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Isaac of Nineveh

Late Patristic · AD 500–800 · 63 passages across 26 books

Commentary

1–20 of 63
1 Corinthians 2:9

But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

When it says “which eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard” and the rest, Scripture has declared to us that the good things to come are incomprehensible and have no similarity to any thing here.

ASCETICAL HOMILIES 2

1 Corinthians 3:18

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.

Those who are tiny of body and those who, being wise in the world, abandon their knowledge and … become like babes of their own free will, will learn a wisdom which is not learned through study’s labors.

ASCETICAL HOMILIES 72

1 Corinthians 15:50

Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

By “incorruption” he means the knowledge of that other world, and by “corruption” and “flesh and blood” he designates the corrupting passions of both the soul and the body, the realm of whose motions is in the “mind of the flesh.” … And by the “kingdom of God” he means the lofty, noetic theoria of the blessed intuitions of that eternal effulgence, into which the holy soul is permitted to enter only by means of the incorruptible intuitions that are exalted above corruption, flesh and blood.

ASCETICAL HOMILIES 5

1 John 4:8

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

“God is love.” Wherefore, the man who lives in love reaps the fruit of life from God, and while yet in this world, he even now breathes the air of the resurrection.

ASCETICAL HOMILIES 46

1 Kings 3:9

Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?

Do not be foolish in the request you make to God, otherwise you will insult God through your ignorance. Act wisely in prayer so that you may become worthy of glorious things. Ask for things that are honorable from him who will not hold back so that you may receive honor from him as a result of the wise choice your free will has made. Solomon asked for wisdom—and along with it he also received the earthly kingdom, for he knew how to ask wisely of the heavenly King, that is, for things that are important.

DISCOURSE 3

1 Samuel 3:13

For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.

For what reason did wrath and death come upon the house of the priest Eli, the righteous elder who was eminent for forty years in his priesthood? Was it not because of the iniquity of his sons [Hophni] and [Phinehas]? For neither did he sin, nor did they with his assent, but it was because he did not have the zeal to demand from them the Lord’s vindication and he loved them more than the statutes of the Lord. Lest someone surmise that the Lord manifests His wrath only upon those who pass all the days of their life in iniquities, behold how for this unseemly sin He manifests His zeal against His genuine servants, against priests, judges, rulers, men consecrated to Him, to whom He entrusted the working of miracles, and He in no wise overlooks their transgression of His statutes.

ASCETICAL HOMILIES 10

1 Thessalonians 5:4

But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

Now if the good God sees that a man’s heart has not inclined to any of these things as David said, indicating the same, “You have tested my heart, You have visited it in the night, You have tried me by fire, and unrighteousness was not found in me,” then God will help him and deliver him. Why does he say “in the night” and not “in the day”? Because the enemy’s deceptions are a night, as Paul also said, “We are not children of the night but children of the day,” since the Son of God is the Day, but Satan is night.

The First Syriac Epistle of Saint Makarios of Egypt 7

1 Timothy 1:16

Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.

We bring to mind how the holy apostle Paul recounts his transgressions and puts his soul in the last and nethermost place, saying, “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” … When and at what time did he say this? After great struggles, after mighty works, after the preaching of the gospel of Christ which he proclaimed throughout the whole world, after continual deaths and manifold tribulations which he suffered from the Jews and from the heathen. Even then he saw himself as only making a beginning. He was of the opinion not merely that he had not yet attained to purity of soul but that he would not even number himself among the disciples of Christ, as was fitting.

AN EPISTLE TO ABBA SYMEON OF CAESAREA

1 Timothy 2:5

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;

May attention to the economy of God which ministered to those of former times be reckoned by you as precious medicine for weak eyes. Let the memory of it stay with you at all times of the day. Meditate, apply your mind, and learn wisdom from it, that you may be able to receive into your soul with honor the memory of the greatness of God and find eternal life for yourself in Christ Jesus, the Mediator between God and mankind and the Uniter in his two natures.

ASCETICAL HOMILIES 3

1 Timothy 6:11

But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.

Strive to discover stirrings that are good during the time of prayer, as the wise do. These consist in reflection on the Spirit’s insights and sagacious thought, and consideration during the time of prayer of how to please the will of the Maker of all. This is the final end of all virtue and of all prayer. When in these matters you receive the power that stems from grace to be bound firmly to their continual stirrings, you will become a “man of God” and will be close to spiritual things.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR MONKS, SECOND PART

2 Corinthians 1:5

For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.

Now by “consolation” he means theoria, which, being interpreted, is vision of soul. Vision gives birth to consolation.

ASCETICAL HOMILIES 74

2 Corinthians 3:18

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Although “as in a mirror” indicates “not substantially,” it does show clearly, in any case, the acquisition of a likeness.

ASCETICAL HOMILIES 2

2 Corinthians 4:6

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

When the apostle said, “God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, has shined in our hearts,” he referred to the resurrection. He showed this resurrection to be the exodus from the old state which in the likeness of Sheol incarcerates a person where the light of the gospel will not shine mystically upon him. This breath of life shines through hope in the resurrection. By it the dawning of divine wisdom shines in the heart, so that a person should become new, having nothing of the old.

ASCETICAL HOMILIES 37

2 Corinthians 12:4

How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

All that is heard by the ears can be spoken. He did not hear audible sounds, nor did he see a vision composed of the corporeal images of sense perception, but it was by the intuitions of the understanding, being in rapture, while his will had no fellowship with the body.

ASCETICAL HOMILIES 4

2 Samuel 12:10-12

Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.

And David, who was a man after God’s own heart, who because of his virtues was found worthy to generate from his seed the promise of the Fathers, and to have Christ shine forth from himself for the salvation of all the world, was he not punished because of adultery with a woman, when he held her beauty with his eyes and was pierced in his soul by that arrow? For it was because of this that God raised up a war against him from within his own household, and he who came forth from his loins pursued him. These things befell him even after he had repented with many tears, such that he moistened his couch with his weeping, and after God had said to him through the prophet, “The Lord hath forgiven thy sin.”

ASCETICAL HOMILIES 10

2 Timothy 3:12

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

And the blessed Mark the Monk has said, “Every virtue on being achieved is called a cross, when it fulfills the Spirit’s commandment.” That is why all those who wish in the fear of the Lord to live in Jesus Christ will suffer persecution.

HOMILIES 72

Colossians 1:5

For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel;

Bodily discipline performed in stillness purifies the body of the matter within it. But the discipline of the mind humbles the soul, filters out her crass notions of things that perish and draws her from the state where the thoughts are passionately engrossed and toward the state where they are moved by her divine vision…. This divine, contemplative vision of heavenly things comes to us precisely when, engaged in bodily and mental discipline, we are the recipients of an unutterably pristine glory that separates [us] from this world and our thoughts of it. By this we are thoroughly convinced of our hope which is laid up for us and we stand in full assurance of its state.

Colossians 3:1

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

What is the resurrection of the soul, of which the apostle speaks, saying, “If then you have been raised with Christ”? When the apostle said, “God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined into our hearts,” he showed this resurrection to be the exodus from the old state which in the likeness of Sheol incarcerates a man so that the light of the gospel will not shine mystically upon him. This is a breath of life through hope in the resurrection, and by it the dawning of divine wisdom shines in his heart, so that a man should become new, having nothing of the old man. Then the image of Christ is formed in us through the Spirit of wisdom and revelation of the knowledge of him.

Daniel 4:13

I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and, behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven;

One who passes the night with thought of him makes of God a housemate; and one who earnestly desires the will of God will find the watchers on high to be his teachers.

ON ASCETICAL LIFE 5:14

Daniel 5:2-3

Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein.

[God] showed that His true servants and friends are those who walk before Him in fear and reverence and do His will, since virtuous deeds and purity of conscience are things holy [and beloved] of God. But when people repudiate His paths, the Lord repudiates them, casts them away from His face and takes from them His grace. For why was the sentence against Baltasar issued so swiftly and why did it strike him down, as it were, by the form of a hand? Was it not because he acted with audacity toward the untouchable vessels of offering he seized from Jerusalem, drinking out of them, both he and his concubines? In the same manner, those who have consecrated their members to God but are so audacious as to use them once more for worldly deeds, the same perish, being smitten by an invisible blow.

ASCETICAL HOMILIES 10

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