St Pambo of Nitria[1]

Abbot

A.D. 385

        St. Pambo betook himself in his youth to the great St. Antony in the desert, and desiring to be admitted among his disciples, begged he would give him some lessons for his conduct. The great patriarch of the ancient monks told him, he must perfectly divest himself of all self-conceit, and never place the least confidence in himself, or in his own righteousness, must watch continually over himself, and study to act in everything in such a manner as to have no occasion afterward to repent of what he had done, and that he must labor to put a restraint upon his tongue, and his appetite. The disciple set himself earnestly to learn the practice of all these lessons. The mortification of gluttony was usually laid down by the fathers as one of the first steps towards bringing the senses and the passions into subjection; this consisting in something that is exterior and sensible, its practice is more obvious, yet of great importance towards the reduction of all the sensual appetites of the mind, whose revolt was begun by the intemperance and disobedience of our first parents. Fasting is also, by the divine appointment, a duty of the exterior part of our penance. What a reproach are the austere lives which so many saints have fed to those slothful and sensual Christians whose God is their belly, and who walk enemies to the cross of Christ, or who have not courage at least by frequent self-denials to curb this appetite; No man can govern himself who is a slave to this base gratification of sense. St. Pambo exceled most other ancient monks in the austerity of his continual fasts. The government of his tongue was no less an object of his watchfulness than that of his appetite. A certain religious brother, to whom he had applied for advice began to recite to him the thirty-eighth psalm . I said I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue. Which words Pambo had no sooner heard, but without waiting for the second verse, he returned to his cell, saying, that was enough for one lesson, and that he would go and study to put it in practice. This he did by keeping almost perpetual silence, and by weighing well, when it was necessary to speak, every word before he gave any answer. He often took several days to recommend consultations to God, and to consider what answer he should give to those who addressed themselves to him. 

        By his perpetual attention not to offend in his words, he arrived at so great a perfection in this particular, that he was thought to have equalled, if not to have excelled, Saint Antony himself; and his answers were seasoned with so much wisdom and spiritual prudence, that they were received by all as if they had been oracles dictated by heaven Abbot Poeman said of our saint: Three exterior practices are remarkable in abbot Pambo; his fasting every day till evening, his silence, and his great diligence in manual labor. St. Antony inculcated to all his disciples the obligation of assiduity in constant manual labor in a solitary life both as a part of penance, and a necessary means to expel sloth, and entertain the vigor of the mind in spiritual exercises. This lesson was confirmed to him by his own experience, and by a heavenly vision related in the lives of the fathers, as follows: "Abbot Antony, as he was sitting in the wilderness, a grievous temptation of spiritual sadness, importunate thoughts and interior darkness; and he said to God: Lord, I desire to be saved; but my thoughts are a hinderance to me. What shall I do in my present affliction? How shall I be saved? Soon after, he rose up, and going out of his cell, saw a man sitting and working; then rising from his work to pray; afterward sitting down again and twisting his cord: after this, rising to prayer. He understood this to be an angel sent by God to teach him what he was to do, and he heard the angel say to him; "Do so, and thou shalt be saved." Hereat the abbot was filled with joy and confidence, and by this means he cheerfully persevered to the end.  St. Pambo most rigorously observed this rule, and feared to lose one moment of his precious time. Out of love of humiliations, and a fear of the danger of vain-glory and pride, he made it his earnest prayer for three years that God would not give him glory before men, but rather contempt. Nevertheless God glorified him in this life, but made him by his grace to learn more perfectly to humble himself amidst applause. The eminent grace which replenished his soul showed itself in his exterior by a certain air of majesty, and a kind of light which shone on his countenance like what we read of Moses, so that a person could not look steadfastly on his face. St. Antony, who admired the purity of his soul, and his mastery over his passions, used to say, that his fear of God had moved the divine Spirit to take up his resting-place in him. 

        St. Pambo, after he left St. Antony, settled in the desert of Nitria on a mountain, where he had a monastery. But he lived some time in the wilderness of the Cells, where Rufinus says he went to receive his blessing in the year 374. St. Melania the Wilder, in the visit she made to the holy solitaries who inhabited the deserts of Egypt, coming to St. Pambo's monastery on mount Nitria, found the holy abbot sitting at his work, making mats. She gave him three hundred pounds weight of silver, desiring him to accept that part of her store for the necessities of the poor among the brethren. St. Pambo, without interrupting his work, or looking at her or her present, said to her that God would reward her charity. Then turning to his disciple, he bade him take the silver, and distribute it among all the brethren in Lybia and the isles who were most needy, but charged him to give nothing to those of Egypt, that country being rich and plentiful. Melania continued some time standing, and at length said: "Father, do you know that here is three hundred pounds weight of silver?" The abbot, without casting his eye upon the chest of silver, replied: "Daughter, he to whom you made this offering, very well knows how much it weighs without being told. If you give it to God who did not despise the widow's two mites, and even preferred them to the great presents of the rich, say no more about it." This Melania herself related to Palladius. St. Athanasius once desired St. Pambo to come out of the desert to Alexandria, to confound the Arians by giving testimony to the divinity of Jesus Christ. Our saint seeing in that city an actress dressed up for the stage, wept bitterly; and being asked the reason of his tears, said he wept for the sinful condition of that unhappy woman, and also for his own sloth in the divine service; because he did not take so much pains to please God as she did to ensnare men. When abbot Theodore begged of St. Pambo some words of instruction: "Go," said he, "and exercise mercy and charity toward all men. Mercy finds confidence before God." To the priest of Nitria who asked him how the brethren ought to live, he said: "They must live in constant labor and the exercise of all virtues, watching to preserve their conscience free from stain, especially from giving scandal or offence to any neighbor." St. Pambo said, a little before his death: "From the time that I came into this desert, and built myself a cell in it, I do not remember that I have ever ate any bread but what I had earned by my own labor, nor that I ever spoke any word of which I afterward repented. Nevertheless, I go to God as one who has not yet begun to serve him." He died seventy years old, without any sickness, pain, or agony, as he was making a basket, which he bequeathed to Palladius, who was at that time his disciple, the holy man having nothing else to give him. Melania took care of his burial, and having obtained this basket, kept it to her dying day. St. Pambo is commemorated by the Greeks on several days. It was an usual saying of this great director of souls in the rules of Christian perfection: "If you have a heart, you may be saved." 

        The extraordinary austerities and solitude of a St.Antony or a St. Pambo, are not suitable to persons engaged in the world; they are even inconsistent with their obligations; but all are capable of disengaging their affections from inordinate passions and attachment to creatures, and of attaining to a pure and holy love of God, which may be made the principle of their thoughts and ordinary actions, and sanctify the whole circle of their lives. Of this all who have a heart, are, through the divine grace, capable. In whatever circumstances we are placed, we have opportunities of subduing our passions, and subjecting our senses by frequent denials; of watching over our hearts by self-examinetion, of purifying our affections by assiduous recollection and prayer, and of uniting our souls to God by continual exterior and interior acts of holy love. Thus may the gentlemen, the husbandman, or the shop-keeper, become an eminent saint, and make even the employments of his state an exercise of all heroic virtues, and so many steps to perfection and eternal glory. 

From Palladius in Lausiac., Rufin. Hist. Patr. Sozemen; Cotelier, Apoth. Patr. p 637, 64l, and 628. See Tillemont, t. 8, p. 445. A. D. 385.        

HIS TEACHINGS[2] 

-- There was a monk named Pambo and they said of him that he spent three years saying to God, “Do not glorify me on earth.” But God glorified him so that one could not gaze steadfastly at him because of the glory of his countenance. 

-- Two brethren came to see Abba Pambo one day and the first asked him, “Abba, I fast for two days, then I eat two loaves; am I saving my soul, or am I going the wrong way?” The second said, “Abba, every day I get two pence from my manual work, and I keep a little for my food and give the rest in alms; shall I be saved or shall I be lost?” They remained a long time questioning him and still the old man gave them no reply. After four days they had to leave and the priests comforted them saying, “Do not be troubled, brothers. God gives the reward. It is the old man’s custom not to speak readily till God inspires him.” So they went to see the old man and said to him, “Abba, pray for us.” He said to them, “Do you want to go away?” They said, “Yes.” Then, giving his mind to their works and writing on the ground he said, “If Pambo fasted for two days together and ate two loaves, would he become a monk that way? No. And if Pambo works to get two pence and gives them in alms, would he become a monk that way? No, not that way either.” He said to them, “The works are good, but if you guard your conscience towards your neighbor, then you will be saved.” They were satisfied and went away joyfully.

-- Four monks of Scetis, clothed in skins, came one day to see the great Pambo. Each one revealed the virtue of his neighbor. The first fasted a great deal; the second was poor; the third had acquired great charity; and they said of the fourth that he had lived for twenty-two years in obedience to an old man. Abba Pambo said to them, “I tell you, the virtue of this last one is the greatest. Each of the others has obtained the virtue he wished to acquire; but the last one, restraining his own will, does the will of another. Now it is of such men that the martyrs are made, if they persevere to the end.”

-- Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, of holy memory, begged Abba Pambo to come down from the desert to Alexandria. He went down, and seeing an actress he began to weep. Those who were present asked him the reason for his tears, and he said, “Two things make me weep: one, the loss of this woman; and the other, that I am not so concerned to please God as she is to please wicked men.” 

-- Abba Pambo said, “By the grace of God, since I left the world, I have not said one word of which I repented afterwards.” 

-- He also said, “The monk should wear a garment of such a kind that he could throw it out of his cell and no-one would steal it from him for three days.” 

 -- They said of Abba Pambo that as he was dying, at the very hour of his death, he said to the holy men who were standing near him, “Since I came to this place of the desert and built my cell and dwelt here, I do not remember having eaten bread which was not the fruit of my hands and I have not repented of a word I have said up to the present time; and yet I am going to God as one who has not yet begun to serve him.”
-- He was greater than many others in that if he was asked to interpret part of the Scriptures or a spiritual saying, he would not reply immediately, but he would say he did not know that saying. If he was asked again, he would say no more.  

-- Abba Pambo said, “If you have a heart, you can be saved.” 

-- The priest of Nitria asked him how the brethren ought to live. He replied, “With much labor, guarding their consciences towards their neighbor.” 

-- They said of Abba Pambo that he was like Moses, who received the image of the glory of Adam when his face shone. His face shone like lightning and he was like a king sitting on his throne. It was the same with Abba Silvanus and Abba Sisoes. 

-- The said of Abba Pambo that his face never smiled. So one day, wishing to make him laugh, the demons stuck wing feathers on to a lump of wood and brought it in making an uproar and saying, “Go, go!” When he saw them, Abba Pambo began to laugh and the demons started to say in chorus, “Ha! Ha! Pambo has laughed!” But in reply he said to them, “I have not laughed, but I made fun of your powerlessness, because it takes so many of you to carry a wing.” 

-- Abba Theodore of Pherme asked Abba Pambo, “Give me a word.” With much difficulty he said to him, “Theodore, go and have pity on all, for through pity, one finds freedom of speech before God.”  

NOTE: Two other holy fathers, Paisius and Isaiah, are commemorated on the same day as Abba Pambo. Two Egyptian brothers, their parents died leaving them with a great inheritance. They sold everything and each took half the money. One of them immediately gave his share to the poor and, becoming a monk, he withdrew to the asceticism of the desert so that, by endurance, fasting and prayer and the purifying of his mind from all evil thoughts, he might save his soul. The other brother also became a monk, but did not go into the desert. He built a small monastery near the town, and also a hospital for the sick, a refectory for those in want and a resthouse for the weary. In this way, he gave himself utterly to the service of others. When both brothers died, a dispute arose among the monks in Egypt as to which fulfilled the Law of Christ. Being unable to reach agreement, they went to Abba Pambo and asked him about this. Abba Pambo replied: “They are both perfect before God; the receiver of guests is like hospitable Abram and the hermit is like Elias the prophet, who were both equally pleasing to God.” But they were not all satisfied with this answer. Then Abba Pambo prayed to God to reveal the truth to him. After several days of prayer, St. Pambo said to the monks: “As God is my witness, I say to you, I have seen both brothers, Paisius and Isaiah, together in Paradise.” And thus the dispute was settled and they were all content. 

Abba Pambo To His Disciple

From The Gerondikon[3]

 And I'll tell you this, my child, that the days will come when the Christians will add to and will take away from, and will alter the books of the Holy Divine Prophets, and of the Holy Fathers. They'll tone down the Holy Scriptures and will compose troparia, hymns, and writings technologically. Their nous will be spilled out among them, and will become alienated from its Heavenly Prototype. For this reason the Holy Fathers had previously encouraged the monks of the desert to write down the lives of the Fathers not onto parchment, but onto paper, because the coming generation will change them to suit their own personal tastes. So you see, the evil that comes will be horrible. Then the disciple said: So then, Geronda,[4] the traditions are going to be changed and the practices of the Christians? Maybe there won't exist enough priests in the Church when these unfortunate times come? And the Holy Father continued: In these times the love for God in most souls will grow cold and a great sadness will fall onto the world. One nation shall face-off against another. Peoples will move away from their own places. Rulers will be confused. The clergy will be thrown into anarchy, and the monks will be inclined more to negligence. The church leaders will consider useless anything concerned with salvation, as much for their own souls as for the souls of their flocks, and they will despise any such concern. All will show eagerness and energy for every matter regarding their dining table and their appetites. They'll be lazy in their prayers and casual in their criticisms. As for the lives and teachings of the Holy Fathers, they'll not have any interest to imitate them, nor even to hear them. But rather they will complain and say that "if we had lived in those times, then we'd have behaved like that." And the Bishops shall give way to the powerful of the world, giving answers on different matters only after taking gifts from everywhere and consulting the rights will not be defended; they'll afflict widows and harass orphans. Debauchery will permeate these people. Most won't believe in God; they'll hate each other and devour one another like beasts. The one will steal from the other; they'll be drunk and will walk about as blind. The disciple again asked: What can we do in such a state? And Elder Pambo answered: My child, in these times whoever will save his soul and prompt others to be saved will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.[5]