THE LIFE OF PARDOS, THE ROMAN MONK
The fathers of that same monastery told us about another elder who had been there and had recently died. His name was Abba Paul, and he came from Rome. (As a young man, he had been a muleteer.)
One day, he set out for Jericho with some mules. There was a small child at the inn whom, at the instigation of the devil and without the knowledge of Abba Paul, a mule had trampled and killed. Deeply troubled by this, Abba Paul fled into the wilderness and arrived at Arona, where he became an anchorite. He continually lamented the death of the child, saying: “I put that child to death, and it is as a murderer that I will have to stand at the judgment.”
There was a lion nearby, and each day, Abba Paul would go into its den, teasing and provoking it to jump up and devour him—but the lion did him no harm whatsoever. When he realized that he was not succeeding, Abba Paul said to himself: “I will lie down on the lion’s path; then, when he comes on his way down to drink at the river, he will devour me.”
He lay there, and after a little while, the lion came by. As though it were a human, it very carefully stepped over the elder without even touching him. Then the elder knew that God had forgiven him his sin. He came back to his monastery, where he led an exemplary life that greatly benefited and edified everybody until the day of his falling asleep in God.