The Philokalia gathers the teaching of the Fathers on prayer of the heart, on the passions and how they are healed, and on keeping watch over one's thoughts. Its full title calls them the neptic Fathers, the watchful ones. St Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St Makarios, Metropolitan of Corinth, gathered the texts from older manuscripts, and the book was printed in Greek in Venice in 1782.
Its key word is nepsis, wakefulness or watchfulness, taken from St Peter's "Be sober, be vigilant". It names a sober attention that stands guard at the entrance of the heart, so that prayer is not scattered and the passions are seen before they take hold. The prayer that keeps this watch is the Jesus Prayer.
The Philokalia travelled far. St Paisius Velichkovsky's Slavonic selection, the Dobrotolublye, appeared in Moscow in 1793, and it is the book the pilgrim carries in The Way of a Pilgrim. St Theophan the Recluse made a five-volume Russian translation in 1877, and in 1979 G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware began a fuller English translation from the Greek. It is a book for those who pray, read slowly and best with a spiritual father's guidance.