ABSTRACT
We are beginning to let go of our assumption that we can recover ‘history’ as ifit were something awaiting discovery by the proper tools. In the case of someone like Anthony, it is harder to surrender our desire to know about the ‘real’ person. However, written documents cannot resuscitate historical figures. Once pen was put to papyrus a gap opened between the subject and the resulting text, reflecting the interval of perspective between observer and observed. Therefore no form of narrative is immune from the distorting effects, benign or insidious, of characterization. When the subject is famous, immensely famous, like Anthony, and the literary portraits are numerous, the approach becomes very tricky indeed. The ‘quest for the historical Anthony’ has consumed students of monasticism just as their colleagues in New Testament studies have circled round and round in their quest for another, and even more famous, maker – and product – of history.
