Not Against Flesh and Blood

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. EPHESIANS 6:11

No one can read The Life of Antony without noticing the demons. They are everywhere. They whisper thoughts, take the shapes of women and wild beasts, beat Antony until he lies senseless, fill his cell with noise, pretend to be angels, and knock at his door. For many modern readers this is the hardest part of the book. And yet Athanasius believed that it described something real, and so did the New Testament he loved. The question is not whether there is a spiritual battle, but how to fight it well — and, just as important, how to tell the voice of God from the voices that only imitate it. Of all the gifts Athanasius praises in Antony, the one he returns to most often is discernment, and in Antony’s long address to the monks the two lessons run together.

The battle begins in the mind

It is worth noticing where Antony’s battle began. Not with apparitions, but with thoughts. When he first gave himself to God, Athanasius says, the devil tried to turn him back by whispering to him the memory of his wealth, his care for his sister, the claims of family, the love of money and glory, the pleasures of the table, and at last the difficulty and length of the road ahead. He raised in his mind, Athanasius says, a great dust of debate. Then came the temptations of the flesh, night and day, and Antony answered them with prayer, fasting and faith.

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. 2 CORINTHIANS 10:5

That is where most of our battles are fought too. Few of us will ever see a demon. All of us know the voice that says, Think of what you are giving up; think how hard this is; think how long it will take. Antony’s first victory was simply that he kept going. And Athanasius is clear whose victory it was. This, he says, “was the Saviour’s work in Antony”. The Lord who took flesh for our sake gave the body victory over the devil, so that everyone who truly fights can say, with Paul, not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

In the tombs

The most famous scene comes when Antony shuts himself in a tomb some distance from his village. One night, Athanasius tells us, a multitude of demons beat him so severely that he lay on the ground speechless, and a friend who came with bread found him apparently dead and carried him to the village church. At midnight Antony revived and asked to be carried back. Lying on the floor of the tomb, too weak to stand, he called out: “Here am I, Antony; I flee not from your stripes.” Nothing, he said, would separate him from the love of Christ.

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. ROMANS 8:37

Then, Athanasius says, a ray of light came down, the demons vanished and the pain ceased. Antony asked the Lord where He had been. The answer came: “Antony, I was here, but I waited to see thy fight.” Whatever we make of the details, the truth in it is one every tried believer needs to hear. The Lord is present in the struggle even when He seems absent, and He is watching over the fight.

The weakness of the enemy

Antony’s address has one great theme: the enemy is weak. Since the Lord came, he says, “the enemy is fallen and his powers weakened.” The demons make noise, take terrifying shapes and threaten, but their very displays prove their weakness. If they had real power, one would be enough; they would not need crowds and costumes. They are, he says, like actors on a stage frightening children. The devil could not touch Job’s cattle without God’s permission; he could not even enter the swine without asking the Lord. Their apparitions, Antony tells the monks, “are nothing and quickly disappear”, especially when met with faith and the sign of the cross.

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. JAMES 4:7

What, then, are the weapons? Antony’s answer is not exotic. Prayer. Fasting. The Psalms, which he sang against every attack. The name of Christ. Watchfulness over the heart. And above all a holy life: “a good life and faith in God is a great weapon.” The demons, he says, fear the fasting, the prayers, the meekness, the quietness, the contempt of money and vainglory, the humility, the love of the poor, and chief of all, piety towards Christ.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist stedfast in the faith. 1 PETER 5:8–9

This is deeply practical. The best defence against the enemy is not an obsession with him but a life full of Christ. The demons, Antony warns, adapt their attacks to the state of mind in which they find us. If they find us fearful and faint-hearted, they increase our fear. If they find us rejoicing in the Lord and mindful of Him, they are turned back.

Not every voice is God’s

But the enemy does not always come looking like an enemy. Sometimes, Antony says, the demons take the appearance of monks and speak like holy men. They quote Scripture, repeat the words of the readings like an echo, wake the brethren for prayer, and urge them to fast. They even praise a monk’s discipline and call him blessed.

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 1 JOHN 4:1

Why would the enemy urge a man to pray and fast? Antony’s answer is shrewd. Not for the sake of piety or truth, but to drive the simple to excess and then to despair — to make the life of discipline seem an intolerable burden, so that they give it up altogether. He tells of a time when he was fasting and a figure dressed as a monk came to him with loaves and said, Eat, and cease from your labours; you are a man and may fall sick. Antony saw through it and rose to pray.

And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. 2 CORINTHIANS 11:14

We tend to assume that anything which sounds religious must come from God. Antony knew better. A voice that pushes us towards spiritual pride, or towards excess that ends in collapse, or towards trusting our own experiences more than the Word of God, is not to be trusted merely because it uses holy words. Even when the demons spoke truly, he points out, the Lord silenced them, so that we might learn never to take our teaching from them.

The mark of the holy

How then can the difference be told? When a holy presence comes, Antony says, it comes quietly and gently. “The vision of the holy ones is not fraught with distraction.” Joy, gladness and courage rise in the soul; the thoughts remain calm. And if there is fear at first, it is soon taken away, as the angel said to Zacharias, to Mary, to the shepherds and to the women at the tomb: Fear not. The coming of evil, by contrast, is full of confusion, noise and disturbance, and from it come fear, dejection, sloth, grief and at last the desire of evil things. So Antony gives the monks a rule: “joy and a settled state of soul show the holiness of him who is present.” And the reverse: “whenever the soul remains fearful there is a presence of the enemies.”

For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints. 1 CORINTHIANS 14:33

There is real wisdom here. The voice that accuses without hope, that fills us with panic, that drives us into frantic activity or paralysed despair, is not the voice of the Good Shepherd. His voice may convict us deeply, but it always leads towards peace.

Antony adds a piece of plain advice. When anything appears or presses upon you, do not collapse in fear, but “first boldly ask, Who art thou? And from whence comest thou?” For us the application is seldom about apparitions. It is about the thoughts, impulses and teachings that come to us. Before we act on a strong feeling, or follow a persuasive voice, or accept a new teaching, we should stop and ask: Where does this come from? Where is it leading? Does it agree with the Word of God?

To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. ISAIAH 8:20

Curiosity is not holiness

Antony also warns against a fascination with the future. The demons, he says, sometimes seem to predict things, such as the arrival of travellers or the rising of the Nile. But they are only running ahead with what they have already seen, like a fast runner outpacing a slow one. And even if the knowledge were true, what use would it be? “For none of us is judged for what he knows not,” he says. What we shall be judged on is “whether he have kept the faith and truly observed the commandments.”

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law. DEUTERONOMY 29:29

Many believers today are drawn to the promise of hidden knowledge — predictions, special revelations, secret keys to Scripture. Antony’s counsel still stands. Do not pray to know the future. Pray to be faithful in the present.

Reading the demons with discernment

A careful reader must hold several things together. The Life of Antony is full of stories that should be read with discernment rather than simple credulity: visions of beasts, voices, souls hindered in the air, and a demon with the legs of an ass. Some of these may be the honest reports of a man worn by solitude and fasting; some may have grown in the telling before Athanasius wrote them down. One image, in which the spirit of lust appears as a black boy, reflects a symbolism of darkness that later ages turned to ugly and cruel uses, and it should be left behind. We are not bound to believe every detail, and we should not model our spiritual lives on a hunt for apparitions.

Nor can Antony’s test of peace and joy stand alone. Feelings can mislead; a person may feel great calm about a sinful decision and great distress about a right one. The New Testament’s first test of spirits is doctrinal. Antony would have agreed — he fought the Arians because their teaching denied the Son — but his emotional tests belong under the rule of Scripture, not above it.

Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. 1 JOHN 4:2

Yet we should not be so modern that we dismiss what Scripture plainly teaches. There is an enemy. He does tempt, accuse and deceive. And Christ has defeated him. Antony’s great message is not that demons are everywhere, but that Christ is stronger, and that a believer who clings to Him and stays under His Word need not be afraid.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Identify the great dust of debate the enemy raises in your mind when you try to follow Christ. Answer it with a Scripture you can say aloud.

2. When you feel God is absent in a struggle, remember the words, I was here, and I waited to see thy fight. Keep going.

3. Choose one psalm to pray whenever you are tempted this week, as Antony sang the Psalms against his attackers.

4. Think of a religious impulse you have felt recently. Ask of it: Who art thou? Where does it lead — towards humility and peace, or towards pride, excess or despair?

5. If you have been drawn to predictions or secret knowledge, lay that curiosity down and pray instead for faithfulness today.

6. Read sections 5 to 10 and 16 to 43 of The Life of Antony and note every weapon, and every test of spirits, that Antony gives.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You came into the world and broke the power of the enemy; he is fallen, and his strength is gone.

When I am tempted, bring Your Word to my mind; when I am afraid, show me how weak he is and how strong You are.

Many voices speak to me, and not all of them are Yours, even when they use Your words; give me the gift of discernment, and keep me under Your Word, so that I do not trust my feelings above Your truth.

Whatever the fight, let me say with Your servant, nothing shall separate me from Your love. Amen.