ST. ANTONY was born at Coma, a village near Heraclea, or Great
Heracleopolis, in Upper Egypt, on the borders of Arcadia, or Middle
Egypt, in 251. His parents, who were Christians, and rich, to prevent
his being tainted by bad example and vicious conversation, kept him
always at home; so that he grew up unacquainted with any branch of human
literature, and could read no language but his own.[1] He was remarkable
from his childhood for his temperance, a close attendance on church
duties, and a punctual obedience to his parents. By their death he found
himself possessed of a very considerable estate, and charged with the
care of a younger sister, before he was twenty years of age. Near six
months after, he heard read in the church those words of Christ to the
rich young man: _Go sell what thou hast, and give it to the poor, and
thou shalt have treasure in heaven._[2] He considered these words as
addressed to himself; going home, he made over to his neighbors three
hundred _aruras_,[3] that is, above one hundred and twenty acres of good
land, that he and his sister might be free forever from all public taxes
and burdens. The rest of his estate he sold, and gave the price to the
poor, except what he thought necessary for himself and his sister. Soon
after, hearing in the church those other words of Christ; _Be not
solicitous for to-morrow_;[4] he also distributed in alms the moveables
which he had reserved; and placed his sister in a house of virgins,[5]
which most moderns take to be the first instance mentioned in history of
a nunnery. She was afterwards intrusted with the care and direction of
tethers in that holy way of life. Antony himself retired into a
solitude, near his village, in imitation of a certain old man, who led
the life of a hermit in the neighborhood of Coma. Manual labor, prayer,
and pious reading, were his whole occupation: and such was his fervor,
that if he heard of any virtuous recluse, he sought him out, and
endeavored to make the best advantage of his {166} example and
instructions. He saw nothing practised by any other in this service of
God, which he did not imitate: thus he soon became a perfect model of
humility, Christian condescension, charity, prayer, and all virtues. The
devil assailed him by various temptations; first, he represented to him
divers good works he might have been able to do with his estate in the
world, and the difficulties of his present condition: a common artifice
of the enemy, whereby he strives to make a soul slothful or dissatisfied
in her vocation, in which God expects to be glorified by her. Being
discovered and repulsed by the young novice, he varied his method of
attack, and annoyed him night and day with filthy thoughts and obscene
imaginations. Antony opposed to his assaults the strictest watchfulness
over his senses, austere fasts, humility, and prayer, till Satan,
appearing in a visible form, first of a woman coming to seduce him, then
of a black boy to terrify him, at length confessed himself vanquished.
The saint's food was only bread, with a little salt, and he drank
nothing but water; he never ate before sunset, and sometimes only once
in two, or four days: he lay on a rush mat, or on the bare floor. In
quest of a more remote solitude he withdrew further from Coma, and hid
himself in an old sepulchre; whither a friend brought him from time to
time a little bread. Satan was here again permitted to assault him in a
visible manner, to terrify him with dismal noises; and once he so
grievously beat him, that he lay almost dead, covered with bruises and
wounds; and in this condition he was one day found by his friend, who
visited him from time to time to supply him with bread, during all the
time he lived in the ruinous sepulchre. When he began to come to
himself, though not yet able to stand, he cried out to the devils, while
he yet lay on the floor, "Behold! here I am; do all you are able against
me: nothing shall ever separate me from Christ my Lord." Hereupon the
fiends appearing again, renewed the attack, and alarmed him with
terrible clamors, and a variety of spectres, in hideous shapes of the
most frightful wild beasts, which they assumed to dismay and terrify
him; till a ray of heavenly light breaking in upon him, chased them
away, and caused him to cry out: "Where wast thou, my Lord and my
Master? Why wast thou not here, from the beginning of my conflict, to
assuage my pains!" A voice answered: "Antony, I was here the whole time;
I stood by thee, and beheld thy combat: and because thou hast manfully
withstood thine enemies, I will always protect thee, and will render thy
name famous throughout the earth." At these words the saint arose, much
cheered, and strengthened, to pray and return thanks to his deliverer.
Hitherto the saint, ever since his retreat, in 272, had lived in
solitary places not very far from his village; and St. Athanasius
observes, that before him many fervent persons led retired lives in
penance and contemplation, near the towns; others remaining in the towns
imitated the same manner of life. Both were called ascetics, from their
being entirely devoted to the most perfect exercises of mortification
and prayer, according to the import of the Greek word. Before St.
Athanasius, we find frequent mention made of such ascetics: and Origen,
about the year 219,[6] says they always abstained from flesh, no less
than the disciples of Pythagoras. Eusebius tells us that St. Peter of
Alexandria practised austerities equal to those of the ascetics; he says
the same of Pamphilus; and St. Jerom uses the same expression of
Pierius. St. Antony had led this manner of life near Coma, till
resolving to withdraw into the deserts about the year 285, the
thirty-fifth of his age, he crossed the eastern branch of the Nile, and
took up his abode in the ruins of an old castle on the top of the
mountains; in which close solitude he lived almost twenty years, very
{167} rarely seeing any man, except one who brought him bread every six
months.
To satisfy the importunities of others, about the year 305, the
fifty-fifty of his age, he came down from his mountain, and founded his
first monastery at Phaium.[7] The dissipation occasioned by this
undertaking led him into a temptation of despair, which he overcame by
prayer and hard manual labor. In this new manner of life his daily
refection was six ounces of bread soaked in water, with a little salt;
to which he sometimes added a few dates. He took it generally after
sunset, but on some days at three o'clock; and in his old age he added a
little oil. Sometimes he ate only once in three or four days, yet
appeared vigorous, and always cheerful: strangers knew him from among
his disciples by the joy which was always painted on his countenance,
resulting from the inward peace and composure of his soul. Retirement in
his cell was his delight, and divine contemplation and prayer his
perpetual occupation. Coming to take his refection, he often burst into
tears, and was obliged to leave his brethren and the table without
touching any nourishment, reflecting on the employment of the blessed
spirits in heaven, who praise God without ceasing.[8] He exhorted his
brethren to allot the least time they possibly could to the care of the
body. Notwithstanding which, he was very careful never to place
perfection in mortification, as Cassian observes, but in charity, in
which it was his whole study continually to improve his soul. His under
garment was sackcloth over which he wore a white coat of sheep-skin,
with a girdle. He instructed his monks to have eternity always present
to their minds, and to reflect every morning that perhaps they might not
live till night, and every evening that perhaps they might never see the
morning; and to perform every action, as if it were the last of their
lives, with all the fervor of their souls to please God. He often
exhorted them to watch against temptations, and to resist the devil with
vigor: and spoke admirably of his weakness, saying: "He dreads fasting,
prayer, humility, and good works: he is not able even to stop my mouth
who speak against him. The illusions of the devil soon vanish,
especially if a man arms himself with the sign of the cross.[9] The
devils {168} tremble at the sign of the cross of our Lord, by which he
triumphed over and disarmed them."[10] He told them in what manner the
fiend in his rage had assaulted him by visible phantoms, but that these
disappeared while he persevered in prayer. He told them, that once when
the devil appeared to him in glory, and said, "Ask what you please; I am
the power of God:" he invoked the holy name of Jesus, and he vanished.
Maximinus renewed the persecution in 311; St. Antony, hoping to receive
the crown of martyrdom, went to Alexandria, served and encouraged the
martyrs in the mines and dungeons, before the tribunals, and at the
places of execution. He publicly wore his white monastic habit, and
appeared in the sight of the governor; yet took care never
presumptuously to provoke the judges, or impeach himself, as some rashly
did. In 312 the persecution being abated, he returned to his monastery,
and immured himself in his cell. Some time after he built another
monastery, called Pispir, near the Nile; but he chose, for the most
part, to shut himself up in a remote cell upon a mountain of difficult
access, with Macarius, a disciple, who entertained strangers. If he
found them to be _Hierosolymites_, or spiritual men, St. Antony himself
sat with them in discourse; if Egyptians, (by which name they meant
worldly persons,) then Macarius entertained them, and St. Antony only
appeared to give them a short exhortation. Once the saint saw in a
vision the whole earth covered so thick with snares, that it seemed
scarce possible to set down a foot without falling into them. At this
sight he cried out, trembling: "Who, O Lord, can escape them all?" A
voice answered him "Humility, O Antony!"[11] St. Antony always looked
upon himself as the least and the very outcast of mankind; he listened
to the advice of every one, and professed that he received benefit from
that of the meanest person. He cultivated and pruned a little garden on
his desert mountain, that he might have herbs always at hand to present
a refreshment to those who, on coming to see him, were always weary by
travelling over a vast wilderness and inhospitable mountain, as St.
Athanasius mentions. This tillage was not the only manual labor in which
St. Antony employed himself. The same venerable author speaks of his
making mats as an ordinary occupation. We are told that he once fell
into dejection, finding uninterrupted contemplation above his strength;
but was taught to apply himself at intervals to manual labor, by a
vision of an angel who appeared platting mats of palm-tree leaves, then
rising to pray, and after some time sitting down again to work; and who
at length said to him, "Do thus, and thou shalt be saved."[12] But St.
Athanasius informs us, that our saint continued in some degree to pray
while he was at work. He watched great part of the nights in heavenly
contemplation; and sometimes, when the rising sun called him to his
daily tasks, he complained that its visible light robbed him of the
greater interior light which he enjoyed, and interrupted his close
application and solitude.[13] He always rose after a short sleep at
midnight, and continued in prayer, on his knees with his hands lifted up
to heaven till sunrise, and sometimes till three in the afternoon, as
Palladius relates in his Lausiac history.
St. Antony; in the year 339, saw in a vision, under the figure of mules
kicking down the altar, the havoc which the Arian persecution made two
years after in Alexandria, and clearly foretold it, as St. Athanasius,
St. Jerom, and St. Chrysostom assure us.[14] He would not speak to a
heretic, unless to exhort him to the true faith; and he drove all such
from his mountain, calling them venomous serpents.[15] At the request of
the bishops, about {169} the year 355, he, took a journey to Alexandria,
to confound the Arians, preaching aloud in that city, that God the Son
is not a creature, but of the same substance with the Father; and that
the impious Arians, who called him a creature, did not differ from the
heathens themselves, _who worshipped and served the creature rather than
the Creator_. All the people ran to see him, and rejoiced to hear him;
even the pagans, struck with the dignity of his character, flocked to
him; saying, "We desire to see the man of God." He converted many, and
wrought several miracles: St. Athanasius conducted him back as far as
the gates of the city, where he cured a girl possessed by the devil.
Being desired by the duke or general of Egypt, to make a longer stay in
the city than he had proposed, he answered: "As fish die if they leave
the water, so does a monk if he forsakes his solitude."[16]
St. Jerom and Rufin relate, that at Alexandria he met with the famous
Didymus, and told him that he ought not to regret much the loss of eyes.
which were common to ants and flies, but to rejoice in the treasure of
that interior light which the apostles enjoyed, and by which we see God,
and kindle the fire of his love in our souls. Heathen philosophers, and
others, often went to dispute with him, and always returned much
astonished at his humility, meekness, sanctity, and extraordinary
wisdom. He admirably proved to them the truth and security of the
Christian religion, and confirmed it by miracles. "We," said he, "only
by naming Jesus Christ crucified, put to flight those devils which you
adore as gods; and where the sign of the cross is formed, magic and
charms lose their power." At the end of this discourse he invoked
Christ, and signed with the cross twice or thrice several persons
possessed with devils; in the same moment they stood up sound, and in
their senses, giving thanks to God for his mercy in their regard.[17]
When certain philosophers asked him how he could spend his time in
solitude, without the pleasure of reading books, he replied, that nature
was his great book, and amply supplied the want of others. When others,
despising him as an illiterate man, came with the design to ridicule his
ignorance, he asked them with great simplicity, which was first, reason
or learning, and which had produced the other? The philosophers
answered, "Reason, or good sense." "This, then," said Antony,
"suffices." The philosophers went away astonished at the wisdom and
dignity with which he prevented their objections. Some others demanding
a reason of his faith in Christ, on purpose to insult it, he put them to
silence by showing that they degraded the notion of the divinity, by
ascribing to it infamous human passions, but that the humiliation of the
cross is the greatest demonstration of infinite goodness, and its
ignominy appears the highest glory, by the triumphant resurrection, the
miraculous raising of the dead, and curing of the blind and the sick. He
then admirably proved, that faith in God and his works is more clear and
satisfactory than the sophistry of the Greeks. St. Athanasius mentions
that he disputed with these Greeks by an interpreter.[18] Our holy
author assures us, that no one visited St. Antony under any affliction
and sadness, who did not return home full of comfort and joy; and he
relates many miraculous cures wrought by him, also several heavenly
visions and revelations with which he was favored. Belacius, the duke or
general of Egypt, persecuting the Catholics with extreme fury, St.
Antony, by a letter, exhorted him to leave the servants of Christ in
peace. Belacius tore the letter, then spit and trampled upon it, and
threatened to make the abbot the next victim of his fury; but five days
after, as he was riding with Nestorius, governor of Egypt, their horses
began to play and prance, and the governor's horse, though otherwise
remarkably tame, by {170} justling, threw Belacius from his horse, and
by biting his thigh, tore it in such a manner that the general died
miserably on the third day.[19] About the year 337, Constantine the
Great, and his two sons, Constantius and Constans, wrote a joint letter
to the saint; recommending themselves to his prayers, and desiring an
answer. St. Antony seeing his monks surprised, said, without being
moved: "Do not wonder that the emperor writes to us, one man to another;
rather admire that God should have wrote to us, and that he has spoken
to us by his Son." He said he knew not how to answer it: at last,
through the importunity of his disciples, he penned a letter to the
emperor and his sons, which St. Athanasius has preserved; and in which
he exhorts them to the contempt of the world, and the constant
remembrance of the judgment to come. St. Jerom mentions seven other
letters of St. Antony, to divers monasteries, written in the style of
the apostles, and filled with their maxims: several monasteries of Egypt
possess them in the original Egyptian language. We have them in an
obscure, imperfect, Latin translation from the Greek.[20] He inculcates
perpetual watchfulness against temptations, prayer, mortification, and
humility.[21] He observes, that as the devil fell by pride, so he
assaults virtue in us principally by that temptation.[22] A maxim which
he frequently repeats is, that the knowledge of ourselves is the
necessary and only step by which we call ascend to the knowledge and
love of God. The Bollandists[23] give us a short letter of St. Antony to
St. Theodorus, abbot of Tabenna, in which he says that God had assured
him in a revelation, that he showed mercy to all true adorers of Jesus
Christ, though they should have fallen, if they sincerely repented of
their sin. No ancients mention any monastic rule written by St.
Antony.[24] His example and instructions have been the most perfect rule
for the monastic life to all succeeding ages. It is related[25] that St.
Antony, hearing his disciples express their surprise at the great
multitudes who embraced a monastic life, and applied themselves with
incredible ardor to the most austere practices of virtue, told them with
tears, that the time would come when monks would be fond of living in
cities and stately buildings, and of eating at dainty tables, and be
only distinguished from persons of the world by their habit; but that
still, some among them would arise to the spirit of true perfection,
whose crown would be so much the greater, as their virtue would be more
difficult, amid the contagion of bad example. In the discourses which
this saint made to his monks, a rigorous self-examination upon all their
actions, every evening, was a practice which he strongly inculcated.[26]
In an excellent sermon which he made to his disciples, recorded by St.
Athanasius,[27] he pathetically exhorts them to contemn the whole world
for heaven, to spend every day as if they knew it to be the last of
their lives, having death always before their eyes, continually to
advance in fervor, and to be always armed against the assaults of Satan,
whose weakness he shows at length. He extols the efficacy of the sign of
the cross in chasing him, and dissipating his illusions, and lays down
rules for the discernment of spirits, the first of which is, that the
devil leaves in the soul impressions of fear, sadness, confusion, and
disturbance.
{171}
St. Antony performed the visitation of his monks a little before his
death, which he foretold them with his last instructions, but no tears
could move him to die among them. It appears from St. Athanasius, that
the Christians had learned from the pagans their custom of embalming the
bodies of the dead, which abuse, as proceeding from vanity and sometimes
superstition, St. Antony had often condemned: this he would prevent, and
ordered that his body should be buried in the earth, as the patriarchs
were, and privately, on his mountain, by his two disciples Diacarius and
Amathas, who had remained with him the last fifteen years, to serve him
in his remote cell in his old age. He hastened back to that solitude,
and some time after fell sick: he repeated to these two disciples his
orders for their burying his body secretly in that place, adding; "In
the day of the resurrection, I shall receive it incorruptible from the
hand of Christ." He ordered them to give one of his sheep-skins, with a
cloak[28] in which he lay, to the bishop Athanasius, as a public
testimony of his being united in faith and communion with that holy
prelate; to give his other sheep-skin to the bishop Serapion; and to
keep for themselves his sackcloth. He added; "Farewell, my children,
Antony is departing, and will be no longer with you." At these words
they embraced him, and he, stretching out his feet, without any other
sign calmly ceased to breathe. His death happened in the year 355,
probably on the 17th of January, on which the most ancient Martyrologies
name him, and which the Greek empire kept as a holyday soon after his
death. He was one hundred and five years old. From his youth to that
extreme old age, he always maintained the same fervor in his holy
exercises: age to the last never made him change his diet (except in the
use of a little oil) nor his manner of clothing; yet he lived without
sickness, his sight was not impaired, his teeth were only worn, and not
one was lost or loosened. The two disciples interred him according to
his directions. About the year 561, his body[29] was discovered, in the
reign of Justinian, and with great solemnity translated to Alexandria,
thence it was removed to Constantinople, and is now at Vienne in France.
Bollandus gives us an account of many miracles wrought by his
intercession; particularly in what manner the distemper called the
Sacred Fire, since that time St. Antony's Fire, miraculously ceased
through his patronage, when it raged violently in many parts of Europe,
in the eleventh century.
{172}
A most sublime gift of heavenly contemplation and prayer was the fruit
of this great saint's holy retirement. Whole nights seemed to him short
in those exercises, and when the rising sun in the morning seemed to him
too soon to call him from his knees to his manual labor, or other
employments, he would lament that the incomparable sweetness which he
enjoyed, in the more perfect freedom with which his heart was taken up
in heavenly contemplation in the silent watching of the night, should be
interrupted or abated. But the foundation of his most ardent charity,
and that sublime contemplation by which his soul soared in noble and
lofty flights above all earthly things, was laid in the purity and
disengagement of his affections, the contempt of the world, a most
profound humility, and the universal mortification of his senses and of
the powers of his soul. Hence flowed that constant tranquillity and
serenity of his mind, which was the best proof of a perfect mastery of
his passions. St. Athanasius observes of him, that after thirty years
spent in the closest solitude, "he appeared not to others with a sullen
or savage, but with a most obliging sociable air."[30] A heart that is
filled with inward peace, simplicity, goodness, and charity, is a
stranger to a lowering or contracted look. The main point in Christian
mortification is the humiliation of the heart, one of its principal ends
being the subduing of the passions. Hence, true virtue always increases
the sweetness and gentleness of the mind, though this is attended with
an invincible constancy, and an inflexible firmness in every point of
duty. That devotion or self-denial is false or defective which betrays
us into pride or uncharitableness; and whatever makes us sour, morose,
or peevish, makes us certainly worse, and instead of begetting in us a
nearer resemblance of the divine nature, gives us a strong tincture of
the temper of devils.
Footnotes:
1. St. Athanasius commends St. Antony's love of reading, both when he
lived with his father, (p. 795, B.) and afterwards when he lived
alone, (p. 797, C.) which we cannot naturally understand of his
hearing others read, especially when he was alone; therefore, when
St. Athanasius says, (p. 795, A.) that in his childhood he never
applied himself to the study of letters, [Greek: grammata mathein],
fearing the danger of falling into had company at school, he seems
to mean only Greek letters, then the language of all the learned;
for he must have learned at home the Egyptian alphabet. In the same
manner we are to understand Evagrius and others, who relate, that a
certain philosopher expressing his surprise how St. Antony could
employ his time, being deprived of the pleasure of reading, the
saint told him that the universe was his book. (Socr. l. 4, c. 23,
Rosweide, Vit. Patr. l. 6, c. 4, St. Nilus, l. 4, p. 60.)
Nevertheless, St. Austin imagined that St. Antony could read no
alphabet, and learned by heart and meditated on the scriptures only
by hearing them read by others (S. Aug. de Doctr. Chr. pr. p. 3, t.
3.) See Rosweide, Not. in Vit. S. Antonii. Bolland. 17 Jan. p. 119,
Sec.64, Tillem. note 1, p. 666.
2. Matt. xix. 21.
3. An aura was one hundred cubits of land. See Lexicon Constantini.
Fleury, l. 8, p. 418.
4. Ibid. vi. 34.
5. [Greek: Parthenon], as St. Athanasius calls it, t. 2, p. 796, ed.
Ben. He mentions that St. Antony, long after, paid her a visit, when
she was very old, and superior or mistress of many virgins, [Greek:
hathegoumenen allos parthenon], n. 54. p. 837.
6. Orig. lib. 5, p. 264.
7. His first monastery was situated near the confines of Upper and
Middle Egypt: it at first consisted of scattered cells. To visit
some of these brethren, he is mentioned by St. Athanasius (Vit. p.
461) to have crossed the Arsinotic canal, extremely infested with
crocodiles. This is sometimes called his monastery near the river,
and was situated not far from Aphroditopolis, the lower and more
ancient city of that name, in Heptanomis, or Middle Egypt. St.
Athanasius seems to place it in Thebais, or Upper Egypt, because it
was near the borders, and the boundaries of Upper Egypt were
extended much lower by those who divided Egypt only into two parts,
the Upper and the Lower; as Sozomen, l. 2, c. 23, and others,
frequently did. St. Antony, finding this solitude grow too public,
and not bearing the distraction of continual visits, he travelled up
the river to seek a more remote wilderness; but after mounting a
little way, while he sat on the bank waiting to see a boat pass by,
he changed his design, and instead of advancing southward, he went
with certain Saracen merchants to the East, and in three days,
doubtless on a camel, arrived at the great mountain towards the Red
Sea, where he spent the latter years of his life; yet he frequently
visited his first monastery, near Aphroditopolis. St. Hilarion going
from this latter to St. Antony's great monastery on the mountain,
performed that journey in three days, on camels, which a deacon,
named Baisan, let to those who desired to visit St. Antony. This
latter, near which the saint died, always continued a famous
pilgrimage.
Pispir was the monastery of St. Macarius, but is sometimes called
St. Antony's, who often visited it. This was situated on the Nile,
in Thebais, thirty measures or [Greek: semeia] from St. Antony's
mountain, according to Palladius, (Laus. c. 63.) This some
understand of Roman miles, others of Egyptian schaeni of thirty
furlongs each; thirty schaeni are nine hundred stadia, or one hundred
and thirteen miles. Pispir therefore seems not to have been very far
from Aphroditopolis. See Kocher, (comment. In fastos Abyssinorum,)
in the journal of Bern, ad an. 1761, t. 1, p. 160 and 169.
A monastery, of which St. Antony is titular saint, still subsists a
little above the ancient city of Aphroditon on the Nile. It is now
called Der-mar-Antinious-el-Bahr, that is, The monastery of Antony
at the river. See Pocock, p. 70, and the map prefixed to that part
of his travels. Travelling from hence one day's journey up the
river, then turning from the south towards the east, over sandy
deserts, and a chain of high mountains, in which springs of water,
in other parts very rare, are here and there found, and camels
travel for one hundred miles, we arrive at St. Antony's great
monastery, about six or seven hours journey from the Red Sea. See
Pocock, ib. p. 128. Granger, Relation du Voyage, &c., p. 107. Nouv.
Memoires des Missions, t. 5, p. 136. Vanslebius, Nouv. Relat. pp.
299 and 309; and Maillet. Descr. de 'Egypte, p. 320. The Grotto of
St. Paul is shown not very far from this great monastery; yet the
road wing [sic] round the mountains, and a great way about it, seems
to travellers as a great distance from it.
8. St. Athan. Vit. Anton. n. 45, p. 830.
9. P. 814.
10. P. 823, ed. Ben.
11. Rosweide, l. 3, c. 129. Cotelier, &c.
12. S. Nilus, ep. 24. Cotelier, Apoth. Patr. p. 340. Rosweide, Vit.
Patr. l. 3, c. 105, l. 5, c. 7.
13. Cassian, Collat. c. 31.
14. S. Athan. n. 82, p. 857. S. Chrys. Hom. 8, in Matt. S. Hier. ep.
{}6. Sozom. l. 6, c. 5.
15. S. Athan. n. 68, 69, p. 847.
16. Ibid. n. 85. p. 859.
17. Ibid. n. 80, p. 855.
18. N. 77, p. 858.
19. N. 86, p. 860.
20. Bibl. Patr. Colon. t. 4, p. 26. See S. Antonii. M. Epistolae 20. cura
Abr. Eckellens. Paris, 1641. But only the above-mentioned seven
letters can be regarded as genuine, except the discourses preserved
by St. Athanasius in his life.
21. Ep. 2, ad Arsinoitas.
22. Ib.
23. Maij. t. 3, p. 355.
24. That under his name in Abraham Eckellensis is not of so high a
pedigree. A large body of the monks of St. Basil in the East, since
the seventh century, take the name of the Order of St. Antony, but
retain the rule of St. Basil, comprised in his ascetic writings; and
observe the same fasts, and other exercises, with all the other
monks of the East, who are called of the order of St. Basil; which
even the Maronites follow; though Tillemont denies it by mistake.
25. Rosweide, Vit. Patr. l. 5, c. 8. Abr. Eckellens. in Vit. S. Ant. p.
106. Cotel. p. 344. Mart. Coptor.
26. S. Athan. n. 55, p. 858.
27. N. 16 & 43.
28. The Ependytes of St. Antony, mentioned by St. Athanasius, n. 46, p.
831, has much embarrassed the critics: it seems to have been a cloak
of white wool. It is clear, from St. Athanasius, that St. Antony's
inner garment was a hair-cloth, over which he wore a cloak made of
sheep-skin.
29. This translation of his relics to Alexandria, though doubted of by
some Protestants, is incontestably confirmed by Victor of Tunone,
(Chron. p. 11, in Scalig. Thesauro,) who lived then in banishment at
Canope, only twelve miles from Alexandria; also, by St. Isidore of
Seville, in the same age, Bede. Usuard, &c. They were removed to
Constantinople when the Saracens made themselves masters of Egypt,
about the year 635. (pee Bollandus, pp. 162, 1134.) They were
brought to Vienne in Dauphine, by Joselin, a nobleman of that
country, whom the emperor of Constantinople had gratified with that
rich present, about the year 1070. These relics were deposited in
the church of La Motte S. Didier, not far from Vienne, then a
Benedictin priory belonging to the abbey of Mont-Majour near Arles,
but now an independent abbey of regular canons of St. Antony. In
1089, a pestilential erysipelas distemper, called the Sacred Fire,
swept off great numbers in most provinces of France; public prayers
and processions were ordered against this scourge; at length it
pleased God to grant many miraculous cures of this dreadful
distemper, to those who implored his mercy trough the intercession
of St. Antony, especially before his relics; the church in which
they were deposited was resorted to by great numbers of pilgrims,
and his patronage was implored over the whole kingdom against this
disease. A nobleman near Vienne, named Gaston, and his son Girond,
devoted themselves and their estate to found and serve an hospital
near this priory, for the benefit of the poor that were afflicted
with this distemper: seven others joined them in their charitable
attendance on the sick, whence a confraternity of laymen who served
this hospital took its rise, and continued till Boniface VIII.
converted the Benedictin priory into an abbey, which he bestowed on
those hospitaller brothers, and giving them the religious rule of
regular canons of St. Austin, declared the abbot general of this new
order, called Regular Canons of St. Antony. An abbey in Paris, which
belongs to this order, is called Little St. Antony's, by which name
it is distinguished from the great Cistercian nunnery of St. Antony.
The general or abbot of St. Antony's, in Viennois, enjoys a yearly
revenue of about forty thousand livres according to Piganiol, Descr.
de la Fr. t. 4, p. 249, and Dom Beaunier, Rec. Abbayes de Fr. p.
982. The superiors of other houses of this order retain the name of
commanders, and the houses are called commaranderies, as when they
were hospitallers; so that the general is the only abbot. See
Bollandus, Beaunict, F. Longueval, Hist. de l'Eglise de France, l.
22, t. 8, p. 16, and Drouet, in the late edition of Moreri's Hist.
Diction V Antoine, from memoirs communicated by M. Bordet, superior
of the convent of this order at Paris.
30. S. Athan. n. 67, p. 847, & n. 73, p. 850.