"yet unless I see you I will not turn away. You welcome beasts, why not
a man? If I fail, I will die here on your threshold."

"Such was his constant cry; unmoved he stood,
To whom the hero thus brief answer made."

"Prayers like these do not mean threats, there is no trickery in tears."
So, with smiles, Paul gives him entrance and the two aged hermits fall
into each other's embrace. Together they converse of things human and
divine, Paul, close to the dust of the grave, asks, Are new houses
springing up in ancient cities? What government directs the world?
Little did this recluse know of his fellow-beings and how fared it with
the children of men who dwelt in those great cities around the blue
Mediterranean. He was dead to the world and knew it no more.

A raven brought the aged brothers bread to eat and the hours glided
swiftly away. Anthony returned to get a cloak which Athanasius had given
him in which to wrap the body of Paul. So eager was he to behold again
his newly-found friend that he set out without even a morsel of bread,
thirsting to see him. But when yet three days' journey from the cave he
saw Paul on high among the angels. Weeping, he trudged on his way. On
entering the cave he saw the lifeless body kneeling, with head erect and
hands uplifted. He tenderly wrapped the body in the cloak and began to
lament that he had no implements to dig a grave. But Providence sent two
lions from the recesses of the mountain that came rushing with flying
manes. Roaring, as if they too mourned, they pawed the earth and thus
the grave was dug. Anthony, bending his aged shoulders beneath the
burden of the saint's body, laid it lovingly in the grave and departed.

Jerome closes this account by challenging those who do not know the