Sayings of the desert fathers: the alphabetical collection - Benedicta Ward

'Give me a word, Father', visitors to early desert monks asked.

The responses of these pioneer ascetics were remembered and in the fourth century written down in Coptic, Syriac, Greek, and later Latin.

Their Sayings were collected, in this case in the alphabetical order of the monks and nuns who uttered them, and read by generations of Christians as life-giving words that would help readers along the path to salvation.