Open Collections

Schachterle, Joshua

Database of Religious History (DRH)

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers is attributed to specific monks in the Egyptian and Palestinian deserts. It is an example of ancient literature called apophthegmata, consisting of sayings by and stories about wellregarded figures of wisdom. While the original material was likely passed down orally in Coptic for some time, the oldest written version is in Greek. There are two principal versions of this material organized in different ways. One collection is organized alphabetically according to the names of the monks cited and written about. The other collection is thematic, with sayings and stories organized according to themes such as "Self-Control," "Non-judgment," and "Humility." While the collections abound in overlapping material, the sayings and stories are not entirely identical between the two. While the majority of the monks represented in the text are from the Egyptian regions of Scetis and Nitria in the 4th century C.E., the collection was compiled and redacted in the early 5th century in Palestine. The overwhelming theme of The Sayings of the Desert Fathers is asceticism. The compiler/redactor shaped the material to focus on commonalities in ascetic practice which belie what is now known to be a vast variety of beliefs and practices in Egypt and Palestine.

Other

eng

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0416074

Non UBC

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/