1 According to b. Berakot 34b.Google Scholar

2 According to Ấnần Îshô of Bêth Ấbhê, The Wit and Wisdom of the Christian Fathers of Egypt: The Syrian Version of the Apophthegmata Patrum (trans. Ernest A. Wallis Budge; London: Oxford University Press, 1934) 181–82.Google Scholar

3 , Bar-Asher, “Literary Analogies,” 143–249.Google Scholar

4 Samuel, Rubenson, “Asceticism and Monasticism, I: Eastern,” The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 2, Constantine to c. 600 (ed. Casiday, Augustine and Norris, Frederick W.; Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 649.Google Scholar

5 For bibliography on the Apophthegmata Patrum, see William, HarmlessDesert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 183–86.Google Scholar

6 Douglas, Burton-Christie, The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) 95.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., 6.

8 Rubenson, “Asceticism and Monasticism,” 649. For a Palestinian original redaction, see Lucien, Regnault “Les Apophtegmes des Pères en Palestine aux V^e-VI^e siècles,” Irénikon 54 (1981) 320–30Google Scholar and references in , Graham, The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) 9–17Google Scholar. Regnault asserts that the Palestinian origin of the collections would easily explain their rapid propagation in all the languages of Christendom.

9 , Rubenson, “Asceticism and Monasticism,” 653.Google Scholar

10 Ibid.

11 Goehring, James E., Ascetics, Society, and the Desert: Studies in Egyptian Monasticism (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1999) 92 n. 12.Google Scholar

12 , Burton-Christie, Word in the Desert, 77.Google Scholar

13 Ibid., 79.

14 There is also an anonymous collection edited by François Nau in Revue de l’Orient chrétien 10 (1905); 12–14Google Scholar (1907–1909); 17–18 (1912–1913).

15 The relationship between the two is disputed. See Jean-Claude, Guy, Recherches sur la tradition grecque des Apophthegmata Patrum (Subsidia Hagiographica 36; Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1962)Google Scholar. Guy argued that the two arrangements arose independently in earlier stages and that a partial merger took place in later editions of the texts. These two roughly contemporaneous works are basically editorial compilations, and our research, as well as that of others, studies literary units within them. See, e.g., Frazer, Ruth F., “The Morphology of Desert Wisdom in the Apophthegmata Patrum” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1977)Google Scholar. Scholars assume the priority of the Greek language for the literary tradition of the collections of The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, prompting its use in this article as well. The Greek Alphabetical Collection text can be found in Patrologiae Graecae (ed. Migne, J.-P.; 162 vols.; Paris, 1857–1866) vol. 65 (1864), cols. 72–440. Quotations are given as translated in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection (trans. Benedicta Ward; London: Mowbray, 1984).Google Scholar

16 Smith, Jonathan Z., Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990) 42–43.Google Scholar

17 See, e.g., the story about Rashbi, whose scholastic skills were greatly improved by his stay in a cave for 13 years (Bar-Asher, “Literary Analogies,” 143–201, and Michal, Bar-Asher Siegal, “The Making of a Monk-Rabbi: The Background for the Creation of the Stories of R. Shimon bar Yohai in the Cave,” Zion 76 [2011] 279–304 [Hebrew]).Google Scholar

18 Jeffrey, L. Rubenstein, “A Rabbinic Translation of Relics,” in Ambiguities, Complexities and Half-Forgotten Adversaries: Crossing Boundaries in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. Stratton, Kimberly and Lieber, Andrea; forthcoming).Google Scholar

19 Catherine, Hezser, “Apophthegmata Patrum and Apophthegmata of the Rabbis,” in La Narrativa cristiana antica. Codici narrativi, strutture formali, schemi retorici; XXIII incontro di studiosi dell'antichità cristiana: Roma, 5–7 maggio 1994 (SEAug 50; Rome: Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, 1995) 453–64Google Scholar, at 461.

20 See, e.g., Michal, Bar-Asher Siegal, “Ethics and Identity Formation: Resh Lakish and the Monastic Repentant Robber,” in proceedings of a conference held in Aix-en-Provence, France, June 2011, Identity through Ethics: New Perspectives on the Shaping of Group Identities in the Greco-Roman World (forthcoming, 2012).Google Scholar

21 , Burton-Christie, Word in the Desert, 94.Google Scholar

22 Joshua, Schwartz, “Material Culture in the Land of Israel: Monks and Rabbis on Clothing and Dress in the Byzantine Period,” in Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity (ed. Schwartz, Joshua and Poorthuis, Marcel; Leiden: Brill, 2004) 121–38Google Scholar; idem, “Material Culture and Rabbinic Literature in the Land of Israel in Late Antiquity: Beds, Bedding and Sleep Habits,” in Retsef u-temurah. Yehudim ve-Yahadut be-Erets Yiśra'el ha-Bizantit-Notsrit (ed. Levine, Lee I.; Jerusalem: Yad Yitshak Ben-Tsevi, 2004) 197–209 [Hebrew].Google Scholar

23 , Schwartz, “Material Culture in the Land of Israel,” 121–22.Google Scholar

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid., 135.

26 Ibid., 128.

27 Ibid., 135. In line with this example, I found a few striking analogies between Avot de Rabbi Natan, the later midrash on Pirkei Avot (lit., the “sayings of the [rabbinic] fathers”), and the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, on which I gave a talk entitled “Avot de-Rabbi Natan and the Monastic Literature: A Comparative Study,” presented at the conference “Midreshei Aggadah in Eretz Israel and Their Proliferation,” organized by Yad Yitshak Ben-Tsevi and The Hebrew University (June 2011). I intend to publish an article to address this specific literary connection between these corpora.

28 Schwartz comments that “there are, in our view, a goodly number of ‘ascetic’ traditions in Talmudic literature which might have drawn upon or have been influenced by the Christian or monastic world” (“Material Culture in the Land of Israel,” 135). He cites as an example m. Avot 6:4.Google Scholar

29 See, e.g., Urbach, Ephraim E., “Asceticism and Suffering in the Talmudic and Mishnaic Sources,” in Yitzhak F. Baer Jubilee Volume (ed. Baron, Salo et al.; Jerusalem: Historical Society of Israel, 1960) 48–68Google Scholar [Hebrew]. For a discussion on the complex notion of asceticism, see Steven, Fraade “Ascetic Aspects of Ancient Judaism,” in Jewish Spirituality: From the Bible through the Middle Ages (ed. Green, Arthur; New York: Crossroad, 1986) 253–88Google Scholar; and E, liezer, Holy Men and Hunger Artists: Fasting and Asceticism in Rabbinic Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004) 6–10.Google Scholar

30 See, e.g., Gero, Stephen, “The Stern Master and His Wayward Disciple: A ‘Jesus’ Story in the Talmud and in Christian Hagiography” JSJ 25 1994 287–311.Google Scholar

31 Fraade, Steven D., “Rabbinic Polysemy and Pluralism Revisited: Between Praxis and Thematization” AJSR 31 2007 1–40, at 39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 Dembowski, Peter F., review of Roads to Paradise: Reading in the Lives of the Early Saints, by Elliott, Alison Goddard, Comparative Literature 43 (1991) 294–97, at 294–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 , Smith, Drudgery Divine, 51.Google Scholar

34 Ibid.

35 , Rubenson, “Asceticism and Monasticism,” 639. See, e.g., Antoine Guillaumont, “Un philosophe au désert: Évagre le Pontique” RHR 181 1972 29–56.Google Scholar

36 , Rubenson, “Asceticism and Monasticism,” 639.Google Scholar

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid, 640.

39 , Hezser, “Classic Rabbinical Literature,” 126. Rubenson, “Asceticism and Monasticism,” 640. Additionally, one finds parallels between the Sayings and the works of Eastern Church fathers like Evagrius.Google Scholar

40 “Hezser Classical Rabbinic Literature,” 126. On the chreia in the Greek education, see The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric: The Progymnasmata (ed. Hock, Ronald F. and O’Neil, Edward N.; Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1986)Google Scholar; The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric: Classroom Exercises (ed. eidem; Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002)Google Scholar. For recent studies on the chreia in the Sayings, see, e.g., Larsen, Lillian I., “The Apophthegmata Patrum and the Classical Rhetorical Tradition,” in Studia Patristica: Papers presented at the Fourteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2003 (ed. Young, Frances M., Edwards, Mark J., and Parvis, Paul M.; Louvain: Peeters, 2006) 409–16Google Scholar; eadem, “Pedagogical Parallels: Re-Reading the ‘Apophthegmata Patrum’” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 2006); McVey, Kathleen E., “The Chreia in the Desert: Rhetoric and the Bible in the Apophthegmata Patrum,” in The Early Church in its Context: In Honor of Everett Ferguson (ed. Malherbe, Abraham J., Norris, Frederick W., and Thompson, James W.; NovTSup 90; Leiden: Brill, 1998) 245–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the chreia as a powerful literary tool in the three cultural worlds—Greco-Roman, Rabbinic, and Christian—see Moeser, Marion C., The Anecdote in Mark, the Classical World and the Rabbis (London: Sheffield, 2002).Google Scholar

41 , Hezser, “Classical Rabbinic Literature,” in The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies (ed. Goodman, Martin, Cohen, Jeremy, and Sorkin, David; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) 453–64, at 126.Google Scholar

42 Ibid.

43 , Hezser, “Apophthegmata Patrum.”Google Scholar

44 , Hezser suggests that this lack of opponents might indicate that, unlike the early Christians who transmitted the Jesus stories, the transmitters of the monastic and rabbinic apophthegms were not interested in creating group identity by separating themselves from a particular group of others. Ibid., 459–63.Google Scholar

45 Hezser stresses the point that whereas most Greco-Roman and Christian writings were written by a single author who identified himself explicitly, the rabbinic and the monastic collective works were composed by a number of editors who often remained anonymous (Apophthegmata Patrum, 459). While Hezser is obviously well aware of the Greco-Roman background of this literary genre, others have only stressed the “uniqueness” of the Apophthegmata; see, e.g., Harmless, Desert Christians, 250. Nonetheless, anthologies of sayings are known from the ancient Near East, are recommended in Plato's writings, are found commonly in Hellenistic school texts, in second century rhetorical manuals, in the writings of Plutarch, and in others. For a survey and bibliography, see Teresa, MorganLiterate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998) 120–51Google Scholar, esp. 120–21. Larsen claims that statements such as Harmless's ignore the late antique Graeco-Roman milieu of these corpora of which they are a natural product (“The Apophthegmata Patrum and the Classical Rhetorical Tradition”).

46 Guy, Jean-Claude, “Educational Innovation in the Desert Fathers” ECR 6 1974 44–51Google Scholar, at 44, quoted in Hezser, “Apophthegmata Patrum,” 457.

47 Catherine, Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001) 424.Google Scholar

48 , Hezser, “Apophthegmata Patrum,” 457.Google Scholar

49 For a few interesting examples, see David, Rosenthal “Arikhot Kedumot ba-Talmud ha-Bavli,” in Mehkerei Talmud (ed. Rosenthal, David and Sussmann, Yaakov; 3 vols.; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1990) 1:155–204Google Scholar, esp. 201–2 [Hebrew].

50 , Hezser, “Apophthegmata Patrum,” 457.Google Scholar

51 Collectio Monastica (ed. Arras, Victor; CSCO 238–239; 2 vols. in 1; Louvain: Peeters, 1963)Google Scholar. For this collection, see William, Harmless “Remembering Poemen Remembering: The Desert Fathers and the Spirituality of Memory” CH 69 2000 483–518Google Scholar. The authenticity of these sayings is asserted by Lucien, Regnault, “Aux origines des collections d’Apophtegmes,” StPatr 18.2 Critica, Classica, Ascetica, Liturgica (Louvain: Peeters, 1989) 61–74Google Scholar; Graham, Gould, The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community, 20–24Google Scholar

52 Collectio Monastica 14.64, quoted both in Harmless, Desert Christians, 249 and in Burton-Christie, Word in the Desert, 78.Google Scholar

53 , Harmless, Desert Christians, 249–50.Google Scholar

54 Ibid., 78–80.

55 See, e.g., Avraham, Walfish, “Literary Method of Redaction in Mishnah Based on Tractate Rosh Ha-Shanah” (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 2001).Google Scholar

56 Such as in Abba Anthony 23 (PG 65:83; Ward, Sayings, 6) and John the Eunuch 4 (PG 65:233; Ward, Sayings, 105).Google Scholar

57 Such as Macarius the Great 11 (PG 65:268; Ward, Sayings, 130) and 35 (PG 65:277; Ward, Sayings, 136) and Poemen 63 (PG 65:337; Ward, Sayings, 175) and 164 (PG 65:361; Ward, Sayings, 189).Google Scholar

58 Poemen 21: “Abba Joseph put the same question to Abba Poemen” (PG 65:328; Ward, Sayings, 170); Poemen 89: “the same brother put the same question to Abba Sisoes who said to him” (PG 65:344; Ward, Sayings, 179); Poemen 101: “a brother asked Abba Poemen … the old man replied: ‘Abba John the dwarf said’” (PG 65:345; Ward, Sayings, 181).Google Scholar

59 Galit, Hasan-Rokem, “Narratives in Dialogue: A Folk Literary Perspective on Interreligious Contacts in the Holy Land in Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity,” in Sharing the Sacred: Religious Contacts and Conflicts in the Holy Land, First–Fifteenth Centuries CE (ed. Kofsky, Arieh and Stroumsa, Guy G.; Jerusalem: Yad Yitshak Ben-Tsevi, 1998) 110.Google Scholar

60 On triadic statements, as well as entire triadic Sugiyot in Rabbinic literature, see Shamma, Friedman “Some Structural Patterns of Talmudic Sugyot,” in Proceedings of the Sixth World Congress of Jewish Studies (6 vols., Jerusalem: ha-Igud ha-‘olami le-mada‘e ha-Yahadut, 1977) 3:391–96 [Hebrew]Google Scholar; idem, “A Critical Study of Yevamot X with a Methodological Introduction,” Mehkarim u-mekorot. Me'asaf le-mada'e ha-Yahadut (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1978) 316–19Google Scholar; and Jeffrey, Rubenstein, “Some Structural Patterns of Yerushalmi Sugyot,” in The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture (ed. Schäfer, Peter; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002) 3:303–13Google Scholar. Richard, Hidary suggests that “the context of classical rhetoric may help explain why tripartite structures are so prevalent” (“Classical Rhetorical Arrangement and Reasoning in the Talmud: The Case of Yerushalmi Berakhot,” AJSR 34 [2010] 53–54 n. 79).Google Scholar

61 PG 65:75; Ward, Sayings, 2. See also Andrew: “Abba Andrew said, ‘These three things are appropriate for a monk: exile, poverty, and endurance in silence’” (PG 65:136; Ward, Sayings, 37). As well, see Gregory the Theologian 1: “Abba Gregory said, ‘These three things God requires of all the baptized: right faith in the heart, truth on the tongue, temperance in the body’” (PG 65:145; Ward, Sayings, 45).Google Scholar

62 For more on this topic, see Yishai, Kiel and Yonatan, Feintuch, “Reflections on Prayer in Rabbinic and Syriac Christian Literature” (forthcoming).Google Scholar

63 For a short survey and bibliography, see Joseph, PatrichSabas, Leader of Palestinian Monasticism: A Comparative Study in Eastern Monasticism, Fourth to Seventh Centuries (Dumbarton Oaks Studies 32; Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1995) 229–31.Google Scholar

64 , Hezser, “Apophthegmata Patrum,” 461.Google Scholar

65 The topic of prayer in rabbinic and monastic literature, as I have discovered, is too large for the current article. I present here just a few points in common while I intend to explore this topic at length in a separate article dedicated to this theme.Google Scholar

66 See, e.g., b. Berakhot 29b. Regarding the desert fathers, see, e.g., Agathon 9 (PG 65:112; Ward, Sayings, 21): “For every time a man wants to pray, his enemies, the demons, want to prevent him, for they know that it is only by turning him from prayer that they can hinder his journey.” See also D, avid, Demons and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006).Google Scholar

67 PG 65:329; Ward, Sayings, 172.Google Scholar

68 “In the Apophthegmata, “synaxis” is synonymous with “office,” or a period or place of prayer, and “to do the synaxis” (ballein ten synaxin) is used indifferently for common assemblies as well as for the prayer of solitaries” (Robert, Taft, The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West: The Origins of the Divine Office and Its Meaning for Today [Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1986] 71).Google Scholar

69 On the constant struggle of the monks to reach that state of inner quiet, see, e.g., Anthony the Great 10 (PG 65:77; Ward, Sayings, 3): “He said also, ‘Just as fish die if they stay too long out of water, so the monks who loiter outside their cells or pass their time with men of the world lose the intensity of inner peace So like a fish going towards the sea, we must hurry to reach our cell, for fear that if we delay outside we will lose our interior watchfulness.’” For see the broad survey in Harmless, Desert Christians, 228.Google Scholar

70 PG 65:164; Ward, Sayings, 57.Google Scholar

71 NRSV. Compare to Eph 6:18: “Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints”; Col 4:2: “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving.”Google Scholar

72 See , Taft, Liturgy of the Hours, 57–74Google Scholar; Columba, Stewart, “John Cassian on Unceasing Prayer” Monastic Studies 15 1984 159–77Google Scholar; Brouria, Bitton-Ashkelony, “Demons and Prayers: Spiritual Exercises in the Monastic Community of Gaza in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries” VC 57 2003 200–21Google Scholar; Lucien, Regnault, “La priere continuelle ‘monologistos’ dans la litterature apophtegmatique” Iranikon 47 1974 467–93Google Scholar; Irénée, Hausherr, Hésychasme et prière (= Orientalia Christiana Analecta 176; Rome: Pont. Institutum Studiorum, 1966) 255–306.Google Scholar

73 , Bitton-Ashkelony, Demons and Prayers, 211.Google Scholar

74 , Taft, Liturgy of the Hours, 57–74.Google Scholar

75 Later midrashic sources such as Tanhuma Mikketz 9 (MS Cambridge Add. 1212) assert an explicit contempt for “too much praying”: “Therefore one may not pray more than three prayers in a day. And R. Yohanan said: ‘Would that a person would pray continuously all day.’ … Antoninus asked our holy Rabbi: ‘May one pray at all hours?’ He said to him: ‘It is forbidden.’ He said to him: ‘Why?’ He said to him: ‘Lest one act with levity toward the Power.’ He was not persuaded (lit., did not receive from him). What did he (= Rabbi) do? He came to him early in the morning and said to him: ‘Lord, hail!’ Soon afterward he entered his presence and said to him: ‘Emperor!’ Soon afterward he said to him: ‘Peace unto you!’ He (= Antoninus) said to him: ‘How you slight the throne’ (lit., the kingship)! He said to him: ‘Let your ears hear what your mouth says! If you, flesh and blood, when someone inquires after you at all hours you say he slights the throne, all the more so should one not hassle at all hours the King, King of Kings, the Holiness blessed be He.’”Google Scholar

76 See, e.g., the discussion in b. Berakhot 29b–30a.Google Scholar

77 PG 65:269; Ward, Sayings, 131.Google Scholar

78 PG 65:125; Ward, Sayings, 30. The extreme side of this fear is found in the many sayings that promote total isolation such as Theodore of Pherme 5 (PG 65:188; Ward, Sayings, 74) and Arsenius 13 (PG 65:92; Ward, Sayings, 11). For a broad survey of the texts, see , Gould, Desert Fathers on Monastic Community, 107–9.Google Scholar

79 PG 65:409; Ward, Sayings, 223.Google Scholar

80 PG 65:213; Ward, Sayings, 91.Google Scholar

81 Cohen, Jeremy, “Original Sin as the Evil Inclination—A Polemicist's Appreciation of Human Nature” HTR 73 1980 495–520Google Scholar, at 502; see also b. Yoma 69b. Ishay Rosen-Zvi's studies of different aspects of the as portrayed in early and later rabbinic sources are also important in this respect, particularly his discussion of the different character of the inclination in the Babylonian Talmud's later layers and of the parallels to Christian writers. See Ishay, Rosen-Zvi, Demonic Desires: “Yetzer Hara” and the Problem of Evil in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).Google Scholar

82 , Cohen, “Original Sin,” 501.Google Scholar

83 PG 65:176; Ward, Sayings, 64.Google Scholar

84 Nisterus 5 (PG 65:308; Ward, Sayings, 155).Google Scholar

85 Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete Translation of the Surviving Founders’ Typika and Testaments (ed. Thomas, John Philip, and , Angela Constantinides Hero, with the assistance of Giles Constable; trans. Allison, Robert et al.; Dumbarton Oaks Studies 35; 5 vols.; Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2000) 1:24Google Scholar, and references to later monastic rules in n. 13.

86 PG 65:371; Ward, Sayings, 197.Google Scholar

87 , Gould, The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community, 112.Google Scholar

88 Peter, Brown writes: “anger, a sin of human relations, bulked larger with the ascetics than did the ‘demon of fornication,’ which lurked in their bodies” (The Making of Late Antiquity [Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard University Press, 1978] 88)Google Scholar. Brown has suggested a connection between these views on anger and those that promote isolation from human relations, on the one hand, and the desire of property owners to escape the socio-economic tensions of third and fourth century Egyptian villages (83–90). But see the criticism offered in Colm, Luibhéid, “Antony and the Renunciation of Society” Irish Theological Quarterly 52 1986 304–14Google Scholar, and , Gould, The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community, 113.Google Scholar

89 The two—anger and fornication—are often connected. See, e.g., Poemen 115 (PG 65:348; Ward, Sayings, 184): “A brother asked Abba Poemen, ‘What shall I do, for fornication and anger war against me?’ The old man said, ‘In this connection David said: “I will pierce the lion and 1 will slay the bear” (1 Sam. 17:35); that is to say: I will cut off anger and I will crush fornication with hard labour.’”Google Scholar

90 , Poemen 91 (PG 65:344; Ward, Sayings, 180). See also Isidore 2 and 7 (PG 65:221; Ward, Sayings, 97).Google Scholar

91 , Agathon 19 (PG 65:113; Ward, Sayings, 23).Google Scholar

92 , Poemen 156 (PG 65:359; Ward, Sayings, 189).Google Scholar

93 This text bears some resemblance to Matthew 18:15–18, but the differences are noteworthy. First and foremost, the monastic text deals with the attempt on the part of the offender and not the one who was offended. It deals with the measures one needs to take to absolve one's sins towards his friends and not with the admonishing of others. The monastic text also appears to be much more structured—the numbers three and five are very specific and gradual, as opposed to the general “two or three” in Matthew. Finally the innovation in the monastic text, in comparison to the NT text, is that there is a limit, not to the opportunities one gives to a sinner but rather to the right of the offended party, to stay offended.Google Scholar

94 See Rashi on Job 23:27.Google Scholar

95 , Bar-Asher, “Literary Analogies”; Bar-Asher, Siegal, “The Making of a Monk-Rabbi.”Google Scholar

96 On the use of Scripture in the Sayings, see especially Burton-Christie, Word in the Desert; Elizabeth, A. Clark, Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Per, Rönnegård, Threads and Images: The Use of Scripture in Apophthegmata Patrum (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2010).Google Scholar

97 For the Greek see, e.g., John the Dwarf 38 (PG 65:216–217; Ward, Sayings, 93).Google Scholar

98 Other analogies are not considered in this paper. See, e.g., Moulie, Vidas, “Talmudists, Reciters and Identity in Late Ancient Mesopotamia,” ch. 3 of, “Traditions and the Formation of the Talmud” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 2009) 134–92.Google Scholar

99 PG 65:252; Ward, Sayings, 118.Google Scholar

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101 This prohibition might have stemmed from the exegetical dispute as explained in another passage in the Sayings, Daniel 8 (PG 65:160; Ward, Sayings, 54). There the topic discussed is whether Melchizedek is the son of God or a human, and Cyril, the archbishop of Alexandria, teaches another monk that the later should be the correct answer. On this passage, see Frankfurter, David “The Legacy of the Jewish Apocalypse in Early Christian Communities: Two Regional Trajectories,” in Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage in Early Christianity (ed. VanderKam, James C. and Adler, William; Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1996) 129–200Google Scholar, at 183–84; Marinides, Nicholas, “Religious Toleration in the Apophthegmata Patrum” JECS 20 2012 235–68, at 243.Google Scholar

102 See, for instance, the examples from both literature and art brought by Bolman, Elizabeth S., “Joining the Community of Saints: Monastic Paintings and Ascetic Practice in Early Christian Egypt,” in Shaping Community: The Art and Archaeology of Monasticism; Papers from a Symposium Held at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum, University of Minnesota, March 10–12, 2000 (ed. McNally, Sheila; British Archaeological Reports International Series 941, Oxford: Archaeopress, 2001) 41–56Google Scholar. For an extreme of following biblical exemplars (child sacrifice after the sacrifice of Isaac), see Schroeder, Caroline T., “Child Sacrifice in Egyptian Monastic Culture: From Familial Renunciation to Jephthah's Lost Daughter” JECS 20 2012 269–302.Google Scholar

103 , Burton-Christie, Word in the Desert, 169.Google Scholar

104 PG 65:116; Ward, Sayings, 23.Google Scholar

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107 PG 65:166; Ward, Sayings, 58.Google Scholar

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113 PG 65:65–367; Ward, Sayings, 192–93.Google Scholar

114 The manuscript here reads (“the rope of the bucket which [drips] upon it every day, continually”). The continuation and the quotation of the Job verse makes clear that “water” fits better. But, the rope here might signal an “editorial stitch” of originally two different parables- one about the rope eroding the stone and the other about the water. I intend to go back to this example in a future article.Google Scholar

115 The Fathers according to Rabbi Nathan (trans. Judah Goldin; New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1955) 41.Google Scholar

116 The connection between these sources might be suggestive of a more genealogical connection between Avot de Rabbi Natan and the Sayings. I have suggested as much, along with further discussion on the specific relationship between these two passages, in a talk “Avot de-Rabbi Natan and the Monastic Literature: A Comparative Study.” I intend to explore this relationship further in future articles.Google Scholar

117 Aristotle, Soul 3.4. The translation is from , Jonathan, Aristotle: The Desire to Understand (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988) 124Google Scholar

118 PG 65:181; Ward, Sayings, 69.Google Scholar

119 I thank the anonymous HTR copy editor for his useful comment here.Google Scholar

120 The name can be translated in many ways, the most common of which is Honi the circle maker. A few other suggestions have been offered such as “roof fixer,” named after the roller used to fix roofs Or it may refer to the name of a place.Google Scholar

121 Rabbinic Stories (trans. and intro. Jeffrey L. Rubenstein; New York: Paulist, 2002) 128.Google Scholar

122 Ibid., 131.

123 See Menachem, Hirshman “Moqde qdusha mishtanim: Honi ve-nechadav,” Tura: Studies in Jewish Thought 1, Simon Greenberg Volume (Tel Aviv: ha-Kibuts ha-me'uhad, 1989) 109–18 [Hebrew].Google Scholar

124 On Honi's traditions and their resemblance to a few of Jesus's traditions, see, e.g., G, eza, Jesus the Jew: A Historian's Reading of the Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1973)Google Scholar; idem, The Changing Faces of Jesus (New York: Viking Compass, 2001) 254–57Google Scholar, at 254, where he discusses “traits common to charismatics and the distinguishing marks which give Jesus his characteristic individuality.” See also D, avid, Jesus (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2001) 114–15Google Scholar; and Young, Brad H., Jesus the Jewish Theologian (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995) 37–39.Google Scholar

125 Abba, Xoius 2 (PG 65:312; Ward, Sayings, 158).Google Scholar

126 , Moses 13 (PG 65:285; Ward, Sayings, 141).Google Scholar

127 E.g., The Lives of Simeon Stylites (trans. Robert Doran; Cistercian Studies 112; Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian, 1992) 155–58Google Scholar. I am grateful to Holger Zellentin for this reference.

128 In comparison, the story told by Cyril of Scythopolis about the holy man Euthymius during a drought in Jeruslaem emphasizes that no promises were made for rain: “[Euthymius then] went into his oratory without making any promises. Casting himself on his face, he begged God with tears to have mercy on His creation…. As he was praying, there suddenly blew up a south wind, the sky was filled with douds, heavy rain descended and there was a great storm” (Cyril of Scythopolis, Lives of the Monks of Palestine [trans. R. M. Price; Cistercian Studies 114; Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian, 1991] 34–35).Google Scholar

129 I am thankful to Dov Weiss for sharing an unpublished paper with me, which uses the concept of parrhesia to explain the “confrontational theme” emerging in later rabbinic literature—mostly in the Tanhuma literature (“Confronting God in the Tanhuma Midrashim” [as part of the Starr seminar at Harvard University, Spring of 2012]).Google Scholar

130 Peter, Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992).Google Scholar

131 Michael, Gaddis, There is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2005) 152Google Scholar, summarizing Brown, Peter, “Arbiters of the Holy: The Christian Holy Man in Late Antiquity,” in Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman World (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1995) 57–78Google Scholar. See also James, Bernauer, “Michel Foucault's Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction to the Non-Fascist Life,” in Michel Foucault and Theology: The Politics of Religious Experience (ed. Bernauer, James and Carrette, Jeremy; Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate, 2004)Google Scholar 86 on Michel Foucault's analysis of the term parrhesia as serving a dual purpose in early Christian texts.

132 Momigliano, Arnaldo, “Freedom of Speech in Antiquity,” in Dictionary of the History of Ideas (ed. Wiener, Philip P.; New York: Scribner, 1973) 252–63.Google Scholar

133 We may note that in addition to the power of holy men to bring rain, another shared motif is the ability to control the powers of nature. The holy man exerts mastery over animals in general and dangerous animals in particular. See Eliezer, Diamond “Lions, Snakes and Asses: Palestinian Jewish Holy Men as Masters of the Animal Kingdom,” in Jewish Culture and Society under the Christian Roman Empire (ed. Kalmin, Richard and Schwartz, Seth; Louvain: Peeters, 2003) 251–83.Google Scholar

134 , Macarius the Great 7 (PG 65:265; Ward, Sayings, 128).Google Scholar