Saint Hilarion was born in a village called Tabatha, to the south of Gaza, his parents being idolaters. He was sent by them to Alexandria to study, where, being brought to the knowledge of the Christian faith, he was baptized when he was about fifteen. Having heard of St. Anthony, he went into the desert to see him, and stayed with him two months, observing his manner of life.
But Hilarion found the desert only less distracting than the town, and, not being able to bear the concourse of those who resorted to Anthony to be healed of diseases or delivered from devils, and being desirous to begin to serve God in perfect solitude, he returned into his own country. Finding his father and mother both dead, he gave part of his goods to his brethren and the rest to the poor, reserving nothing for himself. He retired into the desert seven miles from Majuma, towards Egypt, between the seashore on one side and a swamp on the other. His clothing consisted only of a sackcloth shirt, a leather tunic which St. Anthony gave him, and an ordinary short cloak. He never changed a tunic until it was worn out and never washed the sackcloth which he had once put on.
For food he ate only fifteen figs a day, which he never took till sunset. His occupation was tilling the earth and making baskets, whereby he provided himself with the necessaries of life. He built himself a cell, that was four feet broad and five in height, and a little longer than his body, like a tomb rather than a house. Soon he found that figs alone were insufficient to support life properly and permitted himself to eat as well vegetables, bread and oil.
St. Hilarion was informed by revelation in 356 of the death of St. Anthony. He then chose some monks who were able to walk without eating till after sunset, and with them he travelled into Egypt and at length came to St. Anthony’s mountain, near the Red Sea, where they found two monks who had been his disciples, On the top of the mountain (to which the ascent was very difficult, twisting like a vine) they found two cells to which St. Anthony often retired to avoid visitors and even his own disciples. St. Hilarion asked to see the place where he was buried. They led him aside, but they said that St. Anthony had given strict charge that his grave should be concealed, lest a certain rich man in that country should carry the body away and build a church for it.
At last, he fled away in the night in a small vessel to Cyprus. Arrived there, he settled at a place two miles from Paphos. He had not been there long when his identity was discovered, so he went a dozen miles inland to an inaccessible but pleasant place, where he at last found peace and quietness. Here after a few years Hilarion died at the age of eighty. He was buried near Paphos, but St Hesychius secretly removed the body to the saint’s old home at Majuma. He is remembered on October 21.