Venerable Paul of Thebes

Paul is called the first hermit. His Life, written by Jerome, says he was a young, educated Egyptian of the Thebaid who fled into the desert during the persecution of Decius in the mid-3rd century and stayed there for the rest of his life, in a cave beside a spring and a palm tree that gave him food and clothing.

Near the end of his life Anthony the Great, guided by a vision, found him. While they talked, the Life tells, a raven brought a whole loaf instead of the half that it had brought Paul for sixty years. Paul asked Anthony to fetch the cloak that Bishop Athanasius had given him; when Anthony returned, Paul was dead, kneeling in prayer. Two lions, the Life says, dug the grave. Paul died c. 341, at 113.