The World's Most Mysterious Objects. Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe

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СКАЧАТЬ minds over matter, then was it something that had its origins and found its dynamism exclusively inside Belinda’s own mind?, Was it her ambivalent feelings and the culture clash that brought about her accident proneness, her illness, and her feelings of suicidal despair?

      The fourth possibility is that the whole thing was no more than a series of remarkable coincidences, but this theory, of course, raises the far larger question of just what coincidence (or synchronicity) really is.

CHAPTER SEVEN:The Relics of Saint Anthony of Padua

      Born in Lisbon towards the end of the twelfth century, Anthony spent most of the last years of his life in the Italian city of Padua. Portuguese by birth, Anthony became one of the canons of St. Augustine at Coimbra when he was barely twenty-five years old. While he was there, the relics of five Franciscan martyrs were brought across from Morocco. In an emotional surge of dangerous and irrational religious enthusiasm, Anthony was filled with a desire to follow the example of the five dead Franciscans.

      Not long afterwards, a group of travelling Franciscans visited the Augustinian canons at Coimbra. Anthony expressed his deep desire for martyrdom to these Franciscan visitors and was so impressed by them that he decided to join their order instead of the Augustinians. There was a little difficulty over this to begin with, but after a while Anthony overcame it and began his new life as a Franciscan.

      He had been baptized originally as Ferdinand, but now took on the new name of Anthony in order to venerate the memory of Saint Anthony of Egypt, who was the hero of the Franciscans whom he had just joined. This Anthony of Egypt was born in A.D. 251 and died in A.D. 356 at the advanced age of 105. He had been born in Coma, which was part of Upper Egypt, and, when only twenty years of age, had sold everything he possessed and gone to live among a local religious community. From A.D. 286 until 306, he lived in a deserted fortress at Pispir. While he was there, he underwent a series of well-publicized temptations. Curiously enough, similar temptations, associated with one of the multiple Saint Anthonys, featured prominently in the mystery of the priest’s treasure of Rennes-le-Château. One theory of this Rennes-le-Château mystery was that Bérenger Saunière, the priest of Rennes who became immensely, but inexplicably, rich towards the end of the nineteenth century, had discovered some ancient coded manuscripts that led him to the treasure. According to this particular Rennes theory, which may well prove to be totally inaccurate, when these mysterious manuscripts were allegedly decoded, part of the message that came from them concerned one of the Saint Anthonys.

      The first part of that cryptic Rennes record referred to a painting by Nicholas Poussin showing a shepherdess, three shepherds, and a tomb. The reference to Saint Anthony is simply “No temptation.” The message then goes on to mention the names of three painters — the two Teniers and Poussin — who were said in the coded manuscript to collectively “hold the key” to the Rennes treasure mystery.

      If the Poussin painting referred to the shepherdess and the shepherds of Arcadia with their sinister, inscribed table-top tomb, then the “no temptation” message was believed by these researchers to apply to one of the many versions of Saint Anthony painted by one of the Teniers.

      It was alleged in quaint medieval phrasing that many of Saint Anthony’s temptations consisted of “demons who came to torment him in the guise of lewd wenches.” Several early painters found that it was rather easier to sell their “religious” paintings if there was an attractive “lewd wench” or two somewhere on the canvas! In several pictures of Saint Anthony he was shown with what was tantamount to the modern cartoonist’s “think bubble” coming out of his head and — within it — one of the alluring demonesses who was trying, unsuccessfully, to tempt him. Although strong-minded Anthony, reinforced by his ascetic lifestyle, was able to resist these delectable demonesses, the painters and their clients apparently were not!

      By the year 306, however, Anthony of Egypt decided to give up the solitary life at Pispir and devote himself to teaching the disciples who had gathered around him. He went off to Alexandria in 355 in order to argue against the Arian heresy. Anthony was a profound philosopher and theologian, and soon became admired not only for his brilliant mind and rhetoric but also for his charisma and the miracles that he was reported to have been able to perform. This combination of miracles and charisma won him a great many disciples and converts, some of them very eminent. There is even a letter from him to the Roman Emperor Constantine, which has been preserved for posterity.

      Saint Anthony of Padua.

      There was another famous hermit saint named Paul (nothing whatever to do with the famous Paul whose missionary work fills the Acts of the Apostles). This later Paul, who died around 350, was sometimes referred to as Paul of Thebes, sometimes as Paul the First Hermit. He had originally escaped to the desert to avoid the persecutions of Decius. Like the desert Anthony, who followed him in the tradition for several years, Paul was said to have lived to be well over a hundred.

      Jerome wrote an account of Paul's life that was based on a very early original Greek text. According to Jerome’s account, Anthony of Egypt encountered Paul of Thebes in the desert shortly before the ancient her mit died. Also in Jerome’s account, a raven flew by and dropped some bread, in much the same way that the Old Testament prophet Elijah was fed miraculously by ravens. Two lions then appeared mysteriously and dug Paul’s grave with their powerful paws. Anthony then buried the venerable hermit saint.

      When Anthony himself died many years later he was — at his own request — buried in a place that no one knew. Within ten years, however, so great was his reputation that his remains were found and taken to the city of Alexandria. Rival locations inevitably competed for the saint’s relics: Constantinople put in a bid for them, as did La Motte. It was here that the Order of Hospitallers of Saint Anthony was founded at the beginning of the twelfth century.

      Not surprisingly, it soon became a centre of pilgrimage for victims of ergotism, which was also referred to by the folk name of “Saint Anthony’s Fire.” In the Middle Ages, ergotine was a deadly hallucinogenic drug and an inducer of aetiological delirium. It was a sinister biological toxin derived from the ergot fungus, which frequently contaminated both bread and ale during the unhygienic Middle Ages.

      Many rational theories to explain numerous apparently paranormal phenomena have laid the blame fair and square on ergotine poisoning. In addition to its general hallucinogenic effects, ergotine causes the victim to see specific aetiological visions. These aetiological delusions, in one form or another, set out to explain to the tormented mind of the sufferer what is responsible for the agonizing pain that the ergotine is causing in his or her abdomen.

      Those who have suffered from ergotine poisoning — and who have been among the lucky few to have recovered from it — have given clinical accounts of their horrific experiences.

      To victims of ergotine, other people are seen as aliens, monsters, or demons who are invariably attacking them, either biting at their stomachs or tearing at them with fiendish claws. Because those who go to assist the victim are seen as enemies, the sufferer often strikes out at the very people who are doing their best to help.

      The ergotine poison theory has been put forward as an explanation for what became of the ill-fated crew of the Mary Celeste in November of 1872. Those who hold this theory have suggested that ergotine poisoning caused some of those aboard to hurl themselves into the sea to escape from the agonizing abdominal pain and from the “monsters” who they thought were pursuing them, while the remainder attacked one another, believing, because of their hallucinations, that they were attacking demons or monsters who were threatening them.

      These Hospitallers СКАЧАТЬ