Introduction
The Life of St. Antony by Athanasius was a very important book to the Christian Byzantines and was continuously read throughout the early Christian world. It was a biography that was also held up as a model of the ideal life in the Byzantine civilization. The author himself, St. Athanasius, was a man that would have preferred the monastic lifestyle, but was an important and influential man in the church and therefore, contrary to his wishes, had to live among the people. This colours his perspective and most likely makes him somewhat biased in the way that he describes St. Antony.
The appearance of St. Antony is rarely mentioned throughout the text which suggests that it is not significant to Athanasius when he writes it. The attitude toward the human body is that it is necessary on earth and necessary to care for it when needed, but it does not come near to the importance of the soul, spirit, and mind. Physical appearance in "The life of St. Antony", is not significant to Antony nor to Athanasius however, the topic of the body is brought up more, but only in the context of sinning through accepting the pleasures of the flesh and the pleasure of food because to listen to the body instead of the higher power of God, is to sin.
Who was St. Antony?
St. Antony was a Christian monk from Egypt, who gave up his wealth, position, ambition, and rejected the pleasures of the flesh in order to dedicate his life to asceticism, spirituality, and to God. As a young boy,