Anthony the Abbot, Saint

ANTHONY THE ABBOT, Saint. - Defined by St. Athanasius as the founder of asceticism, b. around 250 at Coma (today Qeman) on the western bank of the Nile, in middle Egypt, of Christian parents in fairly comfortable circumstances. Left an orphan at 18 with a younger sister, he soon felt called to a more perfect life, which he wished to follow, after distributing his goods to the poor and entrusting his sister to a community of virgins. Having left his native village, he fixed his dwelling first in an ancient Egyptian tomb, then in an abandoned castle beyond the Nile, near Aphroditopolis. In the new dwelling he remained shut up for twenty years without leaving it, and during this period he suffered terrible temptations from the devil.

The ever-growing number of visitors, especially of those who wished to follow his example, induced him to open his retreat, which in the surrounding area became populated with hermits, of whom A. became the father and teacher. Such a movement probably dates back to 305. During the persecution of Maximinus (311), A. went to Alexandria to assist the Christians and comfort the martyrs. Once calm returned, he resumed his austerities, which he made even harsher, isolating himself entirely near the Red Sea, three days' journey from his previous dwelling. At intervals he returned to his disciples of the Nile; but the visitors, attracted by his prodigies, managed to track down his new dwelling.

In 335 he returned to Alexandria, at the urgent invitation of St. Athanasius, to combat the Arians. The entry into the city of the famous solitary bore its fruits, and numerous heretics were brought back to the faith. Soon, however,

he reached his retreat by the Red Sea, where he lived another twenty years. Shortly before dying he foretold his imminent end to two disciples, who had obtained to share his life during the last 15 years, and from them he demanded the promise that they would not reveal to anyone the place of his burial, to keep it from being honored. From the 5th century the liturgical tradition fixed the day of his death on 17 Jan. According to legend his tomb was discovered in 565 and his body carried to Alexandria, and then to Constantinople (635), whence the relics would have passed to France in the 9th-10th century at St-Didier-de-la-Motte, and from there to St-Julien of Arles in 1491.

The life of A. was a fabric of prodigies and struggles with the devil, which made him one of the most popular saints of antiquity. He took an active part in the affairs of the Church in Egypt and was in contact with St. Athanasius and Constantine the Great. But the importance of A. is even greater with regard to the eremitic life, which under his influence took on a new direction, namely that of the constitution of eremitic communities in which one lived in isolation or in groups of 2-10, with a similar kind of life and common practices, yet without a determined rule. His fame for holiness soon crossed the boundaries of Egypt; the Greek Church began to venerate him from the 5th century; but it was in the West that the cult of A. underwent a great development in the Middle Ages. He became the saint of the people, to whom recourse was made in epidemics, especially against the so-called "St. Anthony's fire," against the plague and other contagious diseases.

The numerous confraternities that arose in his honor (the principal one being that founded in France on the site of his relics, which is at the origin of the Order of the Antonians), the almshouses and the hospitals dedicated to him, besides the very rich Antonian iconography, serve to demonstrate the extraordinary popularity enjoyed in the West by the holy hermit.

The manuscript tradition has preserved under the name of A. two small collections of letters: the first of 7, the second of 20, in which the previous ones are included (PG 40, 978-99; 999-1066). The relationship of dependence between the two is not clear, just as we are in the dark about the manuscript source of the small collection. Today there is a tendency to identify it with the seven letters of A. written in Coptic and translated into Greek, of which St. Jerome speaks (De Vir. ill., 88).

The life of A. was written by St. Athanasius in 357 according to some, in 365-73 according to others, and translated into Latin by Evagrius of Antioch in 388 (both texts in PG 26, 835-976). The objections raised by Weingarten (Der Ursprung des Mönchtums, in Zeitsch. für Kirchengeschichte, 1 [1877]) against the Athanasian document were refuted by A. Eichhorn (Athanasii de vita ascetica testimonia collecta, Halle 1888), and J. Mayer (in Der Katholik, 1 and 2 [1888]), and more recently by Loop, Reitzenstein, Schwartz and others. The authenticity of the Vita Antonii is today commonly admitted by criticism as a fact beyond dispute.

Among the most frequently represented episodes of his life is that of the manifold temptations, to which the exuberant imagination of Northern artists responded well; see, as supreme examples, the print by Schongauer, the paintings of Bosch, of Brueghel and of Teniers. For Italy one may cite the fresco from the school of A. Gaddi in the Castellani chapel in S. Croce in Florence and the two panels by Bernardo Parentino in the Doria Pamphili collection. The highest glorification St. A. found in the Isenheim altarpiece, which unites the very famous paintings of Grünewald (The Temptations; The Visit to St. Paul the Hermit; the image of the Saint) with the monumental statue by Niccolò da Hagenau. Sometimes, with a clear allusion to the sanctuary of Compostela, he is represented with St. James, to whom St. A. entrusts a pilgrim.

Kurt Rathe

FOLK TRADITIONS

The popular cult of St. Anthony Abbot is one of the most widely and intensely diffused and one of the richest in manifestations. He is credited with the protection of the pig and of domestic animals in general. Accordingly, on the day of his feast there is the blessing of the animals. Donkeys, mules, horses, sheep, goats, cats, monkeys, parrots, etc. are brought to the church by their owners to be blessed. In Rome for centuries the ceremony has been performed in the church of S. Eusebio all'Esquilino: in former times there was a parade of pairs or teams of horses (up to 24) harnessed to a single chariot; even the Pontiff sent there the horses of the apostolic palaces, all decked out "with little pennants on their heads, with roses on their cruppers, with silk reins" (Fr. Bresciani). At Pinerolo, after the blessing, the galoppata is still celebrated, a kind of horse race, a survival of a custom of which there are traces also in other regions, e.g. in Abruzzo. In Turin the ceremony was performed in the church of

S. Anthony Abbot, now disappeared, and it was the custom that the friars of the church offered a pair of gloves to each metropolitan canon designated for the blessing.

Very widespread is the custom that the blessing priest receives an alms or a votive offering in kind or in precious objects (in some villages of France, for example, a piece of lard which is then sold at auction; at Novoli [Lecce] gold watches) and distributes a little image of the Saint and the well-known panini di s. A. (little loaves of St. Anthony) which are held to be miraculous for the healing of the beasts, to which they are given to eat when they are sick, while the image is hung in the stable, always for protective purposes. In some places, instead of the little loaves, a torta di s. A. (cake of St. Anthony) is distributed, which has the same attributes. In the countryside it is, as a rule, the priest who goes to bless the animals in the stables.

Another of the typical forms of the popular cult is given by the bonfires of St. Anthony, piles of wood collected by means of begging, or in any case formed by collective participation, and which in some places reach enormous proportions: piles to which fire is set on the evening of the vigil. From the bonfire, which keeps burning for several days, everyone takes some brand or coal, which they then keep. Connected with these manifestations are both the beliefs in the miraculous healings, attributed to the Saint, of the plague and especially of Herpes Zoster, still popularly called sacred fire or St. Anthony's fire, and the legends that tell of St. Anthony the hermit placed as guardian of hell and, by deceiving the devils, liberator of souls. In these relations between St. Anthony and fire, some scholars have wanted to see elements of affinity with the myth of Prometheus, an opinion authoritatively combated and, in any case, to be subjected to revision. Still in many villages the ancient custom prevails of raising, at the community's expense, the pig of St. Anthony, which is then sold at auction to pay the expenses of the feast. This feast has had in some places of eastern Europe an importance so great as to give its name to the month of January (in Istro-Romanian antosniaku "January").

St. Anthony is invoked to find lost things and as protector of young girls.

Closely connected with the various manifestations of the cult are the popular poems that have flourished around the figure of the thaumaturge. Some of them, mostly of a lyrical kind, are sung on the eve of the feast by bands of young people who go from house to house begging, ringing a little bell; sometimes a man disguised as St. Anthony, according to the attributes of popular iconography, is part of the company. More important are certain narrative poems that used to be recited for protection against the plague or fire; ancient texts of them survive (14th cent.): two from northern Italy, one from central-southern Italy, as well as a popular song in hendecasyllables, still widely diffused, which presents sure connections with the ancient poems. All of them develop the hagiographic legend in its essential episodes. A sacra rappresentazione of St. Anthony the hermit, ample and with lively scenes, is among the most notable examples of Florentine Renaissance sacred theater. - See Pl. CXXII.

Paolo Toschi