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He was born near Heraclea in Upper Egypt. In 285, he sold all that he had, gave the proceeds to the poor, and withdrew into the desert. A number of other Christians heard of his holiness and went there to join him, forming what may have been the first Christian monastic community.

His biography was written by Athanasius of Alexandria and titled Life of St. Anthony the Great. Many stories are also told about him in various collections of sayings of the Desert Fathers. He instructed his followers to bury his body in an unmarked, secret grave, lest his body become an object of veneration. Probably he spoke only his native language Coptic, but his sayings were spread in a Greek translation. He himself left no writings.

Some of those stories concern the Temptation of St Anthony , or rather, the temptations; tales are told of demons who appeared to Anthony in the wilds on more than one occasion and attempted to lure him from his ascetic practices. These stories are perpetuated now mostly in paintings, where they give an opportunity for artists to depict their more lurid or bizarre fantasies. Many pictorial artists, from Hieronymus BoschHieronymus Bosch also Jeroen Bosch (c. 1450 August 1516) was a prolific Dutch painter of the 15th and 16th century. Many of his works depict sin and human moral failings; they contain complex, highly original, imaginative, and dense use of symbolic figure to Salvador DalíCarl Van Vechten Salvador Domenec Felip Jacint Dali Domenech ( May 11, 1904 January 23, 1989) was an important Spanish- Catalan painter, best known for his surrealist works. Dali's work is noted for its striking combination of bizarre dreamlike images wit, have depicted these incidents from the life of Anthony; in prose, the tale was retold and embellished by Gustave FlaubertGustave Flaubert ( December 12, 1821 Croisset, May 8, 1880) is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He was born in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, in the Haute-Normandie Region of France. Note: the French pronunciation of his name is roughly goo-STAHVE fl.

Not to be confused with Anthony of PaduaSaint Anthony of Padua venerated in Portugal as Anthony of Lisbon ( 1195 June 13, 1231) is a Catholic saint born in Lisbon as Fernando de Bulhoes, to a wealthy family. Life He received in baptism the name of Fernando. He became a Franciscan in 1221 taking (1195-1231).