Sextus, Sentences of
author: Sebastian P. Brock
source date: 2011
edition published: 2016-09-22-16:00
availability: Copyright ©2011 by Beth Mardutho: The Syriac Institute Distributed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

Sextus, Sentences of

https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Sextus-Sentences-of http://syriaca.org/bibl/499 490 Sentences of Sextus [work] [A Greek collection of ethical sayings dating from the 2nd cent., and probably of Christian authorship; the Syriac version was popular in monastic circles.]

A Greek collection of ethical sayings dating from the 2nd cent., and probably of Christian authorship (though this has been disputed); Sextus, to whom the original collection of 451 sayings is attributed, is otherwise unknown. The sayings already enjoyed great popularity in Origen’s day and were subsequently translated into Latin, Syriac, and Armenian. In the Syriac translation, preserved in a considerable number of mss. from the 6th cent. onwards, the Sextus is wrongly identified as ‘Xystos, bp. of Rome’ (i.e., Sixtus II, 257–8; thus also Rufinus). The sayings were particularly appreciated in monastic circles, and in modern times they have been reproduced in part in Qolo Suryoyo 129–32 (2001–2).

Sources

H. Chadwick, The Sentences of Sextus (1959). (with Greek and Latin texts)
P. de Lagarde, Analecta Syriaca (1858, repr. 1967), iii–xi (collations), 2–31 (text).
V. Ryssel, ‘Die syrische Übersetzung der Sextussentenzen’, Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie 38 (1895), 617–30; 39 (1896), 568–624; 40 (1897), 131–49. (with GT)

Sebastian P. Brock