Paradise of the Fathers, Book of

The title given, mostly in the Syriac tradition, to a compilation consisting of a collection of stories about monks and solitaries (including Palladius’s ‘Historia Lausiaca’, but also material borrowed from Hieronymus) and a collection of ‘Sayings of the Egyptian Fathers’ (Apophthegmata).

The title given, mostly in the Syriac tradition, to a compilation consisting of a collection of stories about monks and solitaries (including Palladius ’s ‘Historia Lausiaca’, but also material borrowed from Hieronymus) and a collection of ‘Sayings of the Egyptian Fathers’ (Apophthegmata). In the Syriac tradition the whole work is ascribed to Palladius (d. around 430). The compilation was made by the E.-Syr. monk ʿEnanishoʿ and became popular not only in the E.-Syr. ascetical tradition ( Toma of Marga gives an elaborate description in his ‘Book of Governors’), but also among W.-Syr. ascetics, who could read important parts of the Paradise (mainly the apophtegmata) in a great many ascetical anthologies.