continence, and the coarseness of his food. But, unable to bear
longer the crowd which assembled round Antony, for various diseases
and attacks of devils, he said that it was not consistent to endure
in the desert the crowds of cities, but that he must rather begin
where Antony had begun. Antony, as a valiant man, was receiving the
reward of victory: he had not yet begun to serve as a soldier. He
returned, therefore, with certain monks to his own country; and,
finding his parents dead, gave away part of his substance to the
brethren, part to the poor, and kept nothing at all for himself,
fearing what is told in the Acts of the Apostles, the example or
punishment, of Ananias and Sapphira; and especially mindful of the
Lord's saying--"He that leaveth not all that he hath, he cannot be
my disciple."

He was then fifteen years old. So, naked, but armed in Christ, he
entered the desert, which, seven miles from Maiuma, the port of
Gaza, turns away to the left of those who go along the shore towards
Egypt. And though the place was blood-stained by robbers, and his
relations and friends warned him of the imminent danger, he despised
death, in order to escape death. All wondered at his spirit,
wondered at his youth. Save that a certain fire of the bosom and
spark of faith glittered in his eyes, his cheeks were smooth, his
body delicate and thin, unable to bear any injury, and liable to be
overcome by even a light chill or heat.

So, covering his limbs only with a sackcloth, and having a cloak of
skin, which the blessed Antony had given him at starting, and a
rustic cloak, between the sea and the swamp, he enjoyed the vast and
terrible solitude, feeding on only fifteen figs after the setting of
the sun; and because the region was, as has been said above, of ill-