Сollection of Patristic aphorisms with everyday citation.
Once some thieves came to an old hermit and said, "We are taking everything in your cell." He answered, "Take whatever you need, my children." They took almost everything in the cell and left. But they missed a little bag of money that was hidden. The elder picked it up and went after them, crying, "Children! You forgot something!" The thieves were amazed. Not only did they not take the money, but they returned everything that they had taken. "Truly," they said, "this is a man of God."
This happened in the sixth century AD in Palestine. St. John Moschos recorded it, along with many other stories about Orthodox monks, which he heard firsthand. The old monk did not read sermons to his impolite guests. He did not rebuke them or threaten them, nor did he have a conversation with them. What then caused the thieves to change their mind and correct their deed? They had beheld in him a different sort of man: a man of God.
Only a man who is rich in God can be so free from attachment to possessions and to money, which have enslaved humanity. Only a man who is rooted in God can unfailingly preserve peace and magnanimity when confronted with manifest evil.
But most of all, the thieves were touched by the love the elder showed them.只有一个像上帝一样的人才能向那些抢劫他的非法表现出这种爱，这样他才能真诚地将他们的利益置于自己的范围之上。如果僧侣的信仰仅限于仪式，规则的集合和关于上帝的漂亮言语，而没有基督的真实经验，那就不会发生这种情况。
The thieves beheld a man in whom the word of the Gospels had become a reality. In the Orthodox Church, such men are called Holy Fathers.在两个米伦尼亚的过程中，这个古老的教会一直在努力保存从使徒那里得到的真理，以及与上帝的生活经验。因此，东正教教会还能够生下众多圣徒，他们仍然是这种天上生活经历的人，而仍然在地球上。
为了使读者能够触及基督教东方的精神经历，已汇集了您手中的书。这里收集的是来自巴勒斯坦，叙利亚，埃及，希腊，俄罗斯，塞尔维亚，黑山和佐治亚州的五十多个东正教圣徒的Three-Hundred Sayings 。由于西方教会在基督诞生后的头千年来一直是东正教家庭的一部分，因此您也可能会在我们的汇编中找到生活在当代意大利，英格兰，法国和突尼斯领土的圣徒的话语。 All of this is part of the spiritual inheritance of the Orthodox Church.
无论他们在哪里生活，何时生活或他们是谁，正统的圣徒都在谈论一个精神上的现实，因此他们的言论互相和谐地称赞。 In the nineteenth century, St. Ignatius Brianchaninov made this observation: "When on a clear fall night I gaze upon the clear heavens, illumined by innumerable stars that send out a single light, then I say to myself: thus are the writings of the holy fathers. When on a summer's day I gaze upon the wide sea, covered with a multitude of distinct waves, driven by a single wind to a single end, a single pier, then I say to我自己：当我听到一个井井有条的合唱团时，这就是父亲的著作，其中不同的声音在闪闪发光的和谐中唱了一个赞美诗：这就是父亲的著作。”我相信，这一小部分爱国主义格言将不仅对东正教基督徒而言是有趣且有用的，即使对于每个重视真实事物的人也是如此。
Much of what is assembled here has helped me personally. It has given me answers to tormenting questions, permitted me to think about the events of my life in a new way. And so I have decided, through this book to present unto you that which is dear to me.
Deacon George Maksimov. January 8, 2011.
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