His biography of Anthony the Great entitled Life of Antony(Βίος καὶ Πολιτεία Πατρὸς Ἀντωνίου, Vita Antonii) became his most widely-read work. Translated into several languages, it played an important role in the <answer>spreading of the ascetic ideal in Eastern and Western Christianity</answer>. Depicting Anthony as an illiterate and holy man who through his existence in a primordial landscape has an absolute connection to the divine truth, the biography also resembles the life of his biographer Athanasius. It later served as an inspiration to Christian monastics in both the East and the West. The so-called Athanasian Creed dates from well after Athanasius's death and draws upon the phraseology of Augustine's De trinitate.
Why was this work considered to be important?
spreading of the ascetic ideal in Eastern and Western Christianity