The temptation of St. Anthony has been the inspiration for some truly bizarre artistic masterpieces by artists of different periods over the centuries. To be clear, the St. Anthony I’m referring to is not the 13th century Franciscan renowned for his preaching and his uncanny ability to help us find our lost car keys and good parking spots at Grade A Market. That would be St. Anthony of Padua. The one I’m referring to is St. Anthony the Great, the founder of Christian monasticism, who lived in the 4th century and who relinquished all his worldly possessions as a young man to live as a hermit in the Egyptian desert.
This was no attempt to escape the rat race to enjoy a more peaceful, contemplative life. Anthony understood that the desert was the place of spiritual battle. It was in the desert that Jesus was tempted by Satan, and Anthony knew that in those remote places he would be put to the test. Through the deprivation of life’s comforts, he would discover the extent to which he was attached to them. Confronted with his weakness, he came to realize his total dependence on Christ for victory over attacks from the evil one, who never stops seeking the destruction of those loved by God.
One of the most famous artistic depictions of Anthony’s spiritual trials is the 1946 painting by the Spanish surrealist Salvatore Dali. In his Temptation of St. Anthony, Dali depicts the emaciated saint naked in the bottom left of the panel, holding aloft a makeshift cross. Approaching him is a giant spindly-legged horse leading a procession of spindly-legged elephants, all of them bearing symbols on their backs of the temptations that the saint faced.
The religious art blog “Angelico’s Art Reflections,” interprets the strange scene: “The horse is the temptation of power and worldly respect, given the prominence of horses among imperial figures in the Roman world. Behind this, an elephant sports a platform holding up a figure of a naked woman, symbolic of the temptation to lust. Next is the elephant with a bejeweled obelisk, perhaps symbolic of the pursuit of wealth and worldly goods. The last two elephants in the foreground support a small Roman skyline; columned and adorned buildings, with a female torso appearing in a doorway. This may be representative of St. Anthony’s temptation to return to the world, to return to regular society after his escape into the Egyptian desert. Various small details in the painting include a skull placed at St. Anthony’s feet [a reminder of death as a means of encouraging him to fight against the temptations], and stick figures on the ground, seemingly other attacks on another desert monk. Finally, a glimpse of azure buildings can be seen through the clouds, perhaps representative of the heavenly city which St. Anthony fought to attain.”
The author notes that the great horse is rearing back in response to St. Anthony’s display of the simple wooden cross. Is it retreating in fear? Or is it about to crush the saint? Who can know? Such questions, in the end, might simply be distractions. A great saint like Anthony holds up the cross primarily for his own meditation, indifferent to what happens, focused entirely on the only One in whom his salvation is assured.
St. Anthony the Great’s feast day is this Wednesday, 1/17.
posted 1/13/24
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 