Saint Pior (or Prior; 4th century) was an Egyptian monk and hermit in the desert of Scetis, one of the Desert Fathers, and a disciple of Anthony the Great. He lived to a great age. His feast day is 17 June.
Pior (St.) Hermit. (June 17) (4th cent.) A disciple of Saint Antony in Egypt, and one of the Fathers of the Desert venerated in the East.[1]
Prior (St.) Hermit. (June 17) (4th cent.) An Egyptian, one of the first disciples of Saint Antony. He died at the end of the fourth century, being then nearly one hundred years old.[2]
Butler's account
The hagiographer Alban Butler (1710–1773) wrote in his Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints under June 17,
On this day the Greeks honour St Prior, Hermit, who was a native of Egypt, and one of the first disciples of St. Antony. He died towards the end of the fourth century, and was about one hundred years of age. See the Bollandists.[3]
Baring-Gould's account
Sabine Baring-Gould (1834–1924) in his Lives Of The Saints wrote under June 17,
S. PIOR, H. (end of 4th cent.) [Greek Menæa. Authority:—Palladius, in his Lives of the Fathers of the Desert, and S. Ammonius (d. circ. 365), in a letter on his visit to SS. Pachomius and Theodore.][4]
S. Pior was a disciple of the great abbot Anthony. He was once sent by the abbot to his sister, who was very anxious to see him. He went to her house, knocked at her door, and she received him with great joy and affection. But he kept his eyes shut, and said, "Take thy fill of looking at me," and then he hied back to his cell in the desert. This he did that solitaries might learn not to allow themselves to be entangled with the world through visits to or from their relatives.
Once at a conference he came in with a sack of sand on his back, and a little sand in a basket before him. "We are too fond of flinging our own faults behind our backs, that we may fix all our attention on the foibles and failings of others," said he.[4]
Sozomen's account
Henry Ruffner (1790–1861) in his The Fathers of the Desert draws on Sozomen (c.400–450AD) and writes,
Pior resolved in early youth to engage in the monastic life. When for this purpose he quitted his father's house, he promised God that he would never afterwards see any of his family. Fifty years afterwards, his sister heard that he was alive. The unexpected news filled her with exceeding joy, and she could not rest until she should see her brother. The bishop of that region, when he saw her lamenting and supplicating on this account in her old age, wrote to the governors of the monks in the desert of Scetis, to send Pior to visit his sister. Being ordered to go, he could not refuse: for the Egyptian monks—and all others, I believe—cannot lawfully disobey a command of their superiors. Therefore he took with him a companion and departed for his own country. When he came to the door of his old family mansion, he stopped and sent in word of his arrival. When he heard the sound of the door opening, he shut his eyes, called his sister by name, and said, I am Pior, your brother: look at me now as much as you please. She was delighted and gave thanks to God. But he, after making a prayer before the door, returned to his place of abode.[5]
He had dug a well here and found only bitter water; but he continued to use it during the remainder of his life. His excessive self-denial in this matter was manifested after his death; for, though many attempted to philosophize at the same place, none of them could bear the water.[5] I am persuaded, however, that he could easily have changed the bitter into sweet water, if he had not chosen to philosophize in this way, seeing that he once made a fountain spout forth where none had existed before: for the monks who were with the monk Moses, relate that they were digging a well once; and having failed to get water at the utmost depth that they could dig, they were giving up in despair, when Pior came upon them and reproved them for their despondency.[6] He then descended into the well; and after he had uttered a prayer, he struck the spade thrice into the ground: whereupon a fountain is said to have gushed up and filled the well. When asked by Moses's monks to stay and dine with them, he said, no, that was not what he had come for: he had finished the business which had brought him thither.[7]
Pior usually walked when he took his food. When asked why he ate in that way, he said, because I am not willing to eat as if I made a business of eating; but I choose to do it as a thing by the way. To another who asked him the same question, he answered, I do it that the mind may not take any pleasure in such a corporeal act as eating.—(Note.— This last paragraph is from Socrates.) [7]
And there was an Egyptian youth whose name was Pîôr, and he was a holy man; and when he departed from the house of his parents he made a covenant with God with the zeal of excellence that he would never see again any of his kinsfolk. And after fifty years had passed, the sister of this blessed man, who was very old and grey, heard that he was alive, and she greatly desired to see him; now she was unable to come to him to the desert, and she besought the Bishop, who was in that country, to write to the fathers who lived in the desert [telling] them to urge him, and to send him to see his sister. Then when the blessed man saw the pressure which came from them to make him go, he took with him certain of the brethren, and set out to go on the journey, and [having arrived] he sent and informed his sister’s household, saying, “Behold, Pîôr thy brother hath come, and he standeth outside.” Now when his sister heard his voice, she went forth in great haste, and when Pîôr heard the sound of the door, and knew that the aged woman his sister was coming forth to see him, he shut his eyes tightly, and said, “So and so, I am thy brother; look at me as far as thou canst do so”; and having seen him she was relieved (or gratified) in her mind, and gave thanks unto God, but she was unable to persuade him to enter into her house. And he made a prayer by the side of the door with his eyes closed tightly, and departed to the desert.
And he also wrought the following wonderful thing: In the place where he lived he dug a hole in the ground, and found water which was bitter [in taste], but until the day wherein he died he endured the bitter taste of the water, in order that he might make known that which he suffered patiently for the sake of God. Now after his death many of the monks wished to abide in that place, but they were not able to do so, even for one year, chiefly because of the terrible nature of the country and the barrenness thereof.[8]
Anthony the Great was a Christian monk from Egypt, revered since his death as a saint. He is distinguished from other saints named Anthony, such as Anthony of Padua, by various epithets: Anthony of Egypt, Anthony the Abbot, Anthony of the Desert, Anthony the Anchorite, Anthony the Hermit, and Anthony of Thebes. For his importance among the Desert Fathers and to all later Christian monasticism, he is also known as the Father of All Monks. His feast day is celebrated on 17 January among the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic churches and on Tobi 22 in the Coptic calendar.
A hermit, also known as an eremite or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions.
Moses the Black, also known as Moses the Strong, Moses the Robber, and Moses the Ethiopian, was an ascetic monk and priest in Egypt in the fourth century AD, and a Desert Father. He is highly venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Church. According to stories about him, he converted from a life of crime to one of asceticism. He is mentioned in Sozomen's Ecclesiastical History, written about 70 years after Moses's death.
The Desert Fathers were early Christian hermits and ascetics, who lived primarily in the Scetes desert of the Roman province of Egypt, beginning around the third century AD. The Apophthegmata Patrum is a collection of the wisdom of some of the early desert monks and nuns, in print as Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The first Desert Father was Paul of Thebes, and the most well known was Anthony the Great, who moved to the desert in AD 270–271 and became known as both the father and founder of desert monasticism. By the time Anthony had died in AD 356, thousands of monks and nuns had been drawn to living in the desert following Anthony's example, leading his biographer, Athanasius of Alexandria, to write that "the desert had become a city." The Desert Fathers had a major influence on the development of Christianity.
John the Silent, also known as "John the Hesychast", was a Christian saint known for living alone for seventy-six years. He was given the surname because of his affinity for recollection and silence. St. John's feast day is May 13 in the General Roman Calendar of the Catholic Church, and December 3 in Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches.
A skete is a monastic community in Eastern Christianity that allows relative isolation for monks, but also allows for communal services and the safety of shared resources and protection. It is one of four types of early monastic orders, along with the eremitic, lavritic and coenobitic, that became popular during the early formation of the Christian Church.
Samuel the Confessor is a Coptic Orthodox saint, venerated in all Oriental Orthodox Churches. He is most famous for his torture at the hands of the Chalcedonian Byzantines, for his witness of the Arab invasion of Egypt, and for having built the monastery that carries his name in Mount Qalamoun. He carries the label "confessor" because he endured torture for his Christian faith, but was not a martyr.
St. Paul the Simple of Egypt was a hermit and disciple of St. Anthony the Great. St. John, the Abbot of Sinai wrote "Paul the Simple was a clear example for us, for he was the rule and type of blessed simplicity." Though contemporaries, he is not to be confused with St. Paul of Thebes, regarded as the First Hermit. The account of his life is found in Palladius of Helenopolis De Vitis Patrum 8,28 and Tyrannius Rufinus Historia Eremitica 31.
Pambo was a Coptic Desert Father of the fourth century and disciple of Anthony the Great. His feast day is July 18 among the Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox, and Catholic churches.
Saint Isidora, or Saint Isidore, was a Christian nun and saint of the 4th century AD. She is considered among the earliest fools for Christ. While very little is known of Isidora's life, she is remembered for her exemplification of the writing of St. Paul that “Whosoever of you believes that he is wise by the measure of this world, may he become a fool, so as to become truly wise.” The story of Isidora effectively highlights the Christian ideal that recognition or glory from man is second to one's actions being seen by God, even if that means one's actions or even one's self remains unknown or misunderstood. This ideal was extremely important to the early Desert Fathers and Mothers who recorded Isidora's story.
Desert Mothers is a neologism, coined in feminist theology as an analogy to Desert Fathers, for the ammas or female Christian ascetics living in the desert of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria in the 4th and 5th centuries AD. They typically lived in the monastic communities that began forming during that time, though sometimes they lived as hermits. Monastic communities acted collectively with limited outside relations with lay people. Some ascetics chose to venture into isolated locations to restrict relations with others, deepen spiritual connection, and other ascetic purposes. Other women from that era who influenced the early ascetic or monastic tradition while living outside the desert are also described as Desert Mothers.
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Saint Isidore of Scetes was a 4th-century A.D. Egyptian Christian priest and desert ascetic.
Saint Julian Sabas was a hermit who spent most of his life in deserted parts of Syria, but left his cell for a short period to denounce Arianism. His feast day is 14 January or 18 October in the Roman Church.
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Or of Nitria was an Egyptian Orthodox Christian ascetic who lived around the 4th century AD in Egypt in Dalga, Nitria, the Thebaid, and in the deserts around Shaina. He is one of the lesser-known Desert Fathers, but is nevertheless regarded as one of the "chief among monks", being "a man who stood out among many of the fathers". He is associated with Theodore and Sisoes the Great. According to Jerome, at one point during his life, Or was the father of "one thousand [cenobitic] monks" in the Egyptian Desert. Or died c. 390.
Ammonas of Egypt was an eastern Christian anchorite, monastic, and Desert Father who was born around the early 4th century. He is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Ammonas was a disciple of Anthony the Great and Pambo. Many of his known sayings and quotations exist in eleven sections of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers.
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