In the inner Franciscan circle, where Leo, Ginepro, Egidio, and many others represent the spirit of liberty, the religion of the humble and the simple, Elias represents the scientific and ecclesiastical spirit, prudence and reason.
He had great success in Syria and received into the Order one of the disciples most dear to Francis, Caesar of Speyer, who later on was to make the conquest of all Southern Germany in less than two years (1221-1223), and who in the end sealed with his blood his fidelity to the strict observance, which he defended against the attacks of Brother Elias himself.[15] Caesar of Speyer offers a brilliant example of those suffering souls athirst for the ideal, so numerous in the thirteenth century, who everywhere went up and down, seeking first in learning, then in the religious life, that which should assuage the mysterious thirst which tortured them.

Disciple of the scholastic Conrad, he had felt himself overpowered with the desire to reform the Church; while still a layman he had preached his ideas, not without some success, since a certain number of ladies of Speyer had begun to lead a new life; but their husbands disapproving, he was obliged to escape their vengeance by taking refuge at Paris, and thence he went to the East, where in the preaching of the Brothers Minor he found again his hopes and his dreams.
This instance shows how general was the waiting condition of souls when the Franciscan gospel blazed forth, and how its way had been everywhere prepared.
But it is time to return to the chapter of 1217: the friars who went to Germany under conduct of Giovanni di Penna were far from having the success of Elias and his companions; they were completely ignorant of the language of the country which they had undertaken to evangelize.
Perhaps Francis had not taken into account the fact that though Italian might, in case of need, suffice in all the countries bathed by the Mediterranean, this could not be the case in Central Europe.[16] The lot of the party going to Hungary was not more happy.

Very often it came to pass that the missionaries were fain to give up their very garments in the effort to appease the peasants and shepherds who maltreated them.

But no less incapable of understanding what was said to them than of making themselves understood, they were soon obliged to think of returning to Italy.

We may thank the Franciscan authors for preserving for us the memory of these checks, and not attempting to picture the friars as suddenly knowing all languages by a divine inspiration, as later on was so often related.[17] Those who had been sent to Spain had also to undergo persecutions.