4th–5th century
Saint Sisoes the Great
A great ascetic of the Egyptian desert, renowned for his humility and his saying at the tomb of Alexander the Great.
Biography
Sisoes lived as an ascetic in the Egyptian desert, renowned for his wisdom, humility and love for any sinner willing to repent. His contemporaries regarded him as one of the greatest of the desert fathers, a model of genuine ascetic life.
According to tradition, when he visited the tomb of Alexander the Great he was struck by how fleeting even so glorious a king's fame had proven, and wept at the vanity of worldly achievement. His disciples later painted this scene in an icon with an epigram on death, which became well known.