ISAAC OF NINEVEH, “The Syrian”

ISAAC OF NINEVEH, “The Syrian” (?-ca. 700). A Christian of the Nestorian Church (or Church of the East), Isaac was a native of Qatar in the Persian Gulf, born sometime in the early 7th c. Appointed Bishop of Nineveh around 676, he resigned his episcopate within a short time and spent his remaining years as a hermit in the mountains of present-day southern Iraq and Iran. Some eighty Discourses on the spiritual life, which he wrote in his old age, were translated from Syriac into Greek at the monastery of Mar Sabba in Palestine in the 8th c. or 9th c. From there they spread throughout the Orthodox world and into the West. They continue to be read and cherished, particularly by the monks. Recent discoveries of more manuscripts promise additions to his corpus in the near future.