to choose the solitary life; and so thenceforth cells sprang up in
the mountains, and the desert was colonized by monks, who went forth
from their own, and registered themselves in the city which is in
heaven.

And when he had need to cross the Arsenoite Canal (and the need was
the superintendence of the brethren), the canal was full of
crocodiles. And having only prayed, he entered it; and both he and
all who were with him went through it unharmed. But when he
returned to the cell, he persisted in the noble labours of his
youth; and by continued exhortations he increased the willingness of
those who were already monks, and stirred to love of training the
greater number of the rest; and quickly, as his speech drew men on,
the cells became more numerous; and he governed them all as a
father. And when he had gone forth one day, and all the monks had
come to him desiring to hear some word from him, he spake to them in
the Egyptian tongue, thus--"That the Scriptures were sufficient for
instruction, but that it was good for us to exhort each other in the
faith." . . .

[Here follows a long sermon, historically important, as being the
earliest Christian attempt to reduce to a science daemonology and
the temptation of daemons: but its involved and rhetorical form
proves sufficiently that it could not have been delivered by an
unlettered man like Antony. Neither is it, probably, even composed
by St. Athanasius; it seems rather, like several other passages in
this biography, the interpolation of some later scribe. It has
been, therefore, omitted.]

And when Antony had spoken thus, all rejoiced; and in one the love