Headings on Spiritual Knowledge

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(241 245 245 1); color: rgba(57 103 116 1)>St Isaac of Nineveh (7th c.) or Isaac the Syrian is renowned for his spiritual writings. After only five months as bishop of Nineveh he returned to a life of solitary stillness in the desert of modern-day Iran. His </span><em style=background-color: rgba(241 245 245 1); color: rgba(57 103 116 1)>Spiritual Homilies </em><span style=background-color: rgba(241 245 245 1); color: rgba(57 103 116 1)>(homilies 1-6 in PPS 11) quickly became treasured throughout the Christian world not only inspiring monastic and spiritual life through the ages but influencing culture more broadly as in the works of Dostoevsky.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(241 245 245 1); color: rgba(57 103 116 1)>Yet many of Isaac's works were lost for centuries. Scholars recently rediscovered the Second Part of his corpus in 1983. This volume translates the first three chapters of the Second Part whose third chapter contains the Kephalaia Gnostika (or </span><em style=background-color: rgba(241 245 245 1); color: rgba(57 103 116 1)>Headings on Spiritual Knowledge</em><span style=background-color: rgba(241 245 245 1); color: rgba(57 103 116 1)>). They appear here for the first time in a complete English translation. Inspired by Evagrius' work by the same name Isaac composed the Headings as four centuries-that is four sets of one hundred sayings or headings-on the spiritual life. These were written above the lines in various places seemingly as a commentary or expansion upon the Spiritual Homilies (the </span><em style=background-color: rgba(241 245 245 1); color: rgba(57 103 116 1)>First Part</em><span style=background-color: rgba(241 245 245 1); color: rgba(57 103 116 1)>). Isaac discloses the realities of prayer and spiritual experience from their beginning to their most sublime heights and profound depths.</span></p>