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 discourse No. 7 Isaacus speaks of relic-worship and holy days. Besides Sunday, many Christians observed Friday, the day of the Passion. No. 9 attacks prevalent errors on the Incarnation. Here Isaacus seems to fall into the opposite heresies, failing to distinguish Nature from Person; but elsewhere he uses language unmistakably orthodox. Assemani thinks his words have been tampered with by Jacobite copyists. No. 24, Christ suffered as man, not as God. No. 50 touches on future retribution: "The fault is temporal, the punishment eternal." This aims at those Syrian monks who had adopted the opinion of Origen on this subject. No. 59 is a hymn asserting, against the Cathari or Novatianists, that fallen man recovers innocence not only by baptism, but also by penitence. No. 62 is a hymn of supplication, lamenting the disasters of the age, e.g. the inroads of Huns and Arabs, famine, plague, and earthquake. Johannes Maro quotes two discourses not found in the Vatican MSS. The first, on Ezekiel's chariot, clearly asserts two natures and one person in Christ: "duo aspectus, una persona; duae naturae, unus salvator." Similarly, the second, on the Incarnation. Bickell printed both, so far as he found them extant (S. Isaac. Op. i. 50, 52).

The library of the British Museum possesses about 80 of the discourses, hymns, prayers, etc., of St. Isaacus in MSS., ranging from the 6th to the 12th cent. Dr. Bickell, in the preface to his edition of the works of Isaac, gives a list of 178 entire poems, and of 13 others imperfect at the beginning or end (179–191); three prose writings dealing with the ascetic life (192–194); five sermons in Arabic, on the Incarnation, etc. (195–199); and a sermon in Greek, on the Transfiguration, usually assigned to St. Ephraim (200).

See ''S. Isaaci Antiocheni opera omnia ex omnibus quotquot exstant codd. MSS. cum varia lectione Syr. Arab.'' primus ed. G. Bickell, vol. i. 1873, ii. 1877; Gennadius, ''Vir. Illustr.'' 66; Assem. ''Bibl. Orient. i. 207–234; Cave,Hist. Lit. i. 434; Ceillier, x. 578; Wright's Cat. Syr. MSS. Brit. Mus. General Index,'' p. 1289.

The poems of Isaac are important for the right understanding of the doctrines of the Nestorians, Eutychians, Novatianists, Pelagians, and other sects; besides being authorities for the events, manners, and customs of the writer's age.

[C.J.B.]

Ischyras (2) (Ischyrion, Soz.), Egyptian pseudo-presbyter and finally bishop; a slanderer of Athanasius. His story, which begins under the predecessor of Athanasius, is made out from scattered passages in the ''Apol. c. Arian.'', and a slight outline is given by Socrates (i. 27). He belonged to a hamlet in the Mareotis too small for a church of its own (§ 85, ed. Migne) and there had a conventicle attended by seven persons at most (77, 83). He did not bear a good moral character (63) and was once charged with insulting the emperor's statues (vol. i. 185, n.). The Alexandrian synod of 324 disallowed his orders and pronounced him a layman (74, 75), disproving his pretensions to have been ordained by bp. Meletius, in whose breviarium his name did not appear (11, 28, 46, 71). He had given out that he was a presbyter of the pseudo-bishop (2), but no one out of his own family believed him, as he never had a church, and no one in the neighbourhood looked on him as a clergyman (74, 75). He never attended ecclesiastical assemblies as a presbyter (28). In spite of the synod, he continued to act as a presbyter, and was doing this in the cottage of Ision when Athanasius, being on a visitation in the Mareotis, sent his presbyter Macarius to bid him desist. When Macarius reached the house, Ischyras was reported ill in his cell or in a corner behind the door (28, 63, 83), certainly not officiating at the Eucharist (41). This occurrence may be assigned to c. 329, between the latest date (June 8, 328) possible for the consecration of Athanasius and Nov. 330, when the troubles broke out. Ischyras on his recovery went over to the Meletians, in conjunction with whom he framed his accusation against Macarius (63), and through Macarius against Athanasius. In the spring of 331 (see vol. i. p. 184, and Hefele, ii. 13) the three Meletians accused Macarius at Nicomedia of having broken a chalice, overturned a holy table, and burnt service books on the occasion of his visit. As his friends became ashamed of him (63), Ischyras confessed the fabrication to the archbishop and implored forgiveness (16, 28, 63, 74). This would be in mid-Lent 332. In the summer of 335 Ischyras, having meanwhile been gained over by the Eusebians, revived the accusation before the council of Tyre (13), and accompanied the synodal commission to the Mareotis to investigate its truth (17). For his reward his Eusebian patrons procured (85) an imperial order for the erection of a church for him at a place called Pax Secontaruri, and the document recognized him as a "presbyter." They afterwards obtained for him the episcopal title (16, 41), and he figures as bp. of Mareotis among the bishops assembled at Sardica in 343 (Socr. ii. 20; Soz. iii. 12, here "Ischyrion"). He afterwards withdrew to Philippopolis. (Hilar. Frag. iii. in Patr. Lat. x. 677 ; Mansi, iii. 139), at which synod his name is corruptly written Quirius. No other instance of a bp. of Mareotis occurs. Le Quien, ''Or. Chr.'' ii. 530.

[T.W.D.]

Isdigerdes (1) I. (Jezdedscherd, Yazdejirdus, Yezdegerdes; Ἰσδιγέρδης and Ἰσδεγέρδης by the Greeks; in Armenian Yazgerd; on his coins, יזדכרתי, i.e. Izdikerti), king of Persia, surnamed Al Aitham (the Wicked), known in history as Isdigerd I., though an obscure and uncertain predecessor of the same name makes Mordtmann reckon him as Isdigerd II. Rawlinson thinks the best evidence favours 399 for the commencement of his reign, and 419 or 420 for his death. He was son of Sapor III., succeeding his brother Vararanes IV., and succeeded by his son Vararanes V. He reigned at Ctesiphon. With the Romans he appears to have lived in peace; Agathias (Hist. iv. 26, p. 264, ed. Bonn, 1828) and Theophanes (Chron. i. 125, 128, p. 69, ed. Bonn, 1839) relate how the emperor Arcadius on his death-bed directed his son Theodosius to be put under Isdigerdes's tutelage. (Petavius, Rat. Temp. pt. i. l. vi. c. 19, p. 249 Lugd. 1710; Greg. Abul-Pharajius, Hist. Comp. Dyn. i. p. 91, Oxf. 1663.) For a time he was almost a Christian, and as