St. Paul the Hermit
First Hermit, Friend of St. Anthony of the Desert
📖 Life of St. Paul the Hermit
St. Paul of Thebes — Paul the First Hermit — was an Egyptian of a well-off family who fled into the desert during the Decian persecution, about the year 250, when a greedy relative threatened to betray him as a Christian. He was then a young man. He never came back to the city. The cave that hid him became the rest of his life.
St. Jerome, who wrote his life, says that a raven brought him half a loaf each day, as the ravens had fed Elijah. When he was 113, St. Anthony of the Desert was told in prayer that there was a better man than himself further in the wilderness. Anthony found Paul. They embraced, they broke the doubled loaf the raven brought that day, and they talked of the world that had forgotten them and of the Christ who had not.
Paul asked Anthony to fetch the cloak Athanasius had given him, to use as a shroud. Anthony went, and when he returned Paul was dead, his body still in the attitude of prayer. Two lions helped to dig the grave — Jerome's beautiful last image. The year was about 341. Paul had been a hermit for ninety years.
He is not the same saint as the Apostle, and he is not Anthony. He is the man Anthony went inland to honor. The Church commemorates him on January 15, two days before Anthony's feast, as if the calendar itself were that visit.
🌟 Legacy of St. Paul the Hermit
The First Hermit
Whether or not he was absolutely the first, the Church has called him that because Anthony — the more famous father — insisted that someone had gone deeper first. Humility of the desert: the greater man looks for a greater.
Jerome's Life
The Life of Paul is one of the books that made the West love the desert. Without it, the raven, the cloak, and the lions would not have taught Latin monks how to imagine solitude.
Friendship at the End of the World
Two old men sharing bread in a cave is as much the beginning of monasticism as any rule. Community can be two.
What His Life Teaches
You can hide from a persecutor and find that you were being called, not only chased. Ninety years of obscure prayer can instruct the man the whole Church will later call the Father of Monks.
📅 Feast Day
Memorial of St. Paul, First Hermit
Liturgical Celebration
St. Paul the Hermit is kept on January 15. The Coptic and Eastern calendars also honor him among the desert fathers. Pair the day with Anthony on January 17.
Traditions and Customs
The day is well used to pray for hermits, for hidden contemplatives, and for friendships in old age. Reading a page of Jerome's Life of Paul is the proper devotion.
Prayer and Devotion
Pair his memorial with St. Anthony of the Desert and with St. Jerome, who wrote his life.
🛡️ Patronage
Primary Patronages
- • Hermits: called the first of them
- • Desert fathers: Thebaid of Egypt
- • Hidden contemplatives: ninety years unseen
Special Intentions
- • Friendship in old age: the visit of Anthony
- • Those fleeing persecution: the cave that became a vocation
- • Monastic humility: Anthony sought a better man
🙏 Prayers
Prayer to St. Paul the Hermit
O St. Paul the Hermit, you fled a traitor and found a cave, and you stayed until Anthony came to bury you. You taught the desert that someone had already gone deeper.
Obtain for us a love of hidden prayer, humility that looks for better men, and fidelity to the end of a long life. Amen.
Short Prayer
St. Paul the Hermit, pray for us!
Related Saints
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