Section 16

One day Antony came out because all the monks had gathered around him and asked to hear a word from him. Speaking to them in the Egyptian language, he said:

“The Scriptures are sufficient for our instruction. Yet it is also good for us to encourage one another in the faith and stir one another up through words. So you, as children, bring to your father what you know; and I, because I am older, will share with you what I know and what experience has taught me.

“Above all, let this be the common purpose of us all: once we have begun, we must not give way; we must not lose heart in our labors or say, ‘We have already spent a long time in the ascetic life.’ Rather, as though beginning every day, let us continually increase our zeal.

“The whole span of human life is very short when measured against the ages to come. All our time is nothing in comparison with eternal life. In the world, everything is sold for its proper price, and a person exchanges something for something of equal value. But the promise of eternal life is purchased, so to speak, for very little. For it is written: ‘The days of our years are seventy years, or eighty if there is strength; and what is beyond these is labor and sorrow.’

“So even if we live the full eighty years—or a hundred years—in ascetic discipline, we will not reign for only a hundred years. In exchange for those hundred years, we shall reign forever and ever. Though we struggle on earth, we will not receive our inheritance on earth; the promises are in heaven. And after laying aside this corruptible body, we shall receive it back incorruptible.