Saint Antoninus of Florence

We shall not pause here to describe with what fervor he spent his novitiate and pronounced his vows at the convent of Cortona, where his superiors had sent him. Pope Nich olas V deemed pape Nicolas V Friend of Albergati, whose election to the pontificate he predicted. him worthy of being canonized during his own lifetime; a convincing proof that he had made great progress in perfection. His zeal and courage surpassed his strength, and the rigors of the Rule seemed so light to him that, not content with them, he would sleep on the hard floor, never set aside the hair shirt, and took the discipline every night: he also added to the choir office that of the Virgin and that of the dead, with the seven Penitential Psalms, and sometimes the entire Psalter. His recollection was so great during his prayers, and particularly during mental prayer, that he was seen several times raised from the ground.

He would have liked to continue this way of life always; but obedience soon applied him to the aid of his neighbor: for he was elected superior of the convents of Fiesole, Cortona, Gaeta, Florence, Siena, Pistoia, Naples, and Rome, and governed them one after the other; and everywhere he maintained the observance of the Rule, not only by his pressing exhortations, but also by his examples. He was the first in everything; and although he was later vicar-general of the Congregation of Naples and Tuscany, and provincial of the Roman province, he nevertheless humbled himself to the most lowly ministries of the community where he resided. He said Holy Mass every day, and served another; he preached very often and with great success, and he listened, with marvelous patience and assiduity, to the confessions of those whose hearts he had touched by the force of his words.

However, the archbishopric of Florence became vacant upon the death of Cardinal Bartolomeo Zabarella, and for nine whole months there was contention over the election of a successor, when Pope Eugene IV, casting his eyes upon Father Antoninus, vicar-general of the Reformed Congregation of Naples, appointed him archbishop of this great city; and seeing that he stubbornly refused, he commanded him, "by virtue of the Holy Spirit and holy obedience," under pain of mortal sin and even excommunication, to accept this charge. Unable to oppose such precise orders any longer, he lifted his eyes and hands to heaven; then, turning to some learned persons he had assembled to know if, given his incapacity, he was obliged to obey this command: "You know," he said, "my God, that I accept this charge against my will, so as not to resist that of your vicar; assist me then, Lord, as you know I have need." He then made his entry into Florence, barefoot and with eyes bathed in tears, while the whole city resounded with joy at possessing such a worthy pastor, considering him a Saint; and, indeed, he was one before God, who penetrates the secret of hearts.

This new dignity did not make him change anything in his private life: for he always kept even the smallest observances of his Order; so that those who had not been informed of his new character would have taken him for a simple religious rather than the Archbishop of Florence. His table, his bed, his room, and generally all the furniture of his archiepiscopal palace, felt only religious poverty. His retinue was composed only of six people, to whom he gave good wages, in order to prevent them from receiving anything from those who had business at the archbishopric. He himself took cognizance of the cases that were to be judged at his tribunal, not contenting himself with the care of his official, to whom, nevertheless, he gave one hundred gold ducats every year, so that he would render justice without any salary. Everyone was so pleased with his judgments, his advice, and his counsel, that he was given the title of Antoninus-of-the-Counsel, even before he was archbishop.

Although of such easy access to all the people who asked for his assist ance, he nevertheles Antonin-des-Conseils Disciple of Lawrence, Archbishop of Florence and Doctor of the Church. s showed himself extremely reserved with regard to women; he spoke to them only out of necessity, and his modest eyes dared not look at them. He usually preached on Sundays and feast days in some church in the city, and even gave familiar instructions and catechisms. He held his synods exactly, visited his diocese, and finally omitted nothing that a good prelate should do. He first recited his Matins with his domestic clerics, following the practice of his Order; but, learning that they were not being sung with enough respect in the cathedral, he wished to attend them, to remedy this disorder.

Such was the vigilance of this holy Prelate; but what is marvelous is that, among so many different functions, he never lost the solitude, the peace, nor the serenity of his heart, because, as he himself confessed to one of his canons named François de Chastillon, he had formed an oratory there early on, where he often retired. He restored the ecclesiastical state to its splendor, and cut off several disorders that civil wars had caused there. That is why the Pope, who knew the purity of his zeal and the justice of his judgments, forbade appealing the sentences he had given. He knew very well how to use this favor to the advantage of the church of Florence. He delivered it from the impious, immoral, and baneful practices of magic; from the no less deplorable plague of usury; from charlatans and comedians. Certain gamblers had invented a new card game, where the youth of Florence lost large sums of money every day, to the great prejudice of families; the holy Archbishop first forbade this game, under pain of excommunication; then he went to the places himself and shamefully chased away those he met there, overturning the tables, the dice, the money, and the tokens. His zeal also led him to purge the churches of those insolent talkers, who profane their holiness with their sacrilegious conversations; he chased them all out.

He did not even fear to oppose the magistrates and the secular arm, when, exceeding the bounds of their power, they encroached upon the rights and immunities of the Church. He repressed their violence with ecclesiastical censures, without fearing the threats made against him. One day, someone having threatened to throw him out the window and have him deprived of his bishopric, he replied calmly that he did not judge himself worthy of martyrdom, and that he had always desired to be discharged from the episcopate; that, in this hope, he had always kept the key to his room in the convent of Saint Mark, to retire there. Such was the zeal of this great archbishop; let us now say something of his gentleness and his compassion for the poor and for all kinds of unfortunate people.

He divided the income from his benefice into three parts: the first, very modest, was for the maintenance of his house; the second, for the repair of the archiepiscopal palace which was falling into ruin; and the third, for the relief of the poor, and this one was the largest and eventually became almost the total, because the palace being repaired, he thought only of the poor. He gave large alms at his door every day, without refusing anyone; and it was with such profusion that sometimes nothing remained for his house. On the great feasts of the year, he distributed two hundred gold ducats in various works of piety; he even sold his furniture, his books, and his clothes to assist the needy with greater liberality. Thus, he was the refuge of all those who were in misery. Here is a fine example: An inhabitant of Florence came to beg him to help him provide dowries for his three daughters: the charitable Prelate, having nothing then to give him, advised him to visit the church of the Annunziata every day, assuring him that Our Lady herself would provide for his daughters. As he was leaving one morning, he found two blind men who, believing they were heard by no one, were telling each other of their good fortune: one said that he had two hundred ducats sewn into his cap, and the other that he had three hundred in his doublet. He warned the holy Archbishop, who had these blind men brought to him; and, after reproaching them for their malice in frustrating the truly poor by receiving alms they did not need, he condemned them to pay a fine of four hundred and fifty ducats, which served to provide dowries for the three young girls. This was a trait of prudence and of that justice which is called distributive.

Here is another of charity which is no less considerable. The Saint, passing one day through the street of Saint Ambrose, perceived, on the house of a good widow, angels who seemed to be rejoicing; he wanted to know who those were who lived there, and he found three young people who, to earn their bread and that of their mother, worked day and night, without even excepting feast days; he had compassion on them, and assigned them an annual pension to live on, so that they would no longer be obliged to work on feast days. Piety and good conduct disappeared with the necessity of work. Saint Antonin, passing another time through the same place, no longer saw the angels, but a demon so horrible that it frightened him with its gaze: he gave notice of this to the mother and the young girls, and cut off a portion of his alms, for fear that idleness would cause them a greater misfortune.

It was still too little for Saint Antonin to give his goods if he did not also consecrate his person and his life for the salvation of his flock: in a time of contagion, all the rich abandoned Florence to avoid the bad air; the Saint remained there generously to assist the plague-stricken, and did not fear to visit them and to administer the Sacraments to them himself. It is this charity toward one's neighbor, and this great zeal to serve him, that made him take up the pen in the midst of his episcopal duties, and compose so many beautiful and excellent treatises for the consolation of souls, for the instruction of the people, and for the satisfaction of the learned.

It is also this charity that made him perform so many miracles, heal the sick given up by doctors, raise the dead, and multiply bread and oil. His words also had an admirable virtue: for an inhabitant of Florence having presented him, on the first day of the year, with a basket of fruit, in the hope of receiving some good reward, and seeing that the Saint, for all recognition, said only this word: "May God repay you," he went away quite dissatisfied. The Archbishop, knowing this, had him called back, and placed in his presence the basket of fruit in the pan of a scale, and in the other a note containing these words: "May God repay you," and this note was found to weigh more than the basket; the poor man, quite confused, asked his pardon. He also showed the power of his words when, to strike terror into some people who were pressing him to fulminate a sentence of excommunication for a subject that did not deserve it, he took a white loaf, over which he pronounced some anathema, and immediately this bread became blacker than coals.

At the age of seventy, he fell ill with a slight fever; he foresaw that he would soon die, although he was promised a prompt recovery; for this reason, he promptly received the Sacraments, and thus rendered his beautiful soul to God with these words: "My eyes are always raised toward my Lord, because it is He who will free my feet from the snare." It was the 2nd of May, the eve of the Ascension, in the year 1459, the thirteenth year of his episcopate. A religious of the Order of Cîteaux, who was at prayer, saw his soul ascend to heaven in the form of a small child surrounded by a cloud.

His body, in accordance with his will, was carried to the church of the convent of San Marco. Pope Pius II, who was then in Florence, granted seven years and as many quarantines of indulgences to all those who would visit him.

and would kiss his feet. He remained exposed in this way for eight days, exhaling a very pleasant odor. Several miracles occurred at his tomb, following which Pope Ad rian VI issued pape Adrien VI Pope who decreed the canonization of Antoninus. the decree of his canonization in the year 1523. The bull of canonization was only published by Clement VII, the successor of Adrian VI.

Saint Antonin is depicted holding his episcopal crosier in his left hand, and in his right hand a pair of scales on which is placed, on one side, a basket of fruit brought to him by a peasant, and on the other, a piece of paper with these words: "May God reward you for it." We have recounted this incident. It is claimed that the Saint used the same comparison with an innkeeper who had provided him with a frugal meal during a journey: in that instance, the writing bore these words, which are recited during grace: Retribuere dignare, Domine, omnibus nobis bona facientibus, vitam æternam: "Vouchsafe, O Lord, to reward with eternal life all those who do us good." The titles of his works are placed near him: Summa Summa theologica Major theological work by Albert. theologica; opus Chronicorum, etc. The lily of virginity is also attributed to him; but the Saint's principal attribute is evidently the scales.

## WRITINGS OF SAINT ANTONIN.

We have several writings by Saint Antonin:

1° A Theological Somme théologique Major theological work by Albert. Summa, divided into four parts. In it, one finds an explanation of virtues and vices, with the motives that lead to the practice of the former and the avoidance of the latter.

2° A Summary of History, also called the Tripartite Chronicle, from the creation of the world until the year 1458. The author shows sincerity and good faith; but he often lacks accuracy when recounting events far removed from his own time.

3° A Small Summa, which contains the instructions necessary for confessors.

4° Some Sermons and some particular Treatises on virtues and vices. See Father Echard, de Script. Ord. Predicat., vol. 1, p. 818, and the Ballerinis, in the life of Saint Antonin, which they placed at the head of their edition of the holy archbishop's works. Father Mamachi also produced an edition of Saint Antonin's Theological Summa, with very prolix notes. It appeared in Florence in 1741.

Pope Clement VII also had his Life written by Father Vincent Maluard of Géminten, procurator general of the Order of Saint Dominic. This is the one reported in the third volume of Surius, and which we have followed in this collection, along with other documents that the confessors of Soliandus have made public.

## THE PATRIARCH JOB Le patriarche Job Biblical figure of patience in suffering, used as an hagiographic comparison. (1500 BC).

The patriarch Job was born in the land of Uz, a country situated between Idumea and Arabia, around the year 1700 BC. He was a model of virtue, fearing God, and raising his children in piety. The Lord, who took pleasure in bearing witness to the holiness of his servant, permitted the demon to subject him to the most terrible trials, on the condition that he would spare his life. Immediately, all his fortune, which was considerable, disappeared; his children perished, crushed under the ruins of a house, and these sad tidings were brought to him one after the other, without the slightest interval. To each, Job was content to reply: The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; as it hath pleased the Lord so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord. The demon, defeated by this heroic patience, afflicted him in his body by sending him a hideous leprosy, which infected him from head to foot. Job, cast out from the society of his fellow men, was reduced to confining himself to a dunghill, and to scraping the pus that issued from his sores with a piece of broken pottery. His wife, the only person of his family whom the demon had left him, came to add to his woes by reproaching him for his piety, which had served him nothing, and by insulting his misfortune. Job, for his only answer, said to her: If we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil?

THE PATRIARCH JOB. 441

Three of his friends came to visit him and were for him comforters all the more importunate, as they confused the evils that the Lord sends to the just to test them with those he inflicts upon the wicked to punish them, and they strove to prove to him that if he suffered, it was because he had deserved it. Job justified himself with calm and moderation, and God himself took up the cause of his servant, made his innocence shine forth, restored to him other children, more goods than he had lost, and healed him of his leprosy. After a long career, he died around the year 1500 BC, aged more than two centuries. Some authors have claimed that Job was an imaginary character, and that the book which bears his name was less a history than a fiction; but this opinion is contradicted by the authority of Ezekiel and Tobias, who speak of him as a person who really existed; the apostle Saint James, who proposes him as a model of patience, also combats this sentiment which has against it the entire tradition, both that of the Jews and of the Christians. The book of Job is written in verse in the original; thus it is sparkling with poetic beauties of the first order.

No one (except those who wished to take Job for a parabolic character) has doubted that he was buried in his own country; but not everyone has agreed regarding what happened to his body. Among those who believe that he was never moved from his burial place, some claim that his tomb was preserved until these last centuries at the extremities of Idumea, where they place the land of Uz, near Bosra, a city of Arabia Petraea, and where the portion of the tribe of Manasseh once extended. Travelers and pilgrims of our time are still shown a pyramid said to have been erected near this tomb to serve as a monument to posterity, as the ancients were accustomed to do. Others have claimed that his body was transported to Constantinople. It is true that in the 6th century, one could see in that city a church and a monastery by the name of Job, whose archimandrites or abbots made it esteemed for their merit; but history does not say that the relics of Job gave rise to the construction of these edifices. Thus, this opinion of the translation of Job's body to Constantinople seems to be founded on an error which, in later centuries, caused a Saracen or Arab of that name, a Muslim by religion, who was killed at the siege of Constantinople in the year 672 and buried at the foot of the city walls, to be taken for the holy man Job. It is from the tomb of the latter that the name of a suburb of Constantinople, called Job, came, rather than from the monastery of the holy man Job, although the Turks as well as the Christians of the quarter have allowed themselves to be persuaded of the contrary.

The claims of those in the West regarding the relics of Job do not appear to have any more foundation. Those who wish for them to have been in Rome as early as the 7th century have neglected to tell us when and how they arrived there. They only advanced this to have the pleasure of pretending that Rothari, King of the Lombards, who reigned from 638 to 653, had the bodies of Job, of the two Tobias, of young Sarah, and of many other Martyrs of the New Law transported from Rome to Pavia. They were deposited, it is said, in the church of Saint John the Baptist, and they were exposed to public veneration in the chapel of Saint Raphael the Archangel, where they remained until they were furtively stolen, without anyone being able to know subsequently what the thieves did with them. Their intention was to steal genuine relics and to harm those who believed them to be such and who honored them in good faith. So that it would not diminish the enormity of their sacrilege to inform us that they were all false relics, that one never saw in Rome the bones of either Job or the two Tobias, and that, furthermore, it is false that King Rothari ever brought back relics from Rome, which would have been given to him in gratitude, as is said, for having helped and delivered the city from the Barbarians; which is another fiction, capable of making those laugh who know that the Lombard kings never did anything but harm to the city of Rome.

Besides the tomb of Job which Alfonso Tostado, Bishop of Avila, said still existed in his time near the Jordan, and was still visited with great devotion by the people, it seems that his dunghill was also respected as relics, at least in the time of Saint Chrysostom. If one must take literally and without figure what this Father said to the people of Antioch, one will be obliged to recognize that this dunghill, far more precious than the throne of kings and the bed of queens, attracted an infinity of pilgrims to Arabia from beyond the seas and from the ends of the earth, to see this theater of the struggles and victorious patience of the holy man, and to draw instructions from it.

Among the holy personages who appeared before and after Jesus Christ, the Church knows of few who have deserved more cult and veneration than Job, who had the advantage of being a Saint in all states of his life, in rest and prosperity, as well as in calamities and sorrows, according to the testimony of God Himself who wished to have him tested by Satan, that is to say, by the enemy of the human race, the only one who dared to contest this holiness in Scripture. He is represented in Ezekiel as a friend of God, capable of interceding for others, to the point of making him, like Noah and Daniel, a kind of proverb, to say that even if there were to be found among sinners and the impious righteous men as holy as these three, they would not prevent God from punishing the sin of others in His anger, but that their righteousness would serve to save themselves. Job had already been received as an intercessor during his lifetime before God for his three friends. Besides being proposed in the book of Tobit as a model of sanctifying patience, it seems that the apostle Saint James wished to canonize him further in his Epistle: "You see," he says, "that we call the prophets blessed because they suffered so much; you have learned what the patience of Job was, and you have seen the end which the Lord crowned him with."

the Church makes a profession of honoring Job as a prophet, as a Martyr, and as the type or figure of Jesus Christ, all the more perfect because he joined sufferings with inno cen Job Biblical figure of patience in suffering, used as an hagiographic comparison. ce. This is what is found explained by the holy Fathers, with as much breadth and variety as the importance of the subject could demand, to form models for all the faithful. The Greeks and the Orientals chose the sixth day of May to celebrate the feast of Job in their churches; which is also practiced among the Christians of Arabia, Egypt, and Ethiopia, among the Russians or Muscovites, and other peoples who govern themselves according to the Greek rite. The Latins preferred to assign his cult to the tenth of the same month. He is the first of the Saints of the Old Testament, after the Maccabean brothers, martyrs, to whom the Western Church undertook to publicly award these religious honors. The ancient martyrologies of the name of Saint Jerome use the terms of natal day and deposition, but which mean nothing here. They give Job the quality of prophet; which has been observed in the following ones, from those of Ado and Usuard to the modern Roman. Saint Chrysostom had already attributed that of Martyr to him, as have others since. Some other martyrologies mark him only on the eleventh of the same month. A Julian calendar puts him on the ninth. And it is remarkable that all the churches of the earth agreed to place him in the same month, and within the space of six days; which is rarely found in those who have an extensive cult in the East and in the West.

We know of no Saints among the Prophets and other righteous men who preceded Jesus Christ in whose honor more churches and chapels have been built. One sees more of them in Italy than in any other Latin country. His office is of semi-double rite in Venice and throughout the diocese, as is that of the prophet Jeremiah. His feast is solemnized like that of the most famous of the saints who have come since Jesus Christ, in several cities of Lombardy, Tuscany, and the Ecclesiastical State of Rome. He has become the patron of a prodigious number of hospitals there. The sick of various kinds, mainly those who were attacked by leprosy, ringworm, scabies, and syphilis in Italy, placed themselves under his particular protection to obtain either their healing or the gift of patience which is necessary for them, through his intercession. Besides his public office received and approved by the Church, there was a votive mass of the blessed Job against the Neapolitan disease, which the Italians preferred to call the French disease. Although it was found in the missals, mainly in the Roman one, the blessed Pope Pius V did not fail to suppress and forbid it, but without harming the cult of the blessed Job in the places where it was established. This proper mass was nevertheless re-established in the following century for the churche s of Spain pape Pie V Successor to Pius IV, he supported Charles Borromeo in his reforms. , where people are troubled more than elsewhere by the disease of scrofula, which is included among the species against which one claims the intercession of Job. This was done by the authority of the Holy See, and was renewed recently under Pope Clement IX. The dispute that arose in Rome under Innocent XI, in 1680, on the occasion of the chapel of a hospital that one wished to dedicate under the name of the blessed Job, in the city of Albano, only served to authorize his cult further.

France and the Low Countries also admitted the public cult of Job, albeit with less extent and less splendor perhaps than Italy and Spain. One sees paintings dedicated to him on an infinity of altars, especially in hospitals. Cardinal de Bérulle, having drawn up a calendar and a breviary for the Congregation of the Oratory, which he had founded in France, had an office of semi-double rite composed with the mass for the day of the feast of Job, on the tenth of May. He published it and had it observed by the authority of the Apostolic See, and the express permission of the bishops of the kingdom, after the matter had been long examined, debated, and confirmed in various assemblies and general chapters.

The holy man Job is naturally represented lying on his dunghill and covered with ulcers; his image multiplied especially in the 16th century, when the custom of invoking him against the venereal disease was perhaps spread by the memory of these words of Scripture: "The devil struck him with a malignant ulcer." (Job, II, 7.)

Besides lepers and syphilitics, the holy man Job has as clients those who are melancholic and overwhelmed with grief; no doubt because of the little consolation that his wife and friends brought to his sorrows.

Cf. Baillet, Pettin, Father Cahier.