Prologue

In this book are recorded virtuous ascetic practice and a marvelous way of life, together with sayings of the holy and blessed Fathers, for the zeal, instruction, and imitation of those who wish to attain the heavenly way of life and desire to walk the road that leads to the kingdom of heaven.

We should know, then, that the holy Fathers, who became zealous practitioners and teachers of this blessed monastic way of life, once they had been set aflame by divine and heavenly love and had counted as nothing all that people regard as beautiful and honorable, made it their chief concern to do nothing for show. Keeping themselves hidden and, because of their surpassing humility, concealing most of their achievements, they thus completed the way according to God.

For this reason, no one has been able to set before us an exact account of this virtuous life. Those who labored diligently in these matters handed down in writing only a few of their admirable words or deeds, not to win favor with those men, but in their eagerness to stir later generations to zeal.

So, at various times, many set forth the sayings and achievements of the holy elders in the form of narratives, in simple and unadorned language; they looked to this one purpose alone: to benefit the many.

But because the accounts of many people, being confused and unordered, cause some difficulty for the reader’s mind, which cannot sufficiently hold in memory the meaning scattered throughout the book in many directions, for this reason we have been moved to arrange them according to the letters, an arrangement able through its order [and] compactness to provide the benefit most clearly and readily to those who desire it. Thus the material about Abba Anthony, Arsenius, Agathon, and those [whose names begin] with alpha ..... [and the material about Basil, Bessa]rion and Benjamin goes under beta, and so on in sequence as far as omega.

But since there are also other sayings and deeds of holy elders that do not give the names of those who said or did them, we have set these out in chapters after completing the alphabetical material.

And after searching many books and making inquiry, as much as we were able to find we placed at the ends of the chapters, so that, gathering benefit for the soul from them all and delighting in the sayings of the Fathers, which are sweeter than honey and honeycomb, we may live worthily of the calling with which we were called by the Lord and attain His kingdom. Amen.