The reading of these profound, but also conveniently understandable stories and instructions of the fathers, to the one who opens his heart to God and wants to learn in His law, gives indescribable pleasure and benefit. The honeycomb of the honeycomb is a good word: but their sweetness is the healing of the soul (Proverbs 16:24). The words of the wise are like oxen and nails thrust into the rod of the driver (Ecclesiastes 12:11): thus they wound and induce to virtue the laziest and coarsest man. How edifying the reading of ascetic sayings is for everyone, the ascetics themselves show.

"Abba Ammon," says one Patericon, "once asked the elder Pimen: if it is necessary to speak with a neighbor, then what do you think, is it better to talk to him about the Holy Scriptures, or is it better to talk about the sayings and thoughts of the elders? The elder replied to him, if it is impossible to be silent, then it is better to talk about the sayings of the elders than about the Holy Scriptures. Scripture. For to speak of the Holy Scriptures. There is not a little danger in the Scriptures."

Blessed John Moschos tells how once a reading from the Patericon of "Paradise" about the non-acquisitiveness of an elder, which led robbers to repentance, prompted another elder to make the same experiment of patience and non-acquisitiveness. This elder, adds John Moschos, was especially fond of recalling the sayings of the Holy Fathers, and they were always in his mouth and in his heart, from which he acquired the greatest fruit of virtue.

Patristic stories and sayings, the examples of the Fathers themselves and those around them, reveal to us the hidden depth of our nature in its various states: in the natural state – its corruption, infirmities, vices, in the state of grace – its renewal, strength and spiritual height, to which the believer attains by the power of Christ; discover various and surest ways of healing and spiritual perfection of a person.

Finally, let us note: an attentive reader, comparing the lives of the ancient holy ascetics with the life of our time, involuntarily sees and feels to what extent in the spiritual life we have lagged behind the life of the Christians of ancient times. This was foreseen by the holy ascetics, and in the gradual decline of faith and virtue they indicated the gradual approach of the terrible day of the Lord. "The holy fathers of the skete also prophesied about the last generation, saying: What have we done? To this answered one of them, Abba of great life, named Sirion: "We have kept the commandments of God." He was asked: what will the people who will live after us do? The abba answered: they will do half of our work. He was asked again: "And those who will live after them, what will they do?" They won't do anything at all. Temptations will come upon them, and those who will prove good at that time will be greater than us and our fathers."

Such a warning of the Holy Fathers, in agreement with the words of the Saviour (Matthew 24:7-13, 21-26, 37-39, etc.), clearly exposes the deception of the wise men of our age, who dream of the moral superiority of the society they lead. Where the cross of Christ is abolished (1 Corinthians 1:17), this cannot be. For without Me ye can do nothing (John 15:5).

We offer our readers the Patericon, translated from the Greek from the Synoidal manuscript No 452 (according to Mattei's catalogue between the typographical in quarto No XLIII), on parchment, 11th-12th centuries, on 182 leaves. The patericon who occupies this entire manuscript was already known to Patriarch Photius of Constantinople, who described it in his Library chapter by chapter (cod. 198). The original Greek text of this Patericon has not been published, and is not even known from manuscripts. Only its Latin translation is known, made as early as the sixth century by Pelagius and John, deacons of Rome; it has been edited by Rosveida (De vita et verbis Seniorum, Antwerpiae, 1628), and more recently by Menem (Patrologiae cursus, Paris. 1849. T. LXXIII. p. 855 et sq.).

This translation, however, has some deviations from the Patericon described by Photius, as well as from our Greek manuscript. There is also known, according to the Description of the Synoidal Manuscripts (Messrs. Gorsky and Novostruev, Moscow, 1859, otd II. 2.p. 247 et seq.), the Slavonic translation of this Patericon, contained in a manuscript of the end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century, No 153 (according to the Catholic of 1823, No 3), fol. 126 rev. — 248 rev., and in another, not yet included in the above-mentioned Description of Sinoidal Manuscripts, No 265 (according to catal. 1823). It is also found in the Chudov parchment manuscript No 104 of the fourteenth century, but in the Slavonic translation there are significant additions taken from various other Patericons, and sometimes breaking the connection and order of the articles of the Greek Patericon.

In List No 265, in addition to additions to the content of the chapters, the chapters themselves are arranged in a different order. Both of these translations, Latin and Slavonic, were in mind, and moreover we often thought of Cotelier's edition of the Monumenta Eclcesiae Graecae, where in the Apophthegmata there are found in various places quite a few legends from the Photian Patericon. Photius in his Patericon showed 22 chapters, but our Greek manuscript contains 23 chapters; this is because Photius omits the 3rd chapter "on contrition." But this chapter is also found in the Latin translation by Migne (p. 860. de compunctione) and in the Slavonic manuscript No 3 (sheet 144 "On Tenderness"). Since in our Greek manuscript No 452, due to the loss of leaves, the last 5 chapters are missing, we will use another Sinoidal Greek manuscript, No 163 (in Mattei No 164), on parchment of the twelfth or thirteenth century, containing the same patericon, only with significant additions, and in places with abbreviations.

Описанный патриархом Фотием Патерик, по его замечанию, есть сокращение и свод по главам, так называемого, «Великого Лиминария» (Луга духовнаго), в котором описываются жизнь и деяния Антония Великаго и последующих подвижников (VI и V веков). «Это, — говорит умнейший и учёнейший Фотий, — из всех книг есть полезнейшая для тех, кои хотят вести жизнь свою так, чтобы наследовать царство небесное. Она имеет и обещанную ясность; впрочем, в некоторых отношениях более прилична мужам, ищущим не изречений, а полагающим весь свой труд и старание на дела подвижническия».

В списке № 163, в начале помещено предисловие неизвестного составителя этого Патерика, в котором он объясняет пользу, цель и план сделанного им выбора из подвижнеческих сказаний. Это предисловие, которое как видно, имел пред глазами и патриарх Фотий, мы вполне за сим помещаем.

Предисловие составителя Патерика

В сей книге описаны доблестные подвиги, образ чудной жизни и изречения святых и блаженных отцев, дабы соревновали им, учились у них, и подражали им те, которые желают вести жизнь небесную, и идти путем, ведущим в царство небесное. Впрочем надобно знать, что святые отцы, ревнители и наставники блаженного жития монашеского, однажды воспламенившись Божественною и небесною любовию, и ни во что вменив все мирские блага и почести, более всего старались о том, чтобы ничего не делать на показ. По преизбытку смиренномудрия, они сами скрывались и скрывали наибольшую часть своих подвигов: так они совершали свой путь по Христу. Посему никто не мог подробно описать нам доблестной жизни их. Но только некоторые краткие их изречения и деяния описали мужи, особенно занимавшиеся сим делом, не с тем, чтобы воздать им какую-либо честь, но чтобы возбудить потомков к соревнованию.

В разные времена они записали таким образом очень многие изречения и подвиги святых старцев, простым и безыскусственным языком, в виде повествования, имея в виду единственно пользу многих читателей. Поелику же смешанное и беспорядочное повествование о множестве предметов довольно затрудняет соображение читателя, когда нельзя обнять памятию содержание книги, беспорядочно разбросанного в ней, то мы избрали изложение по предметам, или главам, которое, по своему порядку и совмещению изречений одного содержания, желающим может принести действительнейшую и скорую пользу. Ибо не мало склоняет к добродетели слово, в одном смысле о ней произнесенное многими добродетельными мужами.