FROM his ignorance of secular learning, and his extraordinary humility,
he was surnamed the Simple. He served God in the world to the age of
sixty, in the toils of a poor and laborious country life. The
incontinency of his wife contributed to wean his soul from all earthly
ties. Checks and crosses which men meet with in this life are great
graces. God's sweet providence sows our roads with thorns, that we may
learn to despise the vanity, and hate the treachery of the world. "When
mothers would wean their children," says St. Austin, "they anoint their
breasts with aloes, that the babe, being offended at the bitterness, may
no more seek the nipple." Thus has God in his mercy filled the world
with sorrow and vexation; but woe to those who still continue to love
it! Even in this life miseries will be the wages of their sin and folly,
and their eternal portion will be the second death. Paul found true
happiness because he converted his heart perfectly from the world to
God. Desiring to devote himself totally to his love, he determined to
betake himself to the great St. Antony. He went eight days' journey into
the desert, to the holy patriarch, and begged that he would admit him
among his disciples, and teach him the way of salvation. Antony harshly
rejected him, telling him he was too old to bear the austerities of that
state. He therefore bade him return home, and follow the business of his
calling, and sanctify it by the spirit of recollection and assiduous
prayer. Having said this he shut his door: but Paul continued fasting
and praying before his door, till Antony, seeing his fervor, on the
fourth day opened it again, and going out to him, after several trials
of his obedience, admitted him to the monastic state, and prescribed him
a rule of life; teaching him, by the most perfect obedience, to crucify
in himself all attachment to his own will, the source of pride; by the
denial of his senses and assiduous hard labor, to subdue his flesh; and
by continual prayer at his work, and at other times, to purify his
heart, and inflame it with heavenly affections.[1] He instructed him how
to pray, and ordered him never to eat before sunset, nor so much at a
meal as entirely to satisfy hunger. Paul, by obedience and humility,
laid the foundation of an eminent sanctity in his soul, which being dead
to all self-will and to creatures, soared towards God with great fervor
and purity of affections.
Among the examples of his ready obedience, it is recorded, that when he
had wrought with great diligence in making mats and hurdles, praying at
the same time without intermission, St. Antony disliked his work, and
bade him undo it and make it over again. Paul did so, without any
dejection in his countenance, or making the least reply, or even asking
to eat a morsel of bread, though he had already passed seven days
without taking any refreshment. After this, Antony ordered him to
moisten in water four loaves of six ounces each; for their bread in the
deserts was exceeding hard and dry. When their refection was prepared,
instead of eating, he bade Paul sing psalms with him, then to sit down
by the loaves, and at night, after praying together, to take his rest.
He called him up at midnight to pray with him: this exercise the old man
continued with great cheerfulness till three o'clock in the afternoon
the following day. After sunset, each ate one loaf, and Antony asked
Paul if he would eat another. "Yes, if you do," said Paul; "I am a
monk," said Antony; "And I desire to be one," replied the disciple;
whereupon they arose, sung twelve psalms, and recited twelve other {541}
prayers. After a short repose, they both arose again to prayer at
midnight. The experienced director exercised his obedience by frequent
trials, bidding him one day, when many monks were come to visit him to
receive his spiritual advice, to spill a vessel of honey, and then to
gather it up without any dust. At other times he ordered him to draw
water a whole day and pour it out again; to make baskets and pull them
to pieces; to sew and unsew his garments, and the like.[2] What
victories over themselves and their passions might youth and others,
&c., gain! what a treasure of virtue might they procure, by a ready and
voluntary obedience and conformity of their will to that of those whom
Providence bath placed over them! This they would find the effectual
means to crush pride, and subdue their passions. But obedience is of
little advantage, unless it bend the will itself, and repress all wilful
interior murmuring and repugnance. When Paul had been sufficiently
exercised and instructed in the duties of a monastic life, St. Antony
placed him in a cell three miles from his own, where he visited him from
time to time. He usually preferred his virtue to that of all his other
disciples, and proposed him to them as a model. He frequently sent to
Paul sick persons, or those possessed by the devil, whom he was not able
to cure; as not having received the gift; and by the disciple's prayers
they never failed of a cure. St. Paul died some time after the year 330.
He is commemorated both by the Greeks and Latins, on the 7th of March.
See Palladius, Rufinus, and Sozomen, abridged by Tillemont, t. 7, p.
144. Also by Henschenius, p. 645.
Footnotes:
1. Pallad. Lausiac. c. 28, p. 942. Rufin. Vit. Patr. c. 31. Sozom. l.
1, c. 13.
2. Rufin. & Pallad. loc. cit.