Saint Paul the First Hermit, Confessor
S. Pauli Primi Eremitae Confessoris
Saint Paul of Thebes, honoured as the first Christian hermit, withdrew into the Egyptian desert during persecution and there served God in solitude for some ninety years.
Saint Paul the First Hermit, also called Paul of Thebes, is remembered as the earliest of the desert solitaries whose life the Church has handed down. His story is preserved chiefly by Saint Jerome, who wrote his Life and so gave the Church its account of this hidden servant of God.
Flight into the desert
According to Saint Jerome, Paul was a young man of Egypt, well educated and the heir of a comfortable inheritance, when the persecution of the Emperor Decius broke out in the middle of the third century. To escape both the danger of apostasy and the treachery of a kinsman, he fled into the wilderness of the Thebaid. There, in a remote cave with a spring and a palm tree, what began as a refuge became a vocation: Paul embraced the solitary life and remained in the desert for the rest of his long years, given wholly to prayer.
Saint Jerome relates that, near the end of Paul’s life, the aged Saint Anthony was led by God to seek him out, and that the two holy men met, conversed, and prayed together. When Anthony came again, he found that Paul had died at prayer, and he buried him. Whatever details belong to the manner of the telling, the Church has always cherished this account as the meeting of the first hermit with the father of monks.
Father of the solitary life
Saint Paul is venerated as the first hermit, the forerunner of the great multitude of monks and solitaries who would seek God in the desert and, in every age since, in the cloister and the hermitage. His feast on the fifteenth of January honours the hidden life of penance and prayer, and teaches that a soul utterly unknown to the world may be wholly known and loved by God. The collect of his Mass asks that, rejoicing in his yearly feast, we may also imitate his deeds.
The Collect
O God, who dost gladden us by the yearly solemnity of blessed Paul thy Confessor: mercifully grant that we who keep his heavenly birthday may also imitate his deeds.
Deus, qui nos beáti Pauli Confessóris tui ánnua solemnitáte lætíficas: concéde propítius; ut, cujus natalítia cólimus, étiam actiónes imitémur.
Patronage
He is venerated as the first Christian hermit and a patron of those who embrace the solitary and monastic life.
In the Modern Calendar
In the modern calendar this feast is no longer kept on the universal calendar.
Common Questions
When is the feast of Saint Paul the First Hermit?
His feast is kept on 15 January in the calendar of the 1962 Roman Missal, as a Third Class feast.
Who was Saint Paul the First Hermit?
He was a Christian of third-century Egypt who fled into the desert of the Thebaid during the persecution of Decius and lived there in prayer and solitude for the rest of his life. He is honoured as the first Christian hermit. Our knowledge of him comes chiefly from the Life written by Saint Jerome.
Is he the same as the Apostle Paul?
No. Saint Paul the First Hermit is a different saint, who lived in the third century in Egypt. The Apostle Paul lived in the first century. They share only the name.
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