The Lives of the Saints through 100 Masterpieces

Antony of Egypt

The Lives of the Saints 34 Antony of Egypt January 17 The life of a hermit does not necessarily imply absolute solitude. An archer once was shocked to find Saint Antony relaxing in the company of other hermits. Antony told him, “Put an arrow to your bow and shoot,” which he did. The saint then asked him to repeat the action, again and again. “If I continue this way, I risk breaking my bow,” objected the archer. “So it is with us in the service of God,” answered the hermit. “Should we unduly persist in our austerities without check, we would quickly be broken; thus it behooves us to relax from time to time.” Such relaxation was indeed needed, since from age 20 to 105, the hermit was the target of ever new temptations of the fiend, who would take on a multiplicity of forms in order to seduce the saint. One day, the devil took possession of the body of a wild boar. Antony, however, delivered it by his prayers, tamed the beast, and from that point had a boar for a pet. Antony is one of the most ancient saints of Christianity. His biography first was written around 360, shortly after his death, by Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria. The model of ascetic life as set by Saint Antony thus very quickly spread from the East to the farthest boundaries of the West. Of course, it is the saint’s many temptations that mostly have inspired artists, eliciting from them feats of imagination to rival the very devil himself! In this sphere, Hieronymus Bosch and his triptych housed in Lisbon have had countless followers, even up to Salvador Dalí. Antwerpian School of Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1510) The Temptation of Saint Antony Museo Civico Correr, Venice ...