Knowledge and Experience in the Writings of St. Isaac of Nineveh

"One of the most popular monastic authors with a nearly universal spread over time is Isaac of Nineveh, a mystic of the late 7th century, who belonged to the East Syriac Church. This book is dedicated to the doctrine of knowledge, as described in Isaac of Nineveh’s discourses, in its double dimension, worldly/philosophical and theological (the former considered to be more discursive/intellectual and the latter intuitive/ experiential) and the rapport established between these two, prolonged in the concept of vision, as the highest form of spiritual experience. This book is dedicated to the doctrine of knowledge, as described in Isaac of Nineveh’s discourses, in its double dimension, worldly/philosophical and theological (the former considered to be more discursive/intellectual and the latter intuitive/ experiential) and the rapport established between these two, prolonged in the concept of vision, as the highest form of spiritual experience. The topic becomes even more interesting if one places it within the Christological development of the East Syriac theology in the Arab conquered territories of the 7th-8th centuries and the Messalian controversies revealed in different accusations of the Church authorities and academic theologians directed towards isolated monastic influent authors. One can identify different positions and, occasionally, three representative categories – the Church leaders, the academic theologians and the charismatic monastics. The main question refers to a possible existence of two opposite positions: theologians and Church authorities, on the one hand, and the charismatic monastics, on the other. A second thesis might be expressed as an opposition between a scholastic and a practical-mystical theology, professed occasionally by representatives of these three categories."--Publisher's website.