178 
P A C 
a convert to the Chriftian faith ; and, after having been 
inftrudled as a catechumen, was admitted within tire 
Chriftian pale by baptifm. Afterwards he became the 
difciple of a folitary named Palemon, from whole exam¬ 
ple he pra&ifed all the aufterities of that unnatural fyftem 
of fuperftition of which St. Anthony had lately proved 
the parent. Having formed the defign of eftabliffiing a 
community of perfons fubjefr to the fame rules of an af- 
cetic life, he fixed his abode at Tabenna in Upper Egypt, 
on the banks of the Nile, where he built a monaftery, and 
eftabliftied rules of difcipline, which, it was ferioully be¬ 
lieved in the dark ages, were dictated to him by an angel. 
In a ftiort time, the fame of his fanftity drew to him fuch 
numbers of difciples, that his houfe overflowed, and he 
was obliged to eredt new ones, from time to time, till 
the Upper Thebais was filled with monafteries of his order. 
Various are the accounts of the numbers of perfons who 
embraced his rule, and fome of them, no doubt, are highly 
exaggerated ; but, upon a moderate computation, he had 
peopled his cells with not fewer than feven thoufand of 
thefe ufelefs and pernicious drones; and his monaftery at 
Tabenna alone contained fourteen hundred of them. 
Pachomius died in the year 350, or, according to others, 
in 360. In his life, written by an ancient Greek author, 
and tranflated into Latin by Dennis le Petit, the reader 
who delights in tales of wonder may meet with food for 
his credulity in the accounts which it relates of the mi¬ 
racles wrought by this faint. Among other things we 
are told, that, when he had occafion to crofs the Nile, the 
crocodiles attended, in obedience to his fummons, and 
carried him from one bank to the other. In Benedict of 
Aniana’s Codex Regularum, there are preferved eleven 
“ Letters” of Pachomius, written with great fimplicity, 
and addrefied, as Gennadius obferves, to the fuperiors of 
the monafteries founded by him. In his life, mentioned 
above, may.be feen his rules of difcipline, pretended to 
have been divinely communicated to him ; and in the 
fourth volume of the Bibl. Patr. a larger colleflion of 
rules, concerning the habits, the diet, the employment, 
and the difcipline, of monks, which is commonly faid to 
have been tranflated from Pachomius’s original, in the 
Egyptian language, into Greek, and from Greek into 
Latin by St. Jerome. To this Egyptian faint are attri¬ 
buted fome excellent “ Moral Precepts,” which were 
publiflied in Latin by Gerard Voflius, in the appendix to 
liis edition of the works of Gregory Thaumaturgus, and 
are alfo inferted in the fourth volume of the Bibl. Patr. 
j Vabricii Bibl. Eccl. Cave's IIiji. Lit. vol. i. 
PACHO'RE, a town of Hindooftan, in the circar of 
Gohud: ten miles north-north-eaft of Ahar. 
PACH'SU, a fmall ifland in the Mediterranean Sea, 
near the coaft of Epirus, and in European Turkey. It 
lies fouth of Corfu, and was fubjedt to Venice. 
PACHU'CO, a town of Mexico. It is famous for fil- 
ver-mines : Gemelli fays, that in the fpace of fix leagues 
there are not lefs than a thoufand. One of them, called 
Trinity, is fuppofed to be as rich as any in Mexico; there 
having been taken from it, in ten years time only, above 
forty millions of filver. It is forty-five miles north-north- 
eaft of Mexico. Lat. 20. 45. N. Ion. 100. 42. W. 
PACH'YMER (George), a Greek luftorian of the 
fourteenth century, was born at Nicaea, of a Conftantino- 
politan family. He entered into the church, in which, as 
well as in the ftate, he bore offices of importance under 
the emperors Michael Palseologus and Andronicus the 
elder. At the age of nineteen he accompanied the for¬ 
mer when he took pofleflion of Conftantinople, in 1261. 
He is fuppofed to have died about 1310. Pachymercom- 
pofed in thirteen books a portion of Byzantine Hiftory, 
containing the reign of Michael, and that of Andronicus 
down to his twenty-third year. It ufefully fills the fpace 
from the narratives of Nicetas and Acropolites to that of 
Cantacuzenus ; and, being compofed by one who was a 
witnefs to what he records, is confidered as a work of 
authority. This hiftory was publifhed with a Latin ver- 
P A C 
fion by father Pouflines at Rome in 1666-69, in folio ; 
and was tranflated into French by the prefident Coufi'ii. 
To Pachymer is alfo attributed a Paraphrafe on the Epif-- 
ties of Dionyfius the Areopagite, and a Treatife on the 
Proceflion of the Holy Ghoft. A Compendium of Arif- 
toteiic Philofophy was publiflied from his MS. at Oxford 
in 1666. Vo()li Hiji. Grcec. Gen. Biog. 
PACHYPHYL'LA, f. in botany. See Nicotiana. 
PACHYSAN'DRA, f. [fo named by Michaux from 
the Gr. irxyy;, thick or clumfy, and uvyg, a man ; in al- 
lufion to the thicknefs of the ftamens.] In botany, a ge¬ 
nus of the clafs monoecia, order tetrandia, natural order 
tricoccae, Linn, (euphorbias, Juff.) Generic characters— 
I. Male. Calyx: perianthium of three oval concave upright 
leaves, one of them external, and rather the fmalleft. Co¬ 
rolla : petals two, oval, concave, rather larger than the ca¬ 
lyx. Stamina: filaments four, ere’Cl, thrice as iong as the 
petals, very thick, comprefled, and fomewhat club-ftiaped ; 
antheras incumbent, oblong, of two cells, finally curved. 
II. Female. Calyx : perianthium of three clofe-prefled ob¬ 
long acute leaves, one of them external. Corolla: petals 
four, fmailer than in the male,clofely preffed to thegermen. 
Piftillum : germen fuperior, ratherglobole, with three fur¬ 
rows ; ftyles three, recurved, with a longitudinal furrow- 
above ; ftigmas linear, flattilh. Pericarpium: capfule 
nearly globular, three-lobed, crowned with three fpread- 
ing horns from the permanent ftyles, of three cells. Seeds 
two in each cell, oblong, fmooth, pendulous from the 
fummit of the cell .—EJJential Charadcr. Male: Calyx of 
three leaves ; petals two ; ftamens thrice as long as the 
petals. Female: Calyx of three leaves; petals four; 
ftyles three; capfule with three horns, and three cells; 
feeds two in each cell. 
Pachyfandra procumbens, the only fpecies. It was 
gathered by Michaux on the weftern fide of the Alleghany 
mountains, in North America. The root is fibrous and 
perennial. Stem herbaceous, procumbent in the lower 
part, then alcending, round, fmooth, leafy above, about 
a fpan high, fcarcely branched. Leaves alternate, ftalked, 
ovate, about two inches long, fmooth, veiny, and rib¬ 
bed ; entire at the bale, bluntly and broadly toothed in 
the upper part. Spike Ample, folitary; from the bafe of 
the ftein ereft, rather lax, two inches long, compofed 
of about two female flowers, and four times as many male 
ones above them. Corolla finely fringed ; capfule fome¬ 
what downy. Michaux remarks, that the charafter of 
this genus is almolt the fame as that of Buxus, but the 
habit totally different. Boreali-Amer. ii. 17.7. t. 45. 
PA'CIAN, a faint in the Roman calendar, and bifhop 
of Barcelona, was defcended from a noble Spanifli family, 
and flouriflied about the year 370. He had been a mar¬ 
ried man ; and left a fon, who will be noticed at the end 
of this article. St. Jerome fays of Pacian, that “ he was 
no lefs famous for the fandfity of his life, than for the 
eloquence of his difcourfe; and that he wrote many 
books, among which there is one, entitled Cervus, or 
the Stag, and fome treatifes againft the Novatians.” He 
died at an advanced age, under the reign of the emperor 
Theodofius the Great, and before the year 390. Wi(h 
refpedt to his book entitled Cervus, it appears to have 
been a fatirical piece, written againft the Pagans, and 
abounding in wit and eloquence ; but no remains of it 
have reached modern times. There are ftill extant, at¬ 
tributed to Pacian 5 2. Three Letters to Sempronian, a 
Novatian, which are probably the treatifes mentioned by 
Jerome. 3. An Exhortation to Repentance. 4, A Dif¬ 
courfe concerning Baptifm, addrefied to Catechumens ; 
though doubts are entertained refpedling the genuinenefs 
of the laft-mentioned piece. They were edited by John, 
de Tilly, at Paris, in 1538, 4to. by Paul Manutius at 
Rome, in 1564, folio ; and they are inferted in the fourth 
volume of the Bibl. Patr. A more correft edition of the 
whole, (excepting the Difcourfe on Baptifm,) collated 
with a manufcript of about the year 800, was afterwards 
given in the fecond volume of the Colleft. Max. Concil. 
Hi fpan. 
