As more pilgrims began visiting the monks in the desert, influence from the monastic communities began spreading. Latin versions of the original Greek stories and sayings of the Desert Fathers, along with the earliest monastic rules coming out of the desert, guided the early monastic development in the Byzantine world and eventually in the western Christian world. John Cassian played an important role in mediating the influence of the Desert Fathers to the West. This can be seen, for example, in the Rule of Saint Benedict, where Benedict of Nursia urged his monks to read the writings of John Cassian on the Desert Fathers. The "Sayings of the Desert Fathers" was also widely read in the early Benedictine monasteries.