“You Can Become All Flame”: Do the Desert Fathers Have Anything to Say to Us Today?

This paper will examine Apophthegmata patrum, the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, in a critical manner, along with selected works from scholars of the Apophthegmata, in the light of recent “popular” treatments of the Apophthegmata, to discuss whether and what the Apophthegmata patrum might have to say to 21st century Christians in the way of timeless truth despite apparent harshness, extremism found in the Apophthegmata, and the fact that approximately seventeen hundred years have fundamentally given us a vastly different way of seeing the world and ourselves in it