Download or read book The Spiritual Wisdom of the Syriac Book of Steps written by Robert A. Kitchen and published by SLG Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fairacres Publications 171 The anonymous fourth-century Syriac author of the Book of Steps wrote to and about his local Christian community. It is a manual of Christian living written before monasticism had taken its traditional shape. However, the distinction between the duties and expectations of ‘the Perfect’ and ‘the Upright’ hint at a development towards monastic life. Robert Kitchen points out that the text has always had trouble getting noticed; to put this teaching into a modern context he summarizes the content of its thirty chapters, and gives a short commentary on a core passage from each one.