On Ascetical Life (Popular Patristics Series)
Overview
Mary Hansbury offers a fresh presentation of On Ascetical Life by Isaac of Nineveh, whose monastic anthropology had a major influence on all of Byzantine spiritual literature. According to St. Isaac, the way toward God was threefold: the way of the body, the way of the soul, and the way of the spirit. In the first stage, the person begins with a total preoccupation with the passions and moves toward God by means of bodily works: fasting, vigils, and psalmody. The next stage involves a struggle against thoughts foreign to the nature of the soul, turning from created objects to the contemplation of God’s wisdom and a transformation within. And as the person arrives at a total openness of the soul to the future hope, he or she proceeds to the final stage of unified knowledge—an attitude of wonder and praise in continual prayer to God, leading to the freedom of immortal life given after the resurrection.
Top Highlights
“Evagrius shaped the basic concepts of ascetic vocabulary for all East Syrian writers, including St Isaac: hesychia; praktike; logismoi and classification of thoughts into eight groups; passions and apatheia; gnosis; theoria. The development of this vocabulary was a significant doctrinal addition to spirituality in general, and to the East Syrian tradition in particular. St Isaac is incomprehensible without a basic understanding of Evagrius.” (Page 17)
“Do you desire to have communion with God in your mind by receiving the perception of that delight which is not subject to the senses? Cleave to mercy. For if [mercy] is found within you, it is formed by that holy beauty which it resembles. All acts of mercy will make the soul a partaker without delay, in the unique glory of the divine rank.” (Page 31)
“No one is able to draw near to God without leaving the world far behind. By leaving the world I do not mean departing from the body but rather leaving bodily affairs behind.” (Page 26)
“For when the heart serves the senses it is distracted from the sweetness which is in God.” (Page 27)
“Be at peace with your soul and heaven and earth will be at peace with you. Endeavor to enter the treasury within you and you will see that treasury which is in heaven. The former and the latter are one and through a single entrance you will see both of them. The ladder of that kingdom is hidden within you, within your soul. Dive away from sin into yourself and there you will find the steps by which you may ascend.” (Page 34)
- Title: On Ascetical Life
- Author: Isaac of Nineveh
- Series: Popular Patristics Series
- Volume: 11
- Publisher: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press
- Print Publication Date: 1989
- Logos Release Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Asceticism › Early works to 1800; Mysticism › Early works to 1800; Nestorian Church › Doctrines; Orthodox Eastern Church › Doctrines
- ISBNs: 9780881410778, 0881410772
- Resource ID: LLS:SCTCLLFSTSCNNVH
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T20:50:51Z