P

545

Pachomius(ca. 292–346)traditional founder of coeno-
bitic monasticism
Pachomius was born about 292 in southern EGYPT.He
was converted at about age 20 while serving in a Roman
army, when he experienced Christian CHARITY. Released
at the end of the war, he returned to the village of Cheno-
boskion in Upper Egypt to be baptized. He took up an
ascetic life as a hermit and practicing forms of penance
under a spiritual father and fellow anchorite.
In 323, while gathering wood in an abandoned vil-
lage, Tabennesi, he had a VISIONthat instructed him to
build a monastery there for the good of himself and oth-
ers. Previously, early MONASTICISMhad been dominated
by hermit monks, such as Anthony (ca. 251–356). He
and others had withdrawn from the world in solitude as
ANCHORITES. Pachomius’s new experiment grew so that
within six years, the number of monks had increased,
requiring the establishment of a second monastery
nearby. Pachomius also devised the first monastic rule for
efficiently governing monks as they live in a common
economic and spiritual life of shared meals, work, and
PRAYERwith a walled complex.
When Pachomius died in 346 of a PLAGUEthat swept
his communities, as many as nine monasteries and two
affiliated nunneries were under his control. They varied
in size and structure, all to the central house in a loose
federation. By about 420, supposedly some 3,000 monks
belonged to this movement. The community continued
to grow after Pachomius’s death. They built a five-aisle
basilica, the largest in Egypt, at the main house at Pbow
in the fifth century. The Pachomian movement, however,
disappeared in the latter part of the fifth century, proba-
bly a casualty of the CHRISTOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIESat
the Council of CHALCEDONin 451.

See alsoASCETICISM; HERMITS AND HERMETICISM.

Further reading:Pachomius, Instructions, Letters, and

Other Writings of Saint Pachomius and His Disciples,trans.

Armand Veilleux (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian, 1982);

Armand Veilleux, trans., The Life of Saint Pachomius and

His Disciples(Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian, 1980); Philip

Rousseau, Pachomius: The Making of a Community in

Fourth-Century Egypt(Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1985); Susanna Elm, “Virgins of God”: The Making

of Asceticism in Late Antiquity(Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1994).

Padua(Patavium, Padoua) Medieval Padua, the

Roman Patavium, was a town 22 miles from VENICEin

northeastern ITALY. It had a bishop by 350. Although cap-

tured by the OSTROGOTHSin 493 and the BYZANTINESin

540, it escaped conquest by the LOMBARDSin 568. The

town reverted to Byzantine control until 602, when the

LOMBARD king, Agilulf (r. 590–615), captured it and

erased what was left of its Roman past. Its territory was

then dismembered between the neighboring cities of Tre-

viso and Vicenza. CHARLEMAGNEmade it a seat for one of

his counties in 774, after he conquered the Lombard

Kingdom.

From the 11th century, Padua revived and grew. The

INVESTITUREstruggles weakened the once-dominant epis-

copal power, so Padua’s first colleges of consuls appeared

in 1138, forming a COMMUNE, which tended to be domi-

nated by the GUELFfaction. The 13th century included

cultural and religious change marked by the birth in 1226

of the university. The DOMINICANSsettled at Padua in

about 1226 and the Portuguese FRANCISCANpreacher

ANTHONYwas enthusiastically received until his death in