Anthony’s Life

WITH THE 4th volume of Saint Anthony’s sermons now out, I have been giving some attention to the ancient sources for his Life. Like Saint Francis himself, Anthony was fortunate in having his Life written when there was still first-hand testimony to it. Unfortunately, this first-hand testimony is not nearly as abundant as for Francis. The first biographer, whose name we do not know, seems to have been a friar who was living in the Padua community at the time of the Saint’s death. Anthony was canonised within a year, and according to custom a legenda (that is, something to be read out) had to be composed for use in the Office of the Saint. This is probably the origin of the first Life we have, known from its opening word as the Assidua. A translation of this into English has been published by the Messenger. The first fourteen pages concern Anthony’s life before he came to Padua, a further twenty-four concern his time there, up to his death and funeral, and the remaining forty pages are about the miracles that took place in the year after his death. I think you will immediately see a problem!





Julian of Speyer





In the time available, the author could not conduct much research into the time before he had known Anthony personally. Providentially, the Bishop of Lisbon, Sueiro, was staying at the Papal Court at that very time. He was able to provide details about Anthony’s early life, and other friars could add a few other incidents. But anyone who reads the Assidua will soon notice that there is a great gap in the middle of the story! “Since it would take too much space to relate the many provinces through which he had travelled...” the author writes at one point. He might have added, “and since I have no information about them...”



If this were our only source, we would be in some trouble. But not many years later, it was realised that the Assidua was not ideal for reading at the Office, and a very talented friar, Julian of Speyer, was asked to produce something new. He had already composed an Office for Saint Francis, full of ingenious rhyming antiphons and responsories. He now did the same for Saint Anthony. Using the Assidua as his basis, he composed a series of verses, covering the entire life of the Saint. He also abbreviated the Assidua to a more manageable length for the readings. In one place, however, he inserted a new incident, which he had found in Thomas of Celano’s first Life of Francis. This tells of a vision of Saint Francis by a brother at a Chapter at which Anthony was preaching. Anthony is incidental to the story, but what is interesting is that Celano’s work was issued when Anthony was still alive, and he is referred to as “one whose mind the Lord had opened to understand the Scriptures and to speak to the people about Jesus”. This is how the Saint appeared to his confrères while he was still with them!





John Peckham





A few years later still, around 1245, the Minister General Crescentius commissioned a collection of stories of miracles performed by holy friars, among whom of course was Anthony. We are not sure who composed the ‘Dialogue’, as it is called, but in the section on Anthony he clearly relies on the Assidua, and adds nothing new to what we know from that and Julian. However, a generation on, another gifted friar tried his hand again. This was John Peckham, an English Franciscan who was later to be made Archbishop of Canterbury. Around 1280 he produced a Life which showed that he had undertaken original research in Portugal and elsewhere. Fresh details emerge about Anthony’s family, and about the time before he went to Padua.





John Rigauld





At the end of the thirteenth century two new Lives appeared, one attributed to the Paduan friar Peter Raymondi, the other to a French friar and bishop, John Rigauld. I have not yet properly studied Raymondi’s work, but the work of Rigauld is full of new information and surprises. He explains, at the start of his book, that when he was a young friar there were still brothers alive who had seen and heard Anthony. Now that he is getting old himself, he wants to make sure their stories are written down and not forgotten. These stories are mainly about just that period which was missing in the Assidua. At this time Anthony was the regional superior at Limoges, in central France, with an extensive preaching ministry, founding new communities and even attending a Church Synod at Bourges, where he rebuked the Archbishop!





New biography





As time went on, there were other Lives and collections of stories, but Rigauld is the last who can quote the testimony of those who had actually seen and heard Anthony. Unfortunately, like other writers of the period, he arranges his material according to themes (Anthony’s humility, his love of prayer, etc.) and he is usually vague about when these things took place. For an historian, it is a real challenge to work out from the information given, and what else we know about the period, how to put the events in the right order.



I am hoping, in due time, to write a Life of our Saint which will take all these sources into account, and present Anthony afresh against the background of his own time. In the meantime you are invited to consult Fr Vergilio Gamboso’s excellent work Life of Saint Anthony.



Our Saint was and is a real person, and we do him and ourselves no service by creating an imaginary picture of him that has little likeness to the reality. Just as we now have a more accurate idea of his physical likeness (as I wrote on a previous occasion), so we need a more accurate picture of his earthly life and work. His glorious intercession in heaven needs no help from me!