The Book of the Elders - Sayings of the Desert FathersTranslated by John Wortley; Foreword by Bernard Flusin In the early part of the fourth century, a few Christians, mostly men and some women, began to withdraw from "the world" to retreat into the desert, there to practice their new religion more seriously. The person who aspired to "renounce the world" first had to find an "elder," a person who would accept him as a disciple and apprentice. To his elder (whom he would address as abbafather) the

Firmly grounded in the ascetic fathers

John the Theologian

Thus he concludes that: An expectation of a future life

together with the Scriptural text itself

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Preserving a holy simplicity

We may even feel hatred and a longing for revenge

one more in keeping with the Gospel imperative to honor the physical body as a temple of the Holy Spirit

he doesn't want anything to do with his father's missionary dreams

He was able to speak authoritatively of God’s love and forgiveness because of his own experience of God’s mercy

It contains many of the themes that he emphasized during the final years of his life: the need to have one's Orthodox Faith enter into and transform the whole of one's life

Petrov 1:31 15