Subscribe
to CF
Be
first to know
Read our AAA review
from Catholic Culture
Our Mission
To
bring Jesus Christ; the Way, the Truth and the Life; to all who will follow,
according to scripture and tradition, per the Magisterium
of the Roman Catholic Church.
While you visit!
Listen
to
Radio
For the Sacred
Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. |
PREFACE TO
THE TRANSLATION OF
THE SAYINGS OF XYSTUS
Composed at Aquileia about the year 307 A.D
(For the questions relating to Xystus see the Prolegomena, p. 412.)
RUFINUS TO APRONIANUS, HIS OWN FRIEND
I know that, just as the sheep come gladly when their own shepherd calls them,
so in matters of religion men attend most gladly to the admonitions of a teacher
who speaks their own language: and therefore, my very dear Apronianus, when
that pious lady who is my daughter but now your sister in Christ, had laid
her commands on me to compose for her a treatise of such a nature that its
understanding should not require any great, effort, I translated into Latin
in a very open and plain style the work of Xystus, who is said to be the same
man who at Rome is called Sixtus, and who gained the glory of being both bishop
and martyr. I think that, when she reads this, she will find it expressed with
such brevity that a vast meaning is unfolded in each several line, with such
power that a sentence only a line long would suffice for a whole life's training,
and yet with such simplicity that one who looked over the shoulder of a girl
as she read it might question whether I were not quite weak in intellect. And
the whole work is so concise that it would be possible for her never to let
go of it. The entire book would hardly be bigger than the finger ring of one
of our ancestors. And indeed it seems but right that one who has learnt through
the word of God to count as dross the ornaments of the world should now receive
at my hands by way of ornament a necklace of the word and of wisdom. For the
present let this little book serve for a ring and be kept constantly in the
hands: but it will not be long before it will penetrate into the treasure house
and be wholly laid up in the heart, and bring forth from its innermost chamber
the germs of instruction and of a participation in all good works. I have added
further a few choice sayings addressed by a pious father to his son, but all
so succinct that the whole of this. little work may rightly be called in Greek
the Enchiridion(1) or in Latin the Annulus.(2)
Return to Volume 26 Index
