There was a certain hermit named Pior among the holy fathers who while still a young man had been initiated into monastic life by blessed Antony, but who lived with him for only a few years. For when he was twenty-five he went away to another secret part of the desert with Antony’s full knowledge and permission. “Go, Pior,” Antony had said, “and live where you will. But come back to me when God reveals to you that the time is right.”
Pior went to the region between Scete and Nitria and there dug a well, saying to himself, “Whatever the quality of the water here might be, with that I must be content.” Doing this became the occasion of a great increase of merit in him, for the water proved to be so salty and bitter that anyone visiting him took care to take their own water with them in a flask. He stayed there for thirty years. The brothers used to say to him that he ought to go somewhere else because of the horrid taste of the water, but he said, “If in this life you seek rest and try to avoid the bitter labor of abstinence we shall not enjoy those truly beautiful and eternal good things after our departure from this world, nor enjoy the everlasting delights of that blessed paradise.”
The brothers also used to say that he would eat no more than one small bread roll and five olives, and that while walking about outside. Many of the holy fathers also testify that for more than thirty years after leaving his parents’ home he never sought to visit or even inquire about his relations, not even when he heard that his parents were dead. When his sister was widowed and left with two youthful sons she sent them into the desert to seek out her brother Pior. After going the rounds of various monasteries they at last managed to find him and said to him, “We are your sister’s sons. She greatly longs to see you before she dies.”
But he would not agree to their request. So the youths went to the blessed man of God, Antony, and told him of their request. Antony sent for him and said, “Why have you not come to me for such a long time, brother?”
“Blessed father,” he replied, “you told me to come to you when God revealed to me that the time was right, and God has not revealed anything of the sort to me from that time to this.”
“Go and let your sister see you,” blessed Antony said to him. So he took another monk with him and went to the place and house where his sister lived and stood outside with his eyes shut so that he wouldn’t have to look at this sister. She came out and threw herself at his feet, overcome with joy.
“See now,” Pior said to her, “I am your brother, Pior. Look at me since that was what you wanted to do,” after which he immediately went back to his cell in the desert. He did this in order to put to shame any monk who thought himself to be at liberty to visit parents or relations, even when given permission.
