In recent times there has been a renewed awareness of and inspiration taken from the lives and sayings of the early monks of the Egyptian desert. (Commonly referred to as "The Desert Fathers.) This is a translation from the Greek language "Great Synaxaristes" (Athens 1978) of four lives of great desert saints of the fourth and fifth centuries. The material presented on each saint is in sufficient depth to allow the reader to become more familiar with each of the saints, to learn from their wisdom and be challenged by their actions.