ANTONY

ANTONY, monk, ascetic, St. (ca. 250–356). An Egyptian ascetic called with some justice the father of monasticism (q.v.), his Life, traditionally the composition of Athanasius of Alexandria (q.v.), was composed shortly after his death. It played nothing less than a revolutionary role in the Empire of late antiquity through its portrayal of the “man of God.” Although the Life has clear connections with the stories of “divine men” popular in pagan literature of the time and was the Christian “best-seller” of the 4th c., its fundamental thrust is the presentation of a figure akin to the great prophets and saints of the Old and New Testaments: Antony is one in whom the power of the Spirit, the gift of the risen Christ, lives and acts. He was, says Athanasius, the “physician of all Egypt” and beyond. The Life records the arrival of pilgrims to the hut of the holy man (q.v.) coming to him from throughout the Empire. Even the emperor is said to have corresponded with him. While doubtless shaped by the rhetorical conventions of the day, it is hard to deny that this account, coming so soon after the saint’s death, had a basis in actual experience. Whatever the case, it is incontestable that the story of Antony the hermit and saint influenced-and continues to influence-the life of countless Orthodox Christians. The portrait it presents became the paradigm of the ascetic and charismatic elders (gerontes, startzi). They serve in every generation as an example for other monks and confessors of the faithful-an assurance for all that the Kingdom of God is not “pie in the sky” but an immanent reality and a genuine possiblity.