THE LIFE OF SAINT PAUL, THE FIRST HERMIT
BY THE DIVINE HIERONYMUS THE PRIEST.
(ST. JEROME.)
PROLOGUE
Many have often doubted by which of the monks the desert was first inhabited. For some, looking for the beginnings of Monachism in earlier ages, have deduced it from the blessed Elias and John; of whom Elias seems to us to have been rather a prophet than a monk; and John to have begun to prophesy before he was born. But others (an opinion in which all the common people are agreed) assert that Antony was the head of this rule of life, which is partly true. For he was not so much himself the first of all, as the man who excited the earnestness of all. But Amathas and Macarius, Antony’s disciples (the former of whom buried his master’s body), even now affirm that a certain Paul, a Theban, was the beginner of the matter; which (not so much in name as in opinion) we also hold to be true. Some scatter about, as the fancy takes them, both this and other stories; inventing incredible tales of a man in a subterranean cave, hairy down to his heels, and many other things, which it is tedious to follow out. For, as their lie is shameless, their opinion does not seem worth refuting.
Therefore, because careful accounts of Antony, both in Greek and Roman style, have been handed down, I have determined to write a little about the beginning and end of Paul’s life; more because the matter has been omitted, than trusting to my own wit. But how he lived during middle life, or what stratagems of Satan he endured, is known to none.
THE LIFE OF PAUL
Under Decius and Valerius, the persecutors, at the time when Cornelius at Rome, and Cyprian at Carthage, were condemned in blessed blood, a cruel tempest swept over many Churches in Egypt and the Thebaid.
Christian subjects in those days longed to be smitten with the sword for the name of Christ. But the crafty enemy, seeking out punishments which delayed death, longed to slay souls, not bodies. And as Cyprian himself (who suffered by him) says: “When they longed to die, they were not allowed to be slain.” In order to make his cruelty better known, we have set down two examples for remembrance.
A martyr, persevering in the faith, and conqueror amid racks and red-hot irons, he commanded to be anointed with honey and laid on his back under a burning sun, with his hands tied behind him; in order, forsooth, that he who had already conquered the fiery gridiron, might yield to the stings of flies.
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In those days, in the Lower Thebaid, was Paul left at the death of both his parents, in a rich inheritance, with a sister already married; being about fifteen years old, well taught in Greek and Egyptian letters, gentle tempered, loving God much; and, when the storm of persecution burst, he withdrew into a distant city. But