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Theology of Language and Liturgical Prayer in Isaac of Nineveh

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Theology of Language and Liturgical Prayer in Isaac of Nineveh Nestor Kavvadas Tübingen THEOLOGY OF LANGUAGE AND LITURGICAL PRAYER IN ISAAC OF NINEVEH In his extensive treatises dedicated to the hermit’s prayer Isaac of Nineveh refers in a number of cases to the validity and bearing of the Canon Law prescriptions regulating the liturgical order for the soli- tary. The OĜ ce of the Hours had been sanctioned by the 54th canon of the Pseudo-Nicene canons collection, which enjoyed a remarkable authority among East Syriac ascetics.1 A more precise defi nition of the number and order of the Psalms one had to recite was apparently at the disposal of the spiritual father of each brotherhood, or — in the case of hermits living in almost absolute isolation — of the solitary himself.2 Isaac stresses more than once his obedience to the liturgical order that Canon Law prescribed for the hermits: every monk is obliged to “unfailing observance of the seven OĜ ces, ordered for our chaste mode of life by the holy Church at the hands of the Fathers who were assembled by the S. A. Vööbus (ed.), The Canons Ascribed to M¬rĀt¬ of Maipherqa֠ and (1) Related Sources (CSCO Syr., 192) 82: “The service, moreover, shall be accomplished at seven times during the day: one in the morning, and the third, the sixth, and the ninth hour, at (the time of) table, in the evening and in the night in order that (the monks) fulfi ll that which the blessed David said: ‚Seven times in the day do I praise Thee because of Thy judgements, O Righteous!’ ”. (2) Thanks to a notice given to us by Dadisho Qatraya, we know Babai the Great as Abbot of the Great Monastery on Mount Izla had prescribed (in his lost treatise “On the Discipline of the Novices”) for his monks’s prayer of the Hours a relatively small number of Psalms (ten P?JdJ), a short hymn (#j62'fi; on the exact meaning of this liturgical terms see J. Mateos, Lelya- Sapra: les oĜ ces chaldéens de la nuit et du matin (OCA 156), Rom 1972, 491 and 500–501) and the Sanctus ($g>.`); just for the nightly prayer of the Hours an additional long hymn was prescribed. In the infl uential Monastery of Rabban Shapur, these same rules were valid — here, even for the festal oĜ ces [see Dadisho Qatraya, Commentaire du livre d’Abba Isaïe — logoi I–XV, ed. R. Dra- guet (CSCO, 326, Syr. 144) (Louvain, 1972) 183–184; cf. F. Jullien, Rabban- Sapur. Un monastère au rayonnement exceptionnel, OCP 72 (2006) 333–348, here: 340sq.]. Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 07:19:05PM via free access 274 Scrinium V (2009). Symbola Caelestis Holy Spirit for the ecumenical synod (of Nicaea).”3 To arbitrarily violate this rule is, Isaac says, to give in to heretical messalianism or to de- monic temptation. Nevertheless, seeing that it was up to each “inde- pendent” solitary monk to defi ne the details of liturgical order, Isaac recommends to his solitary readers not to impose on themselves once and for all a precise rule prescribing numerous Psalms and prostra- tions for every single day, but to reserve instead the “right” of defi n- ing their number anew, according to their inner condition — whereby they should not strive to carry out as many Psalms (and prostrations) as possible, but shape their liturgical prayer so as to achieve an optimal state-of-mind (i.e., to let the Psalmist’s verses exert the most intense in- fl uence on their inner self).4 Even spending hours in contemplating on one single verse of the Psalms should be welcomed as a divine giĞ .5 Isaac calls this the “law of freedom”, in contrast to the “law of slavery,” which he dismisses in the same context. 6 Moreover, Isaac maintains that the praying solitary is fully justifi ed to deviate from the exact wording of traditional liturgical texts, such as the Lord’s Prayer7 and the Psalms8, and freely improvise new formula- tions inspired by the contents of the texts just mentioned. What is more, even breaking up or omiĴ ing the liturgical Psalms readings prescribed by Canon Law is allowed, or even called for, as soon as the praying monk’s mind is being seized by an experience of exstatic rapture, by (3) .$[CN PKCR# HW L6ii# #jg>.` #i.V PJ- #jgKgi X'f- $O?OJ d;N dK+F- #j?G?&i Q1-0N2SF $f-2`- $61c PJ 2gOBi#- #i0&# =.>$& (B.14.35, Brock [= Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian), “The Second Part” — Chapters IV–XLI, ed. S. Brock (Louvain: Peeters, 1995) (CSCO, 554–555, Syr. 224] 67–68). The works of Isaac of Nineveh are cited here as follows: the leĴ ers A,B refer to the First or Second „Part“ of Isaac’s works, the fi rst arabic number to the number of the Dircourse, and the second arabic number to the number of paragraph within each Discourse; as the third Disourse of the “Second Part” contains 4 units with (approximately) hundred Capita Gnostica each, the second ara- bic number refers, in this case, to one of these 4 units, while the third ara- bic number refers to the number of the cited Caput. When the cited passage comes from the Discourses 4–41 of the “Second Part”, that have been edited and translated from Sebastian Brock, I cite his translation. (4) B.21.5 (Brock 103), cf. B.3.2.55 (MS syr.e.7, Bodleian Library, 47v–48v). (5) S. B.3.2.55 (MS syr.e.7, Bodleian Library, 47v–48v). (6) B.14.7–48 (Brock 58–72). (7) S. B.14.36 (Brock 68). (8) S. B.14.41–43 (Brock 69–71). Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 07:19:05PM via free access Nestor Kavvadas 275 a silent amazement at God’s self-revelation. Isaac defends his opinion against the (quite usual, it seems) accusation of messalianism.9 In this short article we shall aĴ empt to present in its main lines the theological gnoseology of language which underlies Isaac’s — pre- sumably controversial — opinions regarding the limits of the canoni- cal prescriptions’ validity concerning the order of liturgical prayer. Theological Gnoseology and Theology of Language The notion of knowledge is the centre of Isaac of Nineveh’s concept of ascetical life. This fact, which also applies to the majority of East Syriac ascetical authors, goes back — at least as far as processes of provable literary reception are concerned — to his “dependence” on Evagrius Ponticus. Consequently, this notion of knowledge is subdivided into several levels, which correspond to specifi c cognitive objects as well as to dif- ferent “states of mind” of the human subject, whereby in Isaac’s “ide- alism” the object of cognition coincides, up to a certain point, with its subject. Nevertheless, the most fundamental gnoseological distinction is the one between knowledge conveyed to humans through the me- diation of signs, on the one hand, and “knowledge” given to humans directly by God without any mediation at all on the other.10 Of course, the former kind of knowledge also comes ultimately from God, even if it is being conveyed through the medium of creatures, namely, either through visible natural beings or through invisible, incorporeal an- gels. The laĴ er form of “knowledge” is defi ned by the strict exclusion of all kinds of mediation; not even angels are capable of conveying it to humans, since they are themselves recipients of it.11 Only God Himself gives this “knowledge” to both angels and humans, equating thus the laĴ er to the former. This fundamental gnoseological distinction cor- responds not only to the ontological distinction, equally central in al- most all Christian systems of thought, between created and uncreated, but also to a soteriological distinction, typical of Isaac’s Theodoran conception of the history of salvation, between “this world” and the “world-to-come”: While knowledge as mediated through signs be- longs to this world, immediate God-given knowledge is proper to the (9) See B.14.7 (Brock 58), and B.14.47 (Brock 72). (10) B.3.3.55–60 (MS syr.e.7, 69v–72r). (11) S. B.3.3.57 (MS syr.e.7, 70r–71r). Downloaded from Brill.com09/25/2021 07:19:05PM via free access 276 Scrinium V (2009). Symbola Caelestis world-to-come.12 As already said, the former kind of knowledge also goes back ultimately to God; for Isaac, the fact that all knowledge be- longing to “this world” is being mediated by creatures means — since no creature could be reasonably excluded from this function — that the entire Creation is a system of mystical signs conveying divine knowledge13, that is, referring to the immediate, absolute knowledge identical with the world-to-come. To sum up: In the present state-of-being, humans are being prepared by divine action through a knowledge of God mediated by visible and invisible Creation for receiving in the world-to-come an immeasur- ably superior form of knowledge, namely, an immediate knowledge of God’s self-revelation. This central role of the sign as a medium of knowledge in Isaac’s theological gnoseology explains why language is a major epistemo- logical issue for him: “[He] created the word’s sensible voice. In the very beginning the rational beings (sc. the angels) learned from Him, the Creator, to engage themselves with it (sc. the word). And the [very] fi rst usage of it was a song of praise, which was oě ered to the Creator by His works, as wriĴ en in Job.
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