Anthony of Padua

“ The children of this holy Patriarch, being thus spread in all parts, preached the Gospel to the infidels, repressed heresies, attacked vice, inspired virtue, and gave admirable examples of poverty, humility, penance, and all perfection.
Anthony, of Padua, preached in Italy and France with so much lustre, that he has ever been considered as one of the most marvellous preachers whom Italy ever saw. The strength and the unction of his discourses, the eminent sanctity of his life, the evidence of his miracles, changed the face of the towns in which he announced the word of God. ”

“ There are a great number of villas on the banks of the Brenta, well built in the best style of architecture, the most of them after the designs of Palladio, the Prince of modern architects.
Padua is an exceedingly large city: but its arcades and the narrowness of the streets give it a gloomy appearance. There are however some beautiful promenades in the suburbs. There are also the remains of an ancient Arena. Padua is famous for its Seminario or University, which is a superb edifice. The Church of St Anthony of Padua is of vast size, having six cupolas. ”

“ Anthony at Padua—is not more crowded with pictures of people saved from accidents, with silver hearts and waxen limbs, with ribbons and artificial flowers, with rosaries and precious stones, and with innumerable objects that only tell their tale of bygone vows to the votary who hung them there, than were the temples of our Lady of Love in Cneidos or in Corinth. In the epigrams before us we read how hunters hung their nets to Pan, and fishermen their gear to Poseidon; gardeners their figs and pomegranates to Priapus; blacksmiths their hammers and tongs to Hephæstus. ”

“ Again the men's voices! The white was mostly men, not women. The priest in his robes, his boys near him, was leading the chanting. Immediately behind him came a small cluster of bare-headed, tall, sunburnt men, all in golden-velveteen corduroy, mountain-peasants, bowing beneath a great life-size seated image of Saint Anthony of Padua. After these a number of men in the costume, but with the white linen breeches hanging wide and loose almost to the ankles, instead of being tucked into the black gaiters. So they seemed very white beneath the back kilt frill. ”

“ In Perugia, also, he wrought many works that are still to be seen in that city; as, for example, a panel in distemper in the Church of the Nuns of S. Anthony of Padua, containing a Madonna with the Child in her lap, S. Francis, S. Elizabeth, S. John the Baptist, and S. Anthony of Padua. Above these is a most beautiful Annunciation, with an Angel that seems truly to have come out of Heaven; and, what is more, a row of columns diminishing in perspective, which is indeed beautiful. In the [Pg 22] predella there are scenes with little figures, representing S. Anthony restoring a boy to life ”

“ Anthony of Padua, so called par eminence. ↑ icognara, Storia della Scultura, declares that the most unskilled in art, provided they are furnished with good sense, are unlikely to mistake even the best works of Vellano for the least distinguished among those of Donato. ↑ Pomponius Guaricus, in his Treatise De Sculptura, also declares Vellano, or Bellano of Padua, to have been a scholar of Donato, but calls him “ineptus artifex.” ↑ The bassi-rilievi in bronze around the choir of the Santo are twelve; the subjects are taken from the Old Testament. Of these twelve bassirilievi, ten are by Vellano ”

“ S. Antony's arrangement, although it be called by his editor " most excellent, and disposed in a most learned order," is rather confusing ; and one does not see any possible connection between succeeding sections in the same chapter. The account which is prefixed to the work, and which explains the contents of its five books, is as follows : " The first book treats of those things which pertain to the fall and their opposites, divided into four parts. The first, of sin in general, and its effects. ”

“ The Paduans he hated even more venomously than he hated the rest of mankind, because of their long resistance to him; for Padua, the City of Saint Anthony, had all along been a stronghold of the Guelph party; that is to say, of the Church, in her struggle for civilisation and humanity, against the Emperor and his barons who were opposed to any lessening of their power by the erection of popular institutions. The wars between the Guelphs and their opponents, the Ghibellines, began in the Eleventh Century and lasted for some four hundred years ”

“ He died at Padua, in north Italy, whence the name by which he is universally known.
In 1231, on June 13th, when the saint was thirty-six years of age, his brief but brilliant apostolate came to a sudden close. After his death, beginning on the day of his burial at Padua, which happened on Tuesday, June 17th, so many miracles were wrought through the intercession of St. Anthony, that already in the following year, on May 30, 1232, he was publicly and solemnly declared a saint by Pope Gregory IX.
Devotions in Honor of St. ”

“ Whether or not Giotto left any actual pupils in Padua after completing the frescoes in the chapel of the arena there, it must be admitted that the older school of painting in Padua, which centred round the church containing the body of S. Anthony, was an offshoot of the Florentine, and that as Giotto was the great leader in Florence he must be considered the same here; though his followers differ so much from each other in style that beyond their indebtedness to their founder they have no distinctive feature in common. ”

“ But thou, Bethlehem-Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out thee shall He come forth unto me That is to be ruler in Israel ; Whose goings forth have been from of old, from ever- lasting. ”

“ On the morning of Sant' Antonio's Day we strolled through the streets of Padua, side by side with the country-folk who had come from miles around to offer up their prayers at the shrine of the saint. Some rode jaded mules or were packed close in great market-wagons. Others trudged on foot, with their dinners tied up in blue cotton handkerchiefs. There were bronzed men in homespun, who pushed steadily on, aiding themselves with mighty umbrellas; dark-eyed girls, with bright kerchiefs knotted about their heads or carnations in their glossy braids ”

“ Schaus, a picture-dealer of New York, for two hundred and fifty dollars. He turned his purchase over to the Spanish consul, who restored it to the cathedral.
St. Anthony was a Portuguese by birth, and taught divinity in the universities of Bologna, Toulouse, Paris, and Padua. Finally he became an eloquent preacher among the people. It is said that when they refused to listen he preached to the dwellers in the sea, "and an infinite number of fishes, great and little, lifted their heads above water, and listened attentively to the sermon of the saint!" ”

“ O thou man of GOD, there is death in the pot. But he said, Then bring meal, and he cast it into the pot .... and there was no harm in the pot. [That is, the wild gourds are a type of sin; the vessel, of the human heart; the meal, of the Holy Eucharist, and its effect in preserving against the dangers of temptation.]
Ps. xxv. 20. Let perfectness and righteous dealing wait upon me. [That is, the perfect righteousness of our LORD : wait upon me, in the sense of that verse, "The SON of MAN came not to be ministered unto but to minister."] ”

“ Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt ; and the form of the fourth is like the SON of GOD.
vii. 13. I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the SON of MAN came with the clouds of heaven,
ix. 24. Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression . . . and to anoint the Most Holy.
Hos. i. 11. Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves One Head. ”

“ This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.
S. Luke i. 30. Fear not, Mary ; for thou hast found favour with GOD.
11. It cannot be denied that some of the references are so extremely far-fetched or allegorical, as to be utterly inapplicable to modern audiences, who have to learn, for the most part, the general principle of any symbolical teaching in Holy Scripture. Thus, that the soul of the proud man is the abode of Satan is proved by the text, referring to Behemoth ; " He lieth under the tall trees." ”

“ But it is better that nature alone should cultivate their fields, and that the Paduans should eat only what she is pleased to provide for them, than that, by robbing the shrine of St Antony, they should forfeit the good esteem of so powerful a patron, "the thrice holy Antony of Padua ”

“ The great truth, that a man is never so likely to be exposed to temptation, as when he has just received some especial grace, is taught from Tobit vi. 2; it was when Tobias had just been washing himself in the river that the fish leapt out upon him, and would have devoured him. Against the discrepancy between the lives and doctrine of wicked preachers. Ps civ. 8. " They go up as high as the hills, and down to the valleys beneath." That the labourer is worthy of his hire. ”

“ My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.
Is. i. 23. Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves.
viii. 12. Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy ; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid.
Jer. xi. 9. And the LORD said unto me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Jer. xxxviii. 5. Behold he is in your hand; for the king is not he that can do anything against you. ”

“ Corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new mine the maids. (7.) In several instances, and more especially at the beginning of the work, S. Antony has summed up the effects of a particular vice or virtue in a series of verses, not remarkable, generally speaking, either for their point or their terseness. In some cases, where the characteristics of one sin are nearly identical with those of another, they have been omitted ; and in others, that which is verse in the original, has been put into prose. ”

“ Man, who has it not in him to be thrifty in so prodigal a midst, has here also thought it lawful to go free. Out of that lake of rustling leaves rise, like the masts of ships crowding a port, church towers, the belfries of pious convents, the domes and turrets of great buildings walled into cities. Among which, prized as they all are and honourably additioned,—Vicenza, Treviso, Mantua, Verona, Ferrara,—there is none more considerable than Padua, root of learning and grey cupolas, chosen to be the last resting-place of Antenor, King Priam's brother, and the first of Titus Livy. ”

“ Now, whatever judgments may be formed in other respects of medieval preachers, in this one thing it cannot be denied that they excel their successors. It is not merely that they quote ten texts for one in modern discourses ”

“ And with his rod he smote the rock twice, and the water came out abundantly,
xxi. 8. Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole : and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten when he looketh upon it, shall live. ”

“ O the hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest Thou be as a stranger in the land ? Jer.xv. 10. Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth !
xxiii. 5. Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a King shall reign and prosper,
xxxi. 22. The LORD hath created a new thing in the earth : a woman shall compass a Man. ”

“ It is clear that such a distribution of texts would now be of no practical use in the pulpit. (3.) When two sections, which is often the case, are occupied with subjects so nearly allied as to be almost identical, and when the references given, are, for the most part, the same, then the second is very frequently omitted. (4.) In like manner, and also for the sake of brevity, references are very often omitted which have occurred in previous sections, in allusion to the same subject. ”

“ The Fourth Book treats of those things which pertain to a perfect man : and has four parts. The first is of the cardinal virtues. The second is of the theological virtues. The third of the active, the fourth of the contemplative, life. The Fifth Book treats of relative duties, and certain other matters ; and contains eight parts. The first is of prelates and priests, and their flocks. The second, of preachers, and those whose duty it is to rebuke. ”

“ As the righteousness of the righteous is well pleasing to GOD, so is the penitence of sinners; and that as much as we have given up ourselves to sin, so much we ought to return to GOD.
Leviticus 6:25 | 7:2 || Isaiah 31:6 || Baruch 4:28 || S. Luke 7:38 | 15:7 || Romans 5:20 f | 6:19
192. ”

“ It may be proper to observe, that nothing whatever has been added to the references selected by S. Antony.
8. We will give a few examples of the different ways in which the Moral Concordances might be useful in the present day. And first, of ingenious applications of texts, which might well bs used as illustrations. Separation from the world, if we would heartily serve GOD, is enforced by the example of Moses. (Ex. viii. 27.) " We will go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the LORD our GOD, as He shall command us ;" ”

“ Padua like Athens humanized its conquerors. It became the University town of Venice, as Pavia was of Milan, and it was for a long time protected from the assaults of the Catholic reaction by its rulers, who [Pg 26] possibly were instigated rather by political jealousy of the Papacy as a temporal power, than by any enthusiasm for the humanist and scientific studies of which Padua was the most illustrious home south of the Alps; studies which the powers of the Church began already to recognize as their most dangerous foes. ”