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Sayings of Bessarion of Egypt

Apophthegmata

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

Bessarion of Egypt did not write this text. Another person wrote it about Bessarion of Egypt, or wrote down what Bessarion of Egypt said.

Sayings and short stories of Bessarion of Egypt, taken from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers.

Sayings · first written in Greek

Bessarion did not write this. The sayings are spoken words and stories that the unknown collectors of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers wrote down. The corpus files it under Bessarion.

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

About this text (1 note)

Bessarion did not write this. The sayings are spoken words and stories that the unknown collectors of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers wrote down. The corpus files it under Bessarion.

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

742 words. 1 section.

Sayings of Bessarion of Egypt

§ 1

man of discretion whose name was Bessarion, and he also arose and went out of the church, and said, " If ye have judged that " this man who hath committed only one offence is not fit to "worship God, how very much less fit am I, who have com-* "mitted many sins, to do so?" And the old man said, "'Woe " 'be unto him that is without more than unto him that is with- " 'in,' that is to say, ' Woe be unto him that is [within him that " 'is without!'] Now this is what I would say, When a man in "the world findeth a cause [of complaint] against a man who "liveth a life of silent contemplation, or who hath departed "from the world, this is a [cause of] judgement and of a fall "unto him who giveth him reason [for complaint]. Take the " greatest possible care then, O monk, not to commit sin, lest

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41 thou disgrace God, Who dwelleth in thee, and drive Him out "from thy soul."

630. And there are also wonderful things which the blessed Bessarion performed. He made the waters of the sea sweet, and Saul his disciple drank [of them] ; he crossed over the water of the river ; he prevented the sun from setting in the heavens ; and the rooting up of the temples of the idols was revealed unto him. As they were going to John the Theban his disciple became thirsty, and Bessarion prayed, and water bub- bled up, and he gave him to drink; and he healed also the young man who was a paralytic, so that he ran to his father; and he cast out a devil from a young man who was always asleep, and whom his parents besought him to wake up. I have, however, written down all these things in the history of the holy man Bessarion, wherein it is written that he was sitting at the door of the monastery and weeping bitterly.

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THERE was a certain old man amongst the fathers who used to see visions, and this man testified, and said, "That power which I have seen existing in baptism, I

623. The brethren said, 4 4 The history of the triumphs of 44 Bessarion saith that during all the days of his life he dwelt in 44 waste places, and in the desert and in the mountains, and 44 among the rocks. Once having come to a certain monastery, 44 he stood up by the door like a wandering beggar, and then 44 sat down weeping and crying out, even as one who had been 44 rescued from a storm. And when the brethren entreated him 44 to go in and rest with them, he said, 4 Before I find the posses- 4 4 4 sions of my house which I have lost I cannot endure being 4 4 4 under a roof; for thieves fell upon me on the sea, and a 4 4 4 storm reared itself up against me, and I have been robbed 4 4 4 of the riches which I once possessed, and from being a man 4 4 4 of high estate I am become of no account/ Now what were 44 the riches which [he inherited] from his parents and lost? 44 An

Abbd Bessarion, and men who "were as perfect as he was, possessed these things, other " men lack them and are strangers unto them. [And as re- "gards the words] ' He once came to a certain monastery, " 'and sat down outside the door like a wandering beggar,' " [they mean that] he saw clearly with the secret eye of the mind " that the greater number of the monks were destitute of this " spiritual possession, and of the spiritual excellences and gifts " which have been already mentioned. And being incited there, " to by the law of affection and of brotherly love, he cried out

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' * and wept on their behalf, as if it had been on his own, and " he made supplication to the lovingkindness of God that He " would make them worthy of the riches of His love, and of " the possession of His Grace."