lways returned much
astonished at his humility, meekness, sanctity, and extraordinary
wisdom. He admirably proved to them the truth and security of the
Christian religion, and confirmed it by miracles. "We," said he, "only
by naming Jesus Christ crucified, put to flight those devils which you
adore as gods; and where the sign of the cross is formed, magic and
charms lose their power." At the end of this discourse he invoked
Christ, and signed with the cross twice or thrice several persons
possessed with devils; in the same moment they stood up sound, and in
their senses, giving thanks to God for his mercy in their regard.[17]
When certain philosophers asked him how he could spend his time in
solitude, without the pleasure of reading books, he replied, that nature
was his great book, and amply supplied the want of others. When others,
despising him as an illiterate man, came with the design to ridicule his
ignorance, he asked them with great simplicity, which was first, reason
or learning, and which had produced the other? The philosophers
answered, "Reason, or good sense." "This, then," said Antony,
"suffices." The philosophers went away astonished at the wisdom and
dignity with which he prevented their objections. Some others demanding
a reason of his faith in Christ, on purpose to insult it, he put them to
silence by showing that they degraded the notion of the divinity, by
ascribing to it infamous human passions, but that the humiliation of the
cross is the greatest demonstration of infinite goodness, and its
ignominy appears the highest glory, by the triumphant resurrection, the
miraculous raising of the dead, and curing of the blind and the sick. He
then admirably proved, that faith in God and his works is more clear and
satisfactory than the sophistry of the Greeks. St. Athanasius mentions
that he disputed with these Greeks by an interpreter.[18] Our holy
author assures us, that no one visited St. Antony under any affliction
and sadness, who did not return home full of comfort and joy; and he
relates many miraculous cures wrought by him, also several heavenly
visions and revelations with which he was favored. Belacius, the duke or
general of Egypt, persecuting the Catholics with extreme fury, St.
Antony, by a letter, exhorted him to leave the servants of Christ in
peace. Belacius tore the letter, then spit and trampled upon it, and
threatened to make the abbot the next victim of his fury; but five days
after, as he