The Sayings of the desert fathers is the collective wisdom of the monks who lived in the Egyptian desert. This collection of sayings is a summery of their, victories, struggles, downfalls, and teachings on the spiritual life. For centuries these sayings have taught and inspired men and women to live the monastic life and guided them throughout their monastic vocation.

In 1960 Marius Chaîne sadly died before he was able to see the publication of the Sahidic version of the Sayings of the Fathers, which he had gathered together from fragments of a single dismembered codex that had found their way, at various times and in various ways, into European libraries.

This book is not intended to be a study of the collection, but simply a translation for the first time into the English language. There are at least two different ways of organizing the sayings; alphabetical, as in the Greek text in the Patrologia Graeca 65, 71-440 and thematic, as in the Patrologia Latina 73: 855- 1022 texts. The arrangement of this Coptic version, probably translated from Greek, is closer to that of the PL text.