About a decade ago my co-author here, Chalcedon, introduced me to St. Isaac of Nineveh, or as he is often known, St Isaac the Syrian. Brought up as a pretty low church Anglican, I didn’t know much about saints (one of the sad things of that part of the tradition), but even when I discovered more, I found that St Isaac was not well-known. There are many reasons that is not surprising.
His works are not that easy to get hold of. The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac is long out of print and prohibitively expensive secondhand; the second part of his homilies is also difficult to get hold of, and although not as expensive as the first part, it is not cheap either. He is most easily accessible through Sebastian Brock’s The Wisdom of St. Isaac, and the quite splendid study by Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev entitled The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian.
Why the obscurity? Well, St Isaac belongs to none of the main traditions of Christianity although all seem to recognise him as a Saint. He belonged to the Assyrian Church of the East, a church long accused (unjustly) of being Nestorian. He lived in what is now Qatar, on the Western Shore of the Persian Gulf in the seventh century. He was made Bishop of Nineveh at some point between 661 and 661, but resigned his See not long after taking it up. The real reason is likely to have been the doctrinal arguments going on at that time between different doctrinal factions within the church, but I like the reason one of St Isaac’s chroniclers gives, which is that when adjudicating a dispute, he referred to what the Gospels said, only for one of the litigants to say ‘Leave aside for the moment the teaching of the Gospel’, to which Isaac said: ‘If the Gospel is not to be present, what have I come here to do’. At which point he is said to have resigned.
A more accurate chronicle says ‘he abdicated his episcopacy for a reason which God knows’. He lived most of his life as an anchorite, either alone, or in the company of other holy men. We are told:
He was exceedingly well versed in the Divine Writings even to the point he lost his eyesight by reason of his reading and asceticism. He entered deeply into the divine mysteries.
The date of his death, as of his birth, is not known, but we do know that even during his lifetime he was venerated as a holy man. An eighth century writer called him ‘famous among the saints’. We owe our knowledge of his works, at least in the West, to the monks of Athos, who included some of his sayings in an anthology.
We do not know how much of his work was lost, but what is now called ‘the second part’ remained unknown until the 1980s, when the great Syriac scholar, Professor Sebastian Brock discovered it in an eleventh century manuscript in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. The first part is what has made Mar Isaac, as the Syriac Church calls him, famous – and that is because everyone who reads his words recognises what his contemporaries did – that here is one who walked closely with God.
Thank you, fascinating, dearest friend.
xx
Thank you – you inspired it
xx
I know, and respectfully thank you ma’am.
xx
Seriously (not that I don’t mean the above), you know that the historical story behind things always interests me.
I know, me too. This is a fascinating story, as so little is known. I lobe the idea of finding ‘new’ work in 1983
I do as well, just not what you expect, there’s probably another very interesting story buried in it- How on earth did it end up in the Bodlien (sp can’t remember)?
It was part of a collection of manuscripts, and no one had looked through them – amazing!
Isn’t it, thought. Makes me wonder if it happened to come back with a crusader (or cleric) and sat in a private collection (or monastery) and somehow ended up being donated. It really is amazing, at any rate.
I’ll ask C. I think it was something quite prosaic like a huge collection which was gifted to the library.
That would be my guess, the provenance of the collection would be interesting but unlikely to be known, really just idle speculation (and maybe romantic dreaming) on my part, not important, really.
I’ll see if you know who knows!
Sure, just don’t go to much trouble on it.
No trouble – he came in to call me to supper and told me! More later
xx
Cool, enjoy supper.
xx
He tells me that it was a manuscript which was sold to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1896 by an American Episcopalan clergyman of Assyrian extraction who worked with the mission to the Assyrians.
Interesting, not what I would have guessed, the things people get their hands on and don’t even know what they have!
Indeed!
An interesting piece about a very obscure Saint who reminds me somewhat of St. Antony of the Desert.
Glad you liked it, dear friend
I did indeed.
Glad to hear it sir
x
Thank you for this splendid introduction. I knew nothing about him.
Glad you liked it Joseph – he’s quite fascinating.
Thanks for this post…this is the first I’ve heard of this particular saint.
Glad you liked it. There are a few mentions of him here, so if you search under ‘St Isaac’ you’ll find a little more if you want
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My favorite quote for the reason why St. Isaac left his public ministry comes from the ‘Studia Syriaca’ as translated by A.J. Wensinck: ‘Mar Isaac was ordained bishop of Ninive in the monastery of Bet ‘Abe. But because of his keen mind and his zeal, he could endure the pastoral function for five months only.’ Parish bingo games and meetings and diocesan politics must have existed in ancient Syria too, but St. Isaac had the good sense to be done with all of them. We’re much the richer for it.
I agree – nice to have you here.