Anthony of Padua, Saint

ANTHONY OF PADUA, Saint. - Franciscan, celebrated preacher, doctor of the Church; called of Padua, because he died there.

1. SOURCES FOR THE LIFE

Besides the works of A., the following are to be remembered: 1) Legenda prima or Assidua, written in Italy by a friar minor not yet identified in 1232 or 1233; lacunose but not useless, it was the source of all the others. It received various additions in the manuscripts of Padua, Lucerne, Paris and Ancona. The best edition is still that of L. de Kerval, Sancti Antonii de Padua vitae duae, Paris 1904. 2) Legenda secunda or Anonyma (ed. Acta SS. Iunii, II, ed. Antwerp 1742, pp. 705-18); it is held to be the work of fr. Giuliano of Speyer and was written around 1233-35. 3) Dialogus de gestis ss. Fratrum Minorum (ed. F. Delorme, Quaracchi 1943); of still uncertain authorship, it was written around 1245. 4) Legenda Raymundina (ed. A. M. Iosa, Bologna 1883); it was written in 1293 at Padua by fr. Pietro Raimondi da S. Romano di Tolosa. These last three legends depend on the Assidua and add little or nothing new. 5) Legenda fiorentina (most recent ed. in Studi francescani, 4 [1932], pp. 490-96); it is by an unknown author of the second half of the 13th century. 6) Legenda Rigaldina (ed. F. M. D'Araules [Delorme], Bordeaux-Brive 1899, Italian trans. by T. (Mengoni) da Soci, Quaracchi 1902); it was written by fr. Giovanni Rigaldi between 1293 and 1317. It is the most important, after the Assidua, because it partly fills the gap of the latter for the apostolate of A. in France. 7) Legenda Benignitas (ed. Kerval, op. cit.); it belongs to the beginning of the 14th century and we possess only fragments of it. The legends Assidua, Benignitas and Rigaldina are also published by F. Concini, Leggende di s. A. d. P., Padua 1930; 2nd ed. under the title, Le fonti della biografia antoniana, ibid. 1931; the Assidua and the Benignitas by R. Cessi, Leggende Antoniane, Milan 1936. 8) Liber Miraculorum (ed. Analecta franciscana, 3 [1897], pp. 121-58); written around 1350, it gives us the first chronology of the life of A.

2. LIFE

Born around 1195 at Lisbon, of a family of the lesser nobility, he received at baptism the name of Fernando. Educated in the school of the Cathedral, which stood near his paternal home, having passed his adolescence in purity of morals, he entered the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, who had their monastery of St. Vincent near the walls of the city. After two years, he asked for and obtained permission to move to the other monastery, also Augustinian, of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, where he remained nine years and in the meantime received his scientific formation in what was one of the two best cultural institutions of Portugal in that century. There he learned dialectic, and above all theology, acquiring a great mastery of Holy Scripture. At this time, according to the more reliable opinion, he also ascended to the priesthood. The heroic climate of the triumphs of the Cross against the crescent and the echo of the Lateran Council (1215) impelled him to the apostolate. At the sight of the relics of the five protomartyrs of the Franciscan Order killed on 16 January 1220 for the faith in Morocco, he decided to enter the Order of Friars Minor precisely in order to go and preach to the Saracens and meet martyrdom there. In the autumn of 1220 he set out for Morocco, but once he had reached it, he fell ill and had to remain there the whole winter. During the return voyage to his homeland, the winds caused the ship on which A. was traveling to put in at the coasts of Sicily, from where the Saint went to the Portiuncula for the General Chapter of Pentecost of 1221. Here he saw and heard St. Francis. When the religious had departed and he remained almost alone, A. asked for and obtained from the provincial minister of Romagna, Brother Graziano, permission to go to his province; here he was assigned to the hermitage of Montepaolo near Forlì, where he led a life of asceticism and harsh penances. Urgently invited to speak on the occasion of a sacred ordination at Forlì, A. revealed the hidden treasure of his doctrine. From then on he was destined for the active life, which he carried out in preaching, teaching, governing his confreres and composing his writings. He preached first in upper Italy, where at Rimini he converted the heretic Bonillo. First among the Friars Minor, he taught theology at Bologna to his confreres, having obtained permission from St. Francis himself.

Having gone to southern France around 1225, he preached, according to the testimony of Brother Giovanni Rigaldi, in various cities, among which were Bourges, Limoges, Saint-Julien, Brive and Arles; he was custos of Limoges; he taught at Montpellier, Toulouse and Puy-en-Velay. Having returned to Italy after Easter of 1227, in the General Chapter of that year he was elected provincial minister of upper Italy, as Brother Luke of Padua also attests. In this period he visited the religious, preached and wrote his Sermones dominicales. Perhaps around Easter of 1228, sent to Rome to deal with the affairs of the Order at the Roman Curia, he preached in the presence of the cardinals and of Pope Gregory IX, by whom he was called "Ark of the Testament and shrine of the Holy Scriptures." In the general chapter of 1230 he was relieved of the office of minister and was able to devote himself with greater freedom to the ministry of the word and to composing the Sermones de Sanctis, as he had been asked by the cardinal of Ostia, Rolando de' Conti, later Alexander IV. The year 1231 marks the apogee of the triumphs of A.'s apostolate, which now especially took on a social character. He preached Lent with great fruit and, after having labored, though in vain, for the liberation of the count of San Bonifacio and the other Guelph leaders from Ezzelino da Romano, he devoted himself to evangelizing the countryside until the harvest. He then withdrew to Camposampiero, 19 km from Padua, to the home of his friend Tiso, where, struck by an attack of dropsy, he ordered that he be carried to Padua and set out toward the city, but, having worsened along the way, he was stopped at the Arcella near Padua, where, having received the Sacraments, he died on 13 June 1231. He was canonized by Gregory IX at Spoleto on 30 May 1232, only 11 months after his death.

3. CULT

The miracles performed during his life, but especially those after death, earned A. the appellation of thaumaturge and contributed greatly to the spread of his cult. This at first was limited almost exclusively to Padua and to the Franciscan Order, where he always enjoyed the liturgical cult of the doctors, which from the 13th century was also spread more or less intensely throughout the whole Church until the reform of the Roman Breviary and Missal made in 1570 by St. Pius V. With the 16th century the cult of A. extends more and more and becomes universal, as it is today. The liturgical cult of doctor was confirmed and extended to the whole Church by Pius XII with the brief Exulta, Lusitania felix, on 16 Jan. 1946. Feast on 13 June.

Padua raised to A. a monumental temple, whose works lasted almost two centuries, and it turned out a true marvel of art, on which several generations of artists worked.

In 1263, in the presence of St. Bonaventure, the translation of A. was carried out there (Cf. B. Gonzati, La Basilica di S. Antonio da Padova descritta ed illustrata, 2 vols., Padua 1852).

4. ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH

1. The writings. Certainly authentic are only the Sermones per annum dominicales and the Sermones in festivitatibus Sanctorum per anni circulum, of which alone the Legenda Antidna speaks to us. Of these we have a modern edition, begun by A. M. Locatelli in 1895, continued by G. Munaron, G. Perin, M. Scremin and finished around 1913 (S. Antonii Patavini... Sermones dominicales et in solemnitatibus, in 4to, pp. XXIV-926) guaranteed by 13 codices of the 13th and 14th centuries which explicitly attribute these sermons to A. Although this edition gives us a sufficient basis for reconstructing the genuine thought of the Saint, it nevertheless has many defects.

In the present state of research the other works attributed to A. can be classified as follows. At least doubtful are the Sermones in Psalmos edited by A. Azzoguidi at Bologna in 1757, and attributed by the French manuscript tradition to Cardinal Giovanni Algrin d'Abbeville. Spurious instead are the Sermones quadragesimales, the Sermones de Sanctis, the Concordantiae morales sacrorum biblorum, the Expositio mystica in S. Scriptorum, the Incendium amoris and the Sacrum commercium s. Francisci cum domina pauperitate.

2. The doctrine

A.'s theological formation had been good, his teaching and his preaching fruitful, and therefore eminent was his doctrine, which is manifested especially in the interpretation and commentary of Holy Scripture, in the depth of his theological thought, in sacred oratory.

Given his essentially biblical formation, A. has the highest esteem for the word of God and makes wide use of it, interpreting it according to the four senses: literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical; and although recognizing the fundamental value of the literal and historical sense, he nevertheless prefers the allegorical and the moral because he considers it more useful for the good of souls in his essentially practical preaching. The source of his exegesis and of his very rich biblical interpretations are the holy Fathers, whom he frequently cites and not rarely uses without express citation. What the effect was can be deduced from the epithets with which he was hailed, of «Ark of the Testament» and «shrine of the Sacred Scriptures».

A. is predominantly a great orator, but for this reason one cannot deny him the attributes of theologian, teacher and scholastic doctor, although relative to the scholasticism of the beginning of the 13th century. He is a theologian and a doctor, but with a physiognomy entirely his own, a theologian of oratorical theology. Pius XII too in his brief Exulta, Lusitania felix, calls him an eminent theologian in elucidating the truths of the faith. A.'s theology is Augustinian, for this reason he expounds the doctrine of grace with great precision. Franciscan are his positions and his theological attitudes regarding those particular Christological and Mariological doctrines which will later form, duly developed, the cornerstones of the Franciscan school. His apologetics and his victories over heresy earn him the title of «hammer of heretics».

But, more than speculative, A. is practical. Faithful to the recommendations of the Franciscan rule, he preaches to the peoples the struggle against vice and the practice of virtue; his preferred themes are the precepts of Christian morality. He shows himself in this an unsurpassable analyzer of the capital vices in themselves and as they are found in the different social classes. He combats especially pride, lust and avarice. In indicating the way of salvation he keeps in orderly fashion a just mean between laxity and exaggerated rigorism. His morality is exercised on fundamental principles more than on special principles; it is almost never juridical or canonical; as a moral theologian he shows himself more acceptable than casuist. Detailed and important is, in our Doctor, the treatment of the Sacrament of penance.

A. reveals himself, moreover, as an ascetic and a profound mystic and traces with a sure hand and from personal experience the way of Christian perfection. Having inculcated the necessity of penance, he recommends especially faith, humility, poverty, chastity, the love of God and of the Church, compassion for the poor, and he insists on the spirit of prayer. He founds the contemplative life especially on the latter and proclaims the superiority of this life over the active one, although he holds the superiority to lie in an accord between the two. His writings reveal a tender devotion to the humility of Christ, considered as king of glory, but humiliated for our love; he often speaks also of the Eucharist and recommends in a special way devotion to the Passion of the Savior and particularly to Mary.

A. is a mystical author worthy of consideration. Practical and effective, he follows in general Western mysticism, which has as its exponents St. Augustine, St. Gregory and St. Bernard. He is not at all affected by the influence of pseudo-Dionysius, he depends instead in something on Richard of St. Victor. His mysticism reveals a personal note and is not lacking in originality. He has treated excellently almost all the essential questions of mysticism. In fact he admits, besides passive contemplation, also a true active contemplation. The primary object of passive contemplation is God, the secondary object the Church and especially the Humanity of Christ. Contemplation belongs to the intellect and to the will, but the primacy belongs for A. to the latter. Passive contemplation is a permanent state, but a grace that passes. The principal effect of contemplation is the love of God.

Preceding St. John of the Cross, he perfectly describes the three signs of the mystical night of the senses. A. also holds that all the faithful are called to infused contemplation in general and urges them to aspire to it.

A. is finally a great master of sacred oratory. His sermons are an explanation of the Sunday Gospels harmonized with the stories of the Old Testament, the Introit and the Epistle of the Sunday Masses, according to the scheme of the solemn sermon in use in the 13th century, so that it might serve preachers and especially the Friars Minor as a proximate and particularly remote preparation for preaching. His preaching is apologetic with heretics, moral and social with all the faithful. After the Bible and the Holy Fathers he has recourse to nature and is original in the application of his knowledge of the natural sciences; vivid sketches drawn from real life abound; his language is lively, imaginative, often sculptural, and explains, in part, the triumphs of his preaching.

of P., in Studi franc., 6 (1934), pp. 80-89, 195-224; S. A. Doctor of the Church (Proceedings of the Antonian Weeks held in Rome and Padua in 1946), Rome 1948: the sixteen lectures in this collection are almost all of great importance: we single out three of the most notable: C. Balié, S. A. Evangelical Doctor, pp. 5-30; id., The Writings of St. A., pp. 297-330; G. Abate, S. A. Master of Sacred Theology, pp. 265-94.

Riccardo Pratesi

5. ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA IN FOLKLORE AND POPULAR POETRY

The popular cult of the saint manifests itself chiefly in the very lively and widespread belief in his extraordinary miraculous power and in the pilgrimage, with particular signs of devotion, to his church in Padua. Through an exchange due to the identity of the name, certain expressions of popular devotion originally dedicated to St. Anthony Abbot are transferred to him. A little song in quatrains of octosyllables, very widespread throughout Italy especially by means of printed leaflets, entitled Storia di s. A. di P., tells how in six hours he departed in spirit from Padua while he was preaching, went to Lisbon where he freed his father, who was innocent, condemned to death, and raised a dead man, etc. Pitrè demonstrated its original Sicilian composition and supposed it to be a translation of Spanish and Portuguese variants. Also known are certain short poems in octaves that narrate the miracles of the saint, but of scant popularity and of minimal literary value.

Paolo Toschi

6. ICONOGRAPHY

He is always depicted in the Franciscan habit and bears as his principal attributes a book (from the earliest times), a flame (for the first time in a fresco by Agnolo Gaddi of 1394), sometimes replaced by a heart (from the middle of the 15th century), the lily

(symbol of virginity, from 1440 onward) and the Infant Jesus, a reminder of a vision of the Saint, largely preferred by Spanish artists (Ribera, Murillo) and German artists of the Baroque era as well as by popular prints. The oldest images of St. A. (panels by Bonaventura Berlinghieri in Florence, Accademia; by Margaritone d'Arezzo, in Perugia, Pinacoteca; and of the Giotto school, in Padua, basilica of St. A.) are followed by those of Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, Benozzo Gozzoli, Cosimo Tura. No less frequent are the depictions in which St. A., often joined with other Franciscan saints, takes part in the sacred conversations before the Madonna enthroned (as in works by Beato Angelico and Pordenone). Worthy of mention, besides the 14th-century stained-glass figures of St. Francis in Assisi, are the numerous cyclic representations, inspired by the wealth of episodes in the Saint's legend: among these, extremely important are the bronze bas-reliefs by Donatello on the high altar of the basilica del Santo in Padua, and the marble reliefs of the ark, by Antonio and Tullio Lombardo, I. Sansovino and others.

Kurt Rathe

7. WORK OF THE BREAD OF ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA

Alms offered in honor of the Saint to implore his protection and distributed to the poor chiefly in the form of bread. Considered in general, the work dates back to the earliest times of the cult paid to him and took its occasion from the miracle worked in favor of a twenty-month-old child, named Tommasino, who died drowned in a basin. The mother promised the Saint, if he restored her son to life, to give for the poor as much grain as he weighed (Delorme-J. Rigault, pp. 150-152). The use of such offerings later spread widely, so much so that a special benedictio ad pondus pueri was found in the liturgy, with which parents were accustomed to invoke upon their children the protection of A., offering to the poor, in his honor, as much grain as the commended child weighed. However, the work as it exists now, in the form of a donation of money to be distributed as bread in thanksgiving for favors obtained, did not begin until the 19th century. We see it arising in 1887 in Messina in the orphanages of Canon Annibale M. di Francia, for a grace obtained in favor of the family of Mrs. Susanna Consiglio. Moreover, independently, on 12 March 1890, it arose in Toulon through the work of Miss Luisa Bouffier, in gratitude for a prayer answered; having become known to don Antonio Locatelli, of Padua, he recommended it and spread it in his Bollettino dell'Associazione Universale Antoniana, and from as early as 1886 he converted into bread, to be distributed every Saturday to the poor, the proceeds of the Tipografia e Libreria antoniana. In our own day it may be said that the Opera del pane di s. Antonio flourishes in every church. - See Pl. CXXIII.

Celestino Testore