The Desert Fathers

“Abba Antony said, ‘A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, “You are mad; you are not like us.”’”

Sayings of the Desert Fathers, on the discernment of the times

In the late third century, somewhere on the eastern margin of the Nile delta, a young Egyptian named Antony heard the gospel of Matthew read at his parish church - “If you would be perfect, sell what you possess and give to the poor” - and walked into the desert. He was twenty. He stayed in the desert most of his hundred and five years.

Within a generation, he had been joined by thousands. They lived in caves, in tombs, in reed huts, in cells of mud brick. They wove palm-leaf baskets and prayed without ceasing. They ate once a day. When they spoke, they spoke briefly. The literature collected here - the Verba Seniorum, the “words of the elders” - was assembled by their disciples in the centuries after their deaths. It is the oldest sustained record of Christian contemplative practice. It is also, more strangely, a working manual.

What this archive contains is the Latin systematic series - the version of the sayings most read in the medieval West. Compiled by two Roman clergymen, Pelagius the deacon and John the subdeacon, sometime in the sixth century, from older Greek originals. They organised the material by virtue: eighteen chapters, each one a topic the desert taught. Six hundred and fifty-six sayings in all, every one preserved here as Benedicta Ward translated them.

Α. A Saying for the Day

Open with a draw. Press ☩ to receive a random saying. Filter by virtue, by named abba, or by any phrase. The full corpus is below.

VERBA SENIORUM · 656 SAYINGS

The Sayings

Every saying from the Latin systematic series. Filter by virtue or by named abba; search any phrase; draw a random saying for a reading.

ABBA

showing 656 of 656 sayings

“Abba John the Dwarf said, ‘A house is not built by beginning at the top and working down. You must begin with the foundations in order to reach the top.’ They said to him, ‘What does this saying mean?’ He said, ‘The foundation is our neighbour, whom we must win, and that is the place to begin. For all the commandments of Christ depend on this one.’”

Ch. XV, Humility

Β. The Master

Around the year 270, a young Egyptian named Antony heard the Gospel read at his parish church and walked into the desert. Within a generation, thousands had followed him - first into the eastern margins of the Nile delta, then south to Scetis and the Thebaid. They lived alone or in small clusters, in caves and reed huts, fasting and weaving palm-leaf baskets. They ate once a day and prayed without ceasing. When they spoke, they spoke briefly. The sayings collected here - the Verba Seniorum, ‘words of the elders’ - were copied, edited, and translated by the people they had taught.

Γ. The Eighteen Virtues

The systematic compilers thought of their book as a workbook: open the chapter you need, read the elders on that question. The eighteen are the ladder up.

CAPITULA · 18 VIRTUES

The Eighteen Virtues

The systematic Latin compilers - Pelagius the deacon and John the subdeacon, sixth-century Rome - arranged the sayings by what each one taught. The result is a manual: open the chapter you need.

1. IAntony
  Somebody asked Antony, ‘What shall I do in order to please God?’ He replied, ‘Do what I tell you, which is this: wherever you go, keep God in mind; whatever you do, follow the example of holy Scripture; wherever you are, stay there and do not move away in a hurry. If you keep to these guide-lines, you will be saved.’
2. IIPambo
  Pambo said to Antony, ‘What shall I do?’ Antony said, ‘Do not trust in your own righteousness. Do not go on sorrowing over a deed that is past. Keep your tongue and your belly under control.’
3. III
  Gregory said, ‘God asks three things of anyone who is baptized: to keep the true faith with all his soul and all his might; to control his tongue; to be chaste in his body.’
4. IVEvagrius
  Evagrius said, ‘Some of our predecessors used to say that a dry and regular diet combined with love will soon bring a monk to the harbour where the storms of passion do not enter.’
5. VEvagrius
  He also said, ‘A monk was told that his father had died. He said to the messenger, “Do not blaspheme. My Father cannot die.” ’
6. VIMacarius
  Macarius said to Zacharias, ‘Tell me, what makes a monk?’ He said, ‘Isn’t it wrong for you to be asking me?’ Macarius said to him, ‘I am sure I should ask you, Zacharias my son. There is something that urges me to ask you.’ Zacharias said to him, ‘As far as I can tell, abba, I think anyone who controls himself and makes himself content with just what he needs and no more, is indeed a monk.’
7. VIITheodore
  They used to say about Theodore of Pherme that he kept these three rules before all others: poverty, abstinence, and avoiding the company of other people.
8. VIIIJohn
  John the Short said, ‘I will invent a man composed of all the virtues. He would rise at dawn every morning, take up the beginning of each virtue, and keep God’s commandments. He would live in great patience, in fear, in long-suffering, in the love of God; with a firm purpose of soul and body; in deep humility, in patience, in trouble of heart and earnestness of practice. He would pray often, with sorrow of heart, keeping his speech pure, his eyes controlled. He would suffer injury without anger, remaining peaceful, and not rendering evil for evil, not looking out for the faults of others, nor puffing himself up, meekly subject to every creature, renouncing material property and everything of the flesh. He would live as though crucified, in struggle, in lowliness of spirit, in good will and spiritual abstinence, in fasting, in penitence, in weeping. He would fight against evil, be wise and discreet in judgement and chaste in mind. He would receive good treatment with tranquillity, working with his own hands, watching at night, enduring hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness and labour. He would live as though buried in a tomb and already dead, every day feeling death to be near him.’
9. IXJoseph
  Joseph of Thebes said, ‘Three things are seen to be honourable by God. The first is when temptations come on someone who is weak, and are accepted thankfully. The second is when every action is pure before God, mixed with no human motive. The third is when a disciple remains obedient to a spiritual father, and gives up all his self-will.’
10. XCassian
  Cassian told this story about John, who was the father of a community because he was great in his way of life. When he was dying, he was cheerful, and his mind was set upon the Lord; his brothers stood around him and asked for a sentence that would sum up the way to salvation, which he could give them as a legacy by which they might rise to the perfection that is in Christ. With a sigh he said ‘I have never obeyed my own will, and I never taught anyone to do anything which I did not do myself first.’
11. XI
  A brother asked a hermit, ‘Tell me something good that I may do it and live by it.’ The hermit said, ‘God alone knows what is good. But I have heard that one of the hermits asked the great Nesteros, who was a friend of Antony, ‘What good work shall I do?’ and he replied, ‘Surely all works please God equally? Scripture says, Abraham was hospitable and God was with him; Elijah loved quiet and God was with him; David was humble and God was with him.’ So whatever you find you are drawn to in following God’s will, do it and let your heart be at peace.’
12. XIIPoemen
  Poemen said, ‘To be on guard, to meditate within, to judge with discernment: these are the three works of the soul.’
13. XIIIPoemen
  A brother asked him, ‘How ought we to live?’ Poemen replied, ‘We have seen the example of Daniel. They accused him of nothing except that he served his God.’
14. XIVDaniel
  The same hermit said, ‘Poverty, suffering and wise discernment are the three parts of a hermit’s life. It is written that there were these three, Noah, Job and Daniel. Noah is the type of those who own nothing, Job of those who are suffering, Daniel of those who judge wisely. Where there are these three qualities, there God dwells.’
15. XVPoemen
  Poemen said, ‘If a monk hates two things, he can be free of this world.’ A brother inquired, ‘What are they?’ He said, ‘Bodily comfort and conceit.’
16. XVI
  They used to say of Pambo that in the hour of his death he said to the holy men standing round, ‘From the time that I came into this solitude, and built my cell and lived in it, I do not remember having eaten anything I have not worked for. I have not said anything that I regretted saying. But still I go to the Lord, as one who has not yet made a beginning in the service of God.’
17. XVIISisois
  Sisois said, ‘Be despised; put your self-will behind your back; be free of worldly concerns, and you will have peace.’
18. XVIII
  When Chame was dying, he said to his sons, ‘Do not live with heretics. Do not take any notice of judges. Do not open your hands to get, but let them be stretched out to give.’
19. XIX
  A brother said to a hermit, ‘How does the fear of God come into the soul?’ He said, ‘If there is humility and poverty, and no judgement of others, the fear of God will be present there.’
20. XX
  A hermit said, ‘Let fear and humility, fasting, and weeping, take root in you.’
21. XXI
  Some of the hermits used to say, ‘Whatever you hate for yourself, do not do it to someone else. If you hate being spoken evil of, do not speak evil of another. If you hate being slandered, do not slander another. If you hate him who tries to make you despised, or wrongs you, or takes away what is yours, or anything like that, do not do such things to others. To keep this is enough for salvation.’
22. XXII
  A hermit said, ‘This is the life of a monk: work, obedience, meditation, not to judge others, not to speak evil, not to murmur. For it is written, “You who love God, hate the thing that is evil” (Ps. 97:10). This is monastic life: not to live with the wicked, not to see evil, not to be inquisitive, not to be curious, not to listen to gossip, not to use the hands for taking, but for giving; not to be proud in heart or bad in thought, not to fill the belly, in everything to judge wisely. That is the life of the true monk.’
23. XXIII
  A hermit said, ‘Ask God to give you inner grief of heart and humility. Always look at your own sins, and do not judge another’s. Be the servant of all. Do not make friends with a woman, or a boy or a heretic. Do not be self-confident. Control your tongue and appetite, and do not drink wine. If anyone speaks to you on a controversial matter, do not argue with him. If he speaks well, say, “Yes.” If he speaks ill, say, “I don’t know anything about that.” Don’t argue with what he has said, and then your mind will be at peace.’

Colophon

This is the Latin systematic collection (sometimes called the Sayings of the Fathers or the Apophthegmata Patrum in its Latin recension), translated by Benedicta Ward, SLG, of the Sisters of the Love of God in Oxford, who has been translating the desert literature since 1973. The Greek source-tradition exists in two main forms: the alphabetical series (sayings grouped by named abba) and the systematic series (sayings grouped by virtue). The Latin compilation by Pelagius and John, around 550 AD, is itself derived from a now-lost Greek systematic original.

Readers who want the alphabetical series should look at Sister Benedicta’s The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Mowbray / Cistercian Publications, 1975), where Antony has 38 sayings, Arsenius 44, Macarius the Great 41, and so on through forty-some abbas in alphabetical order. Both arrangements draw on the same desert.

“Abba Macarius said, ‘If you reprove someone, you yourself get carried away by anger and you are satisfying your own passion. Do not lose yourself, then, in order to save another.’”

Ch. IX, Non-Judgement

Antony · 251 - 356. Macarius the Great · c. 300 - 391. Arsenius · 354 - c. 450. Poemen · c. 340 - 450. Syncletica · c. 380 - 460. The desert was their library; the library is now the desert.

DACHVARD

Α. A Saying for the Day

The Sayings

Β. The Master