Week Three Saint

Anthony (also Antony) of Egypt (251–356) is generally regarded as the founder of monasticism. Born in Upper Egypt of a prosperous landowning family, at about the age of twenty, following his parents’ deaths, he sold all of his possessions and gave the money to the poor in keeping with the Gospel injunction in Matthew 19:21. He took up the life of a hermit, first near his home under the tutelage of an elderly hermit; then for twelve to fifteen years he lived in empty tombs in a cemetery at some distance from his village, and later still in an abandoned fort deep in the desert (286–306). He eventually attracted many disciples and established his first monastery, which was actually a collection of hermits’ cells. He later founded a second monastery, Pispir, on the east bank of the Nile, but did not reside there permanently. He returned to a life of solitude with one or several disciples, cultivating a garden and weaving mats. He is the patron saint of basket weavers.

The widely read Life of Antony, written ca. 357 by Athanasius of Alexandria, transformed Anthony into a major figure, “the father of monks,” and played an important part in the conversion of Augustine. Although Anthony was still committed to the solitary life after his lengthy desert experience, his was not an isolated existence. Hermits like him were accessible to each other and to visitors, including pilgrims. Anthony made at least two visits to Alexandria, once in 311 to encourage the local church in a time of persecution (he brought material and spiritual assistance to imprisoned Christians), and a second time in 355 to refute the Arians, who were continuing to deny the divinity of Christ in defiance of the teaching of the Council of Nicaea (325). His words of counsel to hermits and pilgrims alike are preserved in a collection known as the Sayings of the Fathers, about forty of which date back to Anthony.

He is revered in the East as the “first master of the desert and the pinnacle of holy monks.” He also influenced the Camaldolese monks and the Carthusians, and in the twentieth century Charles de Foucauld (d. 1916), a hermit who inspired the founding of the Little Brothers (and Sisters) of Jesus. Anthony’s feast is on the General Roman Calendar and is also celebrated on this day y the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches under the title “Anthony the Great,” and by the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the USA.
 

McBrien, Richard P. Lives of the Saints: from Mary and St. Francis of Assisi to John XXIII and Mother Teresa. San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2001. 79–80.

St. Anthony of Egypt,
who sold all your possessions and gave your luxury away,
pray for us.

St. Anthony of Egypt,
who encountered Christ in the solitude of the desert,
pray for us.

St. Anthony of Egypt,
who found rest in silence and service,
pray for us.