8. That the grace of the Holy Spirit must be acquired by purity of heart and strict Christian life.

9. That difficult feats of piety are made easier by the grace of God, which God sends down to those who are truly devoted to Him.

 PART 1

A few words about the life and writings of St. Anthony the Great

St. Anthony the Great, who laid the foundation for solitary asceticism in the wilderness, by his life represents the ideal of this kind of pleasing God, and at the same time the path by which every soul, if it wishes, must go to the perfection possible for us on earth, given by Christianity.

The life of St. Anthony is described by St. Athanasius the Great (see his works, vol. 3), and is placed almost without abbreviations in our Chet Menaion under January 17. Whoever wants to know it in detail, let him go there.

Only its general features are indicated here.

God's election of St. Anthony to the work he had accomplished was revealed in him as a child. His quiet, warm-hearted disposition, inclined to solitude, kept him away from the childish frolics and pranks of companionship, and kept him in the house before the eyes of his parents, who watched over him like the apple of their eye. And so he grew up, in this detachment from people, leaving the house only to go to church. In such a mood and order of life, the grace of God, received in baptism, acted unhindered on the edification of the spirit and without any special effort on its part. It is very natural that he early felt the sweetness of living according to God and became inflamed with Divine desire, as St. Athanasius says.

Finding no obstacles to such a life in the home – for the parents were of the same spirit – St. Anthony did not show any desire to leave him while his parents were alive, and they relieved him of the inevitable cares of life. But when they departed to God, he, remaining the greatest, had to take upon himself the care of managing the house and feeding his sister. This immediately made him feel the great difference between life in God and the life of many cares, and laid a firm foundation for his desire to leave everything behind and live only for God. The word of the Lord, heard by him in this mood in church: "If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell thy possessions, and give to the poor, and have treasure in heaven" (Matt. 19:21) – and then another: "Do not pray for the morning" (Matt. 6:34), sealed this desire with the seal of God; for in those words he heard God's answer to the questions of his conscience, and at the same time God's command and blessing for the fulfillment of the innermost desires and aspirations of his heart. He made up his mind with unrepentant determination, and, having given everything away, began to live for God alone.

St. Anthony spent the first years of his worldly life in the same way as other ascetics, known at that time, spent it, learning everything from them. It is known that worldly asceticism, in which, having renounced all worldly cares, one is zealous only for how to please the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:32), was established in the Church of God from its very foundation, as an essential necessity in its structure, and from the Holy Apostles it received the first fundamental laws. But at first, ascetics, as people were called, who devoted themselves to this kind of life, renouncing the world and worldly cares, remained in their homes, only secluded themselves somewhere in an inconspicuous corner, and there they devoted themselves to prayers, contemplation of God, fasting, vigils and all podvigs. In the course of time, when Christianity expanded, within the boundaries and number of believers, many ascetics began to leave their families, and, withdrawing from the city or village, there, in the wilderness, they spent a solitary life, in some natural cave, in a desolate coffin, or in a small cell specially built. By the time of St. Anthony, the ascetics, the most zealous, lived mainly in this way. St. Anthony the Great was zealous to imitate them.

The beginning of the ascetic life is novitiate. St. Anthony went through it in imitation and obedience to those ascetics. The essence of novitiate consists in the affirmation of Christian virtues in the heart and in the assimilation of the rules of ascetic life, under the guidance of the most experienced. Christian virtues were brought out of education by St. Anthony; now he had only to find out what feats were necessary for those who were zealous to live in God, and how they should be accomplished. For this purpose he went to the ascetics known at that time, learned how to do it, learned it, and returned with this acquisition, as with booty, to his solitude. Thus, as St. Athanasius notes, he, like a wise bee, gathered spiritual honey for himself from everywhere, storing it in his heart, as in a hive. From one he adopted the strictness of abstinence in food, sleeping on the bare ground, and prolonged vigil; from another he learned (tirelessness in prayer, attention to thoughts and contemplation of God; from a third he took the example of diligence, faithfulness to rules, and patience; and from all he borrowed the same spirit of firm faith in Christ the Lord and brotherly love for all, trying to combine in himself alone everything that distinguished each of the fathers he saw.

Without checking one's life with the lives of others and without external guidance, no one attained the highest degrees of ascetic life. With the above-mentioned elders, St. Anthony entrusted his life, and by their guidance he was guided along the steady path to perfection. In this novitiate education he spent fifteen years, living outside the village in a tomb, at first not so far away, and there far away, where a certain villager who was sincere to him came to him, bringing bread – the only food of St. Anthony – and taking away needlework: for St. Anthony lived by the labors of his hands. All his time he divided between this handiwork, prayer and meditation on the Divine truths of the Scriptures: in what deeds the Angel of God who appeared to him confirmed him, when once the spirit of despondency tormented him.

How his life flowed at that time, we cite the testimony of Sozomen (Cer. Hist., Book 1, Ch. 13), who writes about St. Anthony: