Isaac the Syrian | |
|---|---|
 Icon of Saint Isaac the Syrian | |
| Bishop,Hieromonk,Ascetic | |
| Born | c. 613[1] Beth Qatraye,[1][2][3]Eastern Arabia |
| Died | c. 700 (age c. 87) Nineveh,Umayyad Caliphate |
| Venerated in | |
| Majorshrine | Rabban Hormizd Monastery |
| Feast | January 28 (Byzantine Rite- Slavic usage) September 28th (Byzantine- Greek usage)[6] September 23 (West Syriac Rite) |
| Attributes | Turban,cape,scrolls,writing tools |
Isḥaq of Nineveh (Syriac:ܡܪܝ ܐܝܣܚܩ ܕܢܝܢܘܐ,romanized: mār isḥāq d-ninwē;Arabic: إسحاق النينويIshaq an-Naynuwī;c. 613 – c. 700), also remembered asSaint Isaac the Syrian (Ancient Greek:Ἰσαὰκ ὁ Σύρος),[7][8]Isaac of Nineveh,Abba Isaac,Isaac Syrus andIsaac of Qatar,[9] was a 7th-centurySyriac Christianbishop of theChurch of the East, andtheologian best remembered for hiswritten works on Christianasceticism.[10] He is regarded as asaint in theChurch of the East,Roman Catholic,Oriental Orthodox andEastern Orthodox churches. Hisfeast day falls, together with 4th-centurytheologian andhymnographer St.Ephrem the Syrian, on January 28. In theSyriac Orthodox Church, his feast day falls on September 23.
He was born in the region ofBeth Qatraye inEastern Arabia, a mixed Syriac- and Arabic-speaking region encompassing the south east ofMesopotamia and the north-easternArabian Peninsula.[1][2][3] When theCatholicosGiwargis I of theChurch of the East (661–680), visited Beth Qatraye in 676 to attend asynod, heordained Isaac bishop ofNineveh far to the north inAssyria.[11]
The administrative duties did not suit his retiring andascetic bent: he requested to abdicate after only five months, and went south to the wilderness of Mount Matout, a refuge foranchorites. There he lived in solitude for many years, eating only three loaves a week with some uncooked vegetables, a detail that never failed to astonish hishagiographers. Eventually blindness and old age forced him to retire to the monastery of Rabban Shabur (located nearShushtar in present-dayKhuzestan, Iran),[12][13][14] where he died and was buried. At the time of his death he was nearly blind, a fact that some attribute to his devotion to study.
Isaac is remembered for his spiritualhomilies on the inner life, which have a human breadth andtranscendenttheological depth.[15] They survive inSyriac manuscripts and in later Greek, Arabic, and Georgian translations.[16] From Greek they were translated intoSlavonic.[17]
Isaac stands in the tradition of the easternmysticalsaints and placed a considerable emphasis on the work of theHoly Spirit.
His melancholic style as well as his affinity towards the sick and dying exerted considerable influence onEastern Orthodoxy.[15] His writings were continuously studied by monastery circles outside his church during the 8th and 9th centuries. Moreover, Isaac's conviction that the notion of God punishing men endlessly through the mystery ofGehenna (the lake of fire, or hell) is not compatible with his all-encompassing love can likely be seen as the central thematic conflict in his second treatise ofmystical teachings.[18]
Isaac's writings, strongly influenced by those ofEvagrius Ponticus and other earlier Christian writers,[19] offer a rare example of a large corpus of ascetical texts written by an experienced hermit and is thus an important writer when it comes to understanding earlyChristian asceticism.[20]
Isaac the Syrian's main influences includeEvagrius Ponticus,Pseudo-Dionysius,John the Solitary,Ephrem the Syrian,Narsai, andTheodore of Mopsuestia. In turn, Isaac has influenced later Syriac writers such asJohn of Dalyatha andJoseph Hazzaya.[21]
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(November 2024) |
He has long been regarded as asaint in theEastern Orthodox, andChurch of the East traditions.[22]
For the Catholic Church,Pope Francis announced on 9 November 2024 that Isaac of Nineveh is being added to theRoman Martyrology, the official list of saints venerated by theLatin Church.[4]
Isaac'sfeast day falls, together with 4th-century theologian and hymnographer St.Ephrem the Syrian, on January 28.
Isaac composed dozens of homilies that he collected into seven volumes on topics including spiritual life, divine mysteries, judgements, providence, and more. These seven volumes have survived in fiveParts, titled from theFirst Part to theFifth Part.[23] Except theFirst Part, which had been long known, the otherParts were rediscovered only in 1983 and later. Today, only the first three parts are considered genuinely by Isaac.[24]
Sebastian Brock has provided a summary as of 2024 of all editions and translations of each of these three parts.[24] Brock, Mary Hansbury and the Holy Transfiguration Monastery have been the primary translators into English, andSabino Chialà [it] into Italian.
TheFirst Part is the most widely known part.Arent Jan Wensinck [nl] (1923) translated the text into English and published it asMystic Treatises.[25] A critical edition containing an English translation,The Ascetical Homilies of Isaac the Syrian, was published by the Holy Transfiguration Monastery in 1983,[26] while a revised second edition was published in 2011 (with a third printing in 2020).[27] According to Brock (2006), Part 1 has 82 homilies, although the number and order of homilies can vary greatly depending on the manuscript or edition.[28]
TheSecond Part contains 41 chapters, of which Chapter 3 is by far the longest. Chapter 3, also known as theKephalaia Gnostica (or "Chapters/Headings on Spiritual Knowledge"), contains 400 sections organized into 4 centuries (groups of 100 sections).[29] Recently, parts of theKephalaia Gnostica (i.e., Chapter 3 ofthe Second Part) have been identified inSogdian fragments fromTurfan.[30][31]
TheSecond Part was discovered in April 1983 at theBodleian Library bySebastian Brock, who found that MS syr. e. 7, originally donated by the Assyrian priestYaroo Michael Neesan (1853–1937) to the Bodleian Library on 29 June 1898, in fact contained writings of Isaac the Syrian that were hitherto unknown to Western scholars, even though they were regularly read by Syriac readers.[32] Bodleian MS syr. e. 7 is a parchment manuscript written in small East SyrianEstrangela script and is 195–200 mm long by 145–150 mm wide with 190 folios. There are about 26 lines per page, with about 23 lines near the beginning. It was copied during the 10th or 11th century in the Monastery of Mar ‘Abdisho‘ of Kom by the scribe Marqos for Rabban Isho‘ of the village of Beth B‘DY.[33]
After 1983, incomplete manuscripts of Part 2 have been discovered inCambridge MS Or. 1144, which is a part ofBibliothèque Nationale de France, MS syr. 298 (c. 11th-13th century).[34] Chapters 1–3 have been translated into English by Brock (2022)[29] (with Chapters 1–2 previously published in Brock (1997) as well[35]), while an English translation of chapters 4–41, along with the original Syriac text, can be found in Brock (1995).[32] A complete French translation was published byAndré Louf (2003),[36] and a partial Greek translation was published by Kavvadas (2006).[37] Selections from Part 2 have been translated into Italian by Bettiolo (1985)[38] and into Catalan by Nin (2005).[39]
List of manuscripts containing theSecond Part:[32]
TheThird Part has been translated into English by Mary T. Hansbury (2016),[40] into French byAndré Louf (2009),[41] and into Italian by Sabino Chialà (2004, 2011).[42][43][44] It is based on Issayi MS 5, held in Tehran, Iran. The manuscript is a 1903 copy of a 14th-century original manuscript that has now been lost. It was discovered by Monsignor Yuhannan Samaan Issayi, the Chaldean archbishop of Tehran, at an antiquarian Jewish bookshop and was kept in his private library. After his death in 1999, Belgian scholar Michel van Esbroek found the manuscript in Issayi's library in Tehran and announced its discovery to the international scholars.[45] Issayi MS 5 has 133 folios, with 111 folios containing 17 homilies that can be attributed to Isaac. There are 14 homilies not found in other texts that are numbered as 1–13 and 16 within Part 3. The other three texts in Issayi MS 5 can also be found in extant Part 1 and Part 2 manuscripts.[40]
Portions of theFifth Part[46] have been discovered in MS Rahmani 80 (in Sharfet), MS Dawra sir. 694 and MS Dawra sir. 938 (both held inBaghdad), and Vatican MS sir. 592. Hansbury (2016) contains English translations of two discourses from the Fifth Part.[40] Other discourses from Part 5 can be found in Hansbury (2015).[47]
Some scholars[48] have argued that Isaac's views from theSecond Part appear to confirm earlier claims that Isaac advocated foruniversal reconciliation.[49] In chapter 39 of the Second Part, Isaac writes, "It is not the way of the compassionate Maker to create rational beings in order to deliver them over mercilessly to unending affliction in punishment for things of which He knew even before they were fashioned, aware how they would turn out when He created them, and whom nonetheless He created."[50] Likewise, in the Third Part, chapter 5, Isaac explains, "This is the mystery: that all creation by means of One, has been brought near to God in a mystery; then it is transmitted to all; thus all is united to Him...This action was performed for all of creation; there will, indeed, be a time when no part will fall short of the whole."[51]
In Isaac'sFirst Part (his well-knownAscetical Homilies) also, some have seen evidence for universalist sympathies, as illustrated by the following: "God will not abandon anyone."[52] "There was a time when sin did not exist, and there will be a time when it will not exist."[53] "As a handful of sand thrown into the ocean, so are the sins of all flesh as compared with the mind of God; as a fountain that flows abundantly is not dammed by a handful of earth, so the compassion of the Creator is not overcome by the wickedness of the creatures... If He is compassionate here, we believe that there will be no change in Him; far be it from us that we should wickedly think that God could not possibly be compassionate; God's properties are not liable to variations as those of mortals... What is hell as compared with the grace of resurrection? Come and let us wonder at the grace of our Creator."[54] Other passages throughout the corpus of Isaac's writings have been cited in demonstration of his belief in eventual universal salvation.[55]
| This section is empty. You can help byadding to it.(May 2025) |
