Preface

As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God, says the divine Apostle. And to be counted worthy of the Holy Spirit and to become sons of God is the last and highest of all things to be desired; once it is attained there is the repose from every contemplation, as it is written. This wonderful blessedness, then, the highest of all that can be longed for, the saints from the beginning of the ages were counted worthy to obtain through the practice of the virtues: some by struggling as martyrs and standing fast against sin even to the shedding of their blood, others by contending in the discipline of the ascetic life, walking the narrow road, and becoming martyrs in their resolve. Their feats of valour and their achievements

— both of those who were perfected through blood and of those who imitated the angelic life through ascetic discipline — to commit to writing, and to pass on a pattern of virtue to the generations that come after, the Church of Christ has received from the inspired Apostles and the blessed Fathers, who laid this down as a law for the salvation of our race. For the road that leads to virtue is rough and steep, especially for those who have not yet given themselves wholly to the Lord, but are still warred upon by the tyranny of the passions. For this reason we have need of many things that call us toward it: exhortations on the one hand, and on the other the histories of the lives of those who have travelled it before us, which more painlessly draws a man to it and prepares him not to despair at the difficulty of the journey. For when a man is about to set out on a road that is hard to pass and rough, one who advises and urges him on would persuade him less; but one who points out many who have already crossed it, and who in the end have rested well, would the more persuade him to lay hold of the journey himself. Following this rule, then, and besides this looking with apprehension at the danger that hangs over the servant who, having received the talent from his master, buried it in the ground and hid what was given for trading without putting it to use,

I shall by no means pass over in silence an edifying narrative that has come down to me; one that devout men of the inner country of the Ethiopians — those whom our account knows to call Indians — recounted to me, having translated it without falsehood from trustworthy records. It runs as follows.