St. Anthony the Great

The Egyptian peasant who, hearing in church the words "If you would be perfect, sell what you have and give to the poor," walked into the desert and stayed for the next eighty years. His Life by Athanasius gave Christianity its first monastic biography and helped inspire a movement that filled the deserts of Egypt with hermits and cenobites — the seed of every later monastic rule.

In his solitude Anthony waged famous battles against demonic temptation, episodes that became some of the most depicted scenes in Western art. Yet he was no recluse by temperament: he emerged twice from the desert — once to encourage the martyrs during the persecution of Maximin, and once to defend the Nicene faith against Arianism in Alexandria.

He died at the age of 105, having asked that his burial place remain secret so that no cult of relics would distract from the interior life he had modeled. His influence on Benedict, Basil, and every subsequent monastic founder is immeasurable. He remains the father of all who seek God in silence and solitude.