Anthony the Great
Anthony (251-356) was born to wealthy Christian parents in Heracleopolis Magna, Egypt. His parents died when he was about 18, leaving the young man enviably wealthy, albeit with an unmarried sister to look after. Six months after inheriting, Anthony was at mass when he heard a sermon based on Matthew 19:21 (‘if you would be perfect, go and sell that you have and give to the poor; and come follow Me and you shall have treasure in heaven’). Immediately, he gave away everything he owned to the poor, paying for his sister to be brought up in a convent.
Like the later Simeon the Stylite, Anthony made straight for the desert, imitating the lifestyle of local hermits he visited (at this time, there were no monasteries – they were derived from the tradition of the Desert Fathers such as Anthony). Having educated himself in asceticism, Anthony retired to his own dwelling, where he lived a life of prayer, fasting, and incredible self-discipline. In the words of his biographer, Athanasius, however, ‘the devil, who hates and envies what is good, could not endure to see such a resolution in a youth’ (Life of Anthony, 5), and thus began Anthony’s demonic warfare.
Satan at first only tried to remind Anthony of what he had forsaken, but failed. Anthony’s second home, this time amongst the catacombs, was soon filled with the forms of ‘lions, bears, leopards, bulls, serpents, asps, scorpions, and wolves’ (Ibid., 9) sent by the devil, which made his bodily pains seem all the worse. Next, the demons subjected the hermit to physical assaults, but still he would not renounce his lifestyle. Even when the devil arranged for all the hyenas in the desert to surround Anthony’s dwelling and bay, he merely continued to pray. Finally, Satan gave up.
Modern historians have attributed Anthony’s visions of demons to his meager diet: ‘his food was bread and salt, his drink, water only’, relates Athanasius (Ibid., 7). Starving oneself in this way can lead to hallucinations, as can the ergot poisoning brought on by rotten grain in bread. The ergot fungus contains one of the ingredients of LSD, and produces truly harrowing visual phenomena (the Salem Witch Trials have even been blamed on ergot poisoning). The traditional spiritual interpretation is that the demons represent the temptations to sin (from the devil, of course) aroused by extreme hunger, thirst and solitude.