And hitherto he had been more alone; but his sincere people often came to him from the village, and he himself went to the elders, then to the village church for divine services, especially the Liturgy. All this was associated with a kind of entertainment, no matter how you cut them off. The spirit of St. Anthony, drawn inward, began to demand resolute solitude, so as not to see or hear anything.

To this, as has been pointed out, the soul comes of its own accord, by the direct path of asceticism; but this turn is hastened and given a decisive impetus by some strong outbursts of self-denial. St. Anthony had the opportunity to manifest such an impulse when he was openly attacked by demons. The demons, deprived of the opportunity to act through thoughts on the purified soul, begin to act from the outside, appear visibly and build for the ascetic that by which they hope to harm him, or to shake his good intentions. – The grace of God allows this in the form of the ascetic's exaltation, thereby opening up to him the ascent to the highest degree and at the same time providing him with a certain right to later assume power over the tempting spirits themselves. This was the case with St. Anthony.

The most important moment in this circumstance is the moment when St. Anthony, waking up in the narthex of the church in the village, and barely breathing, said to his friend: "Carry me again to my solitude." For by this he expressed his surrender to death for the sake of life, which in his person he recognized as the only one pleasing to God. This meant the same as dying for the Lord's sake: for there was a complete readiness for this.

Readiness to die for the sake of the Lord and to please Him is an all-conquering weapon: for with what else can one tempt or frighten him who has it? It is considered to be the starting point of asceticism and strength throughout its continuation. The Lord and Saviour, our Podvig, saw death before Him all the days of His earthly life, but in the Garden of Gethsemane, during the time of prayerful struggle, He finally conquered it with humanity; the sufferings and death of the cross accomplished by their deeds what is said there. This was followed by a three-day Sabbath, before the glorious resurrection. This is the path of all souls who have followed the Lord. The first step in this is self-denial; but no matter how small the beginnings are, it always has its share of readiness for death. Then self-denial grows, and this readiness also grows, or this readiness is the soul of self-denial. Whoever reaches such a degree of readiness as the Savior had in the garden is immediately set before him the ascent in spirit to the cross, and then the spiritual Sabbath, followed by the spiritual resurrection in the glory of the Lord Jesus. "This is what has now happened in the spirit of St. Anthony. By speaking to his friend, he took him back to the same place where he had been so tortured, he showed that in his spirit it was the same as that of the Saviour, when, after praying in the garden, He said to His disciples: "Let us go; Behold, draw nigh and betray Me! This was immediately followed by his departure into the wilderness and twenty years of his sojourn in silence there, as his crucifixion and Sabbath were in the spirit.

As soon as St. Anthony recovered from the sufferings inflicted by the demons, he rushed into the wilderness two or three days' journey from the dwelling places – and there he shut himself up in an old abandoned pagan temple, in which there was a well with water, and bread was delivered to him by half a friend of his. What labors and feats he bore here, and what happened to him – no one saw. But judging by the way he came out of the hermitage, we must conclude that this was the time of the creation of his spirit by the Holy Spirit. Here the same thing happened to a caterpillar when it wraps itself in a chrysalis. No one sees what is happening to her at this time: she seems to be frozen. But in the meantime, the all-enlivening force of nature acts in her, and in due time a beautiful multi-colored moth flies out of the chrysalis. So it is in St. Anthony. No one saw what happened to him; but the Spirit of God, invisibly to no one, for the most part even to Anthony himself, created in him a new man, in the image of Him Who created him. When the time of building was over, he was commanded to go out to serve the faithful. And he went out, clothed with various grace-filled gifts of the Holy Spirit. Spirit. As Christ rose from the dead in the glory of the Father, so St. Anthony now came forth in a life renewed in spirit.

Thus ended the formation of the spirit of St. Anthony. All his subsequent life was nothing but the fruit of what was sown in the first two periods of his life. This is the third time of service for the good of the Church, as if it were his apostleship – How fruitful and broad this service was, everyone can see from the description of his life by St. Athanasius. He served with all the gifts of grace. And what did he not have? "There was the gift of miracles, the gift of power over demons, over the forces of nature and over animals, the gift of insight into thoughts, the gift of seeing what was happening in the distance, the gift of revelations and visions. But of all the gifts, the most fruitful and extensive in application was the gift of speech. "And it was to them that he served the least of his brethren more than all other gifts.

St. Athanasius writes that God gave St. Anthony a powerful word, reaching to the depths of the heart. And he knew how to speak for the benefit of everyone with such force, that many of the nobles, military and civilian, people with great wealth, laid aside the burdens of life and became monks. And who, coming to him sad, returned uncheered? Who, coming to him shedding tears for the dead, did not immediately abandon his weeping? Who, when he came wrathful, did not change his anger to meekness? What monk who fell into disgrace, having visited him, did not again become zealous and strong in asceticism? What young man, having seen St. Anthony and listened to him, did not renounce pleasures, and did not begin to love chastity? How many virgins, who already had suitors, only after seeing St. Anthony, passed into the rank of brides of Christ?

From this testimony it is evident that St. Anthony did not close the source of his God-given knowledge. And they came to him mainly to listen, to accept the word of truth and to find proper guidance for themselves. And he, according to the Apostle, taught, rebuked, and implored everyone. Sometimes his words poured out in a copious stream, like the one that St. Athanasius preserved in his biography; sometimes he spoke less lengthy speeches, like his 20 short words; but he was more limited to brief sayings full of meaning and power. These brief sayings in innumerable numbers were then passed from mouth to mouth, constituting, as it were, a current rule of asceticism, and finally entered the collections of patristic memorials. Sometimes St. Anthony also wrote epistles to his spiritual children, monks of various monasteries, in which he depicted the general features of life in Christ Jesus, and then healed the particular infirmities of the brethren.

Everything that came from the lips of St. Anthony and was given to writing, and everything written by him, will provide rich food for the soul seeking edification. In addition to a lengthy sermon in the biography, 20 Epistles to the Monks, 20 brief Homilies on Virtues and Vices, 170 chapters on good morals, his rule for monks with two additions to it, and a multitude of his sayings and legends about him, always edifying and instructive, have come down to us, scattered in various otechniks.

Послания и слова его в русском переводе помещены в первых годах Христианского Чтения, – главы входят в состав Добротолюбия, изречения и сказания составляют первую статью Достопамятных Сказаний. В подлиннике все это можно найти и читать в Patrologiae graecae, t.40 – Migne, откуда и переведено все, помещаемое в настоящем сборнике.

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Житие преподобного Антония Великого составленное святым Афанасием Великим

Извлечения из посланий и слов. В них 1-15 пункты взяты из жизнеописания св. Антония св. Афанасием. Наставления 16-68 извлечены из писем св. Отца. Наставления 69-82 извлечены из его 20-ти слов к монахам.

170 глав о доброй нравственности.