Friday, January 17, 2025

Saint Anthony of Egypt, Dared Martyrdom, In the Sign of the Cross, he triumphed over the Devil.

Abbot Saint Anthony, is distinguished from other saints named Anthony, such as Anthony of Padua, by various epithets such as;
Anthony the Great
Anthony of Egypt,
Anthony the Abbot, 
Anthony of the Desert, 
Anthony the Anchorite, 
Anthony the Hermit, 
and Anthony of Thebes. 

For his importance among the Desert Fathers and to all later Christian monasticism, he is also known as the Father of All Monks. His feast day is celebrated on 17 January.




Saint Anthony is invoked against infectious diseases, particularly skin diseases. In the past, many such afflictions, including ergotism, erysipelas, and shingles, were referred to as Saint Anthony's fire.


At 20, Anthony was so moved by the Gospel message, “Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor” (Mark 10:21b), that he actually did just that with his large inheritance. Most of Anthony’s life was spent in solitude. He saw the world completely covered with snares, and gave the Church and the world the witness of solitary asceticism, great personal mortification and prayer



Accounts of Anthony enduring preternatural temptation during his sojourn in the Eastern Desert of Egypt inspired the often-repeated subject of the temptation of St. Anthony in Western art and literature.

Anthony is said to have faced a series of preternatural temptations during his pilgrimage to the desert. The first to report on the temptation was his contemporary Athanasius of Alexandria.


Some of the stories included in Anthony's biography are perpetuated now mostly in paintings, where they give an opportunity for artists to depict their more lurid or bizarre interpretations. Many artists, including Martin Schongauer, Hieronymus Bosch, Joos van Craesbeeck, Dorothea Tanning, Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington and Salvador Dalí, have depicted these incidents from the life of Anthony; in prose, the tale was retold by Gustave Flaubert in The Temptation of Saint Anthony.



Even though he spent most of his life in the solitude of the desert, St. Anthony the Abbot was widely known for his wisdom. St. Anthony attracted many followers who sought to imitate his way of life and learn from his years of prayer and fasting.



At 54, he responded to many requests and founded a sort of monastery of scattered cells as he skeptical of “stately buildings and well-laden tables.”


At 60, he hoped to be a martyr in the renewed Roman persecution of 311, fearlessly exposing himself to danger while giving moral and material support to those in prison.


At 88, he was fighting the Arian heresy, that massive trauma from which it took the Church centuries to recover. “The mule kicking over the altar” denied the divinity of Christ.


Anthony is associated in art with a T-shaped cross, a pig and a book. The pig and the cross are symbols of his valiant warfare with the devil—the cross his constant means of power over evil spirits, the pig a symbol of the devil himself. The book recalls his preference for “the book of nature” over the printed word. Anthony died in solitude at age 105.


Prayer to Saint Anthony 


Dear God, St Anthony the Abbot accepted your call to renounce the world and to love you above all things. He faithfully served you in the solitude of the desert by fasting, prayer, humility and good works. In the Sign of the Cross, he triumphed over the Devil.

Through his intercession, may we learn to love you better; with all our hearts, all our souls, all our minds, all our strength and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

St Anthony the Abbot, great and powerful saint, grant us also this special request […]. Amen.


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