Anthony the Great

Life events

1. Born — 251

   Anthony was born c. 12 January 251 in Koma, a village in Lower Egypt, to wealthy Coptic landowner parents. His native tongue was Coptic and he is not reported to have learned Greek.

2. Other — 271

   Around age 20, after the death of his parents, Anthony gave away the family's lands and sold the remaining property for the poor, placed his unmarried sister with a community of Christian virgins, and adopted an ascetic life under a local hermit — inspired by the gospel injunction in Matthew 19:21.

3. Pilgrimage — 270

   Anthony departed for the alkaline Nitrian Desert, approximately 95 km west of Alexandria — the later site of the Nitria, Kellia, and Scetis monasteries — becoming one of the earliest known Christians to withdraw into the desert proper rather than to the outskirts of a settled area. He remained there for thirteen years.

4. Other — 286

   At approximately age 35, Anthony withdrew to an abandoned Roman fort at Mount Pispir (now Der-el-Memun) beside the Nile, opposite Arsinoë, living in strict enclosure for roughly twenty years while disciples gathered in caves and huts around the mountain.

5. Other — 305

   Around 305, Anthony emerged from his enclosure at Pispir to instruct the monastic community assembled around him for five or six years, then withdrew permanently to a mountain between the Nile and the Red Sea — Mount Colzim — where the Monastery of Saint Anthony (Deir Mar Antonios) still stands.

6. Pilgrimage — 311

   During the Diocletianic Persecutions, around 311, Anthony traveled to Alexandria and was conspicuous in visiting Christians who had been imprisoned for their faith.

7. Pilgrimage — 338

   In 338, Anthony left the desert to visit Alexandria at the request of Athanasius of Alexandria, appearing publicly to help refute the teachings of Arius — one of two known departures from his desert retreat in the final decades of his life.

8. Died — 356

   Anthony died on 17 January 356 and was interred, according to his own instructions, in a secret grave beside his cell at Mount Colzim. His remains were reportedly discovered in 361 and transferred to Alexandria, then later to Constantinople.

Relationships

Documented claims

• Athanasius of Alexandria wrote the Life of Anthony (Vita Antonii) in Greek c. 360; Evagrius of Antioch translated it into Latin before 374, making it one of the most widely read texts in medieval Christendom and a primary vehicle for spreading ascetic ideals in the West. It influenced the conversions of Augustine of Hippo and John Chrysostom. (likely)
• Anthony spoke and dictated only in Coptic; seven of his letters, originally in Coptic, are extant and are counted among the earliest original writings in the Coptic language. His sayings circulated in Greek translation. (likely)
• Anthony is invoked against infectious skin diseases; multiple afflictions — ergotism, erysipelas, and shingles — were historically grouped under the name 'Saint Anthony's Fire.' Two noblemen cured of ergotism founded the Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony to nurse victims of skin diseases. (likely)
• Anthony's remains were discovered in 361, translated to Alexandria, then to Constantinople to escape Saracen incursions. In the eleventh century the Byzantine emperor gave them to the French Count Jocelin; a church erected in 1297 at Saint-Antoine-l'Abbaye became a major Western pilgrimage centre. (likely)
• Accounts of Anthony's preternatural temptations in the Eastern Desert — first recorded by Athanasius — generated one of the most prolific iconographic programmes in Western art, depicted by Schongauer, Bosch, Grunewald, Dali, and others, and retold in prose by Flaubert in The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1874). (likely)