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The Church Fathers · c. 419–420
The Lausiac History
Palladius of Galatia · c. 363–c. 430
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What it is
Portraits of the monks and nuns of Egypt and Palestine by someone who lived among them, including a good deal of frank material about failure, madness, and vanity.
Why it lasted
The most reliable eyewitness account of early monasticism, and notable for the number of women it records.
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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