On the Feast of Anthony the Hermit

From the Golden Legend

He had overmany temptations of the devil. Then on a time when he had overcome the spirit of fornication which tempted him therein by the virtue of his faith, the devil came to him in the form of a little child all black, and fell down at his feet and confessed that he was the devil of fornication, which St. Anthony had desired and prayed to see him, for to know him that so tempted young people. Then said St. Anthony: Sith I have perceived that thou art so foul a thing I shall never doubt thee.

After, he went into a hole or cave to hide him, and anon he found there a great multitude of devils, that so much beat him that his servant bare him upon his shoulders in to his house as he had been dead. When the other hermits were assembled and wept his death, and would have done his service, suddenly St. Anthony revived and made his servant to bear him into the pit again where the devils had so evil beaten him, and began to summon the devils again, which had beaten him, to battles.

And anon they came in form of divers beasts wild and savage, of whom that one howled, another siffled, and another cried, and another brayed and assailed St. Anthony, that one with the horns, the others with their teeth, and the others with their paws and ongles, and disturned, and all to-rent his body that he supposed well to die.

Then came a clear brightness, and all the beasts fled away, and St. Anthony understood that in this great light our Lord came, and he said twice: Who art thou?
The good Jesu answered: I am here, Anthony.

Then said St. Anthony: O good Jesu! where hast thou been so long? why wert thou not here with me at the beginning to help me and to heal my wounds?

Then our Lord said: I was here but I would see and abide to see thy battle, and because thou hast manly fought and well maintained thy battle, I shall make thy name to be spread through all the world.

St. Anthony was of so great fervour and burning love to God, that when Maximus, the emperor, slew and martyred Christian men, he followed the martyrs that he might be a martyr with them and deserve it, and was sorry that martyrdom was not given to him.

After this, as St. Anthony went in desert he found a platter of silver in his way; then he thought whence this platter should come, seeing it was in no way for any man to pass, and also if it had fallen from any man he should have heard it sound in the falling. Then said he well that the devil had laid it there for to tempt him, and said: Ha! devil, thou weenest to tempt me and deceive me, but it shall not be in thy power. Then the platter vanished away as a little smoke.

And in likewise it happed him of a mass of gold that he found in this way, which the devil had cast for to deceive him, which he took and cast it into the fire and anon it vanished away.

After, it happed that St. Anthony on a time was in prayer, and saw in a vision all the world full of snares and gins. Then cried St. Anthony and said: O good Lord, who may escape from these snares? And a voice said to him: Very humility shall escape them without more.

When St. Anthony on a time was left in the air, the devils came against him and laid to him all the evils that he had done from his childhood, tofore the angels. Then said the angels: Thou oughtest not to tell the evils that have been defeated, but say if thou know any evil sith he was made a monk, then the devils contrived many evils, and when they might not prove them, the angels bare him higher than tofore, and after set him again in his place.

St. Anthony recordeth of himself that he had seen a man so great and so high that he vaunted himself to be the virtue and the providence of God, and said to me: Demand of me what thou wilt and I shall give it to thee. And I spit in the midst of his visage, and anon I armed me with the sign of the cross, and ran upon him, and anon he vanished away.

And after this the devil appeared to him in so great a stature that he touched the heaven, and when St. Anthony had demanded him what he was, he answered: I am the devil and demand thee why these monks and these cursed Christian men do me thus much shame?

St. Anthony said: They do it by good right, for thou dost to them the worst thou canst.

And the devil answered: I do to them none harm, but they trouble each other, I am destroyed and come to naught because that Jesu Christ reigneth over all.