The Lausiac History

Contents

Reading pages: 0–7 · 8–17 · 18–20 · 21–28 · 29–36 · 37–45 · 46–60 · 61–71

1. 0Palladius dedicates the book to Lausus, explains its purpose and plain style, and urges moderation, reasoned use of food and wine, and the company of holy men and women.
2. 1Palladius describes Isidore, the guest-master of the Alexandrian church, his austerity, ecstasies, and charity, and how he led the young Palladius out to the desert.
3. 2The ascetic Dorotheus, to whom Isidore entrusted Palladius, builds cells for others, barely eats or sleeps, and drinks from a well where a snake was seen, trusting the cross.
4. 3Through Isidore, from Antony, Palladius tells how the slave girl Potamiaena refused her master's advances and was martyred in boiling pitch at Alexandria.
5. 4Palladius describes Didymus the Blind of Alexandria, his learning, a story of Antony's prompt prayer, and his vision announcing the death of Julian.
6. 5Alexandra shuts herself in a tomb for ten years rather than be a cause of temptation to a man, and tells Melania how she spends her days.
7. 6A miserly Alexandrian virgin is tricked by the presbyter Macarius into giving five hundred coins to his hospital, whose sick he shows her as the ‘jewels’ she bought.
8. 7Palladius describes the monastic settlement of Nitria: its numbers, bakeries, church with three whipping-posts, guest house, work, psalmody, and presbyters.
9. 8Amoun of Nitria, forced to marry, persuades his bride to live with him in virginity; after eighteen years they separate by her wish, and he becomes a desert monk.
10. 9The Nitrian ascetic Or was famed for never lying, swearing, cursing, or speaking needlessly.
11. 10Pambo of Nitria refuses honour for Melania's gift of silver, dies while finishing a basket, never answers a question hastily, and gently rebukes Pior.
12. 11Ammonius, one of the Tall Brothers, cuts off his ear to escape being made bishop, mortifies his body, eats only raw food and bread, and is famed for learning and freedom from passion.
13. 12Benjamin of Nitria, who had the gift of healing, bore a terrible dropsy with thankfulness, still healing others.
14. 13Apollonius, a former merchant too old to learn a craft, spends twenty years buying medicines and food in Alexandria for the sick monks of Nitria.
15. 14Two brothers inherit a fortune: one gives everything away and lives as an ascetic, the other runs a hospice; Pambo judges them equal and sees both in paradise.
16. 15Macarius the Younger, after accidentally killing a man, flees to the desert, becomes a holy monk, and regards the accident as the occasion of his salvation, as with Moses.
17. 16Nathanael stays thirty-seven years in his cell, refusing to leave it even to escort visiting bishops or to help a boy who was really a demon in disguise.
18. 17Macarius the Egyptian of Scetis foretells his disciple's punishment for greed, restores a woman thought turned into a mare, digs a tunnel for prayer, and cures a ravenous demoniac.
19. 18Macarius of Alexandria, presbyter of the Cells, outdoes every ascetic feat he hears of, visits the tomb of Jannes and Jambres, astonishes Pachomius's monks, heals the sick and possessed, and resists vainglory.
20. 19Moses the Ethiopian, a former slave and robber chief, repents, overcomes long sexual temptation through severe asceticism and Isidore's help, and becomes a presbyter of Scetis.
21. 20Paul of Pherme counts three hundred prayers a day with pebbles; distressed that a virgin says seven hundred, he is told by Macarius that purity, not number, matters.
22. 21Cronius tells how Antony judged the case of Eulogius, who had nursed an abusive cripple for fifteen years, and recounts Antony's vision of souls rising past a giant.
23. 22Paul the Simple, finding his wife in adultery, leaves her to become Antony's disciple, endures Antony's severe tests, and later casts out a demon Antony would not attempt.
24. 23Palladius, tempted by lust, consults the old monk Pachon, who tells how he endured twelve years of temptation, tried to die, and learned to rely on God's help.
25. 24The Libyan ascetic Stephen, a consoler of the grieving, undergoes surgery for a genital cancer calmly, teaching that God does nothing out of malice.
26. 25The proud monk Valens, deceived by demons, worships a false Christ and refuses Communion until the fathers chain and cure him; Palladius explains why such falls are recorded.
27. 26The gifted ascetic Heron, puffed up with pride against Evagrius and the fathers, falls into dissipation in Alexandria, is struck with disease, and returns repentant before his death.
28. 27The hermit Ptolemy, living fifteen years alone on dew, cut off from teaching and the sacraments, loses his faith and ends a wandering drunkard.
29. 28A Jerusalem virgin, enclosed and austere for six years, falls into sin with her servant because her asceticism was for show and she judged others.
30. 29Elias, founder of a monastery for three hundred women at Athribis, is freed from sexual temptation in a vision of angels and governs the community for forty years.
31. 30Dorotheus, Elias's successor, governs the women's monastery from an upper room with a window, keeping the peace among them until old age.
32. 31The virgin Piamoun, warned by an angel of an armed attack on her village, stops the attackers in their tracks by a night of prayer.
33. 32Palladius describes Pachomius's monasteries at Tabennesi: the angel's bronze tablet of rules, the twenty-four lettered classes, prayers, meals, crafts, and numbers.
34. 33Palladius describes the Pachomian women's monastery and tells how a slander drove one nun to drown herself and the slanderer to hang herself, with the presbyter's penalties.
35. 34A Tabennesiot nun who feigns madness and serves in the kitchen, despised by all, is revealed by an angel to the anchorite Piteroum as holier than himself, and then disappears.
36. 35Palladius visits the enclosed prophet John of Lycopolis, who reads his thoughts, encourages him to stay in the desert, foretells his episcopate and sufferings, and warns Poemenia in vain.
37. 36Posidonius the Theban, ascetic and gentle, is fed miraculously in the desert, casts a demon out of a woman in labour at Bethlehem, and foretells the effects of Jerome's envy.
38. 37Sarapion the Sindonite sells himself as a slave to convert actors and a Manichaean, tests the Athenians and sailors with his poverty, and humbles a proud recluse in Rome.
39. 38Evagrius of Pontus, a brilliant deacon at Constantinople, flees a dangerous love after an angelic warning, becomes a monk at Nitria and the Cells, and is renowned for asceticism and wisdom.
40. 39Pior, vowed never to see his family, visits his aged sister with his eyes shut, endures bitter water, and by prayer brings water into a dry well for Moses the Libyan's monastery.
41. 40Ephrem the Syrian, deacon of Edessa, leaves his cell during a famine to organize relief for the starving and dies a month after it ends.
42. 41Palladius introduces his stories of holy women, naming Paula (whom he says Jerome hindered), Eustochium, Photeine, the deaconess Sabiniana, Asella, and the family of Avita.
43. 42Julian of Edessa, wasted by asceticism to skin and bone, received the gift of healing at the end of his life.
44. 43Adolius of Tarsus stands all night on the Mount of Olives in all weathers, then wakes the brothers for prayer.
45. 44Innocent, presbyter on the Mount of Olives, prays that his sinning son be possessed rather than dissolute, steals for the poor, heals a paralysed demoniac at relics of John the Baptist, and recovers a stolen sheep.
46. 45Philoromus of Galatia, son of a slave woman, defies Julian, conquers his passions by enclosure and abstinence, earns his own bread by copying, and makes pilgrimages to Rome, Alexandria, and Jerusalem.
47. 46Melania the Elder, widowed young, goes to the Egyptian monks, serves the exiled confessors in Palestine, faces down a greedy governor, and with Rufinus founds monasteries in Jerusalem.
48. 47Chronius, James the Lame, and Paphnutius Kephalas explain to Palladius and Evagrius why monks fall: God abandons the proud to humble them, or allows trials to reveal hidden virtue.
49. 48Elpidius the Cappadocian lives twenty-five years in a cave near Jericho, eating only at weekends, unmoved by a scorpion's sting, gathering a city of monks around him.
50. 49Sisinnius, a former slave and disciple of Elpidius, spends three years praying in a tomb and later leads a community of men and women in Cappadocia.
51. 50The homeless Palestinian hermit Gaddanas is attacked by a man with a sword, whose hand withers.
52. 51The cave-dwelling monk Elias finds three fresh loaves that feed twenty visitors and last him twenty-five days.
53. 52Sabas of Jericho, a married layman, secretly leaves food at the monks' cells by night; a lion chases him and takes his donkey.
54. 53The Egyptian hermit Abraham, deluded by conceit, claims Christ ordained him in the night; the fathers cure him by a gentler life.
55. 54Melania the Elder, after decades of generosity in Palestine, returns to Rome at sixty to bring her family to the ascetic life, shortly before the sack of Rome.
56. 55The aged virgin Silvania rebukes the deacon Jubinus for washing, describes her own austerity, and is praised for her vast reading of Origen and other commentators.
57. 56Olympias of Constantinople, widowed as a bride and still a virgin, gives away her wealth, serves the church, and suffers as a confessor for the truth.
58. 57Candida, daughter of a general, dedicates her daughter to virginity and subdues her body by night grinding; Gelasia never lets the sun set on her grievance.
59. 58Palladius describes the cave-dwelling anchorites of Antinoe: Solomon, the presbyter Dorotheus, the learned Diocles, the former robber Capito, and a monk deluded by vainglory.
60. 59At Antinoe, the aged Amma Talis rules a monastery of sixty virgins by love alone, and her disciple Taor refuses new clothes so as never to go out.
61. 60A recluse of Antinoe, told by the martyr Colluthus that she will die that day, eats a last meal at his shrine, sends a book of Clement to an exiled bishop, and dies.
62. 61Melania the Younger, after the death of her two children, persuades her husband Pinianus to a life of continence, distributes an enormous fortune, frees thousands of slaves, and lives ascetically with her mother Albina.
63. 62Palladius names other Roman aristocrats who renounced their wealth: Pammachius, Macarius, and Constantius.
64. 63A virgin of Alexandria hides the bishop Athanasius from the Arians for six years until the death of Constantius.
65. 64The virgin Juliana of Caesarea sheltered Origen during a persecution, as a note in Origen's hand records.
66. 65From a book ascribed to Hippolytus: a Corinthian virgin condemned to a brothel is rescued by a young official who changes clothes with her and is martyred in her place.
67. 66The noble couple Verus and Bosporia of Ancyra give their revenues to the poor, feed the hungry in famine, and live simply in the country.
68. 67Magna of Ancyra, married by force but untouched, lives in devout continence after her husband's death and secretly supports hospices, the poor, and travelling bishops.
69. 68An unnamed merciful monk of Ancyra cares for prisoners, the sick, and the poor, acts as midwife to a beggar's wife, and sells books given him to help the needy.
70. 69A fallen virgin repents so deeply that after her child's death she serves sick and crippled women for thirty years, and God declares her repentance more pleasing than her virginity.
71. 70A presbyter's daughter falsely accuses an innocent reader of fathering her child; he accepts deposition and marries her, and her labour is released only when he prays.
72. 71Palladius closes with the virtues of a brother long his companion (probably himself), then asks Lausus to pray for him and commends his steadfastness at court.