Lausiac History

The Lausiac History (Koinē Greek: Ἡ Λαυσαϊκή Ἱστορία, romanized: E Lavsaike Istoria) is a seminal work archiving the Desert Fathers (early Christian monks who lived in the Egyptian desert) written in 419–420 AD by Palladius of Galatia, at the request of Lausus, chamberlain at the court of the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II.

[1][2] Originally written in Greek, the Lausiac History was so popular it was soon translated into Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Geʽez, Latin, Syriac and Sogdian.

Amélineau holds that the longer text is all Palladius's work, and that the first thirty-seven chapters (about the monks of Lower Egypt) are mainly an account of what the author saw and heard, though even here he has also used documents.

A Syrian monk, Anan-Isho, living in the sixth-seventh centuries in Mesopotamia, translated the Lausiac History into Syriac with further interpolations.

[1] "Pilgrims came from all parts to visit the saints who lived there, and several wrote descriptions of what they saw and heard, which are among the most interesting documents of the early Church.