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Life of Antony. (Vita Antoni.)

Section 11: He goes to the desert and overcomes temptations on the way.

Saint Athanasius of Alexandria · Historical English edition; series volume first published 1892 · 215 words
Historical English translation. Original wording is not automatically translated.

11. And on the day following he went forth still more eagerly bent on the service of God and having fallen in with the old man he had met previously, he asked him to dwell with him in the desert. But when the other declined on account of his great age, and because as yet there was no such custom, Antony himself set off forthwith to the mountain. And yet again the enemy seeing his zeal and wishing to hinder it, cast in his way what seemed to be a great silver dish. But Antony, seeing the guile of the Evil One, stood, and having looked on the dish, he put the devil in it to shame, saying, ‘Whence comes a dish in the desert? This road is not well-worn, nor is there here a trace of any wayfarer; it could not have fallen without being missed on account of its size; and he who had lost it having turned back, to seek it, would have found it, for it is a desert place. This is some wile of the devil. O thou Evil One, not with this shalt thou hinder my purpose; let it go with thee to destruction.’ And when Antony had said this it vanished like smoke from the face of fire.

Edition and rights

NPNF2-04. Athanasius: Select Works and Letters. Historical English edition; series volume first published 1892.

Archibald Robertson, volume editor; historical English translations as revised in this edition

Ancient work and historical English translation: public domain in the United States (published before 1931). Copyright rules vary by country. This is a historical source transcription, not an official Church edition. Modern website material is not reproduced.

Historical footnotes and publisher introductions are omitted. Author-written openings are retained. Paragraph whitespace is normalized. Transcriptions can contain errors; this is not a critical edition. Attribution follows the historical edition, not universal scholarly agreement.

Digitization provenance (not an external reading link): https://www.ccel.org/ccel/s/schaff/npnf204.xml

Source section: xvi.ii.viii · Text SHA-256: 019bb4b9f63c22ff518cac5f706f43eeaf66a392cbf8d3a8b1542761ce9d5bc1