Syriac sayings of Saint Nilus of Sinai

Introduction, translation from Syriac and commentary by priest A. Polkhovsky

Abstract

This publication is devoted to a collection of Syriac sayings, called “Pearls” (ܐܬܝܢܓܪ̈ܡ), published by the Italian syrologist P. Bettiolo and attributed to St. Nilus of Sinai, or the Hermit († 430), which has never before been translated into Russian. The scarcity of information concerning the life and literary activity of the Saint Nilus known to modern patristic science, is the reason that the personality of this Christian writer remains largely mysterious. The purpose of this article is to introduce the issue of the origin of the Syrian apothegms, which largely depend on the ancient Greek prototype and, nevertheless, as it will be shown below, can be recognized as authentic and in parallel with the maxims coexisting with the Greek collection. The comparative method applied to both collections of sayings - Syrian and Greek - will help to see clearly how they relate to each other and what the degree of dependence of the first collection is on the latter.