Witness to God’s mercy: Conference of Br. Sabino Chialà on Isaac of Nineveh

Here is the third conference from the colloquium in Ghent. Please see my previous disclaimer concering the accuracy of my reporting and translations!

Brother Sabino Chialà is a monk of Bose monastery in Italy, the ecumenically orientated monastic community founded by Enzo Bianchi. He is responsible for the Italian translation of the third series (and parts of the first two series) of Saint Isaac’s homilies.

After Ephraim, Isaac of Nineveh, also known as Isaac the Syrian, is the most well known and best loved of the Syrian writers and his works have been translated into many languages. He has been known principally through his writings and his own history has remained rather vague, although there have been speculations that have identified him as a Coptic monk in Scetis, a Byzantine monk in Syria and a hermit in Italy! The vagueness was perhaps not entirely accidental, for it remains a paradox that such an influential spiritual writer, whose orthodoxy and holiness have been universally recognised, was in fact a member (and for a short time even a bishop) of a Church that the rest of the Christian world considered heretical.

Critical studies into Isaac’s work and background began towards the end of the nineteenth century with the work of J.B. Chabot. From such studies, it has become clear that Isaac was an East Syrian monk (and for some months a bishop) who was born in Bet Qatraye (present day Qatar) in the first half of the seventh century where he probably began his monastic life. The catholikos named him as bishop of Nineveh in the north of Mesopotamia, close to present day Mosul, between 676 and 680. After only some months he resigned as bishop and returned to his life as a hermit, this time in Bet Hazaye in what is today southwest Iran in or near the monastery of Rabban Shabur where he composed a number of homilies for his disciples. The date of his death is unknown but we are told that he died blind as a result of all his reading.

 

A sanctuary for your hiddenness

I give praise to your holy nature, Lord,
for you have made my nature
a sanctuary for your hiddenness
and a tabernacle for your Mysteries,
a place where you can dwell,
and a holy temple for your divinity.

Prayer of Isaac of Nineveh

(from a collection of thirty prayers)

The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life, Introduced and Translated by Sebastian Brock (Kalamazoo, Cistercian Publications, 1987) 350.

 

This source of wonder…

As my soul bows to the ground
I offer to you with all my bones
and with all my heart
the worship that befits you,
O glorious God who dwells in ineffable silence.
You have built for my renewal
a tabernacle of love on earth
where it is your good pleasure to rest,
a temple made of flesh
and fashioned with the most holy sanctuary oil.
Then you filled it with your holy presence
so that worship might be fulfilled in it,
indicating the worship
of the eternal persons of your Trinity
and revealing to the worlds which you had created in your grace
an ineffable mystery,
a power which cannot be felt or grasped
by any part of your creation that has come into being.
In wonder at it
angelic beings are submerged in silence,
awed at the dark cloud of this eternal mystery
and at the flood of glory
which issues from within this source of wonder,
for it receives worship
in the sphere of silence
from every intelligence that has been sanctified
and made worthy of you.

Prayer of Isaac of Nineveh

(from a collection of thirty prayers)

The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life, Introduced and Translated by Sebastian Brock (Kalamazoo, Cistercian Publications, 1987) 349.

 

For those who teach

[Amma Syncletica said] ‘It is dangerous for anyone to teach who has not first been trained in the “practical” life. For if someone who owns a ruined house receives guests there, he does them harm because of the dilapidation of his dwelling. It is the same in the case of someone who has not first built an interior dwelling; he causes loss to those who come. By words one may convert them to salvation, but by evil behaviour, one injures them.’

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers. The Alphabetical Collection, translated by Benedicta Ward, SLG, (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1975 [1984]) 233.

And, on a similar note,

If you wish to sow your seed among the destitute, sow from your own seed; for if you wish to sow from the seed of others, know that what you sow is the most bitter of tears.

Abba Nilos of Sinai, as quoted by Saint Isaac of Nineveh, The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, translated by the Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, 1984. 30.

 

What is a merciful heart?

Once an elder was asked, ‘What is repentance?’ And he replied, ‘Repentance is a contrite and humble heart.’ ‘And what is humility?’ ‘It is a twofold voluntary death to all things.’ ‘And what is a merciful heart?’ ‘It is the heart’s burning for the sake of the entire creation, for men, for birds, for animals, for demons, and for every created thing; and by the recollection and sight of them the eyes of the merciful man pour forth abundant tears. From the strong and vehement mercy which grips his heart and from 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.

The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian (I, 71), translated by the Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, 1984. 344-345.