Abba Poemen

Poemen is the Greek word for shepherd, and the name stuck to him. He was born in Egypt late in the fourth century, one of seven brothers who all left the world together for the monastic life. They settled in Scetis, the salt valley west of the Nile delta where the strictest of the Egyptian monks had gone.

In about 407 desert raiders swept through Scetis and burned it. The community scattered. Poemen and his brothers went north to Terenuthis and made their home in an abandoned pagan temple. It was there, the story goes, that his brother Anoub threw stones at a stone idol every morning and begged its pardon every evening, then asked the brothers whether the statue had gotten angry or grateful. That, he said, is what living together requires, a man who is neither flattered by praise nor wounded by insult.

More sayings survive under Poemen's name than under any other elder's. In the alphabetical collection of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, his section is by far the longest, and later monks quoted him more than anyone but Anthony.

What he is remembered for is mercy. When the elders of a monastery summoned him to condemn a brother who had fallen, he came carrying a leaking bag of sand on his back and a small basket of sand in front of him. The sand pouring out behind, he said, is my own sin, which I do not trouble to look at; the little in front is my brother's, which I have come here to judge. The elders let the man go.

His counsel was short and practical. "Do not give your heart to what does not satisfy your heart." "Teach your mouth to say what is in your heart." Asked what to do about a brother caught in sin, he answered"If you see a brother sinning, throw a cloak over him." Asked speculative questions about heaven and the mysteries of God, he simply said nothing; asked about anger, or lust, or how to bear with a difficult neighbor, he answered at once.

His mother came out to the desert to see her sons and Poemen would not open the door. Through it he asked her whether she wanted to see them here or in the world to come. She went home. The record of his death is thin, tradition places it around the middle of the fifth century, when he was an old man and already famous.

Sources: The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Apophthegmata Patrum, alphabetical collection); Palladius, Lausiac History; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. III.