The Historia monachorum in Aegypto, also called the Lives of the Desert Fathers,[1] is a combination
travelogue and
hagiography from the late 4th century AD. It recounts the travels of a band of seven
Palestinian monks on a
pilgrimage through
Egypt between September 394 and January 395. They travelled from south to north, stopping in monasteries and meeting hermits and holy men. The Historia is in essence a collection of stories about these men and their miracles.[2]
The Historia is anonymous. It was originally written in
Greek. Its original title is Ἡ κατ’ Αἴγυπτον τῶν μοναχῶν ἱστορία, which translates "Inquiry about the Monks of Egypt".[3] It was early translated into
Latin by
Rufinus of Aquileia, who also added material of his own.[2] It is best known by the Latin title of Rufinus' edition, which is often misleadingly translated "History of the Monks of Egypt", but the work is not
historiography. It was one of the most popular hagiographical texts throughout the
Middle Ages.[3] Four distinct translations into
Syriac are known, as are translations into
Georgian,
Slavonic,
Armenian and
Arabic. A
Coptic translation is known only from fragments.[4] There are
critical editions of both the Greek and Latin texts.[5]
The Greek Historia has a prologue, epilogue and 26 chapters:
Cain, Andrew (2016). The Greek Historia monachorum in Aegypto: Monastic Hagiography in the Late Fourth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cain, Andrew, ed. (2019). Rufinus of Aquileia. Inquiry About the Monks in Egypt. The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, Vol. 139. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press.
Festugière, André-Jean, ed. (1971). Historia monachorum in Aegypto: Édition critique du texte grec et traduction annotée. Brussels.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link)
Harmless, J. William (2018). "Historia Monachorum in Aegypto (History of the Monks in Egypt)". In Nicholson, Oliver (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, Volume 1: A–I. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 728.
ISBN978-0-19-881624-9.
Russell, Norman, ed. (1981). The Lives of the Desert Fathers: The Historia Monachorum in Aegypto. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications.