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The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks

Translated by Benedicta Ward

Penguin Classics (2003)

Description of the Book

The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks is Benedicta Ward’s translation of a group of sayings called the Verba Seniorum, distilled from the early Christian monks.

Interpretation of the Book

This translation is organized by topic. There are a few to a few dozen pages of short proverbs or stories on spiritual topics such as self-control, lust, humility and sober living (eighteen topics in all).

Each topic includes a number of short entries on that topic. Some entries are wise sayings attributed to a specific monk or nun; some entries are stories about the topic. For example:

A hermit was asked, ‘What is humility?’ He said, ‘It is if you forgive a brother who has wronged you before he is sorry.’ (15.60, p. 163)

Other entries are longer stories, though none more than a page.

Some entries name a monk or nun who is recognizeable in church history, for example Jerome or Antony the Great. Other entries are attributed to a wise person whom the reader may not have known, for example John the Dwarf. Still other stories, as the one above, are simply attributed to “a hermit” or “a monk”.

Application

This book blesses the reader in two major ways.

First, it provides a glimpse into the Christianity that was lived in the first few centuries after Jesus’ resurrection, by men and women of wholehearted faith. Taken together, the entries show the character of devotion lived at this point in history and captured for historical memory.

Second, and more importantly, these wise sayings provide a challenge to the modern reader who is distant from the challenges of those days, but who still wishes to pursue faith as wholeheartedly as the desert fathers and mothers. The wisdom of these stories and proverbs is timeless.