January 17 - St. Anthony the Great

Anthony (251-356) is the most famous of the Desert Fathers, and is called the “founder of monasticism.”  He was born in Egypt to Christian parents who were wealthy landowners.  When he was 18 years old, his parents died, and he became the guardian of his younger sister.  Shortly after this he arrived late to church one Sunday, walking in just as the Gospel lesson was about to be read.  The lesson was “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

 

Taking these words quite literally, Anthony sold everything he owned and gave it to the poor, and after placing his sister with a community of Christian virgins, he went to the outskirts of the city and became the disciple of a local hermit. 

 

He went to live alone in the desert, and underwent intense spiritual warfare for many years.  At one point devils physically beat him.  Anthony prayed and shouted, “I flee not from your stripes, for even if you inflict more, nothing shall separate me from the love of Christ!  He then sang, “Though a camp be set against me, my heart shall not be afraid.”  He was found the next day bleeding and nearly dead by a friend coming to bring him food, who carried him to a church.  There, Anthony had a vision of light in which he heard the voice of God consoling him and giving him back his health and strength. 

 

After this, Anthony went further into the desert and shut himself up in an abandoned Roman fort for the next twenty years.  Friends occasionally brought him bread, and disciples moved nearby and received spiritual counseling from him through a crevice in the wall.  On the day he finally emerged from the fort, he was so healthy and peaceful that everyone was amazed at the work God was doing in him.  It was at this point that Anthony began to organize his disciples into monasteries.  They lived in separate huts, engaged in prayer and manual labor, and joined together for worship on Sundays.  As he lived to be 105 years old, solitary desert life clearly agreed with him.

Anthony was so greatly respected in his own day that when he traveled to Alexandria to comfort the Christians in prison in 311, during the final wave of persecutions, the governor would not arrest him even after Anthony confronted him face to face.  In 325 he was invited to speak in defense of the Trinity at the Council of Nicea in 325, despite having no official position or authority.

 

Despite his difficult way of life and the temptations he is so known for facing, his friends described him as cheerful, confident, valorous, and full of divine peace.

 

Anthony did not learn how to read or write until well into adulthood (he memorized much of Scripture by hearing other monks read to him!), but Anthony's disciples wrote down many of his sayings.  Here is some of the wisdom of Anthony:

 

I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world, and I said, groaning, “What can get through from such snares?"  Then I heard a voice saying to me, “Humility.”

 

Our life and death are with our neighbor.  If we gain our brother, we gain our God; but if we scandalize our brother, we have sinned against Christ.

 

A time is coming when people will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, “You are mad, you are not like us.”

 

Whoever you may be, always have God before your eyes; whatever you do, do it in accordance with the testimony of the Holy Scriptures; in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it. Keep these three precepts and you will be saved.

 

This is the work of a great man: always to take responsibility for his own sins before God and to expect temptations until his last breath.