_aruras_,[3] that is, above one hundred and twenty acres of good
land, that he and his sister might be free forever from all public taxes
and burdens. The rest of his estate he sold, and gave the price to the
poor, except what he thought necessary for himself and his sister. Soon
after, hearing in the church those other words of Christ; _Be not
solicitous for to-morrow_;[4] he also distributed in alms the moveables
which he had reserved; and placed his sister in a house of virgins,[5]
which most moderns take to be the first instance mentioned in history of
a nunnery. She was afterwards intrusted with the care and direction of
tethers in that holy way of life. Antony himself retired into a
solitude, near his village, in imitation of a certain old man, who led
the life of a hermit in the neighborhood of Coma. Manual labor, prayer,
and pious reading, were his whole occupation: and such was his fervor,
that if he heard of any virtuous recluse, he sought him out, and
endeavored to make the best advantage of his {166} example and
instructions. He saw nothing practised by any other in this service of
God, which he did not imitate: thus he soon became a perfect model of
humility, Christian condescension, charity, prayer, and all virtues. The
devil assailed him by various temptations; first, he represented to him
divers good works he might have been able to do with his estate in the
world, and the difficulties of his present condition: a common artifice
of the enemy, whereby he strives to make a soul slothful or dissatisfied
in her vocation, in which God expects to be glorified by her. Being
discovered and repulsed by the young novice, he varied his method of
attack, and annoyed him night and day with filthy thoughts and obscene
imaginations. Antony opposed to his assaults the strictest watchfulness
over his senses, austere fasts, humility, and prayer, till Satan,
appearing in a visible form, first of a woman coming to seduce him, then
of a black boy to terrify him, at length confessed himself vanquished.
The saint's food was only bread, with a little salt, and he drank
nothing but water; he never ate before sunset, and sometimes only once
in two, or four days: he lay on a rush mat, or on the bare floor. In
quest of a more remote solitude he withdrew further from Coma, and hid
himself in an old sepulchre; whither a friend brought him from time to
time a little bread. Satan was here again permitted to assault him in a
visible mann