The Sentences of Sextus

The Sentences of Sextus

The Sentences of Sextus, also called the Sayings of Sextus, is a Hellenistic Pythagorean collection of maxims which was popular among Christians and translated into several languages. The identity of the Sextus who originated the collection is unknown.

The Sentences was probably compiled in the second century AD. The original collection was pagan. It was later modified to reflect a Christian viewpoint, although there are no explicit references to Jesus.

The earliest mention of the Sentences is by Origen in the mid third century. Origen quotes Sextus on self-castration, a widespread habit among ascetic early Christians, which Origen deplores, and mentions in passing that the work is one “that many considered to be tested by time.”

A Latin translation was made from the original Greek by Rufinus of Aquileia under the title Anulus around 400. A partial Coptic translation was discovered in one of the books of the New Testament apocrypha recovered from the Nag Hammadi library in 1945. A Syriac translation is also known, its title translates “Dicta Selecta Sancti Xysti Episcopi Romani” (‘select sayings of Saint Xystus, Roman bishop’).

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