Desert Fathers (anonymous)
The anonymous sayings, stories and lives of the monks of Egypt, Scetis and Palestine, collected from the fourth century on and preserved in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic and other languages.
Writings
English translations (older public-domain ones, and a few modern ones shared under open licences), divided into chapters and short sections, with a download for each. A modern English version and the original-language text are planned for the works that matter most.
- The Paradise of the Holy Fathers, volume 2: Sayings of the Holy Fathers Older EnglishOCR text 12.6 h read
- The History of the Monks of Tabenna, the Asketikon (Budge translation) Older EnglishOCR text 73 min read
- The Histories of the Monks of Egypt (Syriac version, Budge translation) Older EnglishOCR text 2.4 h read
- Apophthegmata Patrum: Sayings of the Desert Fathers, from the Sahidic Coptic Modern English 46 min read
Most translations are the older ones in the public domain (mostly the nineteenth-century Ante-Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers); a few are modern translations shared under an open licence, with the translators credited on the work’s page. Square brackets and any Greek or Latin words are as the source prints them.