Note 69 — BOOK I CONCERNING THE PIETY OF CHARLES AND HIS CARE OF THE CHURCH

Giants figure largely in the stories which are told of St Antony’s temptation. The Golden Legend says: “S. Anthony recordeth of himself that he had seen a man so great and so high that he vaunted himself to be the virtue and the providence of God and said to me: ‘Demand of me what thou wilt, and I shall give it to thee.’ And I spit in the midst of his visage, and anon I armed me with the sign of the cross, and ran upon him, and anon he vanished away. And after this the devil appeared to him in so great stature that he touched the heaven, etc.” Gigantic appearances figure, too, elsewhere in the story of St Antony’s trials.