PALLADIUS (363-431), author of the Historia lausiaca, one of the
principal documents that inform us about Egyptian monasticism in
the fourth century. Born in Galatia, he became a monk. After
spending some time in Palestine at the Mount of Olives, when
Rufinus and Melania the Elder were living there, he came to
Egypt. He stayed for about three years near Alexandria, where he
associated with the priest Isidorus, xenodochos of the church of
Alexandria, and the learned Didymus the Blind, then moved to
NITRIA, where there were still some monks who had lived during
the period of ANTONY and AMUN. A year later, in 390, he reached
the desert of the KELLIA, where he came to know MACARIUS
ALEXANDRINUS, then priest of this desert, and became a disciple
of EVAGRIUS PONTICUS, in the heart of the community of the monks
whom their adversaries called Origenists. He remained at the
Kellia for nine years. From there he went to visit the
celebrated recluse JOHN OF LYCOPOLIS. Palladius probably left
Egypt in 399 or at the beginni