Palladius of Galatia

Palladius of Galatia (c. 363/364–c. 430) was a Greek-speaking monk, bishop, and chronicler who became the single most important literary witness to the early Desert Father movement. Born in the Roman province of Galatia in central Asia Minor, he spent roughly eleven years among the ascetics of Palestine and Egypt — studying under Evagrius Ponticus at Nitria and the Cells (Kellia) — before being consecrated bishop of Helenopolis in Bithynia by John Chrysostom around 400. A loyal defender of Chrysostom during the latter's persecution, Palladius was exiled by the Eastern court to Syene in Upper Egypt (c. 406–408), where he composed the Dialogus de vita Chrysostomi, the chief eyewitness account of that bishop's fall. Barred from his Bithynian see after Chrysostom's death, he resided near Antinoopolis in the Thebaid before being transferred to the see of Aspuna in his native Galatia — Socrates Scholasticus dates this transfer to 417, though some modern authorities place his restoration as early as 412/413 — where he completed the Lausiac History (Historia Lausiaca) around 419–420, a collection of biographical sketches of Egyptian and Palestinian monks dedicated to Lausus, chamberlain of Theodosius II, which remains the primary narrative source for the origins of Christian monasticism.