The People You Run into in the Desert

There's no telling whom you'll run into while on a stroll through the Egyptian deserts of the mid-fourth century. A recently translated book about the monk Palladius tells us that he was not lolling about his cell but instead lead a very peripatetic life: John Wortley, ed. and trans., Palladius of Aspuna: the Lausiac History (Cistercian, 2015), 176pp.

About this book the publisher tell us:

Born in Galatia in the 360s, Palladius enrolled as a monk on the Mount of Olives in his early twenties. As a monk, he traveled to Alexandria, the desert of Nitria, the Cells, Palestine, Rome, and the Thebaid. During his travels he encountered Rufinus of Aquileia, Melania the Elder, the hermit Dorotheos, Macarius of Alexandria, Evagrius of Pontus, Jerome of Bethlehem, and John Chrysostom. He wrote this elegant account of his visits to various monastic sites in Egypt toward the end of the fourth century AD for the imperial chamberlain Lausus. It is both the most sophisticated and the most informative of the few documents illustrating the earliest chapter in the history of Christian monasticism. Palladius’s work is the only one of the major monastic writings not written for fellow monks to inspire them with models for their emulation but rather for a man very much of the world, with the explicit intention of exerting not only religious but also political influence.

Anonymous Sayings of the Desert Fathers

I have noted on here several times in the past the burgeoning interest in, and literature on, the Desert Fathers (and Mothers). Another recent book by a respected historian was recently published offering us further insights into this world that continues to influence Eastern Christian spirituality: John Wortley, trans., The Anonymous Sayings of the Desert Fathers: A Select Edition and Complete English Translation (Cambridge University Press, 2013), 658pp.

About this book we are told:

The Tales and Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Apophthegmata Patrum) are a key source of evidence for the practice and theory respectively of eremitic monasticism, a significant phenomenon within the early history of Christianity. The publication of this book finally ensures the availability of all three major collections which constitute the work, edited and translated into English. Richer in Tales than the 'Alphabetic' collection to which this is an appendix (both to be dated c.AD 500), the 'Anonymous' collection presented in this volume furnishes almost as much material for the study of the late antique world from which the monk sought to escape as it does for the monastic endeavour itself. More material continued to be added well into the seventh century and so the spread and gradual evolution of monasticism are illustrated here over a period of about two and a half centuries.