Chapter 4

This was Antony’s first struggle against the devil: or rather this mighty deed in him was the Saviour’s, who condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the Lord should be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. But neither did Antony, because the dæmon had fallen, grow careless and despise him; neither did the enemy, when worsted by him, cease from lying in ambush against him. For he came round again as a lion, seeking a pretence against him. But Antony had learnt from Scripture that many are the devices of the enemy; and continually kept up his training, considering that, though he had not deceived his heart by pleasure, he would try some other snares. For the dæmon delights in sin. Therefore he chastised his body more and more, and brought it into slavery, lest, having conquered in one case, he should be tripped up in others. He determined, therefore, to accustom himself to a still more severe life; and many wondered at him: but the labour was to him easy to bear. For the readiness of the spirit, through long usage, had created a good habit in him, so that, taking a very slight hint from others, he showed great earnestness in it. For he watched so much, that he often passed the whole night without sleep; and that not once, but often, to the astonishment of men. He ate once a day, after the setting of the sun, and sometimes only once in two days, often even in four; his food was bread with salt, his drink nothing but water. To speak of flesh and wine there is no need, for such a thing is not found among other earnest men. When he slept he was content with a rush-mat: but mostly he lay on the bare ground. He would not anoint himself with oil, saying that it was more fit for young men to be earnest in training, than to seek things which softened the body; and that they must accustom themselves to labour, according to the Apostle’s saying, “When I am weak, then I am strong;” for that the mind was strengthened as bodily pleasure was weakened. And this argument of his was truly wonderful. For he did not measure the path of virtue, nor his going away into retirement on account of it, by time; but by his own desire and will. So forgetting the past, he daily, as if beginning afresh, took more pains to improve, saying over to himself continually the Apostle’s words, “Forgetting what is behind, stretching forward to what is before;” and mindful, too, of Elias’ speech, “The Lord liveth, before whom I stand this day.” For he held, that by mentioning to-day, he took no account of past time: but, as if he were laying down a beginning, he tried earnestly to make himself day by day fit to appear before God, pure in heart, and ready to obey his will, and no other. And he said in himself that the ascetic ought for ever to be learning his own life from the manners of the great Elias, as from a mirror. Antony, having thus, as it were, bound himself, went to the tombs, which happened to be some way from the village; and having bidden one of his acquaintances to bring him bread at intervals of many days, he entered one of the tombs, and, shutting the door upon himself, remained there alone. But the enemy, not enduring that, but rather terrified lest in a little while he should fill the desert with his training, coming one night with a multitude of dæmons, beat him so much with stripes, that he lay speechless from the torture. For he asserted that the pain was so great that no blows given by men could cause such agony. But by the providence of God (for the Lord does not overlook those who hope in him), the next day his acquaintance came, bringing him the loaves. And having opened the door, and seeing him lying on the ground for dead, he carried him to the Lord’s house in the village, and laid him on the ground; and many of his kinsfolk and the villagers sat round him, as round a corpse. But about midnight, Antony coming to himself, and waking up, saw them all sleeping, and only his acquaintance awake, and, nodding to him to approach, begged him to carry him back to the tombs, without waking any one. When that was done, the doors were shut, and he remained as before, alone inside. And, because he could not stand on account of the dæmons’ blows, he prayed prostrate. And after his prayer, he said with a shout, “Here am I, Antony: I do not fly from your stripes; yea, if you do yet more, nothing shall separate me from the love of Christ.” And then he sang, “If an host be laid against me, yet shall not my heart be afraid.” Thus thought and spoke the man who was training himself. But the enemy, hater of what is noble, and envious, wondering that he dared to return after the stripes, called together his dogs, and bursting with rage,—“Ye see,” he said, “that we have not stopped this man by the spirit of impurity; nor by blows: but he is even growing bolder against us. Let us attack him some other way.” {41} For it is easy for the devil to invent schemes of mischief. So then in the night they made such a crash, that the whole place seemed shaken, and the dæmons, as if breaking in the four walls of the room, seemed to enter through them, changing themselves into the shapes of beasts and creeping things; {42} and the place was forthwith filled with shapes of lions, bears, leopards, bulls, and snakes, asps, scorpions, and wolves, and each of them moved according to his own fashion. The lion roared, longing to attack; the bull seemed to toss; the serpent did not cease creeping, and the wolf rushed upon him; and altogether the noises of all the apparitions were dreadful, and their tempers cruel. But Antony, scourged and pierced by them, felt a more dreadful bodily pain than before: but he lay unshaken and awake in spirit. He groaned at the pain of his body: but clear in intellect, and as it were mocking, he said, “If there were any power in you, it were enough that one of you should come on; but since the Lord has made you weak, therefore you try to frighten me by mere numbers. And a proof of your weakness is, that you imitate the shapes of brute animals.” And taking courage, he said again, “If ye can, and have received power against me, delay not, but attack; but if ye cannot, why do ye disturb me in vain? For a seal to us and a wall of safety is our faith in the Lord.” The dæmons, having made many efforts, gnashed their teeth at him, because he rather mocked at them, than they at him. But neither then did the Lord forget Antony’s wrestling, but appeared to help him. For, looking up, he saw the roof as it were opened and a ray of light coming down towards him. The dæmons suddenly became invisible, and the pain of his body forthwith ceased, and the building became quite whole. But Antony, feeling the succour, and getting his breath again, and freed from pain, questioned the vision which appeared, saying, “Where wert thou? Why didst thou not appear to me from the first, to stop my pangs?” And a voice came to him, “Antony, I was here, but I waited to see thy fight. Therefore, since thou hast withstood, and not been worsted, I will be to thee always a succour, and will make thee become famous everywhere.” Hearing this, he rose and prayed, and was so strong, that he felt that he had more power in his body than he had before. He was then about thirty-and-five years old. And on the morrow he went out, and was yet more eager for devotion to God; and, going to that old man aforesaid, he asked him to dwell with him in the desert. But when he declined, because of his age, and because no such custom had yet arisen, he himself straightway set off to the mountain. But the enemy again, seeing his earnestness, and wishing to hinder it, cast in his way the phantom of a great silver plate. But Antony, perceiving the trick of him who hates what is noble, stopped. And he judged the plate worthless, seeing the devil in it; and said, “Whence comes a plate in the desert? This is no beaten way, nor is there here the footstep of any traveller. Had it fallen, it could not have been unperceived, from its great size; and besides, he who lost it would have turned back and found it, because the place is desert. This is a trick of the devil. Thou shalt not hinder, devil, my determination by this: let it go with thee into perdition.” And as Antony said that, it vanished, as smoke from before the face of the fire. Then again he saw, not this time a phantom, but real gold lying in the way as he came up. But whether the enemy showed it him, or whether some better power, which was trying the athlete, and showing the devil that he did not care for real wealth; neither did he tell, nor do we know, save that it was real gold. Antony, wondering at the abundance of it, so stepped over it as over fire, and so passed it by, that he never turned, but ran on in haste, until he had lost sight of the place. And growing even more and more intense in his determination, he rushed up the mountain, and finding an empty inclosure full of creeping things on account of its age, he betook himself across the river, and dwelt in it. The creeping things, as if pursued by some one, straightway left the place: but he blocked up the entry, having taken with him loaves for six months (for the Thebans do this, and they often remain a whole year fresh), and having water with him, entering, as into a sanctuary, into that monastery, {44} he remained alone, never going forth, and never looking at any one who came. Thus he passed a long time there training himself, and only twice a year received loaves, let down from above through the roof. But those of his acquaintance who came to him, as they often remained days and nights outside (for he did not allow any one to enter), used to hear as it were crowds inside clamouring, thundering, lamenting, crying—“Depart from our ground. What dost thou even in the desert? Thou canst not abide our onset.” At first those without thought that there were some men fighting with him, and that they had got in by ladders: but when, peeping in through a crack, they saw no one, then they took for granted that they were dæmons, and being terrified, called themselves on Antony. But he rather listened to them than cared for the others. For his acquaintances came up continually, expecting to find him dead, and heard him singing, “Let the Lord arise, and his enemies shall be scattered; and let them who hate him flee before him. As wax melts from before the face of the fire, so shall sinners perish from before the face of God.” And again, “All nations compassed me round about, and in the name of the Lord I repelled them.” He endured then for twenty years, thus training himself alone; neither going forth, nor seen by any one for long periods of time. But after this, when many longed for him, and wished to imitate his training, and others who knew him came, and were bursting in the door by force, Antony came forth as from some inner shrine, initiated into the mysteries, and bearing the God. {45} And then first he appeared out of the inclosure to those who were coming to him. And when they saw him they wondered; for his body had kept the same habit, and had neither grown fat, nor lean from fasting, nor worn by fighting with the dæmons. For he was just such as they had known him before his retirement. They wondered again at the purity of his soul, because it was neither contracted as if by grief, nor relaxed by pleasure, nor possessed by laughter or by depression; for he was neither troubled at beholding the crowd, nor over-joyful at being saluted by too many; but was altogether equal, as being governed by reason, and standing on that which is according to nature. Many sufferers in body who were present did the Lord heal by him; and others he purged from dæmons. And he gave to Antony grace in speaking, so that he comforted many who grieved, and reconciled others who were at variance, exhorting all to prefer nothing in the world to the love of Christ, and persuading and exhorting them to be mindful of the good things to come, and of the love of God towards us, who spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. He persuaded many to choose the solitary life; and so thenceforth cells sprang up in the mountains, and the desert was colonized by monks, who went forth from their own, and registered themselves in the city which is in heaven.

And when he had need to cross the Arsenoite Canal (and the need was the superintendence of the brethren), the canal was full of crocodiles. And having only prayed, he entered it; and both he and all who were with him went through it unharmed. But when he returned to the cell, he persisted in the noble labours of his youth; and by continued exhortations he increased the willingness of those who were already monks, and stirred to love of training the greater number of the rest; and quickly, as his speech drew men on, the cells became more numerous; and he governed them all as a father. And when he had gone forth one day, and all the monks had come to him desiring to hear some word from him, he spake to them in the Egyptian tongue, thus—“That the Scriptures were sufficient for instruction, but that it was good for us to exhort each other in the faith.” . . .

[Here follows a long sermon, historically important, as being the earliest Christian attempt to reduce to a science dæmonology and the temptation of dæmons: but its involved and rhetorical form proves sufficiently that it could not have been delivered by an unlettered man like Antony. Neither is it, probably, even composed by St. Athanasius; it seems rather, like several other passages in this biography, the interpolation of some later scribe. It has been, therefore, omitted.]

And when Antony had spoken thus, all rejoiced; and in one the love of virtue was increased, in another negligence stirred up, and in others conceit stopped, while all were persuaded to despise the plots of the devil, wondering at the grace which had been given to Antony by the Lord for the discernment of spirits. So the cells in the mountains were like tents filled with divine choirs, singing, discoursing, fasting, praying, rejoicing over the hope of the future, working that they might give alms thereof, and having love and concord with each other. And there was really to be seen, as it were, a land by itself, of piety and justice; for there was none there who did wrong, or suffered wrong: no blame from any talebearer: but a multitude of men training themselves, and in all of them a mind set on virtue. So that any one seeing the cells, and such an array of monks, would have cried out, and said, “How fair are thy dwellings, O Jacob, and thy tents, O Israel; like shady groves and like parks beside a river, and like tents which the Lord hath pitched, and like cedars by the waters.” He himself, meanwhile, withdrawing, according to his custom, alone to his own cell, increased the severity of his training. And he groaned daily, considering the mansions in heaven, and setting his longing on them, and looking at the ephemeral life of man. For even when he was going to eat or sleep, he was ashamed, when he considered the rational element of his soul; so that often, when he was about to eat with many other monks, he remembered the spiritual food, and declined, and went far away from them; thinking that he should blush if he was seen by others eating. He ate, nevertheless, by himself, on account of the necessities of the body; and often, too, with the brethren, being bashful with regard to them, but plucking up heart for the sake of saying something that might be useful; and used to tell them that they ought to give all their leisure rather to the soul than to the body; and that they should grant a very little time to the body, for mere necessity’s sake: but that their whole leisure should be rather given to the soul, and should seek her profit, that she may not be drawn down by the pleasures of the body, but rather the body be led captive by her. For this (he said) was what was spoken by the Saviour, “Be not anxious for your soul, what ye shall eat; nor for your body, what ye shall put on. And seek not what ye shall eat, nor what ye shall drink, neither let your minds be in suspense: for after all these things the nations of the world seek: but your Father knoweth that ye need all these things. Rather seek first his kingdom; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

After these things, the persecution which happened under the Maximinus of that time, {49} laid hold of the Church; and when the holy martyrs were brought to Alexandria, Antony too followed, leaving his cell, and saying, “Let us depart too, that we may wrestle if we be called, or see them wrestling.” And he longed to be a martyr himself, but, not choosing to give himself up, he ministered to the confessors in the mines, and in the prisons. And he was very earnest in the judgment-hall to excite the readiness of those who were called upon to wrestle; and to receive and bring on their way, till they were perfected, those of them who went to martyrdom. At last the judge, seeing the fearlessness and earnestness of him and those who were with him, commanded that none of the monks should appear in the judgment-hall, or haunt at all in the city. So all the rest thought good to hide themselves that day; but Antony cared so much for the order, that he all the rather washed his cloak, and stood next day upon a high place, and appeared to the General in shining white. Therefore, when all the rest wondered, and the General saw him, and passed by with his array, he stood fearless, showing forth the readiness of us Christians. For he himself prayed to be a martyr, as I have said, and was like one grieved, because he had not borne his witness. But the Lord was preserving him for our benefit, and that of the rest, that he might become a teacher to many in the training which he had learnt from Scripture. For many, when they only saw his manner of life, were eager to emulate it. So he again ministered continually to the confessors; and, as if bound with them, wearied himself in his services. And when at last the persecution ceased, and the blessed Bishop Peter had been martyred, he left the city, and went back to his cell. And he was there, day by day, a martyr in his conscience, and wrestling in the conflict of faith; for he imposed on himself a much more severe training than before; and his garment was within of hair, without of skin, which he kept till his end. He neither washed his body with water, nor ever cleansed his feet, nor actually endured putting them into water unless it were necessary. And no one ever saw him unclothed till he was dead and about to be buried.