Life of St. Antony of Egypt is a hagiography written by Athanasius, who was the bishop of Alexandria. In the beginning it says that Athanasius was an upholder of the Nicene view of the Trinity. This suggests that Athanasius agreed with the churches teachings and wanted to influence others of its teachings, which is why I think he wrote Antony’s hagiography the way he did. At the beginning of the hagiography, the footnotes indicate that Athanasius presents his biography in the form of a letter to monks that were in places outside of Egypt. We are unsure of the circumstances in which he was writing under. It is clear that they wanted to know about St. Antony’s life and that is why Athanasius wrote it and highlighted certain parts of Antony’s life as a way of influencing the other monks.

When Antony was young and attending church, he heard of how the apostles lived their lives and abandoned everything and followed Jesus. He also heard about how the people in the Acts of the Apostles sold their possessions and gave their proceeds to the poor. This greatly influenced St. Antony because we can see he later does the same. He sold his possessions and gave his money to the poor. He worked to buy some food for himself and the needy. I think Athanasius highlights this part of Antony’s life to influence other monks to do the same and gives them an example on how to live.

Many times through out the biography we see Anthony being temped by the devil. The devil tried to distract him from his discipline by putting memories of his old possessions, his family, money, and food in his mind. The devil is tempting Antony with worldly possessions to get his focus and concentration off of God. He also tempts him with the weakness of the body and the long duration of time. The devil even tries to tempt him by coming in the form of a woman. He would dress up as a women and try to deceive him. When Antony is living in the tomb, the devil comes in forms of animals and demons and causes bodily pain towards him. Antony’s faith does not waver and he sees that as a victory against the devil. Yet again I think Athanatius tells these stories of the devil tempting him this way so that Antony can be an example to other monks living the ascetic life.

There is a definite parallel with Augustine’s City of God and St. Antony’s biography. In Antony’s biography we see Athanasius place importance on the rejections of worldly materials and matters and places the emphasis on God and non-worldly things. In City of God, Augustine does the same by showing the city of God as a place of perfect peace and truth and the city of man as human destruction and the lust of domination.