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Handout #61 |
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Antony, father of hermits |
| Going according
to custom into the Lord's House, he communed with himself reflected as he
walked how the apostles left all and followed the savior; and how they in
the Acts sold their possessions and brought them and laid them at the
apostles feet for distribution to the needy, and what and how great a hope
was laid up for them in heaven. Pondering on these things he entered the
church, and it happened the gospel was being read, and he heard the Lord
saying to the rich man, 'If you would be perfect, go and sell what you
have and give to the poor; and come follow me and you shall have treasure
in heaven. Antony, as though God had put him in mind of the saints, and
the passage had been read on his account, went out immediately from the
church and gave the possessions of his forefathers to the villagers - they
were three hundred acres, productive and very fair -that they should no
longer be a clog upon himself and his sister. And all the rest that was
moveable he sold, and having got together much money he gave it to the
poor, reserving a little, however, for his sister's sake ...
(Antony withdrew into increasingly rigorous solitude, where he proved victorious over the assaults of the devil.) But the devil, who hates and envies what is good, could not endure to see such a resolution in a youth ... First of all he tried to lead him away from the discipline, whispering to him the remembrance of his wealth, care for his sister, claims of kindred, love of money, the various pleasures of the table and the other relaxations of life, and at last the difficulty of virtue and the labor of it ... The devil, unhappy soul, one night even took upon him the shape of a woman and imitated all her acts simply to beguile Antony. But he, his mind filled with Christ and the nobility inspired by him, and considering the spirituality of the soul, quenched the coal of the other's deceit ... in the night the demons made such a din that the whole of that place seemed to be shaken by an earthquake, and the demons as if breaking the four walls of the dwelling seemed to enter through them, coming in the likeness of beasts and creeping things. And the place was on a sudden filled with the forms of lions, bears, leopards, bulls, serpents, asps, scorpions, and wolves, and each of them was moving according to its nature. The lion was roaring, wishing to attack the bull seeming to toss with its horns, the serpent writhing but unable to approach and the wolf as it rushed on was restrained, altogether the noises of the apparitions, with their angry raging were dreadful. . . And so for nearly twenty years he continued training himself in solitude, never going forth, and seldom seen by any. After this, when many were eager and wishful to imitate his discipline, and his acquaintances came and began to cast down and wrench off the door by force, Antony, as from a shrine, came forth initiated in the mysteries and filled with the Spirit of God. Then for the first time he was seen outside the fort by those who came to see him. And they, when they saw him, wondered at the sight, for he had the same habit of body as before, and was neither fat, like a-man without exercise, nor lean from fasting and striving with the demons, but he was just the same as they had known him before his withdrawal. And again his soul was free from blemish, for it was neither contracted as if by grief nor relaxed by pleasure, nor possessed by laughter or dejection, for he was not troubled when he beheld the crowd, nor overjoyed at being saluted by so many. But he was altogether even as being guided by reason, and abiding in a natural state. By him the Lord healed the bodily ailments of many present, and cleansed others from evil spirits. And he gave grace to Antony in speaking, so that he consoled many that were sorrowful and set those at variance at one, exhorting all to prefer the love of Christ before all that is in the world. And while he exhorted and advised them to remember the good things to come, and the loving-kindness of God towards us, who spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all, he persuaded many to embrace the solitary life. And thus it happened in the end that cells arose even in the mountains, and the desert was colonized by monks, who came forth from their own people, and enrolled themselves for the citizenship in the heavens. Antony was there daily a martyr to his conscience, and contending in the conflicts of faith. And his discipline was much severer, for he was ever fasting and he had a garment of hair on the inside, while the outside was skin, which he kept until his end. And he neither bathed his body with water to free himself from filth nor did he ever wash his feet, nor even endure so much as to put them into water, unless compelled by necessity. Nor did any one even see him unclothed, nor his body naked at all except after his death, when he was buried. Life of Antony attributed to Athanasius, 2,5,9,14,47- |
