Holy Father Antony, pray for us. Before I go on with continuing our study of the life of Antony, I want to go back to a couple of questions that were brought up this morning. I did a little bit of homework, especially in regard to Brother Nathan's question about the distinction between psalmody and prayers. And I went back and checked the references in the life to Antony's praying and Antony's chanting psalms. And the distinction that I mentioned was borne out when I went and looked at it again. It talks about his praying in certain situations, and at times it becomes much more specific and talks about chanting psalms. So that, for example, there's a description of the monks filling the desert, the famous passage where it talks about the desert became as a city filled with monks, and it describes them as chanting psalms. as studying, as fasting, and as praying.

[01:04]

So somehow praying seems to have a slightly different flavor, whatever you want to do with it. In another interesting place, Antony talks about dealing with the demons. And he says, I was praying throughout this experience and occasionally I would, and he uses a Greek verb which means literally, throw a psalm at them. So that seems to be a more specific or kind of a subcategory of general prayer, but distinct from the kind of prayer of supplication or prayer for help or support that I was talking about earlier. So, for whatever that's worth. I ended the last talk with a quotation from chapter 7 of The Life of Antony, which I will repeat as a way of leading into what we'll do tonight. I quoted that as a way of summing up what the work of the monk was in Antony's eyes. This is a description of Antony himself.

[02:05]

As one always establishing a beginning, and this notion of starting anew or starting over every day is a recurrent theme in the life of Antony, as one always establishing a beginning, He endeavored each day to present himself as the sort of person ready to appear before God. He used to tell himself that from the career of the great Elijah, as from a mirror, the ascetic must always acquire knowledge of his own life. So that's the starting point. What single-minded devotion to this agenda, this task, brings to Antony is a knowledge of himself which enables him to call freely on the Lord for mercy and for conversion. The transformation that he experiences himself is described by his biographer, Athanasius, in impressive and graphic terms, which might sometimes seem to lean a little bit too much on Greek philosophy, but which nonetheless speak of something quite genuine in Antony's life.

[03:20]

something which seems to have occurred during the almost 20 years he spent in rigorous solitude in the abandoned fortress of the Outer Mountain. Now, this passage that I want to comment on is chapter 14 of The Life of Antony, and I'll read you part of that to let you know what I'm basing these comments on. I have to tell you that This is the portion of the life of Antony which has always intrigued me most, and maybe I build far too much on it, but I think it's really interesting, so that's why we're going to do it. This is the description of his coming forth from solitude. He spent nearly 20 years practicing the ascetic life by himself, never going out, but seldom seen by others. After this, Because there were many who longed and sought to imitate his holy life, some of his friends came and forcefully broke down the door and removed it.

[04:23]

And Antony came forth as out of a shrine, as one initiated into sacred mysteries and filled with the Spirit of God." That's a really important line. initiated into sacred mysteries filled with the Spirit of God. It was the first time that he showed himself outside the fort to those who came to see him. When they saw him, they were astonished to see that his body had kept its former appearance, that it was neither obese from want of exercise, nor emaciated from his fastings and struggles with the demons. He was the same man they had known before his retirement." That's 20 years that's passed, so I think that's a rather remarkable statement. Again, the state of his soul was pure, for it was neither contracted by grief, nor dissipated by pleasure, nor pervaded by jollity or dejection.

[05:31]

He was not embarrassed when he saw the crowd waiting there, Nor was he elated at seeing so many there to receive him. No, he had himself completely under control, a man guided by reason and stable in his character." So that's our base text. Athanasius' awe and veneration of Antony's experience are evident in the very language that he uses to describe this passage from solitude back into rather regular contact with other people. He describes Antony's retreat as a shrine, not only in this chapter, but on another occasion. So there's obviously something significant attached to place because of what is happening in that place. And despite other places where he describes it more like an arena for combat, I think this shrine image is quite powerful.

[06:35]

I think we know by now not to regard those two perspectives, arena for combat and shrine, place of holiness, as mutually exclusive, for the place of struggle is also the place of encounter. When Antony emerges from this shrine, And note only after people tear the door down. Apparently he himself did not freely choose this, but he did come out. And from that point on, he was available to others as they had need. When Antony emerges, it is clear that not only has he encountered the holy, or experienced it, but he himself has realized in himself holiness. Athanasius uses two immensely rich words to describe Antony, and that's the sentence that I repeated in here. They're very hard to translate because they've got a lot of echoes and resonances. The first one is a long Greek word translated here as, as one initiated into sacred mysteries.

[07:45]

But the word in the Greek is the same one which gives us our English word mystagogy. And for people reading The Life of Antony when it was written, that would have all kinds of baptismal connotations related to the mystagogical catecheses given to the newly baptized right after Easter, as well as a whole wealth of religious tradition about people who were involved with attending shrines in pagan times, or language applied to Christian saints. So this term refers to someone who has received the ultimate instruction in the things of God. And that's one way that Antony's period of solitude is characterized. The second word used, which is translated here by filled with the spirit of God, also means God-bearing or filled with God, carrying God, not only that kind of spiritualized sense. It has a much richer and almost physical notion

[08:49]

So that double sense of God-bearing and also God-inspired, language which is usually used to describe the prophets and Blessed Virgin Mary, here applies to Antony after this experience of solitude. The other thing that's noteworthy is that the effect of this period on Antony is physical as well as spiritual. And that's why that double notion of God-bearing and God-inspired is so important. The other translation of the life of Antony reads, when they beheld him, they were amazed to see that his body had maintained its former condition, just as they'd known him prior to his withdrawal. I think this emphasis on the physical underscores another way of looking at this passage, and that is a kind of resurrectional motif. And we can think of the obvious parallels of a cave and somebody coming forth, Lazarus, Jesus resurrected.

[09:52]

And Antony appears with this transfigured physical state, radiating holiness and peace, showing no sign of age or decay, even after 20 years locked in a very small space. I think that notion of achieving a physical perfection, free from mortal corruption, and from decay, inevitably reminds us of a resurrection theme and goes back to what we were talking about this morning, of that ancient, very clear apprehension of the physical dimension of resurrection. I think that's obvious in this description of Antony himself. Underlying the physical soundness and balance was clearly a spirit of deep peace. which Athanasius describes as purity of soul that begins to ring some bells with us, purity of heart, and so on, which was not constricted by grief, nor relaxed by pleasure, nor affected by either laughter or dejection.

[10:58]

Now, I don't think we need to read that passage as referring to a kind of triumph of will over emotion. I think it's very easy to read that and to get the impression that we have a very cold character here. who's kind of bottled all that up or set all that aside. In fact, I think the point of this discussion of Antony's calm and tranquility is to state that at the center of his very being was great peace and great wholeness and that this peace and wholeness could endure even when he was assaulted by the needs of others. Because from this point on for the whole rest of the life of Antony, people are constantly hounding him for healing, for advice. He becomes spiritual father to monks scattered in various communities and is always on the road visiting them. But as it says here, these people could display their elation at seeing him. And he was neither embarrassed by their attention nor thrilled by it, but he was open to them.

[12:06]

He welcomed them, he greeted them, and he took care of them. I think this relates to a common misunderstanding of apatheia. that monastic concept so strong in a vagary as Pontus, which a lot of people read and say, oh, I'd never want to achieve passionlessness, no feeling, no emotion. I think that's completely wrong. And I think if we want a definition of apatheia, or purity of heart, as we find it in Cassian, this is the place to start. It enables someone not to withdraw from people and to conquer the need for people or ability to deal with people. If anything, it opens one up even more. And that's why the life of Antony is such a beautiful paradigm for ministry of whatever sort. Enough on that. Athanasius explains Antony's state as one of utter balance, governed by reason.

[13:08]

Now that sounds really Greek, but I think we can do something Christian with it. And the key phrase that Athanasius uses is that Antony now existed according to nature or in a natural manner. And this is the phrase that I would interpret as meaning that Antony was simply being who or what he was created to be, as we talked about this morning. In Antony's great discourse to his followers, which follows very soon after this emergence from the fortress, he speaks of how one can attain spiritual vision or insight. He says that you don't pray directly for it. You don't pray, God give me spiritual insight. He says rather what you do is cleanse the mind and the understanding, which is translated in the early Latin version of the life of Antony as one must have a pure heart. Aha, there we are with Cassian and so on.

[14:12]

And he also talks about cleansing the soul of all the junk. everything that's there, so that one can exist according to nature, which again the early Latin version renders as remaining in the integrity in which one is born. So going back to the question raised this morning of is it a matter of kind of knocking aside the old self and putting in a new one? No, it's not. It's rediscovering an original self, which they speak of in terms of the natural self the self at birth, the original creation. These two themes, and I think they're twin themes, of purity of heart and the recovery of a kind of Edenic integrity or original integrity, like that of Adam and Eve in the garden, are destined for a rich development in later monastic literature. For I think this notion of purity of heart or soul and return to the state as we were intended to be are as radically significant for monastic life as is the evangelical call which motivates monasticism in the first place.

[15:31]

In one of Antony's letters, which was dictated to a disciple who could write, Antony apparently couldn't write himself, he summarizes the goal of the ascetical life as this. that the whole body may be changed and renewed and be under the authority of the Spirit. This work of total transformation or even transfiguration, because Antony emerging from this tomb with this almost radiant peace and gentleness, I think could be read in a sense of transfiguration, is the work of a life of the discipline and the prayers as we discussed this morning, of which Antony speaks so often. Again, there's this refrain, the discipline in the prayers, the discipline in the prayers, the discipline in the prayers. And be under the authority of the Spirit.

[16:34]

That's in his first letter. And in the little paperback translation of it, which you probably have in the library, it's page five. To a brother who asked Antony to pray for him, Antony is reported to have replied, I will have no mercy upon you, nor will God have any mercy upon you, if you yourself do not make an effort, and if you do not pray to God. So the bottom line is, get at the discipline and the prayers, and that will lead you to this state which Antony attains. That's saying 16. Antony's own purity of heart and his return to what we might call a creational integrity mark him as beloved of God. And as Athanasius writes, from the soul's joy, his face was cheerful as well. It's not something he hides or is his own possession.

[17:35]

It's manifest to people who encounter him. A much later interpreter of early monastic experience, the great translator Helen Waddell, who gave us that little paperback translation of some of the sayings, wrote of the desert monks what I think is a beautiful couple of lines. She wrote, it was their humility, their gentleness, and their heartbreaking courtesy that was the seal of their sanctity. It was precisely these qualities, humility, gentleness, courtesy, which characterized Antony and which made him, to quote Athanasius, a physician given to Egypt by God, which is a remarkable phrase. Because again, the picture that people would tend to have of the solo ascetic, Here he's defined as a physician given to Egypt by God, who's like a kind of spiritual country doctor, because the whole back part of this life is Antony making the rounds, taking care of people, or people coming to him, with every conceivable need.

[18:50]

And that is only possible after this business of transformation and solitude. He's also a teacher given by God to us. who catch a slight glimpse, sometimes, of what Antony saw so well. Another saying attributed to him reads, Abba Antony said, I no longer fear God, for I love him. For love casts out fear. Now, that tempts me again to start in with Benedict, but I'll save that for later again. I think the point here, and maybe a good way to round this off, is to say that in Antony, as in Benedict, or in anybody else, we find that the end of the monastic life is always the same. The end is always the end, no matter whose means we follow as our example. That's all I have formally to say about Antony.

[19:53]

There's more to say. But I don't know if it would do any good for me to keep on. Obviously this goes somewhere in the desert tradition, in the sayings, which all of you have read, in a vagaries who kind of systematizes a lot of stuff which is implicit in Antony. I would be happy to talk about those if you want. But maybe it might be best to do that by way of question or your sorting out where you see connections. Or we could talk about Antony more. whatever you'd like to do. I don't think I will get an answer to this question, but I'm going to say it anyway. I say there, and then you read it, that one of the conditions to reach that purity of heart is to cleanse the mind. How do you do that? Well, I think Anthony, again, would come back at you and say, the prescription is very simple.

[20:58]

It's the discipline and the prayers. Ascesis, ascetical life and the prayers. Now, he does break that down in a couple of places. He has some lists of what a monk ought to do, and I dug those out when I was trying to find an answer to Brother Nathan's question. He says the first thing a monk ought to do is give heed to himself. Well, he says you've got to train yourself. And this is the way he says to do it. He says, first of all, the standard business of the vigils and fasting and so on. Then he says manual labor. Then he says give alms, which I think is very interesting. Then unceasing prayer in private. And then he talks about the memorization of scripture. Now, these are his prescription. Now, obviously, it's not as easy as going down the list and saying, I've done one, I've done two, I've done three.

[22:01]

Bingo, I've cleansed my mind. So maybe there isn't an answer. I mean, this is what he would say, I think. But I think what helps is the fact that he seems to somehow have done it. And so the challenge to us is, okay, where do we go with it? To find the missing link. I think something is missing somewhere, you know, how to do things. You have to be able to reach that thing. Discipline, how do you sustain discipline? Well, I think the ultimate answer is not the kind of thing we'll find in a text. The missing link is something that eludes us when we look at these things.

[23:05]

But I keep thinking again of that wonderful phrase that comes up again and again as beginning anew each day. I think that's a real comfort. You know, it's not a kind of a constant arc up like this. Start over, start over, start over. Because there's so much in it, in them, and the commandment, you can't say, well, it seems that I've fulfilled the ten that are listed, but for the Beatitudes, though, it's not a quantity, it's a quantity, it's more there. Is it like the Inner and Outer Mountain, where it probably was an actual tomb you lived in?

[24:25]

Well, there are two different things. He lives in a tomb before he goes to the Outer Mountain. Now, tombs were kind of scary things to the Egyptians, even more so than they are to us. They were always put on the edge of the desert, at the edge of the town. for reasons of preservation and sanitation and so on. And their conception of the desert was that as soon as you left cultivated land, you were entering a realm which was of a completely different order than that of civilization. So it's not like just walking out to the country. I mean, you cross that line into desert and you're taking on a whole host of new things, among them demons and the dead and so on. So you find this theme of people going to tombs to fight the demons and to lead their ascetical life turns up pretty often in some of this desert literature. So there's some significance to that. It's a pretty common motif.

[25:27]

It comes up again and again. I realized that what I was thinking was the symbolic thing of the tomb being sort of like our Lord descending into hell, or Anthony going to fight the devil, the exterior devil, and also his own ego, when he comes out of the tomb, sort of like his resurrection. Going into the realm of the dead. I think you could make that parallel. Like the shrouding and the... Of course, I'm painting... You got me started on painting the picture, or I got myself started, I guess you could say, painting the picture that Athanasius is trying to mold, even though the thing in itself... I'm not saying it's not a reality, I just want...

[26:36]

in any case, how much more real it was, incidental reality, if you see it as a common thing for people. Now of course, the Outer Mountain, which is the setting for this chapter that I read, he's not in a tomb, he's in an abandoned fortress. But he was in a tomb earlier, so that theme is there earlier on. To the effect of Alberto's thing, it's really put up against me, because as Augustine would say, the key to it is desire. And we really don't desire holiness. And it's only after we come back again and again that we want something rather easy and short and quick and so on and so forth. And we find that our desire really isn't. As a result, we're not receiving what's been given to us. and one comes back until one reading. And I always think I can get it with a little more effort around the corner, which is another thing. If I really try it, I can.

[27:39]

But I won't embarrass myself by failing. And so all these things, if I really... Of course, metanoia in the Hebrew sense is to come back and begin again. New Testament sense is to change your heart. I mean, there is always this story. Square one and start again. But I think At least that of Augustine was helping me. It's a desire, and we find we really don't desire something as much as we say we do, which is part of the knowledge of ourselves. Or I desire, but I don't want to go through what God would ask me to go through in order to prepare myself to receive it. Or I want it, and then it's mine, but I won't receive it. I think it's that willingness to be loved and led by God. Again, where I cut myself off from that, I wanted to do it without the real, total guilt of giving myself to God. Which again, we find out as we go along, we really are not really willing to give ourselves over to God. So little by little I begin to, and I don't say that that itself is a gift.

[28:41]

I think of Augustine's on the desire. There's really not a discussion of desire in this work. I mean, that becomes, of course, a big monastic theme that Leclerc has talked about so beautifully. But that's not here. Maybe that's our missing link, this business of desiring it, working toward that desire. Later, as I say, I think, then the regimens are starting, beginning, and then what we find lacking, hope as regards grace, courage. I wonder if that doesn't fit in here somewhere in the discussion. Now, I also wonder if there's anything comparable to that in the situation of Anselm in that early period. It probably arises more explicitly later because of the theological discussions which come later. But that means that the whole sentimental life and race is not usually mentioned very much.

[29:49]

Are they kind of presupposing or is that simply taken for granted also in the background or what? Well, you've put your finger on the big problem that most people have reading these things. You know, Antony is 20 years in the Outer Mountain. He's not a priest. He's not in contact with a local church. What's he doing for Eucharist? You know, because to us, I mean, that's a very important part of our beginning anew each day, an important part of our desire. But he doesn't have it. It's not an easy problem to solve. For a lot of these people, Eucharist was maybe a yearly affair, or for some of them something that they hoped to receive just before they died as viaticum. But it was not. this routine part of their spiritual life. And there really isn't an answer to that. I mean, we just have to kind of look at them and marvel that they could do it without. Of course, we find somebody like Pacomius where the opposite is true, where there's a very strong Eucharistic community, very strong emphasis on baptism and common prayer.

[30:59]

And somehow we've got to put it all together in the end. Their attitude, Anthony, those who rally at the Eucharist, I wonder if their attitude was more towards the reality of the living God, the Spirit of Christ within them. At all times, certainly the Eucharist is very unique, very special, and is a very specific way of entering into and receiving the presence of the body and blood of Christ. But I think not to the exclusion of that very presence living within the temple. and prayer of early Egyptian monasteries is no longer possible.

[32:04]

So he says Eucharist gets attached to it a lot of pressure and weight as a moment of encounter when the monks are no longer able, because of work or outside pressure or pastoral commitment or whatever, to keep up this kind of constant dialogue or constant prayer that they were earlier. And he says that's when you find a big emphasis on the conventional celebration of daily Eucharist and that becomes focus of piety because that's really all they have. Now maybe you could take that and turn it around and say that maybe for somebody like Anthony there was this kind of more diffused sense of the presence of God as well as the business of himself. Maybe that took some of the pain of not having the Eucharist away. I don't know. It's a problem I can't solve because there's nothing in here about it. But it's an oddity. It's an oddity. Just a discussion last night on exactly what is meant by the idea of forgetting oneself.

[33:13]

Does this show up in Anthony at all? He has an odd phrase at the beginning of the thing, which kind of bothered me a little bit, where he says in one of his lists of what a monk ought to do, is he ought to abolish his memory. Now, I mean, I think most of us today would talk about maybe a healing of memory or reconciliation with things in the memory, but not an abolition of memory. I would relate that, I guess, to maybe this theme of abolition of self. But I think, again, it's one of those things that's very easy to misunderstand. In this case, he relates that abolition of memory to the notion of absorbing scripture. And immediately after that comes a line where it says, Antony's memory took the place of books. Since he apparently could not read, he had to memorize the scripture. And his memory was for him a library. And that was what filled his mind and memory rather than kind of the distractions and confusions of his life before.

[34:19]

I find that problematic. That's something I have a lot of trouble with. So forgetting self, maybe that's the closest he gets to talking about that concept. But his way of talking about it is jarring, at least for me. But another way to get at that is, as I said, I think the whole point of this is that Anthony finds himself. And maybe it's forgetting some model of the self, or some image of the self, or misunderstanding of the self. But I think this description is of someone who is very much himself. I mean, deeply, deeply himself. Not forgetting himself so that he can be filled by something different, or not forgetting himself in a sense of a destructive approach to the self. I think it's very much the opposite. of the story of this issue.

[35:27]

On physical transformation, do you find anywhere in the Epita the sort of anti-physical business becomes so prominent later? I think there's very little of it. There's some of it about, you know, the need for fasting and so on. But I think compared to some of the sayings, there's very, very little. Now, I'd like to argue from that that The healthiest tradition of Egyptian monasticism has a sense of balance, and I think you can find a lot of sayings that do. But there's no doubt that there are a lot of them which seem to be destructive of the body, just like there are a lot of them which are destructive of women. I mean, this whole business about never even look at or think about a woman because it's trouble. Even the slightest contact is trouble. Antony had no problem like that, at least after this experience. He had women and children and so on coming to him and that was not problematic for him. So I think there are parts of the tradition which we've got to look at critically and say, this is not healthy.

[36:36]

I think the remarkable thing about this work is that it doesn't show some of that extremism that the later ones do, once you get past the demon stuff and understand what he's doing there. The attitude toward the body, I think, is quite reverent. many years old, not the aspiration, in your words, but of the tradition as we're aspiring to the primitive state as we call it. Just curious to take memory on why the crafts didn't think in Redesign terms.

[37:41]

as, for instance, the new creation, you know, the paschal mystery of Christ, which is so important for all of us, especially now, when, you know, I think, that they would sort of think their beginnings were there, you know. The new creation, the resurrection of Christ, being the inspiration, the aspiration to which we enter into that. I think our strength and grace and motivation has to work from there. Well, I think that that certainly is a whole motivation for Antony, the example of Christ and restoration in Christ. But I think we need to kind of be careful about what our glasses are when we read this. In other words, I think that coming from a Western theological background, as all of us you know, even if we try to escape some of the biases or prejudices.

[38:43]

I think we tend to think of the first creation as just totally screwed up. I mean, after the fall. I mean, that just knocks it out. And it needs to be replaced by a new creation in Christ. And that's what so many of the Latin writers are looking at. What Athanasius and other Greek fathers do is they look at new creation in Christ not as replacing the first creation, but as perfecting and restoring, putting it back where it ought to be. It's kind of like kind of tying up the first creation and the new creation and completing a circle. Whereas in the West, I think we tend to think of it more as kind of a straight line, creation, fall, new creation, kingdom. Okay? So you sort of hit a goal. I think the Greek Fathers kind of tie the whole thing up. so that the beginning meets the end, and it's resolved. So I guess that's how I would answer your question. That sounds abstract, but I think that was their perspective on the matter.

[39:48]

And that's why I think that restoration, creational theme is so important, and relating that to a resurrectional theme, I think, works. Remember that Athanasius is one of the first Greek writers who gives us that notion of deification, that the summit of the spiritual life is theosis, becoming like God, being so filled and identified with God that one is divinized. I think that goes back then to the original relationship between created humanity and God before the fall. That whole marketing back, that whole notion of God being bent upright, has sort of... Like I said, sort of a bracketing motivation.

[40:48]

I never get the impression that they're trying to return to a state of paradise, in the sense that I don't need, I don't get that impression. That is, what we held up as an example of, the original goodness and touch was there, and that that is there. that can be regained. Not that we can go back to paradise because we have something so much better, but that is attainable. Because of that baptism, because of this whole paschal mystery. Why? No, I think that's a good point. difficult to understand is how much of scripture was present to them, which parts in particular, of course, you say psalmic events, so of course we know that, we hear that.

[42:32]

How much of the Old Testament that doesn't come out of it, does it? Because, of course, they didn't have the books. They did not read. Absolutely doesn't. Things were memorized. Was it all of it? Maybe not. Maybe. That's what I wonder. That's, of course, Anthony himself, then it's Athanasius himself, who is highly educated, probably is familiar with all the scripture. So things are probably mixed up, I mean, the two. So we probably do not really know how much, how far these traditions go. I guess I think of a couple of things.

[43:33]

The first one is not to underestimate the power of memory for these people. We live in an age in which our memory has been just about completely destroyed, our ability to learn text like they could. So it's really hard work for us to recover some of that skill. I think it's much more natural for them because they were used to things like oral epics, oral poetry, oral tales, and so on. Homer wasn't written down for centuries. It was passed on orally. So there's that. Secondly, I think it was It was expected that monks really did know their scripture. I mean, the commonplace was that the monk was to learn at least the Psalms and the New Testament by heart. That was just the minimum requirement, and then whatever the Old Testament. So they had this stuff pretty much at their fingertips. And when you read something like the Life of Pacomius, sometimes it's really slow going, because every other line is a scripture quotation, and sometimes they don't make a whole lot of sense, but they're there.

[44:41]

And that's coming right out of that monastic tradition. It's not like Athanasius who could kind of edit and say, well, we need a line from the Gospels here, or let's quote a song. So I think that that sense of scripture pervaded it. And it was really there. It's a marvel. It's an amazing thing to think about. But I think it was quite a genuine thing. So they must have learned it then before they went into their solitude, because it could read. Some could. I think maybe they overemphasized the illiteracy of somebody like Anthony. Maybe he was illiterate, but he seemed to have had a grasp of scripture. But when we get to Pacomian monasticism, which is almost the same time, a little bit later, monks were taught to read as soon as they joined. That was the first thing they set them on. If they couldn't read, they were taught how to read so they could memorize the Bible. So they started reading and memorizing psalmody immediately. So they tried to address that.

[45:44]

There's no question about being totally familiar with the Old Testament, all the books, and the Septuagint. and the darndest things that they would remember. They would pull the most obscure line and use it to support something, and it totally ranged out of context. But they knew this stuff, you know. And it is not Deliverer or Seer that quotes every single book. In order to make this beautiful, last will and testament, he reinforces his 52 chapters with every single quotation from every single book of the Old and New Testaments. And he wasn't going back and checking this stuff out. He had it right there. It's really, really valid. And remember for the... I guess the difference would be that they didn't know the history of Israel such as we know it from secondary sources and that whole critical business that we have access to which gives a different interpretation.

[46:48]

But it's a text in some way. Anthony is the first of the species who was his mentor, if he's illiterate. And of course, according to the tradition, he went into church one day and he heard the scripture and it was the source of his conversion. But there's no elaboration on any of the prehistory of that event. And then almost immediately after he makes provision for his sister and disposes of his wealth, he goes into solitude. So I mean, during this period of time, unless there's some sort of a mystical experience, the revelation, the direct revelation, how does he learn the description that's necessary? It's just going to be obstructive, but there's some difficulties. Since he went from person to person.

[47:50]

Like the wise bee. Was he in a small kind of community or something? Just outside the city. Yeah, when he was living on the outskirts. And faithfully hearing the scripture in church as well. Perhaps that's our clue. There's also, I mean, that wonderful tradition. Was it Pacomius or was it somebody else who all of a sudden woke up one day and he could speak Greek? I mean, sometimes they gloss over those difficulties with that kind of thing. The fourth quote is actually more familiar to me than anything in the life of Anthony, for a very curious reason. I went to a seminar that discussed the life of Anthony, and there was a skeptic in the group who dug out a fairly remarkable quotation.

[48:57]

I should have got the source out, because it was absolutely hilarious. It was written by a British skeptic in the 1800s sometime, just lampooning the whole thing. And I remember one line that broke up the whole class in a glorious laughter was, Athanasius said that when Antony came forth, his face shone like the sun. Well, if after 20 years of being in that little cell without washing, his face indeed shone like the sun, then the divine light must have been strong indeed. There we are. The point of this, though, is that the whole thing is a fraud. It's been concocted by Athanasius by the Shredders. There's no truth in it. Now, of course, no serious historian would go that far today. The one thing that bothers me about it, though, is when we're dealing with ancient texts, I always try to see, now, how does this correspond with our experience? I like to think there's some sort of continuity in how monks experience religious life and prayer and solitude.

[50:01]

And the one thing that really throws me is that both in our modern experience, and it seems all throughout monastic history, beginning quite early, there's a profound distrust of the hermit life, in that you're just as likely to go crazy as to attain physical and spiritual transformation if you leave yourself up for too long. So, in particular, when you mentioned the idea that the inner mountain might be, in some way, Athanasius' way of describing Anthony's sort of inner state of spiritual integration with himself, or state of peace with God, which is truly extraordinary. And that is at least as much that, but more so than some physical thing. If you're going to take that step, couldn't you not apply it to the solitude as well?

[51:08]

We don't really know how much time Anthony spent in all of it. We don't know how much and how important it really was, but that somehow or other he did seem to achieve this transformation. I'd be comfortable with, we don't know how much time, but I would I'd want to hold on to. It was really important, the solitude itself. I think your point's a good one, though. I mean, it's a risky business. You don't know what'll come of it. Being a Christian's a risky business. But I think, you know, here's a case of someone where it worked. It takes us back to discernment again. The secondary source seemed to pretty much define the inner and outer mountain. So, you know, we do have remnants of communities that sprang up there. By the outer mountain. He's traveling back and forth. It's pretty deft. And that actual, the time that Anthony spent there,

[52:11]

That's held up as a pretty rare bird type example. You don't get a heck of a lot of that later on. You don't get these total type You know, you're hard put to find in that early tradition, as far as I can see, where you had people who were just, like, confined for 20 years or something. You always had... There was always a disciple of the interaction. Certainly, Amor may be in the trio for a while and stuff, but even then, we hear about disciples come along pretty soon and stuff like that. And that happens to Antony, too, of course. Yeah, right. And it happens to Antony, too, although they seem to suggest that there was that one core time, although we still would have to believe that food was... wasn't there something like that, too? They used to bring him stuff. Yeah, stuff. So... radios.

[53:22]

But he wouldn't see them. But he wouldn't see them. It's interesting. All I'm trying to say is that the hermit life is different than the life of a recluse. And this is... Very few people were ever advocating that. Their medical life, hermit life, which is a lot different. Good distinction. There must have been some priest in there, one of the followers, perhaps. Otherwise, he'd be living for years without any sacramental interference. We talked about that a few minutes ago as a real problem. Apparently, they did, or at least Anthony did live for years without Eucharist. But very soon, almost immediately, you begin to find evidence of priests in hermit communities or loose communities, and very quickly that changes.

[54:34]

But these pioneers like Antony did seem to have a bit of distance from sacramental life. It's hard to understand. It is hard. Maybe. We all need it. We do. When Bishop Athanasius was there, it's likely that they would hire the early priests to administer the sacraments. I think that's probably right. They were all so holy, they didn't need to go to confession, but I think they would need the Eucharist occasionally. What happened to Subiaco? tonight her has descended to sing for his supper Melody this one he doesn't get together with father Placid

[56:00]

Some of the songs they sing here. This is a tough act to follow. I don't sing. Would you pass the microphone? Gosh. Well, all right. This could be very funny, too, because I haven't sung this song in about 20 years, I think. Cody got us the tunes. It's a bit of a tick in my throat, but... That won't get you any drink, will it? Water, at least. Mind the length, Steve, do you think? Yeah. It's more. Which Pierre? Pierre, do you think you could give me a little seal? Is that in the realm of possibility?

[57:14]

Hey, I didn't find the A. We have to work it out. That's middle C, you sure? Yeah, it's kind of high. All right, here it goes. This is a song called, my Italian's not too bad on it, but it's a song called Torna a Sorrendo. It's very meaningful to me, for many reasons, which I won't go into because I'll keep it here all night. But I'd like to share it with you as maybe, perhaps, gift back for the very beautiful gift you've given to Daniel and myself, which is your presence in this community.

[58:24]

So I hope it's done well, and if it's not, the thank you is a lot more than the way the song comes out. Guardi il mare colome bello, Spira tanto, sente bello, Col metaforio accendo, che me desto farsognò. Come tuve faccio, Dio, d'arghia del mio dolce ronce,

[59:30]

Un profumo non vorrale, Perce palpita d'amor. E tu diccio par tuo Dio, Tal non talmido, Questa terra dell'amore Hai la forza di lasciar Mondo a me furgir Don darmi piu tormento Tormento, tormento a me

[60:47]

Thank you. Thank you very much. Very well done. Does anybody, by the way, have the palest edition of the Light of Antony? It would be the kind of colourful thing, out on the cover like this. rather than being syringes that they... What's the picture? It's a picture of Anki, but it sort of looks like a... Like a village.

[62:00]

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