.... I am the weakest of you all

Today our Coptic church celebrates the departure of the Great St. Anthony the intercessor of our church. We celebrate St. Anthony Feast on 22nd day of the Coptic month of Tobe (January 30th) while the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Catholic churches celebrate St. Anthony’s feast on January 17th. May the blessing of our St. Antony the Great be with us all

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Humility and St. Anthony the Great

St. Anthony once said "I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said groaning, “What can get through from such snares?” Then I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Humility.'"

Humility was central to St. Anthony’s spiritual life. For him, humility was the root of the whole tree of virtues, It was the focal point for his spiritual ascetic practice. He clearly understood that pride can lead the most astray from the path of salvation. It is very obvious from St. Anthony's life that humility for him was a self-emptying humility. He understood that to acquire the virtue of humility we must come to our own desert of the self, and empty ourselves of all pretense, so that through such self-emptying humility we can rise up as true followers of our Lord.

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Did St. Anthony humble himself against Satan?

In our Midnight praises we have a wonderful hymn to glorify St. Anthony the Great, we all know its words and the simple tune it is prayed in.

The glorification hymn starts as follows:

“In the Church of virgins, In the pure assembly living in piety Peniot Ava Antonios”

In one of the verses for this hymn it is describing the struggles of St. Anthony with the demons appearing to him in the form of beasts It says

“They came with fierce visions of lions, tigers and leopards and with sounds of thunder ……. You proclaimed and said to them ‘O you strong ones I will return to dust and sand …. I am the weakest of you all ….. you are example of us all and your humility before Satan”

Let us clear one point here, that some of us get confused with:

St. Anthony was very strong in his fight with the devil. The grace of God has always strengthened him in his fierce fight.… the actual story behind the verse in the hymn comes from the biography written by St. Athanasius on the “Life of St. Anthony” (Link).

Let’s read what St. Athanasius wrote about this incident:

“ …. But the enemy, who hates good, marveling that after the blows he dared to return, called together his hounds and burst forth, 'You see,' said he, 'that neither by the spirit of lust nor by blows did we stay the man, but that he braves us, let us attack him in another fashion.' But changes of form for evil are easy for the devil, so in the night they made such a din that the whole of that place seemed to be shaken by an earthquake, and the demons as if breaking the four walls of the dwelling seemed to enter through them, coming in the likeness of beasts and creeping things. And the place was on a sudden filled with the forms of lions, bears, leopards, bulls, serpents, asps, scorpions, and wolves, and each of them was moving according to his nature. The lion was roaring, wishing to attack, the bull seeming to toss with its horns, the serpent writhing but unable to approach, and the wolf as it rushed on was restrained; altogether the noises of the apparitions, with their angry ragings, were dreadful. But Antony, stricken and goaded by them, felt bodily pains severer still. He lay watching, however, with unshaken soul, groaning from bodily anguish; but his mind was clear, and as in mockery he said, 'If there had been any power in you, it would have sufficed had one of you come, but since the Lord has made you weak, you attempt to terrify me by numbers: and a proof of your weakness is that you take the shapes of brute beasts.' And again with boldness he said, 'If you are able, and have received power against me, delay not to attack; but if you are unable, why trouble me in vain? For faith in our Lord is a seal and a wall of safety to us.' So after many attempts they gnashed their teeth upon him, because they were mocking themselves rather than him”

When the hymn is talking about the humility of St. Antony against Satan it actually meant to highlight a more important spiritual foundation for our lives. The actual meaning is that St. Anthony (and us all) with our fallen human nature are much weaker to fight Satan and his powers on our own.

If we depend on our own strength we cannot defeat the weakest of the daemons, but with the strength of God’s grace and Christ’s victory over Satan at the cross we are “strong in the Lord and in the power of His might” (Ephesians 6:10) and are confident of our might God’s sheltering care.