X (47)
("office" - contd)
"Sermon" from Isaac of N.
Is there any need
to say anything about men engaged in spiritual endeavor, strangers to
the world, & about hermits? They have made the wilderness a city
& transformed it into the home & the abode of the angels. For
the righteousness of their life the angels always come to them &
as warriors of the same King they have often fought side by side. All
their life have they loved the wilderness & from love of God had
their dwelling in the mountains, caves & precipices of the
earth. Since they have abandoned the earthly & conceived of love
for the heavenly, imitating the angels, the
* text continues on X (48).
In a journal entry for January 11, 1965 Merton notes
Isaac of Nineveh as a favorite:
A little Nietzsche is stimulating, no
doubt, but what I really like to read is Isaac of Neneveh in the
hermitage or Zen Masters in the fields.
A Vow of Conversation, p. 133.