medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Marjorie!
Here is a short summary of the legend - a little bit different to Cyprian's
version (but with the same result):
On his pilgrimage, Saint Anthony found a man named Bonvillo, who was an
pagan inside and didn't believe in transsubstantiation. So the Saint tried
to proselytize the man, by inducing a miracle. He asked him: "Would you
believe in God, if your mule (not donkey) would genuflect and adore the Holy
Host? The man answered affirmatively. But he didn't feed his mule for three
days, so he thought that the hungry animal would't adore the Host, if it was
distracted by a bundle of oats. Three days later, the contest took place. At
the same time, Saint Anthony offered the "agnus Dei" and the peasant the
fresh oats. The mule rejected the food, fell to its knees and admired the
Host for a time.
(Very free translation from Vergilio Gamboso, The life of saint Anthony,
Padua, 1989)
Please, regard: The animal DIDN'T receive the communion!
Kind regards
Werner Robl
> In today's paper there was a piece on relics. Included
> was an item regarding one of Saint Anthony's miracles
> which involved getting a donkey to receive communion.
> Could anyone enlighten me as to why this is a miracle
> rather than blasphemous sacrilege?
>
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