Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

St. Anthony of Padua, Doctor of the Church Universal by Very Rev. Raphael M. Huber

1949; St. Bonaventure University; Volume: 9; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/frc.1949.0027

1945-9718

Christian Schembri,

Catholicism and Religious Studies

BOOK REVIEWS St. Anthony of Padua, Doctor of the Church Universal. By Very Rev. Raphael M. Huber, O.F.M. Conv. Milwaukee, Wis: Bruce Publishing Company,1948. Pp! xiv-209. $3.75. The dearth of material on St. Anthony's theology in English was keenly felt in 1946, when the Paduan Wonderworker was elevated to the Doctorate of the Universal Church. The few extant devotional lives of the Saint gave English readers small reason to suspect Anthony as a great Teacher. It was precisely to remove this obscurity that Father Raphael Huber has produced his latest venture, St. Anthony of Padua. The writer declares in his introduction that he wrote this volume "for the purpose of providing a concise, yet co-ordinated study in English on St. Anthony's theology" (p. xii). That Father Huber was well fitted for this task is evident, not only because of his monumental achievements in the field of historical research, but also because the present work has grown from a series of lectures on the Doctor Evangelicus which he himself conducted during the summer-school session of 1946, at St. Bonaventure 's College, Allegany, New York. In the first chapter of his book, the author sets forth the three essential requisites for a Doctor of the Universal Church. How these requisites were fulfilled in Anthony of Padua is shown in subsequent pages. Testimonies of six popes, liturgy, and traditional Catholic art had placed Anthony among the Doctors long before Pope Pius XH's solemn and official extension of this honor to the Universal Church, Father Huber points out. A brief biographical sketch gives special emphasis to his eminent sanctity, a second requisite for a Doctor of the Church. Profound learning is a third requisite. Although Anthony was not a systematic theologian, nearly all his sermons were colored by his theological and mystical expositions of Sacred Scripture. His scriptural allusions and allegorical interpretations show a profound knowledge of both the Old and New Testaments, The first lector of the Franciscan Order has exerted a greater influence over the Franciscan Masters than we are inclined to believe. Father Agostino Gemelli, O.F.M. (Antonio di Padova, Santo dei Miracoli. Roma: 1931, p. 27), writes: "St. Anthony is 165 166BOOK REVIEWS rarely cited among the sources of the great Franciscan Masters. And yet it is he who draws the devotion to the Sacred Heart from the Gospel and the Fathers, and hands it to St. Bonaventure. It is he who hands the devotion to the Name of Jesus in the burning sun to Ubertino of Cásale and St. Bernardine of Siena. It is he who leaves to Blessed Duns Scotus the devotion to Christ the King of Redemption, . . Anthony suggested to Scotus, who perfected the idea (by demonstrating the Immaculate Conception ) offered perhaps by Augustine, that Mary was filled with singular grace and preserved immune from all sin. Anthony also defended the assumption of Mary's body and soul into Heaven. This truth, once it is declared a dogma, will accrue to the honor of its most ancient defenders." Anthony's authentic sermons have come to us mainly through the tireless efforts of Dr. Antonio Maria Locatelli and his priestly collaborators who have produced the famous critical edition. This treatise contains thirteen booklets numbering 929 pages in double columns. Citing chiefly from Dr. Locatelli's edition and from Father Diomede Scaramuzzi, O.F.M. (La Figura Intellectuale di San Antonio di Padova alla luce della critica. Roma: Tipografía Agostiniana, 1934), Father Huber has ably outlined the teachings of the Doctor Evangelicus in three tracts: Christology, Mariology, and Ecclesiology. In a section on Anthony the preacher, Father Huber gives the reader a glimpse of what the Paduan Doctor was like as he spoke to audiences of 30,000 persons—his external appearance, his gifts of nature and grace, and the style of his sermons. The following chapter contains a critical inspection of Anthony's sermons, his method of writing and sources. Anthony used four pegs on which he hung the main thought of his Sunday sermons: the Gospel of the day, the Epistle, the Introit, and the history of the Old and New Testament as read...