His Way of Life in These Years

This was Antony’s first struggle against the devil, or rather, this victory was the Savior’s work in Antony, the Savior “who condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.” But even though the evil one had fallen, Antony did not from then on relax his guard and look down on him; nor did the enemy, as if conquered, stop setting traps for him. For he went around again like a lion, looking for some opening against him. But Antony had learned from the Scriptures that the schemes of the devil are many, and he kept up the discipline with zeal. He reckoned that although the devil had not been able to deceive his heart by bodily pleasure, he would try to trap him by other means; for the demon loves sin. So more and more he kept his body down and brought it into subjection, so that he would not win on one side and be dragged down on the other. [a]

He decided, therefore, to accustom himself to a harder way of life. Many people were amazed, but he himself bore the labor easily. For the eagerness of his soul, having lived in him so long, had formed a good habit in him, so that from only a small start given him by others he showed great zeal in this. He kept watch so much that he often went the whole night without sleep, and this not once but often, to the amazement of others. He ate once a day, after sunset, sometimes once in two days, and often even once in four. His food was bread and salt; his drink, only water. There is no need even to speak of meat and wine, since nothing of the kind was found among the other earnest men either. A mat of rushes served him to sleep on, but mostly he lay on the bare ground. He would not anoint himself with oil. He said that young men ought to be earnest in training and not look for what would weaken the body, but must accustom it to labor, remembering the apostle’s words, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” “For,” he said, “the fiber of the soul is sound when the pleasures of the body are reduced.”

And he had come to this truly wonderful conclusion: “that progress in virtue, and withdrawal from the world for its sake, ought not to be measured by time, but by desire and firmness of purpose.” He, at any rate, gave no thought to the past. Day by day, as if he were at the beginning of his discipline, he took greater pains to advance, often repeating to himself the saying of Paul, “Forgetting what lies behind and stretching forward to what lies ahead.” He also kept in mind the words spoken by the prophet Elijah, “The Lord lives, before whose presence I stand today.” For he noticed that in saying “today” the prophet was not counting the time that had gone by. So every day, as though always beginning, he eagerly tried to make himself fit to appear before God, pure in heart and always ready to submit to his counsel, and to his alone. And he used to say to himself that the hermit ought to see his own life in the life of the great Elijah, as in a mirror.