Deftly he associates Pauline teaching with Antony's vulnerability. This is the Christ who lives through dying. Antony is thus grounded in a wonderful love which rejects mortal fear in quest of a constant joy. Such a joy arises when mastery and power are no longer one's primary concern. It involves the choice of a dark void, free of any program to deter demons, real or imaginary.
Asceticism is thus a refusal to accept fear as the final state of our being.
It is the deliberate choice to live without those fears which afford a certain security by offering us an obsession that is at least familiar. The refusal to fear is the rejection of the lie that we are at our best when groveling in a familiar baseness. Although written in the fourth century, Athanasius's account of the ascetic ordeal of Antony with its voluntary entombment reminds us that fear is not our truest companion. It tells us that asceticism and anxiety are at odds. Neurosis is thus the antithesis of resurrection, and basic human angst pales before the risk-taking attitude of anchorites.