Radiant with Christ-like love and childlike simplicity, he lived in another world yet kept both feet firmly planted on the ground. He was one of those whom Christ called the salt of the earth--a repository of the rare, otherworldly savor of ancient Christianity. A prophetic witness for the Church, he foretold the Russian Revolution and the second age of the catacombs. In Salt of the Earth, the life and personality of Elder Isidore have been captured with remarkable clarity by the Elder's spiritual son, New Martyr Paul Florensky (1882-1937). Called the "Russian Leonardo da Vinci," Florensky was a fascinating figure unique in Russian history. A master of the most varied disciplines, he was at once a religious philosopher, poet, linguist, art historian, type designer, physicist, astronomer, mathematician, electrical engineer, biologist, botanist, and inventor. During the first decades of the twentieth century, he made several important scientific discoveries and wrote essays which anticipated the development of cybernetics (computers). When describing Elder Isidore in Salt of the Earth, Florensky strikingly combines the analytical approach of a scientist with the "seeing heart" of a Christian mystic. He is able to take the reader directly into Elder Isidore's world, so that by the time we finish the book, we feel that the Elder is already a dear friend. Filled with humor and warmth as well as metaphysical understanding on the part of the author, Salt of the Earth is a tour de force among modern Christian spiritual writings, in the same class as The Way of a Pilgrim.

    7 No. 3 (1909), translated by Geerhardus Vos. Bavinck observes, "The Christian religion is by no means the sole content of history; long before Christianity made its appearance there existed in Greece and Rome a rich culture, a complete social organism, a powerful political system, a plurality of religions, an order of moral virtues and actions. And even now, underneath and side by side with the Christian religion a rich stream of natural life continues to flow. What, then, is the relation of Christianity to this wealth of natural life, which, originating in creation, has, under the law there imposed upon it, developed from age to age? What is the connection between nature and grace, creation and regeneration, culture and Christianity, earthly and heavenly vocation, the man and the Christian?"