logo

Suche:

II

ISAAC S AGE AND PERSON

It is only of late that Isaac’s age has been fixed with approximate certainty. In Syriac Mss. he is sometimes confounded with Isaac of Antioch, and when it became clear that our author belonged to a different period, it was not at first easy to give precise dates. Two Syriac texts which were edited by Chabot and Rahman! each contain a short biography of Isaac. It may be worth while to give a translation of both of them.

On the holy Mar Isaac, bishop of Ninive, who resigned his episcopal office and wrote books on the behaviour of solitaries.

He was ordained a bishop of Ninive by Mar George the Katholikos, in the monastery of Bet cAbeT). After he had held the pastoral staff at Ninive for five months, as the successor of bishop Moses, he resigned his episcopal office, for a reason which God knows, and went away to live in the mountains. And after the chair had been vacant for this time, the blessed Sabr Ishoc was ordained as his successor, who also left his episcopal office and became an anchorite in the days of Hanan Ishoc the Katholikos, and departed this world in the monastery of Mar Shehln in Kurdistan.

When Isaac left the chair of Ninive, he ascended the mountain of Matut which surrounds Bet Huzaje and lived in solitude among the anchorites who were there.

Afterwards he went to the monastery of Rabban Shabur and became exceedingly well acquainted with the divine writings; at last he lost his eyesight through his reading and asceticism. He penetrated deeply into the divine mysteries and wrote books on the divine behaviour of solitaries. He said three things which were not accepted by the community. Daniel, the bishop of Bet Garmaia, was scandalized at him on account of these things which he said. In high age he departed this temporary life; his corpse was interred in the monastery of Shabur. He was born in Bet Katraye; I think that envy was aroused against him by people of the country even as it was against Joseph Hazzaya and John of Apamea and John de Daliyateh. –

This biography is taken from the Ketaba de Nakfuta 2).

The following biography occurs in Rahmani’s Studia Syriaca 3).

This Mar Isaac of Ninive was born in Bet Katraye beneath India. When he had become excercised in the writings of the Church and their commentaries he became a monk and a teacher in his country. And when Mar George the Katholikos went to his own country, he took Isaac with him to Bet Ara–maye, because he was a relative of Mar Gabriel Katraya, the

i) Cf. Hoffmann, Auszuge, p. 226

2} ed. Chabot in Melanges d’archeologie et d’histoire, XVIe ann£e 1896 (Ecole frangnise tie Rome), p. 63. 2) I, p. –^A •

commentator of the church. Mar Isaac was ordained a bishop of Ninive in the monastery of Bet cAbe. But because of his keen mind and his zeal, he could endure the pastoral function for five months only. Then he returned to his solitude, after he had asked the permission of Papa, who dismissed him and ordered him to go and live in solitude in the Mountain of Bet Huzaye with the monks who dwelt there. At last he became blind, so that the brethren wrote down his doctrine. They gave him the surname of the second Didymus, because he was placid and kind and humble, and his speech was meek. He ate only three loafs of bread a week, with small vegetables; he never tasted what was cooked. He wrote five volumes which are extant till now [full of) sweet doctrine. This is attested by Mar Jozadak in the letter which he wrote to his pupil Bushir, to the monastery of Mar Shabur, saying: I thank the Lord because of your diligence which has sent me the doctrine of Mar Isaac of Ninive. I know that you have acquired in your life the keys of the kingdom, because you have filled our monastery with doctrine full of life. For we confess that we are pupils of Mar Isaac the bishop of Ninive. – So he writes in his letter. And in the end he says, even as John the Bishop: the writings of Mar Isaac have been of great support and strengthening power to me. – When he had grown old and had reached a high age, he departed unto our Lord. And he was buried in the monastery of Mar Shabur. –

On account of these notices, we may state that Isaac became bishop in the second half of the seventh century.

Isaac’s work on mystical life shows us a man who must have felt himself unhappy on the episcopal chair, we are only amazed at the fact that he let himself be ordained and kept his office for five months. Assemani has printed from the Arabic translation of Isaac’s works *) a story pretending to give the clue to Isaac’s abdication. It has, however, the value of an anecdote only.

Isaac’s episcopate and his abdication are confirmed by a passage in the present text (Bedjan, p. 248 sq.). It occurs in the long treatise n°. 35 which has the form of a dialogue between a master and his pupil who asks questions. Isaac very seldom speaks plainly about himself; he usually imitates

I) Bibliotheca Orientalis^ I, 444

the way in which St. Paul once speaks about his own experiences: I know a man who etc.

On p. 248 he: tells something about one of the saints. Then he continues: [Another witness to this is] he who etc. Then he tells how this latter felt divine care as long as he was in the desert, but lost it when he was in the inhabited world. Then he asked God, saying: Perhaps, my Lord, Grace has been withdrawn from me on account of my episcopal rank? It was said to him: No.

A similar allusion seems to occur on p p. 553: Some of them [viz. the solitaries] were sustained by a bird. Behold, these last sixty years I have received the half of my bread from a such a bird. Others are sustained by some tree or a palm in a supernatural way, as one of them has said, viz. the bishop who repented in the desert. I am now in this desert nine and forty years. God has granted me life through this palm. –

Further we learn from the present text, that he had a brother, who had likewise devoted himself to solitary life, for he calls him his natural and spiritual brother in the letter which occurs in the present text as n°. 42 of the treatises. The contents of this letter show us Isaac in full. His brother was ill, apparently very ill, and had asked him to come and visit him. But Isaac had his stern ideas on the point of intercourse, which are found throughout his work. So he refused to go. Now it seems that he also makes an allusion to this refusal in a later passage, an allusion which is clad in the same dress as those we have cited above. On p. 312 he says: We know another of the saints whose natural brother was ill. He lived as a recluse in a different cell. During the whole period of his brother’s sickness he restrained his mercy, so that he did not go out the visit him. When the sick man was on the point of departing from this world, he sent his brother a message to this effect: Come, that I may see thee before I depart the world, even if it be in the night. Then I will take leave from thee and go to rest. The blessed one, however, was not to be persuaded even at this time, when natural mercy usually is stirred, to transgress the voluntary barriers, saying: If I go out, my heart will not be pure before God; for I despise visiting spiritual brethren; should I then honour nature above Christ? – So his brother died, without his having seen him. Similarly, on p. 178, he says: I know a brother who put the key in the door of his cell in order to shut it, for he was going out in order to idle things as Scripture says. And there Grace visited him, so that he returned immediately.

This sounds also as a personal experience. Very clearly the personal character peeps through the impersonal form in a passage, occurring on p. 492: Now I know one .who even during his sleep was overwhelmed by ecstasy in God through the contemplation of something which he had read in the evening. And while his soul was amazed at this contemplative meditation, he perceived as it were that he had meditated for long in the motion of sleep, and examined the ecstatic vision. It was in the depth of the night, and suddenly he awoke from his sleep while his tears dropped as water and fell upon his breastl); and his mouth was full of glorification etc.

This passage brings us to Isaac as a mystic. Several times he speaks of his experiences. Page 430: My beloved ones, because I was foolish, I could not bear to guard the secret in silence, but am become mad for the sake of my brethren’s profit. For true love is not able to cling to the cause of love, apart from friends. Often when I was writing these things, my fingers paused on the pamper. They could not bear the delight that had fallen into the heart and which made the senses silent.

In the wonderful chapter on the varying states of light and darkness (n°. 48) he speaks about the despair which sometimes overwhelms the solitary. If he did not say that he is speaking on account of experience yet every reader would feel it from his very words. But he speaks plainly: If thou possesses! no power to dominate thy soul and to fall upon thy face in prayer, envelop thy head in thy mantle and lie down till the hour of darkness has passed away from thee. Leave not, however, thy cell. By this temptation are tried especially those who are willing to walk in mental discipline and who in their course are running toward the consolation which comes from faith.

All these things we have experienced many times and recorded to the consolation of many.

In the beginning of chapter 24 he does not expressly say that he speaks from his own experience, but the passage is personal enough in its tenour: It occurs many times in a day, that a brother, even if thou shouldst give him the kingdom

i) It is to be remembered that Isaak used to sleep sitting.

of the world, would not consent at that hour to leave his cell or to [allow] any one to visit him. For the time of commerce has presented itself, of a sudden. Such things happen on days such as are considered as days of relaxation. Often on such days and even on those wherein he has intercourse with others, grace of a sudden will visit him, in tears without measure, or a vivid affection moving the heart, or a certain gladness without cause, or the delight of kneelings.

There are many passages in the book, which breathe an equally personal spirit. The reader will find them himself. Here attention is to be drawn to a different kind of utterances, which disclose their personal character. At the end of the chapter on tears (n° 14) he says: This I have written to the profit of myself and of everyone who comes across this book, being that which I have attained by contemplation of the scriptures and from the mouth of veracious men (and to a small part by experience).

Still more strongly he utters himself in another passage (p. 164): In His bounty He has opened our blind heart to understand, by the contemplation of the scriptures and the instruction of the great Fathers, even although I have not been deemed worthy of experiencing for personal zeal one thousandth of what I have written with my hands, especially in this tract which we have ventured to write for the illumination and exhortation of our soul and of those who come across it. – Such utterances do not stand by themselves in mystical literature. On the one hand it is well known that the mystics in general are dependant on congenial spirits, in their writings as well as in their experiences. On the other hand nearly all of them confess, that their own time is void of the highest mystic experience and that they themselves are longing to reach what their predecessors seem to have reached. Bar Hebraeus, after having written three books on mysticism, confesses that his sun is still in the sign of Capricorn and that he prays for more light1).

This feature Isaac has in common with most of the mystics, as also his aversion to dogmatic disputes. Page 48 he warns against reading books which accentuate the differences between the confessions, with the aim of causing schisms, which provides the spirit of slander with a mighty weapon against the soul.

This is, generally speaking, the attitude of the mystics in Western Asia. It is as if they felt that they belonged to one common type; moreover, dogmatics, which are the great causes of dessension, do not interest them; they think of how they may ascend unto the One and All; what are dogmatic subtleties to this flight of the mind? Bar Hebraeus has very plainly spoken his ideas on this point and Abd al–Kadir al–Djilanl even estimated the differences between Islam, Christianity and Judaism as being of no real importance ]).

Isaac combines his aversion to confessional differences with a beautiful love of mankind. ,Deem all men worthy of bounty on thy part. Especially because thou incites! them unto truth thereby. The soul can easily be drawn by corporeal things to the thought of the fear of God. Also our Lord shared his table with publicans and harlots, without making any distinction between those who were worthy and those who were not

Therefore, deem all people worthy of bounty and honour, be they Jews or miscreants or murderers’ 3).

With such utterances may be compared the beautiful passages concerning the mystic love of mankind and the whole creation (p. 507, 508,. 510, 570).

This much may be sufficient concerning Isaac’s person and character; the real man is in his book.