‘The greatest truths are the simplest,
and so are the greatest men.’

            — Julius Hare, †1855

The desert is a simple place.  As a frequent traveller there once told me, ‘In the desert you only have to worry about three things: beating the temperature, finding food and water, and not getting lost.  But when you master these few things, a whole region of the world stands before you, unopened, ready to be explored.’

St Antony of Egypt adopted the desert as the home for his personal asceticism, and perhaps an investigation of the basic elements of his spirituality is best begun by looking at this characteristic and foundational trait.  For the desert’s simplicity, its relentless pitting of man against the elemental forces of nature, and the great joy and beauty that were to be discovered by those who at last mastered it, parallel in an intensely close way the spiritual understanding developed by St Antony and recorded by St Athanasius in his Vita Antonii. [1]   Indeed when Antony, after what many would already consider a full lifetime of the ascetic struggle, at last entered the heart of the Thebaid desert and located himself at what would come to be known as his ‘Inner Mountain,’ Athanasius writes that he ‘fell in love with the place.’ [2]   His love for the barrenness of the desert, for its imposition of labour and requirement that its inhabitants engage in an active struggle for their very existence, are characteristic of all those ideals for which Antony has been known ever since.

Man Against Nature, Man Against Self

Let us begin with this notion of struggle.  The desert is a place of extremes, where hot and cold, wind and sun, downpour and drought seem to engage any would-be inhabitants in a direct and physical battle.  Man verses his environment, with life itself at stake.

Perhaps Antony saw the desert as a macrocosm of the human self, where devotion and passions, chastity and gluttony, love and hate and all manner of other human tendencies were engaged in an ongoing battle for supremacy and domination; and in this battle it is not simply the life of the body that is at stake, but the life of the soul.  These are simple, elemental, battles—just like those in the desert of the world—yet even as they are similar in their simplicity, so are they similar in their severity: just as thirst will bring about physical death if water is not found, so does Antony believe that the passions can bring about a spiritual death if not properly trained and tamed.  His is fundamentally a simple spirituality in this sense, yet it is also fundamentally a spirituality of active and engaging struggle.  There can be no effort, no sacrifice deemed ‘too extreme’ in the spiritual battle for salvation—evidenced in Antony’s own prompt detachment from his former life, and even from his sister’s upbringing. [3]   These were sacrifices he deemed necessary, that he might be wholly free to engage in the struggle, the battle, for his own perfection.  Though the phrase has come to be much misused and misapplied in the modern day, the idea of ‘spiritual warfare’ might be said to find its founding father in the Egyptian monastic.

Yet who are the foes in this great battle?  We have already hinted at a few: the passions, the belly, the body.  Yet these are but particular elements that stem from the two main sources of spiritual downfall to be found in Antony’s design: the fallen self, and the demons.

The latter will help us understand the former.  What might be termed an ‘intense demonology’ is found in the Vita Antonii, to a far greater degree than in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, and in fact than in most early spiritual works.  From the very outset of St Antony’s ascetic quest, he finds a great foe in the devil and his forces.  Athanasius describes it clearly at the opening of the fifth chapter:

There is an innocent straightforwardness to these words: it is not presented as some great surprise or earth-shattering idea, that the devil would interject himself into Antony’s struggle for perfection, but simply a natural state of affairs.  That one who attempts to grow closer to God would evoke the envy and rage of the devil and the demons is a clear and consistent theme throughout the Vita. [5]

The first recourse of the Enemy is an invasion into the realm of the human intellect.  Into the mind of him who tries to meditate upon and contemplate God, the demons interject all manner of distracting thoughts, memories, and emotions, in an attempt to tear away the mind from its intended goal.  We recall that the devil’s first tactics against Antony were to fill his mind with ‘memories of his possessions, the guardianship of his sister, the bonds of kinship, love of money and of glory, the manifold pleasure of food, the relaxations of life, and, finally, the rigor of virtue, and how great the labour is that earns it, suggesting also the bodily weakness and the length of time involved.’ [6]   The Vita seems to imply that the demons begin their attacks with this method of ‘intellectual interruption’ because it is easiest for them, and because most people readily succumb to it.  Yet if one is able to overcome these methods (and of the ‘tools’ for such a task we shall speak more in a moment), the attacks become more severe.

‘Having been expelled from the interior of the mind, the demons now began their attacks externally’ writes D. Chitty.  Antony’s devotion was intense, his mind strong, and Athanasius seems to record with some pride the fact that the devil saw and was aware of this early on in Antony’s struggle.  Having thus discovered that visions of the mind would not sway Antony from his course, the demons began to work within the physicality of the world.  Most notable of the stories recounting such a theme is found in chapters eight through eleven: that of Antony’s battles in a dark of a grave, where demons in the forms of wild beasts beat him so badly that his friends believed him to be dead. There are other stories, too, of occasions in which outside hearers or observers actually believed Antony to be combating real people, so physical were the demons. [7]

Though ‘simple’ is an adjective that has already been heavily used in this paper, it must once again be brought to play here; for perhaps the most striking thing about the demonology in the Vita Antonii is again its simplicity and straightforwardness.  While the idea of demons taking physical form and harassing a faithful individual seems fantastical and beyond belief of many of the modern mind (‘the stuff of horror films’), it is present in the Vita as only logical.  Of course the demons will envy the doer of good—they who are starkly and painfully deprived of it.  Of course they will go to great lengths to stop his upward progression—they whose own course is ever further to fall.  It seems that the only thing that would have surprised Athanasius as he wrote the his Vita, would have been the demons offering any response other than that which he records.

Thus we have a small picture of the demons at play in the spirituality of St Antony.  Yet they do not act alone, for we have already mentioned above that the other great source of downfall is the human, fallen self.  Here we are presented with a foe of similar power to the demons—perhaps even exceeding them in certain areas and situations—and one capable of just as much spiritual unrest and destruction.  Yet the stark and important difference between the self and the demons is the ability to transform the one into the purveyor of good, while the other remains ever a foe.

Antony is clear that neither the body, nor even the demons themselves were created in the evil state in which we currently find them.  ‘God made nothing bad,’ he says, [8] and applies this idea without discrimination to the whole of creation.  Yet he also holds fast to the foundational belief that those rational creatures who would choose to do evil, will be granted the freedom to do so.  Thus did angels turn to demons, and thus did the human self—body and soul—turn from an active aid for the Christian, into a distraction and hindrance along the ascetic path.

Yet we remain creatures of freedom, and in Antony’s understanding that means we possess the real and true possibility of reclaiming our selves from this fallen state.  If Antony had not understood the Gospel’s injunction to be made perfect (Mat 19.21) as a call toward an attainable possibility, it is doubtful he would have altered the whole rest of his life around it. [9]   Yet he did not see this perfection as anything other than the natural state in which man was eternally meant to exist.

It is clear from this very passage that Antony did not take a dualistic view of the human person, as would become so popular in later Christian spirituality.  The body is not evil in the Vita, it is simply misused, and thus evil in its effects.  Properly transformed back into its created state, it is wholly good gift and blessing from God.

So the spirituality presented in the Life of Antony is of a struggle waged in the desert, both literally and metaphorically, against a foe that is both within and without.  Yet the foe within is able to be transformed, and the demons without, to be overpowered.  And it is to this end that the practical ‘tools’ of Antony’s spirituality are aimed.

Labouring in the Desert – The Tools of the Spiritual Battle

In the a)gw/n, the great contest of the ascetic life, the Christian is not left without aids and helps through the struggle.  Antony’s is not merely a spirituality of ideals, describing a state of spiritual existence and leaving the reader to deal with it as he may.  The heart of his spirituality—and that which has undoubtedly contributed greatly to its continuing, powerful influence throughout history—is the technique he provides by example for those wishing to combat the obstacles which place themselves between the faithful Christian and true spiritual growth.

At the heart of this system of spiritual ‘tools’ is the notion of work.  ‘He worked with his hands,’ wrote Athanasius, ‘having heard that him who is idle, let him not eat.’ [11]   Antony chose a simple though artistic task to meet this requirement for labour: basket weaving—an art still in practise among many Eastern monks in the present day.  Thus he was provided with work for his hands, by which idleness and listlessness might be actively avoided, and by which the wandering mind might be focused; for as Bp. Kallistos Ware is fond of saying, ‘It is a fact of experience that when the hands have something to do, the mind is more easily focused on the task set before it.’

That task is prayer: prayer that comes from within, from the very depths of the heart; unceasing prayer that comes from a person so transformed by his or her ascetic practise that all of life—its every movement, no matter how trivial—might provide a perfect and practical occasion for communion with God.  To acquire this state requires training, both of body and of spirit, but principally of the former, for the powers of the body on the whole person are strong, and Antony makes it clear that they are capable of ‘dragging down’ the soul with their habits. [12]   He thus went to great lengths to tame the body from its passions:

• Fasting – Antony’s was frequent, often comprised of days at a time with no food at all, or years with only bread and water, and what vegetables he could gather from the desert.  The desires of the belly are the devil’s second favourite route of attack, according to Athanasius, [13] and Antony never ceased in his efforts to close that door to the demons.
• He slept on a rush mat, hardly more than a blanket, rather than a bed.  Excess comfort led the mind and body to gluttony; thus, to combat the weakness within him, Antony removed the temptations wherever he was able.
• His dress was simple, at times harsh, and he paid a certain disregard to what most would consider bodily needs—such as bathing or foot washing.  Athanasius writes, ‘He urged us to concede a little time to the body, out of necessity, but to be intent, for the most part, on the soul and to seek its benefit.’ [14]

In these and other ways did Antony attempt to bring his body and mind under control, wrenching from them the tendencies toward pleasure or the passions, and reclaiming them for his proper use.  And we must not forget the desert itself—one of the greatest of Antony’s tools for training.  Here, as we have already mentioned, the very climate and surroundings propelled the body to work, and in most cases prevented its comfort.  Even the surroundings within which one is placed bear great influence on the spiritual state of the individual; a lesson that would be remembered and heeded from Antony onward.

Some of Antony’s practises were of a particularly intellectual or mental focus; for while the body and soul are unified together in their composition of the human person, each still poses its own unique difficulties to the ascetic.  Among those intellectual attitudes which Antony went to great lengths to foster in himself and others were humility (one should regard all others as greater than one’s self, he taught, and should strive to see them outdo you in all qualities except virtue), [15] patience, gentleness, love, and chastity—both physical and mental—in one’s dedication to God.  And perhaps most poignant among Antony’s intellectual disciplines was his belief that the true ascetic must always strive to view his life as one of continually new beginnings.  Athanasius writes,

Concluding Remarks.

And so we have painted a brief picture of the spirituality presented in the Vita Antonii, and one that is evidently incomplete and far from inclusive of all the individual elements present in that work.  Yet even if we should have time to take all those details into consideration, it remains the great quality of Antony’s life, in my mind, that his spiritual message and teachings can be summarised in the single metaphor of a man, alone in the desert, working with true intensity to transform the himself into that which God has ever intended him to be.

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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Athanasius of Alexandria.  The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus (from the Classics of Western Spirituality series; ed. Lynch, K.A.; trans. Gregg, R.C.).  New York: Paulist Press, 1980.

Chitty, Derwas J.  The Desert a City.

Russell, N. & Ward, B.  The Lives of the Desert Fathers: the Historia Monachorum in Aegypto.  Oxford: Mowbray Publishers, 1980.

Starowieyski, M. (ed.).  The Spirituality of Ancient Monasticism.  Cracow: Tyniec, 1995.

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NOTES: