blood, but against the daemons who are our adversaries," we have
known from those who went in to him. For there also they heard
tumults, and many voices, and clashing as of arms; and they beheld
the mount by night full of wild beasts, and they looked on him, too,
fighting, as it were, with beings whom he saw, and praying against
them. And those who came to him he bade be of good courage, but he
himself wrestled, bending his knees, and praying to the Lord. And
it was truly worthy of wonder that, alone in such a desert, he was
neither cowed by the daemons who beset him, nor, while there were
there so many four-footed and creeping beasts, was at all afraid of
their fierceness: but, as is written, trusted in the Lord like the
Mount Zion, having his reason unshaken and untost; so that the
daemons rather fled, and the wild beasts, as is written, were at
peace with him.

Nevertheless, the devil (as David sings) watched Antony, and gnashed
upon him with his teeth. But Antony was comforted by the Saviour,
remaining unhurt by his craft and manifold artifices. For on him,
when he was awake at night, he let loose wild beasts; and almost all
the hyaenas in that desert, coming out of their burrows, beset him
round, and he was in the midst. And when each gaped on him and
threatened to bite him, perceiving the art of the enemy, he said to
them all, "If ye have received power against me, I am ready to be
devoured by you: but if ye have been set on by daemons, delay not,
but withdraw, for I am a servant of Christ." When Antony said this,
they fled, pursued by his words as by a whip. Next after a few
days, as he was working--for he took care, too, to labour--some one
standing at the door pulled the plait that he was working. For he
was weaving baskets, which he used to give to those who came, in
return for what they brought him. And rising up, he saw a beast,