Paul of the Novatians and the Jewish Impostor

About this time Chrysanthus, bishop of the Novatians, after presiding over the churches of his own sect for seven years, died on the twenty-sixth of August, in the consulship of Monaxius and Plintha. He was succeeded in the bishopric by Paul. Paul had formerly been a teacher of Latin, but later he put Latin aside and devoted himself to an ascetic life. He founded a monastery of religious men and adopted a way of life not very different from that of the monks in the desert. In fact I myself found him to be just the kind of man Evagrius says the monks who live in the deserts ought to be. He imitated them in continual fasting, in silence, in abstaining from meat, and for the most part in abstaining from oil and wine as well. He also cared for the needs of the poor as much as any man. He tirelessly visited those in prison, and he interceded with the judges on behalf of many criminals, and the judges readily listened to him because of his great piety. [a]

But why should I lengthen my account of him? I am about to tell of a deed of his that well deserves to be put in writing. A certain Jewish impostor, pretending to be a convert to Christianity, made a practice of being baptized again and again, and by that trick he gathered a good deal of money. He had deceived many of the Christian sects with this fraud, for he had received baptism from the Arians and the Macedonians. When there were none left to practice his hypocrisy on, he came at last to Paul, bishop of the Novatians. He declared that he earnestly desired baptism and asked to receive it from Paul’s hand. Paul commended the Jew’s resolve, but told him he could not perform the rite for him until he had been instructed in the fundamental principles of the faith and had given himself to fasting and prayer for many days. The Jew, made to fast against his will, pressed all the harder for baptism. Since he was so insistent, Paul did not want to discourage him by longer delays. He agreed to grant his request and made all the preparations for the baptism. He bought a white robe for him, ordered the font to be filled with water, and then led the Jew to it to baptize him.

But an invisible power of God made the water suddenly disappear. The bishop, naturally, and those present had not the least suspicion of the real cause. They thought the water had run out through the channels underneath that are used to empty the font. So those passages were very carefully closed and the font was filled again. But again, when the Jew was brought there a second time, the water vanished as before. Then Paul said to the Jew: “Either you are an evildoer, wretched man, or an ignorant person who has already been baptized.” The people had crowded together to see this miracle, and one of them recognized the Jew and identified him as having been baptized by Atticus the bishop a little while before. Such was the wonder worked by the hands of Paul, bishop of the Novatians.