It was fitting that even Isaac the Sirul should not hide himself until the end.

That is why, remaining

undiscovered for many centuries, it is waiting for the one who will discover it and reveal it. And who
was the one he was waiting for, the facts clearly show. There was no one ignorant in what he wrote,
nor one of those who only tasted his words with the tip of their lips, but a good understander and
one who shared them to the point of satiety and researched them in perfect form, someone high in
virtue, rich in knowledge, tireless in his zeal for the good and in the fruitful work of everything that
can be useful to everyone. This is the Patriarch of the Holy City of Rem, the true and legitimate
successor and no less in piety and virtue, in the seat of Jacob, the brother of the Lord.

He, finding the writings of Isaac in the Lavra of St. Sava, in Palestine, researched them with strained
diligence. And researching them, he couldn't bear not to share them with others. And the fate of
their editing work fell on me. It was something I couldn't back down from, even though I knew it was
tiring. I received him for the man's dignity and virtue and for the special duty and reverence I have
for him. Accepting the task of this play, I will first speak briefly about Isaac, then about his writings
and about their current edition.

Isaac, coming from the East, where they grew up and from where all salvation started, was Syrian by
name, and his homeland was Nineveh 3 . His parents are not known to us. Depriving himself of the
world from his tender youth and flourishing age and entering with a blood brother in the monastery
named Mar Matei, where many led the life of angels in the body, he embraced the face and life the
lonely Depriving himself there of the labors of the needy and reaching a proud measure of virtue, he
feels possessed by the longing for a deeper peace, and with his heart burning with the embers of
hermitage. So, going away from the kinovie and living in a cell in the desert, he led a completely
lonely and unmixed life, thinking only of himself and of God. His brother, taking the leadership of the
previously mentioned lavra, did not stop asking him, through persistent letters, to leave the desert
and come again to the monastery from before 4 . But he had clung so much to the desert, that he
didn't want to be separated from it even for a moment. But what the brother's prayer did not
succeed before, the divine revelation succeeded later 5 . Disobeying the brother of Jerusalem,(13)

of blood, although he urged him to come to the holy monastery, he listened to the Father who called
him from above, receiving the bishop's care of steering the ship of the Church of the Ninevites. So he
leaves the desert, the longing of which burned his heart, and receives the ordination as bishop of
Nineveh. For he did not have to hide the light under the blanket of the desert, but put it in the
candlestick of shepherding and spread the shining rays of its illuminating power, far and wide. But
this happened for a very short time, because the light was barely seen rising and it retreated again.
Because, as you can see, the world was not worthy of this saint. It happened to him what once
happened to the godly Gregory the Theologian, who, being ordained bishop of the Sasimes, thought
to run away immediately after the ordination, which the most loving of God does not seem to
happen because of a loving thought by himself and unruly (and therefore I don't even call this a
thing of shame and guilt), but because of the perfection of men. For these were without fault in the
others and incorruptible and bearers of the spirit. And the spiritual one always judges them, but is
not judged by anyone.

And what happened to him then is this: on the very day he received his ordination, sitting in the
bishop's residence, two angels appeared to him, one asked the other for a debt , and the other,
acknowledging the debt, asked him for a small amination. But the creditor told him: "If he refuses to
give me what he owes, I will immediately hand him over to the judge." The divine Isaac told him: "If,
according to the commandment of the Holy Gospel, you must not even ask for what was taken from
you, all the more you must be patient and allow him a day to pay what what she owes you". But he
answered without mercy: "Leave the Gospel now". Then Isaac said: "If this one does not listen to the
Gospel and the Lord's commandments, what will I do here myself?". And seeing that his life,
accustomed to peace, untroubled and undisturbed, was to be scattered and disturbed by cares, he
retired from his chair and came again to his beloved cell in the desert, where he stayed until his
death. And how many battles he fought against demons and the body and how great he reached in
virtue, in that which the active and the seeing (contemplative) life demands, and to what perfection
of the soul he reached and how much grace he enjoyed for how long (14)

is still alive, needless to say. Because these will be easy to find out from his writings.

Because in Word XXIII he says: "Just as he who does not see the sun with his eyes cannot describe its
light to someone only by hearing, nor can he feel its light, so neither can he who has not tasted with
his soul the sweetness of spiritual deeds" . And in Cuvintu.1 XXVI he says: "Seeking for a long time
those on the right and those on the left and testing myself many times in these two faces and
receiving innumerable opposite wounds and deserving - hidden from many helpers, I gained an
experience of many years and I learned this by trying, with the gift of God». And in Word XV he says:
"These I have written for my memory and for anyone who reads this writing, as I received from the
research of the Scriptures and from true mouths, and fluff, from the search itself".

So you saw that first he did everything he taught them after writing and he lost a teacher with the
deed of those he taught. His learning is truly divine, placing as a foundation the highest virtue, rising
to the peak of perfection. Therefore, the invader is also divine and high and perfect. Because he
searched for the things he learned from divine grace, and that's how he learned them and wrote
them down. Not being able to close the powerful and too sweet work of grace in silence, he clarified
it in other darker, and in these very clear, saying: "Many times when I wrote these, my fingers
stopped on the paper and I could no longer bear the pleasure that arose in my heart, which made
the senses silent".

But we should also marvel at this virtue of the man: spoiled by all the people, he sweetened himself
with love for them, as he himself confesses about himself. For he says: "Beloved, because I have
become mad, I do not suffer to keep the secret in silence, but I am becoming mad (he speaks here as
well as the holy apostle: "I have made myself mad by boasting" , I Cor., 11, 11), for the benefit of the
poor. Because this is the true love, the one that can't bear to keep any secrets from its relatives".
Because even from the desert waves of learning pour forth, through which they water the souls of
the young, springing them ceaselessly. (15)