The ascetics, furiously assailed by legions of the damned, defended themselves—­with the help of God and the angels—­by fasting, prayer, and penance.  Sometimes carnal desires pricked them so cruelly that they cried aloud with pain, and their lamentations rose to the starlit heavens mingled with the howls of the hungry hyaenas.  Then it was that the demons appeared in delightful forms.  For though the demons are, in reality, hideous, they sometimes assume an appearance of beauty which prevents their real nature from being recognised.  The ascetics of the Thebaid were amazed to see in their cells phantasms of delights unknown even to the voluptuaries of the age.  But, as they were under the sign of the Cross, they did not succumb to these temptations, and the unclean spirits, assuming again their true character, fled at daybreak, filled with rage and shame.  It was not unusual to meet at dawn one of these beings, flying away and weeping, and replying to those who questioned it, “I weep and groan because one of the Christians who live here has beaten me with rods, and driven me away in ignominy.”

The power of the old saints of the desert extended over all sinners and unbelievers.  Their goodness was sometimes terrible.  They derived from the Apostles authority to punish all offences against the true and only God, and no earthly power could save those they condemned.  Strange tales were told in the cities, and even as far as Alexandria, how the earth had opened and swallowed up certain wicked persons whom one of these saints struck with his staff.  Therefore they were feared by all evil-doers, and particularly by mimes, mountebanks, married priests, and prostitutes.

Such was the sanctity of these holy men that even wild beasts felt their power.  When a hermit was about to die, a lion came and dug a grave with its claws.  The saint knew by this that God had called him, and he went and kissed all his brethren on the cheek.  Then he lay down joyfully, and slept in the Lord.

Now that Anthony, who was more than a hundred years old, had retired to Mount Colzin with his well-beloved disciples, Macarius and Amathas, there was no monk in the Thebaid more renowned for good works than Paphnutius, the Abbot of Antinoe.  Ephrem and Serapion had a greater number of followers, and in the spiritual and temporal management of their monasteries surpassed him.  But Paphnutius observed the most rigorous fasts, and often went for three entire days without taking food.  He wore a very rough hair shirt, he flogged himself night and morning, and lay for hours with his face to the earth.