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.