Sabas (439–532), in Church parlance Saint Sabas or Sabbas the Sanctified, was a Cappadocian Greek monk, priest, grazer and saint, who was born in Cappadocia and lived mainly in Palaestina Prima. He was the founder of several convents, most notably the one known as Mar Saba, in Palestine. The saint's name is derived from Imperial Aramaic: סַבָּא Sabbāʾ "old man".
Medieval icon of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified
The relics of St. Sabbas in the Catholicon (main church) of Mar Saba monastery, West Bank.
The grazers or boskoi are a category of hermits and anchorites, men and women, in Christianity, that developed in the first millennium of the Christian era, mainly in the Christian East, in Syria, Palestine, Pontus, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. However, the majority of them were situated in Palestine and Syria.
Saint Paul, "The First Hermit", Jusepe de Ribera, Museo del Prado (1640)
Russian-style icon of Saint Mary of Egypt, surrounded by scenes from her life (17th century, Beliy Gorod).
Mar Saba monastery, founded by the disciples of Sabbas the Sanctified, a Palestinian grazer hermit and monk
Paul the Hermit, by Jusepe de Ribera (1644)