Saint Melania the Elder

Melania the Elder, Latin Melania Maior (c. 350 – before 410 or c. 417) was a Desert Mother who was an influential figure in the Christian ascetic movement (the Desert Fathers and Mothers) that sprang up in the generation after the Emperor Constantine made Christianity a legal religion of the Roman Empire. She was a contemporary of, and well known to, Abba Macarius and other Desert Fathers in Egypt, Jerome, Augustine of Hippo, Paulinus of Nola (her cousin or cousin-in-law; he gives a colorful description of her visit to Nola in his Letters), and Evagrius of Pontus, and she founded two religious communities on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. She stands out for the double monastery she founded - a convent for herself, and a second monastery for monks dedicated to her spiritual companion, Rufinus of Aquileia, which belong to the earliest Christian monastic communities, and because she promoted the asceticism which she, as a follower of Origen, considered indispensable for salvation. Melania the Elder (c. 350 – c. 410) was born in Hispania and became one of the wealthiest citizens of the empire. Her father, Marcellinus, was of consular rank and she was related to Paulinus of Nola. She was married at fourteen, and moved with her husband (probably Valerius Maximus signo Basilius of the powerful patrician family of gens Valeria, or possibly a politician named Maximus) to the suburbs of Rome. Her husband and two out of three sons had died by the time she was twenty-two. She became a Christian in Rome and, leaving her son, Valerius Publicola, with a guardian, set off to Alexandria, accompanied by her servants, to join other Christian ascetics to visit the monks at Nitria. Christine Schenk CSJ writes that she "used her wealth and influence to help monks, priests, and bishops in the Nitrian Desert." She stayed with the monks in the desert near Alexandria, Egypt (today the area is known as Wadi Natroun) for about six months.