4 The story, to which allusion is here made, is given in the Vita Antonii of Athanasius. We are there told that six months after the death of his parents Antony, then a young man of eighteen, chanced to enter a church just as the gospel for the day was being read: and hearing the words, "If thou wilt be perfect," etc., he took them as addressed specially to himself, and at once proceeded to act upon them, selling, all that he had except a small portion which he reserved for his sister's maintenance. Shortly after he was struck by the words, "Take no thought for the morrow," which he heard in church, and acting upon this, made away with the little property which was left, committed his sister to the care of certain faithful virgins, and betook himself to the ascetic life.
5 S. Luke xiv. 12; S. Matt. xix. 21.
7 Ps. lxxvii. (lxxviii.) 34, 35; cvi. (cvii.) 19.
8 Moses. This Abbot is possibly a different person from the author of the first two Conferences, who had in his youth been a pupil of Antony; whereas the one here mentioned only took the monastic life out of fear of death on a charge of murder. He is mentioned again in Conferences VII. xxvi., X1X. xi., and some account of him is given in Sozomen H.E. VI. xxix.
9 Calamus, mentioned again in the institutes X. xxiv. (where see note), and cf. Conf. VII. xxvi.; XXIV. iv.
19 Ps. cxviii. (cxix.) 19; Ps. xxxviii. (xxxix.) 13.
22 Gen. v. 24 (LXX.); Heb. xi. 5; S. John xi. 26.
24 Numb. xi. 18; Exod. xvi. 3; Numb. xi. 5.
43 The mss. vary between visibilibus and invisibilibus.