BOOK ONE
BOOK ONE
How Antony Trained Himself
CHAPTER ONE
The Call of God
ANTONY was of Egyptian race, his parents of good birth and good means—Christians too, so that he also was brought up in Christian wise. As a child he lived with his parents, knowing nothing but them and his home; and when he grew to be a boy and was advancing in age, he refused to learn letters, desiring to be away from the company of children. All his wish was, as is written of Jacob, to dwell unspoiled at home. (Cf. Gen. 25:27).
With his parents he frequented the church, not with a child’s inattention, nor with the contempt of later years, but obeying his parents and listening to the lessons that were read and carefully keeping the fruits of them in his own life. Nor again, though he found himself in a fairly rich home, did he worry his parents for rich and varied food nor care for the enjoyment of it; he was satisfied with what was there and asked no more.
After his parents’ death he was left alone with one very young sister. He was eighteen or twenty years old and had charge of the home and of his sister. Less than six months after the death of his parents he was going out to church as usual, and collecting his thoughts, he pondered as he went how the Apostles, leaving all things, followed the Saviour; and the people in the Acts who sold their possessions and brought the price and laid it at the feet of the Apostles for distribution among the needy—what good and great hope was laid up in Heaven for these. With these thoughts in his mind, he entered the church; and it so fell that the Gospel was being read then, and he heard the Lord saying to the rich man, If thou wilt be perfect, go sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and come follow me and thou shalt have treasure in heaven. (Cf. Matt. 19:21). Then, as though it was from God that his thoughts of the Saints had come and this reading had been for his sake, as soon as he went out of the church he gave to the villagers the property he had from his parents (it was 300 acres of land, fertile and very beautiful) that they might not interfere with him and his sister. And all else that they had in personal property he sold, and raised a fair sum of money, which he gave to the poor, keeping a little because of his sister.
But when, again entering the church, he heard the Lord saying in the Gospel, Be not solicitous for the morrow (cf. Matt. 6:34), he could not bear to wait longer, but went out and distributed this also to the poor. His sister he commended to known and trusty virgins, and put her with a Sisterhood to be brought up; and then he gave himself for the future to the religious life, minding himself and living a life of hardship, in front of his own house. For as yet monasteries were not so universal in Egypt, and no monk yet knew the great desert; but each who wished to attend to his soul exercised himself alone not far from his own village.
Now there was at the time in the neighboring village an old man who had practiced the solitary life from youth. Antony, seeing him, was eager to imitate him, so he too at first began to stay in the places near the village. From there, if he heard anywhere of an earnest soul, he went forth like a wise bee and sought him out; nor would he return to his own place till he had seen him and got from him what would help him on his way to virtue; then he went back. There, then, he made his first steps, steadying his mind not to turn back to his inheritance nor to think of his kindred, but to give all its desire and all its energy to keeping up the religious life. He worked with his hands, having heard, if any man will not work, neither let him eat (cf. 2 Thess. 3:10), spending the money partly on bread, partly on the poor. He prayed constantly, having learned that in private we must pray without ceasing. (Cf. Luke 18:1). For he so listened to the reading that nothing of what is written escaped him, but he retained everything, and for the future his memory served him instead of books.
Living this manner of life, Antony was beloved by all. He made himself really subject to the devout men whom he visited and learned for himself the special religious virtues of each of them: the graciousness of one, the continual prayer of another; he observed the meekness of one, the charity of another; studied one in his long watchings, another in his love of reading; admired one for his steadfastness, another for his fasting and sleeping on the ground; watched one’s mildness, another’s patience; while in all alike he remarked the same reverence for Christ and the same love for each other. Having thus gathered his fill, he returned to his own place of discipline and thereafter pondered with himself what he had learned from each and strove to show in himself the virtues of all. He had no contentions with those of his own age, save only that he would not be found second to them in the better things; and this he did in such manner that none was grieved, but they too were glad on his account. Seeing him such, then, all the village people and the devout with whom he had intercourse called him a man of God and loved him as a son or as a brother.