According to ancient thinkers, from Aristotle, Cicero and then the Medieval theologians, the cardinal virtue of a moral life, which in its most general definition synthesises the other ethical virtues, is justice.

Starting from the minimal juridical subject of justice, meant as firm and constant will "suum unicuique ius tribuens," Anthony enriches its meaning with ideas borrowed from Cicero and Augustine and with the application of Biblical elements. Justice, consequently, in his comment of the words of Jesus in his conversation on the Mount, is profiled as the disposition of the soul to recognise in each person the dignity that they deserve, a disposition that is expressed

• in fear of God,
• in the cult of religion,
• in piety,
• in humanity,
• in the enjoyment of that which is just and good,
• in the hatred of evil,
• in the pledge of recognition.

From that wide range of aspects, he therefore criticises the worldly pseudo-justice and the Pharisaic justice, which are purely exterior and individualistic, but do not touch the depth of the heart nor do they change evil feelings toward others. The Pharisaic observance of a multiplicity of laws and regulations is not capable of bringing man to "iustitia vere poenitentium," consistent in the humility of the heart, in the opening toward one's brothers, in the sweetness of contemplative love.

This is, in fact, the justice of the saints, that can be compared to a plumb-line with which we can measure and inform our life about their sanctity. To the moral fullness reached by the saints, with a powerful analytical description, Anthony opposes the terrifying figure of the tyrant, who, similar to the mythical basilisk terrorises and destroys all the life around him. He can only be faced and defeated by the truly poor in spirit, sent by the others into the monster's lair because, as he is poor, he has nothing to lose.

It is worthwhile to carefully reread this page that, according to some scholars, perhaps hands down to us an autobiographical excerpt from our Saint, added to his Sermones probably at Camposampiero a few weeks before his death. He had just recently returned from an unfruitful mission to Verona, where he had unsuccessfully tried to persuade the ferocious Ezzelino to release the Guelphic prisoners who languished in the Lombard prisons.

"Even a certain tyrant of this day, poisoned by the toxins of ire, like the basilisk, exterminates the grasses with the breath of his malice, he oppresses the poor, kills the plants, or the rich of this world, the merchants, the usurers; he suppresses and throws to the flames the animals, that is, his familiars.He even contaminates the air, that is he even contorts the life of the religious: he lifts his mouth up to the sky and his tongue covers the earth (cf. Sal 72, 9). His hiss horrifies even the other reptiles, his friends and companions, who know his baseness well.

And when he explodes in anger, everyone runs away and they hurry to hide themselves wherever they can, even if it is in the pig sty. A truly ferocious tyrant, so out of control and fired with diabolical spirit, who is defeated, anyway, by weasels, the poor in spirit, who have no fear because they have nothing to lose. And the men, slaves to earthly riches, not having the courage to go near him, send the poor into the lair where the tyrant hides. "You speak to him," they say, "because we do not dare to do it!".

The absolute lack of justice and rights makes any form of civil cohabitation impossible, it destroys life entirely. More than human laws, however, Anthony places as foundation and final norm the morality of Biblical justice, generated by the new law of the Spirit, perfected by the beatitudes of the Gospel, modelled by the lives of the saints. Then, almost spontaneously, the divine commandments can be observed, rectifying with a painless mystical rectification the pure exercise of the five senses, inclined to the call of evil.

Human intelligence is imprinted with the seal of the Trinity which always turns it toward truth and good. If the will agrees with clear intention and opens itself to love, then God comes to live within us, so that we can learn from him to be good, just and merciful. The most important thing to ask of God in prayer is love itself, because in this way the heavenly Father, who is love, will give us that which He is, love, with which even we will take care of our weaker and sick brothers, like sons of the same Father.

Anthony's ethos obtains here the heights of the Gospel of John, because in this new justice man reaches perfect freedom, that rare and enviable spiritual condition through which by gently following the precepts of reason and welcoming into the heart the divine charity of the trinity, one overcomes servile fear, becomes free in love and law, and goes where he wants and does what he wants.

There is not joy so great as this wonderful, perfect inner freedom, that freely sacrifices, through humility and mortification, the passionate swelling of arrogance and the flesh, "If man subjects himself to reason, he will find grace, become free, and have the possibility to go where he will and do what he wishes. - Oh, free slavery and slave freedom! It is not fear that makes a slave nor love that sets him free, but fear that frees and love that enslaves. The law is not imposed on the just, because he is the law himself. In fact, he has charity, he lives subject to reason, and therefore, he goes where he will and does what he wishes . . . There is no greater joy than freedom: but you will never enjoy it if you do not bend your neck from arrogance to the chain of humility, and do not withdraw your feet from carnal affections and put them in the shackles of mortification."

In this last stage of the moral life, which already opens the beginning of a mystical experience, our Saint sees a reciprocal interpenetration of the law, freedom and love, because it is the love of God that frees man from every slavery and renders him fully free and good.