A review by theologiaviatorum
Athanasius: The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus by

inspiring fast-paced

4.25

I've officially begun my monastic readings, and I begin where it all began, with St. Antony, the Father of Monasticism.  The Life of Antony by St. Athanasius was described by Gregory Nazianzus as a monastic rule cast in narrative. Broadly speaking, the first part of the work focuses upon Antony's ascesis (i.e. discipline) and his struggle against demons. The latter half of the work recounts the counsel he gave to his many visitors. This edition also includes Athanasius' Letter to Marecellinus on the interpretation of the Psalms. He describes the book as containing everything found in other books—history, prophecy, commands, gospel, etc.—but with the added advantage that it is written with an immediacy which allows the reader/chanter to appropriate the words as his own. So Athanasius sets out to enumerate the several circumstances of life and to assign psalms appropriate to each one. He encourages their memorization and recitation just as they are written. "[T]he Book of Psalms possesses somehow the perfect image for the souls' course of life. For as one who comes into the presence of a king assumes a certain attitude, both of posture and expression, lest speaking differently he be thrown out as boorish, so also to the one who is running the race of virtue and wishes to know the life of the Savior in the body the sacred book first calls to mind the emotions of the soul through the reading, and in this way represents the other things in succession, and teaches the readers by those words ... Do not let anyone amplify these words of the Psalter with the persuasive phrases of the profane, and do not let him attempt to recast and chant, without artifice, the things written just as they were spoken, in order for the holy men who supplied these, recognizing that which is their own, to join you in your prayer, or, rather, so that even the Spirit who speaks in the saints, seeing words inspired by him in them, might render assistance to us. For as much better as the life of the saints is than that of other people, by so much also are their expressions superior to those we construct and, if one were to speak the truth, more powerful as well" (14, 31).