Javier Fuertes - Lack of understanding or demons’ seals? The animal image of Arians in Athanasius of Alexandria’s Life of Antony.

The author discusses the specific image of Arians in Life of Antony where Arians are mainly described in terms of senseless, and always appear related with both mules and demons. He analyzes all references to Arians within the work in order to explain their particular appearance and to determine its roots, focusing specially on the impressive vision of Antony in chapter 82 (VA 82: 6-13). He proposes two hypotheses. The first option would make the Arian image stemming from Athanasius. The bishop, in direct conflict with the heretics, considered them Devil’s supporters who, having lost the sentiments of humanity had became like wild beasts, cruel and lacking in reason, as he defends in other contemporary works (i.e., Hist. Arian. 33, 62, 64). Thus, Athanasius might have used the mule figure to represent Arians drawing on the idea of the pack-animal used in the Bible (Psalm 32: 9; 49: 20) as a metaphor to describe those who lack understanding. The second alternative would make the Arian image stemming from the idea of the disfigured soul of those who have succumbed to the demons and who unwittingly carry in their soul the image of the passions, conceived as animals, through which evil spirits seek to alter the soul. This notion, present in Clement of Alexandria (Stro. II, 20: 110-113), Origen (On First Prin. III, 3: 3) and Evagrius Ponticus (Keph. Gnos. Cent. V, 9, 11), places Arian appearance in the Life of Antony within the spiritual mood of Egyptian monasticism and would make it come from Antony himself.