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.