At the end of the fourth century the gracious and aristocratic Roman lady Avita, niece of Melania the elder and wife of Apronianus, represented to her husband's friend and spiritual director, Rufinus of Aquileia, that she was finding her somewhat limited intellectual capacities overtaxed by the weighty classics of Greek theology which he was busy making available for the Latin churches. Translations of Origen, Gregory Nazianzen and Basil were all very well. Could he not find something a little simpler (and shorter) for her benefit?

To this request for uplift Rufinus replied by sending his friends a version of the sentences of Sextus. In his preface, dedicated to Apronianus, he explains that he has good hope that this will meet the need. The sentences have a particular claim upon their attention in that according to tradition the author was none other than Xystus, bishop and martyr of their own city, Rome. The saint's pithy maxims would assist Avita in the ascent to spiritual perfection; and as for brevity the work was so short that it could always be in her hand, ‘taking the place of some ancient and valuable ring perhaps’, a substitution proper enough for one ‘to whom earthly ornaments have lost their glitter in comparison with the word of God’. Indeed, while such a book would naturally be entitled by the Greek word enchiridion, in Latin it might deservedly be called a ‘ring’ (anulus).