ANTHONY (_suddenly raising his head, looks at them a moment in silence; then advancing boldly upon them, exclaims_):
"Doctors, magicians, bishops, and deacons, men and phantoms, away from me! begone! Ye are all lies!"
THE HERESIARCHS. "We have martyrs more martyrs than thine, prayers that are more difficult, outbursts of love more sublime, ecstasies as prolonged as thine are."
ANTHONY. "But ye have no revelation! no proofs!"
(_They all at once brandish in the air their rolls of papyrus, tablets of wood, scrolls of leather, rolls of woven stuff bearing inscriptions; and elbowing; and pushing each other, they all shout to Anthony._)
THE CERINTHIANS. "Behold the Gospel of the Hebrews!"
THE MARCIONITES. "Behold the Gospel of the Lord!"
BASILIDES. "The Treatise upon the Destiny of the Soul!"
(_Anthony struggles, breaks from them, escapes them; and in a shadowy corner perceives_--)
(_withered as mummies, their eyes dull and dim, their eyebrows white as frost._
"We have known him, we have seen him! We knew the Carpenter's Son! We were then the same age as he; we dwelt in the same street. He used to amuse himself by modelling little birds of mud; aided his father at his work without fear of the sharp tools, or selected for his mother the skeins of dyed wool. Then he made a voyage to Egypt, from whence he brought back wondrous secrets. We were at Jericho when he came to find the Eater of Locusts. They talked together in a low voice, so that no one could hear what was said. But it was from that time that his name began to be noised abroad in Galilee, and that men began to relate many fables regarding him."
ANTHONY. "Ah, speak on, speak! What was his face like?"
TERTULLIAN. "His face was wild and repulsive; forasmuch as he had burthened himself with all the crimes, all the woes, all the deformities of mankind."
ANTHONY. "Oh! no, no! I imagine, on the contrary, that his entire person must have been glorious with a beauty greater than the beauty of man!"
EUSEBIUS OF CÆSAREA. "There is indeed, at Paneades, propped up against the walls of a crumbling edifice surrounded by a wilderness of weeds and creeping plants, a certain statue of stone which, some say, was erected by the Woman healed of the issue of blood. But time has gnawed the face of the statue, and the rains have worn the inscription away."
