Letter and Spirit
Chapter One
Our Nearness
to the Ancients
Few stories in Christian antiquity circulated as widely and as rapidly as Athanasius' telling of the life of Anthony, the fourth-century hermit of the Egyptian desert. Within a generation of Anthony's death, Augustine tells us,(1) the book had motivated countless Christians to take up the contemplative life in seclusion. The drama in Athanasius' narrative turned on a single moment in Anthony's youth.
Not six months after the death of his parents, he went according to custom to the Lord's house . . . He entered the church, and it happened the Gospel was being read, and he heard the Lord saying to the rich man, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven" [Mt 19:21]. Anthony, . . . as if the passage had been read on his account, went out immediately from the church, and gave the possessions of his forefathers to the villagers . . . All the rest that was movable he sold, and having got together much money he gave it to the poor, reserving a little, however, for his sister's sake . . . And again he went into the church, and he heard the Lord say in the Gospel, "d ... read full excerpt from: Letter and Spirit ebook
