Prologue

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This book is an account of the virtuous asceticism and admirable way of life and also of the words of the holy and blessed fathers. They are meant to inspire and instruct those who want to imitate their heavenly lives, so that they may make progress on the way that leads to the kingdom of heaven. You must understand that the holy fathers who were the initiators and masters of the blessed monastic way of life, being entirely on fire with divine and heavenly love and counting as nothing at all that men hold to be beautiful and estimable, trained themselves here below to do nothing whatever out of vainglory. They hid themselves away, and by their supreme humility in keeping most of their good works hidden, they made progress on the way that leads to God. Moreover, no-one has been able to describe their virtuous lives for us in detail, for those who have taken the greatest pains in this matter have only committed to writing a few fragments of their best words and actions. They did not do this to gain praise from men, but only to stir up future generations to emulate them. Thus there were many who have set down the words and deeds of the holy old men at various times in the way they told them, with simple and unstudied words. They had only one aim - to profit many. Now, a narrative which is the work of many hands is confused, and disorderly, and it distracts the attention of the readers, for their minds are drawn in different directions and cannot retain sayings that are scattered about in the book. Therefore we have tried to gather them together in chapters, so that they will be in order and clear and easy to look up, for those who want to benefit by reading them. Thus, all that is attributed to Anthony, Arsenius, Agathon, and all those whose names begin with 'A' are listed under Alpha; Basil, Bessarion, Benjamin, under Beta, and so on to the end of the alphabet. But since there are also some sayings and deeds of the holy fathers in which the name of him who said or did them does not appear, we have arranged them in chapters after the alphabetical sections. We have investigated and gone through as many books as we could find, and we have placed the results at the end of the book, so that we may gather spiritual fruit from each one, and delighting in the words of the fathers which are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb (Ps. 19.10) let us live according to the vocation the Lord has given us and so gain His kingdom. Amen.