Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Details of his life at this time (271-285?)
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
7. This was
Antony’s first struggle against the devil, or rather this victory
was the Saviour’s work in Antony1005
,
‘Who condemned sin in the flesh that the ordinance of the law
might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the
spirit.’ But neither did Antony, although the evil one had
fallen, henceforth relax his care and despise him; nor did the enemy as
though conquered cease to lay snares for him. For again he went round
as a lion seeking some occasion against him. But Antony having learned
from the Scriptures that the devices1006
of the devil
are many, zealously continued the discipline, reckoning that though the
devil had not been able to deceive his heart by bodily pleasure, he
would endeavour to ensnare him by other means. For the demon loves sin.
Wherefore more and more he repressed the body and kept it in
subjection1007
| 1007 1 Cor. ix. 27; Ath. (with many
fathers and uncials) appears to have read ὑποπιάζω, the reading which is followed by the Authorised
Version. | , lest haply having conquered on one
side, he should be dragged down on the other. He therefore planned to
accustom himself to a severer mode of life. And many marvelled, but he
himself used to bear the labour easily; for the eagerness of soul,
through the length of time it had abode in him, had wrought a good
habit in him, so that taking but little initiation from others he
shewed great zeal in this matter. He kept vigil to such an extent that
he often continued the whole night
without sleep; and this not once but often, to the marvel of others. He
ate once a day, after sunset, sometimes once in two days, and often
even in four. His food was bread and salt, his drink, water only. Of
flesh and wine it is superfluous even to speak, since no such thing was
found with the other earnest men. A rush mat served him to sleep upon,
but for the most part he lay upon the bare ground. He would not anoint
himself with oil, saying it behoved young men to be earnest in training
and not to seek what would enervate the body; but they must accustom it
to labour, mindful of the Apostle’s words1008
,
‘when I am weak, then am I strong.’ ‘For,’ said
he, ‘the fibre of the soul is then sound when the pleasures of
the body are diminished.’ And he had come to this truly wonderful
conclusion, ‘that progress in virtue, and retirement from the
world for the sake of it, ought not to be measured by time, but by
desire and fixity of purpose.’ He at least gave no thought to the
past, but day by day, as if he were at the beginning of his discipline,
applied greater pains for advancement, often repeating to himself the
saying of Paul1009
: ‘Forgetting
the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which
are before.’ He was also mindful of the words spoken by the
prophet Elias1010
, ‘the Lord
liveth before whose presence I stand to-day.’ For he observed
that in saying ‘to-day’ the prophet did not compute the
time that had gone by: but daily as though ever commencing he eagerly
endeavoured to make himself fit to appear before God, being pure in
heart and ever ready to submit to His counsel, and to Him alone. And he
used to say to himself that from the life of the great Elias the hermit
ought to see his own as in a mirror.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
