Go and Sell That Thou Hast

Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. MATTHEW 19:21

Athanasius wrote only one biography, and it became one of the most influential books in Christian history. The Life of Antony was written soon after the old hermit’s death in 356, at the request of monks in other lands who wanted to know how he had lived. Athanasius had known him for years. He tells us in the preface that he had seen Antony many times and had been “his attendant for a long time, and poured water on his hands.” The book spread across the empire within a generation. Years later, in a garden in Milan, Augustine heard the story of two imperial officials who had read it and given up everything on the spot, and he could not get it out of his mind. The Life of Antony is the story of a man who took one sentence of Jesus at its word.

A plain man at home

Antony was an Egyptian, born to Christian parents of good family and considerable wealth in a village near the Nile. As a boy he would not go to school; he wanted, Athanasius says, to live a plain man at home, like Jacob. He went to church with his parents, listened to the readings, and kept in his heart what was profitable. When he was about eighteen or twenty, his parents died, leaving him with a young sister and a large estate.

Not six months later, walking to church, he was thinking about the apostles who left everything to follow Christ, and the believers in Acts who sold their possessions and laid the money at the apostles’ feet. He went in, and the Gospel being read was the story of the rich young ruler. Antony felt as though the words had been read on his account. He went straight out, gave his family’s land — three hundred fertile acres — to the villagers, sold everything else, and gave the money to the poor, keeping a little for his sister. Soon after, hearing in church the Lord’s command not to be anxious for the morrow, he gave that away too, entrusted his sister to a community of faithful virgins, and began a life of prayer and discipline.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. MATTHEW 6:34

Like the prudent bee

What followed was not a sudden leap into the desert. Antony began humbly, near his own village, learning from an old man who had lived a solitary life from his youth. Whenever he heard of a good man anywhere, Athanasius says, he went and sought him out “like the prudent bee”, gathering from each some provision for the way. He studied the graciousness of one, the prayerfulness of another, the gentleness, patience and love of others, and tried to join them all in himself.

Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. PROVERBS 27:17

He worked with his hands, because Scripture says that he who will not work should not eat, and gave part of what he earned to the needy. He prayed constantly. And he listened so carefully to the Scriptures read in church that, as Athanasius puts it, “his memory served him for books.” Antony never learned to read, yet he knew the Bible deeply, because he had heard it with his whole attention.

Daily beginning

One of the most striking things about Antony, as Athanasius describes him, is that he never thought he had arrived. He believed that progress in the Christian life “ought not to be measured by time, but by desire and fixity of purpose.” He gave no thought to the years behind him, but every day, as if he were just beginning, pressed on with fresh effort, repeating to himself Paul’s words about forgetting the things behind.

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. PHILIPPIANS 3:13–14

After years near his village and in the tombs, Antony crossed the Nile to a deserted fort in the mountains and shut himself in for nearly twenty years. When at last his friends broke down the door, he came out neither wasted nor fat, calm and full of grace, and many were drawn to follow him. Cells sprang up in the mountains, and the desert, Athanasius says, was filled with monks who had left their own people and “enrolled themselves for the citizenship in the heavens.”

For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. PHILIPPIANS 3:20

Reading Antony with care

Here the Protestant reader, and indeed any reader, must think carefully. Antony heard a command that Jesus gave to one particular rich young man and took it as a command to himself. Was he right? For him, surely yes; God plainly called him. But the Life of Antony, and the monastic movement it inspired, came in time to suggest that the life of renunciation was a higher kind of Christianity, and that those who married, worked in the world and raised families were settling for something less. The Reformers rightly protested against that two-tier picture. Scripture honours marriage, daily work and family life as callings from God, and the New Testament does not ask every believer to sell all his property.

Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled. HEBREWS 13:4

We should also notice, without judging a man in a distant age, that Antony placed his young sister in the care of others to pursue his calling. Athanasius tells us, with evident joy, that she grew old in the same devotion and led other women in it. But families today would rightly ask more questions.

What remains for us

And yet the challenge of Antony cannot be dismissed so easily. Most of us are not tempted to give away too much. We are tempted to hold on to everything, and to explain away every hard saying of Jesus about wealth. Antony heard the Gospel read and did what it said, immediately. Whatever our calling, that is the spirit we need. The question is not whether we must all live in the desert. It is whether there is anything we would refuse to give up if Christ asked for it.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? MARK 8:36

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read Matthew 19:16–26 and ask honestly what Jesus might be asking you to let go of. Write it down.

2. Antony listened so closely to Scripture that his memory served him for books. Choose a passage to learn by heart this month.

3. Like the prudent bee, seek out one mature Christian this week and ask them what they have learned about following Christ.

4. Measure your progress not by years but by desire. Begin tomorrow as if you were starting the Christian life afresh.

5. Give something away this week that costs you — money, time or a possession — quietly and to someone in need.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You called Antony through one sentence of the Gospel, and he rose and followed You.

Speak to me through Your Word, and give me the same readiness to obey without delay.

Loosen my grip on what I own; show me what to give, and to whom, and give me joy in giving it.

Whatever my calling, in the city or the desert, let me live as a citizen of heaven. Amen.