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Sayings of Hilarion the Great

Apophthegmata

Date written: collected about 450 to 500; the place is not known. The date is the usual view of scholars; some doubt it.

One saying and a short story of Hilarion of Gaza, taken from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers.

Sayings · first written in Greek

Translated by E. A. Wallis Budge (1907). The Paradise or Garden of the Holy Fathers, vol. 2 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1907); sayings picked out of it Public domain. Source and rights

How we know the date and place
Date written probable
Sayings were gathered and written in Greek in the later 5th century (W. Bousset, Apophthegmata, 1923; J.-C. Guy, Sources Chretiennes 387, 1993)
The man spoke in his own lifetime; this date is for the written collection. The English is from Budge, Paradise of the Fathers (1907), made from the 7th-century Syriac of Anan-Isho.
Place written not known
Guy (SC 387) and L. Regnault think the Greek collection was made in Palestine; no town is known

306 words. 1 section.

Sayings of Hilarion the Great

§ 1

112. Abbd Hilarion of Syria came to the mountain to Abbd Anthony, and Abbd Anthony said unto him, " Hast thou come, " O star of light, who shinest with the morning?" And Abbi Hilarion said unto him, "Peace be to thee, O pillar of light, " who sustainest creation ! "

177 11-12

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212. Abb£ Hilarion was asked, " How can it be right for a " strenuous brother not to be offended when he seeth other " monks returning to the world? " The old man said, " It is " meet that he should consider the hunting dogs which follow " after hares, for as one of these dogs giveth chase to the hare " so soon as he seeth it (now the other dogs which are his " companions look at that dog as he runneth, and although " they run with him for a certain time, they at length become "exhausted and turn back, whilst he continueth his running " by himself, and is not impeded in his headlong course, and he " striveth to advance, and neither resteth nor ceaseth from run- ning because of those who have remained behind, but he " runneth until he hath overtaken that which he seeth, even as " I have already said, and he feareth neither the stones which "come in his way, nor the thorny brambles and briars, and "passeth on among the thorns, and though often torn and "lacerated thereby he neither resteth nor ceaseth from his " course), so also for the brother, who wisheth to follow after " the love of Christ, is it right to fasten his gaze upon the Cross " until he overtaketh Him that was crucified, even though he " see others who have begun to turn back."