Palladius of Hellenopolis has long since deserved an advocate and has now found one in Demetrios Katos. Focusing, first, on Palladius' Dialogue on the life of John Chrysostom and, secondly, on his Lausiac history, Katos's admirable study demonstrates how a proper identification of the Dialogue's genre illuminates Palladius' masterful defence of his idol John, and further clarifies the nature and function of the Lausiac history. Drawing on recent studies on Roman law in late antiquity and the use of forensic techniques such as issue (or, stasis) theory by Christian authors, Katos unravels the Dialogue's structure as a legal defence to show that in Palladius' view John was deposed not because of actionable failings on his part, be they administrative or doctrinal, but because of his personality: ‘John's actions, character, and demeanour had generated implacable resentment among the elite and clergy of Constantinople’ (p. 5), and that resentment carried the day. According to Katos, Palladius' Lausiac history did not wax romantically about asceticism's past glory days, but continued the fight. Responding to Jerome's criticism of him and other Origenists, Palladius used the Lausiac history to praise the Origenist ascetic life and its theology, deeply indebted to Origen and above all Evagrius Ponticus. Rather than proposing a muted form of Origenism tailored to a high-ranking court official, namely Lausus, as early scholars have argued, Katos sees the History as a spirited defence of Origen, Evagrius and the monastic theology that they represented and that the heroes and heroines of the History embody. Defending Origen's legacy of stressing the interrelation between man's free will and divine omnipotence, Palladius emerges here as an adept rhetorician and independent Origenist theologian, whose voice fully deserves scholarly attention in its own right.