Preface to the Sayings of Xystus

Rufinus to Apronianus, his own friend. [a]

I know that, just as sheep come gladly when their own shepherd calls them, so in matters of religion people listen most gladly to the counsel of a teacher who speaks their own language. And so, my very dear Apronianus, when that devout lady who is my daughter but is now your sister in Christ, had asked me to write her a treatise of such a kind that it would take no great effort to understand, I translated into Latin, in a very open and plain style, the work of Xystus. He is said to be the same man who at Rome is called Sixtus, and who won the glory of being both bishop and martyr. When she reads it, I think she will find it expressed so briefly that a vast meaning unfolds in each single line; with such power that a sentence one line long would be enough for a whole life’s training; and yet so simply that anyone looking over a girl’s shoulder as she read it might wonder whether I were not rather weak in the head. [b]

And the whole work is so short that she need never let go of it. The entire book would hardly be bigger than one of our ancestors’ finger rings. And indeed it seems only right that one who has learned through the word of God to count the ornaments of the world as rubbish should now receive from my hands, by way of ornament, a necklace of the word and of wisdom. For now, let this little book serve as a ring and be kept constantly in the hands. But before long it will pass into the treasure house and be laid up wholly in the heart, and from that innermost chamber it will bring out the seeds of instruction and of a share in every good work. I have also added a few choice sayings addressed by a devout father to his son, but all so brief that this whole little work may rightly be called in Greek the Enchiridion, or in Latin the Annulus.