Life of Antony

Contents

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1. 0Athanasius writes for monks abroad who asked about Antony’s life, telling what he himself saw and learned from Antony.
2. 1Antony, born to well-off Christian parents in Egypt, grew up quiet, obedient, attentive to the Scripture readings, and content with simple food.
3. 2Hearing Christ’s words to the rich man read in church, the young Antony gave away his family land to his village.
4. 3Antony placed his sister with consecrated virgins, began an ascetic life near his village, learned from older ascetics, worked, prayed, and memorized the Scriptures.
5. 4Antony learned a particular virtue from each ascetic he visited and sought to combine them all, winning the affection of his village.
6. 5The devil tempted the young Antony with memories, pleasures, and finally sexual thoughts and apparitions, but Antony overcame them by faith, prayer, fasting, and the thought of judgment.
7. 6Defeated, the devil appeared to Antony as a black boy, confessed himself the spirit of sexual immorality, and fled when Antony rebuked him.
8. 7After his first victory Antony intensified his discipline with vigils, fasting, and hard bedding, treating each day as a new beginning, after the example of Paul and Elijah.
9. 8Antony shut himself in a distant tomb, where demons beat him almost to death; a friend found him and carried him to the village church.
10. 9Back in the tomb, Antony defied the demons, who came at him in the shapes of wild beasts; he mocked their weakness and trusted in Christ.
11. 10A light from heaven drove the demons away, and a voice promised Antony that the Lord would always help him and make him known everywhere.
12. 11When the old ascetic would not come with him, Antony set out alone for the mountain and saw through the devil’s trick of a silver dish in the road.
13. 12Passing by real gold without a glance, Antony crossed the river and shut himself in an abandoned fort, receiving bread only twice a year.
14. 13Visitors outside Antony’s fort heard demons raging within, but Antony told them to seal themselves with the cross and was found singing Psalm 68.
15. 14After about twenty years of seclusion Antony emerged unchanged in body and serene in soul, healed and counseled many, and drew many into the monastic life.
16. 15Antony crossed a crocodile-infested canal unharmed and, by his constant teaching, inspired many new monasteries, which he led as a father.
17. 16Antony begins his address to the monks: having begun the ascetic life, they should never slacken, for a short life of toil buys an eternal kingdom.
18. 17Renouncing possessions is a small price for the kingdom of heaven; the monks should acquire the virtues, which alone go with them after death.
19. 18Like a servant who works every day, the monk must persevere daily, since past labors do not excuse present negligence, as Ezekiel and the fall of Judas show.
20. 19Living as though each day were one’s last guards against sin, greed, grudges, and lust, and keeps the soul mindful of judgment.
21. 20Virtue is not far off but within us: it is the soul remaining straight, as God made it, and needs only our will.
22. 21Antony warns the monks against anger and desire and introduces the demons, who fill the air and wage war against Christians.
23. 22The demons were created good but fell; they envy Christians, and discerning their wiles requires prayer, discipline, and the Spirit’s gift of discernment.
24. 23When evil thoughts fail, the demons try terrifying apparitions and false prophecies, which vanish before faith and the sign of the cross.
25. 24Though the devil appears as the fiery monster of Job 41 and boasts of his power, Christ has bound him like a captive beast, and his light is only a foretaste of the fire prepared for him.
26. 25Demons may even imitate psalm-singing, Scripture reading, monks, and calls to prayer and fasting, but only to drive the simple to despair and turn them from the ascetic life.
27. 26Even when demons speak the truth, as when they confessed Christ, they must not be heeded, for Christ silenced them and Christians have the Scriptures.
28. 27Following the psalmist, monks should be deaf to the demons, whatever they urge, and not fear their threats, for they are powerless.
29. 28Since the Lord’s coming the demons are powerless; their threats, crowds, and disguises prove their weakness, while a true angel, as against the Assyrians, acts with quiet authority.
30. 29The devil had no power over Job except what God allowed, and the demons could not even enter the pigs without Christ’s leave.
31. 30God alone is to be feared; the demons fear the ascetic virtues and the authority Christ gave his followers to trample them.
32. 31Demons only seem to foretell: being swift, they see travelers on the road and run ahead to announce them, but they know nothing that has not yet begun to happen.
33. 32Demons predict the Nile flood only because they have seen the rains in Ethiopia, like David’s watchman seeing a runner from a height; Providence can overturn their predictions.
34. 33Pagan oracles were demonic guesswork, like a physician’s or a farmer’s forecasts; foreknowledge has no value for salvation, which depends on faith and keeping the commandments.
35. 34The aim of discipline and prayer is to please God and defeat the devil, not to foreknow; a pure soul can see further than demons, as Elisha did.
36. 35Demons flee the sign of the cross; visions of holy angels come quietly, bring joy and peace, and take away fear, as with Zechariah, the women at the tomb, and the shepherds.
37. 36Demonic visions bring fear, confusion, and evil desires, whereas holy visions bring joy and courage, as Abraham and John the Baptist rejoiced.
38. 37Lingering fear signals the demons’ presence; they try to make people worship them, as they did the Greeks, but Christ rebuked Satan with Scripture.
39. 38Miracles belong to the Savior and are no ground for boasting; what matters is a virtuous life and the gift of discerning spirits.
40. 39Antony recounts his own encounters: demons flattered, threatened, appeared as soldiers, beasts, and false light, sang psalms, and shook his cell, but were routed by prayer and the psalms.
41. 40Antony tells how a demon claiming to be God’s power, a demon disguised as a monk offering bread, and visions of gold all vanished at the name of Christ, prayer, and psalms.
42. 41Satan himself came to Antony complaining that he had become powerless, since Christians were everywhere and even the desert was full of monks.
43. 42Demons mirror the soul they find: fear invites their attack, while joy in the Lord and hope drive them away, as with Job and Judas.
44. 43Faced with an apparition, ask boldly “Who are you, and where are you from?”: holy visitors bring joy, demons grow weak, as with Joshua and Daniel.
45. 44Antony’s words strengthened the monks, and the mountain monasteries became like a land of godliness, where Balaam’s blessing on Israel’s tents seemed fulfilled.
46. 45Antony grew ashamed even of eating and sleeping, longing for heaven, and taught that the soul, not the body, must have one’s care.
47. 46During Maximin’s persecution Antony went to Alexandria to serve the confessors and martyrs, defying the governor’s order, but was preserved to teach the ascetic life.
48. 47After the persecution and the martyrdom of Bishop Peter, Antony returned to his monastery and lived a life of daily “martyrdom of conscience” with severe fasting and austerity.
49. 48Without opening his door, Antony sent away an officer whose daughter was possessed, telling him to pray in faith, and she was healed; many others were healed outside his cell.
50. 49Seeking solitude, Antony was told by a voice to go into the inner desert, and traveling with Saracens he came to a high mountain with a spring and palm trees.
51. 50Antony made the mountain his home, grew his own grain and vegetables so as not to burden others, and gently commanded the wild beasts to stop damaging his crops.
52. 51Alone on the inner mountain in old age, Antony fought visible and invisible demons with prayer, trusting in the Lord, and even the wild beasts were at peace with him.
53. 52When the devil sent hyenas against Antony at night, he told them to eat him if God allowed it, or else depart, and they fled.
54. 53A monstrous beast, half man and half ass, appeared at Antony’s door and fled to its death when he declared himself Christ’s servant.
55. 54On a journey to the outer monasteries Antony’s prayer brought water from the ground in the waterless desert; he found the monks thriving and his sister leading a community of virgins.
56. 55Antony’s counsel to monks: faith, love of God, purity, psalmody, memorizing Scripture, daily self-examination, not letting the sun set on any sin, and writing down one’s thoughts as if others would read them.
57. 56Antony prayed for the sick without boasting or complaint, teaching that healing comes from God alone and that thanks are due to God, not to him.
58. 57Antony sent away Fronto, an imperial official with a terrible affliction, telling him he would be healed on reaching Egypt, and so it happened.
59. 58Without seeing her, Antony announced the healing of a gravely afflicted girl waiting outside the mountain, attributing it wholly to the Savior.
60. 59Antony foresaw two brothers dying of thirst on the road and sent monks with water, who saved one of them; the death of the other was God’s judgment.
61. 60Antony saw the soul of Amoun of Nitria carried to heaven at the hour of his death, thirteen days’ journey away; Amoun had once been carried across a flooded river.
62. 61At the request of Count Archelaus, Antony prayed for the sick virgin Polycratia of Laodicea, who was healed at the very hour of his prayer.
63. 62Antony foreknew who was coming to him and why, but asked that the Lord, not he, be admired for it.
64. 63On a boat Antony smelled a stench no one else noticed, which proved to come from a demon hidden in a young man; he cast it out in Christ’s name.
65. 64A violently possessed young nobleman attacked Antony at dawn after a night of prayer, which Antony recognized as the sign that the demon had left him.
66. 65In a vision Antony was led up through the air, where hostile powers demanded an account of his life since he became a monk, but could prove nothing against him.
67. 66In another vision Antony saw souls ascending past a giant figure, the enemy, who seized those subject to him while the faithful passed beyond; he told such things only when pressed, for others’ benefit.
68. 67Antony honored the clergy, deferring even to deacons, was eager to learn, and had a face so radiant with inner peace that strangers recognized him at once among the monks.
69. 68Antony kept apart from Melitian schismatics, Manichees, and other heretics, and drove away Arian visitors, calling their teaching worse than snake venom.
70. 69When the Arians claimed him, Antony came to Alexandria and denounced Arianism, teaching that the Son is the eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father’s being, not a creature.
71. 70In Alexandria crowds, including pagans and their priests, flocked to see the “man of God”; he healed many, and many became Christians.
72. 71As Athanasius and others escorted Antony out of Alexandria, he healed a possessed girl at the city gate.
73. 72Two pagan philosophers came to test the unlettered Antony, who told them that if they thought him wise they should imitate him and become Christians.
74. 73To philosophers who mocked his lack of learning, Antony replied that the mind, which invented letters, needs no letters if it is sound.
75. 74Antony answered Greek sages who mocked the cross: the cross shows courage, the Incarnation shows the unchanged Word sharing human birth, while their myths and doctrine of the soul’s fall and transmigration dishonor the divine.
76. 75Antony contrasts the honorable death of the cross with pagan myths, and points to the resurrection and Christ’s miracles as proof that he is God.
77. 76Allegorizing the gods as natural forces still means worshiping creation instead of the Creator, as absurd as honoring a house instead of its architect.
78. 77Antony made the philosophers admit that faith working in the soul comes before and surpasses proof by argument.
79. 78Christian faith, held even by the unlettered, spreads and overcomes demons and magic by the name of Christ crucified, while pagan argument converts no one.
80. 79Since the cross, oracles and magic have failed, while persecuted Christianity has filled the world with martyrs and virgins.
81. 80Antony challenged the philosophers to heal the demon-possessed by their arguments or magic; when they could not, he healed them with the sign of the cross, giving the credit to Christ.
82. 81Constantine and his sons wrote to Antony, who was unimpressed but replied, urging them to remember the judgment, to rule justly, and to care for the poor.
83. 82Antony saw distant events in visions, including mules kicking at the Lord’s table, which foretold the Arian seizure of the churches; he promised that the church would be restored.
84. 83Antony’s miracles should not be doubted, for Christ promised such power to those who believe and ask in his name.
85. 84Antony healed by prayer in Christ’s name, not by command, and though he loved solitude he came down when needed to counsel judges to do justice.
86. 85Pressed to stay by a military commander, Antony replied that monks out of the desert are like fish out of water.
87. 86Antony warned Balacius, a commander persecuting Christians on behalf of the Arians, of coming wrath; Balacius mocked him and within five days was mauled by a horse.
88. 87Antony was like a physician given by God to Egypt, consoling the grieving, reconciling the angry, strengthening monks, and turning soldiers and the rich to the monastic life.
89. 88With his gift of discerning spirits Antony taught others to overcome demonic temptations; many virgins chose virginity on seeing him, and all mourned him like orphans.
90. 89Foreseeing his death, Antony made a last visit to the outer mountain, urging the monks to persevere, avoid the Melitians and Arians, and keep the faith and tradition of the fathers.
91. 90Antony refused to die among the monks, fearing his body would be kept unburied in a house, as was the Egyptian custom with holy bodies, which he condemned, appealing to Christ’s burial.
92. 91Dying on the inner mountain, Antony charged his two disciples to persevere, to avoid schismatics and Arians, to bury him in secret, and to divide his few garments between Athanasius and Serapion.
93. 92Antony died joyfully and was secretly buried by his two disciples; Athanasius and Serapion treasured the garments he left them.
94. 93Antony kept his discipline and his health into extreme old age, and God made the hidden ascetic famous throughout the empire so that others might see the commandments can be kept.
95. 94Athanasius asks that the Life be read to monks as a model, and to pagans as proof that Christ is God and that Christians overcome the demons they worship.