The Life of Saint Antony #10

Publication Data: New York, NY/Mahwah, NJ: Newman Press, 1978
Format: hardcover
Number of Pages: vi + 154
Dimensions (l × w × h): 22.2 cm × 14.6 cm × 1.6 cm
ISBN: 0‒8091‒0250‒1

   
St. Athanasius
Newly Translated and Annotated by Robert T. Meyer

No. 10 of Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation

“The present volume contains the most important document of early monasticism, The Life of St. Antony, whose author is no less a man than the great St. Athanasius himself. [...]When Antony died in the year 356 at the age of one hundred and five years, he was the recognized founder and father of monasticism. His original settlement at Pispir of monks who looked to him as their superior, had become the center of the solitary life in Egypt. It was a school for asceticism, including such famous solitaries as Hilarion, who visited Antony in his youth and later helped spread the monastic life in Palestine; Macarius the Elder, spiritual father to several thousand monks in the desert of Scete; Amoun, the founder of Nitrian monasticism; Paul the Simple, and others. [...]Athanasius saw in Antony the ideal monk and wished to leave behind a literary monument to perpetuate his memory and to serve as a model for others, notably for such as sought perfection in the monastic life.”
—“INTRODUCTION”

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
TEXT
   Prologue
   Birth and Youth of Antony
   Antony’s Call and his First Steps in Asceticism
   Early Conflicts with Demons
   Antony’s Life in the Tombs. Further Struggles with Demons
   He Crosses the Nile. Life in the Desert Solitude of Pispir
   He Leaves his Solitude. The Father and Teacher of Monks
   Antony’s Address to the Monks (16-43)
   Monastic Virtue
   The Candidate for Martyrdom under Maximin Daja (311)
   The Daily Martyr of the Monastic Life
   Flight to the Inner Mountain
   Demons Again
   Antony Visits the Brethren along the Nile
   The Brethren Visit Antony
   Miracles in the Desert
   Visions
   Antony’s Devotion to the Church’s Ministers
   His Loyalty to the Faith
   Wisdom to the Wise
   The Emperor Constantine Writes to him
   He Foretells the Ravages of the Arian Heretics
   God’s Wonder-Worker and Physician of Souls
   Death
   Epilogue
NOTES
   To the Introduction
   To the Text
INDEX