Valentin Cosmin Vesa: World and Body in the Writings of Isaac of Nineveh. Asceticism and communication

Isaac of Nineveh, one of the most important Syriac authors, develops in his discourses a kind of „guide” of ascetical-mystical life that brings together the two essential anthropological themes – body and world. During time, these two concepts underwent through difficult relations, from a gnostic extreme to an anthropocentric perspective. Nowadays this relation gets a plus of interest in the context of practice, adding also a religious connotation. In this frame, asceticism created a specific perspective during time of this relation, and nowadays may also bring a specific attitude towards life, in general, a specific response to social, political and physical problems. Isaac of Nineveh is an „expert” on ascetical life, with its both connotations – negative (as self-denial and renunciation), considered as formative, and positive, in terms of freedom, beauty and joy, described as functional, as attaining a spiritual higher state. The first part of this paper will focus on the definition of asceticism, and the most important technical terms colligated to it, as Isaac refers to, and the second section will be dedicated to the ascetic forms and technics, as a possible response to the social and existential problems – the functionality and the scope of ascetical life in the process of transforming the world. This will enable us to get a world view, a personal way to interpret the world, the life, the other and the self. This last goal reveals the possible role of asceticism in the nowadays society, having as source Isaac’s discourses.

Vesa Valentin Cosmin: The divine vision in Isaac of Niniveh and the East Syriac Christology

One of the most important themes in Isaac of Niniveh's discourses is the concept of divine vision. His ascetic endeavor aims to experiencing the presence of God, described as theoria (stupor), vision, or perception. So that to picture this process Isaac makes an interesting synthesis between Evagrius, Theodore of Mopsuestia and John the Solitary (eventually also Pseudo Macarius). The concept of vision has been largely discussed in the context of the dyophisite Christology of the East Syriac of the 7-8th century. That specific theological context reveals various debates between, on one side, an academic theology (represented by the schools and, occasionally, by the higher clergy) and the monastic charismatic theology, on the other side, concentrated directly on the problem of spiritual vision in the frame of the official Christology of the time. The aim of this research points to identifying the relation between the spiritual theology of the East Syriac mystics and the scholastic academic theology in the East Syriac Church of that specific period.

Grigory Kessel: New Manuscript Evidence for the 'Second Part' of Isaac of Nineveh (7th c.)

In 1983 Sebastian Brock was fortunate enough to identify a Syriac manuscript in the Bodleian Library (syr. e. 7) as containing virtually complete text of the so-called Second Part of Isaac of Nineveh (the finding was first announced at the 9th Conference on Patristic Studies in the same year). In 1995 thanks to the efforts of the same scholar were published chapters 4-41 of the Second Part (chs. 1-3 remain till today unpublished) based, besides the Bodleian MS, on three manuscripts (at least in their original form) containing complete Second Part and on seven other that contain only selected chapters.

A study of the manuscript collections of the Middle East (for some of which there exist till today no description at all) as well as of those Syriac manuscripts in the European libraries that remain so far uncatalogued has yielded new manuscripts containing the text of the ‘Second Part’.

A paper will present newly found and identified witnesses for the ‘Second Part’ (of both East and West Syriac provenance), evaluate their significance and discuss the evidence they offer for further study of the manuscript transmission of the ‘Second Part’ of one of the most well-known Syriac authors.