Appendix: What the World Is, According to the Word of St. Isaac the Syrian

At the end of the last discourse a question was posed: What is the world? —left without answer. For those who wish to have an answer, the following is offered, which St. Isaac the Syrian says about this.

When you hear of withdrawal from the world, of abandoning the world, of purity from all that is in the world, then it is first necessary for you to understand and learn not by simple folk understanding, but with pure rational clarity what this very term means, from what distinctions this name is composed, and then you will be able to know about your own soul: how far it is from the world and what of the world is mixed with it.

The word world is a collective noun that encompasses all the passions we have enumerated. If a man does not first understand what the world is, he will not attain to the knowledge of how many members he is far from the world and how many are bound with it. There are many who have renounced the world with two or three members and refused to share in it with those members, thinking that they have become alien to the world in their living, because they did not understand wisely and did not observe that they have died to the world with only two members, while their other members in body live to the world. Yet they were not able to recognize and perceive their own passions; and not recognizing them, they did not take care for their healing.

According to contemplative investigation, the world is called and is the composition of a collective name embracing separate passions. And when in general we wish to name the passions, we call them the world; and when we wish to distinguish them by their different names, we call them passions. Passions are parts of the successive flow of the world; and where passions cease, there the world comes to an end in its continuity. The passions are these: attachment to riches, the desire to accumulate things; carnal pleasure, from which arises the passion of marriage; desire for honor, from which envy flows; the desire to rule authoritatively; puffing up from the splendor of power; desire to adorn and to please; the seeking of human fame, which becomes the cause of rancor; fear for the body.

Where these passions cease to flow, there the world has died; and insofar as some of these parts of its composition are lacking there, the world remains outside, not acting through those parts of its composition; just as someone said of the saints that, being still alive, they had become dead, because, living in the flesh, they did not live according to the flesh. And you look at which of these parts you live by; then you will know by which parts you live and by which you are dead to the world. When you recognize what the world is, then from this distinction you will recognize both how you are bound with the world and how you have been freed from it.

And I will say it more briefly: the world is fleshly living and the thinking of the flesh. By the fact that a man has snatched himself from this, it is known that he has departed from the world. And withdrawal from the world is known by these two signs: by a superior manner of living and by the distinction of the concepts of the mind itself.

In baptism. – Editor.

Coming down. – Editor.

Concern, providence. – Editor.

Sorrows.

on both feet.

Fervor, ardor. – Editor.

Hold with reverence. – Editor.

Intrigues. – Editor.