St. Anthony of Egypt is usually regarded as the ‘father of monasticism’, by virtue of gathering together a number of Christian hermits living in isolation in the Egyptian desert.  St. Paul, alias St. Paul of Thebes, was reputedly the first of these hermits, taking to the wilderness in a time of persecution (under the emperor Decius in the 250’s) and remaining there until his death aged over 100 – a longevity also achieved by St. Anthony.  A deliberately obscure life obviously does not attract a very substantial biography; St. Jerome’s “Life of Paul”, an expansion of an earlier Greek work, is a mixture of historical fact and spiritual myth.  According to the story, St. Paul was accompanied by two tamed lions, who, when he died in St. Anthony’s presence, clawed into the ground to make his grave.  He is often shown in art with these lions, as also with the palm tree which provided him with food and shelter.  His fame seems to have spread far from Egypt; details of his life are shown on early Irish Celtic crosses, and on the famous Ruthwell Cross (c.700) from Dumfries-shire, while his feast was generally celebrated in medieval monasteries, of which he may be seen as some kind of spiritual ancestor.