Pamin, Saint

              (CE:1878a-1878b)
PAMIN, SAINT, anchorite (also known as Bimin; feast day: 9 Kiyahk). Pamin appears to have been a native of Minyat Khasib, near Tirsa, in the nome of al-Ashmunayn. However, the Coptic fragments and the Arabic version say that he was a native of Ibsunah, to the west of Akhmim. He was in the service of a noble, whom he left to become a monk. Desiring martyrdom, he went to ANTINOOPOLIS, where he saw some Christians enduring torture and confessing Christ. He was himself subjected to numerous torments, but an edict came from Constantine that ordered the liberation of all those who were in prison. Christ appeared to Constantine and commanded him to reckon all those who had been imprisoned as martyrs, and to call them confessors. Constantine ordered seventy-two to be brought to him, among whom was Apa NOB, the confessor.

Saint Pamin, endowed by God with the gift of healing, withdrew to a monastery outside the town of al-Ashmunayn. In particular he cured a noble matron, wife of the Roman prefect. He refused her presents except for the vessels to be used in the church, a paten, a chalice, and a cross of gold.

The SYNAXARION speaks of Arians, who had their pseudo-bishops and their pseudo-martyrs, and seduced many of the faithful, but the Coptic fragments speak of the Melitians. The assimilation of the latter with the Arians goes back to ATHANASIUS himself (Barnard, pp. 181-89). It should be noted that the church of the Melitians called itself the church of the martyrs, which explains the expression "these pseudo-martyrs." Pamin drove them out, and they did not return.

Pamin's tomb was the site of a cult and of healing. Numerous inscriptions prove that Pamin was celebrated in Egypt.

He was honored at the White Monastery (DAYR ANBA SHINUDAH), as is shown by four typika (Institut français d'Archéologie orientale, Coptic, no pagination; Leiden, Insinger 33, in Pleyte and Boeser, 1894, p. 445; Wessely, 1917, no. 265; Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, K9737). The majority of the fragments of Pamin's Life have been edited by E. Amélineau. The recension of the Synaxarion of the Copts from Upper Egypt gives an ample summary at 9 Kiyahk. His Life is also in an Arabic manuscript from the Coptic Museum (Hist. 475, fols. 87r-109).
RENÉ-GEORGES COQUIN