Palladius of Galatia

Palladius was born in Galatia, in central Asia Minor, about 363 or 364. In 386 he went to Egypt to see the monks, and the rest of his life came out of that decision.

He spent about a decade there, three years in Alexandria and its outskirts, then in Nitria, then nine years in the Kellia, the settlement of cells in the desert west of the Nile delta. His teacher there was Evagrius Ponticus, the most searching analyst of the inner life the desert produced, and Palladius stayed with him until Evagrius died. He knew Macarius of Alexandria, met men who had known Antony, and interviewed the women's communities as well as the men's.

Ill health drove him to Palestine and then back to Asia Minor, where about 400 he was made bishop of Helenopolis in Bithynia. That put him in John Chrysostom's circle at the worst possible time. When Theophilus of Alexandria moved against Chrysostom, Palladius went to Rome to plead his case, was arrested on the way back, and was banished to Syene at the far southern edge of Egypt, then to Antinoë. He was in exile four years. He was eventually allowed home and became bishop of Aspuna in Galatia. He died sometime before 431.

He wrote two books, and both are first-hand.

The Dialogue on the Life of John Chrysostom, written about 408, is the defence of his friend, an account of the intrigue, the packed synod at the Oak, the exile, and the forced marches that killed him, written by a man who had watched it happen.

The Lausiac History, written about 419 or 420 for Lausus, chamberlain at the imperial court, is the book he is remembered for. It is a series of short portraits of monks and nuns Palladius had met or heard about at first or second hand: seventy-odd chapters, some only a paragraph. What makes it valuable is that he does not tidy them up.

He records the extraordinary feats and also the failures, the monk who went mad, the ascetic who fell into pride and had to be locked up, the woman who fasted herself into ruin, the community's quarrels over money. He tells about Alexandrian nuns who feigned madness, about a monk who took in a beggar, about the daily bread ration and the wages for rope-making.

Because of that honesty the Lausiac History is the single most important source anyone has for the origins of Christian monasticism. It was translated early into Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Arabic, and Ethiopic, and read for centuries as the record of what those first generations were like when nobody was pretending.

Sources: Palladius, The Lausiac History (English translation by Robert T. Meyer, Ancient Christian Writers 34) and Dialogue on the Life of St John Chrysostom; Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church.