Saint Pachomius

The solitary pointed out to him that the life he led was hard and arduous, and that many had already tried in vain to follow it. He then advised him to test his strength and fervor in some monastery; and to show him that he was not currently capable of living with him, he said: "Consider, my son, that bread and salt are my only food; the use of wine and oil is unknown to me. I spend half the night chanting psalms or meditating on the Holy Scriptures. Sometimes it happens that I go the entire night without sleeping." Pachomius was astonished, but not discouraged. He replied that he felt he had enough strength to undertake everything that could contribute to his sanctification, and at the same time he promised the old man to do whatever he would command him. Palamon, charmed by this answer, hesitated no longer; he received him and gave him the habit of a solitary. Together they led the eremitic life, that is to say, a life of penance and prayer; they added to it the work of their hands, in order to earn enough to live and to assist the poor.

Pachomius, in his prayer, which was continuous, asked above all for a perfect purity of heart, so that, being entirely detached from creatures, he might love God with all his affections. To stifle even the seed of the passions, he trained himself, above all, in the practice of humility, patience, and gentleness. Often he prayed with his arms placed one over the other in the form of a cross, a posture that was then very much in use in the Church. In the beginning, he was prone to dozing off during the night office. Palamon would wake him with these words: "Watch and pray, my dear Pachomius, for fear that the enemy might triumph over you and take away all the fruit of your labors." He would also sometimes order him to transport sand from one place to another, until the desire to sleep had entirely passed. It was in this way that the young novice strengthened himself in the habit of keeping vigil. He also took care to apply to himself everything edifying that he read or heard read, and to make it the rule of his conduct.

One Easter day, Palamon told him to prepare dinner. Pachomius, having regard for the greatness of the solemnity, seasoned with a little oil and salt the wild herbs that they were to eat with their bread. Palamon said his prayer and sat down at the table; but at the sight of the oil, he struck his forehead, saying with tears: "My Savior was crucified, and I would indulge myself to the point of eating oil?" He could never bring himself to taste it.

Pachomius sometimes went into a vast desert named Tab ennisi, Tabenne Principal monastery founded by Saint Pachomius. situated on the banks of the Nile. One day, while he was praying there, he heard a voice ordering him to build, at the place where he was, a monastery intended to receive all those who would be sent there by God to serve Him faithfully. Around the same time, an angel gave him, some say by word of mouth, others in writing, the Rule that his religious, later called Tabennisiotes, were to fol low. Havin Tabennites Monastic congregation founded by Pachomius. g returned to Palamon, he shared with him what had happened. They both went to Tabennisi and built a small cell there, around the year 325, about twenty years after Saint Anthony had founded his first monastery. After some time, Palamon returned to his solitude and promised his disciple to come see him every year; but he died there shortly after. He is named in the Roman Martyrology under January 4.

The first disciple Saint Pachomius had was John, his elder brother. Once he had died, many ot hers Jean Successor of Alexander and predecessor of Marcellus. came to him, so that he was obliged to enlarge his monastery. In a short time, he found himself at the head of a hundred monks. He wore a hair shirt almost always. He went fifteen years without lying down, sitting on a stone to take the little rest he granted to nature; even then, he reproached himself for the short space that sleep took from him. He would have liked to devote himself without interruption to the holy exercises of divine love. Since his conversion, he had never eaten a full meal.

By the Rule he gave his disciples, fasting and work were proportioned to the strength of each. They ate in common and in silence, having their heads covered with their hoods in the refectory, so that they could not see one another. This hood was made of coarse cloth, as was their tunic, which had no sleeves. They covered their shoulders with a white goatskin, which they called a melote. They received communion regularly on the first and last day of the week. Novices were severely tested before taking the habit, a ceremony then regarded as monastic profession and which was followed by the taking of vows. Saint Pachomius did not send any of his religious to take orders; and his monasteries were often served by priests from outside. He did, however, receive priests who requested the habit and had them exercise the functions of the ministry. Everyone worked; but there were various kinds of work. There was not a single moment that was not occupied. Great care was taken of the sick; Saint Pachomius consoled them and served them himself. The law of silence was so rigorous that when a monk needed something, he could only ask for it by signs.

When going from one place to another, they meditated on some passage of Scripture, and they even chanted psalms while working. When death took one of the brothers, all the others solicited divine mercy in his favor; the holy sacrifice of the Mass was also offered for the repose of his soul. Persons of weak health were not excluded from the monastery; the holy abbot received all those who gave true signs of vocation and who showed a great desire to walk in the path of the evangelical counsels.

Pachomius built six other monasteries in the Thebaid, but at a short distance from one another. In 338, he chose as the place of his residence that of Pabau, located in the province of Diospolis and on the territory of the city of Thebes. This monastery became even more numerous and more famous than that of Tabennisi. The Saint, by the counsel of Serapion, Bishop of Tentyra, also built a church in a neighboring village for the benefit of the poor occupied with guarding the herds. He served there for some time as a catechist. Nothing was more admirable than the piety with which he read the word of God to the people. The conversion of several infidels was the fruit of his zeal. His bishop wished in vain to ordain him a priest; his humility always made him refuse the honor of the priesthood.

Saint Athanasius had great respect for Saint Pachomius, and he came to visit him at Tabennisi in 333. Pachomius, for his part, singularly revered this bishop, not only because of his eminent virtues, but also because of his attachment to the faith. He had, like him, a great horror of heresies, and he opposed the progress of Arianism on every occasion.

Pachomius had a sister who, also aspiring to perfection, had come to see him at the monastery: he sent word to her at the gate that women could not enter and that it should suffice for her to know that he was still alive. However, when he learned that she desired to consecrate herself to God, he had a monastery built for her on the other side of the Nile, which was soon filled with virgins zealous for the practice of all virtues. Nothing was more serious, more holy, or more touching than the relations between these monks and these nuns. No one went to visit the latter without permission, except for the priest and the deacon assigned to serve them, who only went on Sundays. The monks who had relatives in this community obtained permission to visit them, accompanied by another monk who was among the most senior and holy. They would first see the superior, and then their relatives in the presence of the superior and the principal nuns, without giving or receiving any gifts, and without eating in that place. When there was some construction to be done for the nuns, or some other service to be rendered to them, the monks would come, led by one of the wisest and most serious among them; but they never ate or drank at their place, always returning to their monastery at mealtime. The abbot would send the nuns flax and wool, from which they made the fabrics necessary for themselves and for the monks. When a nun died, her sisters would bring the body to a certain place, where the monks, while chanting, would come to take it, and then they would go to bury it on the mountain where their cemetery was located.

Obedience was the virtue that Pachomius most advised his religious to practice. He removed two stewards from their office, one because, having found wheat at a low price, he had bought more than he had been ordered to; the other because he had sold mats for a higher price than he had been instructed. God performed miracles to justify this conduct of the Saint. Having noticed that a fig tree was tempting the religious with its beautiful fruit, Pachomius ordered it to be destroyed; nevertheless, the gardener, through many supplications, obtained the revocation of this order; but one day the fig tree was found dead.

He also strove to maintain in his community the practice of patience an d humili Théodore Predecessor of Serenus on the see of Marseille. ty. Theodore, one of his dearest disciples, who succeeded him after his death in the government of his monasteries, was tormented by a continual headache. Some brothers having solicited Pachomius to ask God for his healing, he replied: "It is true that abstinence and prayer are very meritorious, but patience in sickness is infinitely more so."

A monk one day did double his ordinary work, two mats instead of one, and placed them in a spot where he knew they would be seen by the abbot. Pachomius indeed noticed them, and guessing the brother's motive: "There," he said, "is much work and trouble for the demon." He then repressed this vanity with salutary humiliations. The religious was further condemned to remain in his cell for five months, with no other food than a little bread, salt, and water.

Except for this article of obedience, for which Saint Pachomius was inexorable, because it is the support of the religious state, he had in all other things much gentleness and condescension in bearing the weaknesses and faults of his brothers. A religious, named Silvanus, having resumed, shortly after his entry into the monastery, the manners, language, and tastes of the world, scandalized the whole community; the elders begged the holy abbot to take away his religious habit and make him leave the monastery. But Saint Pachomius did so much through his prayers to God and his gentle and charitable remonstrances that this religious became the best of the community, for he had the gift of tears for eight years, and died like a Saint. Pachomius protested to all the religious that he had seen his soul ascend to heaven, accompanied by an innumerable multitude of blessed spirits.

The mother of a young novice, named Theodore, having come to the monastery to take her son away, by virtue of certain letters she had obtained from some bishops, Saint Pachomius simply told this religious that he was going to see his mother, since the prelates ordered it so. Theodore replied to him: "Assure me then, my father, that I will not be held accountable at the judgment of God for this visit that I am going to make to my mother." The holy abbot, satisfied with these words, did not press his novice further, and this resolution of the son profited the mother so well that she herself became a religious. Theodore led a life so fervent and so holy that he deserved to be placed, after his death, among the saints, in the Menologion of the Greeks, on the 15th of this month.

Another religious, burning with an indiscreet zeal to suffer martyrdom, begged Saint Pachomius to provide him with the opportunity. The abbot did what he could to remove this thought from him; he explained to him that it was a pure temptation, since the Church, then enjoying peace, one should not wish for it to be disturbed by persecutions; nevertheless, seeing that this religious continued to make the same requests, he finally told him that he would satisfy him, provided he had the courage of martyrdom when the occasion presented itself. Two days later, he sent him to fetch wood in the forest, after having reiterated his warnings. This reckless man went there, full of a presumption that soon changed into a cowardly infidelity; for some savages, who lived on neighboring mountains and still sacrificed to idols, having taken him prisoner, he did indeed show at first some resolution to want to suffer and die for Jesus Christ; but when he saw them take up arms and threaten him with them, he surrendered immediately and ate of what had been sacrificed to idols. He escaped, by this means, from their hands: but he was seized with such great trouble of conscience that he was near falling into despair, had the paternal gentleness of the holy abbot not stopped his tears and raised his courage by the imposition of a salutary penance.

The spirits of darkness attacked and tormented Saint Pachomius with all the artifices they employ against the great saints. They first undertook to inspire him with vanity: when he came out of prayer, they would come in a troop, in human figures, before him, and, pretending to applaud him, they would say to one another: "Make way, make way for the man of God!" At other times, during his orison, they presented themselves to him in ridiculous postures, in order to distract him and excite him to laughter, and, when he took his meal, they appeared to him in the form of immodest young people who begged him to receive them at his table. But whatever the demons could do, they never gained anything against this servant of Jesus Christ; he always maintained the same gravity, the same calm, the same recollection, equally insensible to their praises, their antics, and their seductions. They then attacked him openly, and often whipped him with such cruelty that they left his body all covered with wounds. A good religious, named Apollo, who came to see him, was a witness to these bloody executions; but he encouraged him and excited him to perseverance, assuring him, on behalf of God, that the storm would soon cease, as indeed it happened. God even gave him great power over demons, as well as over illnesses. A poor father brought him one of his daughters, cruelly tormented by one of the infernal spirits; but, as it was not permitted for women to enter the monastery, Saint Pachomius asked for some of the possessed woman's clothing to bless it; then, having known by revelation that her conscience was in a bad state, he had her warned of it, and, after having made her promise to correct herself, he healed her with a little blessed oil that he sent her. He also delivered a young possessed person by having him eat a piece of blessed bread. A woman, afflicted with an issue of blood, begged a good priest, named Denis, to draw the holy abbot into his church by occasion. Pachomius went there, and this sick woman having approached him gently, and having touched with great faith the hem of his robe, following the example of the woman with the issue of blood in the Gospel, she found herself immediately healed. One of his religious, having been stung by a scorpion during his prayer, without however interrupting it, was similarly healed as soon as he had asked for health from the holy abbot.

The grace of healing the sick was not the only one with which God favored Saint Pachomius; he also had the gift of prophecy, and that of penetrating the secrets of the heart. Conversing one day with Abbot Theodore, he warned him that the brothers in charge of the bakery, who were obliged to keep silence and to occupy themselves with holy thoughts while they made the loaves intended for the holy sacrifice of the Mass, were nevertheless amusing themselves by chatting: this infraction was verified, which was real, and it did not remain without punishment. Another time, he gave notice to the Father Vicar that a religious, who was sleeping in his cell during the exhortation, was experiencing a violent temptation; indeed, he succumbed to it, and immediately left the habit and the religious profession. God made known to him, in a vision, the future state of his Order: that many would relax from the strict observance; the imperfect having made themselves masters there, offices would no longer be filled except by politics and human respect, and not by consideration of the merits and capacity of the persons; the best religious and the most worthy being excluded, everything would go into decadence and fall into great disorder. As the holy man was extremely afflicted by so many misfortunes, Our Lord appeared to him with a crown of thorns on his head, and consoled him. Pachomius later shared this with his religious, in a long and pathetic exhortation that he gave them on this subject.

One could add to these two gratuitous graces that of the gift of tongues: a religious from Italy having gone to find him to reveal the state of his conscience, the holy abbot could not understand him, because he only knew his mother tongue, which was that of Egypt; he had recourse to God, and made this prayer to Him: "Lord, if, for lack of knowing languages, I cannot help foreigners, why do you send them to me? And if it pleases you that I serve them, give me what is necessary for me to execute your will." He continued this orison for the space of three hours; and at the end, he received from heaven a full understanding and a perfect use of the Greek language and the Latin language.

Thus, Pachomius obtained miracles, not only for others, but also for himself. He walked on snakes and trampled scorpions underfoot, without receiving any harm from them; and when he had to cross some arm of the Nile to visit his monasteries, the crocodiles would present themselves to him and carry him on their backs. Finally, his whole life was but a continual miracle. Indeed, is it not a wonderful thing to have lived so long, almost without eating, and absolutely without sleeping; for, during the temptations of which we have spoken, he asked for the grace from Our Lord not to be subject to sleep, in order to be incessantly under arms to fight the enemy. What is no less wonderful is the humility with which this venerable old man received the remonstrances of the least novices. One day when he was visiting his monasteries and working on mats with the others, a young brother, noticing that Saint Pachomius was not braiding them according to the ordinary method, said to him freely: "My father, you are not doing it right; Abbot Theodore wants it done in another way." "Well then! my child," the Saint replied gently, "show me how it must be done." And, having learned it, he changed his way of working.

In the year 348, the plague ravaged the monasteries of Saint Pachomius, and took from him one hundred religious. He himself fell ill after the feast of Easter; he was extremely exhausted and weakened; but his face always remained cheerful and as if shining with a holy joy, which sufficiently revealed the candor and purity of his soul. Two days before his death, he exhorted his religious to perseverance and to the practice of what he had taught them. He warned them above all to flee from heretics, particularly the Arians, the Meletians, and the Origenists, and to converse only with persons whose conversation could edify them and lead them to perfection. Finally, he also exhorted them to elect as their superior, in his place, a holy religiou s called Pétronius Religious figure designated by Pachomius to succeed him. Petronius, to whom he recommended, although he was absent, the whole company; then he perceived his guardian angel beside him, and, after having contemplated him with an eye full of gladness, he made the sign of the cross and rendered his beautiful soul to God on May 14 of the year 348. His disciples spent the night in the continuous singing of psalms and hymns, and buried him the following day on the mountain, as he had ordered.

Saint Pachomius is represented in the habit of a Hermit, receiving from the hands of an angel the book of his Rule; crossing the Nile on the backs of crocodiles, etc.

As for Saint Palaemon, he is found winding skeins; which is perhaps based on the circumstance that he set his religious to weaving hairshirts.

The Order of Saint Pachomius subsisted in the East until the 10th century.

The Life of Saint Pachomius was written shortly after his death by a monk of Tabennisi. See Rosweyde, l. 187, p. 114; Papebroch, t. XX, mat, p. 267; Tillemont, t. VII; Ceillier, t. IV, Vivès edit.; Hélyot, t. XV, Migne edit.