earlier ages, have deduced it from the blessed Elias and John; of
whom Elias seems to us to have been rather a prophet than a monk;
and John to have begun to prophesy before he was born. But others
(an opinion in which all the common people are agreed) assert that
Antony was the head of this rule of life, which is partly true. For
he was not so much himself the first of all, as the man who excited
the earnestness of all. But Amathas and Macarius, Antony's
disciples (the former of whom buried his master's body), even now
affirm that a certain Paul, a Theban, was the beginner of the
matter; which (not so much in name as in opinion) we also hold to be
true. Some scatter about, as the fancy takes them, both this and
other stories; inventing incredible tales of a man in a subterranean
cave, hairy down to his heels, and many other things, which it is
tedious to follow out. For, as their lie is shameless, their
opinion does not seem worth refuting.

Therefore, because careful accounts of Antony, both in Greek and
Roman style, have been handed down, I have determined to write a
little about the beginning and end of Paul's life; more because the
matter has been omitted, than trusting to my own wit. But how he
lived during middle life, or what stratagems of Satan he endured, is
known to none.


THE LIFE OF PAUL


Under Decius and Valerius, the persecutors, at the time when
Cornelius at Rome, and Cyprian at Carthage, were condemned in
blessed blood, a cruel tempest swept over many Churches in Egypt and