Martyrdom
The accounts of Anthony's life are brief and concern almost entirely the manner of his death. Arrested for his confession of faith, he was first bound to a tree and his flesh torn with iron hooks, a form of torture used to compel apostasy. When he would not renounce Christ, he was condemned to death by fire.
The synaxarion relates that Anthony bore his suffering without fear, and that standing in the flames he turned his attention to those watching, urging them to labor for the soul rather than the perishable body. By tradition, when the fire died down his body was found unharmed by the flames.