Tim VIVIAN, translator, The Sayings and Stories of the Desert Fathers and Mothers: Volume 1: A – H (Eta), Preface by Kathleen Norris, Foreword by Terrence G. Kardong, OSB, Introduction by Tim Vivian. Cistercian Studies vol. 287. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2021. Pp. xliii + 366. $49.95 pb. ISBN 978-0-87907-109-7. Reviewed by Patrick F. O’CONNELL, Gannon University, Erie, PA 16541.
In his new English version of the Greek alphabetical collection of the Apophthegmata Patrum, the first volume of which has recently appeared, Tim Vivian, eminent and prolific scholar and translator of early monastic materials, expands the traditional title in significant and helpful ways. The “apothegms” consist not only in pithy sayings, but narratives as well, many of them quite detailed, and even the sayings are at least implicitly stories, properly considered in the context of instructions given by monastic elders to specific persons, usually disciples, addressing specific spiritual needs. Also, these teachers were not exclusively men: both abbas and ammas are represented in the collection; even though there are dozens of the former and only three of the latter, their presence is important and worthy of note at the outset. The more customary addition of “desert,” of course, which Vivian calls “the key word in this title” (13), refers to the setting for most (though not all) of these figures, a location that is not only literal (mainly the Egyptian sites of Nitria, Scetis and Kellia) but spiritual, identified both with the wilderness in which Christ confronts the demonic forces of temptation and the deserted place to which he withdraws for solitary prayer.
The text proper (89-260), preceded and followed by extensive front and back matter, includes material on thirty-nine figures arranged according to the first seven letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha through eta. (As Vivian points out [see 12], this alphabetizing refers only to the initial letter of the names, as the sequence within each grouping often depends on the relative importance of the abbas, particularly noticeable among the alphas.) The number of apothegms ranges from 46 for Arsenius down to a single item for a half-dozen of the fathers. This group includes some of the best known of the desert fathers – no mothers in this volume – beginning of course with Antony, the “father of monks” par excellence, whose life was written by St. Athanasius; followed immediately by Arsenius, former imperial tutor, Agathon (perhaps more than one monk of the same name) and Ammonas, the rare hermit who later became a bishop. (These initial four abbas make up 75 of the 168 pages that comprise the seven alphabetical chapters, not including the 4-page prologue.) Also in this group are Abba Ammoun, traditionally credited with founding the hermit colony at Nitria, Abba Bessarion, who didn’t even have a permanent dwelling place, and Abba Evagrius of Pontus, another émigré from the imperial court, the greatest, and most controversial, theoretician and author of early Egyptian monasticism.
There are a few outliers who have somehow found their way into the group, including two of the great fourth-century Cappadocian theologian-bishops, both with monastic backgrounds, Basil the Great and his friend Gregory Nazianzen, represented by a story about choosing a worthy priest from among a community of monks and by a pair of brief sayings, respectively; likewise three anecdotes about the great Syrian spiritual writer and liturgical poet Ephraim (an ascetic but not a monk, though traditionally regarded as one) are included, as well as seventeen entries on Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus and supporter of monastic life, best known as a fierce opponent of the theology of Origen.
One of the figures, Eucharistus, is not a monk at all but a shepherd, who with his wife lived a life of humility and marital continence that was supernaturally revealed to surpass that of monks. One other of these figures, Eulogius, is not given the title of abba, though he was a monk with disciples, a priest and a “great ascetic” (235), presumably because of his initial presumptuousness in misjudging the hospitality of Joseph of Panephysis, the father he was visiting. Many of the rest are known only from their appearance in the Apophthegmata itself.
The various sayings are mainly succinct, practical and pastoral, down-to-earth instructions usually given to particular disciples or visitors as spiritual direction, as when Bessarion tells a brother who has asked, as is usual, “What should I do?” that he should “Maintain silence and don’t think too highly of yourself” (194). Sometimes the advice is more elaborate and provocative, as when Ammonas replies to a similar request by telling a brother to “think the way evil-doers do” – that is, like a prisoner who is constantly anticipating the appearance of “the governor” (161). Occasionally an abba will use himself as an example, as when Ammonas states, “I spent fourteen years in Scetis asking God night and day to give me the grace to defeat anger” (162). To an elder considering various anomalous forms of asceticism, Ammonas, who shows himself to be a particularly astute spiritual guide, replies, “Instead, sit in your cell, eat a little every day, and keep in your heart at all times what the tax collector said, and you can be saved” (162), an early reference to what will become known as the Jesus Prayer.
Occasionally the “word of salvation” is given directly by divine inspiration, as in the very first of the entries, when a discouraged Antony begs for divine help and then sees a figure alternating between prayer and work, who turns out to be an angel and tells him, “Do what I am doing, and you will be saved” (94); or the famous divine instruction “Fuge, tace, quiesce” given to Arsenius, translated here (from the original Greek of course) as “flee, maintain silence, live a life of contemplative quiet. These are the roots of being without sin” (119-20). Rarely but memorably a saying would provide a glimpse of transcendent mystery, as when Bessarion on his deathbed declared, “The monk should be like the cherubim and seraphim, all eyes” (194).
The longer narratives not only illustrate particular monastic virtues but often provide insight into the personalities of the abba featured in them. For example, when a scandalized local hunter sees the great Antony “laughing and joking” with the brothers, the abba shows the need for occasional periods of relaxation by drawing an analogy to an overstretched bow (100-101). The reclusive Arsenius refuses to open his door to Theophilus, the Patriarch of Alexandria, saying that were he to do so for this eminent visitor he would have to do likewise to anyone whatsoever, in which case he would be obliged to move elsewhere (see 121); in a similar situation, a wealthy Roman woman who desired to see Arsenius happened to encounter him outside his hut, only to be repulsed by him in peremptory fashion; returning to Alexandria, she was reassured by Archbishop Theophilus that nevertheless Arsenius “is praying for your soul all the time” (as she had asked) and so she “returned to her home and family with joy” (130-32). When a woman was detected entering the hut of a monk “with a bad reputation” while Ammonas was visiting the community, the other brothers expected the bishop to support their efforts to expel the monk, but upon entering the hut Ammonas sat on the basket in which the woman was hidden while the rest fruitlessly searched for her, and after the others had left he took the brother by the hand, saying merely “Watch out for yourself, brother” before withdrawing (166-67). Abba Achilla refused requests by two elders to make something for them, but acceded to the desire of a third, another monk “with a bad reputation,” explaining later to the others that otherwise “we’re quickly cutting the rope,” but by agreeing, “someone like this won’t be swallowed up by sorrow” (168-69). After a precious Bible that Abba Gelasius placed in a church for all to read was stolen by a visiting monk in order to sell it, the buyer brought it to Gelasius to be appraised and was told only that it was worth the asking price; when the thief heard the story (though the buyer claimed Gelasius said he was being overcharged!) he tried to return it but Gelasius refused until the repentant monk insisted that otherwise he would have no peace, at which point the abba agreed and the brother became his disciple until the master’s death (see 201-202). These and similar stories exemplify basic monastic values of humility, discretion, self-surrender, sometimes even humor, and are the antithesis of the caricatures of these ancient monks as fanatical ascetics cut off from human feelings and constantly subjecting themselves to inhuman practices of deprivation. On the contrary, Antony, the abba of the abbas, taught, “There are some who’ve worn out their bodies doing ascetic practice, and, because of this, they’ve lost the power of discernment and have become far from God” (97); the goal is to be able to say, with Antony, “I no longer fear God. No, I love God, because Love casts out fear” (112).
These entries are copiously annotated: abundant footnotes provide information on scriptural allusions and (the relatively rare) direct quotations; on various nuances of the Greek vocabulary (often transliterated); on other sources of a particular saying or story, principally the “systematic” – i.e. topical or thematic – Apophthegmata (identified in the text itself by bracketed chapter and “verse” references before each entry), often noting significant variants between the two versions; on relevant information found in secondary sources; on persons or places mentioned or referred to in the text. Typically, these notes occupy from a quarter to more than half of a given page. Further helpful information on important terminology, along with certain persons and places, is provided in a 58-page Glossary (261-318) followed by four additional pages of “Dramatis Personae” – brief biographical profiles of some of the abbas (319-22). Every appearance in text or notes, as well as in the front matter, of any of these glossed words is marked with an asterisk, which may seem redundant as well as distracting, but which allows a reader to dip into the material at random without missing the notice of a pertinent reference.
There are some inconsistencies in the “Dramatis Personae” section – only twelve of the thirty-nine featured figures are included here; most of the rest are presumably omitted because no further information about them is available, but that is not always the case: while Basil is included, Gregory Nazianzen is not, even though in the text he is called Gregory the Theologian, a title familiar in the Eastern Church but not one that many readers would readily identify with this Cappadocian Father without assistance. Two additional monks are included in this section – one, Hilarion, a founder of Palestinian monasticism whose life was written by St. Jerome, has no sayings in the Apophthegmata, though he is briefly mentioned in entries on Antony and Epiphanius; the other, John Colobos (“the Little” or “the Dwarf”), will appear in the “Iota” section of a subsequent volume, but a similar situation applies to the two abbas named Macarius and to Paphnutius, who are found in the Glossary rather than the Dramatis Personae. It might have been preferable to group all the persons (and places?) together and reserve the Glossary for terminology.
Vivian’s extensive Introduction (1-85) is preceded by three shorter opening reflections. Kathleen Norris’s Preface (xiii-xiv) relates her introduction, through Thomas Merton’s Wisdom of the Desert (1960), to the desert fathers during a stressful visit to friends, her fruitful experience teaching them to a class completely unfamiliar with them, and her preference with the present volume to just read the stories of these “wise, cranky, faith-filled ancestors” and let the notes alone. In contrast, the late Terrence Kardong, OSB in his Foreword (xv-xvii) rejoices in the notes (likening them to his own methodology in his numerous translations of Western monastic texts), not so much for their impressive scholarship as for their aid in lectio divina, meditative rumination on these classic texts. Then Vivian himself provides a Translator’s Reflection (xxv-xliii) emphasizing both the importance of contextualizing this material in its own time-period (hence the annotation) and in the present (hence his frequent citation of such contemporary equivalents as the Jesuit Gregory Boyle’s “parables” about working with gang members in Los Angeles and Norris’s Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life [2008]). He comments on the creative dimension of translation, the deeply if largely indirect scriptural milieu of the Apophthegmata, their generally unrecognized, at times even explicitly denied, artistic dimensions – “the sayings and stories as literature” (xxxiv), and his principles of translation: “to make the language colloquial, but not too colloquial” (xxxviii), concluding, again with a nod to Merton’s influence, by relating his first, almost accidental, encounter with early monastic texts during a post-doctoral fellowship at Yale.
The Introduction itself is largely taken up with a broad and deep survey of key thematic elements of this material, beginning, perhaps unexpectedly, with a focus on community, mutuality and helping others, moving on to discernment and compassion, then to the pathway to authentic self-discovery and transformative practices, highlighting the centrality of agape (love), eiréne (peace), hypomoné (patient endurance), hesychía (contemplative quiet), anápausis (inward stillness), culminating in hope and joy – all richly illustrated by numerous examples from the Apophthegmata and from contemporary equivalents in both prose and poetry (concluding with passages from T. S. Eliot and Emily Dickinson). It is truly wisdom’s feast – though some readers, recalling his distinction between “colloquial” and “not too colloquial” translation, might note that occasionally he moves rather close to the latter here: for example, within three pages (70-72) we read: “‘Casting’ and ‘throwing’ here are actions: in other words, don’t sit on your butt feeling sorry for yourself. Do something! . . . As we just saw, peace don’t come easy, whether through exterior or interior action. . . . Ah, but our monks are ever on the alert: laurels, and their accoutrements and accountants, an Olympics medal stand and thousands of cheering fans, are banned here. . . . Each of us in our life knows this, but we may not be as aware as the ammas and abbas that that something that’s a-comin, like the Devil, is a powerful train – powered by our egos, ever arriving, ever at the station blowing its horn, biding its time.” There is one notable lacuna, directly acknowledged, in this otherwise comprehensive overview – “I will not discuss here,” he says, “the very complicated, polylingual transmission of the texts of these alphabetical sayings” (16), which from its description may come as a relief for many readers, but in fact Vivian provides very little factual information at all on the text per se – not even the total number of monastics included in the whole work, or some general information on the relationship between the alphabetical collection and the frequently mentioned but never directly described systematic collection (the only one found in Latin and therefore the major source for this material in the Western monastic and spiritual tradition) along with the smaller anonymous collection featuring stories of unnamed abbas. (Presumably the statement near the conclusion of the Prologue of the text proper that “since there are also other sayings and practices of the holy elders where the names of those who spoke or accomplished them are omitted, we have arranged them under headings after the completion of those arranged alphabetically” [92-93] is a reference to this anonymous collection, rather than to the systematic collection, as the footnote indicates; if this is not the case, some explanation is definitely required.)
When the publication of this translation is complete, it will certainly be the most comprehensive and thorough resource for encountering and appreciating this fundamental compendium of early monastic teaching. But it is unclear exactly when, and how, this will happen, as Vivian never informs the reader how many volumes there are to be. The copyright page seems to indicate that there will be two: “volume 1. A-H (eta) – volume 2. I-Z (zeta)” (iv) – but in fact the next letter in the Greek alphabet is not iota but theta, and of course the final letter is not zeta (included in the present volume!) but omega, so this information (“Provided by the publisher”) does not inspire much confidence in its accuracy. In his references to the three ammas in his Introduction, Vivian himself says that “one, Theodora, is in volume 2, forthcoming” [i.e. in the theta chapter!] (13), which certainly seems to imply that Sarah and Syncletica, the other two, will not appear in that volume but in a subsequent one – a third, or perhaps even a fourth?? We must wait for further publication to find out. But until the appearance of the subsequent volume(s), there is more than enough, at least for the time being, in volume 1, thanks to its translator’s graceful prose and diligent attentiveness to his source, to satisfy the scholar, the practitioner of lectio, and the lover of good (in more than one sense) stories.