Palladius (fl. ca. 400)
Greek author and bp. of Helenopolis (in Bithynia). His ‘History of the Egyptian monks’, addressed to Lausus (hence often called ‘Lausiac History’), was soon translated into Syriac; several different recensions survive in Syriac, of which the earliest two may go back to a lost early form of the Greek text, whereas the third and fourth reflect the short and long recensions, respectively, of the extant Greek text. In the 7th cent. ʿEnanishoʿ took over Palladius’s work in the first part of his ‘Paradise of the Fathers’ (a few further texts from Palladius are in the second part), using a source not identical with any surviving early Syriac ms.
Sources
- CPG 6036–6038.
- P. Bedjan, Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum, vol. 7 (1890–97), 1–192.
- S. P. Brock, ‘Saints in Syriac: A little tapped resource’, JECS 16 (2008), 181–96, esp. 190–96.
- E. A. W. Budge, The Book of Paradise (2 vols.; 1904). (the translation was also issued separately, The Paradise, or the Garden of the Holy Fathers [2 vols; 1907])
- R. Draguet, Les formes syriaques de la matière de l’histoire lausiaque, I–II (CSCO 389–90, 398–9; 1978). (with extensive introductions)
- K. Nickau, ‘Eine Historia Lausiaca ohne Lausus. Überlegungen zur Hypothese von René Draguet über den Ursprung der Historia Lausiaca’, ZAC 5 (2001), 131–9.