Wednesday 15 November, 6th Week
How the Spirit which works in us is known: the science of spiritual states according to Joseph Hazzaya
Jim Barlow Mission Priest and Interim Minister in the Bracknell Team Ministry
Joseph Hazzaya (the Seer) was a spiritual director and abbot of the 8th century. Born a Zoroastrian, at age seven he was enslaved and made a Muslim. By his own choice he later became a Christian monk and lived much of his life as a mountain solitary. Although, shortly before his death, his writings where anathemized by a synod of the East Syrian Church, under Patriarch Timothy I, that judgement was always contested and Joseph continued to be held in the highest esteem by many. Due to his condemnation and the brutal vicissitudes of history in that region, only a small part of his work has survived. What does remain reveals a luminous synthesis of the mystical theology of the 7th and 8th centuries with its characteristic combination of noetic and charismatic elements.