had been gaping wounds, as they are
now or in most cases have been represented to be; but all the testimony
agrees in describing them, with the exception of the mark on the side,
as blackish, fleshy excrescences, like the heads of nails, and in the
palms of the hands like the points of nails clinched by a hammer. There
was no bloody exudation except at the side.

On the other hand, any deception on the part of Elias would oblige us to
hold that his accomplices were actually the heads of the party opposed
to him, Leo, Angelo, and Rufino. Such want of wit would be surprising
indeed in a man so circumspect.

Finally the psychological agreement between the external circumstances
and the event is so close that an invention of this character would be
as inexplicable as the fact itself. That which indeed almost always
betrays invented or unnatural incidents is that they do not fit into the
framework of the facts. They are extraneous events, purely decorative
elements whose place might be changed at will.

Nothing of the sort is the case here: Thomas of Celano is so veracious
and so exact, that though holding the stigmata to be miraculous, he
gives us all the elements necessary for explaining them in a
diametrically opposite manner.

1. The preponderating place of the passion of Jesus in Francis's
conscience ever since his conversion (1 Cel., 115; 2 Cel., 1, 6; 3, 29;
49; 52).

2. His sojourn in the Verna coincides with a great increase of mystical
fervor.

3. He there observes a Lent in honor of the archangel St. Michael.

4. The festival of the exaltation of the cross comes on, and in the
vision of the crucified seraph is blended the two ideas which have taken
possession of him, the angels and the crucifix (1 Cel., 91-96,
112-115).

This perfect congruity between the circumstances and the prodigy itself
forms a moral proof whose value cannot be exaggerated.

It is time to pass the principal witnesses in review.

1. Brother Elias, 1226. On the very day after the death of Francis,
Brother Elias, in his capacity of vicar, sent letters to the entire
Order announcing the event and prescribing prayers.[1]

After having expressed his sorrow and imparted to the Brothers the
blessing with which the dying Francis had charged him for them, he adds:
"I announce to you a great joy and a new miracle. Never has the world
seen such a sign, except on the Son of God who is the Christ God. F