Anthony and the first hermits

Program / Course 2: The Solitary Christian in Depth / Lesson 2.1

What you will learn

• Tell the main outline of Anthony of Egypt’s life as presented in the Life written by Athanasius.
• Explain the difference between Anthony as a historical figure and Anthony as a literary portrait.
• Describe how Anthony’s solitude was joined to counsel, visitors and obedience to the church.
• Identify the lessons the Life offers a modern person who prays alone.

The big idea

Anthony of Egypt (about 251 to 356) is the best known of the early Christian hermits. The main source for his life is a biography written soon after his death, traditionally credited to Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria. The Life shows a man who goes far into the desert to pray, but who is also taught by older ascetics, visited by crowds, consulted by bishops and loyal to the church. It is an account of solitude as a hard discipline inside a network of relationships, which makes it a useful first text for anyone studying the subject.

Key terms

Ascetic

A person who practices strict self-denial, such as fasting, vigil and poverty, for the sake of prayer and holiness.

Hagiography

Writing about the lives of saints. It aims to teach and encourage as well as to record, so it must be read with care.

Desert

In this tradition, the uninhabited land beyond the farmed valley of the Nile. It was a real place and also a symbol of testing and prayer.

Anchorite

From a Greek word meaning to withdraw. A person who lives apart from others to pray.

Elder (abba, amma)

A respected, experienced monk or nun to whom others went for spiritual counsel. The words are Aramaic for father and mother.

Demon

In these texts, an evil spiritual being. Readers have understood the demons of the Life in different ways, as literal beings, as images of inner struggle, or as both.

Background

Christians in the third century were often already practicing a form of withdrawal. Some lived unmarried in their families’ houses and gave themselves to prayer and charity. Anthony, the son of a farming family in Egypt, belongs to this setting. According to his biography, he heard the Gospel read in church, took Jesus’ words to the rich young man (Matthew 19:21) as addressed to himself, gave away his inheritance and placed his younger sister with a community of virgins.

The Life of Antony is a close contemporary account, written around the middle of the fourth century and transmitted under the name of Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, who knew him. Its authorship has been debated, though most scholars accept it as Athanasius’ work. Like all ancient biography, it shapes the story to teach. Historians treat it as a valuable source for how Anthony was remembered and used, and as reasonably reliable for the outline of his life, while reading the speeches and the battles with demons as the author’s presentation.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Anthony begins near home

The Life says that Anthony did not begin by vanishing into the wilderness. He first lived near his village, and learned from an old ascetic who lived nearby. He visited other ascetics and took from each what he found best: one’s gentleness, another’s prayer, another’s patience. His solitude grew slowly and under guidance.

This detail matters for the modern reader. The most famous solitary of the early church began as an apprentice. The tradition does not picture a person who simply decides one day to answer to no one.

Step 2: The struggle in the desert

Anthony then withdrew further, first into tombs near the village and then to an abandoned fort at the edge of the desert, where he lived for about twenty years. The Life describes this period as a time of harsh struggle with temptation, told in vivid scenes of attack by demons. Whatever one makes of these scenes, they communicate what the desert writers repeatedly say: solitude does not remove temptation, it exposes it.

When Anthony emerged, according to the Life, he was calm, kind and sane. People came in large numbers to hear him, and he healed, counseled and reconciled. The writer presents this as the fruit of his time alone.

Step 3: Visitors, counsel and the church

The Life says that crowds visited Anthony throughout his years in the desert, and that he gave advice, including to officials. It reports that he went to Alexandria during a persecution to encourage the confessors and martyrs, and that he returned there later to support the bishop against the Arians, a group Athanasius opposed. It says Anthony showed great respect for clergy, bowing to a priest, and that he insisted that he himself was not to be put above them.

Whatever the exact details, Athanasius’ portrait is of a hermit who never left the church. He received the sacraments, he spoke well of bishops and he used his influence to support the creed of the church. For Athanasius, a solitary who was not united to the church would not have been worth writing about.

Step 4: The wider movement

Anthony was not alone, and he was not the first. The Life itself mentions other ascetics before him. Later tradition, especially Jerome’s account, named Paul of Thebes as an earlier hermit, but historians regard much of that story as legend. In the decades after Anthony, thousands of men and women settled in Egyptian deserts, in Syria and Palestine, and in Asia Minor. Some lived alone, some in small groups of disciples around an elder, and some in large communities. The next lessons look at each form.

The Life became enormously popular. Augustine, in his Confessions, tells of two officials who read it and were moved to change their lives. The book shaped monastic ideals in both East and West.

Step 5: What a modern reader can take away

Read the Life for its pattern: guided beginning, long testing, return with counsel to others, loyalty to the church. Notice also what the Life does not say. It does not say that every Christian should go to the desert. It does not say the solitary life is the only way, and it does not claim private revelation overrides the church’s teaching. It presents Anthony’s way as one of several.

1. Who was my first teacher in the Christian life, and do I still listen to such people?
2. Do I know what I am running toward, or only what I am running from?
3. How do the people around me benefit from my time alone?
4. What would I do if my private conclusions disagreed with the church’s teaching?
5. Am I prepared for the struggles that quiet brings to the surface?
6. Would I recognize good counsel if it came from someone I did not expect?

Examples

Different perspectives

Orthodox

Anthony is honored as a saint and as the father of monks. The Orthodox Church reads the Life as a pattern of spiritual struggle in the church, and its monks regard its heirs as guides in prayer.

Catholic

Anthony is also a saint of the Catholic Church. The hermit tradition that descends from the desert has been honored in the West, and communities such as the Camaldolese and Carthusians draw on it.

Protestant

Protestants have been more critical of monastic withdrawal, and Luther and Calvin objected to the idea that it is a higher way. Some Protestant writers still admire Anthony’s endurance and his teaching on prayer, and read the Life as a text of Christian devotion.

Scholarly

Historians debate how far the Life reflects the real Anthony and how far it reflects Athanasius’ own concerns. A few have suggested a later author, though most accept Athanasius. Archaeology and papyri show that ascetic life in Egypt was already widespread.

Why it matters

Anthony is where many people begin when they think about Christian solitude. If you meet him only through popular summaries, you may come away with a picture of a man who rejected society. Reading the Life shows something richer: a man who was taught, who taught others and who stayed within the church. That makes it a useful corrective for modern readers who want solitude without any relationships.

Common misunderstandings

Knowledge check

Think it through

1. What does it mean to you that Anthony began as an apprentice and not as a lone voice?
2. Why might the Life stress his obedience to bishops? What was Athanasius trying to show?
3. If you were writing a modern Life, what ordinary signs of a healthy solitude would you include?
4. What is the most useful thing for you in the Anthony story, and what is the least?

Independent assignment

Read and report on the Life

Read the first ten chapters of the Life of Antony in the library edition. In your own notebook, write 300 to 450 words. Summarize how Anthony’s solitude began, who taught him and what he did first. Then list three ways in which his withdrawal remained connected to other people and to the church. End with one question you would like to ask a scholar of the period.

Further study

• Athanasius of Alexandria, Life of St. Anthony Read the whole Life. Mark each time Anthony meets visitors or speaks of the church.
• Benedicta Ward, trans., The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection Read the sayings of Anthony, which show his teaching in short form.
• Augustine of Hippo, Confessions Read Book 8, where two imperial officials are moved by reading the Life of Antony.
• Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity Look for the chapters on monasticism in the early church.
• Matthew 19:21 The word to the rich young man that moved Anthony.
• Matthew 4:1 Jesus is led into the wilderness to be tempted.