One of the most amazing things about St Isaac the Syrian,
is his well balanced and wholesome treatment of difficult
issues, for example; positive zeal. How do we neglect not
what is needful, without being eager at the expense of love,
which is the highest virtue. In Homily 51 of his Ascetical
Homilies, St Isaac says;
"A zealous man never achieves peace of mind; but he who is
a stranger to peace is a stranger to joy. If, as it is said, peace
of mind is perfect health, and zeal is opposed to peace, then
the man who has the wrong zeal is sick with a grievous
disease.
Though you presume O man, to send forth your zeal against
the maladies of other men, you have expelled the health of
your own soul; be assiduous, rather, in laboring for your own
soul's health. If you want to heal the infirm, know that the sick
are in greater need of loving care than of rebuke.
Therefore, although you do not help others, you expend labor
to bring a grievous disease upon yourself. Zeal is not reckoned
among men to be a form of wisdom, but as one of the maladies
of the soul, namely narrow-mindedness and deep ignorance.
The beginning of divine wisdom is clemency and gentleness,
which arises from greatness of soul and the bearing of the
infirmities of men. For, it is said, 'We that are strong ought
to bear the infirmities of the weak (Rom. 15:1, Gal. 6:1), and
'Restore the transgressor in the spirit of meekness'."
So, then, what is positive zeal, or as it is also called, zeal
according to knowledge? St Isaac is very clear, it is zeal that
arises and strives for virtue, our own virtue. In Homily 55
(this particular homily is a letter to his sibling, a brother,
who was also a brother in Christ) he says,
"In the beginning of its movement, every impulse of a desire
of good is accompanied by a certain zeal, similar to coals of
fire in its fervent heat. Such zeal usually walls this impulse
about like a rampart and chases away from it, every
opposition, obstacle, and barrier that might appear anywhere
near it. For this zeal possesses great strength and unspeakable
power to shield the soul at every moment from slackness and
from fear of the assaults of every tribulation."
"Virtue is not the manifestation of many and various works
performed by the agency of the body, but a heart that is most
wise in its hope and unites a right aim to godly works."
Homily 40
"For as soon as the heart is zealous in spirit, the body is not grieved
by tribulations, nor does it feel alarm and shrink back from horrors;
but the mind hardens it against all temptations, making it like a
diamond in its endurance.
Let us be zealous, too, with ardor of spirit for the sake of Jesus's
will, and drive away all heedlessness from ourselves, which gives
birth to sloth in our thinking...May God grant us also such eagerness
to please Him. Amen." Homily 72
Holy Transfiguration Monastery Publications
ISBN 978–0–943405–16–2
The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, Revised Second
Edition, Translated from the Greek and Syriac by the Holy
Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, MA 2011
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