RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESMYSTICISM
But Christian piety was undergoing a major transformation itself
among Nestorians in Iraq in the late seventh and early eighth centuries.
Probably in reaction to insecurity, sectarian strife, and internal quar-
rels, a group of Nestorian ascetics and mystics, including Isaac of
Nineveh, <Abhdlsho< J:Iazziiyii, and Joseph J:Iazziiyii, shifted the em-
phasis from ascetic mysticism propelled by fear and induced by ex-
treme forms of self-denial to an ecstatic mysticism based on the love
of God.
Isaac of Nineveh seems to have been a casualty of the factional
conflicts among Nestorians under the catholicos George I (659-80).
Isaac was a native of Qatar. He became bishop of Nineveh under
George I but resigned after only five months in office and retired to
the mountains of Khuzistan and the monastery of Rabban Shiibiir,
where he spent the next forty-nine years.^140 Familiar with the theories
of the Me~allyiine, Isaac was an important transition figure, coordi-
nating nearly the entire set of ideas associated with love-mysticism.
He contradicted al-J:Iasan al-Ba~rl by considering love to be twice as
strong as fear as a motivation for piety. He described the achievement
of mystical union with God as a journey from one stage to next, or
as a voyage from one island to the next. The interrelationship of pious
attitudes toward each other was expressed by the formula that "re-
pentance is the ship, fear is her governor, love is the divine port ...
When we have reached love, we have reached God."141
<AbhdlshO< speaks of a state of mystic perfection "in which neither
sacrifices nor prayers are offered, but the mysteries and the revelations
of the next world are made manifest to the spiritual mind,"142 which
bears a suspicious resemblance to the "spiritual prayer" of the Me-
~allyiine. Both Isaac and <Abhdlsho< applied the imagery of drunk-
enness to the mystic experience, which they compared to intoxication
with living wine-the wine of Paradise that causes a never-ending
drunkenness in the delight of love.^143 The imagery of madness and the
fire of love also found their way into the mysticism of these men leading
140 Chabot, "Chastete," pp. 63-64, 277; Smith, Early Mysticism, p. 97; Isaac of
Nineveh, "Mystic Treatises," p. 371.
141 Smith, Early Mysticism, pp. 99-100; Isaac of Nineveh, "Mystic Treatises," pp.
lvi, 122, 130,212,217-18.
142 Mingana, Woodbrooke Studies, VII, 150.
143 Ibid., VII, 149; Isaac of Nineveh, "Mystic Treatises," pp. 2, 53, 117, 136, 171,
372.