RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Pacca
Pachomius Rhusanus
Exeter. Meanwhile he had attracted the notice of Henry VIII. and Wolsey. In 1521 he was sent to the strong republic of Venice and again in 1523 to promote Wolsey's election to the papacy. Wolsey was believed to be jealous of his influence; more probably his health, both physical and mental, was failing, and upon the doge's request, he was recalled in 1525. In 1527 he retired from St. Paul's to Sion near Twickenham. Pace was an amiable and accomplished man, the friend of More, Erasmus, and Colet. He had the courage to publish a book against Henry VIII. 's marriage with Catharine of Aragon (1527); but his most important work is De fructu qui ex doctrina percipitur (Basel, 1517). Bibliography: H. H. Milman, Annals of St. Paul's, pp. 179 sqq., London, 1869; J. S. Brewer, Reign of Henry VIII., i. 112 sqq., ib. 1884; DNB, xliii. 22-24.
PACHOMIUS, pa-co'mius: Egyptian monk and founder of monasteries; b. near Esneh (25 m. s. of Thebes) about 292; d. probably at Peboou, north of Tabennse (the latter 35 m. n.w. of Thebes), May 9, 346 {ASB, May 14, 348). The son of heathen parents, he was a recruit in one of the Egyptian wars of Constantine (probably 314), and was converted to Christianity at Esneh. Free to return to his home after Constantine's victory, he was baptized at Chenoboscion (Shenesit). After dwelling for a short time in a little chapel at Chenoboscion, he resided for a considerable period in the hermit colony of Palaemon. He then built at Tabennse, on the east bank of the Nile, the first monastery, replacing the scattered cells of the hermits by a house with many cells, the structure being surrounded by a wall. This proving too small, a second monastery was built at Peboou, which, in Pachomius' lifetime, became the center of nine monasteries and two nunneries. Accused of having visions by the bishops at a synod held at Esneh, he hardly escaped with his life from the bloody turmoil between priests and monks. He early enjoyed the favor of Athanasius, who visited his monasteries in 330, and whose orthodox teachings he zealously upheld. Pachomius was a skilful organizer. The entire group of monasteries became a great productive society under his administration, buying the raw materials and selling the finished products. A general reckoning was held semiannually at Easter and on Aug. 13. In 351, five years after the death of Pachomius, an attempt was made by Apollonius, abbot of Temoushons, to break up this closely organized system; but the threatened schism of the monastic union subsided when Theodore became the coadjutor of Horsiisi, who had succeeded Patronius, Pachomius' short-lived successor, in 346. Theodore built three new monasteries and one new nunnery; and the number of Greek monks increased rapidly, Pachomius having admitted foreigners and built a special house for Greek monks. In 404 Jerome reckoned the monks who attended the general accountings at the exaggerated number of 50,000; Cassian estimated them at only 5,000; while Palladius and Sozomen speak of only 7,000 monks of Tabennse. About 460 a church was erected in honor of Pachomius by Martyrius, abbot of Peboou.
In his establishment of monastic life, Pachomius
prepared a rule which required absolute obedience, checked individual caprice, and prescribed certain exercises and abstinences binding on all members of the community. According to the oldest form of the rule, which apparently goes back to Pachomius himself and which is preserved by Palladius (Hist. Lausiaca, xxxviii.) and other sources, each of the numerous cells in a monastery was to accommodate three monks. All the monks were to wear a linen undergarment, a leather girdle, and a white sheep skin or goat skin; the skin and the girdle being laid aside only when the monks received the Eucharist on Saturday and Sunday. Their headdress was the cucullus. By night the skins were to serve to cover the monks, who slept on low, sloping benches of masonry. The common meals were to be taken with covered head and in absolute silence. A three-years' novitiate was required before admission to the monastery. The earliest traces of the hours are found in this first of monastic rules; twelve prayers were to be recited by day, three at nones, twelve at twilight, and twelve at the midnight vigils, each prayer being preceded by the singing of a psalm. The monks were divided into twenty-four divisions according to the letters of the alphabet, the classification being based on the correspondence of the character of each monk to the mystical signification attached to the individual letters of the alphabet. This latter classification was soon replaced by a division according to the manual duties of the monks; and the requirement of the three-years' novitiate was abolished.
The rules of Pachomius, which have passed through many recensions in Coptic, Ethiopic, Greek, and Latin, exercised a powerful influence in the later development of monasticism. The Ethiopic monasteries were modeled after them; Athanasius brought them to the west during his exile in 340- 346; Jerome translated them in 404 for his monastery at Bethlehem; and Benedict of Aniane (q.v.) selected them in his reform of Frankish monasticism. Anselm of Havelberg (q.v.) in the twelfth century found more than 500 monks living in a monastery at Constantinople according to the rules of Pachomius. Coptic fragments of sermons of Pachomius and Theodore and of four letters of Horsiisi have also survived, as well as the latter's Doctrina de institutione monachorum, also probably translated by Jerome. (G. Grutzmacher.)
Bibliography: The Vita, by an unknown Greek author, in Lat. transl. by Dionysius Exiguus, is in MPL, lxxiii. 227- 272, and in ASB, May, iii. 295-334. Fragments of other lives in Coptic and Arabic are given in Annales du Musee Guimet, xvii (1889), 1 sqq., 295 sqq., 337 sqq., and M6moiresde lamission archeologique francaise au Caire, iv. 2-3, 521 sqq.; one in Syriac is in Bedjan, Acta martyrum et sanctorum, v. 121 sqq., Paris, 1895. Other sources are Palladius, Historia Lausiaca, chaps, vii., xx., xxxvinxlii., xlviii.; Gennadius, De vir. ill., viii.-ix. Consult: E. Amelineau, Etude historique sur S. Pachdme, Cairo, 1887- G. Grutzmacher, Pachomius und das alteste Klosterleben, Freiburg, 1896; P. Ladeuze, ttude sur le cenobitisme Pakhomien, Louvain, 1898; S. Schiwietz, m Archiv fur katholisches Kirchenrecht, 1901-03; DCB, iv. 170-171.
PACHOMIUS RHUSANUS: Greek theologian; b. in Zante, one of the Ionian islands, 1510; d. about 1553. He was a monk first in his native
Pacianus Paine