From Mystical Asceticism to Heresy and Heterodoxy: Rereading St Antony in Late Medieval Spain

Beresford, Andrew M.

Abstract

This article examines the malleability of hagiographic identity, commenting on the representation of St Antony in the two most influential early sources of his life, the Vita Antonii and the Apophthegmata Patrum, drawing on sources that had for many years circulated in the oral tradition, together with their conflation in the context of Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda aurea. It shows how Voragine’s text was subsequently reworked into Castilian in two different ways: the Gran flos sanctorum, which appears to have been designed for scholarly reception, and the Leyenda de los santos, which is characterized by a series of more popularizing features. A striking distinction between the two texts is that the Leyenda de los santos, as is the case with its treatment of other saints, fails to transmit episodes centred on descriptions of mystical ecstasy or the prophetic visions experienced by the saint, thus producing a very different Antony. It seems possible, therefore, that it was shaped by an awareness of the dangers of heresy and the possibility of unorthodox interpretation.

Citation

Beresford, A. M. (2020). From Mystical Asceticism to Heresy and Heterodoxy: Rereading St Antony in Late Medieval Spain. Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 96(10), 1079-1112. https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.2019.65

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2020
• Deposit Date: Oct 4, 2018
• Journal: Bulletin of Hispanic Studies
• Print ISSN: 1475-3839
• Electronic ISSN: 1478-3398
• Publisher: Liverpool University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 96
• Issue: 10
• Pages: 1079-1112
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.2019.65