05 — Sources
The source-critical foundation of the collection: what the Apophthegmata Patrum are, how the Sisoes dossier was formed and transmitted, the named scholars who edit and study it — and the honest question of how much of the historical Sisoes can be recovered behind the spiritual portrait the desert preserved. These two files establish the evidentiary ground on which everything else in the guide rests.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Desert Father; model of repentance)
Because Sisoes left no writings and no contemporary biography, the whole of what we know comes through the Sayings and a handful of notices in the desert literature. This makes the question of sources unusually important: the reliability of the portrait depends entirely on the reliability of the Apophthegmata, their formation, and their transmission. The first file treats the Sayings as a source — the Sisoes collection, the dossier, and the scholarship of Ward, Chitty, Harmless, and others. The second asks the harder question: what can be said of the historical Sisoes, and where the record gives us not a man but the desert’s topoi — its recurring ideal types — instead.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Apophthegmata and the Tradition | The Sayings of the Desert Fathers as a source: the Sisoes collection within the alphabetical Apophthegmata; the formation, dating, and transmission of the dossier; the named scholars who edit and study it. |
| The Historical Sisoes | What can be historically known of Sisoes versus the desert topoi; the limits of the evidence; the difference between a spiritual portrait and a biography. |
See Also
- The Apophthegmata of Sisoes — the sayings the sources preserve
- The Disciple of the Desert — the network of transmission
- The Luminous Repose — the deathbed scene and its attestation
- The Pre-Schism Church — the late-antique Church of Sisoes’ world
References
- The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection. Trans. Benedicta Ward. Rev. ed. Cistercian Studies 59. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1984.
- Chitty, Derwas J. The Desert a City. Oxford: Blackwell, 1966.
- Harmless, William. Desert Christians. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.