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 Ascetical Homilies of St Isaac the Syrian 

I stumbled upon St. Isaac after researching Dostoevsky's life and works, finding out that St. Isaac inspired Dostoevsky's creation of Father Zosima (in The Brothers Karamazov). This is the best book representing the writings of St. Isaac when it comes to comprehensiveness. Further, this book is beautiful visually, poetically, psychologically, philosophically, and spiritually. Welcome to psychological and spiritual insight. I read a mere page a day, and even then feel inadequate to move forward as there are still gems from previous pages that I have not fully appreciated.

I first learned about this book by reading Saint Paisios of Mount Athos. In that book, it said that, "The Elder had the Saint's 'Ascetical Homilies' by his pillow, and he studied them constantly. For one six-year period, it was his only spiritual reading. He would take one line and call it to mind frequently throughout the day, studying it in a deep and practical way - 'like animals chew over thier food' as he put it. As a blessing, he distributed a selection of the homilies in order to encourage their study. 'Studying the Ascetical Homilies of Abba Isaac the Syrian' he once wrote, 'will help you a lot, because it helps us understand the deeper meaning of life. Whatever kind of complex a believer might have, big or small, the Homilies help him get rid of it. There are a lot of vitamins in Abba Isaac, so a little study transforms the soul.' He recommended that laymen also read the Homilies, but bit by bit, in order to digest the text. He would say that the Homilies were as valuable as a complete patristic library. The entire text, he thought, deserved to be underlined: in his copy, under a picture of the Saint writing with a quill pen, he wrote, 'My Abba, give me your pen to underline your whole book.'" - Saint Paisios of Mount Athos (pg. 225)

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