This was Antony’s first struggle against the devil: or rather this mighty deed in him was the Saviour’s, who condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the Lord should be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. But neither did Antony, because the dæmon had fallen, grow careless and despise him; neither did the enemy, when worsted by him, cease from lying in ambush against him. For he came round again as a lion, seeking a pretence against him. But Antony had learnt from Scripture that many are the devices of the enemy; and continually kept up his training, considering that, though he had not deceived his heart by pleasure, he would try some other snares. For the dæmon delights in sin. Therefore he chastised his body more and more, and brought it into slavery, lest, having conquered in one case, he should be tripped up in others. He determined, therefore, to accustom himself to a still more severe life; and many wondered at him: but the labour was to him easy to bear. For the readiness of the spirit, through long usage, had created a good habit in him, so that, taking a very slight hint from others, he showed great earnestness in it. For he watched so much, that he often passed the whole night without sleep; and that not once, but often, to the astonishment of men. He ate once a day, after the setting of the sun, and sometimes only once in two days, often even in four; his food was bread with salt, his drink nothing but water. To speak of flesh and wine there is no need, for such a thing is not found among other earnest men. When he slept he was content with a rush-mat: but mostly he lay on the bare ground. He would not anoint himself with oil, saying that it was more fit for young men to be earnest in training, than to seek things which softened the body; and that they must accustom themselves to labour, according to the Apostle’s saying, “When I am weak, then I am strong;” for that the mind was strengthened as bodily pleasure was weakened. And this argument of his was truly wonderful. For he did not measure the path of virtue, nor his going away into retirement on account of it, by time; but by his own desire and will. So forgetting the past, he daily, as if beginning afresh, took more pains to improve, saying over to himself continually the Apostle’s words, “Forgetting what is behind, stretching forward to what is before;” and mindful, too, of Elias’ speech, “The Lord liveth, before whom I stand this day.” For he held, that by mentioning to-day, he took no account of past time: but, as if he were laying down a beginning, he tried earnestly to make himself day by day fit to appear before God, pure in heart, and ready to obey his will, and no other. And he said in himself that the ascetic ought for ever to be learning his own life from the manners of the great Elias, as from a mirror. Antony, having thus, as it were, bound himself, went to the tombs, which happened to be some way from the