St. Anthony, born around 251 A.D. near Beni Suef, was orphaned in his early twenties and inherited a comfortable estate. Hearing the Gospel read in church, “if you want to be perfect, sell what you have and give to the poor,” he took it as spoken directly to him, gave everything away, and withdrew first to the edge of his village, then to an abandoned tomb, and finally deep into the desert near the Red Sea. There he endured years of demonic assault, described in the accounts as literal battles, visions of beasts, and violent temptation, emerging with a settled peace that drew disciples from across Egypt. Though he never intended to found an institution, the community that gathered around his example became the seed of Christian monasticism itself. St. Athanasius, who knew him personally, wrote his biography.
St. Paul of Thebes, some twenty years older than Saint Anthony and unknown to him for most of both their lives, had fled into the desert as a teenager during persecution and simply never left, living in total solitude for around seventy years, clothed only in woven palm leaves, fed daily by a raven that brought half a loaf of bread. Near the end of Saint Paul’s life, an angel revealed his existence to Saint Anthony, who had believed himself the desert’s first inhabitant. Saint Anthony found him, and that day the raven brought a whole loaf of bread instead of its usual half, enough to feed them both. On his return visit, sent to fetch a cloak as a gift, Saint Anthony arrived just after Saint Paul’s death. Unable to dig a grave alone, Saint Anthony was helped, tradition says, by two lions that scraped out the earth with their paws.
Iconography
Saint Anthony and Saint Paul are shown together, facing one another in monastic dress in a desert setting, with the raven overhead delivering its loaf of bread. Saint Anthony holds a Tau-shaped staff and a small bell, while Saint Paul is recognizable by his palm-fiber garment.