John Cassian, also known as John the Ascetic and John Cassian the Roman, was a Christian monk and theologian celebrated in both the Western and Eastern churches for his mystical writings. Cassian is noted for his role in bringing the ideas and practices of early Christian monasticism to the medieval West.
The Desert Fathers or Desert Monks were early Christian hermits and ascetics, who lived primarily in the Scetes desert of the Roman province of Egypt, beginning around the third century AD. The Apophthegmata Patrum is a collection of the wisdom of some of the early desert monks and nuns, in print as Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The first Desert Father was Paul of Thebes, and the most well known was Anthony the Great, who moved to the desert in AD 270–271 and became known as both the father and founder of desert monasticism. By the time Anthony had died in AD 356, thousands of monks and nuns had been drawn to living in the desert following Anthony's example, leading his biographer, Athanasius of Alexandria, to write that "the desert had become a city." The Desert Fathers had a major influence on the development of Christianity.
Kellia, referred to as "the innermost desert", was a 4th-century Egyptian Christian monastic community spread out over many square kilometers in the Nitrian Desert about 40 miles south of Alexandria. It was one of three centers of monastic activity in the region, along with Nitria and Scetis. It is called al-Muna in Arabic and was inhabited until the 9th century. Only archaeological sites remain there today.
Evagrius Ponticus, also called Evagrius the Solitary, was a Christian monk and ascetic from Heraclea, a city on the coast of Bithynia in Asia Minor. One of the most influential theologians in the late fourth-century church, he was well known as a thinker, polished speaker, and gifted writer. He left a promising ecclesiastical career in Constantinople and traveled to Jerusalem, where in 383 AD he became a monk at the monastery of Rufinus and Melania the Elder. He then went to Egypt and spent the remaining years of his life in Nitria and Kellia, marked by years of asceticism and writing. He was a disciple of several influential contemporary church leaders, including Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Macarius of Egypt. He was a teacher of others, including John Cassian and Palladius of Galatia.
Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem is a pseudoepigraphical text attributed to the church father Ephrem the Syrian. Two distinct documents have survived—one in Syriac and one in Latin. The Syriac document focuses on apocalyptic themes through the lens of Middle Eastern events which took place at the time it was written. Confusion exists around the Pseudo-Ephraem text primarily because of its doubtful authorship and date, differences between the Syriac and Latin versions, the small number of extant manuscripts, and the limited study that has been conducted of the text. Additionally, many extant works have been ascribed to Ephrem despite his authorship of these documents being doubtful. This has created significant difficulty in the area of textual criticism.
Wadi El Natrun is a depression in northern Egypt that is located 23 m (75 ft) below sea level and 38 m (125 ft) below the Nile River level. The valley contains several alkaline lakes, natron-rich salt deposits, salt marshes and freshwater marshes.
Patericon or paterikon, a short form for πατερικόν βιβλίον, is a genre of Byzantine literature of religious character, which were collections of sayings of saints, martyrs and hierarchs, and tales about them. These texts also have their roots in early monasticism.
The Lausiac History is a seminal work archiving the Desert Fathers written in 419-420 by Palladius of Galatia, at the request of Lausus, chamberlain at the court of the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II.
The Sayings of the Desert Fathers is the name given to various textual collections consisting of stories and sayings attributed to the Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers from approximately the 5th century AD.
Abba Poemen The Great was a Christian monk and early Desert Father who is the most quoted Abba (Father) in the Apophthegmata Patrum. Abba Poemen was quoted most often for his gift as a spiritual guide, reflected in the name "Poemen" ("Shepherd"), rather than for asceticism. He is considered a saint in Eastern Christianity. His feast day is August 27 in Julian calendar.
The Vitae Patrum is an encyclopedia of hagiographical writings on the Desert Fathers and Desert Mothers of early Christianity. The bulk of the original texts date from the third and fourth centuries. The Lives that were originally written in Greek were translated into Latin between the fourth and the seventh century. An Italian vernacular translation was made by Dominican friar Domenico Cavalca from Pisa at the beginning of the fourteenth century. A printed edition, edited by the Jesuit Heribert Rosweyde, was printed by Balthazar Moret in 1615. The book is a significant part of the much broader work, Acta Sanctorum.
The Diocese of Shigar and Beth ʿArabaye was an East Syriac diocese of the Church of the East in the metropolitan province of Nisibis, centred on the town of Sinjar. The diocese is attested between the sixth and fourteenth centuries.
Desert Mothers is a neologism, coined in feminist theology in analogy to Desert Fathers, for the ammas or female Christian ascetics living in the desert of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria in the 4th and 5th centuries AD. They typically lived in the monastic communities that began forming during that time, though sometimes they lived as hermits. Other women from that era who influenced the early ascetic or monastic tradition while living outside the desert are also described as Desert Mothers.
André de Halleux (1929–1994) was a Belgian Franciscan, and professor at the University of Louvain at the Theological Faculty and at the Oriental Institute. Born 18 January 1929 in La Roche-en-Ardenne, he was a corresponding member of the Belgian Academy (1993), a specialist in Syriac literature, in the Council of Chalcedon (451) and its consequences, particularly in the Nestorian and Monophysite spheres. He was awarded with the honorary doctorate of the Institut catholique de Paris, and of the Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Rome. De Halleux was actively involved in oecumenical dialogue, was appointed a consultor to the Pontifical Secretariat for Christian Unity in 1974, and took part in the Vienna 'Pro Oriente' colloquia. After the death of René Draguet, his Syriac teacher, de Halleux became the de facto editor of the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium for 16 years. He died in Uccle Brussels in 1994, January 30.
The Praktikos is a guide to ascetic life written by the early Christian monk Evagrius Ponticus. It was originally written in Greek, but also has Syriac and Armenian versions. This work is the best preserved of all the Evagrian writings due to the relatively large number of manuscripts and wide distribution.
The Asceticon by Abba Isaiah of Scetis is a diverse anthology of essays by an Egyptian Christian monk who left Scetis around 450 AD.
ʿEnanishoʿ was a monk, philosopher, lexicographer and translator of the Church of the East who flourished in the 7th century.
Strategius was a 7th-century monk of Mar Saba. He wrote a sermon on the siege and sack of Jerusalem in 614 and its aftermath, the forcible relocation of some of its inhabitants to Ctesiphon and the efforts of the Patriarch Zacharias to stiffen their faith in the face of persecution. Despite some deficiencies, this "account is of great value to the historian, as long as it is handled judiciously."
Isaiah the Solitary, also known as Isaiah of Gaza, Isaias or Isaiah the Solitary, Abba Isaiah, or possibly also Isaiah of Scetis, was a Christian ascetic and monastic writer known from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers and various Palestinian Miaphysite sources. He is canonized as a saint by the Coptic Orthodox Church, with his feast day on the 11th day of the month Abib (Epip) in the Coptic calendar.
