Feast of St. Paul the First Hermit

Double (1954 Calendar): January 15

Today the Holy Church calls to mind the life of St. Paul of Thebes, an Egyptian hermit and friend of St. Jerome, who is often called St. Paul the First Hermit.  Born c. 229 AD in Egypt, he was left an orphan at about the age of fifteen and hid during the persecution of the Church under Emperor Traj anus Decius.

At the age of twenty-two, he went to the desert to circumvent a planned effort by his brother in law to report him to authorities as a Christian and thereby gain control of his property. Paul soon found that the eremitical life was much to his personal taste, and so remained in a desert cave for the rest of his reportedly very long life. His contemplative existence was disturbed by St. Anthony of Egypt, who visited the aged Paul. Anthony also buried Paul, wrapping him in a cloak that had been given to Anthony by St. Athanasius.

According to legend, two lions assisted Anthony in digging the grave. While there is little doubt that Paul lived, the only source for details on his life is found in the Vita Pauli written by St. Jerome and preserved in both Latin and Greek versions.

Dom Gueranger writes of St. Paul the First Hermit:

Today the Church honours the memory of one of those men who were expressly chosen by God to represent the sublime detachment from all things which was taught to the world by the example of the Son of God, born in a Cave, at Bethlehem. Paul the Hermit so prized the poverty of his Divine Master that he fled to the desert, where he could find nothing to possess and nothing to covet. He had a mere cavern for his dwelling; a palm-tree provided him with food and clothing; a fountain gave him wherewith to quench his thirst; and heaven sent him his only luxury, a loaf of bread brought to him daily by a crow. For sixty years did Paul thus serve, in poverty and in solitude, that God who was denied a dwelling on the earth he came to redeem, and could have but a poor Stable wherein to be born.

But God dwelt with Paul in his cavern; and in him began the Anchorites, that sublime race of men who, the better to enjoy the company of their God, denied themselves not only the society, but the very sight of men. They were the Angels of earth, in whom God showed forth, for the instruction of the rest of men, that he is powerful enough and rich enough to supply the wants of his creatures, who, indeed, have nothing but what they have from him. The Hermit, or Anchoret, is a prodigy in the Church, and it behoves us to glorify the God who has produced it. We ought to be filled with astonishment and gratitude, at seeing how the Mystery of a God made Flesh has so elevated our human nature as to inspire a contempt and abandonment of those earthly goods which heretofore had been so eagerly sought after.

The two names, Paul and Antony, are not to be separated; they are the two Apostles of the Desert; both are Fathers—Paul of Anchorites, and Antony of Cenobites; the two families are sisters, and both have the same source, the Mystery of Bethlehem. The sacred Cycle of the Church's year unites, with only a day between their two Feasts, these two faithful disciples of Jesus in his Crib.

The biography of St. Paul as written by St. Jerome is preserved and available for reading online.

Collect:

O God, it is a joy for us to celebrate yearly the feast of Your blessed confessor Paul. May we who commemorate his birthday also imitate his example. Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit (Latin: Ordo Fratrum Sancti Pauli Primi Eremitae) is a monastic order of the Roman Catholic Church, founded in Hungary during the 13th century. The Order's name is derived from the holy hermit who was canonized in 491 by Pope Gelasius I.  The coat of arms of the Order (pictured above) is taken from the example of St. Paul of Thebes.

Elements of the Coat of Arms	The references to the traditions of the life of St. Paul, Hermit (by application)
The date palm	St. Paul the First Hermit produced clothing from the leaves of the palm tree
	The fruit of the palm tree helped sustain the Hermit in the desert.
The Raven with a loaf of bread in its beak	This bird, through the grace of God, brought Half a loaf of bread to the Hermit every day for 90 years
Lions	Two lions dug a grave for St. Paul, where he buried by St. Anthony the Great

After his death, a monastery taking him as its model was founded on Mount Sinai and still exists today.