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| How he there combated the demons.
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51. So he was
alone in the inner mountain, spending his time in prayer and
discipline. And the brethren who served him asked that they might come
every month and bring him olives, pulse and oil, for by now he was an
old man. There then he passed his life, and endured such great
wrestlings, ‘Not against flesh and blood1094
,’ as it is written, but against
opposing demons, as we learned from those who visited him. For there
they heard tumults, many voices, and, as it were, the clash of arms. At
night they saw the mountain become full of wild beasts, and him also
fighting as though against visible beings, and praying against them.
And those who came to him he encouraged, while kneeling he contended
and prayed to the Lord. Surely it was a marvellous thing that a man,
alone in such a desert, feared neither the demons who rose up against
him, nor the fierceness of the four-footed beasts and creeping things,
for all they were so many. But in truth, as it is written, ‘He
trusted in the Lord as Mount Sion1095
,’ with a
mind unshaken and undisturbed; so that the demons rather fled from him,
and the wild beasts, as it is written1096
,
‘kept peace with him.’
52. The devil, therefore, as David says in the
Psalms1097
, observed Antony and gnashed his teeth
against him. But Antony was consoled by the Saviour and continued
unhurt by his wiles and varied devices. As he was watching in the night
the devil sent wild beasts against him. And almost all the hyenas in
that desert came forth from their dens and surrounded him; and he was
in the midst, while each one threatened to bite. Seeing that it was a
trick of the enemy he said to them all: ‘If ye have received
power against me I am ready to be devoured by you; but if ye were sent
against me by demons, stay not, but depart, for I am a servant of
Christ.’ When Antony said this they fled, driven by that word as
with a whip.
53. A few days after, as he was working (for he
was careful to work hard), some one stood at the door and pulled the
plait which he was working, for he used to weave baskets, which he gave
to those who came in return for what they brought him. And rising up he
saw a beast like a man to the thighs but having legs and feet like
those of an ass. And Antony only signed himself and said, ‘I am a
servant of Christ. If thou art sent against me, behold I am
here.’ But the beast together with his evil spirits fled, so
that, through his speed, he fell and died. And the death of the beast
was the fall of the demons. For they strove in all manner of ways to
lead Antony from the desert and were not able. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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