Two Philosophers Send Demons Against Antony

We have learned a great deal about the differences between demons from those two philosophers who in the past, through their works of magic, often had great experience both of the demons’ laziness and of their courage and savage wickedness. These men looked down on the blessed Antony as a peasant and a boor. Wanting, if they could do him no further harm, at least to drive him out of his cell by magic illusions and the devices of demons, they sent the foulest spirits against him. They were driven to this attack by the sting of jealousy, because huge crowds came to him every day as the servant of God. [a]

These most savage demons did not even dare to come near him, as he was now signing his breast and forehead with the sign of the cross, and now giving himself to prayer and supplication. So they went back without any result to those who had sent them. The philosophers then sent others against him, more desperate in wickedness. When these too had spent their strength in vain and returned with nothing accomplished, still more powerful ones were nevertheless assigned against the victorious soldier of Christ, and they too could do nothing against him. All these great plots of theirs, devised with every art of magic, served only to prove how great is the worth of the Christian profession. Those fierce and powerful shadows, which the philosophers thought could veil the sun and moon if sent against them, not only could do him no harm but could not even draw him out of his monastery for a single instant.