Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman and Franciscan Martyrologies. Canonized* the year after his death by Gregory IX. Authority: — An ancient life, by whom written is not known. A life of the saint was written by John Peckham, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1392), but whether it is this one or not cannot be said. The life has gone through various amplifications, and though trustworthy as to its leading facts, is not to "be relied on for all the marvels and miracles which have been in later times inserted in it from popular report and tradition.] Although this saint is called S. Antony of Padua, he was a native of Portugal, and of Lisbon, its capital. His father’s name was Martin de Buglione, his mother’s Maria de Tevera. At his baptism he was given the name of Ferdinand. His education was confided to the canons of the cathedral At the age of fifteen he joined the Augustinian order, in the house of S. Vincent, outside the gates of Lisbon. After having spent there two years, finding that his studies and devotion were broken into by repeated visits of his relations and friends, he asked, and obtained permission, to move into the house of the order at Coimbra, dedicated to S. Cruz. But he had not been long there before he heard of the martyrdom of five Franciscans in Morocco, and their bodies, having been redeemed by the Christians, were brought to Coimbra. The young man was at once fired with zeal for martyrdom, and with the permission of his superior he joined the Franciscan order, in the little convent of S. Antony at Coimbra, and thereupon took the name of Antony in honour of the patriarch of hermits. This was in 1221, when he was aged twenty-six. After a period of retreat, he set sail for Morocco, hoping to shed his blood there for Christ, but falling ill when he reached Morocco, he was obliged to re-embark that he might return to Portugal The ship was driven by a storm upon the coast of Sicily, and he disembarked at Messina. There, hearing that the great S. Francis, founder of his order, was holding a chapter at Assisi, he hasted thither, hoping to assist at the chapter and see that great saint On his arrival, the chapter was concluded, but he saw and received the blessing of S. Francis. Then he sought admission into one of the convents of the order in Italy, but not one of the guardians present at Assisi would receive him, because of his sickly appearance. At last a guardian of the Romagna province had compassion on him, and sent him to the hermitage of S. Paolo, near Bologna, where a few Minorites resided. There he was made to serve in the kitchen, and no one suspected the talents and learning of the pale sickly young friar. But one day the Bishop of Forli was holding an ordination there, and there were present a great many Dominicans. There had been a misunderstanding about who was to preach on the occasion; the Franciscan superior naturally considered that the Dominicans — whose special vocation was the pulpit — would preach. But the Dominicans excused themselves, saying that they had come quite unprepared, and had supposed that the guardian had made arrangements that one of his own friars should preach. The guardian was perplexed, he had no one in the little convent fit to mount the pulpit, and as a make-shift he fell back on Antony, who, as he could see, had more natural intelligence and polish than the other friars, who were from a low rank, and somewhat rough and uncouth. Antony exclaimed that his proper work was washing up dishes and scrubbing the floors, but the superior overruled his objections, and before the bishop, the critical Dominicans, and his companions anxious and uneasy, Antony appeared in the pulpit. But no sooner had he delivered his text, and introduced his subject, than the attention of everyone was arrested. His face lighted up like that of a seraph, his rich voice, sometimes swelling like an organ diapason, sometimes soft and thrilling, his easy address, flow of well-chosen words, and graceful action, surprised and electrified the audience. The astonished and delighted Minorites saw that they possessed a treasure, and the guardian without delay wrote to S. Francis. The great father at once sent a letter to Antony, brief and to the point “To his very dear brother Antony, Brother Francis sends greeting in Jesus Christ I have thought good that you should explain theology to the brethren; but only so that, above all things, study should not blunt in you, or in them, the spirit of holy prayer, as is written in the rule which we profess. The Lord be with thee.” By virtue of this patent, Antony taught in Montpellier, Bologna, Padua, and Toulouse, and he was admired greatly for the profound wisdom he displayed, and his eloquence and facility of conveying information. But his preaching was that which attracted general attention. The churches were too small to hold the crowds that collected to hear him, and he preached in the churchyards and in the market-places. Shops were shut when he preached, and ladies who usually rose late got up early to hear his words. Some remained in church all night to secure places for the sermon on the morrow. On his way to the pulpit he was surrounded by a body of robust men to keep off the crowd which pressed on him to kiss his hands and touch his habit The effects of his preaching were extraordinary. The whole congregation was swayed by him as he desired. Sometimes his voice was drowned by the sobs of those who heard him, and who were pricked to the heart Hardened sinners were melted; his very appearance, his face radiating with fervour, was enough sometimes to break all the barriers about an impenitent heart Once he only showed himself in the pulpit, and for some reason was prevented from preaching. But the sight of him was enough, consciences were touched, cheeks were wet with penitential tears. Wherever he went he was accompanied by a body of priests to hear the confessions that followed his sermons. His clear, bell-like voice, was heard through every part of the largest church, and reached the ears of the farthest in a crowd assembled in the open air. An instance is told of a woman, who had been forbidden by her husband to go to the sermon, running upstairs and throwing open her bed-room window. The clear voice of the preacher was echoed back by the wall of the little room, and though she could not see him, she was able to follow the sermon. She ran and brought up her husband, and he was so astonished at what he supposed to be a miracle, that he withdrew his opposition.1 S. Antony had a most remarkable memory; he almost knew the Holy Scriptures by heart, and was able to quote and apply it in the most surprising and original manner. His marvellous Scriptural knowledge caused Pope Gregory IX. to call him “ the ark of the covenant,” because just as the ark contained the tables of the law, so Antony seemed to retain the whole of Scripture in his memory. His energy carried him from place to place with such rapidity as to astonish every one, and some thought he must be endowed with ubiquity. But one or two curious stories are told of him which cannot thus be explained. One day, at Montpelier, he was preaching in the principal church, when all at once it flashed across him that he had appointed no one to All his place in the convent chapel, and chant the gradual, at the office which he knew was being then sung. The thought so occupied his mind that 1 The author of these “ Lires of the Saints *' heard a sermon preached a long way off in a field, out of sight, in the same way, the sound being reflected by the walls of an upstairs room.

S. Antony of Padua. he forgot he was preaching, and for a moment leaned his head on the pulpit-desk, completely absent in mind. At that same moment he was seen in the quire of the convent taking his place, and chantipg the allotted strain. Next moment he had vanished. At the same instant he recovered his consciousness in the pulpit, and continued his sermon. His intense, enthusiastic earnestness, imposed on those least likely to be affected by such impressions. There was not in Europe at the time, there hardly was ever, a greater monster than Eccelin da Romano, the Ghibelline champion in Italy, the son-in-law of the Emperor Frederick II. He was regarded with the profoundest terror and abhorrence. No human suffering, it might seem, could glut his revenge; the enemy who fell into his hands might rejoice in immediate decapitation or hanging. The starvation of whole cities, the imprisonment of men, women, and children, in close and loathsome dungeons, touched not his stony heart, which seemed to have made cruelty a kind of voluptuous excitement.

Eccelin had taken Padua, Vicenza, Verona, and Brescia, and had perpetrated on the inhabitants incredible barbarities. Antony alone had courage to face this monster. He went boldly to Verona, which was reeking with the blood he had shed, forced himself into the presence of Eccelin, and with a voice of thunder and flashing eyes, exclaimed, 44 How long, thou cruel tyrant, wilt thou continue shedding innocent blood? Seest thou not the vengeance of God ready to overwhelm thee, the sword of the Lord drawn to smite thee ? Repent, or it will fall and destroy thee.” Everyone expected an explosion of ungovernable lury, and that the death of the bold Franciscan would follow instantly. But they were astonished to see Eccelin fall qua;ing at the feet of the saint, place his knotted cord about his neck, and promise amendment “His face blazed on me, he dazzled me, he prostrated me,” was Eccelin's account of the interview. That interview was not without effect The tyrant behaved with greater humanity as long as S. Antony lived; but when released from fear of him, by the death of the saint, he returned to his old ferocious ways. His end was horrible. With the Marquis Pallavicini and Buoso da Doara, the head of the Ghibellines of Cremona, Eccelin had become master of Brescia, and then, that he might secure to himself the fruits of his victory, plotted the destruction of his allies. This flagrant treachery was discovered; the indignant Ghibellines made a league against the common enemy of mankind. Eccelin was defeated, sorely wounded, and captured. On the first night of his imprisonment the bells of a neighbouring convent chapel began to tinkle for matins. He woke up in wrath, “Go, hew down the priest who makes such a din with his bells.” “You forget,” said his guard, “that you are in prison.” The priests and friars thronged around him urging him to repentance. “I repent of nothing, but that I have not wreaked full vengeance on my foes, and that I have allowed myself to be duped and betrayed,” and he tore off the dressings from his wounds and bled to death.

Antony was as successful in converting heretics as he was sinners. At Rimini, in Milan, in other cities, he held disputations with the ascetic Patarines, convinced, confounded, and converted them by an asceticism as severe, but more loving, than their own.

Antony had also a conflict to wage in his own order. The rule required the peremptory renunciation of all worldly goods by every disciple of the order. Not till he was absolutely destitute did a disciple become a Franciscan. The friars might receive food, clothes, or other necessaries, on no acc:ount money; even if they found it, they were to CHURCH OP S. ANTHONY AT PADUA.

jane trample it under foot S. Francis rejected alike the pomp of ritual and the pride of learning. The Franciscan services were to be conducted with the utmost simplicity of devotion, in plain churches. There was to be only one daily mass. But scarcely was the great founder dead, than the first general of the order, Brother Elias, and many of the superiors, relaxed or evaded, or even directly contravened the cherished maxims of their founder. The infirmities of Elias compelled him to violate one rule, and to ride on horseback. The majority of guardians showed a disposition to alter the rule about begging, and escape from the restraints of a too great simplicity. Only S. Antony, and an English friar named Adam, stood out in opposition to these relaxations. They were loaded with abuse and illtreatment, and only by flight escaped perpetual imprisonment in their cells, which the general had decreed against them. They addressed themselves to Pope Gregory IX., by whom they were graciously received. He cited Elias to appear before him, and deposed him from the generalship. Antony took occasion of this visit to Rome to request permission to resign his post, and retire from his labours. He went first to Monte Alverno, and thence to his convent at Padua. He preached a Lent [the forty days of fasting before Easter] series of sermons at Padua, with his usual ardour, and then, at Easter, finding his health broken, he retired from the town to a solitary place, called Campo Pietre, where he prepared for the great change which was about to take place. His residence in this little convent was short, for, having lost all power in his limbs, he besought his inseparable companion, Brother Roger, to take him back to Padua, that he might die there. He was placed in a car, and was being taken to the town, when a friar who had come to meet him, seeing by the ghastly whiteness of his face how ill he looked, and fearing that his arrival would draw Lives oj the Saints.

crowds about him, to receive his last blessing, persuaded him to allow himself to be taken into the convent of Franciscan sisters which was dose at hand, outside the town. It was there that after he had made his confession to his companion Roger, and had received the last sacrament, and had murmured the hymn “ O gloriosa Domina,” with his eyes suddenly lighting up, and his arms raised in a rapture, as though he saw and would clasp his Saviour, his blessed spirit took wing. It was the 13th of June, 1231; and his age was only thirty-six.

His body is visible at the present day, in the church of S. Antony, at Padua. Several legends are told of him which have become favourite subjects with artists. He was staying in the house of a man of rank in Limousin; the gentleman was curious to watch him in private, and through a chink in the wall saw the saint holding converse with, and embracing, the infant Saviour. He was once preaching to heretics at Rimini, and as they would not listen, he led the way to the mouth of the river Mareccia, and standing on a rock addressed the fishes, “ Fishes of the sea, I turn to you, and to you I bear the glad news of God, for men are deaf or will not listen.” It is no doubt an addition by those who could not perceive the force of this biting satire, and to give point to the story, as the true one escaped them, that it is said the fishes came in shoals to the surface to hear the saint discourse.

Another story is to this effect: — He was once arguing with a heretic at Toulouse, who said, “ I will not believe in the presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, unless my mule leaves his stable to adore it” Three days after, S. Antony was leaving the church bearing the Blessed Sacrament to a dying man, when, as he descended the steps before the church door, the mule of the heretic fell //mm ■7mm ^RHUi 8. ANTHONY OP PADUA.

The Miracle of the Host. Prom a Miniature in a MS. “ Hours of Anne of Brittany," Fifteenth Century, in the Bib. Nat., Paria. LJuneix. June ij.] S. Antony of Padua.

on its knees before the Host The mule had broken its halter and escaped from the stable. This incident has caused the mule to be regarded as an emblem of the Saint, and appears in representations of S. Antony, kneeling at his side. But perhaps the Saint is most generally represented with the infant Jesus in his arms.

S. Antony is invoked for the recovery of things that have been lost, and by travellers. He is patron of Flemish men, and of the city of Padua.