Anthony’s Book: 16

The Letters of Saint Anthony

When questioned by a traveling philosopher on his lack of reading material Anthony is said to have replied, “My book is the nature of created things, and as often as I have a mind to read the words of God, it is at my hand.” This answer has given rise to this investigation. In digging for clarification on what Anthony could have meant by the “nature” of created things another source needs to be considered, The Letters of Anthony.

In The Life of Saint Anthony, Athanasius states that as a youth Anthony “could not endure to learn letters,” giving the impression that our desert solitaire was illiterate. The impression many have of Anthony is that he was an uneducated, rustic and, we might even say, fundamentalist peasant that headed into the desert to fight with demons. Athanasius also informs us that as a young man Anthony listened intently and memorizing what he heard so that his memory “served him for books.”

Two questions quickly come to mind before immersing ourselves into gleaning what we can from Anthony’s writings. Are these letters for real? And, I thought Anthony was illiterate, how could he be writing letters?

Let’s begin with, I thought Anthony was illiterate. I recall reading a so-called biblical scholar a while back who made the claim that the Gospels could not have been written by the original disciples of Christ because they were illiterate. How did he know that they were illiterate? Well simple, they were fishermen, and that meant that they would not have been among the educated class of people. Misconceptions and assumptions abound. Matthew was a tax collector; likely he had some knowledge of reading. Mark was Peter’s assistant and likely served as a scribe. Luke was a doctor and therefore somewhat educated I take it. Now John, okay, he was a commercial fisherman, but that doesn’t mean that he could not author a book. If he was illiterate then he likely wrote his Gospel and epistles the old-fashioned way, dictation. That was the job of the scribes mentioned so often in the gospels, and that is how most writing was done back in the day.

But wait, there’s more. Samuel Rubenson, in his book, The Letters of St. Anthony, points out that while Anthony may not have been literate in Greek, and thus considered “illiterate” by many, he would have likely been literate in the Coptic language. (p. 98) In a world where people that could not speak Greek were considered barbarians, people who could not read Greek were considered illiterate as well. After studying the letters, which we have portions in Greek, Syriac, Latin, Arabic, as well as Coptic, Rubenson is convinced that the letters show signs of having been translated from Coptic, Anthony’s first language. By the way, there were too many books in the desert, and too many libraries within the monasteries to assume that the Coptic monks were truly illiterate. No doubt many monks came from simple peasant stock, but a large portion came from wealthy families, which is Anthony’s past as described by Athanasius.  

Could Anthony have written these seven letters? Of course, he could have. He could have penned them himself in Coptic, or have written them the old-fashioned way, by dictation. But did he? It was not unheard of, and all too common, for people to associate the names of famous and respected people of the past with later writings. For some, it gave their writings a little boost, and as their main concern was popularizing an idea rather than their own name, such an association would promote their work. Not to mention that some writings were of unknown authorship, and so the ancient readers gave their best guess on who the author might be. The Greek philosopher Plato is famous for writing Dialogues, and along with the accepted dialogues, there are several dialogues attributed to Plato that most researchers do not believe are actually his. Another example: for centuries it was believed that the writings, The Divine Names and Celestial Hierarchy, were written by Dionisius the Areopagite, one of the Apostle Paul’s converts mentioned in Acts 17, but now that author is referred to as Pseudo-Dionisius. The name of the actual writer is unknown, but the works are considered classics of Christian mysticism. A little hint, Dionisius lived in the first century and there are no references or mention of the writings until the 5^th and 6^th centuries.

So, back to the desert sands. How can we authenticate these seven letters? How do we know they came from the hand of our fearless monk, or at least from his dictation? We look for the earliest copies, traces, early quotations, and references to the letters. If no one has mentioned these letters for four hundred years or so, we might have to refer to them as the Letters of Pseudo-Anthony.

But, as luck would have it, about thirty years after Anthony’s death the ancient biblical scholar Jerome mentioned in his writings that Anthony had written seven letters, and by the way, he also pointed out that they were originally written in Coptic. (Rubenson, p. 22) Jerome is a considerably reliable source, and for those taking the highroad of skepticism, while it’s true these might be seven different letters, and we can spend pages digging and searching to demonstrate the truth or falsity of the claim, Rubenson has taken the time to do just that. His conclusion appears to justify the claim that Anthony is the actual author, my claim is it its close enough. Even if Anthony is not the actual author, the letters do appear to, in a word, have been postmarked from the Egyptian desert from the same time period as Anthony. They are associated with him, and the content of the letters, the theology that is expressed within them, does ring soundly with the day and age of writing.

So now we can begin to unravel Anthony’s “nature” of created things.

If you wish to dig deeper into the background and authentication of the Letters of Anthony, I’d suggest Samuel Rubenson’s book, The Letters of St. Anthony: Origenist Theology, Monastic Tradition and the Making of a Saint, (ISBN 91-7966-121-1). Note: This book does not actually contain copies of the Letters.