De Contemtu Mundi, de Operatione Corporali et sui Abjectione Liber.

Isaacus

5. Surnamed SYRUS, because he was a native of Syria, was first monk and afterwards priest at Antioch, and died about A. D. 456.

Works

He wrote in Syriac, and perhaps also in Greek, different works and treatises on theological matters, several of them to oppose the writers of the Nestorians and Eutychians.

His principal work is De Contemtu Mundi, de Operatione Corporali et sui Abjectione Liber.

Editions

This was published in the second edition of the Orthodoxographi, Basel, 1569; in the Bibl. Patr. Colon. vol. vi.; in the B. P. Paris, vol. v.; in the B. P. Novissima Lugdun, vol. xi.; and in Galland. Bibl. Patr. vol. xii.

In all these collections it is printed in Greek, with a Latin translation, but the Greek text also seems to be a translation from the Svriac.

Uncertain which Isaac wrote this work

It is very doubtful whether this work was written by Isaac, the subject of this notice, or by another Isaac, the subject of the following article. Neither Trithenius nor Gennadius (De Script. Eccles.) attribute the work to our Isaac.

De Cogitationibus

There is more reason to believe that he wrote De Cogitationibus.

Editions

The Greek text, with a Latin translation, was published by Petrus Possinus, in his Ascetica.

Other works in MS.

Several other productions of Isaac are extant in MS. in the library of the Vatican and in other libraries.

Further Information

Cave, Hist. Lit. vol. i. p. 434-435 ; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. xi. p. 214, &c.