St Paul the First Hermit

On the calendars of the Roman and Byzantine Rites, today is the feast of St Paul the First Hermit, an Egyptian anchorite whose life was written by St Jerome around the year 375AD, only 15-20 years after Paul’s death at the age of 113. As recounted by Jerome, Paul was from the city of Thebes (in the Byzantine tradition, he is called “Paul the Theban”), and at the age of 16, on the death of his