y ordered him to
moisten in water four loaves of six ounces each; for their bread in the
deserts was exceeding hard and dry. When their refection was prepared,
instead of eating, he bade Paul sing psalms with him, then to sit down
by the loaves, and at night, after praying together, to take his rest.
He called him up at midnight to pray with him: this exercise the old man
continued with great cheerfulness till three o'clock in the afternoon
the following day. After sunset, each ate one loaf, and Antony asked
Paul if he would eat another. "Yes, if you do," said Paul; "I am a
monk," said Antony; "And I desire to be one," replied the disciple;
whereupon they arose, sung twelve psalms, and recited twelve other {541}
prayers. After a short repose, they both arose again to prayer at
midnight. The experienced director exercised his obedience by frequent
trials, bidding him one day, when many monks were come to visit him to
receive his spiritual advice, to spill a vessel of honey, and then to
gather it up without any dust. At other times he ordered him to draw
water a whole day and pour it out again; to make baskets and pull them
to pieces; to sew and unsew his garments, and the like.[2] What
victories over themselves and their passions might youth and others,
&c., gain! what a treasure of virtue might they procure, by a ready and
voluntary obedience and conformity of their will to that of those whom
Providence bath placed over them! This they would find the effectual
means to crush pride, and subdue their passions. But obedience is of
little advantage, unless it bend the will itself, and repress all wilful
interior murmuring and repugnance. When Paul had been sufficiently
exercised and instructed in the duties of a monastic life, St. Antony
placed him in a cell three miles from his own, where he visited him from
time to time. He usually preferred his virtue to that of all his other
disciples, and proposed him to them as a model. He frequently sent to
Paul sick persons, or those possessed by the devil, whom he was not able
to cure; as not having received the gift; and by the disciple's prayers
they never failed of a cure. St. Paul died some time after the year 330.
He is commemorated both by the Greeks and Latins, on the 7th of March.
See Palladius, Rufinus, and Sozomen, abridged by Tillemont, t. 7, p.
144. Also by Henschenius, p. 645.

Footnotes:
1. Pallad. Lausiac. c. 28, p. 942. Rufin. Vit. Patr. c. 31. Sozom. l.
1, c.