St Anthony suffered paradoxically; his desert hermitages became popular pilgrim-e Sjtes? and crowds of the pious and the curious deprived the recluse of precious nenitent isolation. Icons of hirsute, barefute Antonius adorn the walls of many Coptic churches in Egypt. Soon after the saint’s death, his disciple St. Athanasius told the story of his choice of poverty and hardship, his wild battles with demons, and his wise counsel to monks and layfolk. Athanasius’ Life of Anthony became the prototype for most later Christian hagiography.

A few years after the death of St. Anthony, his monastic followers settled at the present site and established the first Christian monastery. The Monastery of St. Anthony served as a refuge for some of the monks of Wadi an-Natrun when their own siinctuaries were attacked by Bedouin tribes in the 6th century. During the 7th and 8th centuries the monastery was occupied by Melkite monks, and in the 11 th it was pillaged by the army of Nasr ad-Dawla. About 100 years after the sack it was restored and transferred into Coptic hands. The Church of St. Anthony and the southern walls are among the few remains that predate the 16th-century construction of the present monastery.