Anthony the Great

CONCERNING ST. ANTHONY THE GREAT, ABBOT IN THE THEBAID.

Year of Christ 356.

Anthony the Great, Abbot in the Thebaid (St.)

FROM Various sources.

Section I. The various divisions of Egypt. The birthplace of St. Anthony.

[1] Egypt, from which monastic life drew its origin, is variously described, distinguished, and delimited by different authors. Among them chiefly Strabo in book 17 of his Geography, Dionysius of Alexandria in his Survey of the Inhabited World, Egypt described by the ancients. illuminated by Archbishop Eustathius, chapters 28 and following, Pliny in book 5 of his Natural History, chapters 9 and 10, Diodorus Siculus in book 1 of his Historical Library, and Ptolemy in book 4 of his Geography, chapter 5 — all ancient and prior to the age of Anthony. Some things from these, especially from Strabo, we necessarily transfer here, because the places of St. Anthony's spiritual exercises are little known to modern writers, since access to those provinces which barbarians have possessed for so many centuries is nearly barred, and they assail one another with hatreds and more than civil wars among the Christians.

[2] Where irrigated by the Nile. The Nile traverses Egypt from South to North and makes it fertile by its annual flooding, and thereby makes it habitable. Whatever is more elevated than its stream, on both sides, both toward the East and the West, is desert, for want of water, and therefore empty of inhabitants. But the lands around each bank that are irrigated by the river rarely attain a continuous habitable width of up to three hundred stadia. The ancients called only that part of Egypt which is inhabited, irrigated by the Nile from places near Syene to the Mediterranean Sea. Those who lived under the Ptolemaic Kings down to the Roman Caesars divided into parts, added whatever lies between the Red Sea and the Nile, and called it Arabia; and Libya, that which faces the setting sun — the peoples called by Ptolemy the cosmographer Libyaegyptians and Arabaegyptians. formerly otherwise. Egypt irrigated by the Nile is divided in three parts: into Lower, Middle, and Upper Egypt. Lower Egypt is more often called simply Egypt, otherwise also Delta or Augustamnica. Middle Egypt is called by Ptolemy Heptanomia, by Dionysius Heptapolis, and afterward, as Eustathius attests, Arcadia by the Emperor Arcadius. Upper Egypt is called the Thebaid, or Thebaida. The boundaries of each are shown in the tables of Ptolemy, Ortelius, and the single one inserted by Rosweyde in his book on the Lives of the Fathers, but less distinctly.

[3] Palladius, in his epistle to Lausus, distributes the stations of the monks into four regions, as it were provinces: Egypt, Libya, the Thebaid, and Syene. Rufinus, Cassian, and others who wrote the Lives of the Fathers at nearly the same time agree with Palladius, but they more often call Libya Scetis, and Syene they call Upper Thebaid. In the Arabia neighboring Egypt, Abbot John the Persian is said to have lived, otherwise in the age of St. Anthony: according to Pelagius, book 5, booklet 6, chapter 7. These border regions belonged to the Saracens, as was said on January 14 when we treated of the massacre of the Sinai monks and those of Raithu, these: Arabia; and were infested by their raids. Scetis, Schiti, and Schitium — called by Ptolemy the Scythiac region, a part of Libya — Libya, in which Scetis lies, is therefore commonly distinguished from Egypt in the Lives of the Fathers, book 3, numbers 22, 93, and 146; book 5, booklet 5, numbers 21 and 35; booklet 8, number 10; booklet 10, numbers 39 and 109; booklet 13, number 4; booklet 17, numbers 8 and 17; book 7, chapter 33, number 2; and chapter 42, number 4. In these places the approach to, departure from, and flight from Egypt to Scetis, or conversely from Scetis to Egypt, is commonly described. Scetis is separated from Egypt by the marshes of Mareotis and Moeris, and by the mountains of Nitria and Pherme. Mount Pherme seems to be contiguous to Moeris in Egypt, according to Palladius, chapter 23, leading into the vast solitude of Scetis. And in chapter 7, to the south of Mareotis lies Mount Nitria, in which that solitude begins which extends beyond the desert of Scetis to Ethiopia. In that solitude are the Cells, about which we treated in the life of St. Macarius of Egypt on January 15, and the village of Nitria, where nitre is produced, which gave its name to the place, or received it from there. And the Nitrian anchorites. Not far from this village are the monasteries, or tabernacles, of fifty Nitrian anchorites, of whom some are natives and others foreigners. Palladius, chapter 69, calls the former enchorioi, born in the place itself, and the latter xenoi, guests or pilgrims. These and the remaining monks of Scetis and Libya, St. Athanasius in his preface to the life of St. Anthony seems to call pilgrim Brothers — in Greek, tous en te xene Monachous — and places them outside Egypt, declaring that they strive to equal the monks of Egypt and to surpass them in the earnestness of their virtue, as will be said more fully in the prologue.

[4] Egypt, insofar as it excludes the Thebaid and Libya, or Scetis, Egypt properly so called, extends somewhat more broadly for Athanasius, Palladius, and other writers of that age than Lower Egypt, or the great Delta, does for Ptolemy and the above-cited cosmographers — because it includes part of Heptanomia, or Arcadia. Hence the Memphite, Arsinoite, and Aphrodite Nomes are reckoned in Egypt by St. Jerome in the life of St. Hilarion, and by Rufinus, book 2 of the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 18. The remaining places of Heptanomia are numbered with the Thebaid, Lower Thebaid, which is called lower in the life of St. Paul the Hermit. Rufinus states this of Heraclea in book 2, chapter 16; of Oxyrhynchus in chapter 5; and of Hermopolis in chapter 7. Palladius says the same of Antinous in chapter 96; and below, St. Athanasius in number 77, of the eastern part of the Nile, where the mountain and monastery of St. Anthony were, about which see section 2. There follows Upper Thebaid, which is bounded by Syene and the Tabennesian places. And upper. About this we treat elsewhere; it does not pertain here, since St. Anthony was prohibited by divine warning from withdrawing into it, number 65.

[5] Sozomenus, book 1, chapter 13, describes the birthplace of St. Anthony thus: The fatherland of St. Anthony. "He was an Egyptian, of the race of the well-born, from Coma. This Coma is a village near the Heraclea of the Arcadians among the Egyptians." This was rendered in Latin by Christophorsonus thus: "He was born of a patrician race, who inhabited Coma (this is a village near Heraclea, among the Arcadians neighboring the Egyptians)." In the copy of Scaliger it reads: "This Coma is of the Heracleote Nome." Nicephorus, book 8, chapter 4: "He was an Egyptian by race, holding the first rank in his homeland, from a village called Coma, a village near Heraclea, which is neighboring to the Heraclea of the Arcadians among the Egyptians." St. Athanasius: "Antony was Egyptian by race, born of noble parents who possessed sufficient wealth, and who were Christians." Which was rendered by Evagrius: "Antony, born of noble and devout parents, was a native of Egypt," etc. Moreover, he does not mention the place except at number 8, where he calls it a village: "Beginning," he says, "himself also to lead the solitary life, he remained in places a little more remote from the village." In Greek: "he began himself also to stay in the places before the village." And at number 18, "he withdrew to tombs not far from the village." Where in Greek: Called Coma, "he went to the tombs that happened to be far from the village." Perhaps Coma is taken here as an appellative, as Ortelius suspects in his Geographical Thesaurus, and was then called so by antonomasia on account of the celebrated fame of St. Anthony; in which way Epiphanius Scholasticus, in Cassiodorus, book 1, Tripartite History, chapter 11, seems to have understood the cited passage of Sozomenus: "He was Egyptian," he says, "born of a distinguished race, in a village situated in the place of Heraclea among the Egyptians." In the Heracleote Nome, St. Anthony was therefore born and began his youthful anchoretic life either in the Heracleote Nome (which on the most celebrated island of the Nile at the left bend of the river had Heracleous polis megale, as Ptolemy calls it, Heraclea the great city) or in the region of this city, or in the Arsinoite. outside the island, in the Arsinoite Nome; for the latter is generally attributed to Egypt, the former to the Thebaid. But Antony seems to have been Egyptian not only by race but also by birth. And indeed that practice of living anchoretically near one's own dwelling had been especially taken up among the Arsinoites long before, as will be said in section 3.

Section II. The twofold desert, the mountain and monastery of St. Anthony.

[6] We examine the two mountains of the desert, in which (having passed his youth, and the domestic form, as it were, of the anchoretic life, and the preludes of a more severe discipline) he spent the remaining seventy years of his life. After leaving his homeland, he is written at number 22 to have withdrawn into the desert and, having crossed the Nile, to have turned aside to a mountain near it, situated on its eastern bank, Where St. Anthony's first desert was. and to have inhabited a deserted fortress there. We suspect this desert to lie between the cities of Memphis, Babylon, and Aphroditon, below the island of the Heracleote Nome; for St. Hilarion, three years after the death of St. Anthony, inhabited this desert, in which he had previously, having exchanged his secular garb, spent about two months in the novitiate of monastic life with St. Anthony, around the year of Christ 306, when Anthony first began to build monasteries, as will be said more fully on October 21, and here in sections 4 and 6. The same desert is close to the prefecture of the Arsinoites, which St. Anthony visited from there (number 26), in which, as also in this desert, very many monasteries were afterward built. Rufinus, book 2 of the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 18, found among the Arsinoites Serapion, Father of ten thousand monks, and innumerable multitudes of monks in the regions of Memphis and Babylon.

[7] Finally, the journey described from here to the second mountain, situated in the interior desert, is the same the journey thence to the second and interior desert: by which St. Hilarion is read to have come from Aphroditon. St. Anthony completed this journey in three days and nights, number 66, and St. Hilarion from Aphroditon reached that mountain in three days through a vast wilderness. That vast wilderness, below at number 71, is called a dry way without drinkable water, in which one of the Brothers perished of thirst, and another was rescued by St. Anthony when he learned of that danger from heaven, number 79; and Anthony himself, about to revisit the monasteries of the first mountain, lest he and his company should perish of thirst, drew forth a spring by his prayers, number 71. And in the life of St. Hilarion, Baisanes the Deacon of Aphroditon, having hired dromedary camels, was accustomed to guide those going to Anthony on account of the lack of water in the desert. Finally, the very situation of the second mountain will establish what has been said.

[8] The mountain of St. Anthony, called so by antonomasia, on which he also ended his life, verged toward the interior desert, toward Arabia, On it is the mountain of St. Anthony. or the Red Sea; yet it was no more than about thirty miles distant from the river Nile, as Palladius attests in chapter 25, situated on the eastern part of the Heracleote Nome, not far from the city of the Angiri, as Ptolemy calls it, or Ancyros, as Stephanus names it — which we suspect was either destroyed or reduced to a village by the time of St. Anthony, because no mention of it exists in the Lives of the Fathers or other writers of his age. Formerly called Troicus, where situated. From the city of the Angiri, or the eastern part of the Nile, there is Mount Troicus, according to Ptolemy about thirty miles from the river, called the Troic Stone; which the distance itself demonstrates to be the same as this mountain of St. Anthony. Strabo, book 17, describes this mountain thus: "Troicus, a sufficiently rocky mountain, and caves beneath it, and a village nearby, and near these and the river, called Troia." Stephanus says the same from Strabo. Ortelius in his ancient map of Egypt places the village of Troia above the city of the Angiri on the Nile; but because he more greatly removes Mount Troicus against the authority of the ancients and considers Climax, which Orosius places in Lower Egypt to the south (as he observes in the Thesaurus), to be nearby, we do not agree with him. But, lest we dispute about the name, the distance indicates that the Troicus mountain of Strabo, Ptolemy, and Stephanus is the mountain afterward called St. Anthony's in the Lives of the Fathers, and the similar situation of both confirms it.

[9] "A rocky and lofty mountain," says St. Jerome in the life of St. Hilarion, "extending for about a thousand paces, squeezes out waters at its base, what it is like: of which the sands drink up some, and others, having flowed down to the lower parts, gradually form a stream." And below: "On the lofty summit of the mountain, as if ascending by a spiral staircase with a very steep climb, two cells of the same dimensions could be seen, in which, fleeing the crowds of visitors and the company of his disciples, he dwelt. These, however, were cut out of the living rock, with only doors added." And Palladius, an eyewitness, calls it in chapter 74 a high mountain overhanging the river, very terrible and precipitous, on which he saw monks who were disciples of St. Anthony — about whom see section 8 — living in caves. And below at number 66 it is called by St. Athanasius a very lofty mountain, at whose base a spring of sweet water flowed. Strabo writes that stones were quarried from this mountain, from which the Pyramids were built. Here then is the rocky mountain, the caves beneath it, and the stream. Finally, lest anything be lacking, where the village of Troia once stood near the Nile, there was perhaps the estate of the very wealthy Pergamius, of which mention is made in the life of St. Hilarion and in the notes below at chapter 20; or that neighboring village to which Anthony at first wished to send away Paul the Simple, as Palladius writes in chapter 28 and below in the Apophthegmata, chapter 8, to which he also sent another monk to buy meat, as Pelagius book 5, booklet 6, number 3, Apophthegmata number 1 (unless the city of the Angiri itself is designated in one or the other place); or certainly the monastery built there and called Pisper, Pispir, or Pispiri, by Palladius chapter 15. Rufinus, book 2, Ecclesiastical History, chapter 8, says: "Pispiri, which is called the mountain of Anthony." There Eulogius conveyed a mutilated man from Alexandria to St. Anthony by boat, Palladius chapter 26, Paschasius chapter 19, number 3, and in the Apophthegmata chapter 7.

[10] St. Athanasius throughout the life here recognizes a twofold mountain, the interior and the exterior. Twofold: the interior, The interior one, lofty and rocky, about thirty miles distant from the Nile, a friendly habitation of virtue, below number 112, and the interior head-monastery, number 108, in which Anthony, sitting, was illuminated by divine visions, numbers 78, 79, 87, and 104. From this he would go to the exterior mountain of Pispir and his monastery, and the exterior, or the monastery of St. Anthony, or the monastery of the disciples, sometimes after ten days, sometimes after twenty, sometimes after five, as was expedient for the benefit of those who came to the monastery, as Cronius relates in Palladius, chapter 25; and in the life at number 111: "He came according to his custom to visit the Brothers who were on the exterior mountain." There he received pilgrims and guests, conferred health upon the sick, wrote letters to Emperors and others, disputed with Philosophers, conducted the cases of defendants with Judges, below numbers 81, 94, 103, 104, and 108. And this exterior mountain extended from the river itself, by a very rough journey, into the interior mountain, marked here and there by cells of anchorites. Thus in the Apophthegmata, number 55, he made a cell for St. Paul the Simple at three or four stones' distance from his own cell. Let this suffice concerning the places of St. Anthony, from which you may correct or illuminate the chorographic map of Rosweyde for the Lives of the Fathers, and of Jacobus Ziegler of Landau in Bavaria in his description of the Holy Land and Egypt, who banished this mountain of St. Anthony into Arabian Egypt far toward the Red Sea.

Section III. The first monastic practice in Egypt.

[11] St. Athanasius, below in the life at number 6, before the conversion of St. Anthony to the monastic or anchoretic life — which, as will be shown in section 4, occurred around the year of Christ 270 — recognizes that there were monasteries in Egypt, Monks and anchorites in Egypt before St. Anthony: as they were when he was writing after the year of Christ 360, although not so numerous; and that there were anchorites, but ones who established themselves not far from their own small estate, not yet penetrating the trackless wilderness. The ancient author of the Life of St. Pachomius, translated by Dionysius Exiguus, writes that before St. Anthony there were monks, but infrequent in comparison with the fourth and fifth centuries: "Very few monks at that time (he is speaking of St. Anthony) were yet reported throughout Egypt and the Thebaid. For after the persecution of the cruel Emperors Diocletian and Maximian" — when St. Anthony, as will be said in the following section, was still living as a solitary in the deserted fortress, numbers 22 and 23, with no monks yet admitted to the common life of holier living with him — "a multitude of peoples entered, as was divinely preordained, and the fecundity of the Church began to display most ample fruits," etc. And below, near the village of Chinoboscium in Upper Thebaid, within the recesses of the desert, St. Palemon lived, either senior to or certainly contemporary with Anthony, as was said on January 11.

[12] The origin of these monks from the Essenes, from Philo's book On the Contemplative Life, is traced by St. Jerome in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, The Essenes under St. Mark the Evangelist, under Mark and Philo; by St. Epiphanius, heresy 29; by Eusebius, Cassian, Sozomenus, Nicephorus, Bede, and others whom Baronius cites and follows, volume 1, year of Christ 64, numbers 3 and 4; Bellarmine, volume 2, Controversies, book 2, On Monks, chapter 5; and Prosper Stellartius, On the Foundation of Monastic Orders, chapters 6 and 7 — which we shall discuss more fully on April 25 in the Acts of St. Mark. What pertains here is that outside the walls, in gardens and estates, they lived as solitaries and had sacred buildings, which they called semeia and monasteria, in which they devoted themselves to the mysteries of the holy life; and this was done around Alexandria at the Marian lake, indeed in every Prefecture, "in each of the so-called Nomes." Among the descendants of these was St. Frontonius, Abbot of seventy Brothers at Nitria, St. Frontonius and others at Nitria, in the thirteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Antoninus, around the year of Christ 150, a full century before the birth of St. Anthony, as we shall say more fully on April 14. Ortelius assigns Mount Pherme especially to the Essenes. Indeed that this custom persisted there and especially in the Arsinoite Nome The Arsinoites under St. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, down to the times of St. Anthony is quite persuasively shown by the first book On Promises of St. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, in Eusebius, book 7, Ecclesiastical History, chapter 19, where he admires beyond measure the constancy of the Brothers, their zeal for truth, their ready obedience, and their prudence — that with such excellent order and such great modesty they asked, debated, and assented to him, etc.; finally, with a whole conscience, sincere thought, and pure and simple minds toward God, they approved those things which were confirmed by firm reasons and testimonies drawn from the sacred writings. He relates moreover that these Brothers settled especially among the Arsinoites in the individual villages and praised God with various psalms and hymns, which will be more fully set forth on November 17 in the life of St. Dionysius. He himself died around the twelfth year of the Emperor Gallienus, when St. Anthony was being raised under his parents' discipline; and so that old man whom St. Anthony found as a teacher of the solitary life at number 6 was perhaps one of those with whom St. Dionysius had conversed.

[13] Among the monasteries of Egypt which were erected before Anthony drew together any communities of his admirable philosophy, may be counted the holy monasteries established by Julian and Basilissa, Saints Julian, Basilissa, and others at Antinous, in which St. Julian was the Father of a holy congregation of about ten thousand monks; and through St. Basilissa the more exalted palm of victory in chastity shone among the virgins and women, as is related in their acts written by an eyewitness, above on January 9, number 10. Those monasteries we conjecture, with not improbable reason, together with the Greek Menaia and Menologia and certain Latin codices, to have gathered at Antinous in Egypt, or rather in the Antinoite Nome, chiefly in the country; but they were perhaps destroyed in the persecution of Diocletian, when one hundred and forty-four thousand of the faithful were crowned with martyrdom in the Thebaid and seven hundred sent into exile, as we related more fully in section 2 of the prolegomena to their Acts. Our opinion seems to be confirmed by St. Anthony's disputation with the Philosophers, in which he objects to them that through the preaching of the ignominious Cross their gilded temples fell — which is described as done by St. Julian in chapter 12, nor needed to be narrated more fully by St. Anthony, as it was commonly well known because of the nearness of the place and time. On January 14 we gave Saints Sabas, Sinai Martyrs. Isaiah, and thirty-six other monks killed under Diocletian on Mount Sinai in Arabia, not far from Egypt. We omit those who elsewhere in the world cultivated the monastic life, even if not celebrated with such illustrious fame, in the first three centuries — whom we shall give scattered throughout this entire work. Bellarmine at the cited passage may be consulted, and Stellartius in the first sixteen chapters.

[14] But of those who penetrated the trackless wilderness, the originator was Paul, The first hermits: Saints Paul and Anthony. as St. Jerome attests in his letter 22 to Eustochium; the illustrator, Anthony; the prince, John the Baptist. The life of St. Pachomius agrees with these words: "Blessed Anthony, being an emulator of the great Elijah and Elisha, and also of St. John the Baptist, pursued the recesses of the inner desert with singular devotion, and led the life of heavenly beings on earth out of love for virtue." And below: "Hence therefore the Fathers of monks, wondrous men, arose in almost every region, whose names are inscribed in the book of the living." Whether St. Onuphrius and he who was his teacher in the anchoretic way of life lived in the desert before Saints Paul and Anthony will be discussed on June 12. But, in the words of Sozomenus, book 1, chapter 13: "Whether the Egyptians or others were the authors of this pious life, this certainly is agreed upon by all: that Anthony, that great monk, with perfect institutions of piety and exercises adapted for this purpose, brought this manner of life to its highest perfection." In order that these things may be clearly presented to the eyes of readers, we have judged it fitting to compare the age of St. Anthony with the succession of the Emperors, lest anyone be deceived by the shamelessness and prodigious lies of the heretics, who loudly proclaim that monasticism was recently invented — as Philip Melanchthon in the Augsburg Confession, article 27, and others, whose absurdities Bellarmine brilliantly refutes in the cited book.

Section IV. The age of St. Anthony compared with the succession of the Emperors.

[15] The Centuriators of Magdeburg, century 4, chapter 6, and Calvin, book 4, Institutes, chapter 13, section 16, most gravely condemn the way of life of the hermits, on the ground that they were their own murderers, by excessive fasts, St. Anthony lived 105 years, hairshirts, and other voluntarily undertaken afflictions. Let them take their proof from Anthony, who alone outlived more than twenty Emperors, succeeding one another almost in turn, with his life prolonged to one hundred and five years, and taught by his own example that fasting is beneficial to health. He died, as St. Jerome attests in his Chronicle, in the nineteenth year of the Emperor Constantius. He was therefore born when Decius was reigning, in the year of Christ 250, which the same Jerome attests in the Chronicle of Eusebius in these words: born in the year of Christ 250. "When Decius had killed the Emperors Philip, father and son, out of hatred for them he stirred up a persecution against the Christians. The monk Anthony is born in Egypt." When Decius was slain with his son in the year of Christ 251, Gallus Hostilius with his son Volusianus succeeded; when they were murdered after two years and four months, Aemilianus perished in the third month of his reign. Soon Valerian and his son Gallienus gained power, of whom the latter reigned with his father for nearly seven years, and alone for eight. In the year of Christ 268, therefore, Claudius assumed the empire, which, when he was killed and his brother Quintillus slain, devolved upon Aurelian in the year of Christ 270. Until Claudius, or certainly the beginning of Aurelian's reign, Anthony was piously educated in his father's house, under the discipline of his Christian parents. When they died, since he was about eighteen he becomes an anchorite near his village, or twenty years old (number 4), gradually directing his mind more toward attaining evangelical perfection, within a year he renounced his possessions and the world, and inaugurated the anchoretic life, removed a little from his homeland, number 6. When this discipline had strengthened his spirit amid diabolical assaults, desirous of greater solitude, he chose a dwelling for himself somewhat more remotely in the tombs of the dead, he lives in a tomb, (number 16), and endured there until the 35th year of his age, the year of Christ 285, number 20.

[16] Meanwhile the Roman Empire after Aurelian was administered by Tacitus, Probus, and his brother Florianus, from the year of Christ 275 to 282, after whom Carus with his sons Carinus and Numerian was appointed. When Numerian was killed along with his father, Diocletian received the purple in the year 284, in the month of September. In the following year, after Carinus was slain, Maximian Herculeus was made Caesar, and then in 286 was created Augustus by Diocletian. By them, around the year of Christ 291, Constantius Chlorus and Galerius Maximian the Cattleman were named Caesars. In the 19th and 20th years of Diocletian, the years of Christ 303 and 304, there was such savagery against the Christians, especially in Egypt, that from this persecution the Egyptian Copts thenceforth counted their years, which they call the years of grace and mercy and elapsed from the passing of the Martyrs, as was said on January 9 in the prolegomena to the life of Saints Julian and Basilissa, number 11. In the year of Christ 304, in the month of April, when Diocletian and Herculeus voluntarily embraced private life, the Caesars Constantius Chlorus and Galerius Maximian the Cattleman were made Augusti and Emperors. He lives in the first desert. What was Anthony doing meanwhile? In the first year of Diocletian, the year of Christ 285, he withdrew into the desert (number 20), near Aphroditon, and there in a deserted fortress formerly built on a mountain, living as a solitary, segregated from the sight of men for twenty years, he endured even during the time of persecution (number 23), until the year of Christ 305. In that same year Constantine the Great, Severus, and Galerius Maximinus are thought to have been made Caesars, of whom the last administered the East and Egypt and raged atrociously against the Christians, he builds monasteries, and slaughtered innumerable Martyrs. Constantine (to say nothing of the others) succeeded his father Constantius in the year of Christ 306, at first as Caesar, soon called Augustus by his father-in-law Maximian. At the beginning of Constantine's reign, with very many converted by St. Anthony to the monastic life, monasteries began to be built (numbers 25, 26), which were on that mountain like tabernacles full of divine choirs singing psalms, reading, and praying, number 58, where among his first disciples St. Hilarion was trained around the year of Christ 306, as is clear from his life. When the tyrant was raging against the Christians, Anthony goes to Alexandria, strengthens the Martyrs, He strengthens the Martyrs: (numbers 60 and 61), is present to St. Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, dying for Christ; he returns to the monastery erected earlier, number 62. Meanwhile Maxentius was defeated in the year of Christ 312; the following year Galerius Maximinus; the third, Licinius, who was killed in 325, and peace was given both to the civil arms and to the Church.

[17] Anthony shines with miracles, number 63. Wherefore, on account of the multitude of those coming (number 64), afflicted with weariness, he flees to a mountain divinely shown to him, in the interior desert, he goes into the interior desert, (numbers 65 and 66); he cultivates the land for his annual sustenance, sows, reaps, grinds, and bakes himself, alone on the mountain; he is visited by guests, indeed he himself visits the former monasteries and soon returns to the mountain. In Pispiri dwelt St. Paphnutius the Confessor, who afterward as Bishop of Upper Thebes was present at the Council of Nicaea (as we shall say in his life on September 11) in the year of Christ 325, and so some time before had made use of Anthony's discipline, although the specific year is unknown. Anthony sees the soul of Ammon borne to heaven. He refutes heretics. Brought to Alexandria by Athanasius, now Bishop, he declares his faith to confound the heretics and schismatics. This was done around the year of Christ 330, or a little later. In the year 335, Athanasius presented himself at the conventicle of Tyre, and from there was forced to flee to Constantine, by whom he was banished to Trier in the year of Christ 336. The Pispiritanum monastery of St. Anthony flourishes with the fame of men. In it Anthony writes back to the Emperor Constantine He writes to the Emperors: and to his sons Constans and Constantius. Constantine died in the year of Christ 337, on the very day of Pentecost. His son Constans, who received Italy, Sicily, Africa, Illyricum, and Greece, was killed near the Pyrenees in the year of Christ 350. Constantius, however, to whom fell Asia, Egypt, and the intervening provinces of the East, survived both his brothers Constantine and Constans, and St. Anthony. Under him, in the year of Christ 339, Anthony is warned by a divine oracle of an imminent new and very harsh storm about to break the peace of the Church. Two years later, he foresees the persecution: in the year of Christ 341, when Athanasius was again expelled, Gregory the Cappadocian was substituted, who with a great massacre seized the Alexandrian Church. Him, or certainly Balacius the Duke of Egypt, Anthony reproached by letter. He, now needing the assistance of others on account of old age, in his ninetieth year, fifteen years before his death, admitted the ministry of two Brothers, whom he permitted to live with him on the interior mountain, from the year 340. As a nonagenarian he admits the ministry of others. As a nonagenarian he also visited St. Paul, as we said on January 10 in his life, or certainly some years past ninety, as we note below at chapter 21, number 113.

[18] Finally, in the nineteenth year of Constantius, as St. Jerome attests in his Chronicle, the monk Anthony dies in the desert in the one hundred and fifth year of his age. He dies in the year of Christ 356. Gregory of Tours, book 1, History of the Franks, chapter 38, and Vincent, Mirror of History, book 14, chapter 14, agree with Jerome. Here Rosweyde at length in his annotation on the preludes to the life of St. Anthony shows that Baronius used a corrupted codex of the Chronicle and therefore incorrectly disagrees in all the years. Since Constantius succeeded his father Constantine, who died on the day of Pentecost, in the year of Christ 337, the seventeenth of January, on which St. Anthony will be shown below in section 13 to have died, necessarily falls in the year of Christ 356, the nineteenth of Constantius. His death under Constantius is also placed by Isidore of Seville in his Chronicle, the Venerable Bede in his book On the Six Ages of the World, and absolutely all chronologists.

Section V. Disciples of St. Anthony in Lower Thebaid.

[19] We first trace the names and deeds of those who lived at Pispiri and on the mountain of St. Anthony. St. Jerome in his Chronicle, Three disciples of St. Anthony, after recording the death of St. Anthony, shortly adds: "Sarmata, Amathas, and Macarius, disciples of Anthony, are held to be illustrious." There is no mention of Sarmata anywhere in the Lives of the Fathers. Of him the same Jerome again writes in his Chronicle under the twentieth year of Constantius: "The Saracens, bursting into the monastery of Blessed Anthony, Sarmata the Martyr, killed Sarmata." His feast is celebrated in the Roman Martyrology on October 11. Cronius, in Palladius chapter 25, below in the Apophthegmata number 44, relates that in the monastery of St. Anthony, which is near the river, Macarius and Amathas: his disciples Macarius and Amathas had their seat, in the place called Pisper; and in chapter 26, Apophthegmata number 46, Macarius seems to have been the steward there, or the provider of food to guests — whom St. Anthony was accustomed to ask about their arrival and the condition of their characters, whether they were Egyptians or Jerusalemites. As was done there concerning Eulogius, who had brought a leper or mutilated man from Alexandria by boat, as Cronius observed, which necessarily occurred before the year of Christ 340. For from that year Amathas and Macarius were summoned to the interior mountain, perhaps with Sarmata left behind as the director of the monastery; and there they themselves, separated from St. Anthony by a small interval, were trained and ministered to the old man, number 113, of whom one spent no small time with him for the purpose of providing him water — They ministered to the old man, namely fifteen years — number 2 in the prologue. These two disciples met St. Anthony returning from St. Paul, to whom he explained everything in order that he had learned about Paul, as above in his life, numbers 14 and 16.

[20] To these he spoke his last words on his deathbed; to these he entrusted his testament and the burial of his body; in their presence (having given a kiss) he expired. They buried the body, wrapped as he had commanded; which Cronius also attests of both of them in Palladius, chapter 25: They buried the dead man. "Macarius and Amathas," he says, "also buried him when he had fallen asleep." St. Jerome ascribes the office of burial to only one of them in the life of St. Paul, number 1: "Amathas and Macarius, disciples of Anthony, of whom the elder buried the body of the master, even now affirm," etc. In the life of St. Posthumius it is said that Macarius buried the body of his master. But there no mention of Amathas was required. After St. Anthony was buried, they carried out his remaining instructions — they brought the sheepskin and the worn cloak to St. Athanasius at Alexandria, and the other sheepskin to Serapion at Thmuis; which perhaps did not happen until under the Emperor Julian, when Athanasius, having found some peace after various exiles, was residing at Alexandria. At that time from one or the other, who had been accustomed to provide water for St. Anthony, One of them narrated to St. Athanasius the life of Anthony, he learned what he wrote about his life, as will be said in section 8. That both were still alive when he was writing, he indicates at number 115 with these words: "No one to this day knows where the body of St. Anthony was laid, except them." And St. Jerome, when the life of St. Anthony was published in the Roman style, produced as still surviving witnesses Amathas and Macarius, who, he says, "even now affirm that a certain Paul the Theban was the originator of this way of life," namely the anchoretic life. One or the other wrote the life of St. Paul, He wrote the life of St. Paul. translated by us from the Greek, as was proved in the prolegomena there, number 6.

[21] Jean Dadree, Doctor of Paris, in his edition of Eusebius which he illuminated, Amathas, in others Amos, annotates on the passage cited above from the Chronicle of St. Jerome — "Sarmata, Amathas, and Macarius, disciples of Anthony, are held to be illustrious" — that for Amathas one should perhaps read Amos, whom the authors name as one of the chief disciples of Anthony. Our Andreas Schottus had noted in the copy of Jerome which he was using that this Amathas was called Amos by others. Certainly, the one who is called Amma Talida by Palladius at the monastery of women at Antinous, chapter 137, is called Amatha in the Paradise of Heraclides, although this is perhaps an appellative meaning mother. This Amathas, disciple of St. Anthony, also called Amatas by some, seems to be called Ammonas by Palladius, chapter 74, and Ammon by Rufinus, book 2, Lives of the Fathers, chapter 13. "We saw," Ammonas and Ammon, says Palladius, "in the Thebaid a high mountain overhanging the river, very terrible and precipitous, and monks living there in caves. Their Father was Pityrion, He succeeded St. Anthony on the interior mountain; Pityrion succeeded him. who was one of the disciples of St. Anthony and the third who received that place, who indeed worked many miracles and powerfully expelled spirits. For since he had succeeded Anthony and his disciple Ammonas, he also deservedly succeeded as heir to the gifts." Rufinus has nearly the same account. This Ammonas, Ammon, or Amathas, therefore, inhabited St. Anthony's interior mountain as his nearest heir — on which he had ministered to him while alive and had buried him when dead.

[22] Macarius chose the exterior mountain for himself, or rather received it, at least after the murder of St. Sarmata. Macarius governed the monastery. This mountain we said is called the monastery at Pispiri, in which he had received from St. Anthony nearly fifty thousand monks to govern, as is read in the life of St. Posthumius. But nearly five thousand should be read, as the title of the life indicates, in which St. Posthumius, successor of Macarius, is called Father of five thousand monks, who inhabited from the river Nile to the interior mountain through nearly thirty miles. At what time, however, Pityrion succeeded Amathas, or Ammonas, and St. Posthumius succeeded Macarius, is not stated. Rufinus, book 2, Ecclesiastical History, chapter 8, says he saw in Pispiri, which was called the mountain of Anthony, Poemen and Joseph, and merited to be blessed by their hands. This Poemen is called Pastor in Latin in book 5, Lives of the Fathers, by Pelagius, Posthumius succeeded him. and Pimenius by Paschasius in book 7. Whether he is the same as Posthumius, whom Rosweyde at number 1 of his life annotated is called Pasthumius in other editions, we shall discuss in the life of St. Poemen on August 27. Rosweyde suspected that Pachomius and Posthumius were one and the same, which we do not accept. Ferrarius in the General Catalogue makes Pastor a different person from Poemen and assigns him to July 25, which is wholly improbable. Anthony addresses Pastor in Pelagius, book 5, booklet 5, number 2, below in the Apophthegmata number 6. Macarius was treated on January 15. Amathas, or Ammonas, will be treated on January 26.

[23] Among the monks of this place Isaac and Pelusianus are mentioned by St. Jerome in the life of St. Hilarion, of whom Isaac had been Anthony's interpreter. And in the life of St. Thais, the Abbot Paul the Elder is named a disciple of St. Anthony — perhaps the same as Paul the Simple, Other disciples of St. Anthony. about whom see the Apophthegmata, chapter 8.

Section VI. Disciples of St. Anthony throughout the rest of Egypt.

[24] The disciples of St. Anthony enumerated by Rufinus, book 2, Ecclesiastical History, chapter 4: Disciples in Libya, "The Fathers of monks, worthy for their life and antiquity — Macarius and Isidore, and another Macarius, and Heraclides and Pambo, disciples of Anthony — were regarded throughout Egypt, and especially in the desert parts of Nitria, as men who were believed to have fellowship of life and deeds not with other mortals but with the Angels above." The same in Invective 2: "To come to the masters of the desert, where Macarius the disciple of Anthony, and the other Macarius, Heraclides, and Isidore, and Pambo." Sozomenus, from Rufinus, book 6, chapter 20: "Among the Egyptian monks we have learned that the two Macarii were easily chief, of whom mention was made before (book 3, chapter 13, where however they are not said to have been trained in the discipline of St. Anthony), Pambo and Heraclides and the remaining disciples of Anthony." Nicephorus, book 11, chapter 27, transcribed the same from Sozomenus. Among the Saints are nearly all venerated: Macarius of Alexandria on the 2nd, the Egyptian Isidore, and Isidore on January 15. Pambo on July 1. The name of Heraclides we have not yet read in the sacred calendars. Sozomenus again mentions the same in book 3, chapter 13, and Nicephorus in book 9, chapter 14. Isidore, having addressed St. Anthony, learned from him of the martyrdom of St. Potamiaena, as Palladius attests, chapter 3, cited on January 15. The same in chapter 10 writes that Pambo practiced this virtue of being careful and perfect in speech, Pambo, even beyond the great Anthony and above all the Saints. Anthony is read to have addressed him in Pelagius, book 5, booklet 1, number 2, in the Apophthegmata number 21.

[25] Macarius of Alexandria. What the Macarii did with St. Anthony, since it is quite brief, we repeat here. "The Alexandrian," says Palladius, chapter 20, "when he had seen at the dwelling of the great man and Father Anthony choice palm branches which he himself had prepared, asked him for one bundle of palm branches. Anthony said to him: It is written, You shall not covet the things of your neighbor. And when he had said this alone, all the branches immediately withered as if scorched by fire. Seeing which, Anthony said to Macarius: Behold, the Holy Spirit has rested upon you, and henceforth you shall be the heir of my virtues." The Egyptian is called by Rufinus, book 2, Lives of the Fathers, chapter 28, "a disciple of Blessed Anthony, and Macarius the Egyptian, who possessed as if by inheritance the graces and virtues of Blessed Anthony" — which are wrongly attributed to this one by Rufinus, since they were said of the Alexandrian, as we have seen; Rosweyde also observed this at number 49, who believes Palladius was translated into Latin by him, here badly understood. But Pelagius, book 5, booklet 7, number 9, writes thus: "Abbot Macarius the Elder (who was the Egyptian) came to Abbot Anthony at the mountain, and when he had knocked at the door, he came out to him and said: Who are you? And he said: I am Macarius. And closing the door, he went in and left him outside. When he afterward saw his patience, he opened to him. And rejoicing with him, he said: I have long desired to see you, having heard of you. And showing him hospitality, he refreshed him; for he was weary from much labor. When evening had come, Abbot Anthony soaked a few palm leaves, and Abbot Macarius said to him: Give me some too, that I may soak what I may work on. He said: I have no more. And making a larger bundle, he soaked it. And sitting from evening and conversing about the benefit of souls, they were making plaited work, and the plait descended through the window into the cave. Going out in the morning, St. Anthony saw the collection of plaits of Abbot Macarius and marveled, and kissing his hands said: Great virtue comes forth from these." The same is read above on January 15 in his life.

[26] In what way these were disciples of St. Anthony is not disclosed. Socrates and Sozomenus, cited on January 15, do not recognize them among Anthony's disciples where they pursue their acts more fully — the former in book 4, chapters 18 and 19, the latter in book 3, chapter 13 — as also Nicephorus in book 9, chapter 14. Nowhere either is any of them reckoned a disciple of St. Anthony in the Lives of the Fathers, except Macarius the Egyptian in the cited passage of Rufinus, where however there is some confusion of the Macarii. Imitators of the life of St. Anthony. Certainly all who had seen St. Anthony rejoiced to be called his disciples, especially because they professed themselves followers of his virtues and his religious institute. So Rufinus, book 2, Lives of the Fathers, chapter 25, calls Cronius "a disciple of Blessed Anthony," though Cronius himself narrates that he came upon Pispiri by chance while wandering through the desert, and then served as interpreter for St. Anthony and Eulogius. Palladius chapters 25, 26, 27; Paschasius chapter 9, number 3; and in the Apophthegmata chapter 7.

[27] Rosweyde, in his notes on the passage of Rufinus, number 49, and on the life of St. Paul the Hermit, number 6, wishes one of these two Macarii to be the same Neither of these was the companion of Amathas. whom we said above cohabited with Amathas and St. Anthony. "Indeed," he says, "the matter of the two Macarii is quite tangled, so that it is difficult to determine which was the disciple of St. Anthony." And after various reasons are brought forward on each side, he conjectures that the Alexandrian was more probably the companion of Amathas — which we also conceded might not seem unreasonable (if indeed it had been one or the other). But with the Acts of each one more carefully compared, we believe neither was the companion of Amathas. First, because Socrates, Sozomenus, Nicephorus cited above, Cassian, Jerome, and other writers nowhere recognize either of them as having ministered to St. Anthony, nor join Amathas to him as an inseparable companion. Second, because Palladius, to whom trust should especially be given, separates this companion of Amathas from the others, as will be clear to the reader of chapters 19, 20, 25, and 26. Different places of habitation are assigned to them, far removed from Anthony's monastery, in Scetis and the neighboring places of Libya, the Cells, and the Nitrian desert, where they also died — the Egyptian in the year of Christ 391, the Alexandrian in 404, as was said in the life of the Egyptian on January 15. But the one who was Anthony's disciple lived in the Thebaid, at first in the monastery of Pispiri, then for fifteen years on the interior mountain; finally, from the death of Anthony he governed the same monastery and ended his life there, around the year of Christ 370 or a little later. His Acts Palladius learned only from the account of Cronius, although he had cohabited with Macarius of Alexandria in the Cells for nine years. Let this one therefore be a third Macarius, the Theban. Certainly the name Macarius was common to many in that century, and therefore easily subject to confusion. Thus Baronius, in his Notes on January 2, had confused the Macarius drawn from the mathematicians by Rufinus, about whom Gennadius writes in chapter 28 of his Ecclesiastical Writers, with St. Macarius the Roman, whose life exists in book 1 among the Lives of the Fathers, to be treated by us on October 23 — as Rosweyde well observed in his Notes on letter 36 of St. Paulinus of Nola, and after him Miraeus on the cited passage of Gennadius.

[28] Among the Scythians also lived Pior, Other disciples of St. Anthony. whom Blessed Anthony instructed as a youth in the holy purpose of monks. Rufinus, book 3, number 31, about whom see chapter 7, Apophthegmata number 41. "Abbot Nisteron the Great, a friend of Abbot Anthony," is called by Pelagius, book 5, booklet 1, number 11. "The Great Aesisius" and other elders contemporaneous with the Great Anthony are praised by Palladius, chapters 7 and 30. Stephen the Libyan was known to Blessed Anthony.

Section VII. Disciples of St. Anthony outside Egypt. Monasticism spread throughout the world.

[29] "St. Anthony had very many disciples," says Sozomenus, book 1, chapter 13, "certainly the most eminent of men, of whom some in Egypt and Libya St. Hilarion trained by St. Anthony. (of whom we have treated), others in Palestine, Syria, and Arabia, flourished with great glory." One equal to all was Hilarion, who, having changed his former garb, as St. Jerome writes of him, remained with him for about two months, contemplating the order of his life and the gravity of his character — how frequent he was in prayer, how humble in receiving the Brothers, severe in correcting, eager in exhorting, and how no infirmity ever broke his continence and the austerity of his food. Then he returned with some monks to his homeland and entered the solitude which, at the seventh mile from Maiuma, the emporium of Gaza, turns to the left for those going along the coast toward Egypt. "He had been raised by the Lord to such great glory that Blessed Anthony also, hearing of his way of life, wrote to him and gladly received his letters. And if ever the sick came from the parts of Syria to him, he would say to them: Why did you want to trouble yourselves from so far, when you have my son Hilarion there?" Whether the monastery of the Egyptians at Anazarbus in Cilicia, about which Moschus writes in chapter 51, also began at this time, we do not inquire. Certainly Jerome, in his life, asserts that before St. Hilarion there were no monks in Syria: "There were not yet monasteries in Palestine, nor did anyone know a monk before St. Hilarion in Syria. He builds the first monasteries in Palestine. He was the founder and teacher of this way of life and devotion in this province. The Lord Jesus had the elder Anthony in Egypt; He had the younger Hilarion in Palestine, a disciple of Anthony." By his example, he adds, throughout all Palestine innumerable monasteries began to exist, and all the monks eagerly ran to him.

[30] That Egypt nevertheless retained its preeminence even in his own time is attested by St. John Chrysostom in homily 8 on Matthew, where he presents the Blessed and Great Anthony, closest to the Apostles, flying through the mouths of many; and he contends that heaven does not so shine with various choruses of stars as the desert of Egypt is distinguished and illuminated by the innumerable dwellings of monks and virgins. He therefore judges Egypt more fervent in the pursuit of Christian virtue than Palestine, which first received the Lord. In Egypt were trained St. Basil In Egypt the great Basil spent a year's novitiate in monastic life under Porphyrius the Archimandrite, and introduced, formed, and spread this way of life in Asia. This is attested by Amphilochius in his life and by Basil himself in letter 79 to Eustathius, Bishop of Sebaste. And St. Gregory of Nazianzus. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, having gone to Egypt with Evagrius of Pontus and having conversed there with those pious monks, began to imitate their way of living with ardent zeal, as Socrates teaches in book 4, chapter 18.

[31] The monastic life introduced into Italy. St. Jerome writes in the life of St. Marcella that while St. Anthony was alive, the monastic profession was unknown at Rome, and on account of the novelty of the thing was held in disgrace. St. Eusebius, Bishop of Vercelli, introduced it into Italy after having thoroughly observed it, when, as will be said in section 9, he was an exile in Egypt and afterward performed an apostolic legation. St. Ambrose has more on this matter in sermon 15. St. Augustine testifies in On the Customs of the Church, chapter 33, that he had seen monks at Rome after the fashion of the Easterners, whose very name before his conversion in the year of Christ 387 he had not even heard, as he confesses in book 8 of the Confessions, chapter 6. Then, having heard of the wonders of Anthony of Egypt, the conversation of Potitianus (who had served in the Emperor's palace at Trier) "turned to the flocks of monasteries and their customs, fragrant with Your sweetness, Unknown to the Africans. (he addresses Christ) and the fruitful deserts of the wilderness, of which we Africans knew nothing. And there was a monastery at Milan, full of good Brothers, outside the city walls, under Ambrose as nurse, and we did not know it. And at Trier, in gardens adjacent to the walls, in a certain cottage, there lived certain servants of Yours, poor in spirit, whose is the kingdom of heaven, with a codex in which was the life of Anthony." There Augustine and Potitianus marveled — he because the things said about St. Anthony were so great, the other because they were unheard-of to him. Described to the Gauls by Cassian. And for the recently established monasteries of Gaul, Cassian described the institutes of the Egyptian monks, as he states in his preface to Castor, Bishop of Apt. Finally, St. Dorotheus the Abbot, book 1, On Renunciation, doctrine 1, recognizes as the God-bearing Fathers of this institute Anthony and his imitators Pachomius and Macarius. At the same time, as is read in the Acts of St. Pachomius, "the life of Blessed Anthony was nobly set before all for imitation." Certainly when the immense ranks of monks in Egypt had begun to multiply, Propagated to the Indians. and the fame of their virtue and life, approaching the imitation of the Angels, had pervaded the ends of the earth and had been spread even to the Indians, it stirred them too to the pursuit of the same life, as St. John of Damascus wrote in the life of Saints Barlaam and Josaphat, of whom he writes that the former was assailed by the same temptations which Athanasius here relates of St. Anthony. From these things it is sufficiently clear that St. Anthony is truly called the Patriarch of the most illustrious monks who flourished in the East and the West, among whom Baronius reckons Basil, Gregory, and Chrysostom, volume 3, year of Christ 328, number 25.

Section VIII. The Life of St. Anthony written in Greek.

[32] The celebrated name of St. Anthony in Egypt. St. Hilarion, as St. Jerome attests in his life, "hearing the celebrated name of Anthony, which was borne through all the peoples of Egypt, and kindled with the desire of seeing him, went forth to the desert" in which he was then beginning to erect monasteries, between Memphis, Babylon, and Aphroditon, on the Nile, below the Heracleote Nome. Hilarion was about fifteen years old, and in the sixty-fifth year of his age St. Anthony died. This name, therefore, already celebrated throughout Egypt around the year of Christ 306, began to be gradually spread through the rest of the world. First, when the persecution was intensifying, at Alexandria, that famous marketplace of the world, he publicly confirmed Peter the Bishop and other Martyrs of Christ — himself also a Martyr in desire — escorting them to the place of their blessed contest. Then, when he was brought to Alexandria by Athanasius, now Bishop, he condemned the Arian heresy in a public discourse. "Then," says Athanasius, number 92, "no age, no sex remained at home; indeed, besides the Christians, the pagans and idolaters themselves were eager to see the Man of God" (for this was his name). There followed the disputations with the Philosophers, which, together with innumerable miracles, were published throughout the world.

[33] Marcella, as St. Jerome writes in her life, learned of the life of Blessed Anthony — who was still then living — and the discipline of the monasteries of Pachomius in the Thebaid, and of the virgins and widows, and Italy. first from the Alexandrian Priests and from Pope Athanasius, and afterward from Peter, who, fleeing the Arian heresy's persecution, had taken refuge at Rome as if at the safest port of their communion. This Peter was then a Priest, and afterward the successor of Athanasius in the episcopate. Baronius, volume 3, year of Christ 340, number 7, gathers from this that St. Athanasius then brought to Rome the life of St. Anthony which he had written. St. Athanasius wrote his life. Our Possevinus agrees in his Sacred Apparatus under Anthony. There is no doubt that St. Marcella learned much about the life — that is, the illustrious way of living, miracles, and virtues — of St. Anthony from the account of St. Athanasius and other Alexandrian priests. However, St. Athanasius had not yet at that time written the life, or Acts, of St. Anthony, as Rosweyde well observed in his notes on the Life of St. Marcella, number 6. For she is said to have learned as much from the Alexandrian Priests and Peter as from St. Athanasius — indeed, first from them, afterward from Peter — yet this Life of St. Anthony is not attributed to them. Then that it was written after the death of St. Anthony is clearly demonstrated by the words of the preface: "Since, then," he says, of one already dead, "you have demanded of me that I write for you about the way of life of Blessed Anthony — you who wish to learn how he began and what he was before his holy purpose, and what end his life had." And he soon says he will indicate what he learned from him, informed by his disciple: "who for no small time had been with him (St. Anthony) to provide him water" — whom we said in section 4 to have been Amathas or his companion Macarius, both of whom ministered to St. Anthony in the last fifteen years, of whom one (if not both), as had been commanded by him, brought the sheepskin and cloak to St. Athanasius at Alexandria and informed him about his entire life, or perhaps composed a brief memoir about it, such as we translated from the Latin concerning St. Paul, and handed it to him to be published in a more elegant style.

[34] Then the entire narrative, flowing in one continuous tenor, indicates that Anthony was already dead; nor can it easily be shown which part could seem to have been added after his death. And he completed it. Finally, the words of the Epilogue, cited by St. Ephrem in his work On "Attend to Yourself," chapter 10, under the name of St. Athanasius (as we shall relate there), leave no room for doubt. Add these words related there, number 116: "This was the end of Anthony's life, these the beginnings of his merits, which although I have narrated in a rather sparse style, as I said (in the prolegomenon, number 1)," etc. And again at number 117: "That through all the provinces the love and fame of him flew about — whom neither the eloquent discourse of disseminated books, nor the disputation of worldly wisdom, nor nobility of birth, nor an infinite accumulation of wealth commended — is to be ascribed by the mouth of all to none other than Christ, whose gift this is — who, foreseeing the souls devoted to His Majesty, showed a man hidden in almost another world and placed amid such great solitudes to Africa, Spain, Gaul, Italy, Illyricum, and even to Rome itself, the head of cities. This is the kindness of the Creator" — therefore not the favor of a writer who published the life while he was still alive. Lastly, no one ever said that part of the life was written by Athanasius. St. Jerome in On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 88: "Athanasius, Bishop of the city of Alexandria, treated the life of the monk Anthony in a notable volume" — by which words he also indicates that Athanasius put the final hand to it. Elsewhere too he cites the same life, not part of an unfinished work.

[35] Why nothing about St. Paul the Hermit in it. Nor let anyone say to us: Why then, if Anthony had already died, is there nowhere any mention of his illustrious meeting with Paul the Theban? For he was also silent about most of Anthony's disciples. Perhaps he had destined to write the Life of Paul in a special booklet, had not death or other impediments intervened. Certainly Amathas and Macarius, or at least one of them, seem to have narrated to St. Athanasius both the Acts of Paul and the Life of Anthony, whom St. Jerome testifies to have still been alive when the Life of Anthony had been published in Greek and Latin, and the Life of Paul had been published by himself. Finally, St. Athanasius warns the pilgrim Brothers in his preface to consider that they have heard the least things about the greatest, since on account of the haste of the letter-carrier he could not summon the monks so as to learn something more fully and transmit greater gifts. From this we gather that it was written in the last decade of his life under Julian or the following Emperors, He wrote it after the death of the Emperor Constantius. because during that time from the death of St. Anthony he had been absent from Alexandria, banished for the sake of religion. That it was written by St. Athanasius is also attested by Paulinus the Priest in his Prologue to the Life of St. Ambrose on December 7, the Greek Menaia in the Life of St. Anthony, Honorius On Ecclesiastical Writers chapter 88, and the authors to be cited in sections 10 and 11: St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Ephrem, the Author of the Life of St. Pachomius, Palladius, Socrates, Nicephorus, Rufinus, and innumerable later writers. Baronius, volume 3, year of Christ 310, number 19, and often elsewhere, says that Athanasius wrote the deeds of St. Anthony sincerely and purely. From certain knowledge. What wonder? He saw him as a young man in Alexandria during the time of persecution; he brought him as Bishop again against the Arians; he visited him frequently; from Macarius or Amathas he learned very many things, and from the concordant report of the monks.

[36] Baronius, volume 3, year of Christ 328, number 3, writes that St. Athanasius in that year visited the monastery of St. Pachomius He visited St. Pachomius after the death of St. Anthony. and on the way visited St. Anthony and brought him two cloaks. But when Athanasius came to Pachomius, the latter had already before, as is read in his Life cited by Baronius, learned of his holy life and the innumerable persecutions which he had endured from the Arians for the confession of Christ. Wherefore this visit of his occurred after the death of Constantius, when St. Anthony had already long since died, when the errors of Origen were beginning to gain strength among the monks of Egypt — as the remaining Acts of St. Pachomius require, which we shall illustrate on May 14.

Section IX. The Life translated into the Latin language.

[37] This Life, published in Greek, was translated into Latin by Evagrius, then a Priest and later Bishop of Antioch. Of him Jerome writes thus in On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 125: "Evagrius, Bishop of Antioch, of a keen and ardent intellect, while he was still a Priest read to me treatises on various subjects Evagrius published the Life in Latin; which he has not yet published; he also translated the Life of Blessed Anthony from the Greek of Athanasius into our language." Honorius, On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 126, says the same, and all published and manuscript copies everywhere agree. Rosweyde, Prolegomenon 4 to the Lives of the Fathers, section 4, rightly corrects Trithemius and Sixtus of Siena, who confused this Evagrius with the other one, Evagrius of Pontus, a disciple of St. Macarius of Egypt and an Origenist. Evagrius indicates in his prologue that he expressed not words for words but meanings for meanings — a method which St. Jerome praises in letter 101 to Pammachius, On the Best Method of Translating, where he presents this entire prologue without citing Evagrius, because he knew this Life of St. Anthony was very well known to Pammachius. But he prefaces his own remarks thus: "Lest the small authority of my own writings on this kind of thing" — let the reader learn from the little preface in the book in which the Life of Blessed Anthony is described. And he adds it.

[38] Not St. Jerome. Nevertheless, this gave occasion for error to Hilarion of Verona, a Cassinese monk, and to Johannes Grynaeus, cited by Rosweyde in his notes on the Preludes to the Life of Blessed Anthony, number 4; to Possevinus under Anthony; and to Baronius in his notes on the Roman Martyrology for this January 17 and volume 3, year of Christ 358, number 29 — who thought Jerome himself was the translator of this life. So also John Basil Santori, who recognizes both Evagrius and Jerome as translators, as if it had been translated twice. But they are refuted by Rosweyde, who brilliantly considers the words of Pope Gelasius in his decree on authentic and apocryphal books, distinction 15, where the Pontiff says: "The Lives of the Fathers Paul, Anthony, and Hilarion, and of all the hermits, which however the most blessed man Jerome wrote, we receive with all honor." And first Rosweyde believes that Gelasius, when he says the Life of Paul and Anthony was written by Jerome, was referring to the Life of Paul, in which nearly as much mention is made of Anthony as of Paul. The title of the Life agrees, prefixed from the Bavarian Greek manuscript thus: "The History of St. Paul the Theban and St. Anthony the Egyptian, dwelling in the interior desert." See January 10. Second, that Evagrius, a Greek man and most closely connected with Jerome and a patron of his studies, used Jerome's assistance in translating the Life of Anthony — which however he himself soon confesses is a frivolous argument, and will be clear below. Third, that the Life of Anthony, once described between the Lives of Paul and Hilarion, gave Gelasius occasion to think Jerome was also the author of the Life of Anthony, since he is the author of the other two. Rosweyde moreover thinks that most Lives of the Fathers circulated in earlier times without the name of their author and translator. Lives of the Fathers attributed to him. Certainly Gratian in the Decree, part 2, canon 27, question 2, chapter 26, after reciting the words of Nicholas I to King Charles, by which he decrees that it is not lawful to take up vows of continence except by the consent of both spouses, adds the gloss that it is lawful when they are only betrothed, and proves it: "For as Blessed Jerome relates, Macarius, the foremost among the hermits of Christ, after celebrating the wedding banquet, when he was about to enter the bridal chamber in the evening, went out of the city, sought overseas parts, and chose for himself the solitude of the desert." Which is found in the Life of St. Macarius the Roman. Baronius in the Roman Martyrology at the day of January 2 holds that the author of it is Theophilus; Rosweyde, following the Greek Menaia, makes the authors Theophilus, Sergius, and Hyginus. He indeed thinks that this story is dismissed by St. Jerome as if it were a fable in the Life of St. Paul the Hermit, number 1, where he says that there is a rumor about a man with hair down to his heels in a subterranean cave, because in this Life it is said that his beard and hair had covered his entire body. Which we shall examine on October 23 in his Life, and on June 12 in the Life of St. Onuphrius, about whom the same is read.

[39] Here we conclude only this: that the Lives of the Fathers were by a common error popularly attributed to St. Jerome, as their collector. as Rosweyde also noted in Prolegomenon 3. The cause of the error was perhaps that St. Jerome took care to have the Lives of the Fathers published together in a certain historical order, whether he himself had written them, as the Lives of Saints Paul, Hilarion, and Malchus, or had found them written by others, as those of Saints Anthony, Onuphrius, Abraham, etc.; to which others later joined other Lives and retained in the title the same first author, Jerome. The words of Gelasius seem to indicate this, by which he admits to the use of sacred reading the Lives of all the Hermits written by Jerome, although he is known to have written only the three mentioned. The same is more clearly asserted by M. Aurelius Cassiodorus, who was close in time to Gelasius, in his Institutes of Divine Reading, chapter 32: "Read constantly the Lives of the Fathers," he says, "the Confessions of the Faithful, the Passions of the Martyrs, which among other things you will without doubt find in the letter of Jerome to Chromatius and Heliodorus." Whether the principal title of the book was "The Letter of Jerome to Chromatius and Heliodorus," because it stood at the front, with the first volume containing the Lives of the Fathers and the second the Confessions of the Faithful and the Passions of the Martyrs — which we more often call the Martyrology of St. Jerome — requires another place to discuss. Certainly in the ancient editions and manuscript codices to be cited in section 11, all the Lives of the Fathers are everywhere attributed to Jerome alone, just as the Lives of the Saints are commonly attributed to Mombritius, Lipomanus, Surius, or even Metaphrastes, because they collected them. And to these Acts is prefixed the following title: "Here begins the Life of St. Anthony the Abbot, written by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, translated from Greek into Latin by Evagrius the Priest, and inserted into this book by Blessed Jerome." Finally, St. Jerome himself, in On Ecclesiastical Writers, chapter 135, setting forth in chronological order what he wrote, first mentions the Life of St. Paul, before which this had been written. About Anthony he is silent, and in the Life of St. Paul, number 2: "Because what concerns Anthony has been carefully handed down in both the Greek and Roman style, I have decided to write a few things about the beginning and end of Paul." Nowhere does he present himself as the author or translator of the Life of Anthony, but names St. Athanasius, as we said, and Evagrius.

[40] Evagrius translated this Life when he was not yet Bishop — that is, before the year of Christ 388, in which year he was designated by Paulinus as successor, in the consulship of Emperor Theodosius II and Cynegius, as is clear from Socrates, book 5, chapter 15; Theodoret, book 5, chapter 25; and Sozomenus, book 7, chapter 15. Evagrius was famous under Julian. But he was already famous for his reputation for learning in the very times of Julian the Apostate, when he accompanied St. Eusebius of Vercelli on his return to Italy, as St. Basil attests in letter 8 to St. Eusebius of Samosata, where he says: "The Priest Evagrius, son of Pompeianus of Antioch, who once migrated toward the West with Blessed Eusebius, has now returned from Rome, requesting a letter from us." Hence light arises for the translation of this life. St. Eusebius of Vercelli, through the machinations of the Arians, had been exiled in various places under Constantius, even in Syria and Egypt, to whose Upper Thebaid he was lastly sent, as Socrates attests, book 3, chapter 4. From there, under Julian, he came to Alexandria to St. Athanasius, who, after the murder of the pseudo-bishop George, had been restored to his own Church amid the supreme triumph of the Alexandrians, as St. Gregory of Nazianzus testifies in his oration a companion of the journey of St. Eusebius of Vercelli. in praise of St. Athanasius. At the Council of Alexandria convoked by him, St. Eusebius was present and subscribed as Legate of the Apostolic See, appointed by Pope Liberius, as Baronius gathers for the year of Christ 362, number 177. After the Council, departing from Alexandria, he made for Antioch, as Socrates attests in chapter 7, where he mentions at greater length the discord stirred up between Saints Eusebius and Lucifer of Cagliari, which we shall examine elsewhere. From Syria to Italy. The Priest Evagrius accompanied St. Eusebius returning from Antioch to Italy; whether he was his companion earlier in Egypt, we do not wish to conjecture, since the writers are silent.

[41] How fiercely Evagrius rose up for the Church of God against Auxentius, Bishop of Milan, together with Saints Eusebius and Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, whom we celebrated on January 13, is described by St. Jerome in letter 49, on the woman at Vercelli struck seven times, to the same Innocentius to whom Evagrius himself inscribed this Life. He attacks the heretic Auxentius. "See where the order of events has drawn me," he says. "For I have now arrived at the name of our Evagrius. His labor for Christ — if I should think I could speak of it, I would be unwise; if I should wish to be entirely silent, with my voice bursting forth in joy, I could not. For who could worthily sing the praises: that Auxentius brooding at Milan was buried, as it were, by his watchfulness, nearly before he died; that the Roman Bishop, already nearly entangled in the snares of the faction, both conquered his adversaries and did not harm the vanquished? But these things I indeed, excluded by the unfair circumstances, pass over and leave to be related by others after me. I am content only with the conclusion of the present matter. He went to the Emperor (Valentinian, not Constantius, as Henricus Gravius wrongly annotated here) purposely, wearied him with prayers, softened him by his merit, earned his favor by his solitude, so that the one restored to life he might also restore to liberty."

[42] So writes St. Jerome, who indicates in letter 41 to Rufinus that he traveled to Syria in Evagrius's company. "When Thrace, Pontus, and Bithynia, and the entire route through Galatia and Cappadocia, He returns with St. Jerome to Syria. and the burning heat of Cilician land, had worn me down, Syria met me like the most faithful port for a shipwrecked man; where I, having experienced every possible illness, lost one of my two eyes — for a sudden burning of fevers snatched away Innocentius, the part of my soul. Now I enjoy the one and whole light of our Evagrius, to whom, always infirm, I came as an addition to his labor. With us also was Hylas, the servant of St. Melanius," etc. In his house St. Jerome wrote letter 5 to Florentius, with this close: "The holy Priest Evagrius sends you many greetings." And letter 6 to the same: "Often the Priest Evagrius, while I was still at Antioch, rebuked me in my presence," etc. For he had withdrawn to the hermitage in the village of Maronia, a property of Evagrius himself, thirty miles from Antioch, where he knew St. Malchus, as he states in the preface to his Life.

[43] These things about Evagrius have been developed more fully. First, to show that the same person translated this Life; then, to propose more clearly the time of this Life's translation. Baronius, year of Christ 362, number 226, deceived by a wrongly translated passage of St. Basil previously cited ("the elder Evagrius," etc., when "the Priest" should have been written), makes him the father of a younger Evagrius, who was afterward Bishop of Antioch. Then at year of Christ 369, number 27, he confesses that he could not adequately determine who the Evagrius was who stood against Auxentius with unbroken spirit. Finally at year of Christ 372, number 38, he asserts him to be the same man who had once gone to Italy with St. Eusebius and had now, as the companion of St. Jerome, traveled to St. Basil in Cappadocia He visited St. Basil. and from there returned to Syria. And he immediately makes the same man a Priest, and at number 43 a Bishop after consecration, because St. Jerome calls him Papa in the Life of St. Malchus. It is therefore one and the same Evagrius who traveled with St. Eusebius to Italy and was afterward Bishop of Antioch, and who, while still a Priest, gave this Life to Latin. Rosweyde in his Notes on the Life, number 1, asserts this was done when he was living in the desert of Syria with St. Jerome and Innocentius, or a little before. But Innocentius, as was said before from St. Jerome, died on their very arrival in Syria, around the year of Christ 370. Baronius at year 372, number 9, wishes them to have departed from Italy after the death of St. Eusebius, and writes at number 116 that St. Eusebius died in the year 371. But because St. Jerome records his death in his Chronicle under the sixth year of Valentinian and Valens, he seems to have died in the year of Christ 369 — which will be discussed more carefully in his Life on August 2 and on September 30 in the Life of St. Jerome, where this journey will be treated.

[44] What pertains here: St. Eusebius either brought with him the Life of St. Anthony in Greek from Alexandria, or if it had not yet been written, St. Athanasius sent it to him in Italy. Unless Evagrius had been with St. Eusebius in Egypt, or was joined by a particular familiarity with St. Athanasius and received it from him personally. He translated this Life in Italy. Certainly in Italy he published it in Latin for the Latins, either of his own accord or at the request of St. Eusebius and Innocentius, to whom he himself, and St. Jerome his history of the woman struck seven times at Vercelli, inscribed it. This Life was soon carried from Italy to Trier, where Potitianus had read it, as will be said in section 11. Indeed, in Italy, or certainly when he arrived in Syria, St. Jerome wrote the Life of St. Paul, having obtained the historical narrative sent from Egypt by Evagrius and perhaps others, in which he writes that "because what concerns Anthony has been carefully handed down in both the Greek and Roman style," When St. Jerome wrote the Life of St. Paul. "he had decided to write a few things about the beginning and end of Paul." That this was done long ago he relates in the Life of St. Hilarion, while the disciples of St. Anthony, Macarius and Amathas, were still living — of whom upon the death of the former, the Abbot Posthumius succeeded at Pispiri, who is the same, as was said, as Poemen, whom Rufinus found there.

Section X. The Life vainly attacked by heretics.

[45] That the Life of St. Anthony was once written by St. Athanasius, not even the heretics of our time can deny, established as it is by so many and so clear testimonies. But because they cannot bear, with their bleared gaze, the very many arguments — clearer than the noonday light — for monasticism, the sign of the Cross, and other ecclesiastical rites, their sight being even more dazzled by this light of antiquity, they seized upon this refuge: to say that what had long been published and passed through everyone's hands under the name of St. Athanasius was the fabrication of a witless man and worthy of no credence. So Rudolph Hospinian, book 3, Origin of Monks, chapter 1; Abraham Scultetus, Medulla of the Theology of the Fathers, part 2; Andreas Rivetus, Sacred Criticism, book 3, chapter 4. Even the Centuriators of Magdeburg, century 4, chapter 10, express some doubt. But the things commemorated in this Life about Anthony [What is now contained in the Life of St. Anthony was cited from it by the ancients] have each been cited by the ancient Fathers from the very work which Athanasius was then known to have written, and have been most gravely instilled; and this Life breathes that perfection of Christian virtue which not even the heretics themselves would dare deny Anthony attained, so that anyone may recognize it as the genuine offspring of Athanasius.

[46] St. John Chrysostom, homily 8 on Matthew: "Anthony," he says, St. Chrysostom, "led such a life as the laws of Christ require. And anyone who reads that book which weaves the history of his life may easily recognize this — in which he will also see prophecy shining forth. For about those whom the Arian plague invaded, he prophesied most clearly, and taught how great a ruin threatened the Churches from them, with God certainly revealing these things and painting all things before his eyes in a picture. Which is certainly the chief testimony of the Catholic Faith — namely, that no such heretic can be shown. But lest you seem to hear these things from me, by reading the book itself more diligently you will learn all things, so that you may derive from it the greatest lessons of philosophy. But I beg that we not only meditate upon those writings but also imitate what is expressed in them." So says Chrysostom. But those whom it irks to imitate these things prefer them abolished or cast into the rubbish heap of useless and frivolous writing, lest their own morals be judged from them. They would prefer — as the Arians once had falsely reported to the public that Anthony was sympathetic to their heresy — themselves also to say that he had entered upon a soft manner of living without any good deeds. That prophecy of St. Anthony which Chrysostom indicates is reported in the Life, chapter 18, number 105, and by Sozomenus, book 6, chapter 5. "It has been handed down," Sozomenus, he says, "that Anthony, before the Arians had gained control of the government of the Churches, when Constantius was reigning, saw in a dream mules kicking at an altar and overturning the sacred table, and immediately predicted that a tumult arising from adulterated and mixed doctrines, and a rebellion stirred up by those who held an opinion foreign to the Catholic Church, would afterward seize the Church of God." Nicephorus reports the same, book 10, chapter 43. The persecution itself is described more copiously, but in nearly the same words, by Athanasius in his letter to the Orthodox, whose words we shall present at chapter 18.

[47] The predecessor of Chrysostom was St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and what he and the rest should think about this Life St. Gregory of Nazianzus, he prejudged when he held that it contained the law and norm of the monastic life — which Athanasius himself had asserted in the preface of this Life: "You have demanded of me," he says, "that I write for you about the way of life of Blessed Anthony, etc., so that you might train yourselves for emulation and the example of him." And soon: "I know that you desire to follow his purpose; for there is a perfect way to virtue — to know what Anthony was." And St. Gregory of Nazianzus in oration 21, in praise of St. Athanasius: "He (Athanasius) wrote the life of the divine Anthony, which under the form of a narrative is the norm or enacted law of the monastic life." This rule will be discussed in section 15.

[48] St. Ephrem. St. Ephrem also clearly shows that this is the work of Athanasius, when he brings forth things consistent with the life now in our hands, from what then stood newly written, in his work On "Attend to Yourself," chapter 10: "St. Anthony," he says, "as St. Athanasius the Archbishop also remembers in the life which he wrote about him, practiced much exercise, of a rather vigorous and intense kind. For he always fasted, and he wore a garment that was of haircloth on the inside and of leather on the outside, and he kept this until death, so that he neither washed his body with water on account of the filth, nor thoroughly washed his feet, nor ever at all even dipped them in water, unless compelled by necessity. Nor did anyone ever see him unclothed, nor was Anthony's naked little body ever exposed to anyone except when he was buried after death." So he writes, and these things are reported in exactly the same manner below in chapter 11, number 62. However the words "And he kept this until death" were omitted by the Latin translator; in Greek they read: ho kai heos teleutes tetereke. Elsewhere in the same place St. Ephrem describes the virtues of St. Anthony, which St. Athanasius enumerates in the same manner in the epilogue, or chapter 22, number 116, where we shall give the passage of St. Ephrem. The same author also, in his letter to John the monk, with a brief recapitulation of the deeds of St. Anthony (all of which are found in this Life), exhorts monks to the common life.

[49] The ancient author of the Life of St. Pachomius. The author of the Life of St. Pachomius, which Dionysius Exiguus translated already more than 1100 years ago and more, ascribes this very Life of St. Anthony to St. Athanasius: "To Blessed Anthony, St. Athanasius, Bishop of the city of Alexandria, bore testimony in his own style; a worthy narrator indeed of the way of life of Anthony, who at the request of the Brothers wrote his Life for the benefit of many, and presented him as one to be emulated by spiritual men" — which is said at number 1 in the prologue. The same author continues: "In which work he also mentions the holy Father Ammon, by whom through the grace of God the foundations of the way of life of those Brothers who now dwell on Mount Nitria were first laid; and also the very holy man Theodore, who had been with the aforesaid elder — the same Bishop indicated to us," etc. — which are contained at numbers 78, 79, and 80. Palladius, chapter 7, writes that the soul of this Ammon was seen by Anthony being carried to heaven, Palladius, and in chapter 8 records that the same was borne across the river Lycus by divine power, citing Athanasius: "This miracle," he says, "was narrated by Blessed Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, writing in the Life of Anthony." Rufinus, book 2, Lives of the Fathers, chapter 30: "When the soul of Ammon had departed from his body, St. Anthony saw it being carried to heaven, as that writing relates which describes the Life of Blessed Anthony." So also Sozomenus, book 1, chapter 14. More clearly Socrates, book 4, chapter 18: "The soul of this Ammon, after death, was seen by Anthony — who lived in the same times — being taken up to heaven by the Angels, as was recorded by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, in his Life," at the cited number 78.

[50] Rufinus. The same Rufinus, book 1, Ecclesiastical History, chapter 8: "Concerning the virtues and practices of Anthony," he says, "and the sobriety of his mind — how, living the solitary life in the wilderness, he had only the company of beasts, and winning frequent triumphs over the demons, pleased God above all mortals, and left illustrious examples of his training for monks to this very day — that little book excluded me, willing as I was to set forth something, which was written by Athanasius and also published in Latin." Socrates uses the same excuse, book 1, chapter 17: it seemed superfluous to him to commemorate the crafty battles of the demons and the many prodigies and miracles of St. Anthony, since it had been long since set forth by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, in a separate book written about his life, as will be clear to the reader.

[51] This is therefore the genuine lucubration of Athanasius himself, since all the learned who possess sounder judgment think so, and what is now contained in it is what the most weighty authors also cited from it in the very age of Athanasius himself and ever afterward. This is that notable volume which St. Jerome mentions in On Ecclesiastical Writers, in which he says the Life of St. Paul the Hermit was omitted, number 2; from which he also wrote there at number 14 about the two disciples who had long been accustomed to minister to him — which are recounted below here at number 113. In this Life are commemorated the very many miracles which St. Augustine, book 8, Confessions, chapter 6, admires. St. Augustine. This, finally, is found under the name of St. Athanasius in all the manuscript codices, some of which were written many centuries before this abnormal wisdom, which the heralds of the fifth Gospel belch forth, was formed or carved from the brain of Jupiter. The same is found in the printed editions which treat of St. Anthony, either described in full or sent into an abridgment, as will be shown in the following section. In the Notes on the Life itself the reader will find what will vindicate it for St. Athanasius, taken also from his very other works. Finally, the same spirit, the same power of the sign of the Cross, and the same monasticism are contained in the Life of St. Hilarion, the disciple of St. Anthony, written by St. Jerome; in the Life of St. Palemon on January 11; and in the Life of St. Pachomius, contemporaries of St. Anthony, as will often be said in section 15 and in the notes on the Life; and in the Life of St. Paul the Hermit, it was said by St. Jerome above on January 10.

Section XI. Whence the present edition is taken.

[52] This Life of St. Anthony was published in the Lives of the Fathers at Nuremberg in the years of Christ 1478 and 1483, and elsewhere in Germany in 1483 and 1485; at Venice in 1483, 1508, and 1512; at Lyon in 1502, 1509, 1512, 1515, 1520, and 1537; at Cologne in 1548 and 1549 — unless here a change of title produced what was one and the same printing. Printed copies. At Complutum in 1596 — which editions and names of printers Rosweyde cites in Prolegomenon 17. One may add the Wittenberg edition, from the press of Peter Seitz in the year of Christ 1544, while Luther was still living and dwelling there. Among the Lives of the Saints the same was published by Boninus Mombritius, volume 1; Aloysius Lipomanus, part 2 of the History of Saints; and Laurence Surius. But above all others, Herbert Rosweyde illuminated it with learned Preludes and Notes in the Lives of the Fathers, published at Antwerp in the years of Christ 1615 and 1627, and at Lyon in 1617. How many manuscript codices these collectors employed, who can say? And manuscripts. Theodoric Loher a Stratis, a Carthusian, in his Cologne edition of the year of Christ 1548, asserts in the dedicatory epistle that he collated eight or ten ancient and trustworthy manuscript exemplars at once. Rosweyde employed more, and illustrious ones, which Herbert Rosweyde, to whose authority he revised that life — namely, the manuscript of St. Florian written more than eight hundred years before, the Audomarense, Affligemiense, Crispiniense, Aquicinctinum, Laetiense, Moretianum, Camberonense, St. Mary of Bibracense, St. Peter at Munster, the Carthusian codex of Brussels, the codex of the Society of Jesus at Roermond, and the Sionium of the religious women of Courtrai. He himself describes the form and locations of each codex in Prolegomenon 24. After the death of Rosweyde we compared the same with the manuscripts of St. Mary of Ripatorio, two of St. Maximin, and we used. the House of St. Jerome at Utrecht, and others, as well as a Greek exemplar, about which below.

[53] The same Life was reproduced by all who published the acts of Saints in general, or of Hermits and Founders of religious congregations, even in compendium, or who compiled Annals Other narratives of the deeds of St. Anthony. or Ecclesiastical Chronicles, or composed ascetical treatises, in whatever language, lest the virtue of Anthony be unknown to any people or nation. At length, besides those cited: Vincent, book 13, Mirror of History, chapters 91, 92, and 93, and book 14, chapter 14; St. Antoninus, part 2, Chronicle, title 15, chapter 3, sections 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5; Baronius, volume 2, year of Christ 256, volume 3, years of Christ 310, 318, 319, 328, 336, 339, 340, 342, 343, and 358, and volume 4, year 385; Jean Gerson, works part 1, sermon delivered at the Council of Constance, and part 4, three sermons, of which the first was spoken before Philip I, Duke of Burgundy; Gabriel Biel, On the Feasts of the Saints, sermons 8 and 9; Jacobus de Voragine; Claudius a Rota; Peter de Natalibus, book 2, chapter 92; Zacharias Lippelous; Franciscus Haraeus; Phreslebius; John Basil Santori; Alphonsus Villegas; Peter Ribadeneira; Franciscus Ortiz Lucius; John Peter Maffeus; Gabriel Flamma; also in foreign languages. Paulus Morigia; Paulus Aresius; Silvester Maurolycus; Henricus Fabricius; Stephanus Binet; Clemens Marchantius; Jacobus Doubletius; William Gazaeus; Dionysius Lamberti; Henricus Adriani; Ludovicus Huuetter; and innumerable others. In these, besides the Life written by Athanasius, frequent mention is made of his journey to St. Paul the Hermit, which, given on January 10 from St. Jerome and others, we omit here. His apophthegmata and translations. We shall treat below of the various translations of his relics. First we shall bring forward from the Lives of the Fathers the apophthegmata and other illustrious praises of St. Anthony omitted by St. Athanasius. We shall append the miracles which, after the translation of his relics to Gaul, were performed in various provinces of Europe — few out of many, for neither were all written down, miracles, nor was it our intention to search them out assiduously, as they are nearly innumerable.

[54] The Life of St. Anthony was published in Greek at Augsburg in the year of Christ 1611, edited by David Hoeschel, the Greek Life. who also added a new Latin translation, some notes, and variant readings from the English codex of Henry Savile. The same exists in Greek and Latin in volume 2 of the works of St. Athanasius, printed at Paris in the year of Christ 1627. It is remarkable that here the new Hoeschelian version was preferred to the ancient one of Evagrius, which appeared in the earlier Commelinian edition of the year of Christ 1600 and the Parisian edition of 1608. L. Holstenius, in the preface to volume 2 of the works of St. Athanasius in the latest edition, says he can supply and emend some things in the Life of St. Anthony from the manuscript codex of the Abbey of St. Amantius, which the printer will publish separately or insert into the Hoeschelian notes. These we have not yet seen.

Section XII. The useful reading of this Life.

[55] St. Jerome in the Life of St. Marcella relates that she, having heard of the discipline of St. Anthony — then still living — and of the other monasteries of Egypt, was not ashamed to profess what she knew was pleasing to Christ. Sophronia, Paula, and others imitated her. St. Augustine, book 8, Confessions, chapter 6, narrates that on the occasion of the Life of St. Anthony found at Trier, two men there who were Agents in Affairs at the court of the Emperors, having left their betrothed, chose the solitary life. Two courtiers converted by reading this Life: "It happened," he says, "that Potitianus told us — I do not know when — of himself and three of his comrades, of course at Trier, when the Emperor was occupied with an afternoon spectacle at the circus: they went out to walk in gardens adjacent to the walls. And there, as they happened to walk in pairs, one with him apart, and the other two likewise apart, they separated; but those wandering ones burst into a certain cottage where there dwelt certain servants of Yours, poor in spirit, whose is the kingdom of heaven. And they found there a codex in which was written the Life of Anthony. Which one of them began to read, and to marvel and be kindled, and while reading to contemplate seizing upon such a life and, having left secular military service, to serve You. He was one of those who are called Agents in Affairs. Then suddenly, filled with holy love and sober shame, angry at himself, he fixed his eyes on his friend and said to him: Tell me, I beg you, with all these labors of ours, where do we strive to arrive? What are we seeking? For what end do we serve in the army? Can our hope at the palace be greater than to become friends of the Emperor? And there, what is not fragile and full of dangers? And through how many dangers do we arrive at the greater danger? And how long will this last? But a friend of God, if I wish, behold, I become one now.' He said this, and turbulent with the birth-pangs of a new life, he returned his eyes to the pages and read and was changed within, where You could see, and his mind was being stripped of the world, as soon appeared. For as he read and turned over the waves of his heart, he stormed at times and discerned and determined better things. And now Yours, he said to his friend: 'I have now broken free from that hope of ours and have determined to serve God, and I begin this from this very hour, in this place. If it irks you to imitate me, do not oppose me.' The other replied that he would cling to his companion for so great a reward and so great a service. And both, now Yours, were building a tower at the fitting cost of leaving all their possessions and following You. Then Potitianus and he who was walking with him in other parts of the garden, seeking them, came to the same place, and finding them, warned them to return, since the day had already declined. But they, having told of their resolve and purpose, and how such a will had arisen and been confirmed in them, asked that they not trouble them if they refused to join them. Those others, in no way changed from their former state, nevertheless wept for themselves, as they said, and piously congratulated them, and commended themselves to their prayers, and dragging their hearts on the earth, went away to the palace. But those two, fixing their hearts on heaven, remained in the cottage. And both had betrothed. Who, after they heard this, also dedicated their virginity to You." Potitianus narrated these things.

[56] Which reading indeed, as it profited those men at that time, so this repeated narrative stimulated the spirit of St. Augustine to better things. For he adds in chapter 7: And St. Augustine himself by their example. "But You, O Lord, amid his words, were turning me back upon myself, taking me from behind my back where I had placed myself when I did not wish to attend to myself, and You were setting me before my own face, that I might see how foul I was, and how crooked, filthy, spotted, and ulcerous. And I saw and was horrified, and there was no place to flee from myself. And if I tried to turn my gaze from myself, he narrated what he narrated, and You again set me opposite myself and thrust me into my own eyes, that I might find my iniquity and hate it. I knew it, but I dissembled and connived and forgot. But then, the more ardently I loved those of whom I heard such wholesome dispositions — that they had given themselves wholly to You to be healed — so much more abominably did I hate myself compared to them." That these things happened in the thirty-third year of the age of St. Augustine, the year of Christ 387, the following passages indicate. We omit more recent instances, of which very many could be brought forward to persuade the reading of this Life. For what the author of the Life of St. Pachomius wrote of his own age — and others. that the Life of St. Anthony was at that time nobly set before all for imitation — is certain to have held the same force in all subsequent ages.

Section XIII. The public veneration of St. Anthony.

[57] It was commonly said that even the elements mourned the death of Anthony, because for an entire three years after his death the heavens were closed and those lands of Egypt and the Thebaid were parched with drought. So says St. Jerome in the Life of St. Hilarion, whom he also records as having been divinely informed of Anthony's death while absent, and who three years later set out for the mountain of St. Anthony in order to celebrate a night-long vigil at the very place where he had died, as he acknowledged was his duty. He went, and lay upon his bed, and kissed the couch as though it were still warm. Macarius too, who had buried the body of his master, persuaded St. Posthumius not to disdain visiting the relics of St. Anthony, prince of anchorites, as the acts of the latter attest. The feast day of St. Anthony celebrated among the Syrians. That his feast day soon came to be celebrated in Syria is indicated by the Acts of St. Euthymius the Abbot, composed by the monk Cyril, where it is said that he commanded, when the festival of the divine Anthony arrived, that they should keep vigil in the church throughout the entire night; and when those nocturnal hymns had been completed by him, etc. After he had remained three days in the diaconate, on the night of Saturday he fell asleep in peace on the twentieth day of the month of January, in the sixteenth year of the reign of Leo, who succeeded Marcian in the year of Christ 457 — a full century after the death of St. Anthony, whose feast day was also necessarily reckoned by them as January 17. This is confirmed in the Life published by Boninus Mombritius, where at the end one reads: St. Anthony was buried on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of February. That day was for the Egyptians the 22nd of the month of Tybi, as Rosweyde shows in the Onomasticon, on which day it is thus recorded in the ancient Coptic, or Egyptian, Menologion: Among the Egyptians. St. Anthony, terrestrial star and Father of all monks.

[58] Following the Syrians and Egyptians, the Greeks venerate him with a very celebrated office, as their various responsories, antiphons, canticles, the Greeks, and odes attest. Among other things, hymns composed by the Studite, Anatolius, and Theophanes are sung. A double Gospel is recited: one at Matins, "All things have been delivered to me by my Father" (Matthew 11, from verse 27); the other, "Jesus stood on a level place" (Luke 6, from verse 17). The latter is read in the Roman office on the feast of several Martyrs; the former on the feast of St. Matthias the Apostle and of St. Francis. The Greek Menaea and Anthologion may be consulted, in which "the memory of our holy and God-bearing Father Anthony the Great" is celebrated in the most holy great church at Constantinople. Maximus of Cythera transcribed the same from the Menaea, in whose epitome and Horologion the notation "rest and relaxation" is appended, indicating that all servile work was forbidden on that day. He is also mentioned in the Menologion of Christopher of Mytilene and in the Calendar of the Greeks published by Genebrard.

[59] The Latins likewise celebrated St. Anthony on the same day from time immemorial. The manuscript Martyrology of St. Jerome reads: "In Egypt, the burial of St. Anthony the monk." The Rhinow manuscript: "In Egypt, Anthony the monk." The Latins. The manuscript of St. Martin of Trier has the same. The old Roman edition published by Rosweyde: "In the Thebaid, Anthony the monk." The very ancient Irish manuscript also mentions him. The ancient Centula manuscript: "In Egypt, in the Thebaid, the burial of Blessed Anthony the Abbot, who consecrated many thousands of monks to the service of Christ, and lived most illustrious in life and miracles." The Laetiense manuscript and that of St. Martin of Tournai: "In Egypt, St. Anthony the monk, who, being of the most abstinent life, flourished with many miracles, whose life Blessed Athanasius wrote." Very many other Martyrologies also record the translation of his body, which will be treated separately below. Thus Usuard: "In the Thebaid, Blessed Anthony the monk, whose body, under the Emperor Justinian, was discovered by divine revelation, brought to Alexandria, and buried in the church of St. John the Baptist." Bede, Ado, Rabanus, Notker, Bellinus, and very many manuscripts have the same together with his translation, in which more details from the Life of St. Anthony are narrated at greater length and paraphrastically from St. Athanasius. The Roman Martyrology: "In the Thebaid, St. Anthony the Abbot, who, father of many monks, lived most illustrious in life and miracles; whose deeds Athanasius set forth in a distinguished volume." Maurolycus, Galesininus, Felicius, and other more recent writers also present him in their Martyrologies.

[60] Gavantus, in his Commentary on the Rubrics of the Breviary, section 7, chapter 3, says that the commemoration of St. Anthony is celebrated in an Appendix to the manuscript Sacramentary of St. Gregory, added not long after his death. The feast of Anthony the monk is noted in the very ancient Calendar of the monastery of Echternach, written around the year of Christ 740. The office of his day. Gavantus adds that his office is recorded as Simple in a manuscript Breviary, as Semi-double in a printed one of the year of Christ 1550, and was instituted as Double by Pius V. But in the Roman Missal printed at Venice in 1508, it is written: "The feast of Anthony the Abbot, solemn everywhere." In the Breviary of Paul III, arranged by Cardinal Quignonez, it was a Lesser Double. So much for the Roman rite. In others, the practices of various churches differ. In some only a commemoration was made; in others, offices of three lessons are recorded; in others, nine; and more often it is noted as Double. In certain printed Gallican and English editions his name does not appear, but this day is claimed by St. Sulpitius, about whom more below. It had also long been a Double in many printed editions, such as the ancient Belgian ones of Antwerp, Brussels, Bruges, St. Omer, and the Windesheim Canons Regular, that of Evora in Portugal, Schleswig in Denmark, and the Ambrosian rite of Milan, among others — although in very many it was of three lessons. In many Benedictine Breviaries, according to their customary rite, it is of twelve lessons. The lessons in virtually all cases are drawn from the Life of St. Anthony. Some additional details will be appended below, when the Translation and the cure of the sacred fire — commonly called St. Anthony's fire — are treated.

Section XIV. The Teaching of St. Anthony.

[61] Rodolph Hospinian, Abraham Scultetus, and Andrew Rivet assert that contradictory things are reported of Anthony: namely, that he was a legal advocate and very learned, and yet is called unlearned and ignorant of letters by his biographer. Rosweyde learnedly refuted the first two; had Rivet weighed his arguments with a calm mind, he would have refrained from his rather harsh — though quite habitual — censure. For he would have perceived what Rosweyde pointed out: that a certain Anthony of Alexandria praised by Suidas — perhaps a pagan — who pleaded his sister's case at Alexandria and Byzantium, St. Anthony was not an advocate, is rashly confused with St. Anthony by these writers, as Rosweyde demonstrates at length. Nor was St. Anthony an Alexandrian. That he should be called an advocate in some hidden and more sacred sense, but a patron of the wretched, we shall by no means resist; for he did approach judges on behalf of the wretched, defended the accused, implored mercy, and secured the acquittal of some, as related in section 108. The audacity of the heretics, who boasted that he shared the Arian views on religion, he quashed, having set out from the inner desert to Alexandria for that sole reason; there he pleaded the cause of the sacred orthodox faith, and indeed himself publicly condemned the Arians in an address, sections 91 and 92. He very often came to the aid of the beleaguered Athanasius, as Sozomen attests in book 2, chapter 29. He wrote to the Emperor on Athanasius's behalf, and besought him not to assent to the opinion of the Meletians, but to regard their accusations as calumnies. This was his teaching; this was the office of the most holy advocate; and defender of the Faith. these were the roles of the mystical advocate, all the more effective because he pleaded by virtue more than by tongue. For this reason he is numbered among the foremost defenders of the Council of Nicaea by Socrates, Nicephorus, and Sozomen. The words of the last, in book 3, chapter 12, are these: "Beyond all others who dwelt in the East, Paul, Bishop of Constantinople, Athanasius of Alexandria, and the whole multitude of monks were seen to cling most tenaciously to the decrees of the Council of Nicaea; indeed also Anthony the Great, who was still alive, and all who dwelt with him."

[62] But his erudition was also evident in other matters, as Athanasius himself attests in that acute disputation with philosophers, full of a certain divine genius, concerning the mysteries of the Christian Faith, which is reported in chapter 17; and in the sublime discourse delivered to the disciples on the continual renewal of the mind, on the nature, stratagems, and weakness of demons, and on the discernment of spirits, which is described in chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, and was committed to writing either by Anthony himself or by his disciples. Eminently learned. For St. Jerome also numbered St. Anthony among the ecclesiastical writers: "He sent," he says in chapter 88, "in the Egyptian language, to various monasteries, seven letters of apostolic sense and speech, which were translated into the Greek language, he writes letters, of which the principal one is addressed to the Arsenoites." Concerning these, Symphorian Champier writes thus in his letter to Hector Dallus, Protonotary of the Apostolic See: "I know not whether to admire more the gravity or the sweetness. For Anthony begins most aptly, narrates the histories of the Prophets lucidly, inveighs sharply, ornaments variously, and concludes artfully. So fitly, so ornately, so copiously, so beautifully did Anthony speak in his letters." This letter of Champier's is prefixed to the letters of St. Anthony themselves, rendered into Latin by Valerius Sarasius, and other works, in the Library of the Fathers: the first Paris edition, volume 1; the second and third Paris editions, volume 3; and the Cologne edition, volume 4. In these the Master of the Sacred Palace admonished that what is said of the angels grieving or being saddened by human evils should be taken not literally but metaphorically. There has also been published under the name of St. Anthony a brief sermon on the vanity of the world and the resurrection of the dead, edited by Gerard Voss from an ancient manuscript of Aldus Manutius, and printed together with the letters in the Cologne edition of the Library of the Fathers. Trithemius, in his book on ecclesiastical writers, attributes to St. Anthony the celebrated work in two books called the Melissa, that is, the Little Bee. But Possevinus in his Sacred Apparatus shows that Trithemius is mistaken, and the work is omitted in the Frankfurt edition of 1601.

[63] Whether he was entirely ignorant of letters. Regarding these and other letters of his to Emperors and others, it may be debated whether they were composed by his own hand, or rather were conceived by divine inspiration and dictated to a secretary. For as a boy he did not allow himself to be instructed in letters (section 3); and, although he had not learned letters, he was most ingenious and most prudent (section 93); and the wise men of the world wished to ridicule him because he was ignorant of letters (section 95); therefore, as stated in section 87, he was taught by God, according to what is written. Both of these things are attested of him by St. Augustine in the Prologue to book 1 of On Christian Doctrine: "Anthony," he says, "a holy and perfect man, an Egyptian monk, is reported to have committed the divine Scriptures to memory by hearing alone, without any knowledge of letters, and to have understood them by prudent reflection." The same is inscribed in the commonly received Martyrology of Bede, of Ado, of Notker, and of others, and in the book of Trithemius on ecclesiastical writers. The same is implied in the Life, section 7: "He applied such attention to the hearing of the Scriptures that nothing slipped from his mind; but keeping all the Lord's commandments, he had his memory in place of books." Moreover, Evagrius Ponticus, a disciple of St. Macarius of Egypt, in his book on monks as found in Socrates, book 4, chapter 18, teaches that the nature of things created by God served Anthony in place of books: "To a certain one of those who at that time were considered wise men," he says, "who came to the just Anthony and asked how he could sustain his life deprived of that solace which is obtained from books, he replied: My book, O Philosopher, is the nature of things created by God, which, whenever my mind desires, supplies the very books of God for reading." Or, as it is reported in book 6 of the Lives of the Fathers, translated by John, booklet 4, number 16: "which is accustomed to be present to me whenever I wish to read the words of God."

[64] But perhaps this reported ignorance of letters means that he did not know the Greek language, which at that time was familiar and domestic to the Egyptians. Or only of Greek letters. Thus Eulogius of Alexandria, a Scholastic of the liberal arts, knew Greek, not the Egyptian language (Palladius, chapter 26). But Abbot Joseph in Cassian, Conference 26, chapter 1, because he was a leading citizen of his city of Thmuis, was diligently educated in both Egyptian and Greek eloquence. Consider too that it is never recorded that he wrote through another, as he is said to have addressed others through an interpreter who was accustomed to render his words most carefully into the Greek language (sections 94 and 96). And in the Life of St. Hilarion by St. Jerome, Isaac is called the interpreter of Anthony; and in Palladius, chapter 26, Cronius was his verbal interpreter, and of the liberal arts, since blessed Anthony did not know Greek — the language in which sacred and profane books were almost entirely written, and for this reason he was despised by the philosophers, since he was also ignorant of the other liberal arts. Thus in common estimation those are considered unlettered and unlearned who nonetheless can read and write in their vernacular language, and even compose books. And how, in section 8, is he said to have "emulated the diligence of the brethren in reading," if he could not read at all? However the matter may stand, this was nobly declared by Sozomen, book 1, chapter 13, concerning St. Anthony: "He neither knew letters nor esteemed them highly; but he praised above all a pure mind, as being more ancient than letters and the inventor of them."

Section XV. The Monastic Discipline of St. Anthony.

[65] Scultetus denies that he can find in this history of St. Anthony the laws of monastic life which Gregory of Nazianzus writes that Athanasius wished to promulgate under the pretext of a narrative. Those devoted to the ascetic life have indeed found them hitherto, and continue to find them daily, who study it with the desire of imitation. The monastic rule expressed in the Life of St. Anthony. Nor is it surprising if they escape the notice of those whose mental eyes are dimmed by the pursuit of carnal desires. Nor would it be necessary to point them out here, since they will readily present themselves upon reading; were it not that it seemed worthwhile to distribute briefly into their respective categories all that monastic discipline which he exercised and handed down, drawn both from the Life of Anthony himself, of Hilarion, of Abraham, of Palamon, of Pachomius, and from the Institutes of Cassian.

[66] Let us begin with the habit, by which monks are distinguished from other mortals. The habit. St. Hilarion, when he saw St. Anthony, changed his former garb and remained with him. Likewise St. Palamon, discerning with spiritual eyes the faith of Pachomius, at length opened the way and, receiving him, consecrated him with the monastic habit, as was said above on January 11, section 4. This change of garment, when one is consecrated as a monk, is described by St. Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chapter 6; and the garb dedicated to God is mentioned by Tertullian, On the Veiling of Virgins, chapter 3. That one renouncing the world was customarily clothed in the vestments of the monastery, by the hands of the Abbot, in the midst of the brethren, is taught by Cassian, book 4 of the Institutes, chapter 5. Concerning his own garments, Anthony disposed as follows before his death (section 114): "Give the sheepskin cloak and the worn pallium on which I lie to Bishop Athanasius, which he himself brought to me when new. Let Serapion receive the other sheepskin cloak; keep for yourselves the hair-cloth garment." And in section 61: "He wore a garment of hair-cloth on the inside, and a skin garment on the outside." St. Hilarion used the same garments, "covered in sackcloth and having a leather tunic which blessed Anthony had given him when he departed after his monastic consecration, and a rustic cloak." Sackcloth is called in that passage a sackcloth tunic, a hair-cloth tunic, and a cilicium by St. Jerome: "The sackcloth in which he had once been clothed he never washed, saying it was superfluous to seek cleanliness in hair-cloth." Likewise St. Abraham the Hermit is described as clothed in a cloak and hair-cloth tunic by St. Ephrem the Deacon (March 16); the inner garment, for some a cilicium, and blessed Pachomius, to humble his own body, very often wore a cilicium. In place of this, the ordinary inner garment of monks was of linen, called the lebiton or colobium, which in the same passage is said to be worn by monks throughout the Thebaid and Egypt; they would change it when filth required washing. Cassian, book 1, chapter 5: "Clothed in linen colobiums which barely reach the ends of their elbows, they go about with the rest of their arms bare." And Isidore, book 19 of the Etymologies, chapter 22: "The libitonarium is a colobium without sleeves, such as the monks of Egypt use"; and rather than the hair-cloth garment, says Cassian in chapter 4, "because the latter is unsuitable and unfit for the practice of the necessary labor in which a monk must always go about active and unencumbered; and also, if it should be seen, it affords the vanity of ostentation." So much for the inner garment.

[67] The outer garment, the melote or leather tunic. The outer garment was of skin, and therefore called the melote, fitted and made from the skins of sheep or goats, together with the wool stripped from the body. The Greek word melon more often signifies a sheep (Homer, Odyssey 14) and sometimes a goat. Thus St. Paul the Simple struck a demoniac with his own sheepskin. And in the Rule of St. Pachomius, in his Life: "Let each one have a melote, that is, a prepared white goatskin, without which they shall neither eat nor sleep." But Palladius, chapter 38: "Let each have a worked sheepskin." And Cassian, chapter 8: "The last part of their garb is a goatskin, which is called a melote or pera" — where Gazaeus considers pera to stand for penula. Sozomen, book 3, chapter 13, explains the reason for this garment: "These," he says of the monks of Egypt, "clothed themselves in skins after the example of Elijah the Tishbite, so that each one, by the skin wrapped about his body, might always call to mind the virtue of the Prophet and vigorously contend against the desires of the flesh." Or perhaps they imitated those of whom the Apostle, cited by Cassian, speaks: "They wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, tormented — of whom the world was not worthy — wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes of the earth" Hebrews 11:37. St. Jerome calls the mantle of Elijah a melote in epistle 28 to Lucinus, following the Septuagint translators at 3 Kings 19:19 and 4 Kings 2:8; and Cronius in Palladius, chapter 26, and Paschasius, chapter 19, number 3, and below in the Apophthegmata, number 46, saw St. Anthony clad in a skin cloak, which St. Jerome in the Life of St. Hilarion also calls a tunic, a cowl, and a leather tunic. A cowl perhaps on account of the hood which is also a cuculla, or cucullion attached to it, by which the head was covered as far as the borders of the neck and shoulders, as Cassian relates in chapter 4; and the cowl covered the head of St. Pachomius.

[68] An ependytes, in Greek ependytes, is an upper or outermost garment. The verb ependyomai means "I am clothed over," as in Plutarch's Life of Pelopidas. And the ependytes. Thus it is used for the melote in the Life of St. Anthony, section 61: "Anthony, fearless, disregarding the persecutor's edict, washed his ependytes." And on another day, "standing in a certain elevated place, girt in a shining white garment, he provoked the passing judge by his very appearance, burning with the desire for martyrdom." Here it should be observed, first, that Anthony appeared in a clean and bright garment, so that by this attire he might present himself as a monk offering himself for martyrdom as for a banquet with a cheerful spirit; and thus the Greek reads: "To appear to the governor as splendid," or conspicuous. Second, of white color, that the translator Evagrius rendered it as "girt in a shining white garment," because it was white, gleaming from washing. He could have known this from the melote offered to St. Athanasius after the death of St. Anthony, which he himself or St. Eusebius had seen at Alexandria. And in the Rule of St. Pachomius, both in his Life and in Palladius, it is prescribed that the melote be made from white skin. Rosweyde in his Notes, number 56, and Baronius, volume 2, year of Christ 256, number 19, have difficulty here: the latter would have St. Anthony don white garments so as to be recognized as a Christian; but it was monks, not other Christians, who were expelled from the city by public edict. Rosweyde, for his part, would have him come in white so that, mingled with Egyptians dressed in white, he might proceed more safely, since monks, who were recognized by their dark garments, were forbidden the city. But it is quite certain that what is meant here is an ependytes that had been washed bright the day before, especially if the Greek is compared with the Latin. Moreover, the ependytes or melote was a garment proper to monks, as the ascetical writers state concerning the ependytes in Rosweyde's Onomasticon, and in the Life of St. Pachomius: "Except for the melotes, which women do not have, the entire form of their discipline was approved as being similar to that of the monks."

[69] Third, it should be observed that this garment was customarily girded, "so that the monk," as Cassian says in chapter 2, "might go about with loins girded like a soldier of Christ." Thus Elijah and John the Baptist are said to have been bound with a leather belt, as St. Jerome notes in epistle 8 to Demetrias and in his commentary on Matthew 3. St. Dorotheus, in Doctrine 1 on Renunciation, having listed among the God-bearing Fathers of monks Anthony, Pachomius, Macarius, and others, says: "We have," the leather belt, speaking of the garment, "a leather belt about our loins. This is a sign that we are girded for every task, so that we may be ready and prepared as quickly as possible."

[70] These were the ordinary garments of St. Anthony, to which he often added a pallium which he had received from St. Athanasius — a double one; one, now worn, was sent back to Athanasius after his death; the other he wrapped around the body of St. Paul. In the Life of St. Hilarion it is called a rustic cloak, a pallium, and a small mantle: The pallium, or maforte, which Cassian in chapter 7 calls a maforte. "With a narrow mantle," he says, "covering the neck and shoulders alike, they pursue both humility of dress and cheapness of price and economy, which in both our language and theirs are called mafortes." But this gift of St. Athanasius was undoubtedly a broader and longer pallium, not unlike the upper capes of monks; and so Baronius, at the year of Christ 57, number 97, considers that the pallium gradually fell out of common use among the faithful and came to be reserved for those professing the monastic life. In this pallium St. Anthony lay on his deathbed, whereas at other times, when giving rest to his limbs, he used a mat woven of rushes (Pelagius, book 5, book 8, number 1, calls it a matta in the Apophthegmata, number 7) and a hair-cloth, section 14. And Sozomen, book 1, chapter 13: "He took his sleep on a small mat, and not infrequently lying on the ground, he used the bare earth for his bed." So St. Hilarion slept on the bare ground and on a rush mat until his death. The cell of St. Anthony, moreover, did not contain in its square dimensions more space than a man could stretch out while sleeping, as St. Jerome attests in the Life of St. Hilarion. So much for the garments.

[71] His manner of diet is described in the Life, section 18, to which these words of Sozomen correspond: Diet: bread, salt, water. "His food was bread only, with salt; his drink, water; his mealtime, sunset. He often abstained from food for two days and more; indeed, even then his meal was extremely meager." Below, in the Apophthegmata, numbers 51 and 53, the old man after a five-day fast ate a single paximatum, or paxamidion — that is, a dry bread of six ounces — moistened with water. For in the Life, section 22, following the custom of the Thebans, he stored with him bread sufficient for six months, since it customarily lasted for a year without spoiling. The prescribed meal for monks, however, was bread alone in two paximacia — small loaves which Cassian teaches barely weighed one pound (Conference 2, chapter 19; and book 4 of the Institutes, chapter 14). And St. Anthony, in Rufinus, book 2 of the Lives of the Fathers, chapter 31, instructed St. Paul the Simple to take food in the evening, but to observe that he never reach the point of satiety, and especially in drink, affirming that phantasms of the mind are produced no less by an abundance of water than bodily heat is increased by wine.

[72] And this dry eating was called by them xerophagy. Another practice was homophagy, when they ate raw and uncooked vegetables moistened with water and seasoned with salt; for xeros means "dry" and omos means "raw." Thus in section 67, he cultivated vegetables so that visiting guests might be refreshed with some solace. Among their delicacies, raw vegetables. Cassian, book 4 of the Institutes, chapter 11, asserts that it was counted a delicacy among them "if herbs seasoned with salt — which they call lapsanium — diluted with water, were set before the brethren at the meal. These things neither the climate of this province (Gaul) nor the condition of our frailty permits." And speaking of the monasteries in chapter 24: "Nor is so great care spent among them on preparing or cooking food, since they chiefly practice xerophagy and homophagy, and among them the supreme pleasure consists in leek leaves cut monthly, lapsanium, roasted salt, olives, and tiny salted fish which they call moenidia." Therefore St. Anthony wished to send Paul the Simple away to a monastery, as in the Apophthegmata, number 51, where the brethren could bear his weakness; and in number 46, being in a monastery, he ordered lentils to be prepared for guests — that food or red stew for which Esau sold his birthright (Genesis 25:34). Let the reader consult the Lives of Saints Hilarion and Pachomius, and Cassian, book 4 of the Institutes, chapters 17 through 23.

[73] There remains his daily regimen of exercise. After his death, his disciples pointed out to St. Hilarion each place, saying: "Here he was accustomed to sing psalms, manual labor accompanied by psalms or conference, here to pray, here to work, here to sit when weary. He himself planted these vines, these little trees; he himself arranged that garden bed with his own hands" — so St. Jerome in the Life of St. Hilarion. First, as regards the psalms: "Throughout all Egypt and the Thebaid," says Cassian, book 2 of the Institutes, chapter 4, "the number of twelve psalms is observed in both the evening and the nocturnal solemnities, but in such a way that after these, two readings — one from the Old and one from the New Testament — follow." This practice, established in antiquity (long before St. Anthony, as he shows in the following chapter), "for that reason endures inviolate even now after so many centuries in all the monasteries of those regions; because it was not established by human invention, but is affirmed by the elders to have been delivered from heaven to the Fathers by the teaching of an angel" — which he then explains. By this rite, St. Anthony in the Apophthegmata, number 53, sings a psalm with Paul the Simple which he knew; and when he had sung it twelve times, he prayed twelve times — this was in the evening. And at midnight he roused him for prayer, etc. — on which we say more in the Apophthegmata, number 26. That prayer should not be omitted even during work is taught in number 27 and in the Life, section 7. And Cassian throughout books 2 and 3, where the following is found in chapter 2: "Among them, those offices which we are driven to pay to the Lord at the admonition of a summoner, through the division of Hours" (which in chapter 3 he calls Terce, Sext, and None) "and through intervals of time, are celebrated spontaneously throughout the entire span of the day, with the addition of manual labor. For among them the labor of the hands is practiced unceasingly in private throughout their cells, in such a way that the meditation of the psalms and of the other Scriptures is also never entirely omitted. Mingling prayers and orations at every moment with these, they consume in these offices — which we celebrate at a fixed time — the entire day. Wherefore, except for the evening and nocturnal gatherings, there is no public solemnity among them, apart from the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, on which they assemble at the third hour for the purpose of the sacred Communion." That both the Sabbath and the Lord's Day were customarily observed as feast days is shown by Clement, book 6 of the Constitutions, chapter 24; Socrates, book 6, chapter 8; and Cassian passim. On other days, private meditation succeeded the nocturnal solemnity, which they carried out with the addition of labor, as Cassian attests in book 2, chapters 13 and 14, "lest sleep steal upon them as upon the idle. For just as scarcely any time of leisure is allowed among them, so too no end is imposed even upon spiritual meditation." Conferences also frequently took place during work. Thus St. Anthony and St. Macarius of Egypt, sitting from evening and conversing about the profit of souls, were weaving a plait from palm branches, as was said in section 6; and more will be said below about St. Anthony in the Apophthegmata, number 27. St. Hilarion, weaving small baskets from rushes, emulated the discipline of the Egyptian monks. And Saints Palamon and Pachomius wove hair-cloths and worked with their hands to give to the poor (as noted above on January 11, section 4) — which St. Anthony in the Apophthegmata, chapter 1, teaches at length should be done, and is said to have done himself in the Life, section 7.

LIFE

BY ST. ATHANASIUS, BISHOP.

Anthony the Great, Abbot in the Thebaid (Saint)

BHL Number: 0609

By St. Athanasius.

PROLOGUE OF EVAGRIUS THE TRANSLATOR.

The priest Evagrius sends greetings in the Lord to Innocentius, his most dear son.

A translation expressed word for word from one language into another obscures the sense, and, like rank grass, chokes what has been planted. For when speech is enslaved to cases and figures, what could be expressed in brief discourse it barely unfolds through long circumlocutions. Avoiding this, therefore, I have transposed the Life of Blessed Anthony, at your request, in such a way that nothing is lost from the sense, though something may be lost from the words. Let others pursue syllables and letters; do you seek the meaning.

PROLOGUE OF THE AUTHOR.

[1] Athanasius the Bishop, to the brethren abroad.

You have entered upon an excellent contest, brethren, striving either to equal or to surpass the monks of Egypt in the pursuit of virtue. At whose urging the Life of Anthony was written. For already among you there are very many monasteries, and the name of monks is celebrated; and anyone would justly admire this resolve of yours; and God will grant the desired effect to your prayers. Since, therefore, you have demanded of me that I write for you about the manner of life of Blessed Anthony — wishing to learn how he began, what he was before his holy resolve, what manner of end his life had, and whether the things which fame has spread abroad about him are true — so that you might form yourselves after his example and emulation, I have received the command of your charity with great joy. For it is indeed a great gain and profit to me simply to remember Anthony; a way to virtue. and I know that you too, upon hearing and marveling, will desire to pursue his resolve. For a perfect way to virtue is to know who Anthony was.

[2] Therefore, to speak briefly: both believe all the things that report has broadcast about him, and consider that you have heard the least of the greatest; for I do not doubt that those reporters were unable to learn everything, since I too, urged by you, however much I convey by letter, shall not narrate things equal to his merits. But do all of you, sailing hence, diligently inquire, so that, as each person relates what he knows, a fitting and worthy account of so great a name may be completed. I was preparing, therefore, after reading your letter, to invite some monks to visit me, and especially those who had been accustomed to go to him frequently, so that, learning something more fully, I might send you greater gifts. But since the sailing season was passing, it is careful and solid, and the letter-bearer was pressing most urgently, therefore I hastened to convey to your love those things which I myself knew (for I visited him frequently) and those which I learned from one who, in attending to provide him with water, spent no small time with him — having in both cases a care for truth, lest anyone, hearing too much, not believe the accumulation of miracles, or again, learning things inferior to his merits, not think a miracle worthy of so great a name.

CHAPTER I.

The pious upbringing of St. Anthony. The anchoretic life.

[3] Anthony, born of noble and devout parents, was a native of Egypt, raised with such care by his family Born of noble stock, that he knew nothing beyond his parents and his home. And when he was still a boy, he did not allow himself to be instructed in letters, nor did he consent to join in the idle tales of children; but, burning with desire for God, according to what is written, he lived innocently at home. Genesis 25:27. Coming often to church with his parents, he did not follow the frivolities of infants or the negligence of boys; piously reared, but, listening only to what was read, he preserved the usefulness of the precepts through the ordering of his life. He was never a burden to his parents, as is usual at that age, on account of varied and dainty foods; he did not pursue the enticements of more delicate fare; content with what was given, he required nothing more.

[4] After the death of his parents, left at about the age of eighteen or twenty with a very young sister, he bore the honorable care both of the household and of his sister. Not yet six months had passed when, hastening to church as was his custom, frequent in church, he recalled how the Apostles, having despised all things, had followed the Savior; and how many, as is read in the Acts of the Apostles, had sold their possessions and brought the proceeds to the feet of the Apostles to be distributed to the needy, and what great hope was stored up for them in heaven. Acts 4:35. Turning such things over in his mind, he entered the church; an attentive hearer, and it happened that the Gospel was then being read, in which the Lord says to the rich man: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and come, follow me, and you shall have treasure in heaven." Matthew 19:21. Hearing this, as though he had conceived such a thought by divine inspiration beforehand, and as though the Scripture had been recited for his sake, he applied the Lord's command to himself. Immediately returning, he sold the possessions he had. Now his fields were three hundred arurae, fertile and very excellent, he sells his possessions, which he bestowed upon his neighbors, lest any burden be imposed on himself or his sister. The rest, however, which he possessed in movable goods, he sold entirely; and, having gathered no small sum, he gave it to the needy, though reserving a little for his sister, who seemed weaker on account of both her sex and her age.

[5] But entering the church once more, when he heard the Lord saying in the Gospel, "Do not be anxious about tomorrow," he distributed the remaining portion also to the poor; nor did he allow himself to remain at home, but, having commended his sister to faithful and well-known virgins to be nurtured by their example, he renounces the world, he himself, now free from all the chains of the world, seized upon a harsh and arduous way of life. Matthew 6:34.

[6] There were not yet, however, so many monasteries in Egypt; nor did anyone at all know the remote wilderness. He withdraws a little from home. But whoever wished to benefit himself in the service of Christ was trained not far from his own small estate. There was, therefore, in a neighboring field an old man who had pursued the solitary life from his earliest years. When Anthony saw him, he emulated him for good. And at first he too began to dwell in places a little more removed from the village; then, he imitates the better ones, if he discovered anyone diligent in this pursuit, he went forth to seek him, like the most prudent bee, and did not return to his dwelling until he had enjoyed the sight of the one he desired; and thus, as if having received an offering of honey, he departed for home.

[7] Having been trained in such beginnings in that place, as he strengthened his resolve daily so that he thought neither of his paternal wealth nor of his relatives, he works with his hands, and directed all his desire and solicitude toward what he had undertaken, he worked with his own hands, knowing it was written: "He who does not work shall not eat." 2 Thessalonians 3:10. The earnings from his work, however, apart from what he spent on bread, he distributed to the needy. He prayed frequently, having learned that one ought to pray to the Lord without ceasing. He also applied such attention to the hearing of the Scriptures that nothing slipped from his mind; he devotes himself to prayer and the Scriptures, but, keeping all the Lord's commandments, he held his memory in place of books.

[8] Ordering his life in this way, he was loved by all the brethren with a pure affection; and, being obedient to all those to whom he went for the sake of learning, he drew from each his particular graces: he reproduces the virtues of others, he pursued the temperance of one and the cheerfulness of another; he emulated the gentleness of this one, the vigilance of that one, the reading diligence of yet another; he marveled at this one's fasting and that one's sleeping on the ground; he praised the patience of one and the meekness of another. And retaining from all a reciprocal love toward himself, and irrigated by every part of virtue, he would return to his own place. There, turning all these things over within himself, he strove to express in himself the good qualities of all. And he strives to surpass them. Nor was he ever moved to rivalry against those of his own age, but only this flame grew in the breast of that excellent man: that he should not be found second to anyone in the aforementioned works. And this he did in such a way that, while he surpassed all in glory, he was nevertheless dear to all. For both the neighbors and the monks to whom he often came, seeing Anthony, called him a lover of God; and, laying aside the terms of nature, Called a lover of God, some loved him as a son, others as a brother.

CHAPTER II.

The first victory over the devil. Strict abstinence.

[9] Beset by diabolical snares. While Anthony was doing these things, by which he attracted the affection of all toward himself, the devil, the enemy of the Christian name, unable to bear such great virtues in a youth, assailed him with his veteran deceits. And first, testing whether he might somehow drag him away from his chosen course, he cast into his mind the memory of his possessions, the protection of his sister, the nobility of his family, the love of material things, the fleeting glory of the world, the varied pleasure of food, and the remaining enticements of a more relaxed life. Finally he suggested the arduous end of virtue and the immense labor of attaining it, as well as the fragility of the body and the long span of years ahead — in short, he stirred up a great fog of thoughts in him, wishing to recall him from his purpose.

[10] He overcomes them by prayer. After the devil understood that he was being crushed by Anthony's prayers to God through faith in the Passion, seizing the weapons customarily used against all young men, he disturbed him with nocturnal enticements. And first by night he attempted to harass him with a hostile multitude and horrible fearful sounds. By day also he assailed him with such open weapons that no one could doubt that Anthony was fighting against the devil. For the devil strove to implant foul thoughts, and Anthony repelled them by constant prayer. The devil titillated his senses with the natural ardor of the flesh; Anthony fortified his entire body with faith, vigils, fasts, vigils, and fasts. The devil at night transformed himself into the adornment of a beautiful woman, leaving out no fiction of lasciviousness; Anthony, recalling the avenging flames of Gehenna and the pain of the worm, opposed the lust thrust upon him. The devil proposed the slippery path of youth remembrance of the last things and the ease of falling; Anthony, considering the eternal torments of the future judgment, preserved the purity of his soul inviolate through temptation. All these things occurred to the confusion of the devil; for he who thought he could become like God was now mocked as most miserable by a youth; and he who raged against flesh and blood was crushed by a man who bore flesh. For the Lord aided his servant — He who for our sake took flesh, and granted the body victory over the devil — so that each one fighting thus might utter the Apostle's saying: "Not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me." 1 Corinthians 15:57.

[11] At last, when the most hideous serpent could not destroy Anthony even by this stratagem, and saw that he was always repelled from his thoughts, gnashing his teeth and wailing as is written, he appeared fittingly in his true form and face: a horrible and black boy, who, throwing himself at Anthony's knees, wept with a human voice, saying: He sees the spirit of fornication in hideous form. "I have seduced many; I have deceived very many; but now, just as by other Saints, I have been overcome by your effort." When Anthony asked who it was that spoke such things, he replied: "I am the companion of fornication; I have wielded manifold weapons of turpitude against all young men; hence I am called the spirit of fornication. Mark 9:18. How many who resolved to live chastely have I deceived! How many who were making a slender beginning have I persuaded to return to their former filth! Hosea 4:12. I am the one on whose account the Prophet rebukes the fallen, saying: 'You have been seduced by the spirit of fornication.' And truly by me those men had been tripped. I am the one who tempted you so often, and was always repulsed."

[12] When this soldier of Christ heard this, giving thanks to God and emboldened with greater daring against the enemy, he said: "You are therefore greatly despicable and utterly contemptible; for both your darkness and your youth are marks of feeble things. I have no further concern about you. He drives it away with holy psalmody. The Lord is my helper, and I shall exult over my enemies." And immediately at the voice of the singer the apparition vanished. This was Anthony's first victory against the devil — or rather the virtue of the Savior in Anthony, who condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.

[13] But this single triumph did not give Anthony security, nor did the devil, once broken, lose his strength. For the latter, like a roaring lion, sought an opening through which he might break in; and Anthony, taught in the eloquence of the Scriptures, that the snares of the demons are many, guarded his resolve with diligent labor, Tenacious in his holy purpose, considering that Satan, vanquished in the wrestling of the flesh, might more fiercely set in motion the machinery of new arts against him. Ephesians 6:11. Therefore he more and more subjected his body, lest, having conquered in some things, he be conquered in others. Resolving therefore to bind himself by a stricter rule of life, while all marveled at the untiring zeal of the youth, he bore the holy labor patiently, because the long application of voluntary servitude in the work of God had turned habit into nature.

[14] He was so patient of hunger and sleeplessness he mortifies his body with hunger, vigils, that his endurance surpassed belief. He very often spent the whole night in prayer; he ate once a day after sunset; sometimes he continued thus for two or three days, and finally took refreshment on the fourth day. His food was bread and salt, and his drink a very small quantity of water. On meager fare. Of meat and wine I think it better to say nothing, since among most monks nothing of that sort is to be found. When giving rest to his limbs, he used a mat woven of rushes and a hair-cloth. On a hard bed. Sometimes he even lay upon the bare ground, utterly rejecting ointments, saying that the bodies of those who use them — especially of the young — can by no means be strengthened if they are softened by the smoothness of oil; rather, harsh labors must be imposed upon the flesh, according to the Apostle's precept: "When I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:10. He affirmed that the perception of the mind could be revived if the impulses of the body had been exhausted.

[15] He measures merit not by time but by love. Hence he did not measure the merits of his labors by length of time, but, by love and spontaneous service, always as though standing at the beginning, he roused his desire for the advance of divine fear. And wishing to be enriched by new achievements, he forgot the past and recalled the words of the aforementioned Teacher who says: "Forgetting what lies behind, and pressing forward to what lies ahead." Philippians 3:14. He also remembered the words of the prophet Elijah: "The Lord lives, before whom I stand today." And he reflected on why "today" was added — because Elijah did not count the time past, By the example of Elijah, but, as though stationed daily in a contest, he desired to show himself such as he knew was worthy of God's sight: pure in heart and ready to obey His will. 3 Kings 18:16.

CHAPTER III.

Withdrawal into a tomb. Various attacks of the demons.

[16] He dwells in the tombs. Therefore St. Anthony, reflecting within himself that a servant of God must take his example from the manner of the great Elijah and must compose his life according to that mirror, withdrew to tombs situated not far from the village, charging one of his acquaintances to bring him food on appointed days. And when the aforesaid brother had shut him in one of the tombs, he remained there alone. The devil, fearing that in time he would cause even the desert to be inhabited, so lacerated him with his assembled satellites by various blows He is beaten by the demons that the magnitude of the pain deprived him of both motion and voice. For he himself often related afterward that the wounds were so grievous that they surpassed all the tortures that men could inflict; but the providence of God, which never fails those who hope in Him, preserved him.

[17] On the following day the brother whom we mentioned above arrived, bringing the customary food, Half dead, he is carried to the village. and finding him lying on the ground half dead, broke open the doors and carried him upon his shoulders to the dwelling of the village. When this was heard, a great multitude of neighbors and relatives gathered, rendering the sad offices due to the body laid out in their midst as though for a funeral. And when the middle of the night had already passed, a heavy drowsiness overcame the eyes of all who were keeping watch. Then Anthony, his spirit returning a little, sighed and raised his head; and seeing all the others prostrate in deep sleep, he noticed that the one who had carried him was still awake. Beckoning to him, he begged him, without waking anyone at all, to carry him back to his former dwelling.

[18] Carried back, he taunts the demons. Carried back, therefore, he remained alone again as was his custom; and he could not stand on account of his fresh wounds, but praying prostrate, after his prayer he cried out in a loud voice: "Behold, here am I, Anthony! I do not flee your contests; even if you do greater things, nothing shall separate me from the love of Christ." And he sang the psalm: "Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear." When he said such things, the devil, enemy of the good, marveling that after so many blows he had dared to return, gathering his dogs and rending himself with his own fury, said: "You see that he was not overcome either by the spirit of fornication or by bodily pains, and moreover he boldly provokes us. Seize every weapon; he must be attacked more fiercely by us. Let him feel, let him feel. He must learn whom he has provoked." He spoke, and at the voice of the exhorter, the crowd of listeners agreed, for the devil has innumerable arts of harm. A sudden noise therefore resounded, Various terrifying apparitions of the demons, so that the place was shaken to its foundations, the walls were broken open, and a manifold throng of demons poured forth; for, assuming the forms of beasts and serpents, they immediately filled the entire place with phantoms of lions, bulls, wolves, asps, serpents, scorpions, and also leopards and bears. And each one roared according to its nature: the lion roared, wishing to kill; the bull threatened with bellowing and horns; the serpent hissed; the wolves charged; the leopard with his multicolored hide displayed the varied cunning of his author. The fierce faces of all and the dreadful sound of their horrible voices was terrifying.

[19] Anthony, scourged and pierced, felt indeed more severe bodily pains, but remained undaunted with a vigilant mind. And though his wounds of the flesh drew forth groans, yet remaining the same in perception, as though mocking his enemies, he said: "If you had any strength, one of you would suffice for the battle; but since the Lord has broken and enfeebled you, you try to inspire terror by your multitude — which is itself a sign of weakness, that you have assumed the forms of irrational beasts." He conquers by the sign of the Cross. And again, with confidence, he said: "If you have any power, if the Lord has given you authority over me, behold, I am here — devour what is granted. But if you cannot, why do you strive in vain? For the sign of the Cross and faith in the Lord is an impregnable wall for us." Threatening many things against St. Anthony, they gnashed their teeth, because none of their temptations achieved its intended effect, but rather the greatest mockery was produced against them.

[20] Jesus, not forgetful of the struggle of His servant, became his protector. For when Anthony raised his eyes, He is refreshed by a heavenly vision. he saw the roof open above, and, the darkness being driven away, a ray of light streaming down upon him. After the arrival of this splendor, no demon appeared, and the pain of his body was instantly erased. The building too, which a short while before had been shattered, was restored. At once Anthony recognized the presence of the Lord, and drawing deep sighs from his inmost heart, he spoke to the light that had appeared to him, saying: "Where were you, good Jesus? Where were you? Why were you not present from the beginning to heal my wounds?" And a voice came to him, saying: "Anthony, I was here; but I was waiting to see your contest. Now, because you fought manfully and did not yield, I shall always help you, and I shall cause your name to be known throughout the whole world." Hearing these things, he rose and prayed, so strengthened that he perceived he had then received more vigor than he had lost before. Then aged 35. Anthony was at that time thirty-five years old.

[]

CHAPTER IV.

Withdrawal into the desert. Miracles. Monasteries established.

[21] Thereupon, as the merits of his fervent devotion increased, he went to the aforementioned old man and begged that they might dwell together in the desert. He seeks the desert. When the old man excused himself on account of his advanced age and the novelty of the undertaking, Anthony set out alone for the mountain and, breaking through fear, attempted to open a way into a wilderness as yet unknown to monks. Tempted by a silver disc thrown in his path. But not even then did the tireless adversary cease; for, wishing to impede his purpose, he cast a silver disc in his path. Seeing it, Anthony recognized the cunning of the crafty artificer; and standing undaunted, gazing at the disc with stern eyes, he rebuked the author of the deception in the phantom of silver, reflecting thus to himself: "Whence comes this disc in the desert? This is a path for birds; there are no footprints of travelers. Had it fallen from a load, it could not have escaped notice on account of its size; and the one who lost it, had he returned, would surely have found what had fallen, because of the solitude of the place. This is your contrivance, devil; you will not impede my resolve. Your silver be with you unto perdition." As he said this, the disc vanished like smoke before the face of fire.

[22] After this, not in a phantom as before, but as an enormous mass of gold lying in the path, he beheld it. Whether the devil feigned this, or a heavenly power displayed it to test Anthony — that he would not be ensnared even by real riches — is unknown; this, however, we have learned: that what was seen was gold. But he, marveling at the magnitude of the gleaming metal, he flees at the sight of gold to the mountain, fled with rapid course as though escaping some conflagration to the mountain; and there, having forded a river, he found an abandoned fortress, full (by reason of time and solitude) of venomous animals, in which he established himself as a new inhabitant. Immediately at his arrival, a great multitude of serpents, as though fleeing a persecutor, took flight. And he, having blocked the entrance with stones and storing with him bread sufficient for six months, as is the custom of the Thebans (for bread there often lasts for a year without spoiling), and having also a small supply of water, he dwells alone in an abandoned fortress, remained in solitude — never going forth, never receiving anyone — to such a degree that, although he received bread twice a year through the roof from above, he had no conversation with those who brought it.

[23] Many, therefore, spending the night before his door out of desire to see him and zeal to find him, heard voices like those of a mob against Anthony, and uproar of those saying: "What are you doing intruding in our habitations? He is harassed by demons. What have you to do with the desert? Depart from another's territories; you cannot live here; you cannot endure our ambushes." And at first those who were outside thought that some men had entered by means of ladders and were quarreling within. But when, looking through the crevices, they saw no one, they understood that demons were contending against him; and, seized with great fear, they begged Anthony's help. And he, approaching the door to console the brethren, asked them not to fear and to withdraw; and he assured the trembling ones that all this terror was inflicted by demons: "Sign yourselves," he said, "and depart in safety, and leave them to delude themselves." So they returned, while he remained unharmed, He remains undaunted, nor was he ever wearied in the contest. The increase of progress among those who came, or the weakness of those resisting, had added the greatest relief to his effort and suggested constancy to his spirit. And again, when crowds came to the desert who expected to find him dead, he was singing psalms within: "Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered, and let those who hate him flee before his face. As smoke vanishes, let them vanish; as wax melts before the fire, so let sinners perish before the face of God." And again: "All the nations surrounded me, and in the name of the Lord I took vengeance upon them." For twenty years. Thus Anthony, having spent twenty years in solitude and separated from the sight of men, endured.

[24] When, therefore, a multitude both of those wishing to imitate his way of life and of his acquaintances came running to him, and also an infinite throng of the sick gathered, at last, the doors being almost violently torn open, he appeared as though consecrated from some heavenly sanctuary. All were astonished at the grace of his countenance and the dignity of his body, Compelled to come forth, because neither had his flesh swollen through repose, nor had leanness and pallor taken hold of his face from fasting and combat with demons; but on the contrary, as though no time had passed, the ancient comeliness of his limbs was preserved. What a great miracle! With his body's beauty unchanged. What purity of soul there was in that man! He was never dissolved into laughter by excessive merriment; never did the remembrance of sin contract his countenance with sadness; he was not puffed up by the great praises of those who marveled at him. Solitude had bestowed nothing unbecoming upon him; daily warfare with the enemy had conferred nothing harsh; but a tempered mind bore itself with an equal balance toward all things.

[25] He heals demoniacs and the sick. Very many, therefore, did the grace of God liberate through Anthony from unclean spirits and various infirmities. His speech, seasoned with salt, consoled the sorrowful, taught the ignorant, and reconciled the angry, persuading all that nothing should be preferred to the love of Christ. He set before their eyes the greatness of the future blessings and reviewed the acts of God's mercy and the kindnesses already bestowed — that God had not spared His own Son but delivered Him for the salvation of us all. Without delay, He converts many to the eremitic life, this exhortation of his persuaded the hearts of many listeners to the contempt of human things, and this was the beginning of inhabiting the desert.

[26] I shall not pass over in silence what also happened in a town of the Arsenoites. For when he wished to visit the brethren and it was necessary to ford a stream of the Nile which was full of crocodiles and many fierce river beasts, He crosses among crocodiles unharmed, he crossed with his companions as safely as he returned unharmed. And persevering again in his former labors, he strengthened many brethren by his guidance, so that in a short time very many monasteries were established. He builds monasteries. He governed the new and the old monks according to their age and time, with a fatherly affection.

CHAPTER V.

Exhortation to spiritual fervor.

[27] On a certain day, when St. Anthony was asked by the assembled brethren to give them instructive precepts, raising his voice with prophetic confidence, he said: "For every discipline of the commandments, the Scriptures can suffice; A useful conference. but it is also a very good thing for the brethren to console one another with mutual conversation." "Therefore," he said, "as to a Father, tell me what you know; and I, what I have learned through a long life, will share with you as with sons."

[28] But let this be the first commandment common to all: that no one grow weary in the vigor of the resolve he has undertaken, Spiritual fervor must be nourished, but that, as one beginning, he must always increase what he has begun — especially since the span of human life, compared to eternity, is most brief and small. Having begun thus, he paused a little; and marveling at the immense generosity of God, 1. because life is short, the reward eternal, he added, saying: "In this present life, exchanges of goods are made on equal terms, and the seller does not receive more from the buyer than their value. But the promise of eternal life is purchased at a cheap price. Psalm 89:10. For it is written: 'The days of our life are seventy years; and if we are strong, eighty; and what remains is labor and sorrow.' When therefore we have lived laboring for eighty, or at most a hundred years in the work of God, we shall not reign for an equal period in the future; but in exchange for those years, the kingdoms of all ages will be bestowed upon us. We shall not inherit the earth but heaven; and leaving behind our corruptible body, we shall receive it back with incorruptibility. Therefore, my little children, let neither weariness exhaust you nor the desire for vainglory delight you: 'For the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory that shall be revealed in us.'"

[29] "Let no one, when he has despised the world, consider that he has relinquished great things; for the whole earth, compared with the infinity of the heavens, is small and insignificant. If, then, even by renouncing the entire world we cannot offer anything worthy in exchange for heavenly dwelling places, let each one consider, and he will immediately understand that by despising a few fields and walls or a modest portion of gold, he ought neither to boast as though he had left behind great things nor to be dejected as though he were about to receive small things. 2. Little is left behind; immeasurable things are received. For as someone despises one bronze drachma in order to acquire a hundred gold drachmas, so also he who has abandoned the dominion of the entire world will receive a hundredfold of better rewards in a lofty abode. To sum up, we ought to consider this: that even if we wished to retain our riches, we would be torn from them unwillingly by the law of death, as is written in the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 2:18. Why, then, do we not make a virtue of necessity? Why do we not voluntarily relinquish what must be lost at the end of this life, in order to gain the kingdoms of heaven? Let nothing concern Christians that they cannot take with them; rather, we ought to seek what leads us to heaven — namely, wisdom, chastity, justice, virtue, a watchful mind, care for the poor, firm faith in Christ, a spirit that conquers anger, and hospitality. John 14:2. Pursuing these things, we shall prepare for ourselves a dwelling in the land of the peaceful, according to the Gospel."

[30] "Let us consider that we are servants of the Lord and owe service to Him 3. Because we are servants of God. by whom we were created. As a servant, then, on account of past service, does not scorn the present or future command, nor dares to assert that from past labor he should have freedom from present work, but with constant zeal (as is written in the Gospel) always renders the same service — both to please his master and lest he earn fear and blows — so it is fitting that we too obey the divine commandments, knowing that the just rewarder will judge each person in whatever state He finds him, as He attests through the prophetic voice of Ezekiel. Matthew 24:46; Luke 12:37. For even the wretched Judas, on account of one night's impiety, was stripped of all the labor of his past. Therefore the continual rigor of our way of life must be maintained, with God as our helper, as it is written: 'For God works together with everyone who proposes the good.' Romans 8:28."

[31] "Moreover, to trample down sloth, let us recall the precepts of the Apostle, who testified that he died daily. Likewise let us, reflecting on the precarious life of the human condition, not sin. 1 Corinthians 15:31. For when, awakened from sleep, we are uncertain whether we shall reach the evening, 4. Because the hour of death is uncertain, and when, giving our bodies to rest, we have no confidence in the coming of daylight, and when, everywhere mindful of the uncertainty of nature and of life, we understand that we are governed by the providence of God — in this way we shall neither transgress nor be seized by any fragile desire. We shall not be angry against anyone, nor shall we strive to heap up earthly treasures; but rather, through the daily fear of departure and the continual meditation on the separation of the body from the soul, we shall trample underfoot all transitory things. The love of women will cease; the fire of lust will be extinguished; we shall forgive one another our mutual debts, always keeping before our eyes the coming of the final recompense — because a greater dread of judgment and a horrifying fear of punishments at once dissolves the enticements of the slippery flesh and sustains the faltering soul as from a cliff. Therefore I beseech you: let us strive with every effort toward the end of our resolve. Let no one, looking backward, imitate the wife of Lot — especially since the Lord has said that no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is worthy of the kingdom of heaven. Luke 9:62. To look back is nothing other than to repent of what one has begun and to be entangled again in worldly desires."

[32] "Do not, I beg, fear the name of virtue as something impossible, nor let this pursuit seem to you foreign or far removed, since it depends on our own choice. The nature of this work is implanted in man, and it is a thing that awaits only our will. 5. Because virtue is easy and attainable. Let the Greeks pursue studies overseas and seek masters of empty letters stationed in a foreign land; but for us there is no need to travel, no need to cross the seas. In every region of the earth the kingdoms of heaven are established. Hence the Lord also says in the Gospel: 'The kingdom of God is within you.' Luke 17:21. The virtue that is in us requires only the human mind. For who can doubt that the natural purity of the soul, if it has not been defiled by any external filth, is the fount and origin of all virtues? Its good Creator must have created it good. But if perhaps we hesitate, let us hear Jesus the son of Nave saying to the people: 'Make straight your heart before the Lord God of Israel.' Joshua 24:23. Nor did John deliver a discordant opinion about virtue, preaching: 'Make straight his paths.' Matthew 3:3. For the soul is straight when its fundamental integrity is stained by no blemish of vice; if it has changed its nature, then it is called perverse. Let its condition be preserved, and virtue is the result. The Lord has entrusted our soul to us; let us preserve the deposit as we received it. No one can allege as external what is born within oneself. Let the Maker recognize His own handiwork; let Him find His work as He created it. Our natural adornment suffices for us. Let not man disfigure what divine generosity has bestowed. To wish to alter the works of God is to pollute them."

CHAPTER VI.

Admonitions concerning the stratagems of the demons.

[33] Anger must be overcome. "We must also carefully see to it that we overcome the tyrannical madness of anger; for it is written: 'The anger of man does not work the justice of God.' James 1:20. And again: 'Desire, when it has conceived, brings forth sin; and sin, when perfected, begets death.' James 1:15. It is a precept of the divine voice that we guard our soul with constant vigilance and lead it to perfection with all caution and prudence, because we have enemies well-practiced in tripping us up — namely, the demons, against whom, according to the Apostle's testimony, our battle is unceasing. Continual is our struggle against the demons. For he says: 'Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of this world, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places.' Ephesians 6:12. A vast throng of them flies through this air; a host of enemies roams not far from us. Their diversity is not for my humble self to expound — I leave that account to greater minds. But what is at hand and what it is not profitable to be ignorant of — namely, the stratagems they have contrived against us — I shall briefly indicate."

[34] Evil not by nature but by their own fault. "This we must first fix in our minds: that God made nothing evil, and that the origin of demons did not begin from His institution. This perversity is a fault not of nature but of the will. For they were created good — as by God — but fell from heaven to earth by the choice of their own mind; and there, wallowing in the filth of mire, they established the impious cults of paganism. And now they are tormented with envy toward us, and they do not cease to stir up every evil, lest we succeed to their former seats."

[35] Their varied wickedness. "Their wickedness is varied and apportioned. For some have attained the very summit of doing harm; others, by comparison with worse ones, seem more lenient; and all, according to their measure of strength, have taken up diverse contests against individual causes. Therefore it is necessary to ask the Lord for the gift of discerning spirits, so that, perceiving both their deceits and their designs, we may raise the one standard of the Lord's Cross against their unequal combat. Having received this gift, Paul taught, saying: 'For we are not ignorant of his devices.' 2 Corinthians 2:11. Following his example, we too ought to instruct one another with mutual words from what we have suffered."

[36] Especially against monks and sacred virgins. "Their hatred is hostile against all Christians, but most of all against monks and the Virgins of Christ. They stretch snares across their paths; they strive to overthrow their minds with impious and obscene thoughts. But let none of this strike terror into you; for by the prayers and fasts of the faithful directed to the Lord, they immediately fall. To be overcome by prayer and fasting. Yet even if they have paused for a little, do not think the victory is fully won. They are accustomed, even when wounded, to rise up more fiercely, and, changing their method of attack, when they have accomplished nothing through thought, they terrify with apparitions — now assuming the forms of women, now of beasts, now of serpents, and also enormous bodies with heads reaching to the roof of the house, and infinite shapes and troops of soldiers. All these vanish at the very first sign of the Cross. By the sign of the Cross. When these modes of deception too have been recognized, they begin to presage and wish to predict the events of future days. And when they have been scorned in this as well, by contempt, they then call to their aid the very chief of their wickedness and the summit of all evil."

[37] "St. Anthony frequently declared that he had often seen the devil in such a form as Blessed Job also had known, when the Lord revealed it. Job 41:9-11. 'His eyes are like the appearance of the morning star; Seen by St. Anthony in horrible form. from his mouth proceed blazing torches. His hairs scatter sparks, and from his nostrils smoke goes forth, as from the heat of a furnace burning with coals. His soul is like live coals, and flame is gathered from his mouth.' With terrors of this kind the prince of the demons appeared, said Anthony, and, often promising great things, as I have said, his tongue of impiety raved with grandiloquence — over which the Lord triumphed, saying to Job: 'He regards iron as chaff, bronze as rotten wood; he esteems the seas as earth, the pit of the deep as a captive, the abyss as a promenade.' Job 41:18, 22-23. Through the Prophet too he threatens, saying: 'Pursuing, I will overtake, and I will seize the whole world in my hand like a nest, and take it up like eggs that have been abandoned.' Exodus 15:9; Isaiah 10:14. Thus the wicked one, vomiting forth deadly words, frequently ensnares some of those who live well. Their promises and threats are to be despised. But we ought neither to believe his promises nor to dread his threats; for he deceives often and promises nothing true. For if his words were not all lies, how is it that, promising such great and so many infinite things, he has been hooked like a serpent on the hook of the Cross by the Lord, and bridled like a beast of burden, and bound with a ring like a runaway slave, and his lips pierced with a clasp — so that he is permitted to devour not a single one of the faithful? Now, wretched creature, he is caught in a net by Christ like a sparrow for sport; now he groans that his companions, like scorpions and serpents, are trampled under the heel of Christians. He who boasted that all the seas were wiped away by him, he who promised that the world was held in his hand — behold, he is conquered by you; behold, he cannot prevent me from arguing against him. His proud boasting, along with his empty words, must be utterly despised, my little children. That brightness with which he pretends to shine is not the splendor of true light; rather, it reveals the flames with which he will burn. For departing more swiftly than speech, he carries away with him the images of his own punishments."

[38] Their stratagems for disturbing the saints. "They are also accustomed sometimes to appear singing psalms — what impiety! — and furthermore they meditate upon the sacred words of Scripture with their impure mouths. For often when we are reading, they respond like an echo to the final words. They also rouse those who are sleeping to pray, so as to steal the sleep of the entire night. Many also, transforming themselves into the guise of noble monks, they rebuke monks and impute to them the former sins of which they are conscious. But their rebukes are to be spurned, as are their admonitions to fast, and their deceitful suggestions of vigils. From their resemblance to virtues. For this reason they assume forms familiar to us, so that by the affinity of virtues, doing harm, they may more easily insert their poison and strike down the innocent under the appearance of honesty. Then they proclaim this pursuit to be impossible and harsh, so that when what has been undertaken seems burdensome, from despair may come weariness, and from weariness, indolence. For this reason the Prophet, sent by the Lord, proclaiming grievous things, said with a lofty voice: 'Woe to him who gives his neighbor a drink of murky overthrow!' Habakkuk 2:15. For exhortations of this sort are corruptions of the road that leads to heaven."

[39] "Therefore, when the Lord had come to earth and the demons against their will proclaimed true things about Him (for they truly said: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God'), He shut the mouths of those who cried out — He who loosed the bound tongues of men — lest they mingle the poisons of perversity with the proclamation of the truth; Nor should they be believed even when they speak the truth. and so that we, following His example, should in no way give assent to them, even if they urged what was profitable; because it is certainly not fitting that we, after the liberty granted by the Lord and the life-giving precepts of the Scriptures, should take from the devil counsels for living — he who, having deserted his own order, violated the sacred command of Christ. Matthew 8:29; Mark 1:25; Luke 4:34. For this reason the Lord also commanded him to be silent when he spoke from the Scriptures, because 'God says to the sinner: Why do you declare my statutes and take my covenant in your mouth?' Psalm 49:16. The demons simulate everything; they often converse with the brethren; they often stir up confused noises with the crowd; they seize hands, hiss, laugh foolishly — so that even at a single point of sin they may enter a Christian heart. And when they have been repulsed by all, at last they testify to their own weakness with lamentation. And the Lord indeed, as God and conscious of His own majesty, commanded them to be silent; but let us, clinging to the footsteps of the Saints, walk the same path — they who, perceiving more keenly the aforementioned deceptions, sang: 'When the sinner stood against me, I was dumb and was humbled and kept silence from good things.' Psalm 38:2-3. And again: 'But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and as a dumb man not opening his mouth, I became as a man that hears not.' Psalm 37:14-15. Christ commanded silence as Lord; let us believe nothing of the devil, and we shall conquer."

[40] "If they compel us to pray, if they urge fasts, let us do so not at their bidding but from our own custom. Finally, even if they rush upon us Nor should we fear if they threaten death and seem to threaten us with death, they are rather to be mocked than feared; for since they are weak, they threaten everything but accomplish nothing. Indeed, I remember having already spoken of these things in passing, but the same things must now be explained more fully, because repetition provides no small measure of caution."

CHAPTER VII.

Further admonitions on the weakness of the demons.

[41] "At the coming of the Lord, the enemy was destroyed and all his strength utterly languished. Wherefore, mindful of his former power, Their strength weakened by the coming of Christ, like a tyrant now growing old, seeing that he has fallen, he rages against humanity. Yet he cannot pervert a heart firm in God by the art of thoughts and other deceits. For it is clearer than daylight that our adversaries, since they are not enclosed in human flesh — so that they might plead that we cannot be overcome by them because they cannot enter through a closed door — and since, if they had been confined to this frail body, they would be denied access when the entrance was barred — yet since (as we said) they are free from this impediment and penetrate what is blocked and fly freely through all the air — it is manifest that, because of their enfeeblement, the body of the Church remains unharmed. John 8:14. And indeed the satellites of the wicked one, together with their prince the devil — whom the Savior in the Gospel declares to have been a murderer and the father of malice from the beginning — would by no means have yielded to us fighting bravely against them, if their power had not been taken away."

[42] "'For if I lie, why do you spare us, Satan, you who range everywhere? Why can you, who are confined to no place, not shake the constancy of those who live well and argue against you? St. Anthony boldly provokes them with reproaches. But perhaps you love us, whom you daily try to overwhelm? Or is it credible that you are a master of goodness and favor the best rather than harm them? And what can be so dear to you as to injure — especially those who manfully resist your crimes, according to what is written: "For piety is an abomination to the sinner"? Ecclesiasticus 1:32. Who possesses a heart so fertile in malice? Who tries to carry out such well-planned ambushes? We know you, most impure corpse; we know that we Christians live for this reason, and our encounter against you is secure, because you have been weakened by the Lord. Therefore you are pierced by your own weapons, because no effect follows your threats. But if we are deceived, why do you attack our faith with feigned terror, with the enormity of bodily forms? If ability follows will, let willing alone suffice for you. For it is the nature of power not to seek the external aids of deception but to accomplish what it desires by its own strength. But now, while you strive by theatrical changes of form to delude us like raw infancy with stagecraft and simulation, you prove more clearly that your strength is exhausted. Did that true Angel sent by the Lord against the Assyrians need the company of peoples, or seek noises and applause? Did he not rather, exercising a silent power, prostrate one hundred and eighty-five thousand of the enemy more swiftly than speech, at the command of the Lord who ordered it? 4 Kings 19:35. You, therefore, since your strength is frail, perpetual destruction awaits you.'"

[43] "But someone will say: Why did the devil, going forth, drive the entire household of Blessed Job to ruin? Job 1:11. Why, after utterly scattering his riches, did he also overturn the very foundations of the walls, heaping the numerous offspring into one tomb? Job 2:7. Why at last did he strike the man himself with the novelty of a dreadful wound? Let him who raises this objection hear, on the other hand, that the devil was unable to do this; rather, the Lord granted it. Temptation is permitted either for glory or for punishment. Power against us is given by Him in a twofold way: either for glory, if we are tested; or for punishment, if we transgress. Indeed, let him rather perceive from this that the devil could do nothing even against a single man unless he had received power from the Lord. For no one begs from another what is in his own power. But why do I mention Job, whom the devil could not conquer even when he was handed over? He did not even exercise his own strength against Job's cattle, nor against the swine in the Gospel, without God's permission. As it is written: 'The demons begged him, saying: If you cast us out, send us into the herd of swine.' Matthew 8:31. How, then, shall those who beg for the deaths of swine be able by their own right to destroy man, who is the image of God and an animal so dear to his Creator?"

[44] The demons are overcome by a living faith and a sincere life. "Great weapons against the demons, most beloved, are a sincere life and an undefiled faith in God. Believe me from experience: Satan greatly fears the vigils of the upright, their prayers, fasts, gentleness, voluntary poverty, contempt for vainglory, humility, mercy, mastery over anger, and above all a pure heart devoted to the love of Christ. The most hideous serpent knows that by the Lord's command he lies beneath the feet of the just, who said: 'Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy.' Luke 10:19."

[45] Their vain predictions. "If, however, pretending to have the power of divination, they announce the coming of brethren, and those whom they predicted arrive, not even then should credence be given to liars. For they outran the travelers in order that credibility might be won for themselves from the announcement, and afterward an opening for deception from that credibility. In this there should be nothing miraculous for a Christian, since not only those who by the lightness of their nature fly through all things can outstrip those walking, but even men carried by the speed of horses can announce arrivals. For they do not report things that have not yet begun to happen — since God alone knows the future — but those whose beginnings they observe in action, they claim knowledge of for themselves, like thieves, among the ignorant. For how many do you think there are right now who, with childlike speed, could report this gathering of ours and our words against them to those dwelling far off, before any report from someone present here? What I tell you can be made clear by examples. From their natural swiftness. If someone should begin to set out from the Thebaid or from a town of some region, and the demons should see him walking on the road, they can, with the speed I have mentioned, predict his coming. So too concerning the accustomed flooding of the Nile: when they have seen many rains in Ethiopia, from which the river, swelling, is accustomed to overflow its banks, they run ahead to Egypt and announce the coming of the river. But men too, if they had such a swift nature, could easily make the same announcement. 2 Kings 1:13, 34. Just as Blessed David's watchman, ascending to the top of a higher place and, seeing from afar those who were coming before those who were on the ground could see them, announced not uncertain things about the future but about those who had already begun to come, so too the demons, considering all things with watchful care, announce to one another with swift course."

[46] Often false. "But if it should happen that, by God's will, what was begun does not come to its end — that is, if the traveler turns back from the middle of the road, or the clouds suspended in the sky are carried to another quarter of the heavens — then the error of the deceivers is laid bare together with that of those who believed them. These were the origins of paganism; by these frauds of soothsayers, oracles were once believed at the shrines of the demons — which, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, when silence was imposed upon them, fell mute and lost their captives. Nor should they be exalted with divine honor. Who, I ask, considers a physician to have divine knowledge when, from the observation of diseases, he examines the fever of a burning soul by the pulse of the veins with a light touch of the fingers? Who venerates a ship's pilot with the honor due to majesty when he seeks the course of his voyage among the stars of heaven? Who does not rather praise for experience than consecrate with the name of God a farmer who discourses on the dry heats of summer or the winter's abundance of rain and cold?"

[47] "But to concede for a moment that the demons announce true things: tell me, what is the profit in knowing what is to come? Useless for a Christian. Has anyone ever been praised for knowing such things, or punished for not knowing them? Each person prepares for himself either torments or glory by whether he neglects or fulfills the commandments of the Scriptures. None of us has taken up this life in order to have foreknowledge of the future, but in order that, obedient to the Lord's precepts, he might begin to be a friend rather than a servant. We must take care not to foreknow what is coming but to fulfill what has been commanded; nor should we demand this as the reward of a good way of life, when we ought rather to ask from the Lord our helper for victory against the devil. But if perhaps someone gladly takes it upon himself to know the future, let him have a pure heart; for I believe that a soul serving God, if it perseveres in the integrity in which it was born, can know more than the demons. Such was the soul of Elisha, which saw powers unknown to others."

CHAPTER VIII.

Precepts on the discernment of spirits.

[48] "Now I shall explain to you the remaining deceits of the demons. They are accustomed to come at night, pretending to be Angels of God, praising your zeal, admiring your perseverance, and promising future rewards. When you see them, arm both yourselves and your dwellings with the sign of the Cross, and they will immediately dissolve into nothing; The demons are to be put to flight by the sign of the Cross, for they fear that trophy in which the Savior, despoiling the aerial powers, made them a public spectacle. They are also accustomed to torment their limbs with various simulations and to present themselves boldly to our sight, in order to shake the mind with terror and the body with horror. But in this also, faith secure in God puts them to flight like feeble mockeries."

[49] "The discernment of good and evil spirits is not difficult, and is revealed by the gift of God as follows: The appearance of the holy Angels is lovely and peaceful, for they do not contend nor cry out, The peaceful appearance of good spirits, nor does anyone hear their voice; but, approaching silently and gently, they pour joy, exultation, and confidence into our hearts, since with them is the Lord, who is the fount and origin of gladness. Then our mind, not troubled but gentle and peaceful, is irradiated with the light of the Angels; then the soul, burning with eagerness for heavenly rewards, would, if it could, break open the dwelling of the human body and, freed from mortal limbs, hasten to heaven with those whom it sees departing. Such is their kindness that if anyone, on account of the frailty of the human condition, is terrified by their marvelous brightness, they immediately remove all fear from the heart. So Gabriel, when he spoke to Zechariah in the temple; and the Angels, when they announced the divine birth of the Virgin to the shepherds; and those who kept watch over the Lord's body — presenting themselves to the secure minds of those who saw them, they commanded them not to fear. Luke 1:13; 2:9; Matthew 28:5. For fear is often struck not so much from timidity of spirit as from the sight of great things. But the faces of the wicked are fierce, their sounds horrible, their thoughts filthy; the faces of the wicked are fierce. they produce the clapping and movements of undisciplined youths or bandits. From these there immediately arises fear of the soul, numbness of the senses, hatred of Christians, grief and weariness in monks, the remembrance of one's own kindred, fear of death, desire for wickedness, lassitude of virtue, and dullness of heart."

[50] The former produce security of soul. "If, therefore, after fear, and the horror conceived from it, joy succeeds, and confidence toward God and ineffable charity, let us know that help has come; for security of soul is a sign of the presence of majesty. John 8:56. Thus also the patriarch Abraham, seeing God, rejoiced; and John, when he perceived that Mary had arrived — she who carried in the sacred lodging of her womb the Parent of all creation — leaped with joy though not yet born. Luke 1:41. But if the fear that has been struck remains, the latter produce a lasting dread, the one who is seen is an enemy; for he does not know how to comfort, as Gabriel comforted the frightened Virgin; nor does he command that they not fear, as the announcing angels consoled the shepherds. Rather, he doubles the dread and drives men to the deep pit of impiety, so that they might prostrate themselves before him. Hence wretched paganism, ignorant of the Lord's prohibition, falsely supposed demons to be gods. But the Lord did not allow the Christian peoples to be ensnared by these deceptions — He who in the Gospel repelled the devil when he boldly presumed for himself the sovereignty of all things, saying: 'Get behind me, Satan.' Matthew 4:10. For it is written: 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him alone shall you serve.' Deuteronomy 6:13. The freedom to use these words has been granted to us as well; for He spoke such things so that similar temptations might be broken by the words of our Author."

[51] "This too I admonish, my most dear ones: let your concern be for your manner of life rather than for signs. Let no one among you who works these things either swell with the pride of doing so, or despise those who cannot. The power of miracles is not to be sought. Examine rather the conduct of each individual; in this life it is fitting for you both to imitate what is perfect and to supply what is lacking. For to work signs belongs not to our humble estate but to the Lord's power, who said to His disciples when they exulted, in the Gospel: 'Do not rejoice that the demons are subject to you, but that your names are written in heaven.' Luke 10:20. For the inscription of names in the book of life is a testimony of virtue and merit; but the expulsion of Satan is the Savior's gift. Hence to those who will exult not in the labors of their life but in wonders, saying: 'Did we not cast out demons in your name, and in your name work many mighty deeds?' Matthew 7:22 — the Lord will respond: 'Amen I say to you, I do not know you: depart from me, workers of iniquity.' For the Lord does not know the ways of the wicked. Let us therefore earnestly ask that we may deserve to receive the gift of discerning spirits, so that, according to the judgment of the Scriptures, we may not believe every spirit." 1 John 4:1.

CHAPTER IX.

The foregoing admonitions confirmed by examples from Anthony's temptations.

[52] "I had wished to bring my discourse to an end and to suppress in silence whatever had befallen my humble self; but lest you think that I have spoken of things that cannot happen — therefore (though I become foolish, yet the Lord, who is the inspector of the secret mind, knows that I do this not for the sake of boasting but for your benefit) — I shall recount a few things from among many. St. Anthony repels the demons by contempt. How often they tried to exalt me with excessive praises, and received curses from me in the name of the Lord! How often they predicted the future flooding of the Nile, and heard me say: 'And what concern of yours is that?' How often, threatening like armed soldiers, surrounded by scorpions, horses, beasts, and various serpents, they filled the dwelling in which I was! And I, on the contrary, sang psalms: by psalmody, 'Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we shall be magnified in the name of the Lord our God.' Psalm 19:8. And immediately, by the mercy of Christ, they were put to flight. At a certain time they came with a great light and said: 'We have come, Anthony, to offer you our radiance.' And I, closing my eyes — for I disdained to behold the light of the devil — prayed, and more swiftly than a word the light of the wicked was extinguished. After a few months, when they sang psalms before me and conversed with one another from the Scriptures, I, as though deaf, did not listen. Once they shook my monastery, but with a mind immovable I besought the Lord. Often they produced uproar, often dances, often hissing; and as I sang psalms, their noise was turned into sounds of weeping."

[53] By spitting. "Do you believe, my little children, what I am about to tell you? Once I saw the devil, enormous in body, who dared to call himself the power and providence of God, and said to me: 'What do you wish me to give you, Anthony?' But I, hurling my most copious spitting into his mouth and arming my whole self against him in the name of Christ, rushed at him; and immediately that one, so tall in appearance, dissolved between my very hands. When I was fasting, he also appeared to me as a monk, and offering bread, urged me with these words to eat and to indulge this poor body a little: 'You too are a man,' he said, 'and surrounded by human frailty. Let your labor rest a little, lest sickness steal upon you.' By recourse to Christ. At once I recognized the livid face of the serpent; and when I fled to the accustomed defenses of Christ, he vanished like smoke through a window. He also frequently laid before me in the desert a trap of gold, which he offered either to ensnare me by the sight or to defile me by the touch. I also do not deny that I was often beaten by the demons. Romans 8:35. But I sang thus: 'Nothing shall separate me from the love of Christ.' At the sound of this voice, raging against one another, they were put to flight — not by my command but by the Lord's, who says: 'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.' Luke 10:18; 1 Corinthians 4:6. These things, therefore, my little children, mindful of the Apostle's words, I have recounted of myself, so that neither the terror of the demons nor any weariness might dissolve your resolve."

[54] "But since, by recounting many things for your benefit, I have become foolish, I wish also to impart to you a piece of knowledge which no hearer will doubt to be true. Once a demon knocked at the door of my monastery. Going out, A demon stretching up to heaven, I see a man of enormous height, his head reaching to the sky. When I asked him who he was, he said: 'I am Satan.' And I said: 'What do you seek here?' He replied: 'Why do the monks falsely blame me? Why do all the Christian peoples curse me?' And I said: 'They do so justly, for they are frequently troubled by your snares.' But he said: 'I do nothing; rather, they trouble one another. For I have become wretched. I ask you: have you not read: "The weapons of the enemy have failed utterly, and you have destroyed their cities"? Psalm 9:7. He unwillingly confesses the power of Christ. Behold, I now have no place; I possess no city; I have no weapons. Through all nations and all provinces the name of Christ resounds; even the wildernesses are filled with choirs of monks. Let them protect themselves, I beg, and not tear at me without cause.' Then I, marveling with joy at the grace of God, spoke to him thus: 'I do not attribute so novel and so unheard-of a statement to your truthfulness, which is nonexistent. For since you are the head of falsehood, you have been compelled to confess this without lying. For truly Jesus has utterly overthrown your strength, and stripped of your angelic honor, At the pronouncing of the name of Jesus he vanishes, you wallow in filth.' I had scarcely completed my words when that one, so tall in appearance, was cast down at the naming of the Savior."

CHAPTER X.

Peroration and fruit of the Exhortation.

[55] "What hesitation, then, O my little children, can any longer remain? What further trepidation will endure? What whirlwind of theirs will be able to uproot us? Let the souls of each be secure. Let no vain imagination fashion dangers; let no one fear that, snatched up by the devil, he can be carried to precipices. John 14:20. Let all anxiety be driven away; for the Lord, who has prostrated our enemies, dwelling in us as He promised, has fortified us against the various assaults of Satan. Behold, the devil himself, who practices such cunning with his satellites, confesses that he can do nothing against Christians. The demon is not to be feared. Let it be the concern of Christians and monks that through their slothfulness they do not provide strength to the demons. For whatever condition they find us and our thoughts in, such they are accustomed to present themselves to us. And if they find any seed of evil mind and fear in our hearts, like bandits who hold deserted places, they heap up the terrors that have begun and, cruelly threatening, punish the wretched soul."

[56] "But if we are cheerful in the Lord, and the desire for future goods inflames us; if we always commit all things into the hands of God, he who is conquered by trust in God, no demon will be able to approach and storm us; for rather, when they perceive hearts fortified in Christ, they will return in confusion. So the devil fled from Job, who was firm in the Lord; and he bound the most wretched Judas, stripped of faith, in the chains of captivity. There is therefore one way of conquering the enemy: spiritual joy and the presence of God, spiritual joy and the continual remembrance of a soul always thinking upon the Lord — which, driving away the mockeries of the demons like smoke, will pursue adversaries rather than fear them. For Satan is not unaware of the fires to come, and he knows well the copious conflagrations of burning Gehenna."

[57] "But, that my speech may now draw to a close, I recall this at the end: When any vision presents itself to you, boldly inquire who it is and whence it came. Without delay, and by boldly questioning with security, if it is a revelation of the Saints, the angelic consolation will turn fear into joy. But if it is a temptation offered by the devil, it will vanish before the questions of a faithful soul; for it is the greatest sign of security to ask who it is and whence it comes. Joshua 5:13. Thus the son of Nave, by questioning, recognized his helper; nor could the enemy escape Daniel's inquiry." Daniel 10.

[58] After Anthony had brought his discourse to an end, while all rejoiced, The disciples are solidly instructed by Anthony, in some the desire for virtue was kindled, in others a faltering faith was restored, from the minds of others false opinions were driven out, from the senses of others the fire of empty terrors was expelled; and at the same time, all, now despising the snares of the demons, marveled at the great grace of discerning spirits in Anthony, which the Lord had granted him. In the mountain, therefore, there were monasteries like tabernacles, full of divine choirs of those who sang psalms, read, and prayed; and his discourse had breathed such ardor for fasting and vigils into the minds of all they practice every kind of virtue that, eager for future hope, they labored with constant zeal for mutual charity and for showing mercy to the needy — men who seemed to inhabit a certain vast region, a city separated from worldly life, full of piety and justice. Who, beholding such a great multitude of monks — who, seeing that manly assembly of concord in which there was no offender, no whispering detraction, but a multitude of the abstinent and a contest of services — would not immediately burst forth in these words: Numbers 24:5-6. "How fair are your habitations, O Jacob, your tabernacles, O Israel, like shady groves, like a paradise upon rivers, like tabernacles which the Lord has pitched, like cedars beside the waters!"

[59] While these things were carried on, by which the pursuit of the blessed life grew daily, Anthony, remembering the mansions set in heaven and despising the emptiness of the present life — as though whatever he had already done were small things — lived apart from the brethren. St. Anthony lives separately. And whenever the human condition compelled him to allow his body food or sleep, or other necessities of nature, he was seized with a wondrous shame that so small the limits of the flesh should restrain so great a liberty of the soul. He serves the necessities of the body with shame. For frequently, sitting with the brethren, the memory of spiritual food drew him away from the food that had been set before him. He ate, nevertheless, being human — sometimes alone, sometimes with the brethren. And while doing these wondrous things (as I said above), he urged with great confusion of soul that diligent care must be given to the body, saying that the body should not be utterly destroyed, lest the work intended by the Creator be undone; and that therefore all effort should be directed to the soul, lest, overcome by bodily vices, it be thrust into the eternal darkness of hell. Rather, asserting the dominion granted it over the flesh, the soul should, like the Apostle Paul, raise its dwelling to the third heaven. He affirmed that this was the Savior's command, in which He says: "Be not anxious for your soul, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor for your body, what you shall put on — for the Gentiles seek these things; but your Father knows that you have need of all these things. Matthew 6:31. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

CHAPTER XI.

Desire for martyrdom. Miracles.

[60] After these things, when the most impious persecution, raging from the mad fury of Maximinus, was devastating the Church, On account of the persecution of Maximinus he goes to Alexandria, and the holy Martyrs were being brought to Alexandria, Anthony too left his monastery and followed the future victims of Christ, saying: "Let us go to the glorious triumphs of the brethren, that we ourselves may either fight or watch others doing battle." And by love he was already a martyr; but since he could not deliver himself up voluntarily, and since he was associated with the Confessors stationed in the mines or in the prisons, with great freedom and care he exhorted those going before the Judge not to deny the Lord, subdued by the terror of the wicked. He strengthens the Martyrs. Already crowned by their sentence, he joyfully accompanied them to the place of blessed bloodshed, as though he himself had conquered.

[61] The Judge, therefore, moved by the constancy of Anthony and his companions, ordered that no monks at all should either observe the trial ordered to leave the city, he does not comply or remain in the city. While all the others on that day chose to hide, Anthony, fearless, disregarding the persecutor's command, washed his ependytes. And on the next day, standing on a certain elevated place, girt in a shining white garment, he provoked the passing Judge by his very appearance, he displays himself to the Judge, burning with the desire for martyrdom. He showed us that in Christians a spirit contemptuous of punishments and death must persevere, to such a degree that he was grieved because, though he wished to suffer for the name of God, martyrdom was not given to him. But the Lord, who was preparing a master for His flock, preserved Anthony, so that the training of monks (as indeed happened) might be strengthened not only by his prayer but also by his presence. Nevertheless, he was never separated from the footsteps of the holy Confessors, but, bound to them by anxious care and the bonds of charity, he suffered in prison more than they who were shut in.

[62] After the storm of persecution had passed, and when the blessed Bishop Peter had already been crowned with the glory of martyrdom, he returns to the desert, Anthony returned to his former monastery and daily merited the martyrdom of faith and conscience, wearing himself down with more rigorous fasts and vigils. He wore a garment of hair-cloth on the inside and a skin garment on the outside; A martyr through his strict rule of life. he never washed his body; he never cleaned the dirt from his feet unless the necessity of crossing through water compelled it. Indeed, no one ever saw the body of Anthony bare until he died.

[63] At a certain time, when he had withdrawn from the sight of all and, having closed his monastery, admitted absolutely no one, Martinianus, a military commander whose daughter was shaken by the attacks of an unclean spirit, knocked at the door and begged him to come to the aid of his child and, going out, to pray to God for his daughter. He liberates a demoniac. But Anthony by no means wished to open the door; looking down from above, however, he said: "O man, why do you ask for my help? I too am mortal and a companion of your frailty. But if you believe in Christ, whom I serve, go and pray to God according to your faith, and your daughter will be healed." The man immediately believed and departed; and, having invoked Jesus, he brought his daughter home safe and sound.

[64] The Lord also worked many other wonderful things through him — and deservedly; for He who promised in the Gospel, "Ask, and it shall be given you" Matthew 7:7, having found one who deserved to receive His grace, did not deny His power. And many others. For many of those afflicted, sleeping before his monastery with the entrance closed, were healed through his faithful prayers to Christ.

CHAPTER XII.

Withdrawal to the inner desert. Temptations.

[65] This multitude of visitors, taking from him his desired solitude, was a source of weariness to him. Fearing therefore that the abundant bestowal of signs might either puff up his own spirit or compel others to think more of him Out of fear of glory and honor he prepares for flight than they saw in him, he resolved to travel to the upper Thebaid, where no one would recognize him. And having received bread from the brethren, he sat upon the bank of the river, watching for the passage of a boat. While he was thinking such thoughts, a voice came to him from above, saying: "Anthony, where are you going, and why?" And he, undaunted, as though recognizing the familiar voice of the speaker, answered: "Since the people do not allow me to be at rest, I have judged it best to go to the upper Thebaid, especially because things are demanded of me that exceed the power of my littleness." And the voice said to him: "If you go to the Thebaid, and proceed to the pasturelands (as you intend), you will endure a greater and twofold labor. He is sent by divine direction to the inner desert. But if you truly desire rest, go now to the inner desert." And when Anthony said, "Who can show me the place of birds? For I am ignorant of the terrain" — immediately the one who spoke pointed out to him Saracens who were accustomed to come to Egypt for purposes of trade. Approaching them, Anthony asked that they take him along with them into the desert. No one objected; but receiving him as a companion sent by God, they embraced his company.

[66] After a journey of three days and three nights, he found a very lofty mountain, at the base of which a spring of sweet water flowed, and a small plain surrounding the entire mountain, which was planted with very few palms, and those neglected. Anthony embraced this place as though it were offered to him by God. He takes up dwelling on the second mountain. For this was the place which the speaker had shown him while he sat on the bank of the river. And first, receiving bread from his companions, he remained alone on the mountain, with no one else dwelling there; for, recognizing the place as though it were his own home, he made it his abode. The Saracens too, seeing his confidence, provided him with bread gladly on their desired passage through the area; and he was also refreshed by the solace of the palms, though this was modest.

[67] Afterwards, when the brethren, having learned of the place, carefully sent provisions as sons to a father, Anthony, seeing that on account of his own refreshment a burdensome labor was imposed upon many, he sows grain for his annual sustenance, and sparing the monks even in this, asked one of those who came to bring him a hoe, a double-edged tool, and grain. When these were brought, he went around the mountain and found a not very large place suitable for cultivation, to which water could be channeled to flow from above. There he sowed; and from then on, laboring to produce his annual bread, he rejoiced that he lived in the desert from the work of his own hands without being a burden to anyone. He cultivates vegetables for guests. But when once again certain people began to come even there, taking pity on their weariness, he cultivated vegetables in a small patch of earth, so that those arriving after a harsh journey might be refreshed with some comfort.

[68] The beasts that came there for the water ate up this small harvest that was meant for the refreshment of the brethren. Seizing one of them, he said to them all: "Why do you harm me, when you have received no harm from me? Depart, and in the name of the Lord do not come near here again." Who would believe it? After this command, as though they were afraid, he drives off harmful beasts by a word, the beasts never came near that place again. Thus Anthony, occupying the impenetrable interior of the mountains and the desert, and also devoted to prayer, was finally prevailed upon by the entering brethren, who with great entreaties barely persuaded him to deign to accept olives, vegetables, and oil, which they supplied every few months, and to relax a little for his advanced age.

[69] Oh, what great struggles he endured while dwelling there! Truly, according to what is written, we learned from those who came to him that his wrestling was not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. Ephesians 6:12. For they reported tumults and voices of crowds and the sound of arms, and that they had seen the entire mountain full of a multitude of demons; they also reported seeing Anthony himself openly resisting and vigorously wrestling as against enemies. Yet he refreshed those who came with his encouragement, he prostrates the army of demons, and on bended knees, with the weapons of prayer, he laid low the entire army of Satan. It is truly worthy of admiration that one man in so vast a wilderness neither feared the daily encounters with demons nor yielded to the diverse ferocity of so many beasts, whether four-footed or serpents. Psalm 124:1. Rightly did David sing: "Those who trust in the Lord, like Mount Zion, shall not be moved forever." Maintaining an immovable and tranquil firmness of mind, he both put the demons to flight and was at peace with the wild beasts, as it is written. Job 5:23. But the devil, as the aforementioned prophet says, watching him, gnashed his teeth; yet Anthony, by the aid of the Savior, persevered safe from all snares. Psalm 34:16. One night, therefore, when Anthony was keeping vigil and beseeching the Lord, the devil assembled such great herds of beasts into his monastery that he saw around him all the wild animals of the desert. When they threatened to bite his body with gaping jaws, he recognized the enemy's cunning, he puts to flight the beasts sent against him by a word, and said: "If the Lord has granted you license against me, devour what is conceded. But if you have come here at the instigation of demons, depart as quickly as possible, for I am a servant of Christ." So it happened: at the voice of his command, the entire multitude of beasts, as though struck by the rod of majesty, fled.

[70] Not many days had passed after these events when another contest arose with the same enemy. While he was working (for he always labored, so that he might repay those who came to him with some small gift in return for what they had brought), someone pulled the cord or rope of the basket he was weaving. Rising at the motion, he saw a beast having a human face down to the waist, which from there ended in a donkey. After seeing it, and by making the sign of the Cross on his forehead, tracing the banner of the Cross on his forehead, he said only this: "I am a servant of Christ; if you are sent against me, I do not flee." Without the slightest pause, that shapeless monstrosity, more swiftly than a word, fled with a throng of its satellites, and falling in mid-course, was destroyed. Now this death and annihilation of the prodigy was the common destruction of the demons, who, laboring with every effort, were unable to drive Anthony from the desert. Wonders succeeded still greater wonders.

[]

CHAPTER XIII.

Visitation of the earlier monasteries.

[71] Not a great time had passed after these events when this man of so many victories was conquered by the prayers of the brethren. For, asked by the monks He departs to visit the brethren to deign to visit them, he set out with them, having loaded a camel with water and bread, since nowhere along the dry road, except at the place of the monastery from which they had drawn, could drinkable water be found. But in the middle of the journey their supply of drink ran out. The heat was extreme, the burning intolerable; everything threatened death. They circled about, he suffers from thirst on the road along with others, and sought at least a pool collected from rains. Absolutely no remedy presented itself, nothing at all for their salvation. The camel too, as though about to perish, was let loose in its distress; the breast of the suffering man was scorched, and his thirst burned with desperation. The common peril of the brethren with him moved the old man, and he groaned with the most vehement grief. Then, having recourse to the accustomed aid of prayer, he withdrew a little from them; and there, with knees fixed, he stretched out his suppliant hands to the Lord. He obtains a spring by prayer through divine aid. Without delay, at the first tears of the petitioner, a spring gushed forth in the place of prayer; there the thirst was quenched, and the parched limbs were refreshed, and they filled their skins and watered the camel they had found. For it had happened by chance that the camel, wandering through the desert while dragging its rope, was held by the binding of the rope around a certain stone.

[72] He is received by the monks. At last, the journey completed, he arrived at the monks who had invited him. Then all came out to meet him as to a father, and in an honorific greeting they rushed eagerly to embrace and kiss him. He rejoices at their progress and at his sister's. Anthony rejoiced at their fervent resolve; and while all were glad at his arrival, as though carrying gifts from the mountain, he imparted spiritual nourishment. He praised the zeal of the veterans and encouraged the newcomers. Seeing his sister too, now an aged virgin and the mistress of other young women, he was uplifted with wondrous exultation. Then, as though he had long been absent from the desert, he returns to the mountain, he hastened back to the mountain.

[73] With very many now coming to him, and even those vexed by demons daring to penetrate the desert, compelled by the evil of their necessity, Exhortation to the monks, he consoled them and, instructing the monks in general, said: "Believe in Jesus faithfully. Keep your mind pure from evil thoughts and your flesh clean from impurities. According to the divine words, do not be seduced by the fullness of the belly. Despise vainglory. Pray very often. Sing psalms at evening, morning, and noon, and revolve the commandments of the Scriptures. Proverbs 24:15. The memory of the Saints is an incentive to virtue. Remember the deeds that each of the Saints performed, so that the memory of their example may spur the spirit to virtue and restrain it from vice." He also urged that by continual meditation the Apostle's saying should be retained: "Let not the sun go down upon your anger." Ephesians 4:26. He interpreted this not only of anger, but also of all human transgressions — that neither the moon by night nor the sun by day should ever depart as witnesses of our sins.

[74] He also admonished them to be mindful of the precept which says concerning these things: "Judge yourselves and prove yourselves" — so that, making an account of the day and the night, Examination of deeds by day and by night, if they should discover a fault in themselves, they would cease to sin; but if no error had deceived them, they should persevere and press on with what they had begun, rather than, swelling with arrogance, either despise others or claim justice for themselves, according to the words of the aforementioned Teacher: "Do not judge before the time" — rather, they should reserve judgment for Christ, to whom alone hidden things are manifest. 2 Corinthians 13:5; 1 Corinthians 4:5; Romans 2:16. There are many ways (as it is written) that seem right to men, but their ends look down into the depths of hell. Often we cannot understand our own sins; often we are deceived in our assessment of our deeds. The judgment of God, who sees all things, is different, Rash judgment must be avoided, for He judges not from the outward appearance of bodies but from the secrets of the mind. Proverbs 14:12 and 16:21. It is right, moreover, that we have compassion on ourselves and bear one another's burdens, so that, yielding the examination to the Savior, we might judge ourselves by looking into our own consciences.

[75] He also said that it was a great path to virtue if each person either observed what he did It is useful for virtue to reveal all one's thoughts to others or reported all the thoughts of his mind to the brethren. For no one can sin when he will have to report to another whatever he has sinned; and he will be ashamed to bring shameful things into the open. Indeed, no one who sins dares to sin in the presence of another; and even if he sins, he avoids a witness to his sin, preferring to lie and deny, and to increase the old offense with a new offense of denial. Therefore, he said, if we act as though under each other's eyes, we are confounded both in thought and in deed, if we make everything subject to report. Much more so if, faithfully writing down our sins, we arrange them in order. Then the record of offenses will be visible to the eyes of the brethren. We shall fear the wax tablets that are conscious of our sin, and the very letters will accuse us; and just as those who join their bodies with harlots are confounded in the presence of others, so too we shall blush at the written record if we do such things. Let us walk this path of virtue, and, subjugating our bodies to our minds, let us crush the destructive snares of the devil.

CHAPTER XIV.

Liberation of demoniacs. Knowledge of those absent.

[76] With such verbal encouragements he both spurred the monks who came to him toward zeal and showed compassion to those who suffered, St. Anthony liberates many demoniacs, and the Lord freed many of them through Anthony. He was never, however, puffed up to glory over the recovery of those healed, nor did he murmur in sadness over bodies still possessed. Rather, always maintaining the same spirit and countenance, he gave thanks to God, always with the same countenance and spirit, urging the afflicted to bear more patiently the chastisement by which they were vexed; for this healing belonged not to Anthony or to any human being at all, but to God alone, who gave health to whomever He wished and at whatever time He wished. Thus by his consolation he taught both the afflicted to bear their trial with equanimity and those already freed to give thanks not to Anthony but to God.

[77] A certain Fronto, from Palestine, who was tormented by a most hostile demon (for it lacerated his tongue with his teeth and strove to extinguish the light of his eyes), went to the mountain and begged the blessed old man to pray to the Lord on his behalf. Anthony prayed He predicts and obtains healing for a man and said to him: "Go, and you will be cured." When Fronto, incredulous, violently remained there against the command, Anthony repeated the same words, saying: "Here you cannot be cured. Depart, and as soon as you set foot in Egypt, the mercy of Christ will overtake you." At last he believed and departed; and upon sighting Egypt, according to the declaration of the old man, which the Lord had revealed to him in prayer, the affliction of the enemy ceased.

[78] A certain virgin, who was from Busiris, a city of the Tripolitanian region, suffered from unheard-of and pitiable diseases. For the discharge from her nostrils, the tears from her eyes, A virgin overwhelmed by various ailments, and the putrid fluid from her ears, upon falling to the ground, were immediately turned into worms. Her body, moreover, was dissolved by paralysis, and her eyes were unnaturally contorted. Her parents, bringing her, when they learned that monks were going to Anthony, believing in the Lord who in the Gospel had commanded the persistent flow of blood to stop at the touch of His garment, asked them to take on the pitiable company of their daughter. Matthew 9:20. When the monks refused to bring her all the way to Anthony, her parents remained outside, with their weak daughter, near the blessed Confessor and monk Paphnutius, who, having had his eye gouged out for Christ under the persecutor Maximian, gloried greatly in such disfigurement of body. She arrives at the cell of St. Paphnutius. The monks therefore reached Anthony; and when they were preparing to report on the girl's ailment, the old man's speech anticipated their account and set forth the entire cause of her debility and her journey to St. Paphnutius, as though he himself had been present. When the monks asked him to allow the parents with their daughter to enter, he did not consent, but said: "Go, and you will find the girl, if she is not dead, cured." She is healed by St. Anthony in absentia. And he added: "No one should come to my humble self, for the gift of healing is not of human mercy but of Jesus Christ, who is accustomed to provide aid everywhere to those who believe in Him. Therefore she too, for whom you ask, has been freed by her own prayers; and when I prayed to the Lord, the knowledge of her healing was granted to me." He spoke, and the girl's recovery followed his words. For going out to Blessed Paphnutius, they found the daughter safe and the parents rejoicing.

[79] Not many days after these events, when two brethren who were going to Anthony ran out of water on the journey — one having died of thirst and the other lying on the ground awaiting death — Anthony, sitting on the mountain, quickly called to himself two monks He knows from a distance that a brother is being tormented by thirst who happened to be found there, and gave an urgent command that, taking a flask of water, they should hasten along the road that leads to Egypt. He said: "One of the brethren who were coming here has just departed to the Lord; the other, unless you come to his aid, will be added to the number of the dead. For this has just been revealed to me while I was praying." So he said; and he has him revived, and the monks, hastening according to his command, found the dead body and buried it in the earth, and revived the other and joined him to their company. The distance of the journey was one day. Perhaps someone may ask why Anthony did not speak before the man died. This is an argument entirely unfitting for Christians, because it was not Anthony's judgment but God's, who both passed the sentence He wished concerning the departing one, and deigned to reveal the condition of the one suffering from thirst. This alone is admirable in Anthony: that, sitting on a most remote mountain, with a watchful heart, he knew all things at a distance, with the Lord revealing them.

[80] Again at another time, when he was sitting on the mountain and had suddenly raised his eyes to heaven, he saw a certain soul, He sees the soul of Ammon being carried to heaven, with Angels rejoicing at its approach, proceeding to heaven. Astonished by the novelty of this spectacle, he called the choir of the Saints blessed, and he prayed that the knowledge of this present event might be revealed to him. And immediately a voice came to him, saying that this was the soul of the monk Ammon, who dwelt at Nitria. Ammon was a man of great age who had perseveringly lived in holiness from boyhood to old age. Moreover, the place where Anthony was sitting was separated from Nitria by a journey of thirteen days. The monks who had come, seeing him in wonder, begged him and he reports this to the brethren to declare the cause of his joy. He told them that Ammon had just fallen asleep — a man whom they knew very well on account of his frequent visits to Anthony and on account of the fame of the signs granted him by the Lord. Of these, this one thing must also be said: Once it was necessary for him to ford a river called the Lycus, swollen by sudden waters. He asked Theodore, who was with him, to withdraw a little from his sight, so that neither might see the other's bodily nakedness. Ammon, a lover of modesty, Theodore withdrew; but Ammon, even when he wished to strip himself, blushed. While he was deliberating, divine power transported him to the other bank. When Theodore, himself a man devoted to God, crossing over, began to marvel at the old man — that he had forded the river so swiftly — he is divinely transported across the Lycus, and observed that there was no moisture on his feet and no sign of water on his garments, he asked him to explain, as a father to a son, such an incredible crossing. When Ammon was unwilling to tell what had happened, Theodore embraced his feet and swore that he would not let go until the old man told him what he was concealing. The old man, seeing that the brother wished to prevail by persistence, demanded in turn that Theodore tell no one before his death; and so he confessed that he had been suddenly transported to the other bank, and that he had not at all set foot upon the waves — asserting that this was the privilege only of the Lord's body, and of those to whom He had granted it, as to the Apostle Peter, that a human body should stand upon the lightness of the waters. Matthew 14:28. Theodore did not tell this during the promised time, but related it after Ammon's death. The monks to whom Anthony had spoken of the death of Ammon noted the day; The truth of Anthony's vision is confirmed, and when brethren came from Nitria thirty days later, upon inquiry they found that Ammon had fallen asleep on the very day and at the very hour at which the old man had seen his soul being carried aloft. Both parties therefore marveled at the purity of Anthony's mind — how knowledge of an event so far distant had been immediately conveyed to him.

CHAPTER XV.

The gift of healing. Knowledge of the state of souls.

[81] Count Archelaus too, when he found him on the outer mountain, asked him to pray for Polycratia, who was in Laodicea — an admirable virgin dedicated to Christ. The virgin Polycratia is healed in absentia through Anthony's prayer. For she was suffering the most grievous pains of the stomach and side, which she had contracted by excessive fasting and vigils, and her entire body was completely weakened. Anthony prayed, and Archelaus noted the day on which the prayer had been offered. He returned to Laodicea and found the virgin well. Having inquired about the day of her recovery, he found that the time of healing agreed with his record. And all marveled, recognizing that the Lord had freed her from her pains at the very time when Anthony, praying for her, had invoked the goodness of the Savior.

[82] He also often predicted, days and months in advance, the times and causes of those coming to him. For some were drawn by the desire alone of seeing him, others by infirmity, All depart from Anthony rejoicing, and some by bodies possessed by demons; yet no one ever complained of the vexation or loss of the toilsome journey. All returned filled with spiritual food. And he commanded that this admiration should not be applied by them to his own praise, but to that of the Lord, who grants knowledge of Himself to human beings according to the capacity of their mortality.

[83] At a certain time, when he had gone out to the outer monasteries and had been asked by the brethren to pray in a boat with some monks who were setting out, he boarded, and he alone of all smelled a most foul odor. Everyone asserted that this stench came from salted fish and preserved meats placed in the boat. Anthony alone detects the stench of a demon. But he affirmed that he was smelling the stench of another thing. While he was still speaking, a certain young man possessed by a demon, who had gone ahead and hidden himself near the keel of the boat, suddenly cried out. When the youth was immediately cured by Anthony in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, he frees the possessed man, all understood that the stench had been that of the devil.

[84] Another man also, a nobleman among his own people, was brought to him possessed by a demon, oppressed by such great madness that he did not know he was in the presence of Anthony, and even ate the waste of his own body. Likewise another. The old man, therefore, being asked by those who had brought him to pray to the Lord on his behalf, had such compassion for the young man's wretchedness that he spent the entire night in vigil with him, laboring against the madness of the sufferer. But when dawn came and the possessed man, making a rush at Anthony, violently shoved him, those who had brought him began to be angry that he had done injury to the old man. Anthony said to them: "Do not ascribe another's fault to the wretched youth. This fury belongs to the one who possesses him, not to the one possessed. The hostile spirit burst into this audacity because the Lord has commanded him to depart to the arid region; and this attack against me was the sign of Satan's expulsion." After these words, without any delay, the young man recovered his senses, and giving thanks to God, recognized where he was, and embraced and kissed Anthony with all his heart.

[85] There are innumerable other signs of this kind, which we have learned from the concordant testimony of the monks. But astonishment should not be directed at these alone, because what follows exceeds still more the condition of our frailty. About the ninth hour, when he had begun to pray before eating, he felt himself snatched up in spirit and carried aloft by Angels. When demons, blocking passage through the air, began to contest, the Angels, contradicting them, demanded to know Snatched up on high by Angels, he is vainly detained by demons what cause there was for detaining him, since there were no offenses in Anthony. When the demons strove to rehearse sins from the beginning of his birth, the Angels shut their calumnious mouths, saying that they ought not to narrate offenses from his birth onward, which had already been laid to rest by the goodness of Christ; but if they knew of any from the time when he had become a monk and had consecrated himself to God, and is brazenly accused, they were permitted to bring them forward. The demons accused him, brazenly telling many lies; and when proofs failed the deceivers, the ascent was opened free for Anthony. And immediately, returning to himself, he saw himself to be again in the same place where he had begun to stand, the same as he had been before.

[86] Then indeed, forgetting food, from that hour he spent the night in groaning and lamentation, reflecting within himself on the multitude of humanity's enemies, the wrestling against so great an army, Restored to himself, he laments, the laborious journey through the air to heaven, and the Apostle's saying: "Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the prince of the power of this air." Knowing that the aerial powers always tempt, struggle, and contend for this reason — that the passage to heaven should not be free for us — he exhorts his followers to the fight, he exhorted, admonishing: "Take up the armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day; so that the enemy, having nothing evil to say about you, may be confounded." Ephesians 6:13. But let us remember the Apostle's saying: "Whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know — God knows." 2 Corinthians 12:2. And Paul indeed was caught up to the third heaven, and there, having heard ineffable words, descended; but Anthony, raised up to the air, after his wrestling appeared free.

[87] Taught by God. He also had this kind of gift: if, sitting on the mountain, he was ignorant of some matter and sought within himself the knowledge of it, it was revealed to him by the Lord while he prayed. And he was, as it is written, "taught by God." John 6:45. Once, when the brethren were holding a discussion and earnestly inquiring of him how the soul conducts itself after the burden of the body, and what place is granted to it after death, on the following night a voice from above, calling him by name, said: "Anthony, arise, go out and see." Isaiah 54:12. Rising, he went out; for he knew to what questions he should respond. And lifting his eyes to heaven, he saw a certain being, tall and terrible, raising his head to the clouds; He sees the state of souls after death, he also saw certain winged beings desiring to rise to heaven, and that one, with outstretched hands, preventing their passage. Some he seized and dashed to the earth; others, striving in vain to hold them back, he grieved to see flying above him to the heavenly regions; and both victors and vanquished produced the greatest joy mingled with sorrow. And immediately a voice came to him, saying: "Mark well what you see." And then, his heart being illuminated, he began to understand that it was the ascent of souls, and the devil preventing them — who both retained for himself those who were subject to him and was tormented by the flight of the Saints, whom he could not deceive. Spurred on by these examples of visions, he grew daily toward better things. Nor did he declare to the brethren what had been revealed to him for the sake of boasting; but when, praying constantly, he praised the help of God, he was compelled by their questioning to disclose it. Nor did his pure soul in Christ wish to conceal anything from his spiritual children — especially since the narration of signs of this sort both fostered love for their way of life and displayed the fruit of their labor.

CHAPTER XVI.

Reverence for the clergy. Hatred of heresy.

[88] He defers to the clergy. Never did Anthony, suddenly stirred by anger, break his patience, or raise his humility to glory. For, compelling all clerics down to the lowest rank to pray before him, he also bowed his head to Bishops and Priests for their blessing, as a disciple of humility. He asks for a blessing with bowed head. The Deacons, moreover, who came to him for the sake of their benefit — when he was discussing matters pertaining to their aid in their presence — he placed before himself for praying to the Lord, not being ashamed to learn even himself. For he frequently questioned those who were with him; and if he heard anything necessary from them, he acknowledged that he had been helped.

[89] He also had great grace in his countenance, and had received from the Savior this admirable gift as well: if anyone, not knowing him, He is recognized from the cheerfulness of his face, wished to see him amid a multitude of monks, without anyone pointing him out, he would pass by the others and run straight to Anthony, recognizing the purity of his soul from his face and perceiving through the mirror of his body the grace of his holy mind. For he always wore a cheerful face, clearly showing that he was thinking of heavenly things, as Scripture says: "When the heart is glad, the face flourishes; when it is set in sorrow, it grows sad." Proverbs 15:13. Thus Jacob recognized that his father-in-law Laban was plotting snares against him, saying to his daughters: "The face of your father is not as it was yesterday and the day before." Genesis 31:5. Thus Samuel recognized David: "For his eyes were cheerful, and his teeth white as milk." 1 Kings 16. Similarly Anthony was recognized: for, always keeping the same face in prosperity and adversity, he was neither elated by success nor broken by misfortune. He was both lovely in countenance and admirable in the purity of his faith.

[90] He never joined in the communion of schismatics, knowing their ancient depravity and transgression. He never bestowed even friendly words upon the Manichees or other heretics, He avoids heretics and schismatics, except only such as could recall them from their erroneous wickedness — declaring that the friendships and conversations of such people were the ruin of the soul. So too he detested the Arians, and told everyone that one should not even go near them. For when certain Arian madmen came, upon examining and discovering their most faithless sect, he drove them from the mountain, saying that their discourses were far worse than those of serpents.

[91] He goes to Alexandria. When the Arians once falsely claimed that Anthony believed as they did, he, marveling at their audacity and moved by the wrath of just indignation, and asked by the Bishops and all the brethren, went down to Alexandria; he publicly condemns the Arians, there he condemned the Arian madmen in a public address, declaring this to be the last heresy and the precursor of the Antichrist. He preached to the people that the Son of God was not a creature, not from things that had no existence, but was the proper Son, of one substance with the Father — lest He should seem to be rather a creature, or an adoption, or a mere title. It was impious, he said, even to conceive in the mind the phrase "There was a time when He was not," since the Word of God is God, who always is, coeternal with the Father, because He is born of that Father who always is. Hence he said: "Let there be no union between you and the Arians. 2 Corinthians 6:14. For what fellowship has light with darkness? You who believe faithfully are Christians; they, calling the Word — that is, the Son who is from God the Father — a creature, are separated by no interval from the Gentiles, who serve the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. The very elements, believe me, are angry, and all creation, according to the Apostle's saying, groans against the Arian fury, because it sees its own Lord — through whom all things and in whom all things were made — being ranked among itself." Romans 8:22.

[92] How much the preaching of so great a man strengthened the people in faith cannot be expressed. They rejoiced that a heresy hostile and inimical to Christ was being anathematized by a pillar of the Church. No age, no sex then remained at home. I say nothing of the Christians; even the pagans and the very priests of the idols hurried to the church, He is called the Man of God, saying: "We beg to see the Man of God" — for this was the name Anthony had among all. They also strove to touch at least the fringe of his garment, believing that even the touch would profit them greatly. How many were then freed from diabolical possession and various infirmities! He confirms the faith by miracles. How many spoils were snatched from the idols! How many also, drawn back from the error of the Gentiles, were joined to our flock! So many indeed that those converted from the superstition of idols in the space of a few days surpassed the crowd of believers throughout the whole year. He converts the Gentiles. Furthermore, when his companions tried to drive back the rushing multitude, thinking that the concourse of people would be a weariness to him, he said with a tranquil spirit: "Is this assembly greater than the throngs of demons? Is the multitude of those who attend to me more numerous than the hosts of our opponents on the mountain?"

[93] It happened also that, when we were escorting him on his return near the gate, a certain woman cried out from behind, saying: "Wait, O man of God! My daughter is tormented by a most atrocious demon. Wait, I beseech you, wait, lest I too perish from running." Hearing this, the admirable old man, admonished by us and willing himself, paused a little. When the woman drew near and her daughter lay prostrate, he prayed silently to the Lord Jesus; and at the naming of His name the unclean spirit immediately departed. He heals a demoniac. The girl was well, the people were in praise of God, and the mother was in joy. He himself, however, rejoiced because he was returning to his desired solitude. He was indeed very wise, and had this admirable quality in himself: that although he had not learned letters, he was most ingenious and most prudent.

CHAPTER XVII.

Disputation with the Philosophers.

[94] At a certain time, two pagan philosophers came to him, thinking they could deceive Anthony. He was on the outer mountain. When he saw them, he recognized them as pagans from their appearance, and going out to them, he began to speak through an interpreter thus: He shrewdly refutes the Philosophers. "Why did wise men wish to trouble themselves by coming so far to a foolish man?" When they said that he was not foolish but indeed very wise, he answered alertly: "If you came to a fool, your labor is superfluous. But if you consider me wise and think I have wisdom, it is good that you imitate what you approve, for good things ought to be imitated. If I had come to you, I would imitate you; but since you have come to me as to a wise man, become, as I am, Christians." The Philosophers withdrew, marveling at both his acuteness of mind and his expulsions of demons.

[95] He also bound up other so-called wise men of the world, who wished to ridicule him because he was ignorant of letters, with the following disputation, saying: "Answer me: which came first, He shows that one can be wise without knowledge of letters, understanding or letters? And which is the origin of which? Does understanding arise from letters, or do letters arise from understanding?" When they asserted that understanding was the author and inventor of letters, he said: "Therefore, for one whose understanding is sound, letters are not required." Who among those present would not have exclaimed after this contest, since even those who were defeated were astonished, admiring such great sagacity of mind in one unlearned in letters! For although he lived in the wilderness and on the mountains and spent his entire life there, he was not rustic and rigid, but agreeable and affable, uttering speech seasoned with divine salt, according to the Apostle's precept, so that he was free from envy and possessed the love of all. Colossians 4:6.

[96] Meanwhile, as though it were not enough for paganism to have been twice overcome, men came to him a third time, blinded by every cloud of worldly prudence and most learned in all studies of philosophy by their own estimation of their arts. When they demanded from him an account of the faith which we have in Christ, and strove by the clever questioning of sophisms to mock him concerning the divine Cross, he paused briefly and suppressed his voice into silence, first taking pity on their error. Then, through the interpreter who was accustomed to render his words most carefully into Greek, He explains the mystery of the Cross and the incarnate Word, he began thus: "Which is more beautiful and more honorable — to worship the Cross, or to ascribe adultery, parricide, and incest to those whom you worship? For in the one there is contempt for death, a mark of virtue; in the other, a shameful religion, a school of obscenity. Which is it better to say — that the Word of God, remaining as He was, assumed a human body for our salvation, so that by sharing in mortality He might raise us to heaven and make us partakers of the heavenly nature; or, as you yourselves assert, to bow the head, drawn from the divine mind, to worship earthly things, and to enclose a heavenly name in the forms of cattle and serpents? With what face do you dare to ridicule the faith of Christians, who say that Christ the Son of God, without detriment to Himself, both began to be what He was not and remained what He was — when you yourselves, dragging the soul down from the heavens, are accustomed to bury it not only in the bodies of men but even in those of serpents and cattle? The Christian faith testifies that its God came for the salvation of the world; He laughs at the Pythagorean metempsychosis, but you, preaching an innate soul, transfer it hither and thither. The Christian faith, which venerates the omnipotence and mercy of God, consistently says that the incarnation was possible for God, yet in such a way that His condescension did not empty His dignity; but you, who boast that the soul, flowing from the most splendid fountain of God, shamefully fell — you who dare to assert that it is changeable and convertible after its diminishment — are also violating with an impious tongue that lordly nature of the ages through your insults to the soul. For the image which, according to you, retains the natural likeness of its author, with whom it shares one and the same substance from which it flows, consequently sends back its own humiliations and injuries to its origin. Therefore observe that the insults to souls, by your blasphemy, redound to their father (as you call him)."

[97] "The Cross of Christ our Lord and God is here cast up against us. I ask: what obscenity of religion is this? Is it not rather better patiently to endure the Cross, or death of whatever kind, inflicted by wicked men, than to bewail the wandering and uncertain journeys of Isis mourning for Osiris? He censures the shameful deeds and turpitudes of false gods. Be ashamed, I beg you, of the plots of Typhon; be ashamed of Saturn's flight and his most cruel devouring of his children. Blush at the parricide and incest of Jupiter; blush at his rape and his intercourse with women and boys. He, as your poets fashion it, uttered soft wailing in love to satiate the fury of his monstrous lust; he flowed into the lap of Danae — himself both lover and price; he, a warbling bird, sought the embraces of Leda; he, raging against his own sex, defiled a royal boy with his attendant birds. These are the things you believe; these are the things you worship; these are the ornaments of your temples. I beg you, for your own salvation, weigh our words with an equal judgment. He binds the Philosophers with a dilemma. Must everything in the books of Christians be believed, or nothing? If nothing, then you do not even recognize the name of the Cross, which you attack. If everything is to be believed, why — since in those same books the resurrection is joined to the Cross — do you tear apart the divine Passion with foolish speech, and not immediately add the sight of the blind, the hearing of the deaf, the walking of the lame, the cleansing of leprosy, the sea serving its God as He walked upon it, the flights of demons, the resurrection of the dead, and the return of the departed from the underworld? All these things are set forth in the divine Scriptures which you challenge, and in the same volumes are contained both the praises of majesty and the dishonors of death. Wherefore, casting aside the hatred with which you are imbued, you will immediately find both that Jesus is the true God and that for the sake of human salvation He assumed a fragile nature."

[98] "Nevertheless, tell us — if you are not ashamed — about your own religion. But what worship can unhappy error describe from such great foulness and folly of things? Unless perhaps (as I hear) you claim that the fables of your gods — their obscenities, cruelties, vanities, and deaths — are covered by allegorical veils: He refutes the allegories of pagan fables, interpreting the rape of Proserpina as the earth; the half-lame and feeble Vulcan as fire; Juno as air; Apollo as the sun; Diana as the moon; Neptune as the seas; and Jupiter, the prince of lusts, as the ether. Even after this impudent excuse, you do not take up God but creatures, with the Creator despised. And if the beauty of the elements drew you to their veneration, it was fitting to keep due measure — one ought to marvel at them only, not to worship them, lest the veneration of the handiwork be an injury to the Creator. For according to this topsy-turvy reasoning that you follow, the honor of the architect will migrate to the house, the skill of the physician will be transferred to the remedies, and the merits and praises of all artisans will be transferred to their works. What do you say to this, so that we may learn what shameful confession about the Cross — which you think ridiculous — you have?"

[99] At this disputation, the philosophers turned their eyes to one another and at the same time murmured. Anthony, smiling, again said through the interpreter: "For it seems very hard to every undertaking whenever, the just tenor of the whole matter being trampled, the merits of labor are ascribed to the works rather than to the workers. The elements indeed, as I have recalled, prove their servitude by their very appearance. But since you, by dialectical observation, gather what you consider necessary, and by this same artifice you compel us too to affirm our religion — answer me: How is the knowledge of God more clearly demonstrated, by a collection of words or by the operation of faith? And which is more ancient — the operation of faith, He teaches that knowledge of God is demonstrated by works, or disputation proceeding through arguments?" When they answered that the operation of faith was more reliable than words, and that this was a clear knowledge of God, he agreed that they had spoken well; because the operation, which descends from faith, generates affections of the soul, whereas dialectical disputation took the beginning of its opposition from the artifice of its composers. "When therefore," he said, "someone possesses the operation of faith firmly in his soul, the composition of words is superfluous, by which you attempt to uproot the belief we have conceived in our understanding — and yet you are often unable to explain your own intelligences. Thus the works of the mind are more solid than the fraudulent conclusion of sophisms."

[100] The virtue of the Cross is assessed from actual deeds. "We Christians have the mystery of our life placed not in the wisdom of the world but in the power of faith, which has been given to us by God through Christ. The order of events that occur daily commends the truth of my speech: for us who are unlearned and ignorant of your letters, the words of God alone suffice for the knowledge of Him. Behold, we, snatched from so many flocks of paganism, are daily propagated throughout the whole world; but for you, after the coming of the Lord, the knotty subtleties of sophisms have failed. Behold, we, teaching the simple faith of Christ, have conquered idolatry, and through the preaching of the shameful Cross, gilded temples have fallen. If you can, show by what weaving of words you have persuaded anyone to prefer paganism to Christ. Throughout all lands the true Son of God, Christ, is recognized. The eloquence of the sophists is powerless; the disputation of philosophy can do nothing against the multitude of believers. We name the Crucified, and all the demons whom you worship as gods roar and are put to flight from the bodies they possess at the first sign of the Lord's Cross. Where are those fabled oracles? Where are the incantations of the Egyptians? Where have the spells of the magicians availed? That paganism has collapsed. Certainly all these were laid waste when Christ thundered to the world from His Cross. Yet you, passing over the hosts of those who have been weakened, still try to ridicule the glorious death of Jesus."

[101] "And what of this: that paganism, never shaken by royal persecution, but rather dear to the world and supported by human defenses, has now fallen. We servants of Christ — the more we are oppressed, the more we rise and flourish. Your images, once enclosed in adorned walls, have now collapsed from age. But the teaching of Christ, which seems to you foolishness and sport, although it has endured the tyrannical assaults of persecuting rulers, and the force of the Gospel teaching prevails, although it has been attacked by various terrors, is nevertheless enclosed by no region of the world, is prohibited by no boundary of barbarian nations. When has such splendor of divine knowledge shone forth? When have so many virtues converged at once? Continence in marriage, virginity in the Church. The glorious constancy of the Martyrs for their Lord flourishes — and the Cross of Christ is the origin of all these things."

[102] "While you, meanwhile, among so many choirs of virtues, spread the nets of syllogisms and strive to envelop the true light of things in dark argumentations — behold, we, as our Teacher said, persuade not by gentile persuasion but by the most open faith, which is accustomed to outstrip the affirmation of words. 1 Corinthians 2:4. For here are those who are suffering, vexed by demons." Having brought them forward into the midst, he repeated his words, He challenges the Sophists to the expulsion of demons, saying: "Now you, by your collections of words and by whatever maleficent incantation you wish, expel those whom you consider your gods. But if you cannot, yield your conquered hands and flee to the trophies of Christ, and immediately the power of majesty will accompany belief in the Crucified." He spoke, He frees the demoniacs by the sign of the Cross, and having invoked the name of Jesus and pressed the life-giving sign in the sacred number of the Trinity upon their foreheads, along with the expelled demons, the empty wisdom of the philosophers present was also confounded. For they were astounded and terrified, marveling at a man in whom, after such great genius, there was also an overflowing divine generosity of signs. But Anthony, ascribing everything to Christ who had healed them, used the favor of reciprocal speech and said: "Do not think that I have given these people health. Christ works these miracles through His servants. Believe yourselves, and you will see that a faith devoted to God — not the empty swelling of eloquence — merits such signs. Flee to the law of the Crucified, and imitate us, His servants. And, content with this end of knowledge, seek henceforth no arguments of worldly folly." With Anthony speaking thus far, the Philosophers, struck with wondrous amazement, departed from him with an honorific greeting, confessing that his company had profited them greatly.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Letters of the Emperors to St. Anthony. The foreseen affliction of the Church.

[103] It is admirable in this man that one dwelling at the furthest limits of the world should be celebrated both by the favor of Princes and by every royal court. For Constantine Augustus and his sons Constans and Constantius, learning of such things, frequently sent letters to him as to a father, He receives letters from Constantine and his sons, begging him to cheer them with reciprocal writings. But he, remaining the same as he had been before the letters came, was not moved by the greetings of Princes; and as though the letters had not been received, calling the monks together he said: "The kings of the world have sent letters to us. What wonder should Christians show at this? He does not esteem their favor highly. For although their rank is different, the condition of birth and death is the same. Those things are to be revered with all veneration, those things are to be held with the whole affection of the soul: that God has written a law for men, and that through His own Son He has enriched the churches with His own words. What concern have monks with letters from kings? Why should I receive letters to which I do not know how to render the customary formalities of greeting?" Being therefore asked by all the brethren to refresh the Christian rulers with his letters, lest they be exasperated by his silence, he wrote back in fitting terms to the letters he had received. First he praised them for worshipping Christ; he writes salutary things in reply, then he urged salutary counsels: that they should not consider royal power great; that they should not, swelling with the authority of present flesh, be ignorant that they were men and forget that they would be judged by Christ. Finally he admonished them concerning mercy toward their subjects, justice, and care for the poor; and in his letters he attested that the one eternal King of all ages is Jesus Christ. The Princes received these with the greatest joy. And the holy reputation of Anthony blazed among all, so that they wished to be called his sons. For his great affability toward those who came had turned the zeal of all toward himself.

[104] After, therefore, the pagans were refuted, the rulers admonished, and the brethren relieved by his consolation, He returns to his usual rigor, he returned to the inner mountain and to his customary rigor. There, often walking and sitting with those who entered, he was struck with amazement, as is written in Daniel; and after intervals of hours had elapsed, he would respond with what followed, so that it was understood that he had seen certain secrets of revelation. Daniel 4:16. For while on the mountain, foreseeing things that were happening far away in Egypt, he narrated them to Bishop Serapion, who was stationed there.

[105] There follows a lamentable vision, to be mourned with every fount of tears. For while the brethren were sitting around him and he was working, he fixed his eyes intently on heaven, groaning and sighing; and after some interval, he trembled with excessive pain at the revelation that had begun. Immediately he fell on his knees and, prostrate before the face of God, prayed that His mercy might avert the future crime. He foresees the affliction of the Church at the hands of the Arians. Tears followed prayer; a great fear invaded those present; they begged him to explain the vision of so great a calamity. Sobs seized his voice; his tongue was impeded by weeping; in the midst of his effort his speech was broken by groans. At last, with sorrowful outcry, he barely said: "It would have been better, O my little children, to escape the impending abomination by a swift death." So beginning, he was again overcome by tears, and amid painful sighs, at last lending his voice to his breast, he said: "A certain great and in all ages unheard-of impiety threatens. The Catholic faith will be overturned by a great whirlwind, and men resembling beasts will plunder the holy things of Christ. For I have seen the altar of the Lord surrounded by a multitude of mules, who with frequent kicks of their hooves were scattering everything. This is the cause of the groans you heard." And a voice of the Lord came, saying: "My altar will be made an abomination." Without delay, Inflicted two years later, the effect followed the vision; for after two years the fierce madness of the Arians burst forth. Then came the plundering of churches, then the profanation of sacred vessels, then the sacred ministries were polluted by the polluted hands of pagans, then the resources of pagan craftsmen were marshalled against Christ, and Christians were compelled to go to church carrying palm branches (which is the badge of idolatry at Alexandria), so that they might be taken for the Arian people. What a crime! The mind recoils from recounting what was done: the modesty of virgins and matrons was stolen; the blood of Christ's sheep, shed in Christ's temple, spattered the venerable altars; the baptistery was polluted at the will of the pagans. Nothing was lacking to the truth of the vision, as the outcome demonstrated; for the indiscipline of the kicking mules was the impiety of the Arians.

[106] But the grief of this vision he consoled with the prosperity of the following revelation, and said: "Do not, my little children, give yourselves entirely to sorrow. He predicts that serenity will follow for the Church. For as the Lord was angry, so again He will have mercy, and the Church will soon recover its splendor. You will see those who preserved the faith of the Lord in persecutions shining again with their accustomed brightness. The serpents will return to their dens, and religion will be more widely spread. Only see to it that the sincerity of your faith is not soiled by the stain of Arianism. This is not the doctrine of the Apostles but of the demons and of their father the devil; and therefore through the folly of beasts, a spirit like that of cattle has been displayed in them."

[107] Thus far Anthony. But it is by no means fitting that we doubt that so great a miracle could be portended through a man. Matthew 17:20. For it is the Savior's promise, who says: "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, 'Move,' and it shall move, and nothing shall be impossible to you." And again: "Amen, amen, I say to you, everything that you shall ask the Father in my name, He will give you. John 16:21. Ask and you shall receive." For He Himself, to His disciples and to the whole flock of believers, now promising the subjection of demons, now the curing of various infirmities, said: "Freely you have received, freely give." Matthew 10:8. He works miracles by prayer. Did Anthony heal by the command of his own power? Did he consider what he had done to be within his own ability? Through prayers, not through commands, did the demons and diseases yield, and at the naming of Christ our God all things were always accomplished. Let no wise man ascribe the wonder of the healings to Anthony, but to the Lord Jesus, who, displaying His accustomed benevolence toward His creatures, now also indulgently exercised it through His chosen servant. And by the merits of his life. Anthony merely prayed, and on account of the merits of his life the Lord bestowed all things.

CHAPTER XIX.

Patronage of the afflicted.

[108] Often, and against his will, he was brought by the brethren to the outer mountain. And when judges, who could not go to the inner hermitage because of the harshness of the journey, the multitude of their retinue, and the terrible solitude, had asked on bended knee to enjoy his presence but could not prevail — since he bore most grievously the vexation of these excursions — they would send to him in chains For the sake of helping the wretched he approaches the judges those whom either guilt or the rigor of public authority had bound, knowing that such persons could not be despised by Anthony. Overcome by their tears, he was drawn to the outer mountain, recognizing that his labor would be useful to the wretched. He urged the judges he reminds them of their duty who had invited him to prefer the fear of God to hatred and favor in pronouncing sentence, and that they should not be ignorant of what is written: "With what judgment you judge, you shall be judged." Matthew 7:2. Yet in the midst of these discussions he remembered his beloved solitude. After the forced appearance, therefore, which the prayers of the governor and — what is more true — the tears of the wretched had extorted, after his salutary admonitions, after commending the accused, he commends the accused, and even obtaining the release of some, when the governor asked him to stay a little longer, he replied that he could not remain there any longer, using a fitting comparison: that just as fish extracted from water soon die on dry land, so also monks, detained among worldly persons, are immediately dissolved by human conversations. "Therefore," he said, he hastens to the inner mountain, "it is fitting that, as fish hasten to the sea, so we hasten to the mountain, lest by our delaying, some forgetfulness of our purpose may creep in." The governor, marveling at the man's great wisdom, passed a just and true judgment on him, saying: "Truly this man is a servant of God; nor could such great wisdom ever have dwelt in a rustic man unless he were governed by divine love."

[109] Furthermore, when Balacius, who under Nestorius the Prefect of Alexandria was the military commander of Egypt — a man most zealously devoted to the Arian iniquity — was persecuting the Church of Christ to such a degree that in his mad spirit he had virgins and monks stripped and publicly beaten, Anthony sent him a letter whose message was this: A letter rebukes the Arian Balacius. "I see the wrath of God coming upon you. Cease persecuting Christians, lest the wrath overtake you, which now threatens you with imminent destruction." The wretch read the letter, laughed, and spitting upon it cast it to the ground. He also inflicted many injuries upon the bearers and ordered that these words be brought back to Anthony: "Since the care of monks concerns you so greatly, the discipline of my rigor shall extend even to you." But immediately punishment overtook the one who had threatened, and after five days divine vengeance restrained that unbridled mouth. For he rode out to the first stopping place from Alexandria, which is called Chaereum, with the aforementioned Prefect of Egypt, Nestorius. They rode horses, he predicts that the insolent man will be punished, among which Balacius kept those of his own as the gentlest of all. But when, as usual, the horses were sporting with one another, the gentler one, on which Nestorius was riding, suddenly threw Balacius to the ground with a bite, and gaping at him, so lacerated and gnawed his thighs that he was immediately carried back to the city and died after three days. And all recognized that the effect of the threats foretold by Anthony had followed most swiftly, and the persecutor had met a fitting end. As for the rest who came to him, Anthony admonished them with wondrous modesty: that, forgetting the dignity of the world, they should seek the blessedness of a more withdrawn life. He spurs all to a more perfect life. If any were oppressed by a greater power and could not obtain justice, he defended them so strenuously that he himself seemed to suffer the injury on their behalf. The discourse of this illustrious old man was profitable to many; many, having abandoned great riches and a high rank of military service, clung to his way of life. And to comprehend infinite things in brief speech: Christ had bestowed a good physician upon Egypt. Who did not exchange sadness for joy at Anthony's side? Who did not turn anger into peace? A physician to all Egypt, Who did not temper the mourning of bereavement at the sight of him? Who, having cast off the grief of poverty that oppressed him, did not immediately both despise the wealth of the rich and rejoice in his own poverty? What monk, after weariness, was not invigorated by his encouragements? What young man, inflamed by passions, did not become a lover of chastity from his admonition? Especially a spiritual physician. Who, vexed by the devil, returned without a remedy? Who, torn apart by the enemy's thoughts, did not return with a serene mind after the blind tempest was stilled? For he knew what ailment each person labored under, and, recognizing the discernment of spirits from the merits of his life, he applied the healing of words as the wounds required. Hence it came about that after his teaching, all the snares of the devil were laid open. Many betrothed girls also, at the sight of him, withdrawing from the very threshold of marriage, settled in the bosom of Mother Church. What more? People from the whole world flowed to him, indeed to the whole world, and the variety of all nations yearned to behold this most valiant warrior against the demons. No one complained of having come there in vain; for all, the exchange for their labor was delightful and pleasant. For the fatigue of the journey brought back the reward of provisions, as the outcome proved. For after his passing, as though struck by a common wound of bereavement, each one mourned his own parent.

CHAPTER XX.

Final admonitions to the monks of Pispir.

[110] What the end of his life was is worthy for me to recount and for you to hear with desire; for this too in him was imitable by all. According to his custom he came to visit the brethren who were on the outer mountain, and there, learning from divine providence about his own death, he began thus: "Hear, my little children, He foretells his death to the brethren, the last judgment of your father; for I do not think that in this world we shall see each other again. The condition of nature compels me, now that I exceed by five years the century mark, to be dissolved." Speaking thus, he saddened the hearts of his hearers; groans and tears followed his sorrowful words. They all embraced him as one about to depart from this world. But he, as though leaving a foreign land and setting out for his own country, commanded with great joy that sloth must not steal into their way of life, but that, as though about to die daily — as he had earlier said — he gives them final admonitions, they should guard their souls from sordid thoughts and direct all their emulation toward the Saints. They should by no means approach the Meletian schismatics. "For you know," he said, "their ancient perversity. Nor should you be joined in communion with the Arians, for their impiety is already manifest to all." To this he added that no Christian, when he sees the powers of the world fighting for the wickedness of the Arians and Meletians, should be frightened away from the truth of Christ. That defense was mortal, and the deceitful phantom could not long endure. "Therefore," he said, He commends the Faith and the Traditions, "the pious faith in Christ and the religious tradition of the Fathers must be guarded — which you have learned from the reading of the Scriptures and from the frequent admonition of my humble self."

[111] When his speech was finished, the brethren detained him most urgently, desiring to be honored by the glorious death of the Father. But for many reasons, which he also demonstrated by his silence — and especially because of the established Egyptian custom — he refused. For it is the custom of the Egyptians to wrap the bodies of the noble and especially of the blessed Martyrs in linen and to render the customary funeral honors, but not to hide them in the earth; rather, they place them on couches and preserve them at home. This honor of preserving the departed was handed down by the vanity of an ancient custom. He criticizes the long-established Egyptian funerary custom. Concerning this, Anthony often entreated the Bishops to correct the people with ecclesiastical admonition; and he himself more sternly reproached laymen and laywomen, saying that this was neither lawful nor pleasing to God — since the tombs of the Patriarchs and Prophets, which endure to our day, demonstrate the contrary. He also bade them consider the example of the Lord's body, which was placed in a tomb and sealed with a stone until the third day of resurrection. By these arguments he exposed the vice of the Egyptians concerning the dead, even when the bodies were holy, saying: "What can be greater or holier than the body of the Lord, which we know was buried in the ground according to the custom of other nations?" This just persuasion uprooted the deeply engrafted error of many, and, having placed their corpses in the earth, they gave thanks to the Lord for so good a teaching. Matthew 27:60. Fearing, therefore, the aforementioned custom — lest they should fall into the same error with regard to himself — He returns to the inner mountain, he quickly bade farewell to the monks who had gathered and hastened back to the habitation dear to virtue.

CHAPTER XXI.

Preparation for death. Death. Burial.

[112] After a few months, when no slight ailment had troubled his aged limbs, having summoned to himself the two brethren whom he had trained there fifteen years earlier, stationed at a slight distance, His last words to his disciples, and who had also begun to minister to him in his old age, he said: "I indeed, my little children, according to the words of the Scriptures, am going the way of the Fathers; for the Lord now invites me, and I now long to see the heavenly things. But you, O my dearest ones, I admonish: do not suddenly lose the labor of so long a time. Joshua 23:14; 3 Kings 2:2. Consider that today you have taken up your religious pursuit, and that the fortitude of your newly begun resolve is still growing. The religious person should think of himself as always beginning. You know the various snares of the demons; you have seen both their fierce attacks and their effeminate forces. Aspire to Jesus, and fix the faith of His name in your minds, and from a sure faith all the demons will be put to flight. The name of Jesus drives away demons. Remember also my admonitions, and daily reflect upon the uncertain and precarious condition of life, and the heavenly reward will be bestowed upon you without delay."

[113] Schismatics and heretics must be avoided. "Avoid also the poisons of schismatics and heretics, and follow my hatred of them, for they are enemies of Christ. You yourselves know that I never had even a peaceful word with them, because of their depraved will and their obstinate war against Christ. But be more solicitous in this: to keep the Lord's commandments, so that after your death the Saints may receive you into the eternal tabernacles as friends and acquaintances." Luke 16:9.

[114] "Think on these things, be wise in these things, recount these things. And if you have any care for me, if you have any memory of your father, if you render me the affection of a return in kind — let no one carry my remains to Egypt, lest the body be preserved with empty honor, He forbids the pomp and glory of a funeral, lest the rites that, as you know, I have criticized be observed even with respect to me. For it was mainly for this reason that I returned here. Therefore cover me with earth; cover with soil the poor body of your father. And guard this final command of your old man: that no one except your beloved selves should know the place of my tomb. I trust in the Lord that at the appointed time of the resurrection this poor body will rise incorrupt. As for the distribution of my garments, He makes his testament, give the sheepskin cloak and the worn pallium on which I lie to Bishop Athanasius, which he himself had brought to me when new. Let Bishop Serapion receive the other sheepskin cloak. Keep the hair-cloth garment for yourselves. And farewell, my dearest ones; for Anthony departs, and will no longer be with you in this present world."

[115] He dies joyfully, with Angels present. He had finished his words, and with his disciples kissing him, stretching out his feet a little, he looked upon death with joy — so that from the cheerfulness of his face the presence of the holy Angels, who had descended to carry his soul, was recognized. Gazing upon them as though seeing friends, he breathed out his soul and was added to the Fathers, according to the order of the Scriptures. The disciples kept his commands, wrapping the body as he had ordered and covering it with earth; and no one to this day, except them, knows where it is buried. The legatee of blessed Anthony, who had deserved to receive the worn pallium and the sheepskin cloak by his command, Athanasius embraces Anthony in the gifts of Anthony, embraces Anthony in the gifts of Anthony; and, as though enriched with a great inheritance, he joyfully recalls through the garment the image of holiness.

CHAPTER XXII.

Epilogue of St. Athanasius.

[116] This was the end of Anthony's life, and these were the beginnings of his merits. Although I have narrated them in a rather brief discourse, as I said, yet from these you can perceive what manner of man he was from boyhood to old age, the man of God; Anthony was always constant in his purpose, and that, always trampling down every doubt, he never conceded anything to weakness or to his great age. Rather, maintaining the constancy of his purpose, he neither changed his garment nor washed his feet nor pursued a softer diet. With bodily vigor intact to the end. The keenness of his eyes and the number of his teeth — although they seemed slightly worn by age — as well as the step of his feet and the firmness of his whole body, he preserved by the grace of his merits against the laws of nature, so that his flesh seemed more cheerful than the bodies of those who pamper themselves with baths and delicacies.

[117] This also, brethren — that his love and fame flew through all provinces, although he was commended neither by the polished language of published books, nor by the disputation of worldly wisdom, nor by the nobility of his birth, nor by an infinite accumulation of riches — By the kindness of Christ, to whom must this be ascribed by the mouth of all, if not to Christ, whose gift it is? He, foreseeing the devout affections of Anthony's soul toward His majesty, demonstrated this man — hidden in almost another world and set amid such great solitudes — celebrated far and wide, to Africa, Spain, Gaul, Italy, Illyricum, and even to Rome itself, which is the capital of cities, as He had promised at the beginning. This is the kindness of the Creator, who is accustomed to ennoble His servants even against their will, so that virtue, which is attainable, may be shown by the examples of the Saints not to lie beyond human nature, and so that the best of men may be impelled to the imitation of the blessed life by the fruit of labor.

[118] The reading of this Life is recommended to monks. Take care, therefore, brethren, to read this book to the utmost; so that, having learned the faithful life of exalted Christians and monks, they may know that our Savior Jesus Christ glorifies those who glorify Him, and bestows upon His servants not only the kingdoms of heaven but also, even here, upon those who desire to hide in the recesses of the mountains, the nobility of fame — namely, so that they themselves may enjoy the praise of their merits and others may be provoked by their examples. If necessary, read it also to the pagans, so that they may thereby recognize that our Lord Jesus Christ is not only God, the Son of God, but that He has also given to those who diligently worship Him and faithfully believe in Him the power to trample upon and cast out the demons — whom those others consider to be gods — namely, the deceivers of men and the artificers of all corruption.

EPILOGUE OF EVAGRIUS THE TRANSLATOR.

Therefore we beseech the prudent who wish to read this writing that they grant pardon if we have not been able to express the force of the Greek language in translating it into Latin; though we have done this against our own intention. Not that we were unwilling out of envy, but, knowing well enough what great weakness the Greek language sustains when translated into Latin, we preferred nevertheless that the Greek language undergo this rather than that those who could read the Greek rendered however imperfectly should suffer the loss of divine profit. May Almighty God, who cooperated with so great a man in doing such things, also cooperate with us in imitating him, at least in part, that in all things His name may be glorified through our teacher, exhorter, redeemer, and Savior, the Lord Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, to whom is glory and perpetual power, forever and ever.

APOPHTHEGMATA AND CONFERENCES

And other things pertaining to the Life of St. Anthony, From Cassian and the Lives of the Fathers.

Anthony the Great, Abbot in the Thebaid (Saint)

BHL Number: 0000

From the Lives of the Fathers.

CHAPTER I.

Renunciation of the world.

[1] A certain brother, renouncing the world and giving what he had to the poor, A monk should not retain money, but keeping a little for his own use, came to Abbot Anthony. When the old man learned of this, he said to him: "If you wish to become a monk, go to that village, buy some meat, and place it on your naked body, and come back here." When the brother had done this, dogs and birds lacerated his body. When he reached the old man, Anthony asked whether he had done what he had told him. When the brother showed his lacerated body, St. Anthony said: "Those who renounce the world and wish to keep money — behold, thus they are assailed and torn apart by demons."

[2] Abraham said: "I shall set before you not my own opinion on this matter, but that of Blessed Anthony, with which he so confounded the sluggishness of a certain brother who was torpid at the time you mention, that he also cut the knot of your proposition. Nor should he cohabit with friends. For when someone came to the aforesaid man (as I said) and declared that the anchoretic discipline was by no means admirable — pronouncing it a matter of greater virtue if someone practiced the things of perfection among men rather than when placed in the desert — Blessed Anthony asked where he himself lived. When the man said that he lived near his parents, and that, freed by their provision from all care and the solicitude of daily labor, he gloried in devoting himself unceasingly to reading and prayer alone, without any distraction of spirit, Blessed Anthony asked him again: 'Tell me, my son, whether you are saddened by their losses or misfortunes, and likewise whether you rejoice in their prosperity.' The man confessed that he shared in both. The old man said to him: 'Know that in the world to come also you will be reckoned according to the lot of those with whom in this life you are shaken by partnership in gain or loss, whether in joy or in grief.'"

[3] "Not content with this judgment, Blessed Anthony entered upon a still larger field of discussion, saying: 'This manner of life and this most tepid condition strike you with harm not only in the way I have described (although you yourself do not feel it, saying, as it were, according to that parable of Proverbs: "They struck me, but I felt no pain; they mocked me, but I knew it not"; or what is said in the Prophet: "Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knew it not") — that is, changing your mind day by day according to the variety of circumstances, they unceasingly plunge you into earthly things — but also because they deprive you of the fruits of your own hands and the just reward of your own labor, not permitting you, supported by their provision, to prepare your daily sustenance with your own hands according to the rule of the blessed Apostle the monk should earn his living by manual labor — who, promulgating his final precepts to the elders of the Church of Ephesus, recalls that he provided for not only himself but also those who were hindered by necessary services connected with his ministry, even while he was occupied with the holy pursuits of evangelical preaching, saying: "You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my needs and to those who are with me." Proverbs 23:35; Hosea 7:9; Acts 20:34. Yet, in order to show that he did this as a pattern for our benefit, he says elsewhere: "We were not idle among you, nor did we eat bread from anyone for nothing, but in labor and toil, working night and day, lest we burden any of you — not because we did not have the authority, but so that we might give ourselves as an example for you to imitate us." 2 Thessalonians 3:7 ff.'"

[4] "'And therefore, even though the support of our parents was not lacking to us, we preferred this nakedness to all riches, and chose rather to prepare the daily nourishment of the body by our own sweat than to be supported by the easy provision of our parents, by the example of St. Anthony, placing behind the most laborious penury that leisurely meditation on the Scriptures and that unfruitful persistence in reading which you extol — which we would most willingly pursue if Apostolic authority had handed down by its examples, or the salutary ordinances of the elders had prescribed, that this was more useful. Know, moreover, that you are afflicted with no less harm from this than from what we have described above: that since you are of a healthy and robust body, you are sustained by another's alms, which are justly allotted to the weak alone. For assuredly every class of men, except only that type of monks who lives by the daily labor of their hands according to the Apostle's precept, awaits the charitable provision of another's work. He should not be sustained by the alms of another's labor. Hence it is certain that not only those who boast of their parents' resources, their servants' labors, or the fruits of their estates, but even the kings of this world are sustained by charitable provision. At length, the definition of our forefathers holds this: Whatever is consumed for the necessity of daily sustenance that has not been produced and earned by the labor of our own hands must be reckoned as charitable alms, according to the Apostle, who utterly forbids the aid of another's generosity to the idle, saying: "He who does not work, let him not eat." 2 Thessalonians 3:10.' With these words, which Blessed Anthony used against a certain person, he also instructed us by the example of his teaching."

CHAPTER II.

Penance. Patience.

[5] A brother sought out St. Anthony, saying: "What shall I do about my sins?" He answered: "Whoever wishes to be freed from sins will be freed from them by weeping and lamentation; Let him wash away sins with tears and obtain heavenly gifts. and whoever wishes to be built up in virtues is built up through the weeping of tears. The very praise of the Psalms is a lamentation. Remember the example of Hezekiah, King of Judah, as it is written through Isaiah the Prophet, who by weeping not only recovered his health but also earned an extension of his life by fifteen years; and the approaching army of the enemy, namely one hundred and eighty-five thousand, the power of the Lord prostrated in death through the watering of his tears. Isaiah 38:5-6. St. Peter the Apostle, by weeping, received back what he had committed in denying Christ. Mary, because she bathed the feet of the Lord with tears, merited to hear that she had chosen the best part. This very holy fear of the Lord endures forever and ever."

[6] Abbot Anthony said to Abbot Pastor: "This is the great work of a man: Let him acknowledge his fault before God, that each one should place his own fault upon himself before God, and should expect temptation until the last moment of his life."

[7] Abbot Anthony once heard of a certain young monk who had performed such a sign on the road: namely, when he had seen certain old men traveling and laboring in their walking, he commanded wild asses to come and carry them until they reached him. Those old men reported this to Abbot Anthony, and Abbot Anthony said: "This monk seems to me like a ship laden with all good things, St. Anthony foresees and deplores the fall of a monk, of which it is uncertain whether it can reach port." And after some time, Abbot Anthony suddenly began to weep and to tear his hair and mourn. When his disciples saw this, they said to him: "Why do you weep, Abba?" The old man answered: "A great pillar of the Church has just fallen." He was speaking of that young monk, and he added: "Go to him and see what has happened." His disciples therefore set out and found that monk sitting on a mat and weeping for the sin he had committed. When he saw the disciples of the old man, he said to them: "Tell the old man to entreat God that I may be given only ten days' reprieve, and I hope to make satisfaction to Him." He died within five days.

[8] A certain brother was praised by monks before Abbot Anthony. When the brother came to him, He tests perfection by patience, Anthony tested whether he could bear an insult. And when he recognized that he could not endure it, he said to him: "You are like a house that is adorned in front but has been plundered by robbers from behind."

[9] Blessed Anthony prophesied to Abbot Ammon, saying: "You are to make great progress in the fear of God." And leading him out of the cell, he showed him a stone and said to him: "Go, The measure of this, insult this stone and strike it unceasingly." When the brother had done so, St. Anthony asked him whether the stone had answered anything. He said: "No." Abbot Anthony said: "Thus you too are to reach this measure: that you consider no insult to have been done to you."

[10] Certain brethren, coming to Abbot Anthony, asked to hear from him a word by which they might be saved. He said to them: "You have heard the Scriptures, and you know what suffices for you from Christ." But they urged that he himself also deign to say something to them. Then he said to them: "The Gospel says: 'If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, offer him the other also.'" Matthew 5:39. But they said they could not do this. The old man answered: "You cannot offer the other? At least endure it if he wishes to strike the same one again." But when they testified that they could not do this either, the old man said to them: "Then if you cannot do this, Various degrees, do not return evil for what you have received." And when they repeated the same words they had said before, Abbot Anthony said to his disciple: "Go, prepare food for them to eat, for you see that they are very weak." And he said to them: "For if you cannot do this, and you do not wish to do the other, what do you seek from me? As I see it, what you need is prayer, by which your weakness may be healed."

[11] A certain brother sought out Abbot Anthony, saying: "What should I observe in order to please God?" The old man answered: "Keep what I tell you. Companion virtues. Wherever you go, always have God before your eyes; and whatever work you do, take examples from the divine Scriptures; and in whatever place you settle, do not move from there hastily, but remain patiently in the same place. For by keeping these three things, you will be saved."

p Rufinus, book 3, number 108. In St. Ephrem, Apophthegma 2. Pelagius, book 5, booklet 1, number 1.

q Pelagius: "Apply the testimony of the sacred Scriptures." St. Ephrem: "Confirm it above all by the testimony of divine Scripture."

CHAPTER III.

Temptations. Discretion.

[12] Abbot Anthony said: "He who sits in solitude and is at rest Temptations are rarer for the solitary is delivered from three battles: namely, those of hearing, speech, and sight. Against one only will he have to fight: that of the heart."

[13] Abbot Anthony said again: "God does not permit battles to be stirred up in this generation, and for the weak, because He knows that they are weak and cannot bear them."

[14] At a certain time, two Philosophers, hearing of the fame of Blessed Anthony, went to him. When they had had some disputes with each other, the Philosophers, despising St. Anthony as an unlearned man without letters, departed from him. But wishing, if they could accomplish nothing further against him, at least to disturb him from his cell by magical deceptions and the circumvention of demons, they sent most wicked demons to attack him, struck by this envy and jealousy They are repelled by the sign of the Cross impressed on the forehead and breast, because many people came to him daily as to a servant of God. When he now impressed the seal of the Cross upon his breast and forehead, now prostrated himself in humble prayer, the fiercest demons did not dare even to approach him and returned without effect to those who had sent them. By prayer. Then those men sent others again, supposedly more powerful. When these too returned exhausted, they nevertheless sent still others, yet more powerful and fierce, against the soldier of Christ, who prevailed in nothing, with Anthony resisting manfully. Their snares, for all their extent, sought by every magical art and necromancy, accomplished nothing — so as to prove most evidently that great power resides in the profession of Christians, since those savage phantoms were unable either to harm Anthony or even to disturb him from his dwelling for a single moment. Astonished therefore by this wonder, the Philosophers immediately came to St. Anthony, revealed to him the magnitude and the causes and snares of their envious attacks, and demanded to become Christians forthwith. When Anthony inquired about the day of the attack they had launched, they indicated it; and Blessed Anthony affirmed that he had been struck at that very time by the most bitter stings of his thoughts.

[15] Abbot Anthony said: "There are some who wear down their bodies in abstinence, And by discretion, but because they have not had discretion, they have ended up far from God."

[16] At a certain time many elders gathered together before Blessed Anthony, who was dwelling in the regions of the Thebaid, for the investigation of perfection and the purpose of conference. The conference, drawn out from evening hours until dawn, consumed the greatest part of the night on the question of discretion. For a very long time they inquired among themselves what virtue or observance could keep a monk unharmed from the snares of the devil, or at least lead him to God by a straight path and with a firm step. And when each one put forward his opinion according to the grasp of his own mind — some placing this in the zeal of fasting and vigils, others in nakedness and contempt for possessions, others recommending a more remote life and the secrets of the desert, and some defining that above all the duties of charity, that is, of kindness toward brethren and strangers, should be pursued — when they had contended in this holy competition and the greatest part of the night had been consumed, Blessed Anthony at last answered them all, saying: "All these things which you have mentioned are indeed necessary and useful for those thirsting for God; but to grant the principal grace to any one of them, the innumerable falls and experiences of many brethren by no means permit us. Which preserves from a fall. For we have often seen brethren holding these observances deceived by a sudden fall, because they did not maintain discretion in the good they had begun. No other cause for their fall is discerned than that, being less instructed by their elders, they were never able to attain the understanding of this discretion, which teaches the monk always to walk the royal road and does not allow him to exceed the measure by an excess of continence, nor permit him to turn aside to vices. In all things, therefore, that we do, discretion must be placed first. For it is most clearly demonstrated that no virtue can be perfectly accomplished or maintained without the grace of discretion." When Anthony had said this, by the unanimous judgment of all it was determined that discretion is what leads the monk to God with a firm step and undaunted, and preserves the aforementioned virtues continually unharmed. And it is the mother of virtue. For discretion is the mother, guardian, and moderator of all virtues.

CHAPTER IV.

Humility. Mortification.

[17] Likewise Blessed Anthony related that he had seen all the snares of the enemy spread over the entire earth, The humble one passes through the snares of the devil, and when he said with a sigh, "Who will be able to pass through these?" he heard a voice saying to him: "Humility alone passes through, Anthony; which the proud are in no way able to touch."

[18] Likewise, when Blessed Anthony was praying in his own cell, a voice came to him saying: "Anthony, you have not yet reached the measure of the cobbler who is in Alexandria." Hearing this, the old man rose at dawn, took up his staff, and hastened to the city of Alexandria. When he had come to the designated man, the cobbler was astonished at the sight of so great a man. The old man said to him: "Tell me of your works, for on account of you I have left the desert and come here." The man replied: "I am not aware of ever having done anything good. Let him consider himself worse than all. Hence, when I rise from my bed in the morning, before I sit down to my work, I say that this entire city, from the least to the greatest, will enter the kingdom of God on account of their righteous deeds, but I alone, on account of my sins, will enter into eternal punishment. And before I go to rest in the evening, I repeat the same thing from the truth of my heart." Hearing this, Blessed Anthony answered: "Truly, my son, like a good craftsman sitting in your house at ease, you have attained the kingdom of God. But I, having spent all my time in the wilderness as though without discretion, have not yet reached the measure of your words."

[19] A brother asked Abbot Anthony, saying: "What does it mean for a man to reckon himself as nothing?" And to consider himself like a beast. He answered: "To consider oneself like irrational beasts, because they judge nothing, as it is written: 'I was made like a beast before you, and I am always with you.'" Psalm 72.

[20] Some elders once came to Abbot Anthony, and Abbot Joseph was among them. Wishing to test them, Abbot Anthony raised a question from the Holy Scriptures. And he began to ask, starting from the younger ones, what this or that passage meant. Let him confess himself ignorant. And each spoke as best he could. But he said to them: "You have not yet found the answer." After them he said to Abbot Joseph: "How do you say this passage should be understood?" Joseph replied: "I do not know." And Abbot Anthony said: "Truly Abbot Joseph alone has found the way, who answered that he does not know."

[21] Abbot Pambo asked Abbot Anthony, saying: Let him not trust in his own righteousness. "What should I do?" The old man answered: "Do not be confident in your own righteousness; do not be regretful about a matter that is past; and be continent of your tongue and your belly."

[22] Blessed Anthony used to admonish his disciple, saying: "Abhor your belly, Of what the appetite must especially be restrained, and the necessities of this world, and evil desire, and honor, as though absent from this world, and you will possess rest."

[23] Abbot Anthony said: "I consider that the body has a natural movement mixed into it, which does not operate when the soul is unwilling, but is merely signified in the body — a movement, as it were, without passion. But there is also another movement arising from the fact that the body is nourished and sustained with food and drink, The threefold bodily movement, from which the heat of the blood excites the body to action. Therefore the Apostle says: 'Do not be drunk with wine, in which is lust.' Ephesians 5:18. And again the Lord, commanding His disciples in the Gospel, said: 'Take heed lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing and drunkenness.' Luke 21:34. But there is yet another movement that comes to those striving in their way of life, arising from the snares and envy of the demons. Therefore it is fitting to know that there are three bodily movements: one indeed natural; another from the fullness of food; and the third from the demons."

[24] A brother sought out St. Anthony, asking: "How is it that God promises good things to the soul through the constancy of the Scriptures, and yet the soul does not wish to remain in good things, Why the mind is inclined toward transitory and impure things, but turns aside to transitory, perishable, and impure things?" He answered: "To this is joined what the Psalmist says: 'If I have regarded iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.' Psalm 65:18. Do you not know that when the belly is full of food, great vices immediately boil forth? — which our Savior foretold through the Gospel: 'Not what enters the mouth defiles the soul of a man, but from the heart go forth the things that plunge a man into destruction.' Matthew 15:11, 19. See what He said first: evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, and blasphemies. Because whoever has not yet tasted the sweetness of heavenly things, so as to seek God with his whole heart, for this reason returns to impure things — one who may rightly say: 'I was made like a beast before you, and I am always with you.'"

[25] Certain brethren came to Abbot Anthony to report to him the phantasms they saw, and to learn from him whether they were true or whether they were being deceived by the demons. They had a donkey with them, and it died on the road. When they came to the old man, he anticipated them, saying: "How did that donkey die on the road?" They said to him: "How do you know, Father?" And he said: "The demons showed it to me." They said to him: "And it is for this reason that we came to ask you, because we see phantasms, and they frequently turn out to be true — lest perhaps we err." And the old man satisfied them, taking the example of the donkey and showing that these things come from the demons. Then a certain man who was hunting wild animals in the forest came upon them, Relaxation is sometimes honorable and necessary, and he saw Abbot Anthony rejoicing with the brethren, and it displeased him. The old man, wishing to show him that it is sometimes necessary to condescend to the brethren, said to him: "Put an arrow in your bow and draw it." He did so. And Anthony said to him: "Draw it again." And he drew it. And again he said: "Draw it still more." And he drew it. The hunter said: "If I draw it beyond measure, the bow will break." Abbot Anthony said to him: "So it is also in the work of God: if we stretch the brethren beyond measure, they quickly fail. It is expedient, therefore, from time to time to relax their rigor." Hearing this, the hunter was pierced with compunction, and, profiting greatly from the old man's discourse, departed. And the brethren, confirmed, returned to their place.

[26] Abbot Anthony said: "A monk who labors for a few days and then relaxes again, and again labors Not negligently, and then neglects — this one accomplishes nothing, nor will he possess the perseverance of patience."

[27] St. Anthony the Abbot was once sitting in the desert when his mind fell into weariness and confusion of thoughts, and he said to God: "Lord, I wish to be saved, and my thoughts do not permit me. And he must be renewed by varied exercises. What shall I do in this tribulation? How shall I be saved?" And rising up a little, he began to go outside, and he saw someone who appeared to be himself, sitting and working; then rising from his work and praying; and again sitting and weaving a plait from palm branches, and from there again rising to prayer. It was an Angel of the Lord, sent for the correction and instruction of Anthony. And he heard the voice of the Angel saying: "Do thus, and you will be saved." Hearing this, he received great joy and confidence. And doing thus, he found the salvation he was seeking.

p Pelagius, book 5, booklet 10, number 2.

q Paschasius, book 7, chapter 27, number 1.

r Pelagius, book 5, booklet 7, number 1. Rufinus, book 3, number 105. St. Ephrem, Apophthegma 1. The author of the sermons to the brethren in the desert under the name of St. Augustine, sermon 27, writes something similar about St. Anthony.

s St. Ephrem: "Subject to torpor and various darknesses of thoughts." Rufinus: "Tempted by the spirit of acedia and entangled in diverse thoughts."

t In Greek in St. Ephrem: tas seiras — Voss translates "chains"; Rufinus translates "cord." See Rosweyde's Onomasticon.

v Ephrem: "sent to direct, instruct, and protect Anthony." In St. Augustine the reading is: "Anthony heard: 'Anthony, do you wish to please God? Pray; and when you cannot pray, work with your hands, and always do something. Do what lies in you, do what you can, and help from the holy One will not fail you.'"

CHAPTER V.

Love of God. Pure intention.

[28] And so that you may perceive the effect of true prayer, I shall set before you not my own opinion but that of Blessed Anthony, St. Anthony prays through the entire night, whom we know to have sometimes persisted in prayer in such a way that, when the sunrise began to pour in while he was praying frequently in that same ecstasy of mind, we heard him exclaiming in the fervor of the spirit: "Why do you hinder me, O sun, you who rise for this purpose — to draw me away from the brightness of this true light?" In ecstasy. This also is his heavenly and more than human opinion on the goal of prayer: "That prayer is not perfect," he said, "in which the monk is aware of himself, or even of the fact that he is praying."

[29] Abbot Anthony said: "I no longer fear God, Without servile fear, but I love Him, because love has cast out fear."

[30] Abbot Ammon from the place of Nitria came to Abbot Anthony and said to him: "I see that I endure greater labor than you, and yet how is it that your name is great among men above mine?" He loves God. Abbot Anthony said to him: "Because I also love God more than you."

[31] Blessed Anthony often used to say: Unless the miller covered the eyes of the animal, it would consume the reward it was earning for itself. So too we receive governance through God's dispensation, One must not be proud on account of good works: so that we are unable to contemplate the good things we do; lest, congratulating ourselves, we be able to grow proud and lose our own reward. And for this reason, when we are left to sordid thoughts, it is necessary that we attend only to this: that we condemn ourselves and our own judgment, and that the sordid things within us obscure whatever small good work we have done. For a man is never good, even if he desires to be good, unless God dwells in him: because no one is good except God alone. Moreover, we ought always to accuse ourselves truthfully. For when someone does not reprove himself, he loses his own reward.

[32] Blessed Anthony used to say to his disciple: If you have taken up silence, How virtue is to be practiced. do not suppose that you are practicing virtue, but confess yourself unworthy to speak.

[33] Abbot Anthony, failing in the contemplation of the depth of God's judgments, made petition, saying: Lord, how is it that some die in a short span of life, while others pass beyond decrepit old age? And why are some destitute, God's judgments are not to be scrutinized. while others are enriched with wealth? And how are the unjust affluent, while the just are oppressed by poverty? And a voice came to him, saying: Anthony, attend to yourself; for these are judgments of God, and it is not fitting for you to know them.

[34] For there is an ancient and admirable saying of Blessed Anthony, that a monk who, after the cenobitic way of life, strives to attain the heights of a more sublime perfection, and having grasped the criterion of discretion, is now capable of standing by his own judgment, and of reaching the summit of the anchoritic life, should by no means seek every kind of virtue from one person, however excellent. The virtues of others are to be imitated. For one is adorned with the flowers of knowledge, another is more strongly fortified by the principle of discretion, another is grounded in the gravity of patience; one is distinguished by the virtue of humility, another by continence; another is graced with simplicity: this one surpasses the rest in magnanimity, that one in mercy, this one in watchfulness, that one in silence, the other in the zeal of labor. And therefore the monk who desires to store up spiritual honey ought, like a most prudent bee, to gather each virtue from those who possess it most intimately, and carefully store it in the vessel of his own breast: nor should he examine what anyone may lack, but only contemplate what virtue he possesses, and studiously pluck it. For if we wish to borrow all from one person, either with difficulty or certainly never will suitable examples for imitation be found.

CHAPTER VI.

Love and instruction of one's neighbor.

[35] It happened once that a brother in the congregation of Abbot Elias fell into temptation, and being expelled from there, he went to the mountain to Abbot Anthony. And when he had stayed some time with him, Anthony sent him back to the congregation from which he had come. But they, seeing him, expelled him again; and he likewise went to Abbot Anthony, saying: They did not wish to receive me, Father. Receiving the penitent, The old man therefore sent word to them, saying: A ship suffered shipwreck at sea and lost the cargo it was carrying, and with great labor the empty ship was brought to land. Do you then wish to sink at land the ship that was delivered? And they, recognizing that Abbot Anthony had sent him back, immediately received him.

[36] A certain brother fell into a fault in the monastery: and while he was being rebuked by the others, he went to Abbot Anthony. And the brothers followed him, wishing to bring him back, and began to reproach his faults to him. But he denied having committed the fault. Abbot Paphnutius, whose surname was Cephalas, was found there, and he related in the gathering of brothers an unheard-of parable: I saw, he said, a man on the bank of a river sunk in the mire up to his knees: and when certain people came to pull him out by extending a hand, they sank him up to his neck. he preserves his soul, Then Blessed Anthony said of Blessed Paphnutius: Behold a man who can truly save souls. At which words the brothers, pierced with compunction, did penance and recalled to the monastery him who had departed.

[37] He said again: Because life and death come from our neighbor: for if we win over a brother, we win God: and gains God. but if we scandalize a brother, we sin against Christ.

[38] A brother said to Abbot Anthony: Pray for me. And the old man answered him: Neither I nor God will have mercy on you, unless you yourself are solicitous for yourself and ask God.

[39] A certain brother asked Blessed Anthony, saying: What is detraction, and what is it to judge another? He answered: How one detracts from a neighbor or judges him. Detraction in all things is said to be every evil word which one does not dare to say in the presence of his brother: but to judge is when someone says of another: Because that brother is a businessman, and avaricious, and so on. This is to judge one's neighbor. To have judged such acts is worse than detraction.

[40] At a certain time, when Blessed Anthony had been brought into the city by St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, for the confutation of the heretics, Didymus, a most learned man who was blind, came to him. And when they had spoken much about the Holy Scriptures, among the other conversations they had concerning the sacred volumes, Anthony marveled at his talent, and praising the acuteness of his mind, inquired and said to him: St. Anthony consoles Didymus regarding his blindness. Are you not sad that you lack eyes of the flesh? And when Didymus was silent out of shame, Anthony, questioning him a second and third time, at last drew out that he would simply confess the sorrow of his mind. To whom Anthony said: I marvel that a prudent man grieves for the loss of a thing that ants, flies, and gnats possess, and does not rather rejoice in the possession of that which saints and apostles have merited. For it is far better to see with the spirit than with the flesh, and to possess those eyes into which no mote of sin can fall, than those which by mere sight through concupiscence can cast a man into the destruction of hell.

[41] There was a certain hermit named Pior, one of the ancient Fathers, whom Blessed Anthony instructed as a youth in the holy purpose of the monks: he remained with Blessed Anthony for a few years. He instructs the hermit Pior, And when he was twenty-five years old, he went to another secluded place in the desert, to live as a solitary, with the will and consent of Blessed Anthony. And St. Anthony said to him: Go, Pior, and dwell wherever you wish: and when the Lord has revealed to you through some reasonable occasion, you shall come to me. ... His sister, who was a widow with two sons already adolescent, sent them into the desert to seek her brother Pior. And when they had gone around various monasteries seeking him, at last barely finding him, they said to him: We are the sons of your sister, who with great longing desires to see you before her death. But he did not accede to their petition. The youths then went to the man of God, Blessed Anthony, telling him the reason they had come. he sends him to his sister. And Blessed Anthony sent and summoned him to himself, and said to him: Why, Brother, have you not come to me for so long a time? And he answered and said to him: You commanded me, most blessed Father, that when the Lord had revealed to me through some occasion, I should come to you; and behold, up to now it has not been revealed to me. Blessed Anthony said to him: Go, that your sister may see you. Then he took with him another monk and went to the place and the house of his sister: and standing outside near the door of the courtyard, with his eyes closed so that he would not see his sister, he stood there. And she, coming, threw herself at his feet, for she was overcome with distress from excessive joy. Pior said to her: Behold, I am Pior your brother; look at me therefore as much as you wish: and after this he immediately returned to the desert, to his cell. He did this, moreover, to instruct monks, so that they would not be given license, whenever it pleased them, to visit their parents or relatives.

[42] Abbot Hilarion once came from Palestine to Abbot Anthony on the mountain, He is visited by St. Hilarion, and Abbot Anthony said to him: Welcome, morning star, who rises at dawn. And Abbot Hilarion said: Peace to you, pillar of light, who sustains the world.

[43] Aristaeneta, the wife of Elpidius, who was afterward Praetorian Prefect, and by Aristaeneta, a noble woman, a woman very noble among her own people, having returned with her husband and three children from Blessed Anthony, stopped at Gaza because of their illness. For there the servants of God, seized alike by semitertian fever, were all given up by the physicians. The mother, wailing, prostrated herself on the ground at the cell of Hilarion, crying out repeatedly: Hilarion, servant of God, give me back my children; those whom Anthony kept safe in Egypt, let them be preserved by you in Syria.

CHAPTER VII.

The instruction of Eulogius of Alexandria and another.

[44] A certain Cronius, a priest of Nitria, narrated to me: When I was, he said, young at the beginning, and because of anguish and sadness of mind had fled from the monastery of my Archimandrite, wandering I came to the mountain of St. Anthony. And Blessed Anthony was sitting At the monastery of Pisper come Cronius, between Babylon and Heraclea in a vast solitude, which extends toward the Red Sea, about thirty miles from the river. When therefore I came to his monastery, which is near the river, in which his disciples Macarius and Amathas were sitting, in the place called Pisper, who also buried him when he had fallen asleep, I waited five days to meet St. Anthony. For he was said to come to this monastery sometimes after ten days, sometimes after twenty, sometimes after five, as was expedient for the benefit of those who came to the monastery. Various brothers therefore assembled, and Eulogius of Alexandria, for various reasons: among whom was also Eulogius, an Alexandrian monk, and with him another man, maimed in his limbs; who indeed came for this reason.

[45] For fifteen continuous years, he who was mutilated was benevolently cared for by him as by a father, being washed, anointed, warmed, a man mutilated in his limbs, and agitated by a demon, and carried in the hands of Eulogius, and guarded indeed beyond his own dignity, but cared for in a manner suited to his disease. But after fifteen years a demon seized him who was mutilated, wishing to deprive Eulogius of his resolution and purpose, and the mutilated man of his nourishment and thanksgiving to God; and stirs up sedition against Eulogius, and began to pursue him with many insults, to such a degree that he now assailed him with curses. When the demon had thus made him savage, Eulogius afterward betook himself to the neighboring monks and said to them: What shall I do? The mutilated man has driven me to despair. They said to him: Why? And he said: He afflicts me grievously; nor do I know what to do. Shall I cast him off? But I gave my right hand to God, and I fear. Shall I not cast him off? But he troubles me day and night. I do not know what to do. They said to him plainly: The Great One still lives; bringing him by ship. (for thus they called St. Anthony) go up to him, putting the mutilated man into a vessel: and bring him to the monastery, and wait until the Great One comes from the cave, and submit the case to his judgment; and whatever he tells you, stand by his sentence. God will speak to you through him. Eulogius complied with their words, and coaxing the mutilated man, when he had placed him in a pastoral skiff, he went out of the city by night and brought him to the monastery of the Great Anthony's disciples.

[46] And it happened that the Great One came on another day late in the evening, as Cronius narrated, clad in a cloak of skin. He entered therefore his monastery, St. Anthony inquires from Macarius the condition of his guests, and this was his custom: to address Macarius and ask him: Brother Macarius, have any come here? Macarius would answer: They have come. And the Great One would say: Are they Egyptians, or Jerusalemites? For the Great One had given him a sign, saying: When you see that some have come who have less serious business, say: Egyptians are here. But when you see that some more devout persons have come, and somewhat more thoughtful, say: They are Jerusalemites. The Great One therefore asked as was his custom, saying to Brother Macarius: he receives them with food Are they Egyptian brothers, or Jerusalemites? Macarius answers, saying: There is a mixture. Now when Macarius said: and with exhortation: They are Egyptians, the Great One said to him: Prepare lentils for them, and give them food, and he would offer one prayer for them and dismiss them. But when Macarius said: They are Jerusalemites, he would sit through the whole night and speak to them the things that pertain to salvation.

[47] Sitting therefore that evening, the Great One summoned all. And though no one had told him the name of the Scholar, when it was late evening, he called him, saying: Eulogius, Eulogius, he knows Eulogius by divine revelation, Eulogius: and when he had called three times and the scholar Eulogius had not answered, thinking that someone else was being called by that name, the Great One said to him: I am speaking to you, Eulogius, who came from Alexandria. Then Eulogius said to him: What do you command, I ask? The Great One said to him: Why have you come here? Eulogius answered him, saying: He who revealed my name to you also revealed the matter for which I came. St. Anthony said to him: I have learned why you came; but speak before the brothers, that they too may hear. And Eulogius, commanded by the Great One, spoke before all: he commands him to report the reason for his coming: This mutilated man I found cast away and neglected in the marketplace; and having compassion on him, I prayed to God that He would give me grace for enduring him, and I took him up. I also gave my right hand to God that I would care for him in his disease, so that I too might be saved through him, and he be refreshed by me. It is now fifteen years since we have lived together, as all things have also been revealed to your holiness. But I do not know what evil he has suffered from me; after so many years he vexes me greatly, and I had it in mind to cast him out, he himself driving me to this. For this reason I came to your holiness, that you might counsel me what I ought to do, and pray for me; for he vexes me grievously.

[48] he rebukes both Eulogius and the mutilated man, The Great Anthony said to him in a grave and stern voice: Will you cast him off, Eulogius? But He who created him does not cast him off. If you cast him off, God will raise up someone better than you to gather him in. Eulogius fell silent and was filled with dread when he had heard this. Then leaving Eulogius, the Great Anthony began to lash the mutilated man with his tongue, and to cry out to him: O mutilated one, defiled one, unworthy of earth and heaven, will you not cease fighting against God and provoking your brother? Do you not know that it is Christ who ministers to you? How dare you speak these things against Christ? Was it not for Christ's sake that he gave himself over to your service? And when he had also restrained him with rebuking words, he dismissed them. And when he had discussed with the brothers the things that were necessary for each, he again approached Eulogius and the mutilated man, and said to them: Do not tarry anywhere, O brothers, but depart in peace, and do not be separated from one another, and he warns them of their approaching death. laying aside all the trouble which the demon has cast upon you: and with good love return to the cell in which you have dwelt for a long time; for God will now send for you. For this temptation has been stirred up against you by Satan, because he knows that you have now reached the end, and that it will come to pass that you receive crowns from Christ, he through you and you through him. Think nothing else therefore. For if the angel comes and does not find you in the same place, Both die. it will come to pass that you are deprived of your crowns. Hastening quickly, therefore, they entered and came to their cell, in perfect charity; and within forty days Blessed Eulogius departed, migrating to the Lord, and within three other days he who was mutilated in body but firm and robust in soul also departed, who likewise commended his spirit into the hands of God.

[49] When therefore Cronius had spent some time around the region of the Thebaid, he came down to the monastery at Alexandria, and it happened that the fortieth day from the death of Blessed Eulogius was being celebrated by the brotherhood, and the third day from the death of the maimed man. Cronius, under oath, testifies that these things occurred, When therefore Cronius had learned this, he was amazed, and taking up the Gospel so that the hearers might believe, he placed it in the midst of the brothers: and he swore to them, narrating the prescience of the Great Anthony concerning these things, and concerning all that had happened, and saying: I was the interpreter of these words, since Blessed their interpreter. Anthony did not know Greek: but I knew both languages, and served as interpreter for them, for the henceforth blessed, through Christ's grace, Eulogius and the man mutilated in body, rendering in Greek the things said by the Great One, and for the Holy and Blessed and Great Anthony himself, rendering in Egyptian the things said by both of them.

CHAPTER VIII.

The training of St. Paul the Simple.

[50] Now the holy servant of Christ Hierax, and Cronius, and several other brothers narrated the things I am about to relate: that a certain Paul, a rustic farmer, remarkably innocent and simple in character, Paul the Simple, having left his wife on account of adultery, had married a most beautiful woman, but one depraved in character, who for a very long time sinned without his knowledge. But one day, returning unexpectedly from the field and entering his house, he found them perpetrating shameful acts, as providence was leading Paul to what was advantageous for him: and when he had seen her with the man with whom she habitually committed adultery, he smiled honorably and decorously, and cried out to them, saying: Well and good, well and good: truly it is no concern of mine. By Jesus, I will never take her back; go, take her for yourself, and her children; for I am leaving, and I shall become a monk.

[51] Without saying anything to anyone, he traversed eight stages and went to St. Anthony, and knocked on the door. And St. Anthony came out and asked him: What do you want? Paul said to him: I wish to become a monk. Anthony answered him: A sixty-year-old seeks admission among the monks: An old man of sixty cannot become a monk here; but rather go to the village, and work, and lead a laboring life, giving thanks to God. You cannot endure the afflictions of the solitude. The old man answered and said: If you teach me anything, I will do it. Anthony said to him: I have told you that you are old and cannot be a monk; go away. For if you wish to be a monk, enter a cenobium where there are many brothers who can bear your weakness. For I sit here alone, he is rejected by St. Anthony, with five days intervening between meals, and that while still hungry. With these words therefore Anthony was driving Paul away. But when he did not admit him, Anthony closed the door and did not go outside for three days on account of him, not even for his necessities. But the old man remained, not departing. On the fourth day, when necessity pressed him, he opened the door and went out: and when he again saw Paul, he said to him: Go away from here, old man; why do you trouble me? You cannot stay here. Paul said to him: It cannot be that I die anywhere but here. And when Anthony had looked at him and seen that he carried nothing necessary for sustenance -- no bread, no water, nothing else -- and that he had already persevered in fasting for a fourth day, he thought to himself: Perhaps he will die, he is admitted: since he is unaccustomed to fasting, and will stain my soul; so he admitted him.

[52] Then Anthony said to him: You can be saved, if you have obedience and do what you hear from me. And Paul answered and said: I will do whatever you command. And Anthony took up such a manner of austere living in those days, he is exercised in obedience, and testing as when he was in the beginning of his youth. Therefore, testing his mind, Anthony said to him: Stand and pray in this place until I go in and bring you work. And entering the cave, he observed him through the window staying in that place for a whole week, motionless, while he was being scorched by the heat. Then going out after a week, in work, when he had moistened branches from palm trees, he said to him: Take these and weave a rope, as you see me doing. The old man wove until the ninth hour fifteen cubits with great labor. But when Anthony had seen what he had woven, it did not please him at all, and he said to him: You have woven badly; unweave it and weave again; though he was already on his seventh day of fasting, and that at an advanced age. He afflicted him so much for this reason, that the old man, taking it ill, would flee from Anthony and the life of monks. But he both unwove the same branches and wove them again with great labor, since from the first weaving they had become wrinkled.

[53] When therefore the Great Anthony saw that he had neither murmured, nor lost heart, nor even turned his face away at all, nor even shown the slightest anger, he was pierced with compunction on his account. in fasting, And at sunset he said to him: Good father, would you like us to eat a piece of bread? Paul said to him: As it seems good to you, Abba. This too in turn moved Anthony, that he did not immediately rush at the announcement of food, but left the decision to him. Prepare the table then, he said; and Paul obeyed. Anthony brought bread and placed on the table four small loaves of six ounces each, and moistened one for himself, for they were dry, and three for Paul. Anthony chanted a psalm that he knew: and when he had sung it twelve times, in prayer, he prayed twelve times, so as to test Paul in this also. But the old man prayed together with him, more readily and eagerly than the Great Anthony himself. For he preferred, I believe, to feed on scorpions rather than to live together with an adulteress. After the twelve prayers, the Great Anthony said to Paul: Sit down, he said, and do not eat until evening; but only attend to the food before you. And when evening had come and Paul had not eaten, Anthony said to him: Rise, pray, and sleep. And he, leaving the table, did so. At midnight Anthony roused him for prayer and extended the prayers until the ninth hour. And when the table was again set, and Anthony had again sung and prayed, on meager fare, late in the evening they sat down to eat. And when the Great Anthony had eaten one small loaf, he touched no other. But the old man, eating more slowly, still held the small loaf he had taken. Anthony therefore waited until he finished, and said to him: Eat, good father, another small loaf as well. Paul said to him: If you eat, I too will eat; but if you do not eat, in vigils, neither will I eat. Anthony said to him: It is enough for me, for I am a monk. And he: It is enough for me as well; for I too wish to become a monk. He rises again, and makes twelve prayers, and chants twelve psalms. And after the prayers of the first sleep they slept a little, and again they awoke to chant from midnight until day.

[54] in pilgrimage, Then he sent him to traverse the solitude, saying to him: Come back here in three days. And when this had been done, and certain brothers had come to him, Paul observed Anthony to see what he would have him do. And Anthony said to him: in silence, Serve the brothers in silence; and do not taste anything until the brothers have set out on their journey. And when already the third week had been completed since Paul had eaten, the brothers asked him: Why are you silent? and in various labors. And when he did not answer, Anthony said to him: Why are you silent? Converse with the brothers. And he conversed. When once a jar of honey had been brought to him, Anthony said to him: Break the vessel and let the honey be poured out. And he did so. And he said to him again: Gather the honey again with a shell, so that you bring in no impurities. And again he commanded him to draw water all day. And again, when he had taken apart his garment, he commanded him to sew it together. In all things he obeys without murmuring. This man at length acquired such obedience that grace was divinely given to him, namely to cast out demons. When therefore the Great Anthony saw that the old man had readily followed him in all things regarding the manner of life, he said to him: See, Brother, if you can continue thus day by day, remain with me. Paul said to him: Whether you can show me something more, I do not know; for the things I have seen you do, I too do easily and without labor, with God assisting me.

[55] Then Anthony said to him the next day: In the name of Jesus, behold, you have become a monk. And when the Great and Blessed Anthony had found sufficiently and more than sufficiently that in all things the soul of Christ's servant was exceedingly perfect, since he was exceedingly simple; He dwells in a cell some distance from Anthony. after certain months, with the grace of God assisting Blessed Anthony, he made him a cell at three or four stones' throw from his own cell. And he said to him: Behold, by the power of Christ, with His help, you have become a monk: henceforth remain alone, so that you may also make trial of the demons. And when Paul the most Simple had dwelt by himself for one year, he was deemed worthy of grace against demons and against every kind of disease, conducting himself perfectly in the virtue of his exercises.

[56] He becomes illustrious by miracles. One day, therefore, a youth who was exceedingly grievously vexed by a demon was brought to Blessed Anthony, having a most savage principal demon, who even pursued heaven itself with curses and insults. When therefore the Great Anthony had observed the youth, he said to those who were bringing him: This is not my task; for against this order of demons, namely the principal ones, I have not yet been granted grace: but this is the grace of Paul the Simple. An energumen brought by Anthony Going therefore, the Great Anthony led them to the most proven Paul, and said to him: Abba Paul, cast out this demon from this man, so that he may return home healthy and glorify the Lord. Paul said to him: And what about you? Anthony said to him: I do not have time; there is something else I must do. And leaving the boy there, the Great Anthony returned to his own cell. When therefore the innocent old man had risen and poured forth an efficacious prayer, he said, challenging the demoniac: Abbot Anthony said: Come out of this man. But the demon cried out with insults and curses, saying: I will not come out, glutton, old man, trifler. Taking therefore his sheepskin, he beat him on the back, saying: Come out; Abbot Anthony said so. he sets him free. But the demon pursued Paul and Anthony with curses: These gluttons in old age, these sluggards, these insatiable ones, who are never content with their own affairs -- what have you in common with us? Why do you exercise tyranny over us? At last Paul said to him: Either you will come out, or I will go and tell Christ, and He will make it woe for you, etc.

[57] When Thais had been thus enclosed for three years, Abbot Paphnutius took compassion and immediately went to Abbot Anthony, to inquire of him whether the Lord had forgiven her sins or not. When therefore he had arrived, Anthony having ordered prayer, and had carefully narrated to him so great a matter, Abbot Anthony, having summoned his disciples, commanded that they all keep vigil that night and persist individually in prayer, so that God might reveal to one of them the matter for which Abbot Paphnutius had come. And so when each had withdrawn, the place prepared for Thais is shown to Paul, and they prayed unceasingly, Abbot Paul, the chief disciple of St. Anthony, suddenly saw in the sky a bed adorned with precious garments, which three virgins with shining faces were guarding. When therefore Paul himself said: This bounty belongs to none other than my Father Anthony, a voice came to him: It is not your Father Anthony's, but it belongs to Thais the harlot.

ON THE FIRST AND SECOND TRANSLATION OF THE RELICS OF ST. ANTHONY.

Anthony the Great, Abbot in the Thebaid (Saint)

From various sources.

[1] The sacred body of Blessed Anthony, discovered by divine revelation under the Emperor Justinian, was brought to Alexandria and buried in the church of St. [The body of St. Anthony discovered by divine revelation and brought to Alexandria,] John the Baptist, as is commemorated on the 17th of January by the Martyrologies of Rome, Bede, Usuard, Ado, Rabanus, Notker, Bellini, and other manuscripts and printed editions. Isidore of Seville, nearly contemporary, relates the same in his Chronicle; Bede in his book on the Six Ages of the World; Freculphus, volume 2 of the Chronicle, book 5, chapter 22; and others. Justinian assumed the empire in the consulship of Mauortius, in the year of Christ 527, 172 years after the death of St. Anthony, and held it for 38 years and 8 months. It is therefore incorrect that Saussaye in his supplement for the 17th of March, and Ottavio Panciroli in Region 2 of the City, Church 44, hold that St. Anthony's body lay hidden for only one hundred and sixty years. Closer to the truth are the readings from the proper offices of the Antonian Order given below, in which it is related that the body remained in a hidden place of the desert for one hundred and seventy years. But in which year of Justinian it was found, the authors do not agree, and so Baronius notes in his remarks on the Martyrology under the Emperor Justinian that it is not easy to determine whom one ought chiefly to follow. Ado in his Chronicle assigns the year of Christ 527, at the beginning of Justinian's reign. Aymarus Falco in his history of the Order of St. Anthony, of which more below, part 2, chapter 4, says that it is established by the consensus of all ecclesiastical writers and historians that the body was found in the second year of the Emperor Justinian. The Westminster chronicler in his Flowers of History, Sigebert in his Chronicle, and the author of the manuscript Florarium under the 15th of February and the 11th of June, hold that the discovery occurred in the year of Christ 529, the third year of Justinian. The readings and Panciroli agree with these, and perhaps also Saussaye, since they reckon his death at the year of Christ 359: for if you add 170 to that year (although the copyist carelessly wrote only 160), you will arrive at 529. Marianus Scotus in his Chronicle, in the year of Christ 531, the fifth year of Justinian, after the consulship of Lampadius and Orestes, records this translation: with whom Baronius prefers to agree, at that year, number 27. Cuspinianus defers it to the year of Christ 541.

[2] Moreover, one day is assigned to the Revelation of the body, another to the Discovery; The Revelation is celebrated on the 27th of June, the former indeed from ancient times, as Falco attests above, on the 27th of June (so the Cologne Martyrology and the Supplement of the Cologne Carthusians to Usuard: On the same day, the Revelation of St. Anthony, Abbot and Confessor), the latter on the 11th of June. The same Martyrologies: On the same day, the Discovery of the body of Blessed The Discovery on the 11th and 13th of the same: Anthony, Abbot and Confessor. More fully on that day, the German Martyrology. In the manuscript Florarium, the revelation and discovery and translation are all ascribed to one and the same day: On the same day, the body of Blessed Anthony the Abbot, discovered by divine revelation, was translated to Alexandria in the year of salvation 529. Maurolycus records the discovery on the 13th of June, and the second translation, when it was carried to Constantinople. Saussaye adds also a third: On the same day, the discovery of the body of the most holy Anchorite Anthony, surnamed the Great, which was brought from Egypt to Constantinople, and thence into Gaul, and placed in the celebrated basilica of his name at Vienne, known throughout the world, which is also the head of a religious order, where it rests with fitting honor. The first Translation on the 15th of February. The 15th of February in the manuscript Florarium is thus dedicated to the first Translation: The Translation of St. Anthony, Abbot and monk, in the year of salvation 529. In Bede's Calendar, the memory of Anthony is entered on the 5th of the Ides of April.

[3] The second translation, when that divine treasure was conveyed from Alexandria to Constantinople, is recorded by Galesinius on the 12th of June: At Constantinople, [The second Translation on the 12th of June, of the body carried to Constantinople, while the Saracens were occupying Egypt,] the Translation of St. Anthony the Abbot, which, as he adds in the Annotations, was first celebrated in the year of Christ 670. Ferrarius censures Galesinius on the 13th of June, as though these relics had not gone to Constantinople, but were brought directly from Egypt to Vienne: but the records of the monastery of St. Anthony at Vienne, which he himself cites to the contrary, clearly support Galesinius. In the Antonian readings, the relics are said to have been translated to Constantinople after the defection of the Egyptians from the Constantinopolitan Empire, while the Saracens were occupying Arabia. Theophanes, book 18, chapters 64, 65, and 66, writes that Bosra and other cities of Arabia were seized by the Saracens in the 24th year of the Emperor Heraclius, under Heraclius, the year of Christ 633; the following year Damascus was captured and Egypt subdued. In the preceding year, Heraclius, abandoning Syria and sinking into despair, having taken the precious wood from Jerusalem, went to Constantinople. It seems that certain Alexandrians, or the Emperor's agents and prefects, following his example, also fled with the sacred treasure, among which were these relics of St. Anthony, to Constantinople: but whether this happened while Heraclius was still alive is not entirely certain. The words of the readings suggest it, and the fact that in subsequent years under the same Heraclius, all of Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, with Jerusalem, Antioch, and Edessa seized, fell to the Saracens. Heraclius died on the 11th of March, 641. Constantine, his son by his first wife, succeeded him, or his successors, and was removed by poison in the fourth month by his stepmother Martina, so that she might reign with her son Heracleonas: but these were expelled in the sixth month, and Constans, the son of Constantine, took the helm. To him in the year of Christ 668 succeeded his son Constantine Pogonatus, an outstandingly Catholic and pious prince, under whom Galesinius above holds that these sacred relics were translated, or at least first honored with public veneration; perhaps under Constantine Pogonatus; and for that reason it was regarded by some as a new discovery, as it were, and confused with the earlier one that had occurred in the time of Justinian.

[4] Gabriel de Puy-Herbault, or, as others write, Putherbaeus, commonly called Du Puy-Herbault, in the History of the Saints of Luigi Lippomano translated into French, adds to the Life of St. Anthony that his body was discovered by the agents of the Emperor Constantius, confused with the first discovery: and carried to Constantinople, thence translated to Vienne, to a monastery built by the son of St. William, whose feast is celebrated on the Ides of June. On which day Maurolycus writes thus: Likewise, the discovery of the body of Blessed Anthony the Abbot, which was conveyed from Egypt to Constantinople in the time of Constantine. Thence it was translated to Vienne in Gaul by Jacobinus, the son of St. William the Count. But on the 3rd of the Ides of June the German Martyrology: Likewise, the Discovery of the body of St. Anthony, the most celebrated Abbot, which in the time of Constantine was brought from Egypt to Constantinople, with many miracles occurring along the way, and a demon being cast out from the daughter of the Emperor of Constantinople. To which place a certain Count surnamed Jacobinus, the son of St. William, came from Gaul, who received this sacred body as a gift and conveyed it to Vienne in Gaul on the very same day on which it had been discovered. Where it shines to this day with innumerable miracles. There exists a history of this Translation elaborately composed in a Utrecht manuscript of the Clerks of St. Jerome, also printed in the Belgian language at Zwolle in the year of Christ 1490, in German at Cologne at about the same time, and in other ancient Passionals or Legendaries. However, although very many things in it doubtless agree with the truth, which the writer himself or Falco in chapter 4 believes the writer to have received or heard from the Greeks or from the Egyptians concerning the revelation and discovery, and the revelation of this kind, the writer nevertheless seems insufficiently acquainted with the facts, times, and circumstances; and to have explained them corruptly by intermixing true things with false, and to have attempted to supply by his own invention what he could not achieve by truthful narration, as was proper. Setting these aside therefore, Falco himself thus briefly summarizes the second translation in chapter 8, who also reckons it to have occurred later:

[5] When after the fall and decline of the Roman Empire, the province of Egypt had long obeyed the Emperors of Constantinople, narrated from Aymarus Falco. at length the Egyptians, weary either of the avarice or the pride of the Greeks, as the historians relate, around the year of our Lord's Incarnation seven hundred and four, defected from the Constantinopolitan empire to the Saracens. Although this was done on the condition that anyone might live without molestation in his own sect, nevertheless many ecclesiastical men and cultivators of holy religion, dreading the rule and dominion of the infidels, and assuredly persuading themselves that the Church of God would in the future suffer grave afflictions from the Saracens themselves, sailed from Alexandria with the holy relics they had with them to the Emperor of Constantinople, whose authority they had previously been accustomed to obey. The same Emperor received them kindly, treated them most humanely, and assigned them a place of residence. But in this matter I find great diversity among the writers, some reporting that the holy relics which had been brought from Alexandria were deposited in the great, or Patriarchal, church of Constantinople, that is, in the temple of Hagia Sophia: others on the contrary asserting that they were placed not within the city, but in a certain suburban place near to the same city. To me indeed it seems closer to the truth that those religious men brought from Egypt were by no means aggregated to the clergy of the Church of Constantinople, and still less were the relics brought by the Egyptians themselves handed over to the greater Church, but were rather specially preserved by the same Egyptians in the place assigned to them by the Emperor.

ON THE THIRD TRANSLATION.

Anthony the Great, Abbot in the Thebaid (Saint)

[6] The Third Translation is that by which this precious treasure was brought from Constantinople into Gaul. It is described by a rather ancient author who seems to have lived before the institution of the Antonian Order, The history of the Third Translation, of which more presently, since he makes no mention of it: however, he professes to have received from the report of others what he writes. The same Utrecht manuscript preserved it. We subjoin various items from the Antonian History of Aymarus Falco.

[7] To this Translation the 17th of March is dedicated in the manuscript Florarium, the Cologne Martyrology, the Supplement of the Cologne Carthusians to Usuard, its feast day, the 17th of March. and the German Martyrology. The Readings, which we shall cite below, agree. On which day Saussaye in the Supplement to the Gallic Martyrology: In the territory of Vienne, at the River Furans, in the archmonastery of the Antonian Order, the reception of the body of St. Anthony the Great, Abbot, which was first buried in an unknown place of the Thebaid, where it lay hidden for one hundred and sixty years; but at length discovered by God's providence, it was first translated to Alexandria, then to Constantinople, afterward into Gaul, and in that monastery which was erected and dedicated in honor of that most holy Confessor, was deposited with great honor. And it is, as the same writer says on the 17th of January, an eternal glory and impregnable defense of Gaul. Ferrarius on the 13th of June: At Vienne in Gaul, the translation of the body of St. Anthony the Abbot. But some other feast is celebrated on that day before it.

[8] This Translation is said in the Readings to have been made while Lothair II Under King Lothair of France the relics were brought was reigning. He succeeded Louis IV the Transmarinus as King of France in the year of Christ 954 and died in 986. He is called the second with respect to the Emperor Lothair, King of Italy, Austrasia, Provence, and Upper Burgundy; whose son Lothair ruled more narrowly within Lotharingia alone, and is therefore omitted in the series of rulers and kings of Burgundy, of which the province of Vienne was then a part, as Andrew du Chesne shows in his History of the Counts of Albon and the Dauphins of Vienne, chapter 1; and therefore John Gerson, in a sermon delivered on St. Anthony at the Council of Constance, volume 1 of his works, exclaims: O happy indeed I would call the region of Vienne and Burgundy, which is adorned with the venerable relics of the most holy body of Anthony!

[9] Jocelinus, or Jacelinus, who in Maurolycus and the German Martyrology Jacobinus, is called Jacobinus, brought these relics from Constantinople: and this is agreed upon by all. But who this Jocelinus was is not equally clear. In the Readings he is called Count of Vienne. By Panciroli, a great Baron of the province of Vienne. By Miraeus, from the Antonian history, Lord of the Castle of Albon and of La Motte-Saint-Didier. By Baronius, descended from the stock of the Counts of Poitou. son of Count William. By Putherbaeus, Maurolycus, and the German Martyrology above, a son of St. William. By Antonio Vincencio Domenecco in his history of the Saints of Catalonia at the 30th of August concerning the Translation of St. Agnes, of which we treat on the 21st of January, William son of William. In the history of the Translation he is called the son of Count William, who is believed to be one of the warriors who, for the good merit of his life, which he is said to have led in his monastery, is called Saint William. By Falco below he is surnamed Cornutus. Was this perhaps William Towhead, the sixth Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine, who this was. the third of that name? After the death of his wife Agnes and then of Adomalda, he died as a monk in the monastery of St. Cyprian in the suburban area, at a decrepit old age, around the year of Christ 1020, as John Bouchet narrates in book 3 of the Annals of Aquitaine, chapter 1, and Claude Robert in the Abbey of St. Cyprian. Concerning the various Williams, we shall treat on the 10th of February.

[10] Their posterity: Similarly, there is controversy about the posterity and heirs of Jocelinus. According to Aymarus below, number 12, the inheritance of Jocelinus, who died without children, passed by right of kinship to Hugo Desiderius, a man distinguished by nobility. Hugo is called by others Guigo, or Gigno. Baronius, volume 11, year of Christ 1089, number 18, citing Aymarus, calls this Guigo the son of Jocelinus; he would have done better to say great-grandson, or great-great-grandson, or at least heir; since below in the history of the Translation, number 5, both Jocelinus himself and his posterity afterward for many cycles of years had the relics carried with them wherever they went. And in number 6, Guigo, who claimed the same relics as though by hereditary right, following the example of his forefathers, carried them about wherever he went. These facts confirm and require the chronology established above for the transport of the body, with easily a space of one hundred years intervening between Jocelinus and King Lothair on one side and Guigo on the other.

[11] Moreover, this Guigo was perhaps the one from whom Andrew du Chesne traces the genealogy of the Counts of Albon, or the Castle of Albon, from these, Guigo, founder of La Motte, and the Dauphins of Vienne, who afterward became a monk at Cluny under St. Hugh the Abbot, of whom we shall speak in the Life of that Saint on the 1st of May; or else another of the same stock, from whom Guigo II the Fat was descended: unless rather this is Guigo the Fat himself, who is recorded in the Life of St. Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, on the 1st of April, both to have cultivated him devoutly in time of peace and to have inflicted upon him, when he most invincibly resisted for the sake of justice, no small or few annoyances, wherefore a great tribunal was held between them in the presence of the Archbishop of Vienne, who afterward became Pope Calixtus, etc. The same Archbishop, as Aymarus attests below, number 16, consecrated the church of La Motte erected by Guigo, under whom also the Order of St. Anthony grew up. Concerning the ancestors of Guigo, du Chesne sets forth various opinions.

[12] But it was not the entire body of St. Anthony that was carried from Constantinople into Gaul by Jocelinus. For in the year of Christ 1231, Relics of St. Anthony at Bruges, Lambert, Provost of the collegiate church of St. Mary at Bruges, obtained a portion of the arm of St. Anthony and various relics of other saints, and brought them from Constantinople to Bruges, as is read in the records of the same church. James Meyerus in book 8 of the Annals of Flanders testifies to the same regarding only the relics of St. Anthony, at the year of Christ 1231: Lambert, Head of the Church of Blessed Mary at Bruges, brought home from Constantinople a portion of the arm of St. Anthony.

[13] His beard is preserved in the parish church of St. Cunibert at Cologne, at Cologne, and is carried about in the annual procession of the miraculous perspiration to the customary place in the city, as was said on the 13th of January in the Life of Blessed Godfrey, number 57, in the Prolegomena; and Erhard Winheim testifies to this in his Treasury of Cologne, Church 35. Likewise, in the Church of the Antonian Order in the same city, among various relics a notable portion of the hand of St. Anthony is religiously preserved in a special chapel dedicated to him, as the same Winheim reports, Church 17. Some relics of the same saint are held by the Cathedral Church of Tournai, at Tournai, as John Cousin narrates in his History of Tournai, book 3, chapter 36. at Antwerp Here at Antwerp, in the professed house of the Society of Jesus, we preserve two particles of relics of the same St. Anthony, at Rome: as is evident from the archive of this house, letters FF and EEE. At Rome, several churches of St. Anthony are adorned with relics of the same, as Ottavio Panciroli attests, of which the principal one is that of the Antonian Order in Region 2, Church 40, famous for the hairshirt of St. Anthony. In other churches, besides particles of bone, some leaves of the garment woven from palms are kept, which Anthony, having received it at the death of St. Paul the Theban, used to wear on more solemn days. The remainder of this vestment is preserved in the Antonian monastery and is thus described by Aymarus in chapter 7.

[14] There can be seen to this day, together with the most holy relics of the said body, a certain worn-out garment, garment at Vienne. excessively tattered by great age, which some think to have been that of Paul the first hermit, although most believe it to have been not Paul's but rather Anthony's. What its material is, or of what quality, cannot easily be discerned. Its color is most similar to smoke; its weave is skillfully made, the surface being smooth on the outside; but on the inside, extended and prominent tufts render it hairy and shaggy in appearance. On the back at the neck it has a form sewn in the shape of a shield. It is closed on all sides, with no slit or opening visible except for the head to pass through. Moreover, the hem of the garment is seen to be folded around the lower edge, lest the weave, dissolving through wear, should become frayed. The Most Christian King of the French, Francis the First of that name, recently having seen the same cloak, judged it to be of palm, with which most have agreed. Nonetheless, its antiquity deprives those who view it of certainty in the matter.

HISTORY OF THE TRANSLATION,

from the Offices of the Antonian Order published at Rome in 1592.

Anthony the Great, Abbot in the Thebaid (Saint)

From Various Sources.

[1] When Blessed Anthony, having reached his one hundred and fifth year, had departed this life, his two disciples, to whom he himself had given instructions, buried his body in a hidden place of the desert according to the agreement of their Father, lest it be kept unburied in the Egyptian manner; The relics of St. Anthony first to Alexandria, where it remained unknown for one hundred and seventy years. But God, who had decreed that the memory of His servant should be celebrated throughout the entire world, disposing otherwise, his body was divinely found while Justinian the Younger was reigning, translated to Alexandria, and there deposited in the church of St. John the Baptist, and began to be honored with the concourse of the people and the prayers of the faithful. Afterward, following the defection of the Egyptians from the Constantinopolitan Empire, then to Constantinople, while the Saracens were occupying Arabia, the Christian inhabitants, carrying off the various relics of saints from Alexandria lest they fall into the hands of the infidels, brought the body of Blessed Anthony to Constantinople and deposited it in an ancient church, not far from the city, having been kindly received by the Emperor. And this was the second translation of the holy body.

[2] In the course of time, while Lothair the Second was reigning, when the dire plague of the sacred fire was ravaging far and wide through the western regions, and could not be extinguished by medical skill or any human aid; the Lord, having compassion on the afflictions of His people, willed that the relics of this most holy Father, whom He had once given as a good physician to Egypt, thence brought to Vienne should be transferred from the eastern shores to the province of Vienne, that he might heal the western parts as well. by Count Jocelinus; For at that time Count Jocelinus of Vienne, a man distinguished for piety and military prowess, had gone to Jerusalem with many nobles and kinsmen for the purpose of fulfilling a vow; and when, having completed his vow, he traveled through those eastern regions, he diligently sought out where the relics of Blessed Anthony might be, either divinely admonished (as is reported), or moved by pious devotion toward the holy Father Anthony, because shortly before, having invoked his aid, he had recovered from a mortal disease: and he learned that they had long since been translated to Constantinople and were preserved there. Therefore, eager to hasten, although the approach was blocked by the forces of the enemy, yet trusting in divine grace and the patronage of Blessed Anthony, he overcame every difficulty of the journey and arrived at Constantinople safely with his entire retinue. The Emperor received them honorably on account of the nobility of their nation.

[3] Meanwhile, Jocelinus having been informed that the relics of Blessed Anthony, for the sake of which he had undertaken this arduous journey, were preserved in a certain almost desolate church, less than fittingly, on account of the scarcity and poverty of its ministers, he approached the Emperor as a suppliant and asked that he might be permitted to bring them with the ministers of that church to the province of Vienne in Gaul: which he easily obtained, divine grace assisting him in obtaining so great a gift. Deposited at La Motte-Saint-Didier. Joyful therefore and having obtained his desire, enriched with this sacred gift, enjoying a prosperous voyage, he returned to his homeland. And while he was seeking out a place worthy both of veneration and majesty in which to deposit so great a treasure, he meanwhile undertook no expeditions without the sacred relics, which always, through the merits of Blessed Anthony, succeeded prosperously for him. When peace had at last been won by war with neighboring and foreign peoples, he turned his attention to the building of a church in honor of so great a name and the deposition of the sacred relics. And the fitting place seemed to him to be the town then called La Motte of St. Didier, where the first foundations were laid of that august church of St. Anthony at Vienne which is seen today, although previously there was only a small chapel dedicated to Blessed Mary. From which both the original church and the town of La Motte-Saint-Didier, with changed name, received the name of St. Anthony. Whence the Antonian Order, begun from these origins, to the great glory of Almighty God and for the benefit of the poor suffering from the sacred fire ... has spread throughout the entire world by auspicious propagation.

THE SAME HISTORY

from the ancient Utrecht manuscript.

Anthony the Great, Abbot in the Thebaid (Saint)

BHL Number: 0613

From manuscripts.

PROLOGUE.

[1] Since, by the Lord's favor, we have available for reading the Life of Blessed Anthony, composed in eloquent style by Athanasius of blessed memory, Archbishop of the Church of Alexandria, for the instruction of the faithful and the brothers of the desert, it is worthwhile that it should likewise be set down in writing how his venerable body came from the regions of the Thebaid to our shores, The body of St. Anthony hidden in an unknown place, and by what persons so great a treasure could be brought from such distant provinces. It may perhaps seem impossible to some that what is recorded to have been buried in an unknown place beneath the desert of the aforesaid region by only two disciples, and to have remained unknown to all others as long as they lived, was afterward exhumed and carried hence with miracles. But nothing is impossible with God.

[2] Therefore one ought to consider that the Lord Jesus Christ, just as one reads in the text about the blessed man, having overcome the conflict of the demons, appeared to him visibly and showed how holy he was, and promised this: that He would cause him to be named throughout the whole world. And indeed the faithful Lord, divinely made manifest, just as He then promised him in few words, so now He deigns to fulfill it manifoldly in deeds. For as miracles increase day by day, so also does his fame among the peoples. But these are Your gifts, O Lord Christ. Matthew 5:15. For, as You Yourself said in the Gospel, You do not permit that a burning and shining lamp -- the blessed man Anthony, Your servant -- should be hidden in a corner, but that it should be placed upon a candlestick which is in Your house, that is, in a more eminent place, so that it may give light to all.

[3] by very many miracles. For thus, O Lord, You make him more marvelous day by day, so that from the most remote lands and regions You send forth many who are sick, who cannot be freed from the fire of hellish burning unless they have first lain upon the holy soil of his body and sought his aid with a devout mind. And after they have worshiped You and implored his assistance before his sacred relics and have vowed themselves to be his servants forever, they either return thence liberated within nine days, or, departing this toilsome life in quiet peace, they die in the Lord. For he has also been seen many times to have healed many others afflicted with various infirmities, and even to have restored the present life to some who had died. On the contrary, some who attempted to claim anything for themselves in the possessions of his servants, or who endeavored to withhold some vow they had pledged to him, he has been seen most often to have set ablaze with the aforesaid burning of hellish fire, either themselves or their cattle: because, as the merits of his saints require, divine vengeance is brought upon those who presume to inflict fraud or injury upon those who belong to him. Because this is seen to happen so often that it exceeds our power to recount, let us rather turn our pen to those things which we have proposed to narrate about him. Preserving the truth, therefore, let us set forth according to our measure what we have heard.

NARRATIVE.

[4] Count William, who is believed to be one of the warriors who, for the good merit of his life, which he is said to have led for a long time in his monastery, is called Saint William, had a certain son named Jacelinus, not degenerate from his own probity: who, when he had reached manhood, Jacelinus goes to Jerusalem and Constantinople, went to Jerusalem for the purpose of prayer. Which pilgrimage having been faithfully completed, he turned aside to the court of the Emperor of Constantinople, and found great favor with the Emperor himself and all his soldiers. And when he had tarried there for many days and was dear to all, at length desiring to return to his homeland and to see his own people again, he approached the Emperor to request permission to depart. But the Emperor, greatly delighted by the presence of the good young man, kept deferring the granting of this permission he asked; and warmly begged him to stay on with him. But when he could no longer detain him, he ordered him to take from his treasuries whatever pleased him. from the Emperor he obtains the relics of St. Anthony, But Jocelinus, not coveting gold or silver or anything of that kind, asked for and received only the casket in which the body of Blessed Anthony lay, although the Emperor would have preferred to bestow any other gift upon him, because he placed very great trust in Blessed Anthony, and greatly venerated and loved him, and poured forth many prayers before him. Nevertheless, he did not wish to refuse him this, because he had declined to accept all other gifts.

[5] Receiving this therefore with gladness as the greatest of gifts, bidding farewell to all, he brings them prosperously into Gaul: he began to return quickly with his company, trusting meanwhile in the protection of the most sacred body that he was carrying, that he reckoned nothing adverse could possibly harm him anywhere at all. And truly, as the Lord says, that all things are possible to him who believes, nothing sad befell them on the same journey, though they passed through barbarous nations, he and his posterity carry them about in expeditions: but they returned to their own lands safe and cheerful. Mark 9:22. From which it came about that both he himself and his posterity afterward for many cycles of years had them carried with them wherever they went, and nowhere wished to leave them behind. For they so trusted in his guidance that they suspected nothing sinister could befall them, but hoped that all they undertook would proceed prosperously, as long as they had him on the way. And therefore, wherever they were about to go, as I have said, they always had the relics carried before them, and wished to march before them even in military expeditions. Although it is not to be doubted that they did this out of devotion: the Lord Pope nevertheless ... when it came to his notice that persons of this kind were carrying about such great and sacred relics of a Confessor, considered it unseemly and reckless.

[6] For this reason, when a certain one of them, who was called Gigno Desiderius, Guigo, at the Pope's urging, claimed the same relics as though by hereditary right and, following the example of his forefathers, carried them about wherever he went, the Supreme Pontiff caused it to be commanded that he should by no means henceforth presume to carry them with him, but should entrust them for safekeeping to whichever of the abbeys of religious and God-fearing men he wished. Having heard this command, the distinguished man did not delay in obeying; but having convened a council with his friends, men who were reputed to be of good conduct and name, he committed them for preservation. And in order to have them in his own territory, he gave them a certain wooded place, he builds the monastery of La Motte for their preservation, which was called La Motte from its natural situation, to cultivate and to build a monastery, where they could be preserved with honor. In this he expended such great effort upon them until the matter itself was brought to completion. He also gave other lands with seven churches and the tithes belonging to them in perpetual right, from which the inhabitants of the same monastery could have sufficient sustenance and clothing. and a hospice, Finally, he bestowed another place situated not far away, in which a house of alms, that is, a hospice, should be built, within which the poor of Christ and all who were burned by the aforesaid hellish burning of fire, coming to implore the help of Blessed Anthony, should be received free of charge. Furthermore, lest any of those who would succeed him by hereditary right should wish to claim anything for themselves in the above-mentioned donations or raise any complaint, he freely granted everything to be held.

[7] How devoted he was toward Blessed Anthony and all his servants while he lived in this world, no human tongue, pious toward St. Anthony, and why. as I judge, could recount. And not without reason. For he was truly an Israelite, who, while he was still a very tender youth, born of a most noble stock, nevertheless despised all the allurements of this world, all riches and honors and men by fleeing them, and distributed to the poor all that he could possess in this land of the dying, that he might deserve to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living. Who, after St. Paul the holy Hermit, whom he himself buried, was the first to undertake the anchoritic life, and was the first to establish in Egypt the purpose of all cenobites and monks: who often fought with the devil by taunting him, but was never overcome by the devil. What more? At length the man of God had such great grace in healing the infirmities of the sick, that no one who was ailing came to him whom he did not restore to health by pouring forth prayer to the Lord. Happy therefore is this place, which is known to possess such and so great a man, who had such lofty heights of virtue and praises of renown.

[8] Let us therefore venerate him, dearly beloved, as a pious Patron, imitating as best we can the examples of his life: Exhortation to the veneration of St. Anthony. so that, with his holy merits interceding, we may deserve to avoid the conflagrations of hellish fire both in the present and in the future, and, arriving at Christ where he himself has arrived, we may find eternal blessedness, through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever and ever, Amen.

THE SAME HISTORY

from the Antonian History of Aymarus Falco.

Anthony the Great, Abbot in the Thebaid (Saint)

From Aymarus Falco.

CHAPTER I.

The occasion of Jocelinus's journey to the East.

part 2, chapter 13.

[1] When by the decree of divine dispensation it was to come about that the body of the most blessed Anthony should be transferred from the regions of Constantinople to the province of Vienne for the aid of mortals, it happened, as we read in the records, that a certain most noble and powerful Baron of the said province of Vienne, called William Cornutus, Jocelinus promises to fulfill his father's vow of going to Jerusalem: Lord of the new castle of Albon and of La Motte-Saint-Didier, and of many other strongholds and places, a man most exercised in arms throughout his entire life, after the very many dangers to which he had often exposed himself in military affairs, was at length moved by devotion to make a vow that he would humbly and suppliantly visit Jerusalem and the sacred places of our redemption. But being overtaken by a very grave illness, he was by no means able to fulfill his purpose. Perceiving this, having drawn up a solemn testament, he instituted his son, the only one he had, named Jocelinus, as his universal heir, on the condition that as soon as possible after the death of William himself he should prepare himself for the journey of the said pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and free his father from the vow he had made. This Jocelinus himself readily pledged. And not many days afterward the same William departed from human affairs.

chapter 16.

[2] Jocelinus, although he was held to be distinguished in piety, being involved in other business, long deferred fulfilling the promise he had made to his dying father: nevertheless he did not cease diligently to commend the soul of his aforesaid father to God by ecclesiastical suffrages and pious almsgiving. But when, with the passing years, he seemed to have entirely set aside the memory or recollection of the pilgrimage he had undertaken and the fulfilling of his father's vow, he defers it: we read that he was divinely reproved for the fault of his long delay by a memorable event, and miraculously admonished concerning the fulfillment of the promise made to his father, in the following manner. Jocelinus himself was, as they report, valiant in arms and in this respect a most illustrious imitator of his father's glory: and the nobility and the youth devoted to arms of the province of Vienne most zealously followed him as their leader in war. And so when at that time a war was being waged in the borders of the Helvetians not far from the Jura mountains, and Jocelinus himself had gone thither accompanied by a not inconsiderable band of young men of the said province of Vienne, having joined bloody battle with the enemy, the fighting continued fiercely on both sides until nightfall, wounded in battle, and many are reported to have fallen there. Accordingly, Jocelinus, fighting manfully and strenuously, having received three most savage wounds, was thrown from his horse and lay prostrate for some time on the field: at length, however, like a lifeless corpse, he was carried out at nightfall by his men and placed in a certain old chapel nearby, he is brought to a chapel of St. Anthony: which was dedicated to Blessed Anthony, his companions spending a sleepless night beside him with grief and tears, and miserably bewailing so bitter a calamity to their leader.

[3] As daylight drew near, the body itself, to the astonishment of all who were present, began to emit great sighs. For, as was afterward learned from the account of Jocelinus himself, at that time a very great multitude of demons seemed to stand before him, of whom one was striving to strangle him with a noose thrown around him, while the rest were preparing themselves in various ways to drag Jocelinus into hell. And this chiefly for the reason attacked by demons, that they said and claimed that he had been a neglector and ignominious violator of the promise he had made to his dying father. But Jocelinus, shaken with great terror, was imploring the mercy of God with the greatest effort he could muster: nor was that throng of demons any less urgently pressing to have him dragged into the abyss as quickly as possible. defended by St. Anthony: At length, however, after much assault by the malignant spirits, an aged, bearded old man was seen to arrive, leaning on a staff, at whose presence the multitude of demons, filled with dread, began to draw back somewhat. This venerable elder, therefore, approaching closer to the sick man, sharply rebuked the demons for having dared to use violence against his guest and inflict injury upon him in his own house and the chapel dedicated to himself. And so he compelled them to withdraw immediately from that place and depart in sorrow. Then, having driven them away, the same blessed elder, addressing the sick man with gentle words, seemed to speak such words to him as these: he is commanded to bring his relics into Gaul: Do not fear, my son; I am the guardian and protector of this chapel: and I will assist you as my guest, and will defend you from injury: but take care that you delay no further in fulfilling the promised pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but prepare yourself immediately for it according to your father's vow. And this grace you shall repay me for the salvation obtained for you: that you take care to have the relics of my body transferred from the eastern parts to these western shores as you return. In these western parts, Christ the Lord has ordained that I shall henceforth be more excellently venerated.

[4] Having said this, the vision itself vanished, and the sick man, to the amazement of all who were present, began to stretch his hands to heaven with groans and sighs. he is healed: Nor long afterward, when his wounds had been treated and health restored, he returned safe to his own home. Whether this is true or fictitious, God Himself knows. I confess indeed that this is found not in authentic records but in certain private writings: wherefore I leave this very narrative to be approved or disapproved at each person's discretion.

CHAPTER II.

The pilgrimage of Jocelinus. The relics obtained.

chapter 17.

[5] Having therefore arranged affairs at home for the time being, Jocelinus, accompanied by a not inconsiderable band of noble men, sought Jerusalem by the sea route, he sets out for Jerusalem; and most devoutly visited the places consecrated by the most sacred mysteries of our Redemption. In what year this was done, because I have not found it written or reported by anyone, I cannot assert for certain while preserving historical fidelity: but as far as conjecture can reach, and from the subsequent course of events I can reasonably estimate, I judge that it occurred around the one thousand and seventieth year of the Lord's Incarnation. Having therefore most devoutly visited the Lord's Sepulcher and the other venerable places for the memory of the Savior, the aforesaid Jocelinus diligently inquired in what region the body of Blessed Anthony might be: and he learned from common report that the holy relics of that most blessed body had long ago been translated to the city of Constantinople and were preserved there in safekeeping. However, the journey to those parts seemed at that time scarcely safe, and it was reported that most atrocious wars were being waged there and that various upheavals were raging. But Jocelinus, terrified by no peril of circumstances, hoping that divine grace and the protection of Blessed Anthony would be with him everywhere, resolved to betake himself thither immediately and, setting aside all delay, to proceed to Constantinople.

chapter 19.

[6] Having completed the visitation of the holy places in Judea, Jocelinus therefore resolved to proceed to Constantinople, where he had learned that the body of the most blessed Anthony was deposited. And although, with affairs there in turmoil, the journey seemed scarcely safe, nevertheless, hoping that divine clemency and the protection of the most holy Anthony would always be with him, he sailed thither with his men, thence to Constantinople; and upon arriving there immediately greeted the Emperor, by whom he was most kindly received. For Jocelinus himself was conspicuous in appearance and nobility of character, and most well versed in the arts of war and peace. Furthermore, the Emperor reckoned it most necessary, especially in turbulent times, to secure and attach to himself the assistance of all men, even foreigners, in order to strengthen the foundations of his rule. Nor was he unaware that the Gallic nobility had always been distinguished in military affairs and most ready to take up wars. Moreover, there was a report that certain naval preparations were being made at that time in Basilia and Italy. With great favor therefore the Emperor received the said Jocelinus and his companions, welcome to the Emperor, and treated them most humanely. Jocelinus and his companions, in order to achieve the object of their desire, and also delighted by the Emperor's singular kindness, remained with him for some time. Nor idly, indeed, but having accomplished many illustrious deeds both at home and in the field, they were held in the highest esteem.

[7] When moreover Jocelinus himself and his companions frequently went out of devotion to the old church in which the holy body of Blessed Anthony was deposited, and had observed that the place itself was nearly abandoned because of the tumults of war, or in peacetime guarded only by ecclesiastical men who were suffering from a scarcity of all things, they easily persuaded those same religious men to betake themselves to Gaul, to better and safer seats with the holy relics, where a most beautiful and commodious place would be assigned to them, and they themselves would be held in greater esteem and veneration than in Greece. he obtains the relics of St. Anthony And since only the Emperor's consent was lacking for this matter, Jocelinus ardently approached the Imperial Majesty and as a suppliant requested this as the greatest of favors: and by divine grace, as is probable, assisting him in obtaining it, and with the pious support of Blessed Anthony himself, he obtained what he desired.

chapter 20.

[8] Joyful therefore with the gift of so great a treasure, Jocelinus, having given thanks to the Emperor, and having taken up the holy relics together with some ecclesiastical men, returned to the province of Vienne by a prosperous voyage and happy course, where he was received with great joy and exultation of all. he brings them into Gaul, I know that some have written that Jocelinus received this holy gift not from the Emperor but from the Emperor's own son: which seems to me by no means probable. But whether he obtained it from the Emperor himself or from the Emperor's son, it is established with most certain faith that the said holy body was translated by the same Jocelinus to the province of Vienne by divine disposition. This is attested not only by reliable writers, but is also found to be testified by the letters and diplomas of many former Roman Pontiffs, Emperors, and Kings, and has been declared consistorially by the Holy Apostolic See.

CHAPTER III.

The Church of St. Anthony built.

chapter 25.

[9] After the illustrious man Jocelinus, enriched with the most worthy treasure of the holy body, had arrived in the province of Vienne by divine kindness, he was pressed with no small solicitude and care to provide where he could deposit this divine gift to be honorably preserved, he carries them about in military expeditions. and to establish a fitting seat and suitable place for it. But in the meanwhile, wherever he went, he carried the relics of the holy body, to the extent that not even in battles and military tumults did he set forth without the said holy body. For at that time most bloody wars were being waged in Gaul.

[10] But when quiet from wars had been obtained, Jocelinus, at the urging (as they say) of the Pope's command, turned his mind to the construction of a church in honor of the Most Blessed Anthony, in which he would afterward deposit the relics of the holy body. For this purpose the place that seemed suitable was the town of La Motte, over which he himself held temporal lordship and jurisdiction. For at that time the place itself was populous and honored with the dwellings of many noble families: although some, led by error, think that the place was then wooded and uncultivated; which the most ancient documents declare to be by no means true. Nor is it true, as some have supposed, that this same place was formerly called La-Motte-Fanjaux. For the place of La-Motte-Fanjaux is situated about four miles from this other place of La Motte, beyond the river Isere, At La Motte-Saint-Didier he begins to build a church for St. Anthony. and the most ancient documents undoubtedly prove the diversity of the places. And so this town was called not La-Motte-Fanjaux but rather La-Motte-Saint-Didier. Moreover, at that time in the very spot where the greater church of St. Anthony now stands, as ancient records testify, there was a parish church dedicated to Blessed Mary, in which the right of patronage and of presenting a suitable Rector belonged to the same Jocelinus. In this auspicious place, therefore, because the parish church that was then built there seemed too small, the said Jocelinus, having convened many of the nobles of the above-mentioned province, together with the Archbishop of Vienne, relying on their counsel and assistance, as well as on the support of the entire people, is believed to have laid the foundations of the primary church, or greater Church: so that the new church would face roughly toward the equinoctial sunrise, whereas the other one, which had previously been there, faced north: from which it came about that one extended transversely across the other. The ancient parish church, however, was by no means then demolished, but still remaining intact, it was enclosed within the precincts of the new one, which was more capacious; and these were the beginnings of the greater church, before the venerable body of Blessed Anthony was deposited therein.

chapter 26.

[11] Jocelinus, although from the beginning he pursued the work he had begun with the greatest fervor, was nevertheless subsequently distracted by other cares, or because he was besought by the petitions of very many churches to deposit the said holy relics with them, and began to act tepidly regarding the work itself. And although by a decree of ecclesiastical authority he was forbidden to retain the holy body in a profane place, he nevertheless made little progress in the matter. Meanwhile, however, seized by a grave illness, he met the end of his life by an unexpected death.

[12] Guigo Desiderius carries the relics to wars, And when he died without children, his inheritance passed by right of kinship to Hugo Desiderius, a man distinguished by nobility. Who likewise, as ancient records attest, having obtained possession of the relics of the holy body, carried them with him wherever he went; and placed his protection not only in peace but also in war upon the virtue of the Saint, and displayed the bier of the blessed body freely in camps and bloody battles. Although this was done not without a spirit of devotion, just as we read that the children of Israel sometimes carried the ark of the covenant in war, nevertheless that this should be done at the nod and will of a secular man was entirely to be condemned. But because at that time the defense of the fatherland was at stake, and, as I judge, the salvation of the whole people, it was perhaps excusable before God, since it was done out of a holy and pious trust, not out of reckless levity.

chapter 27.

[13] At that time Urban, the second of that name, presided over the Holy Roman Church, who, having compassion on the profanation of the Holy Sepulcher of the Lord and the holy places, and the trampling and servitude of Christians in the regions of the East, chiefly at the urging of Peter the Hermit, betook himself to Gaul to stir the hearts of the faithful and convoked a general council at Clermont. This most blessed Pontiff, therefore, when he was passing through the province of Vienne, learned that the most holy venerable body of Anthony was being handled indecently in the hands of secular and military men and carried about everywhere. Wherefore, having investigated the matter, he forbade Hugo Desiderius by Apostolic authority and under the penalty of anathema the Pope forbidding it, from presuming to do such things henceforth: but to deposit that most holy body as soon as possible in some religious place, fittingly and honorably.

chapter 28.

[14] Having received the Apostolic command, therefore, Hugo Desiderius began, with great popular favor, to restore the work long since begun by Jocelinus at La Motte. he restores the church of St. Anthony and deposits them there: But because it could not be finished or completed so quickly, he meanwhile built with light materials a small chapel at the position of the primary altar, and placed there the relics of the said holy body, having stationed custodians who would receive the offerings and pious donations of the faithful for the work of construction, to be distributed at the discretion of Hugo himself. Accordingly, the place itself, together with the aforesaid relics, always remained in the power of secular persons in this manner; although the same place, being adjacent to the above-mentioned parish church, was known to belong to the same church. But Hugo himself was of such great power and authority that no one dared to contend about this, or in any way to oppose or resist him. Wherefore matters were thus transacted for several years: and that sacred place was usurped and held by secular persons, contrary to the form of law.

chapter 29.

[15] After several years, Hugo Desiderius, touched by a scruple of conscience and recognizing how unseemly and incongruous it was for that place with the holy relics to be disposed of or administered at his own discretion rather than that of the Church, he establishes a Benedictine Priory there, having summoned monks of the Benedictine Order from the monastery of St. Peter of Montmajour who held certain nearby benefices and priories, he handed over and relinquished the place itself (reserving the guardianship for himself and his successors in the future), and assigned it under certain conditions: and from that time a regular Priory of the Order of St. Benedict began to exist in the same place, whereas before it had been a secular parish church.

chapter 30.

[16] Since, however, the above-mentioned relinquishment, having been made by a secular person concerning an ecclesiastical matter, was considered to be of little legal force unless the consent of either the Diocesan or the Supreme Pontiff was added, it seemed best that the confirmation of the said relinquishment should be obtained from the Church of Vienne. Since this could in no way be had unless the defect of the usurpation previously committed by secular persons was first purged, the matter was at length settled in such a way that above all the place itself should be restored to the said Church of Vienne. This is confirmed by ecclesiastical authority: Which having been done, the Vicar and chapter of the same Church, assenting to the wish and will of Hugo, granted the church of St. Anthony which was being built, as well as the old one comprehended and enclosed within the greater one, as aforesaid, and likewise also the churches of St. Didier in the castle, and of St. Marcellinus and St. Hilary, to the said religious men. There exist authentic letters of Huntardus, Bishop of Valence, and also of the Vicar of Vienne during the vacancy of the Archiepiscopal See, by which the same venerable Bishop, among other things, wished all the faithful of Christ to be requested; moreover, he enjoined upon all by the authority with which he was invested that the place itself should be held in the greatest honor and reverence on account of the relics of so great a Patron. The same was subsequently confirmed by the authority of Guido, Archbishop of Vienne, of blessed memory, while Urban II was still governing the Roman Church, as authentic writings declare.

CHAPTER IV.

The Church dedicated by Calixtus II.

chapter 37.

[17] After Urban II had been removed from human affairs, Gelasius succeeded, who, fleeing the persecution of the Emperor Henry, betook himself to Gaul and died at the monastery of Cluny. After he was consigned to ecclesiastical burial, the Cardinals Calixtus II, Pope who were present there elected Guido, Archbishop of Vienne, who was descended (as the historians relate) from the lineage of the Kings of France, England, and Germany, and was the brother of the Count of Burgundy, as Roman Pontiff; who was not willing to accept the Pontificate until he had the consent of the Cardinals at Rome and of the Roman people. This most blessed Pontiff, therefore, moved by sincere devotion toward the same Saint, immediately after his promotion went to visit the body of that nourishing Confessor and most dutifully consecrated he consecrates the church of St. Anthony, and dedicated the new church in which it rested, granting in perpetuity a plenary indulgence of all sins committed, and the remission of sins to all who should visit that church on the same day in hope of obtaining pardon. The decree of this dedication is found in the archives of the same church in this form:

[18] Our Lord Jesus Christ, remaining before the ages, one God with the Father and the Holy Spirit, made true man in the end of the ages from a true mother, deigned to open the entrance of heavenly life, through human nature as mediator, to all who believe in Him with true faith and worthy works. Who also, as a sign of His great mercy, granted to His Apostles, created from the same earthly matter as we, and supported by no excellence of carnal wisdom or dignity, the power of binding and loosing sins, saying to Blessed Peter the Apostle, in the person of the universal Church: To you I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind shall be bound, and whatever you loose shall be loosed. Whose office we, though unworthy, exercising, have consecrated the church venerable for the body of the Blessed Confessor Anthony, to the praise and name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity and the honor of Blessed Mary ever Virgin, under the patronage of so great a Patron, on the 13th day before the Kalends of April. To all therefore who come to it in hope of obtaining mercy, we earnestly desire and grant salvation and Apostolic blessing and remission of sins, if they repent from the heart, by the authority of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. But those who invade or violate the cemetery or the property of the monks and clergy serving God therein, He adorns it with indulgences: and of all other persons belonging to it, we place under the excommunication of anathema, separated from all Christendom, he excommunicates invaders. until they come to make satisfaction and restore what was wrongfully seized. Present at this decree as a praiser and confirmer was Guigo Desiderius with his sons, who, placing his hand beneath ours under the obligation of an oath, confirmed that he would exercise no invasion or violence henceforth upon the property of the monks or clergy of the Church: and if perchance he did so, he would amend it within fourteen days upon being admonished: and would hold inviolate, for himself and his heirs, the boundaries fixed for the cemetery. The Bishop of Ostia, John of Crema, and our Cardinals were present. G. Prior. B. Chaplain. D. Canon of Romanensis, etc. Sofrede B. Priest. Nantelmus. Gago. P. Provincialis. G. Raschas. with the other clergy and laity. In the year of the Lord one thousand one hundred and nineteen from the Incarnation.

CHAPTER V.

The Church enriched. The relics repositioned.

chapter 41.

[19] Some have written in certain private commentaries that Hugo Desiderius, Various possessions donated to the Church of St. Anthony by Guigo, the temporal Lord of the places of La Motte and Castelnuovo, donated seven churches to the monks and assigned them most ample revenues: which is by no means true. For he merely relinquished to them the location and the building of the new church, begun and unfinished, together with the right of patronage of the old parish church, which remained enclosed and comprehended within the precinct of the new building, namely the greater church; and likewise the right of patronage of the Church of St. Didier. To these, through Guntardus, Vicar of Vienne, the churches of St. Marcellinus and also of St. Hilary were added, with the subsequent confirmation of Archbishop Guido. and others, Afterward, the noble Bernard of Eschanagnes gave and donated the church of Blessed Mary of La Montagne with the tithes of the same place, with the authorization of the same Archbishop Guido. Furthermore, a certain noble man named Constantinus gave the chapel of Chapaysia. Nantelmus of Montlucid, together with Pontius Rufus, contributed the church of the place of Vinay and the fourth part of the tithe of the same place. In addition, Ardenchius of Vinay gave the church of St. John, called "of the grain," and the ninth part of the tithe. Lastly, Peter Sofreys is recorded to have contributed the share he held in the churches of Vinay and Montlucid. These donations were said to be made "of churches," although the aforesaid nobles held in them merely the right of presenting a suitable Rector when a vacancy in them occurred. The donation of these churches was subsequently confirmed by Pope Lucius III, and likewise by Innocent III, with the addition of the churches of Roybon and Quincieu, by Apostolic authority.

[20] The aforementioned Guigo Desiderius is also recorded to have donated the place where the abbatial house now stands, as well as the adjoining vineyard. He also conferred certain privileges on the same Church. and by Guigo's sons. Franco and Mallenus, sons of the same Guigo, are found to have contributed certain tithes to the aforesaid Church. Mallenus himself also added certain vineyards. For he had so ordered his affairs (as is written) that each year he would bestow something from his resources upon the same Church on the feast of the revelation of Blessed Anthony. For that day had then been made more illustrious by frequent miracles. Moved also by pious devotion, William, Archdeacon of the Church of Vienne, the son of the said Guigo, is recorded to have donated the place of Condaminanes to the Church of Blessed Anthony. and Franco, a noble man. At the same time, Franco, a man distinguished by nobility, going to Jerusalem to implore the mercy of God, bestowed many temporal goods upon the said Church: and at length, having returned from the same pilgrimage, he dedicated himself to Christ in the same Church under the regular habit. Many other most noble men besides, kindled by the fervor of devotion, are recorded to have contributed not a few goods to the same Church during those times.

chapter 42.

[21] When moreover the noble and powerful Guigo Desiderius had observed that works of piety toward the poor mutilated by the sacred fire were being carried out with great fervor of devotion through Gasto and his associates and confratres, and noting that they did not have a sufficiently ample and suitable place for this, and wishing himself to become a sharer in their merits, The Almshouse built. he bestowed the house, which was thenceforth called the Almshouse, with sincere devotion and pious affection for so holy a work. Some, however, report that he did not build the house itself but merely gave the site, or area, on which the house was afterward constructed. Which opinion seems more probable to me, especially because in the appendix to the ancient Martyrology, and in certain other places, we read that the greater hospice was built by Stephen the Priest. This Stephen is recorded to have departed from human affairs in almost the same year as Guigo Desiderius himself, namely the one thousand one hundred and thirtieth. In certain writings, however, I have noticed that the house of the Almshouse is called that in which the Brothers resided, and not that in which the poor were placed. For the house of the Brothers' residence was near the church of Blessed Mary, called "of the Alms," situated on the northern side and adjoining the vineyards; where now granaries, a wine press, a council chamber, and a library are seen.

chapter 38.

[22] While Gelziardus was Prior of the Church of St. Anthony, as is confirmed by the testimony of ancient documents, by the authority of the most blessed Pope Calixtus II, with a great many men of great authority and nobility convened, The relics of St. Anthony transferred into a new casket; with due veneration and under public view, with the strictest guard maintained, the bier, or chest, or old casket, brought from Constantinople, was opened, and the venerable body of the most holy Anthony was found in it, together with a certain garment which some believed to have been that of Paul the first hermit. Each bone of the body having been individually counted upon the table of the high altar, the holy body was transferred into a new casket, which a man of the highest religion and holiness, Sofredus, Prior of the Grand Chartreuse, living most devoutly and most religiously under the Carthusian order, had fabricated with his own hand and with simple craftsmanship from cypress wood. The principal and primary house of the Carthusians was then called the Priory of the Grand Chartreuse.

part 3.

[23] While Falco Mathio was Master of the Almshouse of St. Anthony, a silver casket, or outer case, was fabricated, in which the body of the most blessed Anthony was placed: then into a silver one. and the work itself was completed in the year one thousand two hundred and thirty-eight. To the making of this work, William, Abbot of Montmajour, as well as Raymond his nephew and Prior of the Church of the same place, are recorded to have supplied the necessary expense, as the inscription teaches.

[24] In the year one thousand two hundred and thirty-seven, while Raymond held the priorate of the Church of St. Anthony, the casket in which the holy body was deposited was opened with great solemnity, Afterward an arm was extracted, and through the Reverend Father Lord John, Archbishop of Vienne and Legate of the Apostolic See, one of the arms was extracted and placed separately; so that by its display the pious devotion of the faithful might be satisfied: and to this day it is preserved outside and is exhibited for veneration and kissing to the throngs of people. Present at this extraction were the Bishop of Uzes and several ecclesiastical Prelates, and also the most Illustrious Countess of Vienne, accompanied by many noble persons. then magnificently adorned. This holy arm was afterward, by the liberality and devotion of the most Illustrious Dukes of Milan, enclosed in gold and gems and adorned with a magnificent and costly work.

MIRACLES OF ST. ANTHONY.

Anthony the Great, Abbot in the Thebaid (Saint)

From Various Sources.

Section I. The Sacred Fire. Miracles at the relics of St. Anthony.

[1] The sacred fire rages around the year 1090. Already for an entire century the relics of St. Anthony had been in Gaul when the sacred fire began to rage with special fury, and showed St. Anthony to be an extraordinary physician to the world. Sigebert in his Chronicle at the year of Christ 1089, and following him Vincent in book 25 of the Mirror of History, chapter 84, thus describe this disease: A pestilent year, especially in the western part of Lorraine, where many, rotting as the sacred fire consumed their innards, their members turning black as coals, either died miserably, or, with their hands and feet putrefied, were cut off and preserved for an even more miserable life; many, however, were tormented by the contraction of their sinews. James Meyerus in book 3 of the Annals of Flanders reports this fire, preceded by a celestial portent, as having been sent thus: announced by a celestial sign. In the year 1088, on the third day before the Kalends of September, a fiery dragon was seen flying through the middle of the sky, and as it were vomiting flames from its mouth; and immediately there followed that pestilent disease which is called the Sacred Fire, which some then called the Burning. And in the year 1089, the sacred fire raged violently in Flanders, which they called the fire-plague. And in the year 1092, a religious procession was instituted at Tournai by Bishop Rabodo on the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, on account of the plague they called the fire-disease, that is, the sacred fire. With great religious devotion sacred rites were performed everywhere to procure the wonders that were happening and to appease the wrath of God. For some turning black as coals, others wasting away as their innards were consumed by the disease, some miserably maimed in their limbs: it is unbelievable to say how many mortals were consumed by that sacred fire. As Virgil had sung of his own time at the end of book 3 of the Georgics,

--- Nor long after waiting, The sacred fire ate at the afflicted limbs.

In which passage, in his Notes number 25, our John Louis de la Cerda learnedly discusses this fire and explains its various names. In the same year the Abbot of Ursberg writes in his Chronicle that a great pestilence of men and cattle had occurred. In herds this plague is called pustule. So Columella, chapter 5, book 7: There is also the incurable sacred fire which shepherds call pustule.

[2] More on the sacred fire then raging is given by our Buzelinus in book 4 of the Annals of Gallo-Flanders, who for extinguishing it records both other remedies divinely granted, and that the most Blessed Virgin, The patronage of various Saints is implored, Saints Martin, Piatus, and Rictrude afforded salvation and help to many. Since moreover that plague was raging at the same times in other parts of Gaul, and, as Hugh Farsetus testifies in Aymarus Falco, it seemed to have been granted to the adverse power and enemy of the human race to strike with that plague persons of diverse age and sex, so that their bodies, set afire together, burned with intolerable torment, at those times, I say, greater veneration began to be shown to St. Anthony: especially of St. Anthony, from which it came about that the greatest throng of the sick made their way to his basilica at La Motte, and very many were healed of all that corruption through his merits. Aymarus Falco describes these events thus, part 2, chapter 31: These things occurred around those times when, as the historians Sigebert and Vincent above mentioned relate, a dire plague and fiery diseases, or the persecution of the sacred fire, was consuming very many mortals in the Western and Northern regions, and cruelly mutilating many with their limbs burned away. For this misery and horrible calamity, the devout imploring of the patronage and intercession of the most blessed Anthony was found to bring a present and most efficacious remedy. with the greatest concourse, Wherefore, with the relics of the holy body deposited with honor at La Motte, it is not easy to say how great a concourse of peoples and how great a throng of mortals streamed thither from diverse regions. In which matter, what Athanasius had long ago declared about Anthony while living, was seen to be effectively fulfilled and realized even after he had been gathered to the heavenly abodes; namely when Athanasius himself says: The people of the whole world flocked to Anthony in rivalry, and desired to behold the man valiant in war against the demons. And various and stupendous miracles were daily becoming more illustrious, which Christ was continually working in that place through the intercession of His glorious Confessor. With the relics of the holy body deposited at the place which was formerly called La Motte, as aforesaid, and honorably placed, with peoples thronging from all sides, the place itself began to become more illustrious and to be held in far greater fame among all, whence, the old appellation having been suppressed, it gradually assumed another name. For what was formerly called La Motte began henceforth to be commonly called Saint-Antoine, on account of the renown received from that divine Father, as is clearly shown from the public documents of the surrounding places.

[3] with very many miracles following. The same author, chapter 33: I could here relate things almost unbelievable, though most truthful; but it is not our present purpose to linger longer in narrating these things, which would seem to require almost a full volume by themselves. Nor do I think anyone could in writing attain the number of the miracles. And in chapter 40, treating of the great crowd of pilgrims which is accustomed to gather on the day of the Lord's Ascension for the solemn procession, Relics carried about by illustrious men. he continues thus: In the most devout solemnity of this procession, although from the beginning the holy body placed in the casket was customarily carried by the Lord of the place, as well as by certain noble and illustrious persons of the province of Vienne, nevertheless for almost two hundred years now the Dukes of Milan have claimed this right for themselves, to humbly and devoutly carry out the second place of this ministry by themselves or their deputies, and to enjoy the most eagerly desired function of this office.

[4] Wine sanctified by dipping the relics in it, This too has been observed from antiquity on that same solemn day down to our own times: that the relics of the said holy body are bathed in wine, which, being then reserved, is given and administered to the throngs of people as a most useful remedy for various afflictions. By innumerable experiences it has been proven salutary against diseases. that the virtue of this sanctified wine brings a present remedy against the conflagrations of the sacred fire. And in the very year in which we write these things, we know of very many who have been cured of that plague of the sacred fire by the sprinkling and aspersion of that wine, not without the greatest attestation of divine power. And in our memory it is evident that Kings and Princes have made use of this salutary remedy. Wherefore the Apostolic See has approved the sanctification of the same wine, and has decreed that it is lawful for none to prepare such wine except in the very monastery of Blessed Anthony where the relics of the holy body rest. So Aymarus.

[5] The reverence toward the Saint was increased all the more, says Baronius at the year of Christ 1089, number 18, from the Antonian history, because, just as those sick with that disease were accustomed to be healed, so those who were healthy but sinned against the same Saint, whether by perjury or by some other blasphemy or insult inflicted upon him, The perjured or those who blaspheme St. Anthony are punished. were accustomed soon to experience him as an avenger, and to be struck at once with the same disease of the sacred fire: which dreadful prodigy has persevered to this day, to such a degree that it has passed into a proverb: No one sins against Anthony with impunity. This will be confirmed below by more recent miracles.

[6] John Gerson, Chancellor of Paris, in a sermon delivered at the Council of Constance, volume 1 of his works, marvels at the manifold cures of the sacred fire that have occurred: With how many miracles, he says, in life, Innumerable cures. with how many benefactions and aids after death has Anthony shone forth, especially in this certain special prerogative, that he drives the sacred fire from bodies, as a sign that he cools the fire of lustful concupiscence, which is more pernicious, when invoked in hearts! Let him who is tempted by the burning of this infernal fire cry out: O holy Anthony, help me. He assigns the same reason in volume 4, sermon 3, on St. Anthony: It is easy to believe, he says, that St. Anthony received from God a special grace of healing corporeal fire in the limbs of the sick, because he so conquered the spiritual fire of wicked carnality. And looking to the multitude of miracles, in the first sermon delivered before the Duke of Burgundy, he asserts that he does not recount his most well-proven miracles, because he would say nothing new, since they are most well known throughout the whole world. Aymarus Falco: In this very year, he says, in which we write these things, that is, the year of Christ 1530, we knew, with God as witness, of very many suffering from that dire disease who, having implored the patronage of the same Saint and the place of the disease having been washed or sprinkled with that wine in which the relics of the sacred body had been dipped, were restored to their former health. Saussaye commemorates these on the 13th of June: At Vienne, in the celebrated basilica of his name known throughout the world, which is also the head of a religious order, the body of St. Anthony is deposited and rests with fitting honor, and shines perpetually with the help received from heaven for those whose limbs the sacred fire devours, and with gracious wonders.

Section II. Miracles in Belgium and Germany.

[7] Chapel of St. Anthony near Bailleul: Near Bailleul, a town of Flanders, a very celebrated concourse to St. Anthony for the purpose of repelling the fire-plague was customary, which in the year of Christ 1626, when the disease was again raging in the surrounding area, was renewed, not without the solace of many, with a sodality, or Confraternity of St. Anthony, erected there and approved by Pope Urban VIII on the same year, the 6th day before the Kalends of July, and enriched with a most ample indulgence of penances. The chapel that is frequented there belongs to the Benedictine monks of the monastery of St. John, which was formerly at the walls of Therouanne, thence transferred to Bailleul, and afterward to Ypres. Concerning it and the recently performed miracles there, Peter Ramerus, a Religious of the same monastery, published a book: in which he testifies that forty persons who had been seized by the sacred fire were healed by the aid of St. Anthony; very many miracles performed there. and indeed there had suffered in one leg: Louis Wassenhoue of Ypres, John Snellart of Hooglede, John de Koninck of Noordschote, Charles Vander Straet of Cassel, Simon Jansson of Leffinge, a native of Franche-Comte, Haring Lanckriet, Francisca van de Walle, and Joanna Mesdach of Tildonk, Francisca Bubbe and Petronilla Swinghedau of Bailleul, Maria Liteyn of Zillebeke in the district of Ypres, Maria Caproen and Laevina van den Steen of Ypres. A foul ulcer and manifold corruption were consuming one shin of Valentine Philip of Artois, and of Peter Brueys of Bailleul; both shins of Matthias Lalius of Bailleul, Judocus Kemele of Bovekerke in the district of Dixmude, John Abundius an Italian, Susanna de Raedt of Nipkerke on the River Lys: the shin and both arms of Maria, a maid of John Rabaudt, a citizen of Cassel; one arm of Peter Storm of Meteren, Barbara de Sante, a Religious of the Order of St. Francis at Nieuwpoort, Petronilla Swinghedau of Bailleul; but both arms of Francisca Gruson of Meteren; and the right arm with the side and shoulder of Peter de Winck of Cassel: one hand of Peter de Brune of Adrinkerk, Joanna Bubbe of Bailleul, Maria Vroyelinck of Cassel; both hands of Maria Werkin of Ypres; the hands and feet of Catherine de Breyne, born at Comines on the Lys: one foot of Petronilla de Koninck, from the village of Kemmel, and of Michaela Velle of Bailleul: the toes of the feet of Maria Pont of Neufkerke: the knee of Judoca Borrevals of Ypres: the hips and knees of Maria Banzel of Bailleul, the right side of Maria le Mettre of Peene: the entire body of an infant of Saint-Omer, Adrian Vaerelle. Relieved of the same evil, without specifying the part of the body that had felt the corruption: Francis Huysman and John Vermote of Tildonk. Freed from other equally dangerous diseases by the aid of St. Anthony: from long-standing and unknown diseases, Cecilia de Thielt of Ypres; from ulcerous and inflamed shins, William Jonckheere of Iseghem in the district of Courtrai, Livin van Damme, John van Ackere, and the wife of Andrew van Damme, natives of East Flanders, and Isabella Formanoir, a Religious of the Order of St. Clare at Ypres; from an incurable and unidentified pain of the arm, a Religious of Ypres from the monastery of Nonnenbos of the Order of St. Benedict, Margaret Laben; and lastly from a lingering quartan fever, John van Ackere of Bailleul, and John Rysport, a noble man who had often served as consul of Bailleul, whose daughter Judoca van Rysport was healed from the plague by the aid of the same Saint. Peter Ramerus relates these things at length, citing witnesses everywhere, or even public notaries who recorded these in writing: we have collected in the briefest form the names and kinds of diseases. Anthony Sanderus mentions this book in his work on illustrious Anthonys.

[8] Elsewhere in Belgium the veneration of St. Anthony is celebrated: In the remaining cities of Belgium, too, veneration is shown to St. Anthony on account of the frequent miracles wrought by him, and distinguished guilds of crossbowmen are named in his honor. At Arras, a Confraternity, as they call it, or sodality long ago consecrated in his honor, still flourishes today to such a degree that scarcely a citizen does not enroll in it, as Sanderus above attests. In various parishes of Artois, Confraternities of this kind have been erected under the title of St. Anthony, as also in the village of Bousbecque on the Lys in the district of Lille, to which from neighboring places, even in the raging of winter, people go in great piety to pray. At Roubaix, which the Montmorency family of Belgium holds with the title of Principality, there was formerly a celebrated Confraternity, which has recently been restored. He is venerated with a great concourse of the people in the Priory near Mons, the capital of Hainaut, which is called that of St. Anthony, and which has been assigned to the college of the Society of Jesus established in the same city. We pass over in silence, lest we be excessive, other places of Brabant, Guelders, and the remaining provinces, some of which will be touched upon below in the miracles.

[9] and his image affixed to houses. A certain and distinguished testimony that the benefits of the same Saint during the raging of that disease have persevered to this day is the publicly established indication that the history of this sacred fire with the image of the Saint is painted in many places before the doors of private houses. This Sanderus above and Molanus, book 3, On the History of Sacred Images, chapter 5, have also observed: although the latter also assigns from St. Thomas another reason for the fire painted alongside -- that it was given to him to act as patron against the infernal fire, which is denoted above by Gerson through the fire of concupiscence, and in the history of the Translation through the sacred fire. In the ancient Missal of the Church of Liege, in the hymn called the Sequence, the following is read: Whoever is tortured by hellish fire is freed through his merit.

[10] Miracles formerly performed at Cologne. At Cologne also, as Winheim says in the Treasury of Cologne, Church 17, men infected with the morbid fire of Anthony once had a great concourse to the relics of this holy Father (which we said above are preserved in the church of the Antonian monastery). For this purpose, in the street adjacent to the church, they still have certain separate hospice buildings, just as also in the wall of the church, opposite the high altar, there are lattices through which from the infirmary they can hear divine services and see the sacred host. Elsewhere throughout Germany, very many altars, Many other places dedicated to the Saint. chapels, cells, hospices, and churches were formerly dedicated to St. Anthony, and many of these were frequented by the concourse of pious men coming on pilgrimage. His image is seen everywhere, even in the countryside.

[11] It is laughable that not even the Calvinist ranters, who are accustomed to rage against the images of the Saints as idols of demons -- with their voices everywhere, elsewhere with iron or fire -- were entirely able to eliminate the image of St. Anthony. An image of the Saint painted or tolerated somewhere by the heretics. John Grothusius, our learned and respected colleague, attested to us (from whom we drew very many things from the history of Aymarus, which he had obtained through the kindness of the most Reverend Lord Rutger Velen, General Preceptor of the House of St. Anthony at Cologne) -- he attested that he had entered, three years previously at Herenberg, which is a town of Zutphen not far from the Rhine and Emmerich in Cleves, an old Catholic church now occupied by Calvinists, together with their preacher, and had observed there nothing sacred, no vestige of the ancient piety, except a single image of St. Anthony in a glass window, and that recently painted after the orthodox sacred rites had been repudiated. To him, marveling at this, the preacher replied that thus the one who had donated the window had commanded. So deeply has the ancient devotion toward the Saint sunk into men's hearts that it could not be entirely obliterated even by all the recent impostures of fanatical dogmas.

Section III. Image, and other miscellaneous materials of common veneration.

[12] Why a church is customarily painted alongside, Moreover, it may also be relevant to explain the manner in which he is customarily painted or sculpted. Why a written scroll is placed in his hands has been indicated above in the epilogue to the Life, concerning the fire already treated here. A bell and a church with a bell tower are customarily painted alongside: the church as an image of the first Antonian house; a bell, as the image of the divine Lady of Aspricollensis is an oak, of the Lauretan, the little house of Nazareth: the bell, because it was customarily carried by the messengers of the Antonian Almshouse, who went about collecting alms, as a sign of their arrival, along with relics. Indeed, a small bell was hung around the neck of the pig that was fed at public expense of the towns.

[13] a pig. Concerning the pig customarily placed at the feet of St. Anthony, Aymarus writes thus, part 1, chapter 48: At the feet of the most blessed man a sow is painted, or a pig is depicted, because even in this animal God performed miracles through His servant. Indeed, the pig is painted, as Molanus holds, book 3, On the History of Sacred Images, chapter 5, so that the common people may learn that their animals are preserved from evil through his intercession. For in imploring and in testimony of this benefit, a pig is fed by the community in most places, which they call St. Anthony's pig. It could also be that our ancestors, when they first painted a pig rather than another animal alongside him, did not look to this, but to the assaults of the demons which he endured. For demons are fittingly signified by pigs. Hence when the church of the Arians at Rome was dedicated with Catholic consecration, a pig went out of it, invisible indeed, but one that moved all through whom it passed to amazement. book 3, Dialogues, chapter 30. Which therefore, says Gregory, divine mercy showed, so that it might be manifest to all that the unclean inhabitant was going out from that place.

[14] Moreover, just as our ancestors, visiting the memorials of Saints, gladly took away a small image of the Saint for themselves, so also for their cattle they took away a bell to be tied around the neck from the memorial of St. Anthony, The pig and bell also among the Italians in use testifying by this means that through the merits of the holy Confessor they sought and trusted that their animals would be preserved from pestilence: which the verses of Ambrosius Novidius indicate is also observed by the Romans. For, speaking of the grunting pig that is painted alongside Anthony, he adds:

--- It shakes the bronze at my neck, Which you may recognize, he says, lest harm be done. My bronze it bears, which you see upon this staff, And which the sick, entreating, and many necks, do wear.

[15] Lastly, the following hymn, responsory, antiphon, Collect or Prayer from many churches pertain to this matter, which we append. The patronage of five heavenly patrons in particular is customarily invoked against pestilence, of whom St. Anthony is one. St. Anthony, Patron against pestilence. Hence the ancient hymn in the Tournai Missal: Let this Patron be venerated, whom the heavenly throne holds, who, by bestowing benefits, fills the world with gladness. He, giving forth a divine fragrance, drives away plague and languor, redolent as roses or lilies in the Church.

[16] Hymn from the ancient Breviary of Saint-Omer.

O blessed city of Vienne, and blessed people, Man decrepit and old, youth and small child, Among whom it is not doubted that God's servant is present. The Lord gave to His servant a hand commanding over the sick, That when he commands, by nature's force, an end be made to disease, And the infernal herpes estiomenus be taken away. These things appear through their effect more clearly in this place, and other diseases. Where marvelous things are done more frequently through the same Saint, And the sacred fire is more wonderfully extinguished. We who are sick, we who lie fallen in the sins of men, We need, O Father, your prayers to the Lord, That we may be freed from evil and from the bond of sin. O how many sick persons flock to his church, Imploring through him the divine mercy, And there receive the grace of health! Surround our houses with a wall of providence, And, all laxity or negligence removed, Let not the death of concupiscence enter to us through the windows. Grant, O Father, to whom our mind aspires, an entrance. And You who have restored us to life through Your Only-begotten, Give us the Spirit proceeding from both, Amen.

[17] Responsory from ancient Breviaries: Tournai, Hildesheim, etc.

Applaud with your hand, O Vienne, endowed with so great a Patron, Whom Egypt gave as a dear pledge to you. He strikes and heals, extinguishes and kindles fires, And Anthony thunders forth blazing threats.

Prayer from the ancient Roman Missal and most old Breviaries: Prayer to St. Anthony. O God, who by the intercession of Blessed Anthony, Your Confessor and Abbot, grant that the morbid fire be extinguished and that cooling be provided to afflicted limbs, make us, being propitious, freed by his merits from the fires of hell, to be presented to You felicitously in glory, whole in mind and body.

a.

Herpes estiomenus is an ulcer from an abundance of thick and acrid yellow bile. The name is derived from herpein, that is, to creep, and esthiein, to eat, to devour. Lucretius expressed the etymology and nature in book 6, verse 660:

The sacred fire breaks forth and burns the body, creeping, Whatever part it seizes, and crawls through the limbs.

Section IV. Punishments against blasphemers and other impious persons.

[18] The Florentine historian, and after him authorities not to be despised, report that A sacrilegious man consumed by the fire of St. Anthony, in the times of Gregory XI, the Roman Pontiff, this stupendous miracle occurred at Cesena, a city of Italy. For when Breton troops were present there, and a certain one of the Bretons had savagely slaughtered some small children upon the altar in a certain church during the very sack of the city, and, drunk with fury, was assailing with blows of his bloody sword an image of Blessed Anthony painted on the wall; immediately fire, seizing and devouring his flesh, attacked him in a horrible spectacle. And while he was burned with immense pains, he ran to the sea, and casting himself into the water, was there entirely consumed by fire, bones and all.

[19] Nor is what is known to have occurred in our memory near St. Dionigi not far from Piacenza dissimilar. For there a certain soldier of the French army, another, by a like example, paid the penalties for his temerity, miserably burned by the sacred fire, while a very great part of the army looked on.

[20] At Rome, in the church of St. Anthony, an image of a burning man is seen painted, another, a perjurer: with this inscription: Marcus of Brescia, a soldier, having placed his hand upon the altar of St. Anthony and committed perjury, was seized by the avenging fire of the Deity, and died on the Ides of August in the year 1573.

[21] A fragment of a Heroic poem by the most illustrious Prince John Francis Pico, Lord of Mirandola and Count of Concordia, addressed to St. Anthony:

--- Your fame, subject to no death, Through scorched Libya and mighty Asia Passes into Europe. Your glory has always flourished and always will flourish, Enclosed within no boundaries, through all The regions of the alternating sea, and through the farthest parts of the world, Traversing through heaven and the gods above on happy wings: And the more it is worn by the teeth of distant age, The more it shines forth with the distinguished flower of youth. And I remember, if ever profane men Began to violate it, at no other time did they themselves bear greater Punishments of the avenging smoke and pursuing flame. I do not speak of the Aloidae, cast down by the thunderbolt After the battles of the fictitious Phlegra, or of the impious limbs Of great Capaneus, smoking from the triple bolt. We have seen charred limbs, and of blasphemers; and bones hanging At the portals of the sacred temple as a perpetual warning. We have seen a corpse consumed whole, stripped of its flesh: From which suddenly it blazed forth, when the name of the Great Anthony was violated, and suddenly fires through the inmost veins It drew, as with his monstrous tongue he uttered abuse. So much did the Creator of the heavens, the earth, and the gods above Esteem you, and He assigned these wages for His despised renown.

[22] In the year 1576, on the 11th of June, while the Duke of Alencon, brother of the King of France, was in the city of Chatillon, and the watch of the infantry forces was being kept in the village called Soulce, about one mile distant from the said city, three dissolute soldiers found before the doors an image of Blessed Anthony erected in stone: another, a French soldier, and after heaping many scandals, mockeries, and taunts upon it, they armed the head of the image with a helmet and the hands with a halberd, vomiting forth such words with execrable blasphemies: You, if you have any power, if any authority is yours, demonstrate it here and now against us, and defend yourself. Having said this, they attack the image with their weapons, with many blows. Not content with this, one of them, discharging a musket two or three times, undertakes to assault that image; and the sacrilegious man shoots at its face between the chin and the lower lip, lacerating it with a ball. But not with impunity: for at that very moment that impious man, crying out with a great wail and howling horribly, said: I am all on fire, I am all burning, and immediately fell dead to the ground. In whose face, in the same place where he had violated the image with the ball, in just recompense, the fire that avenges crimes, which then filled his whole face, burst forth as though through a breach, devouring him even after he had already breathed out his miserable soul.

[23] The second, however, feeling no less the hand of Almighty God, also cried out and his companion: that he could not endure the force of the fire, and wishing to escape the internal torments through water, leapt headlong into the nearest stream: but did not escape the presence of God. For he was immediately drowned and suffocated in the waters.

[24] The third, moreover, seeing the miserable end of his companions, beside himself and wholly lifeless, fell to the ground, and having been carried to the nearest house, was burning entirely with the most fervent fevers, the third tormented by fevers, and so violent that he presented a pitiful spectacle of himself to all. His companions, moved by his misery, friends and especially Catholic fellow soldiers, fled to the church as though to an asylum, and offered to God the Father the sacrifice of the Mediator (having sought out a priest), with solemn chant, before the image of Blessed Anthony, and rushing forth unanimously in crowds, both soldiers and the inhabitants of the said place, prayed to God with the greatest devotion of mind for the salvation of the wretched brother, and after the sacrifice and many prayers visited the afflicted man, and the Priest, after offering many other prayers, sprinkled him with blessed water. Immediately the poor wretch was restored to himself, acknowledged his crime, called upon the mercy of God, and stretching his hands to heaven, with humble and great prayers, having confessed and accused his error, he humbly sought the prayers of all to intercede with the most merciful God on his behalf. Nor was divine mercy lacking: afterward he is restored to health. for he was immediately restored to his former health and soundness of mind, and to this day he enjoys them. These things, truly done in the sight of more than three thousand men, teach what reverence we owe to the venerable images of the Saints: for although there is no divine power in them, they nevertheless refresh in us the memory of those whom they represent, and stimulate most Christians to praise the glorious works of God in His Saints and to implore their pious patronage. Indeed, an insult inflicted upon them redounds upon the servants of God, indeed upon the common Lord: who, although He may seem to be silent here sometimes, will not, however, always be silent.

[25] In that year of our Lord 1566, when throughout Belgium the iconoclasts were raging everywhere against the venerable images of the Saints, at 's-Hertogenbosch it happened that certain persons cut an image of St. Anthony to pieces with swords, axes, and hatchets, to destroy it by fire in the public way. But what happened was by no means borne with impunity by the impious: immediately they were seized by that plague, Other sacrilegious men and blasphemers punished at 's-Hertogenbosch: which Christians have long since called St. Anthony's fire (because his pious patronage with God has often been experienced in driving it away), and over both their entire bodies that pestilent fire erupted like grains of pepper: the wretches betook themselves home; and their companions, terrified by their affliction, abandoned the pyre in trembling. They were consumed by so fierce and voracious a conflagration over their whole body that on the following day they breathed out their impious souls and left behind funeral corpses marked with stigmata of various colors, blue, green, and black. This is so well known throughout the entire neighborhood that we have not only heard very many persons concordantly depicting the history of this event in vivid detail, adding the names both of the sacrilegious men and of their household members; but we have also seen the testimony of a public notary, neither unworthy of trust nor obscure.

[26] It is established by common public report and published writings, and there are men still living who are most worthy of trust and who have reported to us, that at the very time when there were disturbances at Goes in Belgium, and William, Count of Bergen, brother-in-law of William, Prince of Orange, was demolishing the Franciscan monastery near Emmerich, formerly, as is reported, piously founded by the ancestors of the same Count (of which demolition, continuing successively for several months, I myself saw the last acts), a certain man, demented by the new doctrines, came upon the scene and, all statues, images, and altars having already been destroyed and overturned, found there still remaining a statue of St. Anthony: which this man immediately seized with an impudent hand, dashed to the ground, trampled with his feet, and assailed in every way he could. And it happened that a certain Catholic woman was present by chance, another in Zutphen, who, addressing the man, said: What has St. Anthony done to you, that you so shamefully abuse his statue? He immediately burst forth into this impudent speech: Why do you pester me about St. Anthony? If he has any force or power, let him show it. Without delay: immediately this blasphemer against the Saint was seized by the sacred fire, which they call St. Anthony's fire, and was scorched over his whole body; and at last, entirely consumed by the sacred fire, with God avenging, he breathed his last.

THE ORDER OF ST. ANTHONY.

Anthony the Great, Abbot in the Thebaid (Saint)

From Various Sources.

CHAPTER I.

The origin and insignia of the Order.

[1] The rise and progress of the Antonian monastic community, as Rene Choppin speaks, book 1 of the Sacred Polity, title 2, article 8, is elegantly narrated by Brother Aymarus Falco, Preceptor of the house of St. Anthony at Bar-le-Duc, The history of the Antonian Order. in his Antonian History composed in four books, from the archive of the greater Antonian monastery and from various ecclesiastical writers scattered about. Falco pursued this history up to the year 1530 and dedicated it to Anthony de Langeac, abbot of Vienne. Let him who wants more consult it; here it will suffice to have sampled a little. The first beginnings were given to the Order on the occasion of illustrious and almost innumerable miracles, which Aymarus himself narrates thus, part 2, chapter 33, though not established with the most certain faith for himself.

[2] Gasto, by the aid of St. Anthony, is freed from a grave disease: A certain most noble man of the province of Vienne, called Gasto, very distinguished in piety, while suffering from a most grave and dangerous infirmity by which he was deprived of the sense and function of almost all his limbs, commended his salvation as earnestly as he could to the nourishing Confessor of God, Blessed Anthony, with most frequent prayers and vows: and for the purpose of fulfilling his vow, he sent his son Girinus, or Girondus, to the body and church of Blessed Anthony. Without delay: he obtained by divine favor the desired health.

[3] Not very long afterward, Girondus himself contracted a disease by which he was vexed and wasted for a very long time, then his son, and with the illness growing worse day by day, he was believed to be about to depart this life. Gasto, seeing this and persuading himself that no medical art could avail the imperiled son, humbly took refuge in the divine and Blessed Anthony's aid. Therefore, contemplating human misery and the calamity of this life, he himself persuaded the sick, or rather the dying, son that both of them with all their substance should vow themselves perpetually to Blessed Anthony, both making a vow to serve St. Anthony perpetually: if the sick man himself should be restored to his former health through his intercession. Having made this vow, the sick man began to improve somewhat.

[4] That very night, therefore, when Gasto had given himself to sleep, he seemed in his rest to see the most blessed Anthony, addressing him with these words: What is it, Gasto, that you and this son of yours are so anxious before God for this miserable life, the Saint appearing to the father, which is incessantly agitated by innumerable waves and perpetual storms? Why do you not rather seek the stable dwelling of the heavenly fatherland? And make prayers and vows for obtaining it? But since it has so seemed good to the Divine mercy, behold, through my intercession the grace of health has been granted to your son, just as Christ previously through me bestowed upon you the desired recovery. Be therefore henceforth faithful to the most high bestower of graces: and serve Him in fear, and rejoice in Him with trembling: embrace discipline, lest the Lord be angry and you perish from the just way. and the Saint accepting the vow, I, moreover, holding the vow made by you as accepted, receive you as my own sons. And concerning the goods offered to me by you, I will and command that in this place, to the wretched who are burned and mutilated by the fiery disease and the sacred fire, whom poverty oppresses and the force of disease by Divine judgment compels to waste away, and commanding them to serve the sick: and who, received by no one, lie miserably in the streets to the horror of onlookers, the solace of pious relief and charity be perpetually shown: I commend them to your faith. For by these works of charity the way to heaven will assuredly be prepared for you.

[5] Having heard these things, Gasto himself was striving to give thanks as best he could to the same divine Father: and, having received confidence, was promising to do what was commanded. But he said he doubted, since a great multitude of the sick was flowing thither, lest his resources should succumb to so great a burden and should by no means suffice for it. Then the Divine Father himself, extending to the same Gasto a staff and animated by the sign of the staff, or Potence, sprouting, which he seemed to carry, and which appeared to be formed after the manner and figure of a Potence, or the letter or sign Tau, bade him plant it in the ground. When Gasto had done this, the staff seemed immediately to grow up and spread into a great tree, whose branches, spread in every direction to a very great extent, displayed a marvelous abundance of flowers and fruits. Under the tree itself very many poor, sick, and mutilated persons were seen, who were refreshed by the shade and fruit of the tree. Moreover, a hand, or right hand, seemed to proceed from above, as if from heaven, pouring forth a blessing from on high and extending an infusion of heavenly favor. When therefore the astonished Gasto was gazing at this admirable vision, the blessed elder spoke thus to him: Behold, you shall plant in the stock of piety and in the root of charity, by my favor, a tree which shall spread its branches far and wide: and from its fruit the poor shall be sustained. There is one thing above all that I wish to be cultivated and observed: charity toward the poor of Christ; I greatly desire that you be intent upon this care and solicitude, and also those who hereafter shall be as sons to me. Having said this, the vision disappeared.

[6] On the following morning, he who had been lying almost lifeless appeared, not without the greatest admiration of all, unexpectedly restored to his former health; and on the following day, on which the feast of the Revelation of Blessed Anthony was celebrated, to the amazement of all, he entered the church for the offering of thanksgivings, in good health. Wherefore the aforesaid Gasto and Girondus, moved by that miracle and divine admonition, immediately dedicated themselves and their goods to the exercise of works of piety, and, according to the figure of the staff exhibited by St. Anthony, Others join them. they assumed, as is related, the sign of the Potence on their garments. To which most holy purpose, not long after, about eight God-fearing men, moved by devotion, attached themselves: and for the fulfillment of these same holy works, they concordantly entered into a most pious partnership and fraternity among themselves. This is also found recorded in these verses:

By the vow of Gasto, with eight Brothers united, This Order was begun for the work of piety.

[7] He then confirms these things from the figure of the ancient seal: No slight argument for the memorable origin of this religious institute is provided to us by the type or stamp of the ancient seal, which the said holy association and fraternity is found to have used from the very origin of its founding. Seal of the Order. For in it the figure of a certain secular man appears depicted, with head uncovered or bared, and wearing a short doublet reaching only to the knees, who with his right hand extended seems to receive and hold the sign of the Tau, as though offered to him from above by someone; with the other hand raised on high, as in the likeness of one marveling or astonished. Then also, from the upper part, as if from heaven, is seen proceeding the figure of a hand bestowing a blessing. Silvester Maurolycus in book 1 of the Ocean of Religious Orders, where he relates these same things, displays the figure of this seal in an image.

[8] Aymarus continues, reporting the opinions on the origins of the sign of the Tau: Some think the true sign of this religious order to be the figure of the Greek letter called Tau, Mystical explanation of the Potence: and they assert that this sign was divinely given to the same order: because in the prophet Ezekiel it is read to have been and to be most efficacious. For thus Ezekiel himself spoke in his vision: Pass through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and mark the Tau upon the foreheads of the men who groan and grieve over all the abominations that are committed in the midst thereof. And he said to the six men who were coming from the direction of the gate that faces north: Pass through the city following him, and strike: let not your eye spare, nor have pity: slay old man and youth and maiden, child and women, unto total destruction. Ezekiel 9:4. But every one upon whom you see the sign of the Tau, do not kill, and begin from my sanctuary. O marvelous and terrible vision, and the immense and unheard-of power of this sign Tau! Truly venerable therefore is the religious order which was divinely distinguished by that sign as its own emblem from the very beginning of its origin.

[9] There are not lacking, however, those who think that the above-mentioned Gasto and Girondus, after they had devoted themselves to the duty of piety and to the sustenance of the poor, the mutilated, and the helpless, another explanation. voluntarily assumed for themselves the sign of the Potence, so that by that very sign they might profess and publicly testify that they wished to be a staff and support of the sick, and of those mutilated by the sacred fire, and that they had devoted and fervently applied themselves perpetually to the relief of the weak and mutilated. For the Potence is a staff adapted for supporting the mutilated, or the weak and the lame: so commonly called because it supports the helpless. Accordingly, this very sign by no means seems incongruous for this order, which was specially instituted for the sustenance of the sick and those mutilated by the sacred fire. These things were done around the year of Christ 1095, as report When the Order was begun. Baronius, volume 11, number 54; Claude Robert in Christian Gaul; Nicholas Crusenius, part 2 of the Monasticism of St. Augustine, chapter 18; Anthony Sanderus, book 1 on Illustrious Anthonys; and John de Lieuvre in the Antiquities of Vienne, chapter 40, when Guido presided over the metropolis of Vienne, who was afterward called Pope Calixtus II.

CHAPTER II.

General Masters. Abbots.

[10] This society was at first a kind of secular confraternity for the exercise of acts of Christian charity: but gradually, having advanced to a higher level and having obtained the custody of the body of St. Anthony, it lived by the Rule of St. Augustine, confirmed by many Roman Pontiffs. After Gasto's death, Masters of the House of St. Anthony. Stephen the Priest, conspicuous for piety, was elected by the votes of the Brothers as Master or Preceptor of the hospice or Almshouse of St. Anthony. Then, as listed by Claude Robert from the Antonian history: Nantolinus Sofredus, William Rufus, Peter Sofredus, Bruno, Falco, Stephen, Falco Mathionis, William Sofredus, Pontius Rufus, Jocelinus de Turre, William de Pernancus, William de Bonis, William Daniel or Rufus, Stephen Aymo; who (after the Benedictines had been removed to the monastery of Montmajour, to which the Priory of St. Anthony had still belonged) was created Abbot there by Boniface VIII on the 15th day before the Kalends of June, in the third year of his pontificate, the year of Christ 1297.

[11] The constitution or diploma of Boniface survives in volume 1 of the Bullarium and begins: In the dispensation of the ministers of the Church. We insert here the portion from section 3, because it confirms the Translation of the relics of St. Anthony and the miracles: Because We, on account of the reverence for Blessed Anthony himself, whose glorious merits are more manifestly known throughout all the churches established in the breadth of this world, and whose body, as celebrated fame has transmitted to posterity and the innumerable miracles which the Lord continually works through the same Saint there plainly show, United to the Priory of La Motte, rests in that same Priory, deeming it not so much worthy as obligatory that the same Priory be extolled with fitting honors, We have raised the same Priory to the status of an Abbey, by the counsel of the aforesaid Brothers and from the same fullness of power, a certain number of Canons or Brothers having been established therein. And so that every occasion for dissension and rivalry might be cut off, We have subjected and united the aforesaid hospice, with all its members established in whatever parts of the world, and their appurtenances and rights, to the same Abbey. By Apostolic authority decreeing that the place itself, which was formerly called a Priory, it becomes an abbey, should henceforth be and be called an abbey, and that those who should preside over it should always obtain the name and dignity of Abbot, and should govern the abbey itself and the said hospice united to it together in perpetuity, any constitution or custom to the contrary notwithstanding; and should no longer be called Masters or Lords, but only Abbots of the monastery of St. Anthony. To whom all the Brothers of the hospice and the same members, whom We wish henceforth to be called Canons or Brothers of the monastery of St. Anthony, should humbly obey in all things and give attention: and that in the same monastery of St. Anthony and in the hospice and the same members the Rule of Blessed Augustine should be observed, and that according to it the said Abbot and Canons or Brothers should be held to live in perpetuity. Moreover, the habit with the sign T, which they call the Potence, in honor of Blessed Anthony himself, both the Abbot and the aforesaid Canons or Brothers should always and everywhere wear, according to the accustomed practice of that Hospice. The same monastery, with the aforesaid hospice and all its members and goods existing everywhere, and the Abbot, Canons, or Brothers of the same now present and future, We have seen fit to exempt entirely from all jurisdiction, power, immediately subject to the Pope. subjection, and dominion of any Archbishop, Bishop, or Ordinary whatsoever; decreeing that all of them should be subject immediately to the Roman Pontiff alone.

[12] After Aymo, the Abbots down to our own times have been: Pontius Aleracus, Abbots of that place. William Mitte, Peter Lobetus, Pontius Bernard, Gerento de Castelnuovo, Hugo de Castelnuovo, Falco of the noble Montecanuto family in the Dauphinate, Arbaudus de Grandval, John de Polley, Humbert de Brion, Benedict de Montferrand, John Jognetus, Anthony de Brion, Anthony Rupemoran, Peter de Area, Theodore de Saint-Chamond, Anthony de Langeac, Louis de Langeac his brother, Louis de Langeac nephew of both his predecessors, Anthony of Toulouse, Anthony Brunel de Grandmont. Of these, Theodore de Saint-Chamond published the letters of St. Anthony, discussed in the Prolegomena to the Life, section 14. He lies at Pont-a-Mousson in Lorraine, in the church now belonging to the Society of Jesus, having died in the year of Christ 1527.

[13] Very many monasteries of the same institute were erected throughout Gallic Aquitaine, Monasteries of this Order elsewhere, Celtic Gaul, Belgian Gaul, Italy, Spain, Germany, and other provinces of the Christian world, whose superiors are called by the proper and special name of Preceptors. In Belgium, only one now survives, at Maastricht on the Meuse. At Rome, Falco and after him Miraeus relate that Aymo, the first Abbot of Vienne, acting also at Rome: through Boniface VIII, obtained the basilica of St. Andrew for the Antonians. But it is evident that already long before, a hospice dedicated to St. Anthony existed, from the Life of St. Francis, chapter 3, where he is said to have been found by the servants of Pope Innocent III near the Lateran, in the hospice of St. Anthony. Panciroli, however, holds that at that time it was still called St. Andrew's, and that St. Bonaventure wrote "hospice of St. Anthony" because by the time he was composing the Life of St. Francis it had already been consecrated to him. St. Bonaventure died about 20 years before Boniface VIII was promoted to the Pontificate. From this monastery (whenever it may have begun) there is always one of the order of the most blessed Father Anthony, who, following the Roman Curia, collects the fragments from the Pope's table for alms to the poor, and is the proper Curate and, as it were, Parish Priest of all who are called by the common name Courtisans. So John Gerson in his sermon on St. Anthony delivered at the Council of Constance. Concerning the Apostolic privileges of the Antonian Order, not a few things have been handed down by Oldrado the Jurist in Responses 211, 293, and 321; by Chassanee, part 4 of the Catalogue of the Glory of the World, consideration 65; and especially by Rene Choppin in the Sacred Polity and various places of the Monasticon books. Concerning the religious of this Order, John Gerson above pronounced finely: O happy are they who have merited to be dedicated to the religious and special service of so great a Father.

[14] James, King of Jerusalem and Sicily, writes Miraeus in Origins Kings distinguished by the Potence. of Monasteries, book 1, chapter 5, from Aymarus, as a sign of his assumed protection and affection for this order, in his testament drawn up in the year 1423, commanded his heirs and successors in perpetuity to wear, suspended from the neck, the symbol of the Antonian Order, that is, the Potence or the mark T of pure gold, together with a small bell.

CHAPTER III.

Another Order of St. Anthony in Egypt and Ethiopia.

[15] Concerning the other Order of St. Anthony, which he himself instituted and formed, and which Saints Macarius, Amathas, and others, as said before, propagated, there is hardly anything to add; all ancient records having been either destroyed by barbarian devastation Monks of St. Anthony in Egypt, or lying hidden among those wastes, once sacred, now not more horrible for their very desolation than for the obstinate stubbornness of the Coptic priests in defending the Eutychian heresy, joined with the greatest ignorance. Metaphrastes, however, in the Life of St. John the Almoner on the 23rd of January, number 6, mentions Anastasius, Prefect of the great mountain of Anthony, who together with Theodore, Bishop of Amathus, and Gregory, Bishop of Rhinocorura, was sent by St. John to the Persians to ransom the Christians who had been carried off into captivity after the capture of Jerusalem by Chosroes. This occurred around the year of Christ 614, as we shall say there. That the Catholic religion and true piety then prevailed among the Antonians can be gathered from this friendship of Anastasius with St. John and the embassy he undertook. Otherwise, that they had previously been entangled in errors is evident from the Life of St. Fulgentius on the 1st of January, chapter 12, number 25, to whom, when he said he would go to the farthest desert of the Thebaid region, Bishop Eulalius of Syracuse replied: The lands to which you desire to go sometimes heretical, have been separated from the communion of Blessed Peter by a perfidious schism. All those monks, whose admirable abstinence is renowned, will not share with you the sacraments of the altar. But they were restored converted, under the most holy Patriarchs Eulogius, John, and others, to the right faith.

[16] The same monks (as indeed in most parts of the world the religion of Christ was either first planted by monks who sought not their own things but those of Jesus Christ, or was certainly stabilized or restored by them) are believed to have strengthened the faith brought by the Apostles to Upper Ethiopia, which we now call Abyssinia, and, as it was collapsing with the passing of time, to have erected various monasteries in those same regions. When, however, the Egyptians and then the Abyssinians relapsed into heresy, relapsed. we nowhere read. For what Louis de Urreta writes in his Ethiopian History, Louis de Urreta criticized. that the Abyssinians were never infected with any heresy, were never separated from the Roman Church and the Roman Pontiff, but perfectly preserved the Christian faith as they had received it from the Apostles to this very day; and that the monks never departed from the Laws and institutions of the Great Anthony, but flourished in all the works of sincere religion and Christian virtues to the present -- this is so ridiculous and inept that it does not even deserve to be refuted; although our Nicholas Godignus has amply done so, because Urreta also seemed by his inconsiderate writing to have inflicted some insult upon the most holy man Andrew Oviedo, the Patriarch, and other most religious priests of our Society: so that we marvel that some have so rashly followed Urreta.

[17] Indeed, whether those monks who are currently found in Abyssinia descended from the Antonians is not established. For, The Abyssinian monks are heretical. as Alphonsus Mendez, Patriarch of Ethiopia, writes in letters dated in the year 1626, they acknowledge two authors of their institute: Abbot Eustachius and Thecla Haymanot, that is, "the plant of faith," who are remembered to have lived around the year 1200; although there is a tradition that nine monks came from Rome long before, each of whom built a monastery bearing his name in the province of Tigre. However that may be, those Abyssinian monks have for 80 years now especially obstructed the efforts of our men to bring Ethiopia either to return to communion with the Roman Church, or to remain in the communion it had attained, as the same Patriarch testifies: although not a few of the monks themselves were taught sounder doctrine by him and his associates.