Blessed Hyperechios. Exhortation to the Monks

Book excerpt: Bl. Hyperechios is a little-known monk – who would have lived sometime between the late 300s and the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D., and is thought to have lived in Roman Palestine, possibly coastal Sinai. He wrote the Exhortation to the Monks, 160 short sayings, much like the apophthegmata, or sayings of the desert fathers and mothers, but also structurally very different—most of the sayings are two lines of poetry that offer instruction. The Exhortation, and early Christian monastic writings in general, teach that a spiritual life requires a life of training and practice, individually and as a neighbor and friend within one’s community. This volume offers Hyperechios’s Exhortation to better understand the moral and spiritual values in a fourth to fifth-century Christian monastic community, while reflecting also on how these are contemporary with the modern day. Exhortation to the Monks by Hyperechios will be of interest to scholars and general readers of early Christianity, early monasticism, and Christian spirituality, both ancient and contemporary.