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THE LITTLETON SAINTS
St Anthony Abbott (251 - 356)
Anthony the Great was perhaps the most famous early
Christian hermit, and an inspiration for monks and the monastic
life in the centuries that followed.
He was born in Egypt around the year 251. Seeking the Christian path, he was moved by Jesus’s instruction to the rich young man: “go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me” (Mark 10 v. 21). It is a challenging saying, especially for our materialistic age, and Christians have often debated about how it might be put into practice. For the early Christian hermits, it meant that they should give away their possessions, and seek God through a life of poverty, solitude, and prayer.
When Anthony was twenty, this ideal inspired him to live an itinerant, solitary life, moving through the desert terrains of Lower Egypt. The early years were not easy. He was wracked by inner conflicts and temptations, and it took a lot of perseverance (and no little divine help) to carry on. But gradually he found the inner peace, and presence of God, that he sought.
His dwellings became progressively more remote, and by the end of the third century he was living in an old deserted mountain fort, northwest of the Red Sea. In spite of his wish for solitude, admirers gathered near, and on one dramatic occasion a crowd persuaded Anthony to come out from his home by tearing down the doors of the fort. From this time he began a new ministry by organising his followers into a loose-knit community of hermits, giving them advice on how to pursue the spiritual path. Soon after, an ex-soldier named Pachomius took this approach further by gathering brethren into walled communities with shared buildings, worship, and rules. From these seeds monasticism was born.
But Anthony continued to feel the call to a solitary existence, and later he moved from the fort to a yet more remote cave. He lived a simple, ordered life, avoiding the excesses of self-mortification practiced by some other hermits, and concentrating on prayer, self-knowledge, and the love of God.
He rarely returned to civilization, although on one celebrated occasion he trekked to the city of Alexandria to speak out against those who disputed the divinity of Jesus. One person glad of Anthony’s support was the Bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius. The Bishop gained a strong admiration for Anthony, and wrote a biography of his life, from which we gain much of our knowledge about him.
After this visit to Alexandria, Anthony returned to his cave, and finally passed away in 356, having lived to be over a hundred!
He was born in Egypt around the year 251. Seeking the Christian path, he was moved by Jesus’s instruction to the rich young man: “go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me” (Mark 10 v. 21). It is a challenging saying, especially for our materialistic age, and Christians have often debated about how it might be put into practice. For the early Christian hermits, it meant that they should give away their possessions, and seek God through a life of poverty, solitude, and prayer.
When Anthony was twenty, this ideal inspired him to live an itinerant, solitary life, moving through the desert terrains of Lower Egypt. The early years were not easy. He was wracked by inner conflicts and temptations, and it took a lot of perseverance (and no little divine help) to carry on. But gradually he found the inner peace, and presence of God, that he sought.
His dwellings became progressively more remote, and by the end of the third century he was living in an old deserted mountain fort, northwest of the Red Sea. In spite of his wish for solitude, admirers gathered near, and on one dramatic occasion a crowd persuaded Anthony to come out from his home by tearing down the doors of the fort. From this time he began a new ministry by organising his followers into a loose-knit community of hermits, giving them advice on how to pursue the spiritual path. Soon after, an ex-soldier named Pachomius took this approach further by gathering brethren into walled communities with shared buildings, worship, and rules. From these seeds monasticism was born.
But Anthony continued to feel the call to a solitary existence, and later he moved from the fort to a yet more remote cave. He lived a simple, ordered life, avoiding the excesses of self-mortification practiced by some other hermits, and concentrating on prayer, self-knowledge, and the love of God.
He rarely returned to civilization, although on one celebrated occasion he trekked to the city of Alexandria to speak out against those who disputed the divinity of Jesus. One person glad of Anthony’s support was the Bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius. The Bishop gained a strong admiration for Anthony, and wrote a biography of his life, from which we gain much of our knowledge about him.
After this visit to Alexandria, Anthony returned to his cave, and finally passed away in 356, having lived to be over a hundred!
Article by Will Hardy
