Chapter Twenty
CHAPTER TWENTY
His Death
THE manner of the end of his life I ought also to tell, and you to hear eagerly, for this also is a pattern to imitate. He was visiting as usual the monks in the outer hills, and learning of his end from Providence, he spoke to the brethren saying, “This is the last visiting of you that I shall make, and I wonder if we shall see each other again in this life. It is time now for me to be dissolved, for I am near a hundred and five years.” Hearing this, they wept, clasping and embracing the old man. But he talked joyously, as one leaving a foreign town to go to his own, and bade them “not to fail in their labors nor lose heart in their strict life, but live as dying daily; and, as I have said before, to be earnest to guard the heart from unclean thoughts; to vie with the holy; not to go near the Meletian schismatics, for you know their wicked and profane heresy; nor to have any fellowship with the Arians, for the impiety of these is plain to all. Be not troubled if you see judges protecting them, for their triumph will end; it is mortal and short-lived. Therefore, do ye keep yourselves clean from these and guard the tradition of the Fathers, and above all the loving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, which you have learned from the Scriptures and have often been put in mind of by me.”
When the brethren pressed him to stay with them and die there, he would not for many reasons, as he implied without saying, but on this account chiefly: To the bodies of religious men, especially of the holy martyrs, the Egyptians like to give funeral honors and wrap them in fine linens, but not to bury them in the earth, but to place them on couches and keep them at home with them, thinking by this to honor the departed. Antony often asked the bishops to tell the people about this, and likewise shamed laymen and reproved women, saying it was not right nor even reverent, for that the bodies of the patriarchs and prophets are preserved even till now in tombs, and the very body of Our Lord was put in a sepulchre and a stone set against it hid it till He rose the third day. He said this to show that he does wrong who after death does not bury the bodies of the dead, holy though they be. For what is greater or holier than the Lord’s body? Many, therefore, hearing him, buried thenceforward in the ground and thanked God that they had the right teaching.
Now knowing this, and fearing lest they might so treat his body also, Antony hastened and took leave of the monks in the outer hills, and returning to the inner hills where he was used to dwell, he fell sick after a few months. He called those who were there (they were two who lived in the house, who had been fifteen years in the religious life, and ministered to him because of his great age) and said to them: “I am going the way of my fathers, as the Scripture says (cf. Josue 23:14), for I see myself called by the Lord. Be you wary and undo not your long service of God, but be earnest to keep your strong purpose, as though you were but now beginning. You know the demons who plot against you, you know how savage they are and how powerless; therefore, fear them not. Let Christ be as the breath you breathe; in Him put your trust. Live as dying daily, heeding yourselves and remembering the counsels you have heard from me. And let there be no communion between you and the schismatics, nor the heretical Arians. For you know how I also have avoided them for their false and anti-Christian heresy. So do you also be earnest always to be in union first with the Lord and then with the Saints, that after death, they also may receive you into everlasting tabernacles as known friends. Ponder these things, and mean them. And if you have any care for me, and remember me as your father, do not allow anyone to take my body to Egypt, lest they should deposit it in houses, for that is the reason why I entered the mountains and came here. And you know how I have always reproached those who do this and bade them stop the practice. Therefore, care for my body yourselves and bury it in the earth, and let my words be so observed by you that no one shall know the place but yourselves only. For in the Resurrection of the dead I shall receive it back from the Saviour incorruptible. Distribute my garments; the one sheepskin give to Athanasius the bishop, and the cloak I used to lie on, which he gave me new, but it has worn out with me; and the other sheepskin give to Serapion the bishop, and do you have the hair-cloth garment. And now God save you, children, for Antony departs and is with you no more.”
Having said this and been embraced by them, he drew up his feet; then gazing as it seemed on friends who came for him, and filled by them with joy, for his countenance glowed as he lay, he died and was taken to his fathers. Then they, as he had given them orders, cared for his body and wrapped it up and buried it there in the earth, and no man yet knows where it is laid save only those two. And they who received the sheepskins of the blessed Antony and the cloak that he wore out, each guard them as some great treasure. For to look on them is like looking on Antony, and to wear them is like joyfully taking on us his teachings.
This is the end of Antony’s life in the body, as that was the beginning of his religious life. And if this is but little to tell of such virtue as his, yet from this little do you judge what manner of man was Antony, the man of God, who from youth to such great age held unchanged his keen quest of a better life, who never for old age yielded to the desire of varied meats, nor for failing strength of body changed his form of dress nor even bathed his feet with water. And yet in all respects he was to the end untouched by decay. He saw well, his eyes being sound and undimmed; and of his teeth he had not lost one, only they were worn near the gums, through the old man’s great age. In feet and hands, too, he was quite healthy, and altogether he seemed brighter and more active than all those who use rich diet and baths and many clothes.
That he was everywhere spoken of and by all admired and sought even by those who had not seen him—these things are proof of his virtue and of a soul dear to God. For Antony was known not for his writings, nor for worldly wisdom, nor for any art, but simply for his service of God. That this is God’s gift none could deny. For how was he heard of even to Spain and to Gaul, to Rome and to Africa, he sitting hidden in the hills, unless it were God who everywhere makes known His own people, who also had in the beginning announced this to Antony? For though they themselves act in secret and wish to be unnoticed, yet the Lord shows them as lanterns to all, that even from this the hearers may know that the Commandments are able to be fulfilled, and so may take courage on the path of virtue.
Now, therefore, read this to the other brethren, that they may learn what should be the life of monks and may believe that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ glorifies them that glorify Him, and not only brings to the kingdom of Heaven those who serve Him to the end, but even here (though they hide themselves and seek retirement) He makes them everywhere known and spoken of for their own goodness and for the helping of others. And if need arise, read it also to the pagans, that perhaps thus they may learn not only that Our Lord Jesus Christ is God and the Son of God, but also that through Him the Christians, who serve Him sincerely and who piously trust in Him, not only prove that the demons whom the Greeks think gods are no gods, but trample on them and drive them out as deceivers and corrupters of men, through Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom is glory for ages of ages. Amen.