Life of Paul the First Hermit

Contents

Translation in progress.

1. 1Jerome explains that Paul of Thebes, not Antony, began the hermit life in the desert, and why he writes about him.
2. 2Under Decius and Valerian the persecutor sought slow tortures to destroy souls rather than bodies.
3. 3Two examples of the persecutor's cruelty: a martyr left smeared with honey to the flies, and a young man tempted by a prostitute who bit off his tongue to resist.
4. 4Paul, left a wealthy orphan at sixteen, withdrew during the persecution, and his brother-in-law sought to betray him for his inheritance.
5. 5Paul fled to the mountains and found a cave with a palm tree and a spring, once a secret mint.
6. 6Paul spent his life in the cave fed and clothed by the palm, and Jerome vouches for similar monks he had seen in the Syrian desert.
7. 7Told in a vision of a holier monk, the ninety-year-old Antony sets out and is shown the way by a centaur-like creature.
8. 8Antony meets a satyr who asks his prayers and confesses Christ, and Jerome cites a similar creature shown under Constantius.
9. 9Following a she-wolf, Antony finds Paul's cave and begs at the bolted door until Paul lets him in.
10. 10Paul asks Antony about the world, and a raven brings them a whole loaf instead of Paul's usual half.
11. 11After sharing the bread and a night of vigil, Paul tells Antony that his death is near and that he was sent to bury him.
12. 12Paul sends Antony back for the cloak Athanasius had given him, and Antony returns to his monastery in tears.
13. 13Back at his cell Antony calls himself a false monk beside Paul and takes the cloak without explaining.
14. 14Hurrying back, Antony sees Paul's soul carried up among angels, prophets and apostles, and laments.
15. 15Antony finds Paul dead in the posture of prayer.
16. 16Two lions dig Paul's grave; Antony buries him and keeps his palm-leaf tunic, which he wore at Easter and Pentecost.
17. 17Jerome contrasts Paul's poverty with the luxury of the rich, who will lose Christ's garment.
18. 18Jerome asks the reader to remember him and prefers Paul's tunic to royal purple.