Section 02 — The Life by Athanasius
The Life of Antony (Vita Antonii) is the single source for almost everything known of Antony, and one of the most consequential books in Christian history. This section treats the work itself — its composition shortly after Antony’s death, its purpose and audience, the Greek text and Evagrius of Antioch’s Latin version, the case for its Athanasian authorship and broad historicity against older skepticism — and then its astonishing afterlife as the founding work of the hagiographical genre, the book that converted readers (Augustine among them) and carried Egyptian monasticism into the Latin West.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| the-vita-antonii.md | Flagship. The composition (c. 357), purpose, and audience of the Life; the Greek text [PG 26:835–976; SC 400] and Evagrius of Antioch’s Latin translation; the question of Athanasian authorship and the work’s historicity, defended against older skepticism. |
| the-life-as-literature-and-influence.md | The Life as the genre-founding hagiography; its role in Augustine’s conversion (Confessions VIII.6); and its rapid diffusion through the Latin West. |
How These Files Connect
The first file establishes what the Life is — its date, aims, text, and reliability — and so underwrites the source-critical caution that governs the whole collection (the events of Sections 01, 03, 04, and 07 are known chiefly through this book). The second traces what the Life did — how it founded a genre and remade Western Christianity. Together they explain why this single text bears so much weight in everything that follows.
See Also
- Section 05 — The Letters of Antony — the other primary witness, which complicates the Life’s portrait.
- Section 09 — Legacy and Reception — the modern scholarship on the Life and its art tradition.
- St. Athanasius — the author and his theological program.