Venerable Isaiah the Hermit

Life

He labored in asceticism in the Egyptian Scete during the fifth and sixth centuries. He is mentioned in the book of Saints Barsanuphius and John (Response 249 and others) as a man of exceptional holiness. He wrote many instructions for monks and hermits, but of his writings little has survived, much having been destroyed by the Muslims. Saint Isaiah said: "The mind, before it awakens from the sleep of slothfulness, dwells with the demons." "The crown of all good deeds consists in this: that a man place all his hope in God, that he flee to Him alone with all his heart and all his strength, that he be filled with compassion toward all, and that he weep before God, praying for help and mercy." What is the sign that a man's sin has been forgiven? "The sign that a sin has been forgiven is that the sin no longer produces any effect whatsoever in thy heart, and that thou hast forgotten it to such a degree that in a conversation about a similar sin thou feelest no inclination toward that sin, as toward something utterly foreign to thee. This is the sign that thou hast been shown mercy." In vain are both prayers and ascetic labors for the man who harbors within himself malice toward his neighbor and a desire for revenge. "Strive with all thy might not to say one thing with thy lips and have another in thy heart." The crown of the virtues is love; the crown of the passions is the justification of one's own sins.