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Course 20 · Lesson 2.1

Anthony, Athanasius and the beginning of the desert movement

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 20 outline

Module 1: Spiritual Formation and the Doctrines Behind Prayer

  1. What spiritual formation means in Scripture and tradition
  2. How the Trinity, the Incarnation and grace shape Christian prayer
  3. A map of the prayer traditions: Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant
  4. Ways and stages of growth: purgation, illumination and union, and their critics

Module 2: The Desert and Early Monasticism

  1. Anthony, Athanasius and the beginning of the desert movement
  2. The sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers: how to read them
  3. John Cassian and the eight thoughts that trouble the mind
  4. From the hermit to the community: Pachomius, Basil and Benedict

Module 3: Praying with Scripture and with the Church

  1. Lectio divina: its history and the four movements
  2. The Psalms as the prayer of the church
  3. The Divine Office and the Liturgy of the Hours: hours, texts and structure
  4. Using the daily office alone, and the Protestant daily prayer tradition

Module 4: Hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer

  1. Stillness and the prayer of the heart in the early Eastern church
  2. The Jesus Prayer: its words, its sources and its history
  3. Gregory Palamas and the fourteenth century controversy over light and energies
  4. Practice and cautions: the role of a guide and the warnings of the tradition

Module 5: Fasting, Discernment and Spiritual Direction

  1. Fasting in Scripture and in the three traditions
  2. Asceticism: its purpose, its dangers and its abuses
  3. The discernment of spirits from Antony and Cassian to Ignatius of Loyola
  4. Spiritual direction: the elder, the confessor, the pastor and the mentor

Module 6: Contemplation and Action

  1. Mary and Martha: how the church has read the two lives
  2. Prayer that issues in service: Benedict, Brother Lawrence and the Reformers on vocation
  3. When practice goes wrong: pride, quietism and spiritual experience without doctrine

Module 7: Building a Rule of Life

  1. What a rule of life is, and what the word rule meant for Benedict
  2. Choosing practices: Scripture, prayer, fasting, rest and service
  3. Dryness, failure and starting again
  4. Reviewing and adjusting a rule over time

All courses

Program / Course 20: Spiritual Theology / Lesson 2.1

What you will learn

  • Summarize what Athanasius reports about Anthony’s call, his struggles and his teaching.
  • Explain why Christians in the fourth century went into the Egyptian desert.
  • Distinguish what historians can say about Anthony from what the Life presents as edifying account.
  • Identify the Life of Anthony’s emphasis on the church, work and humility as well as on solitude.

The big idea

Anthony of Egypt, who lived in the third and fourth centuries, is the best known founder of the Christian desert movement. His story is known chiefly through the Life written soon after his death by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria. The Life presents Anthony as a man who heard the Gospel, left his property and spent decades in prayer, fasting and struggle against temptation, while keeping faith with the church and giving counsel to many visitors. Historians accept that Anthony was a real figure and that the Life shaped Christian ideals of holiness, while they discuss how far its details reflect Athanasius’s purposes.

Key terms

Anchorite
A person who withdraws from society to live a life of prayer, often alone. The word comes from a Greek word meaning to withdraw.
Monk
From a Greek word meaning alone or single. It came to name a man living a life of prayer and renunciation, alone or in a community.
Hagiography
Writing about the lives of saints. It is written to teach and inspire, and not only to record events.
Asceticism
Disciplined self-denial, such as fasting and vigil, aimed at freedom from disordered desires and growth in love.
Demon
In Christian teaching, a fallen spiritual being opposed to God. The desert writers describe struggle against demons as part of the monk’s life.
Arianism
The fourth-century teaching, opposed at Nicaea, that the Son is a created being and not equal to the Father.

Background

Anthony was born around 251 in Egypt, in a Christian family of some means, and died in 356, traditionally at the age of 105. The main source is the Life of Anthony, written by Athanasius soon after Anthony’s death, perhaps around 357. Athanasius was bishop of Alexandria and the chief defender of the Council of Nicaea against the Arians. Seven letters attributed to Anthony survive, and many scholars accept them as authentic. The sayings attributed to him appear in the collections studied in the next lesson. Jerome and others also told stories about him.

The desert movement did not begin with Anthony alone. Christians had practiced renunciation and virginity from the early centuries, and others had withdrawn to the edge of villages before him. Historians generally agree, however, that the Life did more than any other text to make the monk’s life a recognized Christian ideal. Within a few decades, thousands of men and women had settled in the Egyptian desert. The end of the great persecutions and the growth of a more comfortable, official church made some Christians look for a costly form of discipleship. Many historians have described monasticism as a successor to martyrdom, though others warn that this is too simple.

The church’s hagiographies are not neutral reports. Athanasius shaped his account to present Anthony as a model of orthodox faith, in contrast with the Arians. Scholars still debate how much the Life records and how much it shapes. This lesson treats it as a primary source for the ideals of the time, with caution about details.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The call

Athanasius says that after his parents died, Anthony was walking to church and thinking about how the apostles had left everything. In church he heard the Gospel read in which Jesus tells a rich man to sell what he has, give to the poor and follow him (Matthew 19:21). Anthony took it as meant for him. He gave away his land, placed his younger sister with a community of women and began to live a life of discipline near his village.

The story has a pattern that recurs through the tradition: a text of Scripture heard in the church leads to a decision that shapes a life. Augustine, in the Confessions, tells how hearing of Anthony’s example helped bring about his own conversion.

Step 2: Learning from others

Athanasius is clear that Anthony did not start alone. He visited older ascetics, observed their strengths and imitated them: one’s kindness, another’s patience, another’s vigils. The Life presents this as an early lesson in humility. A beginner learns by watching those further along.

Only after years did Anthony move farther out, living in tombs and then an abandoned fort. Even there, the Life says, he received visitors who brought food and sought help.

Step 3: The struggle

The center of the Life describes Anthony’s fight with demons. Athanasius writes that they tempted him with memories of wealth, with fear, with lust and with despair, and sometimes attacked him in visible form. Modern readers differ on how to take these accounts. Some read them as literal reports, some as the way a culture described inner struggle, and many as both. The teaching Athanasius draws is plain: the sign of the cross, prayer and trust in Christ defeat the demons, and the monk must not be proud of victories.

Anthony’s own speeches in the Life warn against boasting of power over demons, and advise testing every spirit. Module 5 returns to this under the discernment of spirits.

Step 4: The teacher and the churchman

The Life shows Anthony coming out of seclusion to guide many disciples. His long discourse tells them that virtue is not far away and that they should live each day as if it were the last. Athanasius also shows him in Alexandria during persecution, encouraging martyrs, and later denouncing the Arians. He appears obedient to bishops and reverent toward priests, and Athanasius makes the point several times.

This is part of the lesson. The father of the desert movement is presented as a man within the church, not an alternative to it.

Step 5: Reading the Life with care

A student can read the Life on three levels. It tells a story whose historical core is probably sound. It teaches a program of discipline: renunciation, work, prayer and humility. And it argues a case, since Athanasius wanted readers to see monks as allies of Nicene orthodoxy. Keeping all three in view prevents both naive and cynical readings.

  1. What does it mean to hear a text of Scripture as addressed to you, and how can a person test whether they have heard it rightly?
  2. Why might Athanasius have shown Anthony learning from other ascetics?
  3. What does a modern reader gain by reading the demon accounts as both literal and psychological?
  4. How does the Life connect solitude and the church?
  5. What is the danger of making Anthony a model of withdrawal alone?
  6. Which parts of the Life would I most like to check against other sources?

Examples

Anthony’s call

According to the Life, Anthony heard Matthew 19:21 and acted on it that day. Later teachers noted that he also arranged for his sister’s care before leaving. His renunciation included responsibility for those who depended on him.

Visitors in the fort

The Life says that for about twenty years Anthony lived in an abandoned fort and was visited by those seeking healing or counsel. Late in that period, it says, he came out and became teacher to the monks who gathered. The solitary person became a spiritual father.

A modern reader

A student reading the Life for the first time is struck by the demon scenes and tempted to dismiss them. A teacher suggests treating the text first as a source for what fourth-century Christians believed about temptation, and asking what practical advice for the reader is left when the dramatic parts are set aside. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Orthodox

Orthodox Christians honor Anthony as the father of monks, commemorated on January 17. The Life is a foundational monastic text, and Orthodox monasticism regards its own tradition as continuous with the desert.

Catholic

Catholics honor Anthony as the father of monasticism, with a feast on January 17. Augustine’s Confessions presents the Life as having moved him toward conversion. The Catholic religious orders draw on the desert tradition.

Protestant

Protestant views vary. The Reformers criticized monastic vows and the idea that the monk’s life is more perfect than ordinary Christian life. Some Protestants today read the Life with appreciation, for its biblical focus and its concern for prayer, while remaining wary of the praise of withdrawal.

Scholarly view

Historians agree that Anthony existed and that the Life shaped Christian ideals. They debate how much Athanasius adapted the story to promote Nicene orthodoxy and how much earlier ascetic movements in Egypt and Syria contributed. Some caution against the older picture of Anthony as the sole founder.

Why it matters

The Life of Anthony shaped Christian ideas of holiness for centuries, and the later chapters of this course draw on its themes. Reading it well teaches a student to distinguish a text’s message from its history and to see that even the most solitary ideals in the tradition were bound up with the church, with counsel and with work.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Anthony invented monasticism.

Correction: Ascetic practice existed before him. The Life made it a famous model, and he is called the father of monks in that sense.

Misunderstanding: The Life is a modern-style biography.

Correction: It is hagiography written to teach. It contains a historical core, but its selection and shaping serve Athanasius’s purposes.

Misunderstanding: Anthony rejected the church.

Correction: The Life presents him as obedient to bishops and a supporter of Nicene faith. The desert movement was not set against the church in its early stages.

Misunderstanding: The desert fathers were hostile to the body and the world.

Correction: Their discipline was aimed at freedom and love. The Life says Anthony’s body was healthy in old age and that he was glad and welcoming.

Knowledge check

What event does Athanasius report as the beginning of Anthony’s new life?

Anthony heard the Gospel reading in church about the rich man told to sell what he had and follow Jesus (Matthew 19:21). He treated it as addressed to himself, gave away his property, provided for his sister and began a disciplined life near his village.

Why did Anthony visit other ascetics?

The Life presents him as learning from them, taking the best quality of each as a pattern. It is an early lesson that spiritual growth is not self-taught and that a beginner learns by watching others. Anthony’s later teaching carries the same humility.

What three layers can a student read in the Life?

A historical core that is probably reliable, a program of discipline in renunciation, prayer and humility, and an argument by Athanasius that monks stood with Nicene orthodoxy. Keeping all three in view prevents both credulous and dismissive reading.

What does the Life say about Anthony and the church?

It shows him respectful of bishops and priests, supportive of the martyrs in Alexandria and opposed to the Arians. Athanasius makes the point to show that monks stand within the church. The desert movement was not originally set against it.

Think it through

  1. What text of Scripture, if any, has ever felt addressed to you personally?
  2. Why do you think the church kept and copied the Life for so many centuries?
  3. Where does a call to renunciation conflict with responsibilities to others, and how did Anthony handle it?

Independent assignment

Reading the opening of the Life

In your notebook, write 300 to 450 words. Read the first fifteen chapters of the Life of Anthony. Summarize what Anthony does and who helps him, and identify two points where Athanasius is teaching and not only reporting. Then record one question you would ask a historian. Do not share this with anyone.

Further study