When it is said
It is a prayer for any hour when dark thoughts crowd in and will not leave.
Anthony said it alone in the desert, at a time when he felt listless and his thoughts had grown very dark.
Where it comes from
Author by tradition
What the angel showed him
Anthony got up and went outside. There he saw a man who looked just like himself, sitting and plaiting rope. The man rose to pray, sat down to plait again, then stood to pray once more. It was an angel of the Lord, sent to set Anthony right and steady him. The angel told him, “Do this, and you will be saved.” Anthony was filled with joy and courage.
The sayings of the desert fathers, Antony 1, in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, vol. 65 (1858), col. 76
Where the story comes from
The stories and sayings of the desert monks of Egypt were first written down in the 400s. In the best-known Greek collection the elders stand in alphabetical order. Anthony comes first, and this story is the first saying in the whole book.
E. A. Wallis Budge, The Paradise of the Holy Fathers (1907), vol. 1, introduction; The sayings of the desert fathers, in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, vol. 65 (1858), col. 76
What the words mean
Saved, live or peace?
Anthony’s first words differ from one telling to another. In the Greek he wants to be saved. In the old Syriac telling, which the scholar E. A. Wallis Budge put into English in 1907, he says, “Lord, I wish to live,” and the angel answers, “do thou also do this and live.” In one English version of the Latin telling, he longs for peace and the angel promises him peace.
E. A. Wallis Budge, The Paradise of the Holy Fathers (1907), vol. 2, Book I, saying 131; The Latin Lives of the Fathers, Book V, 7.1, in English
The Scripture in it
Then he brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Greek
Κύριε, θέλω σωθῆναι, καὶ οὐκ ἐῶσί με οἱ λογισμοί·
τί ποιήσω ἐν τῇ θλίψει μου; πῶς σωθῶ;
From the sayings of the desert fathers, Antony 1, in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, vol. 65 (1858).