Pachomius (nrtY''V"'c), as Socrates and Palladi- us write the name, or Pachumius (n«xo'V"oc) (1), or "the Elder," according to the author of Vita Pa- chiimii, was an Egyptian ascetic of the 4th century, and one of the founders, if not pre-eminently the founder, of the regular cloister life. See Moxasti- ciSM. "The respect which the Church entertains at present," says Tillemont (Memoires, vii, 1G7), "for the name of St. Pachomius is no new feeling, but a just recognition of the obligations which she is under to him as the holy founder of a great number of mon- asteries; or, rather, as the institutor not only of certain convents, but of the conventual life itself, and of the holy communities of men devoted to a religious life." Pachomius was born in the Thebaid of heathen par- ents, and was educated in paganism ; and while a lad, going with his parents to offer sacrifice in one of the temples of the gods, was hastily expelled by the order of the priest as an enemy of the gods. The incident was afterwards recorded as a prognostic of his subsequent conversion and saintly eminence. At the age of twentj' he was drawn for military' service under the tyrant Maximin against Constantino and Liciiiius. The conscripts were embarked in a boat and conveyed down the Nile ; and being landed at Thebes were placed in confinement, apparently to pre- vent desertion. Here they were visited by the Chris- tians of the place, and a grateful curiosit}' led Pacho- mius to inquire into the character and opinions of the charitable strangers. Struck with what he had heard of them, he seized tlie first opportunity of solitude to offer the simple and touching prayer, " O God, the creator of heaven and earth, if thou wilt indeed look upon m}' low estate, notwithstanding my ignorance of thee, the onh' true God, and wilt deliver me from this affliction, I will obey thy will all the days of my life, and will love and serve all men according to thy com- mandments." He was, however, obliged to accompany his fellow-conscripts, and suffered many hardships dur- ing this period of enforced service : but when the set- tlement of the contest released him he hastened back into the Thebaid, and was baptized in the church of Chenoboscia, near the city of Diospolis tlie Less : and aspiring at pre-eminent holiness, led an ascetic life, under the guidance of Palemon (q. v.), an anchoret of high repute. After a time he withdrew with Palemon to Tabenna, an island in the Nile, near the conimoa boundary of the Theban and Tenthyrite nomes. Some time after this removal his companion Palemon died, but Pachomius found a substitute for his departed companion in his own elder brother, Joannes or John, who gladly became his disciple. In A.D. 325, directed by what he regarded as a divine intimation, Pacho- mius invited men to embrace a monastic life ; and ob- tained first three disciples, and then many more, form- ed them into a community and prescribed rules for their guidance, and as the community grew in num- ber he appointed the needful officers for their regula- tion and instruction. He built a church as a place of worship and instruction for the shepherds, to whom,
PACHOMIUS
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pacho:mius
as there was no other reader, he read the Scriptures. So successful were his hihoi's for tlie propai^atiou of Christianity that the bishop of Tenthyra would have gladly raised him to the rank of prcsln'ter, and even requested Athanasius, patriarch of Alexandria, when visiting the Thebaid, to ordain him ; but I'achomius, being aware of the design, hid himself until tlie patri- arch had departed. His refusal of the office of pres- b\'ter did not, however, diminish his reputation or in- fluence ; new disciples flocked to him — of whom The- odorus or Theodore was tlie most illustrious. New monasteries sprung up all around his own. Of these several communities he was himself visitor and regu- lator-general, or archimandrite, each cloistar having besides a separate superior and a steward; thus, e. g., his disciple Theodore was superior of the monaster}' of Tabenna. Pachomius's residence was now at the monastery of Proii, which was made the head of the monasteries of the district. He died there of a pesti- lential disorder which had broken out among the monks, probably in A.D. 348, a short tinn before the death or expulsion of the Arian patriarch Gregory and the restoration of Athanasius. Some, however, place the death of Pachomius in A.D. 3G0.
The monastic communities which he had founded had been so regularly constituted as bodies that the continuity of their existence was not interrupted by his own death or that of other individuals. Even before Pachomius's death (348) his communitj' num- bered eight or nine cloisters in the Thebaid, and 8000 (according to some 7000) members ; a century later it counted no less than 50,000. The mode of life was fi.xed by a strict rule of Pachomius, which, according to a later legend, an angel communicated to him, and which Jerome translated into Latin. The formal re- ception into the society was preceded by a three-years' probation. Eigid vows were not j'et enjoined. AVith spiritual exercises manual labor was united — agricult- ure, boat-building, basket- making, mat and coverlet weaving — by which the monks not only earned their own living, but also supported the poor and the sick. They were divided, according to the grade of their ascetic piety, into twentj'-four classes, named by the