Isaac of Nineveh

Isaac of Nineveh was a 7th-century Syriac Christian, born c.613 in eastern Arabia (Qatar), an area that spoke Arabic and Syrian. He was ordained Bishop of Nineveh in 676, but one record says he left that position not long after starting it. He is often referred to as Isaac the Syrian.The reason may simply have been the desire to live the life of an ascetic. We are told he retired to a mountain in a province of Iran, and then joined a monastery called Rabban Shapur where he concentrated his energy on writing on Christian mysticism. It is said that his devotion to study was so great that at the time of his death he was nearly blind. (Of course, eyes naturally age as we grow older, and the invention of eyeglasses was centuries away.)He wrote extensively on theology and asceticism. A later Syriac writer claimed that Isaac wrote seven volumes. They are discussed as three "Parts." The First Part was translated first into Greek and then into other languages. It is the best known of the…