From the very beginning, the idea of asceticism was closely connected with Christianity. However, at first Christians practiced ascetic life at their homes, without leaving their families and communities. In fact, Christian communities themselves granted their members enough seclusion from the outer world. Christians lived in a society, but were consciously alienated from it in many respects, because they believed in Jesus and lived accordingly. However, when Christianity became the State religion, believers lost sight of the boundary that separated the Church from the world. Thinking in terms of inner and outer things with respect to Christian fellowship gradually grew meaningless. Integration was inevitable, and when the process started, many felt indignant. They saw it as sheer secularization.
They connect the origin of monasticism with the persecutions of Decius (250 AD), when Christians left large Egyptian cities and went to the surrounding deserts. Some of them went back home after persecutions ceased, but a few remained in the wilderness to lead a holy life there. Later other people who felt inclination to asceticism followed their example. Quite naturally, they were not very fond of the Hellenistic thought and culture that began to play an increasingly important role in Christianity. Ironically, it was especially eminent in Alexandria (the capital of Egypt): its theological school cherished allegorical interpretation, which was a method typical for the Greeks. No wonder that simple farmers who were the founders of monasticism were opposed to any compromise of faith and philosophy.
Nevertheless, even though at first they displayed hostility to the type of theology that great Alexandrian teachers (especially Origen) developed, gradually their aversion to learning as such grew less intense. Moreover, believers who never left their homes to struggle with demons in the desert began to regard world-denying monasticism as a model of Christian perfection. The spontaneous movement was soon sanctioned and approved by the Church.
Anthony, considered the founder of organized monasticism, was born at Coma (Middle Egypt), of Christian parents. For some time the young man was a disciple of Paul of Thebes. When Anthony was about twenty, his parents died. He sold everything he had, gave the money to the poor and went to the desert in search of ascetic life. The great eremite remained there for fifteen years and then moved to the right bank of the Nile, to a mountain called Pispir. He lived there from about 286 to 305 and grew famous among multiple anchorites who imitated him. About 305 Anthony left the abandoned fort where he lived, in order to instruct his followers for whom he exemplified the ideal of asceticism. The largest and most famous colonies of monks were organized in Scete and Nitria.
After Constantine I and Licinius came to an agreement that led to the promulgation of the edict of Milan (AD 313), assuring Christians of legal rights, the father of Egyptian monks went to the Mount Colzim between the Red Sea and the Nile, where he lived until his death in 356 at the age of one hundred and five years. During that period he visited Pispir several times, as well as Alexandria, at least twice: his voice was needed in the struggle with the teaching of Arius.
Even though Anthony never learnt to read and write, he carried on a large correspondence. As it seems, he dictated his letters in Coptic, his native tongue, to a secretary or a literate fellow-monk. Unfortunately, most of the missives were lost. A few that are extant (only seven) are first mentioned by Jerome who read them in Greek translation. Besides late Latin versions done from Greek and Arabic translations we possess the full series in Georgian, the first letter in Syriac, the seventh and parts of fifth and sixth in Coptic.
These letters are addressed to monks and provide them with instructions concerning asceticism. The main obligation of a hermit, Anthony insisted, is to know himself, since only those who are able to achieve this goal may know God. The first letter explains in detail in what ways this self-knowledge is equivalent to the perception of God's grace that is bestowed on us. The Holy Spirit can prompt a person to become a monk by three ways: people who lead a holy life in the world and follow God's call, take "the direct road"; others come to this through reading of the Holy Scriptures as well as trough understanding the awful end of those who sin; finally, there are those who thus atone for their evil deeds done in the past.
Anthony wrote that sanctification of soul and body, the ultimate aim of asceticism, can be attained only through extermination of all passions. Following this vocation, the anchorite has to remember that humans experience three kinds of emotions: purely natural, depending on the soul; those excited by bodily desires; caused by the attacks of demons.
It is exactly the great hermit's struggle with the devil and his acolytes, described by Athanasius in his "Life of Anthony" that made the hermit so popular in Christian art throughout the Middle Ages and later. Most often demons' assaults took shape of visions, either horrible or seductive. The evil spirits could take any form and presented themselves as women, fellow-monks, monsters etc. However, the effect of these visits could be physical: demons beat Anthony, sometimes almost to death. The anchorite reacted with even more severe penitential acts such as fasting and prayer.
Monastic discipline sees asceticism as a means to attain the Christian ideal of perfection which is to love God and neighbor to the utmost. Anthony has always been a model saint for all those who longed for ascetic life. To be sure, this figure continues to fascinate our imagination, whatever our attitude towards monasticism in general may be.
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