The Religion of the Friars Minor is founded upon the Gospel and strengthend by the teaching and life of Christ and His Apostles

2. This is the meek and docile religion⁵ of the Friars Minor, rooted⁶ in poverty and humility by the kind confessor of Christ, Francis, which sprouting the sprout⁷ from that true seed, strew the same by (means of) the Rule among (his) sons, whom he generated for himself and for God by (means of) his ministry in the observance of the Gospel. ⁸ These very ones are the sons, who by the teaching of Jacob⁹ have received the Eternal Word, the Son of God, sown by human nature in the garden of the virginal womb [and] able to save souls in meekness. ¹⁰ These are the professors of that holy Rule, which is founded on the evangelical discourse, strengthened by the example of the life of Christ, and made firm by the sermons and deeds of His Apostles, the founders of the Church Militant. ¹¹ This is [that] clean and immaculate religion in the sight of [Our] God and Father, ¹² which descending from the Father of lights¹³ through His Son, having been handed on to the Apostles verbally and by example, and at last through the Holy Spirit to blessed Francis, and having inspired those following him, contains in itself, at it were, a testimony of the whole Trinity. ¹⁴ It is this, to which with Paul attesting no one for the sake of the rest ought to be molested, ¹⁵ which Christ confirmed by the stigmata of His own Passion, willing [as He did] to notably mark with the signs of His own Passion the institutor of that very (religion). ¹⁶