St Anthony’s Book

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Temptation of St Anthony (ca. 1563)

A certain philosopher asked St Anthony: Father, how can you be happy when you are deprived of the consolation of books? Anthony replied. My book, O philosopher, is the nature of created things, and any time I want to read the words of God, the book is before me.

–Anon., Verba Seniorum (Adhortationes sanctorum patrum) ciii (4th—8th cens. CE)(Greek original lost; Pelagius I and John III, Latin transl.; T. Merton Engl. transl.) in: The Wisdom of the Desert p. 139.