The Spiritual World Of Isaac The Syrian by Hilarion Alfeyev

Author:Hilarion Alfeyev [Alfeyev, Hilarion]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-87907-724-2
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Published: 2008-05-05T04:00:00+00:00

4. READING

Another important practice was the prayerful recitation, or ‘reading’ (qeryana), which is often mentioned or described by Isaac. This term refers primarily, though not exclusively, to the reading of Scripture. For Isaac, as for the whole of ancient monastic tradition, the reading of Scripture is not so much study of the biblical text with a cognitive aim as converse, encounter, revelation: the text of the Bible is a means by which we can directly experience converse with God, a mystical encounter which bestows insights into the depths of the divine reality.

Isaac speaks of reading Scripture as the chief means of a spiritual transformation that is accompanied by a rejection of sinful life:

The beginning of the path of life is continually to exercise the intellect in the words of God, and to live in poverty. … There is nothing so capable of banishing the inherent tendencies of licentiousness from our soul, and of driving away those active memories which rebel in our flesh and produce a turbulent flame, as to immerse oneself in the fervent love of instruction, and to search closely into the depth of the insights of divine Scriptures. When a man’s thoughts are totally immersed in the delight of pursuing the wisdom treasured in the words of Scripture by means of the faculty that gains enlightenment from them, then he puts the world behind his back and forgets everything in it. … Often he does not even remember the employment of the habitual thoughts which visit human nature, and his soul remains in ecstasy by reason of those new encounters that arise from the sea of the Scripture’s mysteries.93

Scripture and patristic literature are the two kinds of reading recommended by Isaac:

We should consider the labour of reading to be something extremely elevated; its importance cannot be exaggerated. For it serves as the gate by which the intellect enters into the divine mysteries and takes strength for attaining luminosity in prayer: it bathes with enjoyment as it wanders over the acts of God’s dispensation which have taken place for the benefit of humanity. … From these acts prayer is illumined and strengthened—whether it be that they are taken from the spiritual Scriptures, or from things written by the great teachers in the Church on the topic of the divine dispensation; or among those who teach the mysteries of the ascetic life. These two kinds of reading are useful for the man of the spirit. … Without reading the intellect has no means of drawing near to God: Scripture draws the mind up and sets it at every moment in the direction of God; it baptizes it from this corporeal world with its insights and causes it to be above the body continually. There is no other toil by which someone can make better progress. Provided that person is reading Scripture for the sake of the truth, these are the sorts of things he will discover from it.94

Reading Scripture and the Fathers—as well as the lives of the saints—is, like prayer, conversation with God.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.