St Anthony the Great
On the 22nd day of the Coptic Month of Toba we celebrate the life of St Anthony the Great.
(This is based on The Life of St Anthony by St Athanasius)
1. Antony you must know was by descent an Egyptian: his parents were of good family and possessed considerable wealth, and as they were Christians he also was reared in the same Faith. In infancy he was brought up with his parents, knowing nought else but them and his home. But when he was
grown and arrived at boyhood [cf. Lk 2.40], and was advancing in years [cf. Lk 2.52], he could not endure to learn letters, not caring to associate with other boys; but all his desire was, as it is written of Jacob, to live a plain man at home [cf. Gen 25.27]. With his parents he used to attend the Lord’s House, and neither as a child was he idle nor when older did he despise them; but was both obedient [cf. Lk 2.51] to his father and mother and attentive [cf. 1 Tim 4.31] to what was read, keeping in his heart what was profitable in what he heard. And though as a child brought up in moderate affluence, he did not trouble his parents for varied or luxurious fare, nor was this a source of pleasure to him; but was content simply with what he found nor sought anything further.
Anthony’s Call and His First Steps in Asceticism
2. After the death of his father and mother he was left alone with one little sister: his age was about eighteen or twenty, and on him the care both of home and sister rested. Now it was not six months after the death of his parents, and going according to custom into the Lord’s House, he communed with himself and reflected as he walked how the Apostles left all and followed the Savior [cf. Mt 4.20]; and how they in the Acts [cf. 4.35-7] sold their possessions and brought and laid them at the Apostles’ feet for distribution to the needy, and what and how great a hope was laid up for them in heaven. Pondering over these things he entered the church, and it happened the Gospel was being read, and he heard the Lord saying to the rich man, “If you would be perfect, go and sell what you have and give to the poor; and come follow Me and you shall have treasure in heaven” [Mt 19.21]. Antony, as though God had put him in mind of the Saints, and the passage had been read on his account, went out immediately from the church, and gave the possessions of his forefathers to the villagers–they were three hundred acres,” productive and very fair–that they should be no more a clog upon himself and his sister. And all the rest that was movable he sold, and having got together much money he gave it to the poor, reserving a little however for his sister’s sake.
3. And again as he went into the church, hearing the Lord say in the Gospel, “be not anxious for the morrow” [Mt 6.35], he could stay no longer, but went out and gave those things also to the poor. Having committed his sister to known and faithful virgins, and put her into a convent to be brought up, he henceforth devoted himself outside his house to discipline, taking heed to himself [cf. Dt 4.9, 15.9; Lk 17.3, 21] and training himself with patience. For there were not yet so many monasteries in Egypt, and no monk at all knew of the distant desert; but all who wished to give heed to themselves practised the discipline in solitude near their own village.
Now there was then in the next village an old man who had lived the life of a hermit from his youth up. Antony, after he had seen this man, imitated him in piety [cf. Gal 4.18]. And at first he began to abide in places outside the village: then if he heard of a good man anywhere, like the prudent bee [cf. Prov 6.8], he went forth and sought him, nor turned back to his own place until he had seen him; and he returned, having got from the good man as it were supplies for his journey in the way of virtue.
So dwelling there at first, he confirmed his purpose not to return to the abode of his fathers nor to the remembrance of...