Abba Antony and Faust

His first temptation experience we are told, happened because the devil “wished to cordon him off from his righteous intention” and so he paraded before Antonius a host of memories about what he was leaving behind: “the guardianship of his sister, the bonds of kinship… the manifold pleasures of food,” and the like. At first all of this raised “a great dust cloud of considerations” in Antonius’s mind. But his resolve stood firm. Next the devil “hurled foul thoughts” at him, but Antonius “overturned them through his prayers.” So the devil, “resorted to titillation,” but Antonius, “seeming to blush, fortified the body with faith.” So turning to more blatant sexual temptation the devil decided to “assume to form of a woman and to imitate her every gesture,” but Antonius “extinguished the fire of his opponent’s deception.” Back and forth they went, Antonius winning round after round until the devil “fled, cowering at the words and afraid even to approach the man.” Concerned that we understand whose power was behind these victories, Antonius’s biographer writes, “This was Antonius’s first contest against the devil – or, rather was in Antonius the success of the Savior.” Well it may have been “his first contest,” but it was far from his last. -Richard J Foster

How different is St. Antony from Goethe’s Faust! In heaven God gives Mephistopheles permission to test Faust, just as he did Job. But this Faust doubts the existence of Heaven or Hell and accepts Mephistopheles’ friendship as a test to the power of his own convictions about the nature of the world. He is willing to accept all the power and delight Mephistopheles has to offer without accepting the reality of the spiritual world he came from. Mephistopheles parades the same sort of temptations before Faust as the devil did before St. Antony. Faust fails, quickly overcome by the beauty of a woman, drunk on a vile elixir of lust. He damns his soul to eternal punishment, while costing the life of Gretchen and her brother. He watches from hell as Gretchen is escorted to heaven, completing his own personal hell.

It is sobering the battle to come as we draw near to God. It is only those “who believe he is and rewards those who earnestly seek him,” who can please him, who can overcome the enemy. In Invitation to a Journey, Mulholland talks about the Awakening, the Purgative, Illumitive and Unitive way.

Lord God, if in drawing to union with you I must pass through the dark night of the senses, and the dark night of the soul as saints have through ages past, Lord let it be. Though tears come to my eyes at the thought of not feeling your closeness—of sensing with Jesus on the cross your abandonment, still I will love you!