Resumen de saak von Ninive und seine Kephalaia Gnostika: Die Pneumatologie und ihr Kontext
Jason Scully (res.)
Kavvadas divides his book into two parts, the first (Chapters 1-4) focusing on the historical context of a tension between ecclesial authorities and East-Syriac mystics, and the second (Chapters 5-9) outlining Isaac's presentation of the Spirit in the Gnostic Chapters. Ecclesial authorities, who believed that spiritual authority was mediated through official structures, attempted to integrate small monastic communities and solitary mystics back into the dogmatic and episcopal authority of the East-Syriac Church, while mystics and monks, by contrast, derived authority directly from the Spirit, which they believed gave them freedom to transcend ecclesial authority. Here Kavvadas highlights Isaac's distinction between "natural theoria," which is a general knowledge of God's providence mediated through scriptural exegesis and material analogy, and "spiritual knowledge," which supplies only the most advanced monks with direct, mystical insight into God's providence from the eschatological perspective of the new world.
