Mary Hansbury offers a fresh presentation of 'On Ascetical Life' by Isaac of Nineveh, whose monastic anthropology had a major influence on all of Byzantine spiritual literature. According to St Isaac, the way toward God was threefold: the way of the body, the way of the soul, and the way of the spirit. In the first stage, the person begins with a total preoccupation with the passions and moves toward God by means of bodily works: fasting, vigils, and psalmody. The next stage involves a struggle a...