Venerable Paul the Simple

Venerable Paul the Simple was a 4th-century Egyptian hermit and disciple of St. Anthony the Great. Per Palladius's "Lausiac History" and Rufinus's "History of the Monks of Egypt," Paul was an illiterate peasant farmer who, on discovering his wife's infidelity, reacted not with rage or grief but with laughter, saying "Fine, then — I am no longer bound to her," and at age sixty set out on an eight-day journey to St. Anthony to be received among the ascetics.

Anthony refused him three times on account of his age and left him standing outside his cell without food or water for four days, hoping he would give up; when Paul's resolve proved unbreakable, Anthony admitted him on condition of total obedience and subjected him to severe trials — a week of standing in prayer under the desert sun, repeatedly unweaving and rebraiding a palm-rope on the seventh day of a fast, and a test at table — all endured without complaint, astonishing Anthony.

After several months Anthony built him a separate cell three or four miles away. For his humility and perfect obedience, God granted Paul clairvoyance and power to cast out even demons Anthony himself could not expel — most famously healing a possessed youth after Anthony's own efforts had failed.

He died around 339; his feast is kept March 7/20, and also October 4/17.