Talk:Anthony the Great

Symbols

Can anyone explain the symbolism/association of St Anthony with the bell, or with the rooster? I understand that his association with pigs/swine is due to the practice then of appliying pork fat to skin ailments. Since he was known for healings of various skin disease, medieval artists depicted him with pigs. Can anyone explain the rooster or the bell?

Link

yes i agree with the one below me. he noes wat he is tlkin about. united sttes roxs. lol :P

all of this information is fake. we can all agree to that. lol. well i mean miost of it

I do not think that the second link "a strong critique of St. Anthony the Great" is worth including. It is not a strong critique, it is a silly schoolboy howl, and isn't worth reading.

I suggest removing it. I will do so myself, if there are no objections.

Nitangae

// Well, I think the strong critique is worthy and put it back. Yes it's a rant, but still has many relevant quotes and information. Someone ought to incorporate some of that into the article itself.

-yse

// I think the extent to which one should refer to the silly rant (and what information is it providing that is not in the original book?) is say that "some aspects of the 'Life of St. Anthony' might shock modern readers." People who read books (as opposed to mining them for shockers) might be aware that this is generally the case with works written before our era.

I expect that there are scholarly sources that refer to the less pleasant elements of the Desert Fathers. One might use them.

/// Also, let us remember that the phrase "strong critique" would suggest a logical, developed discussion of a work's flaws. Surely you don't consider that to be true of the nonsense on the webpage? For instance, Was the idiot who wrote it not aware that people had different attitudes concerning wet-dreams during that period? I have left the link, but changed the title to "A rant concerning the Life of St. Anthony by Athanaeus - contains some useful quotations" which is a better description of the link. Feel free to edit it, but I put my foot down against "strong critique", since, very simply, it isn't.

Nitangae

//// Yes, strong critique is wrong, but other suggestions are welcome as well. "Different attitudes"? Wikipedia is not opinion-based, the last I checked.

-yse

//// It appears that Stbalbach has removed the link with what I called the "rant." I agree with stbalbach's actions (I had done so myself once before), but perhaps yse would like an explanation?

I am glad, yse, that we have avoided so far flaming each other. I hope you understand that my objection is not to the content of the blog, but to the form of the discussion. Wikipedia is not opinion based, but neither was my objection. I simply don't think that a blog called "the Life of St. Hitler, patron of loonies and nutters" enlightens. There are plenty of critical feminist Catholic scholars, for instance, who might have an extensive knowledge of the Life of St. Anthony and be critical of the text, but who could express their difficulties in a more constructive way.

If that link is restored, it is also important to remember that the blog does not discuss (or rant against) St. Anthony. It is dealing with the "Life of St. Anthony" by Athanaios.

Nitangae

The "Life of St. Anthony" was written by Athanasios, you keep forgetting the "s" in there, Nitangae, which I'm sure is just a spelling error on your part. I also agree with you on your previous remarks concerning the link.

128.146.218.227 (talk) 16:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)West

POV article

yed i agree with the one below me :P

This article is embarassingly POV and entirely against the spirit of Wikipeida.

"The Lord drove away all the wild beasts from this place, for his sake."

It's possible to write a history article about Christians that is neutral. This article is not it.

--Stbalbach 3 July 2005 00:47 (UTC)

// I suggest that much of that information is worth keeping ( or reviving, since the article reverted) but that the source of these traditions should be clearly indicated. Thus, "according to Biblious, the Lord Drove away the Wild Beasts from this place."

St. Anthony the historical figure is certainly important, but so is the tradition of St. Anthony. If we indicate the sources, we will avoid most of the POV.

/// I have, for a start, revived the link referred to below, but have given it a title "A hagiographic account of the life of St. Anthony." I think that avoids any POV problems? Again, I am working on the assumption that the tradition of St. Anthony is as important as the historical figure.

Nitangae

It would be more accurate to say St. Antony of Egypt is venerated in the Anglican Communion rather than "Anglicanism". All others are referred to as "churches", not "isms".

Tikhon Tikhon1925 (talk) 20:57, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Copright violation

It looks like Afanous added large sections of copyrighted material in January 05 from this source. No one caught it at the time and there has since been a lot of new material added to it. The CopticChurch source material is highly POV, religious dogma. I'm not sure what else to do but revert to the version pre Afanous in order to remove the copyright material and POV problems. Stbalbach 3 July 2005 01:06 (UTC)

RE: http://www.copticchurch.net/classes/synex.php?sa=1&month=5&day=22&btn=View

No, this is from the official Coptic Orthodox Synaxarium (Book of Saints). It has always been in the public domain.

The Coptic Church is not a neutral historical source, it's modern hagiography, it's very POV. This is a NPOV Encyclopedia, not a religious encyclopedia. Stbalbach 19:35, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

This source most entirely uses exerps from the "Life of Saint Anthony", I don't see what the problem is. Why would it be ok to use information from Catholic websites and not from the Coptic ones?

128.146.218.142 (talk) 16:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)West

Catholic Encyclopedia

I have added a link to the Catholic Encyclopedia. Some of the information there (and the sources provided by the link) might be useful when it comes to revising the article. Of course, it is not sufficient in and of itself.

Nitangae

Mergeing

As part of the maintance collaboration I merged Antony the Abbot into this page. But all the info was already here so. . .I just put a redirect. --Banana04131 17:24, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

First christian monastery

The first christian monastery is founded by Pachomios, ca. in 320/25 at Tabennisi, Egypt - see my article "Pachomios" in german wikipedia. Anthony was not a founder of monasteries. He was a solitary dweller in the desert! Sincerely, Claus Peter

Agreed! Have been reversing edits to the contrary for a long time, its epidemic across many articles that Anthopny is called the founder of monasticism, he is not. Anthony was the inspiration for Pachomios, but Anthony never lived in one, never founded one. Monasticism is by definition living in community, Anthony lived alone. --Stbalbach 19:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Did Anthony really lived for 105 years (anon).

105 is within range for humans and there are fairly good records of his life so there is no factual reason to doubt it. --Stbalbach 06:03, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Deleted external links

The editor who deleted external links at this article has made similar deletions at many other articles, including links to on-line text of many Early Christian writers. Discussion of this behavior, which would have been routinely reverted as vandalism if it were from an anonymous IP, may be found at Talk:Papias. --Wetman 18:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

NO! Monasticism is not by definition a communial practice. It is just simply a religious form of ascetism. Cenobites (sp) are monks that take moasticism to a communal level, living in monistaries such as the four major ones found at Scetis (Wadi al-Natrun). It is correct that Anthony was not the founder of monasticism though, only the first monastic to venture out into the desert as clearly evildent within both the Life of Anthony (not a crediable historical biography) and the Sayings of the Desert Fathers.

---

Monasticism is indeed not exclusively a communal pursuit. The foundations of monasticism were in fact decidedly centered on anchorite hermits. Though there is some biographical information to be gleaned from the Life. As it was written by someone apparently close and intimate with Antony and is the sole source of information on him outside his own seven letters and a few references in later writings and letters. This whole article looks like a sloppy book report.--Johnrox 04:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

High amount of misinformation

There are in fact writings of Antony that survive to this day. Jerome in 392 “the monk Antony…sent seven letters, apostolic in sense and style, in the Egyptian language (Coptic) to various monasteries, which have been translated into Greek and among which the letter to Arsinoites is outstanding (Jerome De. Viris Illustribus Chapter 88). These extant letters survive in Latin, Greek, Arabic, Georgian and Syriac as well as several Coptic fragments. The entire article is simply a book report on The Life of Antony, and Hagiography is not the best historical source. They are a mix of mythology and hero building, with occasional bits of history. This may be a religious topic, but there is no reason not to approach it in a scholarly fashion. There is also a fair bit of disagreement on the actual authorship of the Life of Antony, presented in Bernadette McNary-Zak in The Letters of Asceticism in Fourth Century Egypt and more notably S. Rubenson in The Letters of St. Antony : monasticism and the making of a saint. I can’t believe the latter is referred to in the further reading and the article states “He himself left no writings.”--Johnrox 04:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I will edit this into something more closely resembling scholarship as soon as my real work is done.--Johnrox 04:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

That would be fantastic. This article a year or so ago was almost entirely a cut and paste hagiography from a Coptic website. I re-wrote his life history but some hagiography bits remain, since it's based on The Life. A scholarly/historian approach is greatly needed, discussion of sources, historiography etc.. hope you can find the time anything would help. -- Stbalbach 05:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there really a problem?

This is another of those articles where no clean-up is required, and is much better than many you will find at random in wikipedia.

I rather doubt if it possible to write an entirely npov article about something like a saint. If like me you do not believe in miracles, then go to an article that discusses the issue by itself. It would be extranaeous to introduce such an argument in an article like this. Chasnor15 (talk) 21:56, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the article is fine. I provided one of the only two requested references, and did a small bit of cleaning, so I have taken the tag down. Carl.bunderson (talk) 18:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

• It's a good thing that he only lived to be 105 years old... Obviously, some factors of human life have declined considerably since that time... Stevenmitchell (talk) 16:18, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Redirect

I dont understand why antonios is redirected to Anthony the Great. I happen to have this name and too and I dont see any association with Anthony the Great. It would make more sense to redirect to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_%28given_name%29 in my opinion. 78.86.156.37 (talk) 10:55, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, we could redirect Saint Antonios to this article. The "given name" disambiguation page should link to here. Also, with external links, you can use two brackets like this. ~ Troy 19:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I still think we should link at least St Antonios to this article, but on second thought, "Antonios" should probably just link to Anthony. ~ Troy 19:09, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Mild contradiction about Father/Founder of Monasticism

Early in this article, the third pargraph in the Life section explains that The appellation "Father of Monasticism" is misleading. Two sections later, the Founder of monasticism section does not make the clarification. Should the earlier paragraph be morphed into this later section, or should this later section be morphed into the earlier section? Hopewatchful (talk) 18:51, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I just looked over it, and the "founder of monasticism" section doesn't particularly seem to add anything to the article. I'd be fine just removing it. Carl.bunderson (talk) 05:26, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I see that User:Tom_harrison had made the change, here. So there's no need for me to do anything else about it. Hopewatchful (talk) 19:56, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Redirect Antonios

This redirect currently points here; there is a ship MV Antonios that also has a claim on this redirect. I don't see the name "Antonios" in the article currently. Is this a common name for this person or would it be reasonable to move the redirect to the ship? Thanks, --Rogerb67 (talk) 23:36, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Antonios is the Greek pronunciation of his name, and Arabic for that matter. So it does pertain to this article, so I would suggest keeping it with this article.

128.146.218.227 (talk) 17:12, 22 February 2010 (UTC)West

anchoritic vs. anchoretic

I think the former is actually the right spelling, but the latter is the name of a wikipedia article that redirects to Hermit. Probably someone should revert my spelling change and rename the page so it connects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.0.57.156 (talk) 09:56, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The Life and miracles of St. Anthony the Great by St. Athanasius, Bishop

Hi. I think that this life of St. Anthony would be great for inclusion here in the link section. Opinions? Here is the link.

http://catholicrevelations.com/category/saints/the-lives-of-the-holy-desert-fathers/the-life-of-st-anthony-the-great-of-egypt.html

Thank you.Humilityisfine (talk) 03:44, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that you are trying to add links to the website on lots of articles. It appears that you are here to promote that website. Per WP:EL, it is hard to identify content on the linked page that is an improvement on the article, so the link should not be added. I did not view the video on the home page, but the title ("2012 Extinction: Doomsday Prophecies Proved By Scientists!") suggests to me that the website may not satisfy our reliable source requirements. Each page on the website seems to have a footer that invites readers "to link to this site in order to save as many souls as possible", which is another indication that the links are to promote a point of view, rather than to help Wikipedia. Johnuniq (talk) 10:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me, if there are videos on another page, what has that got to do with the work in question. You should show direct errors instead of making up things. You didn't watch the video but it is wrong? POV is what I call that. And a page can have a notice that helps other webadmins or websiteowners to link to a site, what wiki rules are you reading, To wish others to save souls is against wiki rules? Where? We are dealing with a full biography of a the famous bishop Athanasius, you cannot see any addition to the article? Anyone else here see a error here? As I gather from the info, it is a christian website, and this is against wiki rules according to you? PeaceHumilityisfine (talk) 12:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)Humilityisfine (talk) 12:43, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

You did not address the central point, namely that you appear to be promoting a website by inserting links to it into many articles. Also, if the home page of the website is promoting the idea that "Doomsday Prophecies Proved By Scientists!", that site is not suitable for linking from normal articles. Johnuniq (talk) 00:34, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

When did he go to the desert?

This page says that St. Anthony went to the Desert after listening to a passage of St. Matthew, at 34. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (also the Encarta and the Spanish Wikipedia) say that he was 20 at the time of hearing that passage, that prompted him to an ascetic life near his village, and later, some 15 years afterwards (which would be more or less when he was 34 years old), he went deep into the desert. The Encyclopedia of Religion (edited by Mircea Eliade) says, in the article "Eremitism": "Anthony was early converted to asceticism and then retired to the desert at about age thirty-five", which suggests a lapse between him being an ascetic and later going to the desert. It will be good if someone keeping track of this page would clarify. Nazroon (talk) 03:09, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Day of Saint's celebration in Eastern Orthodox Church

In Eastern Orthodox church Saint Anthony is celebrated on the 17th of January. I was going to make the change myself but thought of putting in discussion first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 175.197.34.155 (talk) 13:20, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The commemoration is on January 17, check any menaion. --99.24.170.188 (talk) 23:47, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

• I've corrected this again. --Samuel J. Howard (talk) 21:40, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Request withdrawn. BlindMic (talk) 03:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

---

• Saint Anthony → Saint Anthony (disambiguation)
• Anthony the Great → Saint Anthony

– Saint Anthony of Egypt (currently titled Anthony the Great) is considerably more notable than any other saint sharing his name. If someone is browsing Wikipedia looking for the namesake of St. Anthony's fire or the Temptation of St. Anthony, they're going to search for "St. Anthony," hoping to find this article. Instead, they currently arrive at a confusing disambiguation page listing eight different people named St. Anthony, with likely no idea which one they're looking for. With this name change, that same search will take them exactly to what they were looking for with minimal confusion.

For reference, the article in Encyclopædia Britannica is titled "Saint Anthony of Egypt". It's also worth nothing that this proposal uses the same naming conventions as Saint Peter, an article with similar circumstances. BlindMic (talk) 16:16, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Primary usage case is far from clear. It seems to me "St. Anthony" is more commonly and popularly referenced to St. Anthony of Padua rather than St. Anthony of Egypt. Walrasiad (talk) 14:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Upon further consideration, it appears you may be right. In my brief research for this proposal I had found quite a few persuasive reasons for considering St. Anthony of Egypt the most notable person of that name (for example, being the primary entry for St. Anthony in the Catholic Encyclopedia), but looking into it again, I may have been premature in that assessment. Consequently, I am withdrawing this request. BlindMic (talk) 03:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support. Seems there are just far too many Saint Anthonys around to default to just the one. My name is Mercy11 (talk) 15:26, 7 February 2012 (UTC), and I approve this message.

Don't you mean "oppose" the move then? The requested move is proposing to make St. Anthony of Egypt the primary usage of "St. Anthony". Walrasiad (talk) 00:17, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Would those opposing the proposal compromise with a name change from "Anthony the Great" to "Anthony of Egypt"? I think that change is much less controversial, and "Anthony of Egypt" is by far the more common name. BlindMic (talk) 19:00, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I could agree to that. Walrasiad (talk) 19:19, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Just as a late note, it's true that St Anthony of Padua is nearly as notable, so: oppose; St Anthony has to be a dab page (but should mention these two more prominently than it does; and we have to keep a WP:NATURALDAB title here. That said, see below. — LlywelynII 04:01, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Name

St. Anthony the What?

In regard to changing the name of the article, I would point out that he is referred to by the Western churches as Anthony the Abbot.

You're confused. When you see things like "Anthony (356), Abbot" that's an ecclesiastical gloss on the same level with "confessor" and "martyr". It's not an actual epithet. "Anselm (1109), Bishop and Doctor" isn't "Anselm the Bishop" or "Doctor Anselm": he remains Anselm of Canterbury or simply St Anselm. — LlywelynII 04:07, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

He's most commonly known as Saint Anthony, so (regardless of how we WP:NATURALDAB the title) that's what the article should start with. Absolutely no one refers to him as "Anthony the Great" tout suite. The article should probably be moved to "Anthony of Egypt" per Google Ngram but it's debatable since Google Scholar gives a slight edge to "the Great". Six of one, half dozen t'other. "The Abbot" is a nonstarter, in violation of WP:USEENGLISH WP:COMMONNAMEs. — LlywelynII 04:01, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

We could use his Coptic name, though, at least for the translation bit. — LlywelynII 04:02, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Patron saint of Lost Things

Is this the Saint Anthony who is the Patron Saint of Lost Things, and who is believed to help people who have lost things? If so, this could go in the article. Vorbee (talk) 16:53, 25 May 2017 (UTC) Sorry, I have just done some research and found out that was the Saint Anthony who is commonly known as Saint Anthony of Padua, who was born in Lisbon in around about 1195. Sorry - mea culpa! Vorbee (talk) 16:57, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

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Article tone

Much of this article reads like a thinly veiled advertisement. I don't know this subject well, or I'd fix it myself, but it's subtly promotional all throughout. Although not particularly learned, Anthony was able to confound the Arians, When Saint Anthony felt that the day of his departure had approach, the section headers... it has some good information, but needs a complete rewrite. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:49, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

More like a WP:SD MinorProphet (talk) 00:59, 9 April 2019 (UTC)