visited a short time before his death by St. Anthony.[1] Jerome calls him "the founder of the monastic life";[2] hut he is rather a shadowy personality, although we really have no reason to deny his existence. Much more important is the great Anthony himself. Keen controversy has raged as to the genuineness of the famous life of Anthony ascribed to Athanasius. It has been urged that the extravagances, the puerilities, the absurd miracles of this story are utterly unworthy of the champion of the Nicene faith, and could not have issued from the pen that wrote the well-known treatises contained in his acknowledged works. But now we have equally extravagant and seemingly impossible things said of other anchorites by Palladius, and he vouches for some of his most marvellous stories as a personal friend who in some cases had shared for months the cells of the men concerning whom he narrates them.[3] Athanasius calls Anthony "the founder of asceticism." There were anchorites when he took up a similar life, but living in huts[4] which they had built themselves near the towns. Born in the year 250, he received his call at the age of eighteen in the words of Christ to the young-ruler which he once heard in church. He spent fifteen years in a hut near his native village; after which he shut himself up in one of those rock tombs that are so abundant in Egypt.[5] After this he lived in close seclusion in a ruined castle, and blocked up the entrance with a huge stone. His final place of abode was at a still more remote spot by the Dead Sea, where he died at the age of 105, ministered to in his extreme old age by his faithful
- ↑ Jerome, Vita Pauli; Sozomen, Hist. Eccl. i. 13.
- ↑ Auctor vitæ monasticæ; princeps vitæ monasticæ.
- ↑ The genuineness of Athanasius' Vita Antonii is defended by Preuschen, Stülcken, Bardenhewer, Holl, Völter, Leipoldt, Grützmacher, Dom Butler, Text and Studies, vol. vi. No. 2; Texte v. Unterschungen, N.F. iv. 4, 79.
- ↑ Called μοναστηρία.
- ↑ The present writer was invited by a friend who was conducting exploration work in Egypt to "spend a night with him in his tomb; there would be plllety of sand." Such a retreat is not altogether devoid of comfort, being warm at night and cool during the day.
