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| How he saw in a vision the present doings of the Arians.
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82.
Being known to be so great a man, therefore, and having thus given
answers to those who visited him, he returned again to the inner
mountain, and maintained his wonted discipline. And often when people
came to him, as he was sitting or walking, as it is written in Daniel1131
, he became dumb, and after a season he
resumed the thread of what he had been saying before to the brethren
who were with him. And his companions perceived that he was seeing a
vision. For often when he was on the mountains he saw what was
happening in Egypt, and told it to Serapion the bishop1132
| 1132 Of
Thmuis, the friend and correspondent of Athanasius: see below,
§91. | , who was indoors with him, and who saw that
Antony was wrapped in a vision. Once as he was sitting and working, he
fell, as it were, into a trance, and groaned much at what he saw. Then
after a time, having turned to the bystanders with groans and
trembling, he prayed, and falling on his knees remained so a long time.
And having arisen the old man wept. His companions, therefore,
trembling and terrified, desired to learn from him what it was. And
they troubled him much, until he was forced to speak. And with many
groans he spake as follows: ‘O, my children, it were better to
die before what has appeared in the vision come to pass.’ And when again they asked him,
having burst into tears, he said, ‘Wrath is about to seize the
Church, and it is on the point of being given up to men who are like
senseless beasts. For I saw the table of the Lord’s House, and
mules standing around it on all sides in a ring, and kicking the things
therein, just like a herd kicks when it leaps in confusion. And you
saw,’ said he, ‘how I groaned, for I heard a voice saying,
“My altar shall be defiled.”’ These things the old
man saw, and after two years the present1133
| 1133 Cf.
below, ‘what the Arians are now doing.’ This
incidental notice of time fixes the date of the present passage.
Weingarten in vain attempts to extract some other sense from the Greek,
which is plainness itself. It also fixes the date of Antony’s
death to within two years of the troubles in question. The Benedictines
refer the troubles to the intrusion of Gregory ‘in 341’
(really 339), and the apparently unprecedented character ascribed to
the outrages by Antony is in favour of this, as well as the fact
(Encyc. 3) that in 339 the heathen are said to have offered
sacrifice in the churches. But the latter is only in superficial
agreement with the Greek text of the present passage, which speaks of
Arian συνάξεις at which heathen were impressed to be present, apparently to
make some show of a congregation. The Evagrian version, indeed, adds
that the Gentiles on this occasion also carried on idolatrous rites in
the Church and polluted the baptisteries; but Evagrius is in the habit
of interpolating little details from his own knowledge or opinion (e.g.
16, ‘Ita exorsus,’ &c., 26, ‘qui vinctas hominum
linguas solvebat,’ 58, ‘qui effosso pro Christo oculo sub
Maximiano,’ &c.), and in this case appears to borrow from
Encycl. 3. Again, the writer of the Vita was not present
(‘the bystanders’ supra; ‘they troubled
him;’ ‘they asked him;’…and infr.
‘those with him’) when the Vision took place: but when, two
years later, it was interpreted by events, he was in the company of
those who had been with Antony at the time (infr. ‘then
we all understood’). This (on the assumption of Athanasian
authorship) excludes the year 339, when Athanasius fled to Italy, and
compels us to refer the Vision to the troubles of 356 (Apol.
Fug. 6, 7. Hist. Ar. 55, 56, Ep. ad Lucif.), after
which Athanasius fled to the desert and was in the company of the
monks. This conclusion is in independent agreement with (1) the fact,
decisive by itself, that Antony is still alive in 345, when Nestorius
became Prefect of Egypt (§86, note 3), i.e. six years after the
troubles of 339; (2) the evidence that Antony was still living about
353 a.d. (Epist. Ammon. de Pachom. et
Theod. 20, 21, in Act. SS. Mai. tom. iii. Appendix 70 C E,
Tillemont vii. 123), and (3) the statement of Jerome (Chron.) that
Antony died in 356. Against it Weingarten urges the prophecy of
restored peace to the Church (infr.) as pointing to a time after
the overthrow of Arianism. This is of little weight, for the prophecy
expresses only what must have been the hope and belief of all. The
prologue, which Tillemont (viii. 227) thinks must have been written in
a time of peace at Alexandria, is not sufficiently explicit on the
point to weigh against the plain sense of the present
passage. |
inroad of the Arians and the plunder of the churches took place, when
they violently carried off the vessels, and made the heathen carry
them; and when they forced the heathen from the prisons to join in
their services, and in their presence did upon the Table as they would.
Then we all understood that these kicks of the mules signified to
Antony what the Arians, senselessly like beasts, are now doing. But
when he saw this vision, he comforted those with him, saying, ‘Be
not downcast, my children; for as the Lord has been angry, so again
will He heal us, and the Church shall soon again receive her own order,
and shall shine forth as she is wont. And you shall behold the
persecuted restored, and wickedness again withdrawn to its own
hiding-place, and pious faith speaking boldly in every place with all
freedom. Only defile1134
| 1134 Cf.
the Second Letter to monks (Letter 53). | not yourselves with
the Arians, for their teaching is not that of the Apostles, but that of
demons and their father the devil; yea, rather, it is barren and
senseless, and without light understanding, like the senselessness of
these mules.’E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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