The Temptation of St. Anthony

Maximilla. "He showered his gifts upon me. Moreover, no one loves him as I, nor is any other so well beloved by him!"

Priscilla. "Thou liest! I am the most beloved!"

Maximilla. "No: it is I!"

(They fight. Between their shoulders suddenly appears the head of a negro.)

Montanus (clad in a black mantle, clasped by two cross-bones):

"Peace, my doves! Incapable of terrestrial happiness, we have obtained the celestial plentitude of our union. After the age of the Father, the age of the Son; and I inaugurate the third, which is that of the Paraclete. His light descended upon me during those forty nights when the heavenly Jerusalem appeared shining in the firmament, above my house at Pepuzza.

"Ah, how ye cry out with anguish when the thongs of the scourge lacerate! how your suffering bodies submit to the ardor of my spiritual discipline! how ye languish with irrealizable longing! So strong has that desire become that it has enabled you to behold the invisible world; and ye can now perceive souls even with the eyes of the body!"

Anthony. (Makes a gesture of astonishment.)

Tertullian (who appears again, standing beside Montanus):

"Without doubt; for the soul has a body, and that which is bodiless has no existence."

Montanus. "In order to render it yet more subtle, I have instituted many mortifications, three Lents a year, and prayers to be uttered nightly by the mind only, keeping the mouth closed, lest breathing might tarnish thought. It is necessary to abstain from second marriages, or rather from all marriage! The Angels themselves have sinned with women!"

The Archontics (wearing cilices of hair):

"The Saviour said: 'I come to destroy the work of the Woman!'"

The Tatianites (wearing cilices of reed):

"She is the tree of evil. Our bodies are but garments of skin."

(And continuing to advance along the same side, Anthony meets: – )

The Valesians (extended upon the ground, with red wounds below their bellies, and blood saturating their tunics. They offer him a knife.)

"Do as Origen did and as we have done! Is it the pain that thou fearest, coward? Is it the love of thy flesh that restrains thee, hypocrite?"

(And while he watches them writhing upon their backs, in a pool of blood– )

The Cainites (wearing knotted vipers as fillets about their hair, pass by, vociferating in his ear): —

"Glory to Cain! Glory to Sodom! Glory be to Judas!

"Cain made the race of the strong; Sodom terrified the earth by her punishment, and it was by Judas that God saved the world! Yes! by Judas: without him there would have been no death and no redemption!"

(They disappear beneath the horde of the– )

Circumcelliones (all clad in the skins of wolves, crowned with thorns, and armed with maces of iron).

"Crush the fruit! befoul the spring! drown the child! Pillage the rich who are happy – who cat their fill! Beat the poor who envy the ass his saddle-cloth, the dog his meal, the bird his nest, – and who is wretched at knowing that others are not as miserable as himself.

"We, the Saints, poison, burn, massacre, that we may hasten the end of the world.

"Salvation may be obtained through martyrdom only. We give ourselves martyrdom. We tear the skin from our heads with pincers; we expose our members to the plough; we cast ourselves into the mouths of furnaces!

"Out upon baptism! out upon the Eucharist! out upon marriage! universal damnation!"

(Then throughout all the basilica there is a redoubling of fury.

The Audians shoot arrows against the Devil; the Collyridians throw blue cloths toward the roof; the Ascites prostrate themselves before a waterskin; the Marcionites baptise a dead man with oil. A woman, standing near Appelles, exhibits a round loaf within a bottle, in order the better to explain her idea. Another, standing in the midst of an assembly of Sampseans distributes, as a sacrament, the dust of her own sandals. Upon the rose-strewn bed of the Marcosians, two lovers embrace. The Circumcellionites slaughter one another; the Valesians utter the death-rattle; Bardesanes sings; Carpocras dances; Maximilla and Priscilla moan; and the false prophetess of Cappadocia, completely naked, leaning upon a lion, and brandishing three torches, shrieks the Terrible Invocation.

The columns of the temple sway to and fro like the trunks of trees in a tempest; the amulets suspended about the necks of the Heresiarchs seem to cross each other in lines of fire; the constellations in the chapels palpitate; and the walls recoil with the ebb and flow of the crowd, in which each head is a wave that leaps and roars.

Nevertheless, from the midst of the clamor arises the sound of a song, in which the name of Jesus is often repeated, accompanied by bursts of laughter.

The singers belong to the rabble of the people; they all keep time to the song by clapping their hands. In their midst stands– )

Artus (in a deacon's vestments):

"The fools who declaim against me pretend to explain the absurd; and in order to confound them utterly, I have composed ditties so droll that they are learned by heart in all the mills, in the taverns and along the ports.

"No! a thousand times no! – the Son is not coeternal with the Father, nor of the same substance! Otherwise he would not have said: 'Father, remove this chalice from me! Why dost thou call me good? God alone is good! I go to my God, to your God!' – and many other things testifying to his character of creature. The fact is further demonstrated for us by all his names: – lamb, shepherd, fountain, wisdom, son-of-man, prophet; the way, the corner-stone!"

Sabelliusés. "I hold that both are identical."

Arius. "The Council of Antioch has decided the contrary."

Anthony. "Then what is the Word?.. What was Jesus?"

The Valentinians. "He was the husband of Acharamoth repentant!"

The Sethianians. "He was Shem, the son of Noah!"

The Theodotians. "He was Melchisedech!"

The Merinthians. "He was only a man!"

The Apollinarists. "He assumed the appearance of one! He simulated the Passion!"

Marcel of Ancyra. "He was a development of the Father!"

Pope Calixtus. "Father and Son are but two modes of one God's manifestation!"

Methodius. "He was first in Adam, then in man!"

Cerinthus. "And He will rise again!"

Valentinus. "Impossible – his body being celestial!"

Paul of Samosata. "He became God only from the time of his baptism!"

Hermogenes. "He dwells in the sun!"

(And all the Heresiarchs form a circle about Anthony, who weeps, covering his face with his hands.)

A Jew (with a red beard, and spots of leprosy upon his shin, approaches close to Anthony, and, with a hideous sneer, exclaims):

"His soul was the soul of Esau! He suffered from the Bellephorentian sickness. Was not his mother, the seller of perfumes, seduced by a Roman soldier, one Pantherus?.. 13

Anthony (suddenly raising his head, looks at them a moment in silence; then advancing boldly upon them, exclaims):

"Doctors, magicians, bishops, and deacons, men and phantoms, away from me! begone! Ye are all lies!"

The Heresiarchs. "We have martyrs more martyrs than thine, prayers that are more difficult, outbursts of love more sublime, ecstasies as prolonged as thine are."

Anthony. "But ye have no revelation! no proofs!"

(They all at once brandish in the air their rolls of papyrus, tablets of wood, scrolls of leather, rolls of woven stuff bearing inscriptions; and elbowing; and pushing each other, they all shout to Anthony.)

The Cerinthians. "Behold the Gospel of the Hebrews!"

The Marcionites. "Behold the Gospel of the Lord!"

The Marcosians. "The Gospel of Eve!"

The Eucratites. "The Gospel of Thomas!"

The Cainites. "The Gospel of Judas!"

Basilides. "The Treatise upon the Destiny of the Soul!"

Manes. "The Prophecy of Barkouf!"

(Anthony struggles, breaks from them, escapes them; and in a shadowy corner perceives– )

The Aged Ebionites

(withered as mummies, their eyes dull and dim, their eyebrows white as frost.

In tremulous voices they exclaim: – )

"We have known him, we have seen him! We knew the Carpenter's Son! We were then the same age as he; we dwelt in the same street. He used to amuse himself by modelling little birds of mud; aided his father at his work without fear of the sharp tools, or selected for his mother the skeins of dyed wool. Then he made a voyage to Egypt, from whence he brought back wondrous secrets. We were at Jericho when he came to find the Eater of Locusts. They talked together in a low voice, so that no one could hear what was said. But it was from that time that his name began to be noised abroad in Galilee, and that men began to relate many fables regarding him."

(They reiterate, tremulously:)

"We knew him! we others, we knew him!"

Anthony. "Ah, speak on, speak! What was his face like?"

Tertullian. "His face was wild and repulsive; forasmuch as he had burthened himself with all the crimes, all the woes, all the deformities of mankind."

Anthony. "Oh! no, no! I imagine, on the contrary, that his entire person must have been glorious with a beauty greater than the beauty of man!"

Eusebius of Cæsarea. "There is indeed, at Paneades, propped up against the walls of a crumbling edifice surrounded by a wilderness of weeds and creeping plants, a certain statue of stone which, some say, was erected by the Woman healed of the issue of blood. But time has gnawed the face of the statue, and the rains have worn the inscription away."

(A woman steps forward from the group of the Carpocratians.)

Marcellina. "I was once a deaconess at Rome, in a little church, where I used to exhibit to the faithful, the silver images, of Saint Paul, Homer, Pythagoras and Jesus Christ.

"I have only kept that of Jesus."

(She half opens her mantle.)

"Dost thou desire it?"

A Voice. "He reappears himself when we call upon him! It is the hour! – come!"

(And Anthony feels a brutal hand seize him by the arm, and drag him away.

He mounts a stairway in complete darkness; and after having ascended many steps, he finds himself before a door.

Then the one who is leading him – (is it Hilarion? – he does not know) – whispers in the ear of another: "The Lord is about to come!" —and they are admitted into a chamber, with a very low ceiling, and without furniture.

The first object which attracts his attention is a long blood-colored chrysalis, with a human head surrounded by rays, and the word Knouphus inscribed all around it in Greek characters. It is placed upon the shaft of a column, which is in turn supported by a broad pedestal. Hanging upon the walls of the chamber are medallions of polished iron representing the heads of various animals: – the head of an ox, the head of a lion, the head of an eagle, the head of a dog, and the head of an ass – again!

Earthen lamps, suspended below these images, create a vacillating light. Through a hole in the wall, Anthony can see the moon shining far off upon the waves; he can even hear the feeble regular sound of lapping water; together with the heavy thud occasionally caused by the bumping of a ship's hull against the stones of the mole.

There are men crouching down, with their faces hidden by their mantles. From time to time they utter sounds resembling a smothered bark. There are women also, sleeping with their foreheads resting upon their arms, and their arms supported by their knees; they are so hidden by their garments as to resemble heaps of cloth piled up at intervals against the wall. Near them are half naked children, whose persons swarm with vermin. They watch with idiotic stare the burning of the lamps; and nothing is done: all are waiting for something.

They talk in undertones about family matters, or recommend to each other various remedies for their ailments. Some of them must embark at earliest daylight; the persecution is becoming too terrible to be endured. Nevertheless, the pagans are easily enough deceived: – "The fools imagine that we are really adoring Knouphus!"

But one of the brethren, feeling himself suddenly inspired, takes his place before the column, where a basket has already been placed, filled with fennel and aristolochia. On the top of the basket is placed a loaf.)

The Inspired Brother

(unrolling a placard covered with designs representing cylinders blending with and fitting into one another, commences to pray:)

"The ray of the Word descended upon the darknesses; and there arose a mighty cry, like unto the voice of Light."

All (swaying their bodies in unison, respond):

"Kyrie eleison!"

The Inspired Brother. "Then was Man created by the infamous God of Israel, aided by those who are these (pointing to the medallions) – Astophaios, Oraios, Sabaoth, Adonai, Eloi, Iao!

"And Man, hideous, feeble, formless and thoughtless, lay upon the slime of the earth."

All (in plaintive accents):

"Kyrie eleison!"

The Inspired Brother. "But Sophia, compassionating him, vivified him with a spark of her own soul.

"Then God, beholding Man so beautiful, waxed wroth; and imprisoned him within His own kingdom, forbidding him to touch the Tree of Knowledge.

"Again did the other succor him. She sent to him the Serpent, who, by many long subterfuges, made him disobey that law of hate.

"And Man, having tasted knowledge, understood celestial things."

All (raising their voices):

"Kyrie Eleison!"

The Inspired Brother. "But Iabdalaoth through vengeance cast down man into the world of matter, and the Serpent with him."

All (in a very low tone):

"Kyrie Eleison!"

(Then all hold their peace, and there is silence.

The odors of the port mingle with the smoke of the lamps in the warm air. The lamp-wicks crepitate; their flames are about to go out, long mosquitoes flit in rapid circlings about them. And Anthony groans in an agony of anguish, as with the feeling that a monstrosity is floating about him, as with the fear of a crime that is about to be accomplished.

But– )

The Inspired Brother (stamping his heel upon the floor, snapping his fingers, tossing his head wildly, suddenly chants to a furious rhythm, with accompaniment of cymbals and a shrill flute: – )

"Come! come! come! – issue from thy cavern!

"O swift one, who runneth without feet, captor who seizeth without hand!

"Sinuous as the rivers, orbicular as the sun, black, with spots of gold, like the firmament star-besprinkled! Like unto the intertwinings of the vine, and the circumvolutions of entrails!

"Unengendered! eater of earth! immortally young! unfailing perspicacious! honored at Epidaurus! Kindly to man! thou who didst heal King Ptolemy, and the warriors, of Moses, and Glaucus, son of Minos!

"Come! come! come! – issue from thy cavern!"

All (repeat):

"Come! come! come! – issue from thy cavern!"

(Nevertheless, nothing yet appears.)

"Why? What aileth him?"

(And they concert together, devise means.

An old man presents a clod of turf as an offering. Then something upheaves within the basket. The mass of verdure shakes; the flowers fall, and the head of a python appears.

It passes slowly around the edge of the loaf, like a circle moving around an immovable disk; – then it unfolds itself, lengthens out; it is enormous and of great weight. Lest it should touch the floor, the men uphold it against their breasts, the women support it upon their heads, the children hold it up at arms' length; and its tail, issuing through the hole in the wall, stretches away indefinitely to the bottom of the sea. Its coils double; they fill the chamber; they enclose Anthony.)

The Faithful (press their mouths against its skin, snatch from one another the loaf which it has bitten, and cry aloud: – )

"It is thou! it is thou!

"First raised up by Moses, broken by Ezechias, re-established by the Messiah. He drank thee in the waters of baptism; but thou didst leave him in the Garden of Olives; and then indeed he felt his own weakness!

"Writhing about the arms of the cross, and above his head, while casting thy slime upon the crown of thorns, thou didst behold him die! For thou art not Jesus, thou! – thou art the Word! thou art the Christ!"

(Anthony faints with horror, and falls prostrate in front of his hut upon the splinters of wood, where the torch that had slipped from his hand, is burning low.

The shock arouses him. Opening his eyes again, he perceives the Nile, brightly undulating under the moon, like a vast serpent winding over the sands; so that the hallucination returns upon him again; he has not left the company of the Ophites; they surround him, call him; he sees them carrying baggage, descending to the port. He embarks along with them.

An inappreciable time elapses.

Then the vaults of a prison environ him. Iron bars in front of him make black lines against a background of blue; and in the darkness beside him people are praying and weeping surrounded by others who exhort and console.

Without, there is a murmur like the deep humming of a vast crowd, and there is splendour as of a summer's day.

Shrill voices announce watermelons for sale, iced drinks, and cushions of woven grass to sit upon. From time to time there are bursts of applause. He hears the sound of footsteps above his head.

Suddenly a long roar is heard, mighty and cavernous as the roar of water in an aqueduct.

And he sees, directly opposite, behind the bars of another compartment across the arena a lion walking to and fro, then a line of sandals, bare legs, and purple fringes. Beyond are the vast circling wreaths of people, in symmetrical tiers, enlarging as they rise, from the lowest which hems in the arena to the uppermost above which masts rise to sustain a hyacinth-colored awning, suspended in air by ropes. Stairways radiating toward the centre, divide these huge circles of stone at regular intervals. The benches disappear under a host of spectators – knights, senators, soldiers, plebeians, vestals, and courtesans – in woollen hoods, in silken maniples, in fallow-colored tunics; together with aigrettes of precious stones, plumes of feathers, the fasces of lictors; and all this swarming multitude deafens and stupefies Anthony with its shoutings, its tumultuous fury, as of an enormous boiling vat. In the middle of the arena, a vase of incense smokes upon an altar.

Anthony thus knows that the people with him are Christians condemned to be thrown to the wild beasts. The men wear the red mantle of the pontiffs of Saturn; the women, the bandellettes of Ceres. Their friends divide among themselves shreds of their garments, and rings. To obtain access to the prison, they say, costs a great deal of money. But what matter! They will remain until it is all over.

Anthony notices among these consolers, a certain bald-headed man, in a black tunic: Anthony has seen that face somewhere before. The consoler discourses to them concerning the nothingness of this world, and the felicity of the Elect. Anthony feels within him a transport of celestial love; he longs for the opportunity to lay down his life for the Saviour – not knowing as yet whether he himself is to be numbered among the martyrs.

But all – except a certain Phrygian, with long hair, who stands with his arms uplifted – have a look of woe. One old man is sobbing upon a bench; a youth standing close by, with drooping head, abandons himself to a reverie of sorrow.

The Old Man had refused to pay the customary contribution before the statue of Minerva, erected at the angle of the cross-roads; and he gazes at his companions with a look that signifies: – )

"Ye ought to have succored me! Communities can sometimes so arrange matters as to insure their being left in peace. Some among ye also procured those letters which falsely allege that one has sacrificed to idols."

(He asks aloud: – )

"Was it not Petrus of Alexandria who laid down the rule concerning what should be done by those who have yielded to torture?"

(Then, to himself: – )

"Ah! how cruel this at my age! My infirmities make me so weak! Nevertheless, I might easily have lived until the coming winter, or longer!"

(The memory of his little garden makes him sad, and he gazes toward the altar.)

The Young Man (who disturbed the festival of Apollo by violence and blows, murmurs: – )

"Yet it would have been easy for me to have fled to the mountains!"

(One of the brothers answers: – )

"But the soldiers would have captured thee!"

The Young Man. "Oh! I would have done as Cyprian did – I would have returned, and the second time I would surely have had more force!"

(Then he thinks of the innumerable days that he might have lived, of all the joys that he might have known, but will never know; and he gazes toward the altar.

But– )

The Man in the Black Tunic (rushes to his side.)

"What scandal! What! Thou! a victim of God's own choice! And all these women here who are looking at thee! Nay, think what thou art doing! Moreover, remember that God sometimes vouchsafes to perform a miracle. Pionius numbed and made powerless the hands of his executioners; the blood of Polycarp extinguished the fire of the stake."

(Then he turns to the Old Man: – )

"Father, father! it behooves thee to edify us by thy death! By longer delaying it, thou wouldst doubtless commit some evil action that would lose thee the fruit of all thy good works. Remember, also, that the power of God is infinite; and it may come to pass that all the people will be converted by thy example."

(And in the great den opposite, the lions stride back and forth, ceaselessly, with a rapid continuous motion. The largest suddenly looks at Anthony and roars, and a vapour issues from his jaws.

The women are huddled against the men.)

The Consoler (goes from one to the other.)

"What would ye say, what wouldst thou say if thou wert to be burned with red-hot irons, if thou wert to be torn asunder by horses, if thou hadst been condemned to have thy body smeared with honey, and thus exposed to be devoured by flies! As it is, thou wilt only suffer the death of a hunter surprised by a beast in the woods."

(Anthony would prefer all those things to death by the fangs of the horrible wild beasts; he fancies already that he feels their teeth and their claws, that he hears his bones cracking between their jaws.

A keeper enters the dungeon; the martyrs tremble.

Only one remains impassable, the Phrygian, who prays standing apart from the rest. He has burned three temples; and he advances with arms uplifted, mouth open, face turned toward heaven, seeing nothing around him, like a somnambulist.)

The Consoler (shouts). "Back! back! lest the spirit of Montanus might come upon you."

All (recoil from the Phrygian, and vociferate)

"Damnation to the Montanist!"

(They insult him, spit upon him, excite each other to beat him.

The rearing lions bite each other's manes;)

The People "To the beasts with them, to the beasts."

The Martyrs burst into sobs, and embrace each other passionately. A cup of narcotic wine is offered them. It is passed from hand to hand, quickly.

Another keeper, standing at the door of the den, awaits the signal. The den opens; a lion comes out.

He crosses the arena with great oblique strides. Other lions follow in file after him; then a bear, three panthers, and some leopards. They scatter through the arena like a flock in a meadow.

The crack of a whip resounds. The Christians stagger forward; and their brethren push them, that it may be over the sooner.

Anthony closes his eyes.