This is the story which moved a dying empire.  “Anthony,” says Athanasius, “became known not by worldly wisdom, nor by any art, but solely by piety, and that this was the gift of God who can deny?” The purpose of such a life was, so his biographer thought, to light up the moral path for men, that they might imbibe a zeal for virtue.

The “Life of St. Anthony” is even more remarkable for its omissions than for its incredible tales.  While I reserve a more detailed criticism of its Christian ideals until a subsequent chapter, it may be well to quote here a few words from Isaac Taylor.  After pointing out some of its defects he continues:  there is “not a word of justification by faith; not a word of the gracious influence of the Spirit in renewing and cleansing the heart; not a word responding to any of those signal passages of Scripture which make the Gospel ‘Glad Tidings’ to guilty men.”  This I must confess to be true, even though I may and do heartily esteem the saint’s enthusiasm for righteousness.

So far I have described chiefly the spiritual experiences of these men, but the details of their physical life are hardly less interesting.  There was a holy rivalry among them to excel in self-torture.  Their imaginations were constantly employed in devising unique tests of holiness and courage.  They lived in holes in the ground or in dried up wells; they slept in thorn bushes or passed days and weeks without sleep; they courted the company of the wildest beasts and exposed their naked bodies to the broiling sun.  Macarius became angry because an insect bit him and in penitence flung himself into a marsh where he lived for weeks.  He was so badly stung by gnats and flies that his friends hardly knew him.  Hilarion, at twenty years of age, was more like a spectre than a living man.  His cell was only five feet high, a little lower than his stature.  Some carried weights equal to eighty or one hundred and fifty pounds suspended from their bodies.  Others slept standing against the rocks.  For three years, as it is recorded, one of them never reclined.  In their zeal to obey the Scriptures, they overlooked the fact that cleanliness is akin to godliness.  It was their boast that they never washed.  One saint would not even use water to drink, but quenched his thirst with the dew that fell on the grass.  St. Abraham never washed his face for fifty years.  His biographer, not in the least disturbed by the disagreeable suggestions of this circumstance, proudly says, “His face reflected the purity of his soul.”  If so, one is moved to think that the inward light must indeed have been powerfully piercing, if it could brighten a countenance unwashed for half a century.  There is a story about Abbot Theodosius who prayed for water that his monks might drink.  In response to his petition a stream burst from the rocks, but the foolish monks, overcome by a pitiful weakness for cleanliness, persuaded the abbot to erect a bath, when lo, the stream dried.  Supplications and repentance availed nothing.  After a year had passed, the monks, promising never again to insult Heaven by wishing for a bath, were granted a second Mosaic miracle.