The Apophthegmata Patrum – Abba Antony 

Saint Athanasius’s portrait of Saint Antony was not the only one.1 There were other traditions about him that circulated among desert Christians. Some were recorded in a remarkable collection known as the Apophthegmata Patrum, or Sayings of the Fathers. Antony appears here not as a mythic hero unflinchingly battling the forces of evil. Instead, he speaks as a venerable abba (“father”), one of the “old men” consulted by younger monks for advice on monastic living.

In the Life, Antony dramatically renounced his family holdings after hearing the story of Jesus’s call to the rich young man. The Apophthegmata, likewise, portrays Antony as an advocate of radical renunciation.

One day, he was approached by a monk who had supposedly renounced the world but had actually kept back a little money for safekeeping, something to fall back on. The monk wanted Antony’s advice on the matter. Antony told him that if he really wanted to be a monk, he needed to go buy some meat and cover his naked body with it. An odd demand—but the monk did as he was told. He found himself nipped at by local dogs and pecked at by birds. It left him wounded all over. When he returned, Antony told him, “Those who renounce the world but want to keep something for themselves are torn in

this way by the demons who make war on them.”2 Athanasius’s Life portrays Antony as a teacher of asceticism. The Apophthegmata stresses this as well. But here he delivers his ascetical message not in long orations, but in terse epigrams:

Abba Antony said: Always have the fear of God before your eyes. Remember him who gives death and life. Hate the world and all that is in it. Hate all peace that comes from the flesh. Renounce this life, so that you may be alive to God. Remember what you have promised God, for it will be required of you on the Day of Judgment. Suffer hunger, thirst, nakedness, be watchful and sorrowful; weep and groan in your heart; test yourselves, to see if you are worthy of God; despise the flesh, so that you may preserve your souls.3

Here the accent is stern, austere. But other sayings offer balance. In one, he warns against excesses: monks who fast too much lack discernment and are “far from God.”4 According to the Apophthegmata, Antony sometimes practiced a measured laxity. Once a hunter was scandalized when he happened upon Antony enjoying himself with some of the brothers. To explain his behavior, Antony had the hunter shoot one arrow after another. After a while, the hunter grumbled that such overuse would break the bow. Antony then replied that it is the same with the brothers—that stretched too taut too often, they risk snapping.5

The Life emphasizes Antony’s majestic calm and integrity. The Apophthegmata too mentions the power of his presence. One story recounts how three monks used to go out to visit him every year. Two used to pour out their inner thoughts and ply him with questions. But the third remained silent.

One time, Antony asked the silent one: “You come to see me, but ask nothing.” The monk replied: “Abba, it is enough just to see you.”6 The Life portrays Antony as heroic, larger than life. The Apophthegmata too accords him great respect. When Abba Hilarion, a Palestinian monk, visited Antony, he called him a “pillar of light, giving light to the world.”7 And when Abba Sisoes, who took up residence on the Inner Mountain after Antony’s death, was asked when he would reach his predecessor’s stature, he replied, “If I had one of the Abba Antony’s thoughts, I would become all flame.”8 But such veneration is balanced by other statements. One sayingnote s, for instance, that Antony received a revelation that there was in Egypt a man of equal sanctity—and that man achieved his sanctity not in the desert, but amid the temptations of the city. The man, it turns out, was a doctor who gave the bulk of his earnings to the poor and each day sang the Trisagion (“Holy, Holy, Holy”) with the angels.9

While there are kindred themes between the Life and the Apophthegmata, even a few direct parallels, the differences are striking.10 The Apophthegmata makes no mention of the theological issues so central to the Life. The Antony of the Apophthegmata denounces neither Melitians nor Arians. He shows no knowledge of a theology of deification, nor does he make pronouncements on the generation of the Son from the Father. In the Apophthegmata, Anthony teaches a simpler, blunter faith. When asked by a monk what he ought to do, Antony tells him, “Whoever you may be, always have God before your eyes; whatever you do, do it accordingto the testimony of the holy Scriptures; in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it. Keep these three precepts and you will be saved.”11

There are other contrasts. When the Antony of the Life received a letter from Constantine, he was reluctant to respond, saying the emperor was a mere man; when the Antony of the Apophthegmata received a letter from Constantius summoning him to the imperial capital, he was tempted to go and asked the advice of his disciple, Abba Paul. Paul offered a shrewd warning: “If you go, you will be called Antony; but if you stay here, you will be called Abba Antony.”12 In the Life, Athanasius claims that after his fierce early battle, Antony was ever after free from sexual temptation.

The Antony of the Apophthegmata offers a very different perspective. He is remembered as sayingtha t while most people face three sources of conflict—from what they hear, what they say, and what they see—the desert solitary is left with only one: fornication.13

But the contrast goes deeper. Whereas the Antony of the Life is fearless and unwaveringi n the face of ascetic hardships and demonic onslaughts, the Antony of the Apophthegmata is more human—and vulnerable. He anguishes about the justice of God—that some die young, that the wicked prosper, that human society is rent by fissures between rich and poor.14 He gets depressed, afflicted by the tedium of desert living. And when he is rescued from it by a vision, the vision itself is hardly spectacular. He sees a man—actually an angel in the appearance of a man—braiding rope, occasionally rising to pray, and then returning to his work. “And the angel said to him, ‘Do this and you will be saved.’ At these words, Antony was filled with joy and courage. He did this, and he was saved.”15

Notes

1. The opening section of this chapter was published without my permission and without clear acknowledgement of my authorship in the essay by Tim Vivian, “St. Antony the Great and the Monastery of St. Antony at the Red Sea,” in Monastic Visions: Wall Paintings in the Monastery of St. Antony at the Red Sea, ed. Elizabeth S. Bolman (New Haven: American Research Center in Egypt and Yale University Press, 2002), 6–8. Both Dr. Vivian and Yale University Press have acknowledged the mistake.

2. AP Antony 20 (PG 65:81). Translations from the Alphabetical Collection, unless otherwise marked, are from Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, CS 59 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1984).

3. AP Antony 32, 33 (PG 65:85; trans. Ward, CS 59:8).

4. AP Antony 8 (PG 65:77; trans. Ward, CS 59:3).

5. AP Antony 13 (PG 65:77–80; CS 59:3).

6. AP Antony 27 (PG 65:83; trans. my own); cf. VA 67, 70, 88.

7. AP Hilarion (PG 65:241; trans. Ward, CS 59:111).

8. AP Sisoes 9 (PG 65:393; trans. Ward, CS 59:214).

9. AP Antony 24 (PG 65:84; CS 59:6).

10. Two sayings seem to be drawn directly from the Vita Antonii: (i) AP Antony 10 = VA 49; (ii) AP Antony 30 =

VA 59. Two other sayings attributed to Antony in the Apophthegmata come from the Letters: (i) AP Antony 22 =

Ep. Antonii 1:35–41; (ii) AP Poemen 87 = Ep. Antonii 7:60.

11. AP Antony 3 (PG 65:76; trans. Ward, CS 59:2).

12. AP Antony 31 (PG 65:85; trans. Ward, CS 59:8).

13. AP Antony 11 (PG 65:77; CS 59:3).

14. AP Antony 2 (PG 65:75; CS 59:2).

15. AP Antony 1 (PG 65:75; trans. Ward, CS 59:1–2).

Source: Text (pages 167-169) from the book “Desert Christians – An introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism” – William Harmless S.J.