Isaak von Ninive und seine Kephalaia Gnostika: Die Pneumatologie und ihr Kontext by Nestor Kavvadas (review)

Interest in Isaac of Nineveh is experiencing a renaissance due to recent publications of Isaac’s writings. Critical editions and translations of the “Second Part” (Brock, 1995), “Third Part” (Chialà, 2011), and fragments from the “Fifth Part” (Chialà, 2013) have significantly augmented the published corpus of Isaac’s writings, which, prior to 1995, consisted only of Bedjan’s 1909 edition of the “First Part.” Most recent scholarship on Isaac, however, has overlooked his Gnostic Chapters, a substantial work for which no critical edition has yet been published. Kavvadas’ monograph is the first major work on Isaac to fill this void, as it provides a thorough presentation of Isaac’s discussion of the Holy Spirit in the Gnostic Chapters.

Kavvadas has accomplished the noble tasks of sorting through the unedited manuscript in the Bodleian Library and arranging Isaac’s thought into a coherent narrative. For this scholars should be extremely grateful, for he has given us our first glimpse of the content of this enigmatic work. Kavvadas divides his book into two parts, the first (Chapters 1–4) focusing on the historical context of a tension between ecclesial authorities and East-Syriac mystics, and the second (Chapters 5–9) outlining Isaac’s presentation of the Spirit in the Gnostic Chapters.

In the first part, Kavvadas argues that Isaac’s discussion of the Spirit cannot be understood apart from its historical background. Building on the work of Columba Stewart, Stephen Gerö, and Klaus Fitschen, and supplementing their work with a detailed examination of synodal condemnations by Patriarch Timothy 1 (d. 823) and other primary sources, Kavvadas concludes that East-Syriac ecclesial authorities loosely used the term “Messalian” to refer to objectionable qualities of sixth- and seventh-century mystics and monks. Although Isaac himself was never condemned, Kavvadas argues that he was part of a distinct theological tradition of mystical authors who were in tension with East-Syriac ecclesial authorities over the nature of spiritual authority. Ecclesial authorities, who believed that spiritual authority was mediated through official structures, attempted to integrate small monastic communities and solitary mystics back into the dogmatic and episcopal authority of the East-Syriac Church, while mystics and monks, by contrast, derived authority directly from the Spirit, which they believed gave them freedom to transcend ecclesial authority.

In the second part, Kavvadas presents a synthesis of Isaac’s pneumatology in the Gnostic Chapters, which he reasons is an implicit manifesto for the mystical model of spiritual authority that cannot be understood apart from its East-Syriac ascetical heritage. Following Theodore of Mopsuestia’s “two world” teaching, Isaac states that the purpose of this world is the procurement of knowledge about God through the work of the Spirit. At the heart of Kavvadas’ book is the lengthy Chapter Seven, which is a detailed examination of spiritual revelation. Here Kavvadas highlights Isaac’s distinction between “natural theoria,” which is a general knowledge of God’s providence mediated through scriptural exegesis and material analogy, and “spiritual knowledge,” which supplies only the most advanced monks with direct, mystical insight into God’s providence from the eschatological perspective of the new world. Isaac emphasizes the passive, unmediated nature of spiritual revelation, although he admits that monks can prepare their intellects to receive revelation through self-concentration. In Chapter Eight, Kavvadas examines the characteristics of the “spiritual being,” that is, the advanced monk who has received the gift of spiritual revelation and obtained freedom from the law, for in the new world, the law is unnecessary because the Spirit has rendered the human will incapable of sin.

With these insights, Kavvadas’ argument comes full circle. Why were ecclesial authorities worried about Isaac’s teaching on spiritual authority? Monks who had received the gift of spiritual revelation presumably had no need for mediated forms of knowledge, either from the legislative authority of the Church or from the exegetical insights of ecclesial schools; nor were they bound to liturgical ordinances and canonical rites...