Reflection on St Anthony the Great

Reflection

Reflection by Professor Anthony O Mahony

St Anthony of Egypt – St Anthony the Great – the third-fourth-century hermit whom ancient tradition calls ‘the Father of the Monks’, is known to us today from the biography written shortly after Anthony’s death (356) by Saint Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria. The origins of monasticism in Egypt have been debated by many scholars especially over the last two centuries, Anthony is normally considered the founder of the monastic movement. Monasticism has been of great importance to the Church stimulating a deep Christian culture enthused with asceticism, a devotion to scripture, a powerful desire for learning as a mission at the heart of a monastic ecclesia, prayer and liturgy and an upholding of the significance and dignity of manual labour through the necessity to provide for the monk, the community, and the monastery.

It is recorded that after experiencing the death of his parents when he was some twenty years old, and being mindful of the words of Jesus on renunciation (Mt. 19:21), Anthony gave away his goods and lived as a hermit outside the village. However, having a desire for deeper solitude, he moved to a mountainous region where he lived as a recluse for about ten years, heroically enduring, according to his biographer Athansius, the most violent assaults of the demons. In time, others gathered close to Anthony, thus forming the first monastic community, but then, in desiring a greater solitude for himself and his followers, he penetrated into the Eastern Desert and established himself in a hermitage situated about 20 miles from the Red Sea at the foot of Mount Qulzum, near the place where the monastery of Saint Anthony stands today.

St Anthony continues to inspire those who seek to live by the monastic ideal. Matta el-Meskin/Matthew the Poor (1919-2006), described as the ‘Contemporary Desert Father’ in L’Osservatore Romano, has been one of the most influential of contemporary figures to frame the spirit of the desert across a wide range of Christian monastics and thinkers – the Cistercian-Trappist Thomas Merton, the Russian Orthodox Seraphim Rose of Alaska, the Protestant Roger Schultz of Taize and the English Benedictine Bede Griffith OSB Cam. Matta el-Meskin held a radical focus on personal faith and monastic enclosure.  He writes in his Saint Anthony: A biblical Ascetic: “Monasticism is the final phase of testifying to the fervent and blazing Christian faith, which rested in the Church by the work of the Holy Spirit. It is a unique kind of faith, or a certain degree of perfection, but a living testimony to the Christian belief, which brings back to mind the early reaction to faith when the Holy Spirit descended on the Day of Pentecost. The core of this reaction was when every person left behind all their possessions, family, and home and joined the apostles – as per the Lord’s commandment anyway!  Monasticism also represents, or brings back to mind, the response of believers to martyrdom, when witnessing to Christ necessitated bearing the cross and being executed. Thus monasticism is a genuine depiction of the early church’s belief and way of life. It is a true model of Christianity exactly in accordance with the teachings of the Bible: not a later development, but an accurate model of genuine Christian Living! Therefore, when we speak of monasticism, we speak of genuine Christian life, and when we speak of genuine Christianity, we speak of monasticism as a living and contemporary model of life”.

Matta el-Meskin discerns twelve principles of asceticism in the life of Saint Anthony:

1. The Holy Bible is the underpinning of asceticism
2. The Holy Spirit is a companion from the beginning to the end.
3. The most dangerous pitfall in ascetic life is regressing backwards.
4. Asceticism is a life of continual growth.
5. A wavering heart spoils asceticism.
6. Discernment is the cornerstone of ascetic life and the measure of all virtues.
7. Controlling the body is necessary and weakening the body has its limits.
8. Continuous repentance through humility and confessing sins is essential.
9. Spiritual joy is a sign of sound asceticism.
10. Fervent ascetic labours are an obligation and a grace at the same time!
11. Ascetic perfection is achieved through diligence, and Christian perfection through Grace, and one does not suffice for the other.
12. The ascetic tradition of the holy fathers illuminates the way.

Matthew the Poor’s reflection on the monastic life and spirituality is an offering of this ideal to our times today. The writer in Sobornost (2006) speaks this of Matthew the Poor, ‘In the quiet sea of the sand of the Scete, You sleep like its eternal rocks, The rocks are silent. Your lips no longer speak; Your death now speaks louder’.

On his feast day, St Anthony, “the Father of the Monks”, speaks to us today from his Desert drawing each believer and seeker into an embrace of a lived ascetic ideal which is forever pointing the way.