Content
To the readers
Preface by the compiler of the Patericon
Chapter 1. The exhortation of the Holy Fathers to succeed in perfection Chapter 2. That one should seek silence with all diligence Chapter 3. On contrition Chapter 4. On abstinence, and that one should observe it not only regarding food, but also regarding movements of the soul Chapter 5. Various stories for strengthening against the fornication wars rising against us Chapter 6. About non-covetousness, and about the fact that one should protect oneself from covetousness Chapter 7. Various stories that encourage us to patience and courage Chapter 8. About the fact that nothing should not make a show of Chapter 9. About what we should be careful not to condemn anyone Chapter 10. About prudence Chapter 11. About what we should always be awake Chapter 12. About what we should constantly and watchfully pray Chapter 13. About that that one should be hospitable and give alms with cordiality Chapter 14. About obedience Chapter 15. About humility Chapter 16. About patience with evil Chapter 17. About love Chapter 18. About the perspicacious Chapter 19. About miracle workers, Holy elders Chapter 20. About God-loving life various fathers Stories of twelve fathers who gathered together about their own exploits Chapter 21. Sayings of the elders who grew old in asceticism Chapter 22. Interviews of the elders with each other about thoughts Chapter 23. Questions of the young man to the elder Thebean about how one should stay in the cell, and about contemplation Appendix. Our Reverend Father Macarius of Egypt, a word on spiritual perfection
To the readers
The paths of the righteous, that is, their life and teaching, according to the word of the Wise One (Proverbs 4:18), “shine like light:” they “come before” us “and enlighten” the path to salvation. This must be said especially about the saints of the New Testament Church, who received from the fullness of Christ grace upon grace (John 1:16). Although Christian ascetics hid from the world, like those of the Old Testament, “wandering in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens, and in the abysses of the earth” (Heb. 11:38): but as the “light” of the world, as a majestic “city” placed on the grief of God, could not hide from the world, much less from believers (Matt. 5:14). The light of their exploits and their teachings shines so brightly, according to the Savior, before all people that, seeing their good deeds, we involuntarily “glorify the heavenly Father,” reverence His saints and “delight with” them according to the “inner man” (Rom. 7, 22).
Selected features from the life of Christian ascetics, especially their wise sayings leading “to life and piety” (2 Peter 1:3), are briefly and intelligibly presented for everyone in the so-called Patericon or stories and sayings of the fathers. These stories and sayings are rightly called pearls and valuable beads from the spiritual treasury of the God-bearing fathers. Here it is not an outside witness who is narrating, and it is not a scientific theologian who is giving instructions, but men who have spent their entire lives according to God, who have been purified and enlightened by their continuous labors, prayer, fasting and all kinds of exhaustion, speak about themselves and teach from their long-term experience and enlightenment from above - men who have achieved angelic life and contemplation.
Reading these deep, but also easily understandable legends and instructions from the fathers, brings indescribable pleasure and benefit to those who open their hearts to God and want to learn from His law. “The honeycomb of honey contains good words; their sweetness is the healing of the soul” (Proverbs 16:24). “The words of the wise are like the skeleton of an ox, and like a nail driven into a driver’s rod” (Eccl. 12:11): thus they wound and encourage the most lazy and rude person to virtue. The ascetics themselves show how reading ascetic sayings is edifying for everyone.
“Abba Ammon,” says one Patericon, “once asked Elder Pimen: if it becomes necessary to speak with your neighbor, what do you think - is it better to talk to him about the Holy Scriptures, or is it better about the sayings and thoughts of the elders? The elder told him in response, if one cannot remain silent, then it is better to talk about the sayings of the elders than about the Holy One. Scripture. For talking about St. There is no shortage of danger in Scripture.”
Blessed John Moschus tells how one day reading from the Patericon of Paradise about the non-covetousness of the elder, which led to the repentance of the robbers, prompted another elder to do - and he did - the same experience of patience and non-covetousness. This elder, adds John Moschus, especially loved to recall 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.
Fathers' stories and sayings, examples of the fathers themselves and the people around them reveal to us the hidden depth of our nature in its various states: in the natural - its corruption, infirmities, vices, in the state of grace - its renewal, strength and spiritual height, to which the believer reaches by force Christ's; discover various and surest ways of healing and spiritual improvement of a person.
Let us finally note: the attentive reader, comparing the life of the ancient holy ascetics with the life of our time, involuntarily sees and feels to what extent in spiritual life we have lagged behind the life of Christians of ancient times. This was foreseen by St. ascetics, and in the gradual decline of faith and virtue indicated the gradual approach of the terrible day of the Lord. “The holy fathers of the monastery also prophesied about the last generation, saying: what have we done? To this, one of them, Abba, a great life named Sirion, answered: we have kept the commandments of God. He was asked: what will the people who will live after us do? Abba answered: they will do half of our work. He was also asked: what will those who live after them do? They won't do anything at all. Temptations will come upon them, and those who turn out to be good at that time will be greater than us and our fathers.”
This is the warning of St. fathers, in agreement with the words of the Savior (Matthew 24:7–13, 21–26, 37–39, etc.), clearly exposes the deceptions of the sages of our age, who dream of the moral superiority of the society they lead. Where “the cross of Christ is made void” (1 Cor. 1:17), this cannot happen. “For without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
We offer our readers the Patericon, translated from Greek from the Sinoidal manuscript No. 452 (according to the Matthaei catalog between typographical in quarto No. XLIII), on parchment, XI-XII centuries, on 182 sheets. The Patericon, which occupies this entire manuscript, was already known to the Patriarch Photius of Constantinople, who described it in his Library in chapters (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 back in the 6th century by Pelagius and John, deacons of Rome; it was published by Rossweida (De vita et verbis Seniorum, Antwerpiae, 1628), and recently by Minem (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. Also known, according to the Description of the Synoidal Manuscripts (Messrs. Gorsky and Novostruev, Moscow, 1859, part II. 2. p. 247 et seq.), is the Slavic translation of this Patericon, contained in the manuscript of the late XIV or early XV century, No. 153 ( according to catalog 1823 No. 3), l. 126 rev. – 248 vol., and in another, not yet included in the mentioned Description of the Synoidal Manuscripts, No. 265 (according to the catalogue, 1823). It is also found in the Chudovskaya parchment manuscript No. 104. XIV century. But in the Slavic translation there are significant additions taken from various other Patericons, and sometimes disrupting the connection and order of the articles of the Greek Patericon.
In list No. 265, in addition to additions in the contents of the chapters, the chapters themselves are arranged in a different order. Both designated translations, Latin and Slavic, were in our minds, and moreover, we often consulted Cotelier’s edition of “Monumenta Eclcesiae Graecae,” where in the Apophthegmata quite a few legends from the Photius Patericon are found in different places. Photius in his Patericon showed 22 chapters, but our Greek manuscript contains 23 chapters; this is because Photius omitted the 3rd chapter “on contrition.” But this chapter is also in the Latin translation of Min (p. 860. de compunctione), and in the Slavic manuscript No. 3 (fol. 144 vol. on tenderness). Since in our Greek manuscript No. 452, due to the loss of leaves, the last 5 chapters are missing, then to fill this we will use another Synoidal Greek manuscript, No. 163 (in Mattei No. 164), on parchment of the 12th or 13th century, containing that the same patericon, only with significant additions, and in places with abbreviations.
The Patericon described by Patriarch Photius, according to his remark, is an abbreviation and chapter-by-chapter summary of the so-called “Great Liminary” (Spiritual Meadow), which describes the life and deeds of Anthony the Great and subsequent ascetics (VI and V centuries). “This,” says the smartest and most learned Photius, of all books is the most useful for those who want to lead their lives in such a way as to inherit the kingdom of heaven. She also has the promised
clarity; however, in some respects it is more fitting for men who are not looking for sayings, but who devote all their labor and diligence to ascetic deeds.”
In list No. 163, a preface
unknown compiler of this Patericon, in which he explains the benefit, purpose and plan of the selection he made from ascetic legends. This preface, which, apparently, Patriarch Photius also had before his eyes, we fully place behind this.
Preface by the compiler of the Patericon
This book describes valiant deeds, an image of a wonderful life and sayings of the holy and blessed fathers, so that those who wish to lead a heavenly life and follow the path leading to the kingdom of heaven can compete with them, learn from them, and imitate them. However, you need to know that the holy fathers, zealots and teachers of the blessed monastic life, once inflamed with Divine and heavenly love, and counting all worldly blessings and honors as nothing, tried most of all not to do anything for show. Out of an abundance of humility, they themselves hid and hid most of their exploits: this is how they made their way according to Christ. Therefore, no one could describe to us in detail their valiant life. But only a few brief sayings and deeds were described by the men who were especially involved in this matter, not in order to give them any honor, but in order to excite their descendants to competition.
At different times they wrote down in this way many sayings and deeds of the holy elders, in simple and unartificial language, in the form of a narrative, keeping in mind the sole benefit of many readers. since the mixed and disorderly narration about many subjects rather complicates the reader’s understanding, when it is impossible to grasp in memory the contents of the book, randomly scattered in it, we have chosen a presentation by subject, or chapter
, which, due to its order and combination of sayings of the same content, can bring real and immediate benefit to those who wish. For the word spoken about it in one sense by many virtuous men does little to incline towards virtue. When, for example, Abba Anthony says: “Humility avoids all the snares of the devil;” and another Abba says: “Humility is a tree of life growing in height;” third: “Humility does not become angry and does not irritate another;” and another one says: “if someone says to someone with humility: forgive me, he will burn up the demons,” then from all this the mind of the reader receives complete conviction to seek humility with all diligence. The same is true in other chapters.
The order of all the chapters together and each separately helps a lot when starting to read the book. since each chapter contains various words and actions of famous and unknown fathers: how many legends we found with the names of the fathers, we placed such legends first in each chapter, in alphabetical order of names, and only in subsequent nameless legends could we not adhere to this order. But the general connection of the chapters, not accidentally laid out somehow, also helps the reader to understand the content of the book.
After exhortations (towards perfection), the book begins with the most private virtues and those primarily needed by monks, which are: silence, contrition and abstinence. Then, little by little, ascending, as if on some ladder, he depicts a more perfect one, and finally moves on to generally useful virtues, embracing the above and leading to perfection, arranging community life, which are: obedience, humility and love; for what could be more important and useful than obedience, or higher than humility, and what could be more perfect than love? To this are added some great gifts: revelations and interpretations of Divine words, the gift of signs and wonders: these are the essence of gifts from God, and not human works.
Perhaps someone will not sin if he ranks among the Angels a person who completely withdraws from the company of people, or who constantly walks naked, or who eats grass. All this is proposed in this book for the purpose that we should seek in every possible way the indicated virtues, and so that we would know what kind of love our holy fathers had for God, and with what honors He Himself glorified those who sincerely cleave to Him (these are the above-mentioned gifts of God, rather than human virtues). ). The entire book concludes with memorable sayings of the holy fathers, capping the end and briefly depicting the duties of monks.
Modern Patericon - Maya Kucherskaya
MODERN PATERIK
Reading for the discouraged
For several years now, from various parts of Russia, I have been receiving stories about priests, mothers, laymen and bishops, with modest notes - maybe it will be useful to you, just please do not name them. I won't name it. Also because a real “patericon” (a collection of stories from the lives of Christians and wise sayings) is a completely serious and documentary genre. For a believer, there is no doubt whether the events described, for example, in the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon actually happened - of course, yes. And the goals of such patericons are high - to lead a person to God.
The book that the reader holds in his hands should be listed under a completely different department - the department of fine literature. Yes, there are certain historical characters in the “Modern Patericon”, and all of them, by the way, are called by their proper names, but even about them the author tells fables. And no matter how you turn it, “Modern Patericon” is fiction. Occasionally woven on a real warp; more often - no. So for those who, at any cost, want to find the mink of an Orthodox hedgehog in a remote Russian province or try apples from a wonderful garden grown by angels, I’m afraid it will not be easy.
I will also appeal separately to those who do not see hope at the bottom of the saddest stories, who are wounded by a cannibal father and a murderous mother, and who are only angered by learned speeches about literary conventions, the laws of parody and satire - before throwing the book into the fire (with previous editions “Paterikon” such things happened), it makes sense to look at the end of it, read the last chapter. I promise it will get easier.
And I admit frankly: the very possibility of our communication is a great joy for me and a feeling of incredible spaciousness. So many people live in this world, and these complete strangers, in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Tomsk, Milan, Toronto, Boston, one day open your book. They read, laugh, get upset, wipe away their tears, agree (argue) with you. Just yesterday we didn’t know each other at all, and suddenly we already know each other. This miracle of meeting occurs. The warmest and still surprised gratitude to everyone for him. Enjoy reading.
Your Author
CYCLE ONE
READING ON CHRISTMAS LENT
1
We had a meal. Suddenly Father Theoprepius reached under the table. And he climbed in and sat there among the rough-shod feet of the brethren. The legs didn't move. Then Theoprepius began to climb and pull everyone’s cassocks from below. Out of humility, no one reproached him. Only one novice monk asked in amazement: “Father! How do you want me to understand you?”
“I want to be like a child,” was the answer.
2
The elder, who was known to be perspicacious, instructed the novice to cut down the poplar tree that grew right in the middle of the monastery. The novice, wanting to comprehend the hidden meaning of the request, said: “Father, why chop it down?”
“Lergia tortured me, grandson.” From poplar fluff,” the old man answered and sneezed.
“Be healthy,” said the novice and ran for the electric saw.
For he had the gift of reasoning.
3
Father Stefan pulled his brother's beard.
- Oh oh oh! - the brother shouted.
“You’re a silent person,” Stefan was amazed.
“Well, so what,” said the brother. And he cried bitterly.
4
One monk was very depressed. No means could heal him. Then the brothers gave him a wind-up car for his name day. The car could turn itself, beep and flash its headlights.
- Wow, machine! - exclaimed the monk.
Since then, he has never lost heart in his life. Every day before going to bed, he loaded the back of the car with pebbles, started it and watched it drive around the cell, turning on its own, flashing its headlights and beeping quietly.
5
The brethren asked the elder:
- Tell me, father, where is the best place to build a woodshed for us? Closer to the fence or next to the bathhouse? Or maybe behind the gate?
“Wherever you want,” answered the elder.
6
Father Yehudil doused himself with pea soup.
“Listen, Vasya, wash my cassock,” he said to one novice who had recently entered the monastery.
“I don’t know how to do laundry,” Vasya objected. And he laughed.
“So you will learn,” answered Father Yehudil. And he laughed even louder.
7
Once the brothers went for a walk in the forest. They had just started walking when suddenly Father Jacob got lost.
- Yasha, Yasha! “Ay,” his brothers began to call. But there was silence in the forest. Only the cuckoo crowed loudly and mushrooms grew under the trees.
PATERIKI
PATERIKI, fatherland (Greek πατεριϰά), genre of Christian ascetic. literature, collections of stories about the spiritual exploits of ascetics of Christian monasticism, as well as their sayings (apophthegm). The term "P." first found in the Byzantine work. hagiographer Leontius of Cyprus “Additions to the Life of John the Merciful” (c. 641–642). Glorifying the feat of asceticism, P. are intended for spiritually beneficial reading for Christians and strengthening in faith. Unlike the life of P., they do not tell about the entire life of the ascetic, but only about its most significant episode, from the point of view of the compiler.
There are famous works dedicated to Egyptian and partly Palestinian and Byzantine ones. monks of the 3rd–6th centuries: “History of the Egyptian monks” (late 4th century), “Lavsaik” by Palladius of Elenopolis (beginning of the 5th century), two collections of “Patristic sayings” (“Apophtegmata patrum”) [“ABC -anonymous collection" (late 5th century), in which the articles are arranged by the names of the fathers and the topics of unnamed texts, and the "Systematic Collection" (beginning of the 6th century, translated in the mid-6th century into Latin Roman . by deacons Pelagius and John), in it the texts are arranged by topic], “The Spiritual Meadow” by John Moschos (early 7th century); Italian monks of the 5th–6th centuries. dedicated to the “Dialogues on the Life and Miracles of the Italian Fathers and on the Immortality of the Soul” by Pope Gregory I the Great (in Latin, late 6th century; in Greek translation by Pope Zechariah, c. 752). The “Fatherly Sayings” were probably created on the model of late antique collections of sayings of famous people; their connection with the treatise “Pirkei Avot” (“Teachings of the Fathers”) of the Mishnah is also possible. P. were translated into plural. languages. In particular, before the 5th Ecumenical Council (553), translations were made into Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Sogdian, and Arabic. and Ethiopian. languages that have preserved, among other things, the statements of persons later condemned as heretics (for example, Evagrius of Pontus).
In the 10th century The Athonite monk (abba) Isaiah, in a peculiar imitation of the P. genre, compiled the Miterikon with instructions to nuns, which contains numerous. sayings of ascetic wives (in the 19th century, the manuscript of Miterikon from the mid-15th century was found by St. Theophan the Recluse in Jerusalem and translated into Russian). P. influenced the Byzantine tradition. hesychasm of the 13th–15th centuries, in which there was a desire to return to early models of spiritual life (“hesycha” - peace, silence - one of the central concepts in the sayings of ascetics).
The beginning of P.'s translations into glory. language dates back to the 9th–10th centuries. The oldest of them, the Skete Patericon, translated in the 9th century. from Greek manuscript of the "Systematic Collection", attributed to St. Methodius (see Cyril and Methodius). Subsequently, “The History of the Egyptian Monks” and “Lavsaik” were translated, forming the Egyptian Patericon (before 950), the “ABC-Anonymous Collection” compiled the ABC-Jerusalem Patericon, and the “Dialogues...” of Gregory the Great - the Roman Patericon (both before 971). The antiquity of the Sinai Patericon, which is a translation of the “Spiritual Meadow,” is evidenced by the fact that its oldest copy (11th–12th centuries) was transcribed from Glagolitic. original.
In the 10th century glory arose. processing of translated P.: selected P. – Short Egyptian Patericon and “Limonar”; compilative P. - Scaligerian Patericon, Tikhanov's Patericon, as well as the Consolidated Patericon - the most famous of the glories. paterikov. About the widespread distribution of various. P. in Russian The bookishness of the pre-Mongol period is evidenced by their active use in compiling the teaching part of the Prologue (2nd half of the 12th century). Dept. stories and sayings from different poems are most often found in other Russian. handwritten collections of the 13th–17th centuries, and in the Old Believers. Sat. 18th–19th centuries.
In con. 12 – beginning 13th centuries The first slav itself was created according to the Greek model. P. – Kiev-Pechersk Patericon, which has come down to us in several editions of the 14th–17th centuries. and became the founder of the Russian genre. P., such as the Volokolamsk patericon (with the life of Joseph of Volotsk, 16th century), P. as part of various. collections (for example, “Great Chetyih-Menya”, 1530–41), etc. From the 17th century. The Kiev-Pechersk Patericon was published several times. In the 1640s. to Moscow The printing house prepared for publication a new compilation of patericon stories - the Alphabetical Patericon, printed (under the name "ABC Patericon") only in 1791 by Old Believers in the Suprasl Monastery (Poland). All R. 19th century St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov) compiled “Fatherland” (“Selected sayings of holy monks and stories about their lives”) - a collection of sayings of ancient ascetics, ch. arr. Egypt fathers, with stories of their lives and spiritual exploits. From ser. 19th century P.'s definition was given to printed collections of the lives of saints, organized on a regional basis: the Athonite Patericon, compiled by Hieroschemamonk Sergius of the Svyatogorets; anonymous Solovetsky Patericon, which describes the exploits of the monks of the Solovetsky Monastery starting from the middle. 15th century; more than 20 issues of the Palestine Patericon published in 1885–1916 by the Palestine Society, each of which presented the biography of one of the Palestinian ascetics; Trinity Patericon, compiled in 1892 for the 500th anniversary of the death of St. Sergius of Radonezh by historian M.V. Tolstoy (1812–96); Arkhangelsk Patericon (1901), telling about the life of the monks of the Arkhangelsk diocese of the 15th–19th centuries; Moscow Patericon (2003); Optina Patericon (2006) with the lives of Optina elders, new martyrs and biographies of ordinary inhabitants.
A number of paterik stories served as a source for the works of Russian (N. S. Leskov, L. N. Tolstoy, V. M. Garshin) and foreign (A. France, F. Timmermans, J. Yovkov) writers 19 - early. 20th centuries In the newest father. P.'s literature received an expansive interpretation (for example, compiled by M. A. Kucherskaya, the so-called Modern Patericon - a collection of stories from the life of modern Orthodox people).
