Saint Antony of Padua is one of the most popular saints of the Catholic calendar. His image is found in countless churches, and even the undevout invoke him as a finder of lost property. In popular piety he is remembered above all as a miracle worker:

It was with some surprise, then, that in 1989 I came across the newly re-edited and published Sermones Dominicales et Festivi of St Antony . Until then, I had not realised that he had left any writings, let alone that they were still extant and available. Even a brief study convinced me of their intrinsic interest, and this work has grown from that initial encounter.

We are fortunate in now possessing a very fine critical edition of the certainly authentic works of St Antony. It has been in the course of preparing an English translation of them that I have been forced to ask a number of questions about Antony’s intentions and methods which I have tried to answer in this critique: in particular, about the nature and scope of his method of concordance, the juxtaposition and correlation of Scriptural passages, so that they illuminate and interpret one another.

We are fortunate, too, in that the primitive sources for the biography of St Antony have also been edited and published in recent years. The neglect of these sources over the centuries has been in proportion to the accretion of legendary material that has gathered around his memory. We now seem better placed to put Antony back again into his true historical context. This is because (a third piece of good fortune) the earliest sources are very early indeed, and appear to be conscientious in their effort to be accurate. An outline of these sources will be appropriate in this Introduction.

The earliest, written within two years of Antony’s death by a friar who had been associated with him in his last years, is the ‘Vita Prima’ or ‘Assidua’. The author says that he consulted Sueiro, bishop of Lisbon, for information about Antony's early life. Sueiro came to Italy for the canonization ceremony in 1232, and had doubtless made sure he was equipped with the relevant facts. The accounts of Antony’s last years appear to be from the personal memories of the author. Where he had no information (notably regarding Antony’s time in France), he makes no attempt to invent, but merely notes that the Saint visited many other provinces. He recounts in circumstantial detail miracles attributed to Antony’s prayers after his death (again, probably, gained from the canonization proceedings), but when due allowance is made for the conventions of hagiographical language, his account of Antony’s life is singularly free of the miraculous.

Not long after the ‘Vita Prima’, friar Julian of Spires composed the rhyming office for the Feast of St Antony which was still used in the Order until the Second Vatican Council It was a companion to the Offices he composed for other Franciscan feasts. He also paraphrased and abbreviated the ‘Vita Prima’, and incorporated some material from Thomas of Celano’s first ‘Life’ of St Francis. This forms the ‘Vita Secunda’ , which became very well known. Other re-workings of this material are known from about the same period, but they do not add anything new.

The first important addition to our information is the work of Jean Rigauld, Franciscan bishop of Trégnier (d. 1323). In his ‘Life’ of St Antony (the ‘Vita Rigaldina’) he appeals to the testimony of friars he had known when he first entered the Order, and who had personally known and heard Antony in France. The material he gives us is anecdotal rather than systematic, and appears to be a little embroidered, but otherwise is of considerable help in filling out our knowledge of Antony's ministry in France, and about the style of his preaching generally.

Other works, which need to be treated with caution but which still add something to our knowledge, are those usually attributed to John Pecham, Franciscan archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1292), the so-called ‘Benignitas’; and to the Italian Franciscan Pietro Raymondi (c. 1293), the ‘Legenda Raimundina’ .

I have made greatest use of these sources in the first chapter of this study, in which I have aimed to give a brief general historical framework for Antony’s life, and to consider in particular those points which are most relevant to the study of his writings; namely, his early education, and the influences which shaped his thinking; the circumstances surrounding his appointment by Francis to teach theology to the friars, and his response to it; and, thirdly, some questions relating to the actual composition of the Sermones.

In my second chapter, I consider Antony as a preacher. What was the context in which the first generation of Franciscans operated? Again, I use the early sources to reveal what can be known of Antony’s practice. I also consider the literary influences upon his style, especially the writings of Augustine, Gregory and Bernard, and compare them with some of his contemporaries. Finally, I use Antony’s own ‘prologues for preachers’ to reconstruct after a fashion his own theory of and approach to the work of preaching.

In the third chapter, I survey briefly the tradition of Scriptural interpretation in which Antony worked, particularly regarding the four ‘senses’ of Scripture. This tradition was not a completely uniform one, and it is necessary to see where Antony stood in relation to other writers of the time.

In the fourth chapter, I consider the structure of the Sermones Dominicales in some detail, and its sources; and to a much lesser extent the Sermones Festivi which Antony left uncompleted at his death.

Chapter five reaches the heart of this study, the most original and characteristic aspect of Antony’s work: his method of ‘concordance’. Antony wanted to exhibit the harmony between the liturgical readings of the Mass and the Office, and in particular between the Old Testament and the Gospel. As we enumerate the instances of the terms ‘concordare’ and ‘concordantia’, we begin to see how he develops his ideas even as his work progresses. This raises various questions: where did he derive his ideas from? and, even more importantly, on what principles does he base his methodology? In this chapter I also survey and discuss recent work on the subject, and the ‘state of the question’

Chapter six undertakes a detailed study of the Sermones, with a view to answering some of the questions raised in the previous chapter. I offer some tentative conclusions for discussion.

Finally, in chapter seven, I explore the aftermath of Antony’s work. How was it remembered? Why did it come to be so largely forgotten? How may it prove to have a renewed interest and relevance for some contemporary issues in theology?

Many of the sources I have used exist only in Latin (or at least, not in English) and I have made my own translations, with the original text in the Notes. For the Biblical texts, I have used the Douai-Challoner version, as being (in Ronald Knox’s phrase) ‘a good crib to the Latin’. I have modified it only where Antony’s own interpretation seemed to require it.

Copyright in this dissertation belongs to the author, S.R.P.Spilsbury