SAPERE XXVI: The Sextus Sayings and their Relatives

Die Sextussprüche und ihre Verwandten, introduced, translated and with interpretative essays by Wilfried Eisele / Yuri Arzhanov / Michael Durst / Thomas Pitour, Tübingen 2015.

In antiquity and the Middle Ages, collections of sayings (gnomes/entences) were a popular form of everyday literature. As texts, they did not have a high literary standard. However, this does not mean that their content was always easy to understand. They are often linguistically condensed insights and admonitions that presuppose far more than they say. This opens up a wide field of interpretation and relecture, which in the open form of the collection takes place primarily by increasing, decreasing or regrouping the saying material. The sayings attributed to the philosopher Sextus represent a remarkable example of a Christian revised collection of sayings from the imperial period. They have Pythagorean antecedents and continue to have an effect in Christian monasticism via Evagrius Ponticus. This volume traces these lines of development.

Eisele, Wilfried; Arzhanov, Yuri; Durst, Michael; Pitour, Thomas
Composite volume; German, Ancient Greek
Published: 2015
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck Verlag: Tübingen
ISBN: 978-3-16-153657-1