St. Paul the Hermit

St. Paul the Hermit, also called Paul of Thebes, was born about 227 in the Thebaid region of Egypt. According to the life written of him by St. Jerome, he fled into the desert as a young man during the persecution of the Emperor Decius, both to escape the danger and to avoid a treacherous kinsman, and there, finding a cave with a spring and a palm tree, he embraced the solitary life so completely that he remained in the wilderness for the rest of his long days.

He is honored as the first Christian hermit, the forerunner of the monastic movement of the desert, living in prayer, penance, and utter simplicity, clothed, it is said, in woven palm leaves and fed by a raven that brought him bread. Late in his life St. Anthony of Egypt, guided by God, sought him out, and the two aged hermits met and conversed; and when Paul died, about 341, at the age of some hundred and thirteen years, tradition holds that Anthony buried him with the help of two lions. He is venerated as a saint, his memory kept on 15 January.