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Cistercian Studies Series #175
Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian
Isaac the Syrian, also called Isaac of Nineveh, lived and wrote during "the golden age of Syriac Christian literature" in the seventh century. Cut off by language and politics from the Churches of the Roman Empire and branded "Nestorian," the Church of the East produced in isolation a rich theological literature which is only now becoming known to outsiders. Yet over the centuries and in all parts of Christendom, Isaac's works have been read and recommended as unquestionably orthodox.
Now, at last, to my great delight, we have at our disposal a single book in English, offering us a balanced and comprehensive overview of Isaac's life, background and teaching. Wisely, Fr. Hilarion Alfeyev has allowed Isaac to speak for himself. The book is full of well-chosen quotations, in which Isaac's true voice can be heard.
Saint Isaac of Syria was an ascetic, a mountain solitary, but his writings are universal in scope. They are addressed not just to the desert but to the city, not just to monastics but to all the baptized. With sharp vividness he speaks about themes relevant to every Christian: about repentance and humility, about prayer in its many forms, both outer and inner, about solitude and community, about silence, wonder, and ecstasy. Along with the emphasis that he places upon "luminous love"—to use his own phrase—two things above all mark his spiritual theology: his sense of God as living mystery; and his warm devotion to the Saviour Christ.
From the Foreword by Kallistos Ware, Bishop of Diokleia
Now, at last, to my great delight, we have at our disposal a single book in English, offering us a balanced and comprehensive overview of Isaac's life, background and teaching. Wisely, Fr. Hilarion Alfeyev has allowed Isaac to speak for himself. The book is full of well-chosen quotations, in which Isaac's true voice can be heard.
Saint Isaac of Syria was an ascetic, a mountain solitary, but his writings are universal in scope. They are addressed not just to the desert but to the city, not just to monastics but to all the baptized. With sharp vividness he speaks about themes relevant to every Christian: about repentance and humility, about prayer in its many forms, both outer and inner, about solitude and community, about silence, wonder, and ecstasy. Along with the emphasis that he places upon "luminous love"—to use his own phrase—two things above all mark his spiritual theology: his sense of God as living mystery; and his warm devotion to the Saviour Christ.
From the Foreword by Kallistos Ware, Bishop of Diokleia
322 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 13, 2020
When I was first learning church history, it seemed the big kids on the block were Augustine, Calvin and Luther. I suppose I was learning from some Calvinists. There were other writers, but these guys got it right. Yet when I read them, I saw a capricious God who chose some for salvation and created the rest for destruction.
Praise God?
I needed something else. Not the wishy-washy God that was often cast as the only alternative. Thankfully, I kept searching.
It’s not too much to be said though, that my faith has been saved by the writings of so many others: Origen, Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Maximus the Confessor, Evagrius, John Acadian, Julian of Norwich and more.
Add Isaac the Syrian to that lost. This book brilliantly takes us through Isaac’s thought. Is an emphasis on “God is Love” just a symptom of a weak, sappy, too-gentle modern world? Well, Isaac writing in the 600s might have something to say about that. For Isaac, God is love. All persons, good and bad, Christian and not, will experience Gods love. To some, this is wonderful. To others, it is pain. Hell is the experience of Gods love by those who hate God.
Yet Isaac believed that eventually this love would purify all and all would be saved. In the continuing debates on Christian Universalism, it does not seem a person can intelligently enter the discussion without reckoning with Isaac’s teaching.
Praise God?
I needed something else. Not the wishy-washy God that was often cast as the only alternative. Thankfully, I kept searching.
It’s not too much to be said though, that my faith has been saved by the writings of so many others: Origen, Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Maximus the Confessor, Evagrius, John Acadian, Julian of Norwich and more.
Add Isaac the Syrian to that lost. This book brilliantly takes us through Isaac’s thought. Is an emphasis on “God is Love” just a symptom of a weak, sappy, too-gentle modern world? Well, Isaac writing in the 600s might have something to say about that. For Isaac, God is love. All persons, good and bad, Christian and not, will experience Gods love. To some, this is wonderful. To others, it is pain. Hell is the experience of Gods love by those who hate God.
Yet Isaac believed that eventually this love would purify all and all would be saved. In the continuing debates on Christian Universalism, it does not seem a person can intelligently enter the discussion without reckoning with Isaac’s teaching.
May 22, 2018
The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian is a book that seeks to understand both the writings & the world that Isaac lived in. This book is not a translation of his writings. So if that is what you are looking for, then this will leave you dissatisfied. However, if you are seeking a primer into his thought processes, then this might be the place.
Isaac is a saint in the Syriac churches in the east. Think of the Syrian Orthodox Church, Malankara Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, etc. Jacobite churches (those that did not accept Chalcedon), Maronites (accepted Chalcedon), & Melkites (accepted Third Council of Constantinople) & even different Eastern Orthodox churches view him with favor.
This writings favored those of Evagrius & Theodore of Mopsuestia. Both of those tended to lean more toward Nestorius. But they didn't necessarily view their theologies as being like his. This background is important as his later career in the Levant probably influenced his move towards asceticism.
Isaac viewed God as a God of love & humility. To be closer to God, one must renounce the world & instead focus on God. This involved things like prostration, kneeling, hitting oneself in the head during prayer, confession of sin, fasting, recitation of Scripture & Patristic writings. Almost anything to withdrawal oneself from the world - to be ostracized by one's contemporaries so they will not take your focus off of God.
This book has a lot going for it in understanding his thought & understanding. Background information, while good, needs a bit more. This was a period in dramatic theological & political change as the rise of Islam happened during his lifetime. Yet, we have no understanding as to how this affected Isaac personally. Nor do we have a lot of direct quotes from Isaac. More of that & even some translation would help.
Overall, a solid book.
Isaac is a saint in the Syriac churches in the east. Think of the Syrian Orthodox Church, Malankara Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, etc. Jacobite churches (those that did not accept Chalcedon), Maronites (accepted Chalcedon), & Melkites (accepted Third Council of Constantinople) & even different Eastern Orthodox churches view him with favor.
This writings favored those of Evagrius & Theodore of Mopsuestia. Both of those tended to lean more toward Nestorius. But they didn't necessarily view their theologies as being like his. This background is important as his later career in the Levant probably influenced his move towards asceticism.
Isaac viewed God as a God of love & humility. To be closer to God, one must renounce the world & instead focus on God. This involved things like prostration, kneeling, hitting oneself in the head during prayer, confession of sin, fasting, recitation of Scripture & Patristic writings. Almost anything to withdrawal oneself from the world - to be ostracized by one's contemporaries so they will not take your focus off of God.
This book has a lot going for it in understanding his thought & understanding. Background information, while good, needs a bit more. This was a period in dramatic theological & political change as the rise of Islam happened during his lifetime. Yet, we have no understanding as to how this affected Isaac personally. Nor do we have a lot of direct quotes from Isaac. More of that & even some translation would help.
Overall, a solid book.
May 29, 2012
St. Isaac is often magnificent to read, and this book is a good introduction to his worldview. I'm not always fond of Alfeyev's writing style, but for the most part the content is excellent. St. Isaac's worldview is inspired by the God who is love and for Isaac nothing, not sin or death or evil can alter God's love for His creation.
July 3, 2025
First patristic author for me to have been familiarized with :) Mar Ishaq’s intense description of God as Love and Mercy flows seamlessly into the practical aspects of the faith—asceticism, silence, charity, forgiveness, a symmetry that I sorely craved and did not know I craved in the worldview and faith I held prior.
March 27, 2022
“The world has become mingled with God, and creation and Creator have become one!”
Saint Isaac the Syrian belonged to the Church of the East, a Syriac Church with a jurisdiction roughly corresponding to the borders of the Sassanid Empire, encompassing present-day Iran and Iraq. In the seventh century, the theological lodestars of this tradition were Theodore of Mopsuestia, Diodore of Tarsus, and Nestorius. It adhered to a strict dyophysitism, maintaining a pronounced distinction between the divine and human natures of Christ in an effort to preserve the authenticity of the latter; and the tradition would gradually drift into a more explicitly “Nestorian” division of Christ into “two sons”. Isaac himself was innocent of this slide into heterodoxy; and he—along with Theodore, his primary theological influence—represents the best contribution of the “Antiochene school” to the development of Christian thought: the understanding of the Incarnation—by which we should refer to the life, death, resurrection, and ascent into heaven of the Incarnate God—not only as an act of Divine condescension—God coming down to earth and then returning to heaven—but also as the ascent of a man (and of Man as such) to the Word at the right hand of the Father through His perfection in love, charity, mercy, compassion, and self-renunciation. Christ, for Isaac, is not only the God who became Man, but also “the Man who became Lord”. The “pouring out” of God and the divinization of Man are one activity, consummating one Divine-Humanity.
Because of His sacrifice on the Cross, Isaac believed, God lifted Jesus up to the Word, giving Him power over the whole of creation. And in lifting up Jesus, He lifted up all of human nature:
“For we believe that all that applies to the Man is raised up to the Word who accepts it for himself, having willed to make him share in this honor. All this is made known to us in the cross, and through this affair, which unbelievers consider so contemptible, we have acquired an accurate knowledge of the Creator.”
Jesus, in His humanity, ascended to God; something no creature—including the holy angels—had done. But by so doing, He revealed it to be God’s eternal will that every rational nature, angel and human alike, should share in His divinity:
“Amid ineffable splendour the Father raised him to himself in heaven, to that place where no created being had trod, but to which he had, through his own action, invited all rational beings—angels and human beings—to that blessed Entry, in order to delight in the divine light in which was clothed that Man who is filled with all that is holy, who is now with God in ineffable honour and splendour.”
The Incarnation revealed God’s invitation of humanity to grow into communion with Himself, thereby divinizing all of creation and completing the course of Divine Love in extra-divine being; but it did not represent a change in God’s nature, nor in His relation to the world. The advent of the Divine-Humanity was not some ad hoc contingency plan devised by the Creator to rescue humanity from its “historical” captivation by sin and death, but was merely the illumination of His pre-eternal nature and will. Divine-human communion has always been the telos of creation, because God has always been love.
One might plausibly argue that Isaac’s entire theological system is an elaboration of a celebrated proclamation by John the Evangelist (1 John 4:16-18):
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”
If God is love, and if God is unchanging, then there is simply no room in Him for anger, wrath, or retribution. Such characteristics, in addition to contradicting the identification of God with love, also ascribe to God a false perception of mutability, as if God is merely one psychological subjectivity among many others, prone to surprises and mood swings. The passages of the Hebrew Bible that portray God as bellicose and irascible must, in Isaac’s view, be read figuratively, with the knowledge that God never acts maliciously or passionately, but cares for all creatures as their Father, capaciously forgiving the transgressions that might separate human beings from Him and from one another, and patiently working to restore them to Himself; never by force, but only by revealing Himself and growing within us a knowledge and spiritual discernment that will allow us to recognize and devote ourselves to Him as the supreme good.
Indeed, according to Isaac, we cannot ultimately say even that God is just; because God’s love, manifesting itself in His infinite mercy, completely overshadows justice, which can never escape the bonds of relativity and contingency. Justice is worldly and instrumental; mercy is godly and gratuitous:
“Mercy is opposed to justice. Justice is equality on the even scale, for it gives to each as he deserves. . . . Mercy, on the other hand, is a sorrow and pity stirred up by goodness . . . ; it does not requite a man who is deserving of evil, and to him who is deserving of good it gives a double portion. If, therefore, it is evident that mercy belongs to the portion of righteousness, then justice belongs to the portion of wickedness. As grass and fire cannot coexist in one place, so justice and mercy cannot abide in one soul.”
The lawless mercy of God is demonstrated most profoundly by the Incarnation itself:
“Where, then, is God’s justice, for while we are sinners Christ died for us?”
Thus, to become godlike is to acquire a merciful heart, and to inculcate in oneself a perfect and equitable love for all of creation:
“And what is a merciful heart? It is the heart burning for the sake of all creation, for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and for every created thing; and by the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful man pour forth abundant tears. By the strong and vehement mercy which grips his heart and by his great compassion, his heart is humbled and he cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in creation. For this reason he offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner he even prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in his heart in the likeness of God.”
Saint Isaac, who spent most of his life as a monk, placed a great emphasis on solitariness, stillness, and silence. The Syriac word for a solitary monk, ihidaya, was also used more broadly to describe the inner unity of a man within himself, as well as his union with God. The term was used to describe Adam as having been made in the image of God, and it was the first title given to Christ in the Syriac New Testament, translating the Greek monogenes, or “Only-Begotten”. The ihidaya, the seeker of theosis, was for Isaac the solitary ascetic who distanced himself from society to grow closer to God. “Love all men,” he says in one maxim, “but keep distant from all men.”
But this withdrawal from society does not preclude one from fulfilling the commandment to love one’s neighbor. In fact, it facilitates it by creating a longing that can only grow through absence:
“Do you wish to acquire in your soul the love of your neighbor according to the commandment of the Gospel? Separate yourself from him, and then the heat and flame of love for him will burn in you and you will rejoice at the sight of his countenance as though you beheld an angel of light. And do you wish that those who love you should thirst for you? See their faces on fixed days only. Truly, experience is the teacher of all.”
As we grow spiritually, God will allow temptations to come upon us for the purpose of drawing us closer to Him. In one evocative passage, Isaac uses the analogy of a pearl diver to describe the trials we must necessarily undergo to receive “pearls” of wisdom and sanctification:
“If the diver found a pearl in every oyster, then everyone would quickly become rich! And if he brought one up the moment he dove, without waves beating against him, without any sharks encountering him, without having to hold his breath until he nearly expires, without being deprived of the clear air granted to everyone and having to descend to the abyss—if all this were the case, pearls would come thicker and faster than lightning flashes!”
He also insisted that the more progress we make, the greater the temptations we will face. We should therefore be encouraged, rather than disheartened, by new trials:
“As long as you are journeying in the way to the city of the kingdom and are drawing near the city of God, let this be for you a signpost: the strength of the temptations you encounter. The nearer you draw and progress, the more temptations multiply against you.”
Among the greatest “pearls” that we receive from the steadfast endurance of these temptations is humility: a supernatural charism that grants us a profound likeness to God and benefits our souls even more than the performance of righteous deeds, giving us power over nature, animals, and even demons:
“Humility is the raiment of the Godhead. The Word who became human clothed himself in it, and he spoke to us in our body. Everyone who has been clothed with humility has truly been made like unto Him who came down from his own exaltedness and hid the splendour of his majesty and concealed his glory with humility, lest creation be utterly consumed by the contemplation of Him.”
“Wherefore every man has put on Christ when he is clothed with the raiment wherein the Creator was seen through the body that he put on. For the likeness in which he was seen by his own creation and in which he kept company with it, he willed to put on in his inner man, and to be seen therein by his fellow-servants.”
“Humility, even without works, gains forgiveness for many offenses; but without her, works are of no profit to us and instead prepare for us great evils.”
“The humble man approaches ravening beasts, and when their gaze rests upon him, their wildness is tamed. They come up to him as to their master, wag their heads and tails and lick his hands and feet, for they smell coming from him that same scent that exhaled from Adam before the fall, when they were gathered before him and he gave them names in Paradise. . . . Even the demons with their fierceness, their hostility, and all their boastful thinking, become like dust as soon as they come before him. All their wickedness becomes folly, and their stratagems are undone, and their wiles and pernicious cunning are rendered powerless.”
According to Isaac, prayer should always be personal and heartfelt, even if the words of our prayers are taken from the Psalms, and he advises us to incorporate physical acts of devotion into our prayer. He seems to have been personally fond of praying while on one’s knees, with one’s hands outstretched towards the cross, because this posture inculcates feelings of compulsion and longing. Steadfast prayer leads to “luminous meditation” or pure prayer, a rarefied intellectual reflection on the life of God, which in turn leads to “wonder”, a mystical state in which the mind is entirely captivated by God.
I leave off with a series of lengthy quotes in which Isaac demonstrates his unmistakably universalist eschatology:
“I am of the opinion that[God] is going to manifest some wonderful outcome, a matter of immense and ineffable compassion on the part of the glorious Creator, with respect to the ordering of this difficult matter of gehenna’s torment: out of it the wealth of his love and power and wisdom will become known all the more—and so will the insistent might of the waves of his goodness. 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. All the more since the foreplanning of evil and the taking of vengeance are characteristic of the passions of created beings, and do not belong to the Creator. For all this characterizes people who do not know or who are unaware of what the are doing . . . Such action does not belong to the Creator who, even before the cycle of the depiction of creation has been portrayed, knew of all that was before and all that was after in connection with the actions and intentions of rational beings.”
“It is clear that [God] does not abandon them the moment they fall, and that demons will not remain in their demonic state, and sinners will not remain in their sins; rather, he is going to bring them to a single equal state of perfection in relationship to his own Being—to a state in which the holy angels now are, in perfection of love and a passionless mind. He is going to bring them into that excellency of will where it will be not as though they were curbed and not free or having stirrings from the Opponent then; rather, they will be in a state of excelling knowledge, with a mind made mature in the stirrings which partake of the divine outpouring which the blessed Creator is preparing in his grace; they will be perfected in love for him, with a perfect mind which is above any aberration in all its stirrings.”
“Maybe they will be raised to a perfection even greater than that in which the angels now exist; for all are going to exist in a single love, a single purpose, a single will, and a single perfect state of knowledge; they will gaze towards God with the desire of insatiable love, even if some divine dispensation may in the meantime be effected for reasons known to God alone, lasting for a fixed period, decreed by him in accordance with the will of his wisdom.”
“No part belonging to any single one of all rational beings will be lost, so far as God is concerned, in the preparation of that supernal kingdom which is prepared for all worlds. Because of the goodness of his nature by which he brought the universe into being and then bears, guides, and provides for the worlds and all created things in his immeasurable compassion, he has devised the establishment of the kingdom of heaven for the entire community of rational beings—even though an intervening time is reserved for the general raising of all beings to the same level. And we say this so that we too may concur with the magisterial teaching of Scripture. Nevertheless Gehenna is grievous, even if it is thus limited in its extent: who can possibly bear it? For this reason the angels in heaven rejoice at a single sinner who repents.”
“By the device of grace the majority of humankind will enter the kingdom of heaven without the experience of gehenna. But this is apart from those who, because of their hardness of heart and utter abandonment to wickedness and the lusts, fail to show remorse in suffering for their faults and their sins, and because these people have not been disciplined at all. For God’s holy nature is so good and so compassionate that it is always seeking to find some small means of putting us in the right: how he can forgive human beings their sins—like the case of the tax collector who was put in the right by the intensity of his prayer or like the case of a woman with two small coins or the man who received forgiveness on the cross. For God wishes our salvation, and not reasons to torment us.”
Saint Isaac the Syrian belonged to the Church of the East, a Syriac Church with a jurisdiction roughly corresponding to the borders of the Sassanid Empire, encompassing present-day Iran and Iraq. In the seventh century, the theological lodestars of this tradition were Theodore of Mopsuestia, Diodore of Tarsus, and Nestorius. It adhered to a strict dyophysitism, maintaining a pronounced distinction between the divine and human natures of Christ in an effort to preserve the authenticity of the latter; and the tradition would gradually drift into a more explicitly “Nestorian” division of Christ into “two sons”. Isaac himself was innocent of this slide into heterodoxy; and he—along with Theodore, his primary theological influence—represents the best contribution of the “Antiochene school” to the development of Christian thought: the understanding of the Incarnation—by which we should refer to the life, death, resurrection, and ascent into heaven of the Incarnate God—not only as an act of Divine condescension—God coming down to earth and then returning to heaven—but also as the ascent of a man (and of Man as such) to the Word at the right hand of the Father through His perfection in love, charity, mercy, compassion, and self-renunciation. Christ, for Isaac, is not only the God who became Man, but also “the Man who became Lord”. The “pouring out” of God and the divinization of Man are one activity, consummating one Divine-Humanity.
Because of His sacrifice on the Cross, Isaac believed, God lifted Jesus up to the Word, giving Him power over the whole of creation. And in lifting up Jesus, He lifted up all of human nature:
“For we believe that all that applies to the Man is raised up to the Word who accepts it for himself, having willed to make him share in this honor. All this is made known to us in the cross, and through this affair, which unbelievers consider so contemptible, we have acquired an accurate knowledge of the Creator.”
Jesus, in His humanity, ascended to God; something no creature—including the holy angels—had done. But by so doing, He revealed it to be God’s eternal will that every rational nature, angel and human alike, should share in His divinity:
“Amid ineffable splendour the Father raised him to himself in heaven, to that place where no created being had trod, but to which he had, through his own action, invited all rational beings—angels and human beings—to that blessed Entry, in order to delight in the divine light in which was clothed that Man who is filled with all that is holy, who is now with God in ineffable honour and splendour.”
The Incarnation revealed God’s invitation of humanity to grow into communion with Himself, thereby divinizing all of creation and completing the course of Divine Love in extra-divine being; but it did not represent a change in God’s nature, nor in His relation to the world. The advent of the Divine-Humanity was not some ad hoc contingency plan devised by the Creator to rescue humanity from its “historical” captivation by sin and death, but was merely the illumination of His pre-eternal nature and will. Divine-human communion has always been the telos of creation, because God has always been love.
One might plausibly argue that Isaac’s entire theological system is an elaboration of a celebrated proclamation by John the Evangelist (1 John 4:16-18):
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”
If God is love, and if God is unchanging, then there is simply no room in Him for anger, wrath, or retribution. Such characteristics, in addition to contradicting the identification of God with love, also ascribe to God a false perception of mutability, as if God is merely one psychological subjectivity among many others, prone to surprises and mood swings. The passages of the Hebrew Bible that portray God as bellicose and irascible must, in Isaac’s view, be read figuratively, with the knowledge that God never acts maliciously or passionately, but cares for all creatures as their Father, capaciously forgiving the transgressions that might separate human beings from Him and from one another, and patiently working to restore them to Himself; never by force, but only by revealing Himself and growing within us a knowledge and spiritual discernment that will allow us to recognize and devote ourselves to Him as the supreme good.
Indeed, according to Isaac, we cannot ultimately say even that God is just; because God’s love, manifesting itself in His infinite mercy, completely overshadows justice, which can never escape the bonds of relativity and contingency. Justice is worldly and instrumental; mercy is godly and gratuitous:
“Mercy is opposed to justice. Justice is equality on the even scale, for it gives to each as he deserves. . . . Mercy, on the other hand, is a sorrow and pity stirred up by goodness . . . ; it does not requite a man who is deserving of evil, and to him who is deserving of good it gives a double portion. If, therefore, it is evident that mercy belongs to the portion of righteousness, then justice belongs to the portion of wickedness. As grass and fire cannot coexist in one place, so justice and mercy cannot abide in one soul.”
The lawless mercy of God is demonstrated most profoundly by the Incarnation itself:
“Where, then, is God’s justice, for while we are sinners Christ died for us?”
Thus, to become godlike is to acquire a merciful heart, and to inculcate in oneself a perfect and equitable love for all of creation:
“And what is a merciful heart? It is the heart burning for the sake of all creation, for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and for every created thing; and by the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful man pour forth abundant tears. By the strong and vehement mercy which grips his heart and by his great compassion, his heart is humbled and he cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in creation. For this reason he offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner he even prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in his heart in the likeness of God.”
Saint Isaac, who spent most of his life as a monk, placed a great emphasis on solitariness, stillness, and silence. The Syriac word for a solitary monk, ihidaya, was also used more broadly to describe the inner unity of a man within himself, as well as his union with God. The term was used to describe Adam as having been made in the image of God, and it was the first title given to Christ in the Syriac New Testament, translating the Greek monogenes, or “Only-Begotten”. The ihidaya, the seeker of theosis, was for Isaac the solitary ascetic who distanced himself from society to grow closer to God. “Love all men,” he says in one maxim, “but keep distant from all men.”
But this withdrawal from society does not preclude one from fulfilling the commandment to love one’s neighbor. In fact, it facilitates it by creating a longing that can only grow through absence:
“Do you wish to acquire in your soul the love of your neighbor according to the commandment of the Gospel? Separate yourself from him, and then the heat and flame of love for him will burn in you and you will rejoice at the sight of his countenance as though you beheld an angel of light. And do you wish that those who love you should thirst for you? See their faces on fixed days only. Truly, experience is the teacher of all.”
As we grow spiritually, God will allow temptations to come upon us for the purpose of drawing us closer to Him. In one evocative passage, Isaac uses the analogy of a pearl diver to describe the trials we must necessarily undergo to receive “pearls” of wisdom and sanctification:
“If the diver found a pearl in every oyster, then everyone would quickly become rich! And if he brought one up the moment he dove, without waves beating against him, without any sharks encountering him, without having to hold his breath until he nearly expires, without being deprived of the clear air granted to everyone and having to descend to the abyss—if all this were the case, pearls would come thicker and faster than lightning flashes!”
He also insisted that the more progress we make, the greater the temptations we will face. We should therefore be encouraged, rather than disheartened, by new trials:
“As long as you are journeying in the way to the city of the kingdom and are drawing near the city of God, let this be for you a signpost: the strength of the temptations you encounter. The nearer you draw and progress, the more temptations multiply against you.”
Among the greatest “pearls” that we receive from the steadfast endurance of these temptations is humility: a supernatural charism that grants us a profound likeness to God and benefits our souls even more than the performance of righteous deeds, giving us power over nature, animals, and even demons:
“Humility is the raiment of the Godhead. The Word who became human clothed himself in it, and he spoke to us in our body. Everyone who has been clothed with humility has truly been made like unto Him who came down from his own exaltedness and hid the splendour of his majesty and concealed his glory with humility, lest creation be utterly consumed by the contemplation of Him.”
“Wherefore every man has put on Christ when he is clothed with the raiment wherein the Creator was seen through the body that he put on. For the likeness in which he was seen by his own creation and in which he kept company with it, he willed to put on in his inner man, and to be seen therein by his fellow-servants.”
“Humility, even without works, gains forgiveness for many offenses; but without her, works are of no profit to us and instead prepare for us great evils.”
“The humble man approaches ravening beasts, and when their gaze rests upon him, their wildness is tamed. They come up to him as to their master, wag their heads and tails and lick his hands and feet, for they smell coming from him that same scent that exhaled from Adam before the fall, when they were gathered before him and he gave them names in Paradise. . . . Even the demons with their fierceness, their hostility, and all their boastful thinking, become like dust as soon as they come before him. All their wickedness becomes folly, and their stratagems are undone, and their wiles and pernicious cunning are rendered powerless.”
According to Isaac, prayer should always be personal and heartfelt, even if the words of our prayers are taken from the Psalms, and he advises us to incorporate physical acts of devotion into our prayer. He seems to have been personally fond of praying while on one’s knees, with one’s hands outstretched towards the cross, because this posture inculcates feelings of compulsion and longing. Steadfast prayer leads to “luminous meditation” or pure prayer, a rarefied intellectual reflection on the life of God, which in turn leads to “wonder”, a mystical state in which the mind is entirely captivated by God.
I leave off with a series of lengthy quotes in which Isaac demonstrates his unmistakably universalist eschatology:
“I am of the opinion that[God] is going to manifest some wonderful outcome, a matter of immense and ineffable compassion on the part of the glorious Creator, with respect to the ordering of this difficult matter of gehenna’s torment: out of it the wealth of his love and power and wisdom will become known all the more—and so will the insistent might of the waves of his goodness. 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. All the more since the foreplanning of evil and the taking of vengeance are characteristic of the passions of created beings, and do not belong to the Creator. For all this characterizes people who do not know or who are unaware of what the are doing . . . Such action does not belong to the Creator who, even before the cycle of the depiction of creation has been portrayed, knew of all that was before and all that was after in connection with the actions and intentions of rational beings.”
“It is clear that [God] does not abandon them the moment they fall, and that demons will not remain in their demonic state, and sinners will not remain in their sins; rather, he is going to bring them to a single equal state of perfection in relationship to his own Being—to a state in which the holy angels now are, in perfection of love and a passionless mind. He is going to bring them into that excellency of will where it will be not as though they were curbed and not free or having stirrings from the Opponent then; rather, they will be in a state of excelling knowledge, with a mind made mature in the stirrings which partake of the divine outpouring which the blessed Creator is preparing in his grace; they will be perfected in love for him, with a perfect mind which is above any aberration in all its stirrings.”
“Maybe they will be raised to a perfection even greater than that in which the angels now exist; for all are going to exist in a single love, a single purpose, a single will, and a single perfect state of knowledge; they will gaze towards God with the desire of insatiable love, even if some divine dispensation may in the meantime be effected for reasons known to God alone, lasting for a fixed period, decreed by him in accordance with the will of his wisdom.”
“No part belonging to any single one of all rational beings will be lost, so far as God is concerned, in the preparation of that supernal kingdom which is prepared for all worlds. Because of the goodness of his nature by which he brought the universe into being and then bears, guides, and provides for the worlds and all created things in his immeasurable compassion, he has devised the establishment of the kingdom of heaven for the entire community of rational beings—even though an intervening time is reserved for the general raising of all beings to the same level. And we say this so that we too may concur with the magisterial teaching of Scripture. Nevertheless Gehenna is grievous, even if it is thus limited in its extent: who can possibly bear it? For this reason the angels in heaven rejoice at a single sinner who repents.”
“By the device of grace the majority of humankind will enter the kingdom of heaven without the experience of gehenna. But this is apart from those who, because of their hardness of heart and utter abandonment to wickedness and the lusts, fail to show remorse in suffering for their faults and their sins, and because these people have not been disciplined at all. For God’s holy nature is so good and so compassionate that it is always seeking to find some small means of putting us in the right: how he can forgive human beings their sins—like the case of the tax collector who was put in the right by the intensity of his prayer or like the case of a woman with two small coins or the man who received forgiveness on the cross. For God wishes our salvation, and not reasons to torment us.”
November 3, 2019
The structure of the book seemed like it should have been in reverse. Much of the last chapter was illuminating on the rest of the book, and I wished I had read it first. Still, the explanation of St. Isaac’s idea of God and salvation and his concept of how to pray to get there is interesting and bought provoking, particularly the idea that punishment for sin is not retribution but a get one closer to God. Much of his ideas of how to pray also seem to overlap with meditation and the idea of stilling the mind to be able to hear God.
It’s worth reading whether one is a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church or not, although there is a lot of academic analysis of Orthodox theology that might put off someone who is not used to it
It’s worth reading whether one is a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church or not, although there is a lot of academic analysis of Orthodox theology that might put off someone who is not used to it
May 9, 2023
Every Christian should read this book. I don't care what denomination you are, St. Isaac's writings are profound and will speak to every person's soul. He had a special relationship with God and I pray to reach even a fraction of the divine and luminous love he held for humanity. Excited that I finished this excellent book and want to get the book filled with his ascetical writings. Love it!!
December 18, 2020
Helps us to deepen our understanding of Christianity
May 18, 2022
Very filling and and good Eastern Orthodox perspective of the saint
August 18, 2022
Excellent overview of the main ascetical, spiritual, and theological ideas and practices of St Isaac the Syrian
July 5, 2024
St. Isaac's focus on the love of God and love for God is scriptural. It is an expansion of 1 Corinthians 13. His unabridged ascetic writings are very strong meat; monastic asceticism is like climbing Mt. Everest. It can be very discouraging. But Metropolitan Hilarion, while providing extensive quotes, presents a commentary very digestible for a fully committed Christian, unless this Christian is reactive against traditional Christianity. As to all being eventually saved, once one grasps the reality of the concept of everlasting torment and reads a presentation of the concept fiery restoration, it can be difficult to dismiss the possibility of it. Some, of course, fully embrace it, but in my view, judgment belongs to God alone. If one has departed loved ones who were not fully committed Christians, how could one dismiss the possibility if Saints like St. Isaac and St. Gregory of Nyssa teach it?
August 12, 2011
This was a very good commentary on the original source material. The original quotes, translated by the author into English from both common and rare sources, make up at least a third of the book, yet are presented topically to present the religious and world view of St. Isaac of Syria as the title suggests. It also has a thought provoking introduction by Bishop Kallistos Ware about the life and importance of the great Orthodox Saint.
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