Isaac the Syrian, or Isaac of Nineveh as he is also called, is one of the most significant authors in the spiritual tradition of the Eastern Church but is read far outside of it. Isak is a cross-border figure whose teaching has touched Christians of all traditions. His texts, originally written in Syriac, were translated into Greek in the ninth century in the Mar Sabas monastery outside Jerusalem and somewhat later into Arabic in the Egyptian desert monasteries. Some of them were included in the so-called Philokalia and thus came to inspire the spiritual renewal in the Russian Church.
The selection of texts in this book, as well as the translation from French, has been made by Professor Gunnel Vallguist. She has also contributed a postscript to the book. The land where the thoughts found peace reflects Isak's ability to "digest and live through the spiritual reading he himself took part in", as Samuel Rubenson, professor of church history, puts it in the preface to the book where Isak the Syrian's biography is drawn. Rubenson describes Isak as a mystic "in the sense that, like a concentrated prism, he managed to capture and become one with the entire spiritual tradition and experience we only encounter in scattered bursts, and that he then gives shape in his sentences to what struck and shaped him self".
Trust is a key concept with Isak the Syrian, but something that requires spiritual training, not least training in silence with attentive listening to the Scriptures and the spiritual tradition. The land where the thoughts found peace contains a distillate of Isak Syriern's teaching, and has been the most requested in Silentium Skrifter's Lilla series. The book is now in its fourth edition.
Translation from French: Gunnel Vallquist
Foreword: Samuel Rubenson
Postscript: Gunnel Vallquist
Wire bound with unspread pages