Today March 7

St. Paul the Simple was a working man, a husbandman, very simple and guileless. One day, on discovering the infidelity of his wife, he set off to be a monk. He knocked at the door of St. Anthony's cell.

Anthony: "What do you want?"
Paul: "To be a monk."
Anthony: "It is quite impossible for you, a man of sixty. Be content with the life of a laborer, giving thanks to God."
Paul: "Whatsoever you teach me I will do."
Anthony: "If a monk you must be, go to a cenobium. I live here alone only eating once every five days."

With this St. Anthony shut the door. Paul remained outside the door for 3 days. On the fourth day, St. Anthony let him in. He set him to work weaving a rope out of palm leaves, made him undo what he had done, and do it again. When it was evening he asked Paul if he wanted to eat. "Just as you like," was the reply. St. Anthony produced 4 loaves, took one and gave the other 3 to Paul. They said their prayers and each ate one. Paul was told to eat another.

Paul: "If you do, I will; if you don't, I won't."
Anthony: "I am a monk, and one is enough for me."
Paul: "It is enough for me, for I am going to be a monk."

They prayed, slept, woke at midnight, and prayed some more. Finally Paul got what he wanted. After he had lived with Anthony several months, he was given a cell for himself a few miles down the road. In a year's time the grace of healing and casting out devils was given to Paul. He was even able to exorcise a fiend over whom even St. Anthony had no power. I don't know the story, but I wonder . . . if he was the monk to whom was brought one with an evil spirit that the monk may heal him. After much pleading, the old man said, "Go out from this the God has made." And the devil made answer, "I go but I ask thee one question, and do thou answer me: who be the goats, who the lambs?" The old man said, "The goats indeed be such as I: but who the lambs may be, God knows." Hearing it, the devil cried out with a great voice, "Behold, because of this humbleness of thine, I go." And he went out that same hour.

St. Anthony came to value Paul's judgment, simple though he was. And one day a summons came to him from the Emperor Constantius to go to Constantinople. "Should I go?" he asked Paul the Simple. "If you go, you will be called Anthony, but if you stay here, you will be called Abba Anthony." He stayed.

He used to say, "If a monk will have aught in his cell beyond those things without which he cannot live, he is often forced to go out from his cell, and is waylaid by the Demon." And Paul himself, through the whole of Lent, lived on a pint of lentils and one small vessel of water, and busied himself on a single mat, praying and plaiting and replaiting, that he might not have to go out of doors.

Paul the Simple, the disciple of Abba Anthony, told the Fathers that which follows: One day he went to a monastery to visit it and to make himself useful to the brethren. After the customary conference, the brothers entered the holy church of God to perform the synaxis there, as usual. Blessed Paul looked carefully at each of those who entered the church observing the spiritual disposition with which they went to the synaxis, for he had received the grace from the Lord of seeing the state of each one's soul, just as we see their faces. When all had entered with sparkling eyes and shining faces, with each one's angel rejoicing over him, he said, "I see one who is black and his whole body is dark; the demons are standing on each side of him, dominating him, drawing him to them, and leading him by the nose, and his angel, filled with grief, with head bowed, follows him at a distance." Then Paul, in tears, beat his breast and sat down in front of the church, weeping bitterly. Shortly after the end of the synaxis, as everyone was coming out, Paul scrutinized each one, wanting to know in what state they were coming away. He saw that man, previously black and gloomy, coming out of the church with a shining face and white body, the demons accompanying him only at a distance, while his holy angel was following close to him, rejoicing. Then Paul leaped for joy and began to cry out, "O the ineffable loving-kindness and goodness of God!" Everyone ran together in haste, wanting to hear what he was saying. When they were all assembled, Paul related what he had seen at the entrance to the church and what had happened afterwards and he asked that man to tell them the reason why God had suddenly bestowed such a change upon him. Then the man whom Paul pointed out said, "I am a sinful man; I have lived in fornication for a long time, right up to the present moment; when I went into the holy church of God, I heard the holy prophet Isaiah being read, 'Wash you, make you clean, take away the evil from your hearts, learn to do good before mine eyes. Even though your sins are as scarlet I will make them white as snow.' (Is 1:16-19) and I," he continued, "the fornicator, am filled with compunction in my heart because of this word of God. From now on, I give my word, I affirm and promise in my heart that I will not sin any more." At these words they all with one voice cried out praise to God.