These help you on your way

One day the abbot took me to see the monastic library. It was not a very large collection of books. There were a lot of elderly, well-used volumes of the Fathers. 'Here', said the abbot, 'is a book which you give to beginners.' 'This is a work which is useful for someone who is depressed.' 'Here is a book which give very clear instructions about the Jesus Prayer.' Any Westerner showing you round this collection of books, even someone to whom they were of practical use, would have said: 'Here is an interesting sixth-century text.' 'This writer shows influences from the Syrian tradition.' 'Here is a work important in the later development of Hesychasm.'

We look at books chronologically and classify them in terms of influences and development. To the abbot they all had a simultaneous existence and composed a simultaneous order. They were all books which were useful in the life of the Spirit. Their authors were fathers and teachers who had become friends, to whom one spoke in church and at other times; it was of little importance whether they had lived six hundred, twelve hundred or fifty years ago. He showed me his library rather in the way which an expert gardener might show you his collection of books on gardening, or a cook a collection of cookery books. These help you on your way. They are not an end in themselves.

- A.M. Allchin, The Dynamic of Tradition (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1981)