Venerable Onuphrius the Great

Onuphrius is known from the account of the monk Paphnutius, who set out into the Egyptian desert to see how its hermits lived. After many days he met a man covered only by his long hair and a girdle of leaves: Onuphrius, who had left a monastery near Hermopolis in the Thebaid as a young monk and had lived alone in the desert for sixty years.

He told Paphnutius that a date palm beside his cell gave him fruit and a spring gave him water. That same night, according to the account, he died, and Paphnutius covered him with his own mantle and buried him in the sand. Returning to Egypt, Paphnutius told what he had seen, and two brothers of Scetis wrote it down. Onuphrius lived in the 4th century.