Team I Question I: Antony

Published on: Author: dmeinert@uoregon.edu

Athanasius was a bishop in Alexandria and fiercely upheld the tenets of the Nicene Creed. His main concern was that of the Arian’s view on the Trinity, which directly challenged the core of the Nicene. Athanasius saw Antony as someone who represented how he believed in salvation through Christ; and documented his life as a way to show the proper way in which to live a life in service of Christ. Antony was described to be someone already devout from an early childhood, which is quite unusual, as a way to show his seriousness to God. Perhaps also to represent his unwavering faith, while as a child, before he had even developed a capacity to question the faith he followed. Another possibility is that it would provide a message that parents would hopefully interpret as a way to raise their children. Athanasius compares Antony to Jacob in Gen. 25:27 as someone who grew up staying in his house learning, not going out with everyone else developing skills necessary for worldly tasks. Antony is also depicted as taking other texts learned in church to heart. For example he is thankful for what he has and does not pressure his parents for any lavish foods. After his parents death he came into ownership of their home. He begins to think toward Acts, specifically how people sold their worldly possessions and had the proceeds distributed to the needy.

Later in his life Antony has traveled and met many zealots and took specific teachings and virtues from each and combined all of them within his own form of discipline. The members of his village began to love him for his own virtue and dedication of his life to God. This however attracted the Devil to him. The Devil began to test him in nearly every single way imaginable. He tempted his mind with thoughts of everything Antony sought to purge from it; Possessions, his sister, intimacy, renown, and food. When the war on his mind failed the Devil turned to his body. He made him incredibly hungry day in and day out in hopes of forcing Antony to indulge himself on food; and made him crave intimacy, dressing up as a woman at night. However all of this failed to how Athanasius describes Antony’s devotion to how excellent one ought to be for Christ. Monastics would take a great deal from this description of discipline because it mirrors their own and reflects how they should behave in order to become more humble for God.

In comparing Antony’s biography with Augustine’s City of God, there is one main point to be stressed. There is the realm of God and that of man. On Earth men should be living among the flesh seeking redemption to earn a place as a contributing citizen in the City of God. Men should do this by forsaking secular possessions and having a sense of disciplined life in sight of God. Antony reflects that Augustine’s writing with the way he lived a non-secular life style.