St Paul the Hermit: Story, the Raven, Prayer and Feast

St Paul the Hermit, or St Paul the First Hermit (died 342), was an Egyptian Christian who fled into the desert of the Thebaid during the persecution of Decius and lived there alone for some ninety years, fed for sixty of them, the story says, by a raven that brought him half a loaf every day. We know him through the Life written by St Jerome, which tells how St Antony the Great found him shortly before his death, and how two lions dug his grave. In the calendar of 1962 his feast falls on 15 January; here is his story, how the Church has read it, and the prayer of his Mass.

Who was St Paul the Hermit?

Paul was a native of the Lower Thebaid, in Upper Egypt, and lost both his parents at fifteen. He was heir to an estate, learned in Greek and Egyptian letters, gentle and modest, and feared God from his youth. When the persecution of the Emperor Decius broke out in 250, he hid in the house of a friend; but his brother-in-law, coveting his estate, was ready to betray him, and Paul fled into the desert.

There he found caves that were said to have sheltered money-coiners in the days of Cleopatra, and chose one for his dwelling, beside a palm tree and a clear spring. The palm gave him food and clothing, the spring his drink. He had meant to wait for the end of the persecution; but, Butler writes, "relishing the sweets of solitude and heavenly contemplation, he resolved to return no more": it was enough for him to know that there was a world, and to pray that it might grow better.

He lived on the fruit of the palm until he was forty-three. From then until his death, like the prophet Elias, he was fed with bread brought every day by a raven: "the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening" (3 Kings xvii. 6). What he did during those ninety years is hidden from us. God, says Butler, made His servant known only a little before his death.

The story of St Anthony and St Paul the Hermit

The great St Antony, the father of monks, was then ninety years old. He was tempted to vainglory, thinking that no one had served God so long in the wilderness as he; and he was told in a dream that there was a solitary more perfect than himself, whom he must go and find. He set out the next morning. Jerome relates that on the way he met a centaur, a creature half man and half horse, which fled at the sign of the cross after pointing the road; Jerome does not decide whether it was a monster or a phantom of the devil. Then a satyr, who told him he was one of the beings the pagans worshipped. After two days and a night, a light shining from a cave showed him the way.

Paul at first kept his door shut; then he opened it, smiling. They embraced and greeted each other by name, though they had never met, for each knew the other's name by revelation. Paul's first question was whether idolatry still reigned in the world. While they spoke, a raven flew down and dropped a whole loaf before them. Paul said:

"Our good God has sent us a dinner. In this manner have I received half a loaf every day these sixty years past; now you have come to see me, Christ has doubled His provision for His servants."

They gave thanks and sat down by the spring. Then came a little contest of humility over who should break the bread: Antony pleaded Paul's greater age, Paul that Antony was the guest. In the end each took hold of the loaf and they broke it together. They spent the night in prayer. The life of Paul's visitor is told in our page on St Antony the Great.

The cloak of St Athanasius

In the morning Paul told Antony that his death was near and that he had been sent to bury him, and asked him to fetch the cloak that St Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, had given him, to wrap his body in it. Antony was astonished: he could have known of the cloak only by revelation. Butler suggests that Paul wished to be alone in prayer as he waited for death, and to show his veneration for Athanasius, then suffering for the Catholic faith, and his communion with him.

Antony hurried back to his monastery and told his monks that he, a sinner, falsely bore the name of a servant of God: he had seen Elias, he had seen John the Baptist in the wilderness, he had seen Paul in Paradise. He took the cloak and returned in haste, fearing to find the hermit dead.

How did St Paul the Hermit die?

On the way back Antony saw Paul's soul carried up to heaven among the choirs of angels, prophets and apostles. When he reached the cave he found the body kneeling, the head erect and the hands stretched out towards heaven, and thinking him still alive he knelt to pray with him, until the silence told him the truth. Paul had died at prayer, in 342, in the hundred and thirteenth year of his age and the ninetieth of his solitude.

Antony had nothing to dig a grave with. Then two lions came running from the inner desert and, as if mourning the old man after their fashion, tore up the ground with their paws until they had made a pit large enough for a man. When they had gone, Antony laid the body in it, wrapped in the cloak, singing hymns and psalms according to the Christian custom. He took away the tunic Paul had woven for himself out of palm leaves, and the Breviary says he wore it for the rest of his life on the solemn days of Easter and Pentecost.

Who wrote about St Paul the Hermit?

Everything we know of him comes from the Life of St Paul the First Hermit written in Latin by St Jerome, which spread throughout the West; our page on St Jerome tells the life of its author. The lessons of the Breviary for his feast are taken from it, and the title "first hermit" distinguishes him from the many other saints called Paul.

Butler adds, with his usual candour, that Jerome may have done little more than translate a Greek text that also exists in Syriac, Arabic and Coptic versions and contains a good deal of fabulous matter, though the question has been much disputed; the reader may well count the centaur and the satyr among such matter. Jerome himself, however, plainly regarded the life as historical in substance. The heart of the story, the hidden life of prayer, the meeting of the two old men, their charity and humility, the death at prayer, is what the Church has read for centuries in her Office.

A vocation not to be imitated rashly

Butler opens the life with a warning worth repeating. Elias and St John the Baptist sanctified the desert, and Our Lord Himself fasted forty days in the wilderness; Paul was certainly guided by the Holy Ghost to his solitude. But it was a special vocation, "not an example to be rashly imitated": the solitary life is beset with dangers and should be embraced only by souls already well-grounded in virtue and practised in contemplative prayer. What every Christian can take from him is the love of prayer, of silence, and of a world that is "enough to know" and to pray for.

The Order of St Paul the First Hermit

In the thirteenth century, in Hungary, groups of hermits were united into a congregation placed under the patronage of the first hermit: the Order of St Paul the First Hermit, whose members are known as the Pauline Fathers. The best-known Pauline house today is the monastery of Jasna Góra at Częstochowa, in Poland, the shrine of the miraculous image of Our Lady. The Coptic Church, for its part, keeps the Monastery of St Paul in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, near the Red Sea, where Coptic tradition places his cave.

What is St Paul the Hermit the patron saint of?

No ancient patronage is attached to him in the liturgical books. He is above all the patron of the Pauline Fathers, who bear his name, and the father and model of hermits, the "author and master of hermits", as the Breviary calls him.

The prayer of St Paul the Hermit (Missal of 1962)

His Mass takes the Introit Justus ut palma florebit, "The just shall flourish like the palm tree" (Psalm xci. 13), a fitting word for a man who lived on a palm; the Epistle is St Paul's "I count all things to be but loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ" (Philippians iii. 7-12), and the Gospel "I confess to Thee, O Father ... because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones" (St Matthew xi. 25-30). The Collect is that of the Common of Confessors.

Collect, 15 January

Deus, qui nos beati Pauli Confessoris tui annua solemnitate laetificas: concede propitius; ut cujus natalitia colimus, etiam actiones imitemur. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, Filium tuum: qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

O God, who dost gladden us by the yearly feast of blessed Paul, Thy Confessor: mercifully grant that, as we keep his heavenly birthday, we may also imitate his deeds. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

This Collect is the prayer to St Paul the Hermit for any day. Those who wish to imitate his deeds in a measure fitting their state will find a guide in our page on Christian mortification and penance.

When is the feast day of St Paul the Hermit?

In the calendar of 1962 the feast of St Paul the First Hermit falls on 15 January, a feast of the third class in white vestments, with a commemoration of St Maurus, abbot. Two days later, on 17 January, comes the feast of St Antony, so that the two hermits of the story stand side by side in the calendar. The calendar of 1969 no longer keeps his feast in the general calendar of the Church; the present Roman Martyrology names him on 10 January. Both feasts are in our traditional Catholic calendar of 1962, and both saints in our guide to the Catholic saints.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was St Paul the Hermit?

An Egyptian Christian of the Thebaid who fled to the desert during the persecution of Decius about 250 and lived there in solitude until his death in 342, at the age of 113. He is called the "first hermit".

Why is he called the first hermit?

Because, according to St Jerome, he went into the desert before St Antony and lived there longer than anyone, so that Antony himself was sent to find a solitary more perfect than he.

What is the story of the raven and St Paul the Hermit?

For sixty years a raven brought him half a loaf of bread every day; on the day St Antony visited him it brought a whole loaf, and Paul said that Christ had doubled His provision for His servants.

Why are lions shown with St Paul the Hermit?

Because, according to his Life, two lions came out of the desert after his death and dug the grave in which St Antony buried him.

Did St Paul the Hermit and St Antony meet?

Yes, according to St Jerome: Antony, at ninety, was sent by God to find him, spent a night in prayer with him, and buried him in the cloak of St Athanasius.

Is St Paul the Hermit honoured in the Eastern Churches?

Yes. Butler notes that he is commemorated in the canon of the Mass of the Coptic and Armenian rites, and the Coptic Church keeps a monastery under his name in the Eastern Desert of Egypt.

The Iter Fidei app carries the calendar of 1962 with the feasts of St Paul and St Antony, the Roman Missal with the prayers of each day and the Breviary with the lessons from St Jerome, in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Sources. Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, 15 January (St Paul the Hermit). Roman Breviary (edition before 1960), 15 January, lessons of the second nocturn (in the Breviary of 1962 this third-class feast has a single, contracted lesson). Roman Missal (1962), Proper of Saints, 15 January, and Common of a Confessor not a Bishop. Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims version, 3 Kings xvii. 6; Psalm xci. 13; Philippians iii. 7-12; St Matthew xi. 25-30.