MANY have often doubted by which of the monks the desert was first
inhabited. For some, looking for the beginnings of Monachism in earlier
ages, have deduced it from the blessed Elias and John; of whom Elias
seems to us to have been rather a prophet than a monk; and John to have
begun to prophesy before he was born. But others (an opinion in which
all the common people are agreed) assert that Antony was the head of this
rule of life, which is partly true. For he was not so much himself the
first of all, as the man who excited the earnestness of all. But Amathas
and Macarius, Antony’s disciples (the former of whom buried his master’s
body), even now affirm that a certain Paul, a Theban, was the beginner of
the matter; which (not so much in name as in opinion) we also hold to be
true. Some scatter about, as the fancy takes them, both this and other
stories; inventing incredible tales of a man in a subterranean cave,
hairy down to his heels, and many other things, which it is tedious to
follow out. For, as their lie is shameless, their opinion does not seem
worth refuting.
Therefore, because careful accounts of Antony, both in Greek and Roman
style, have been handed down, I have determined to write a little about
the beginning and end of Paul’s life; more because the matter has been
omitted, than trusting to my own wit. But how he lived during middle
life, or what stratagems of Satan he endured, is known to none.