He wrote extensively in Syriac. All of his writings are concerned with
shelya (stillness). Among his surviving works are: •
Treatise on Solitude, also called the
Retreat of the Seven Weeks or the
Seven Weeks of Solitude, which describes how a monk should retreat into complete solitude and prayer for seven weeks at a time •
Letter to Mar Abkosh on Hesychia, also called
On Stillness (i.e.,
hesychia) •
Commentary on Abba Isaiah, which is a commentary on the Syriac version of the
Asceticon of
Isaiah of Scetis and describes
shelya as the condition the soul must meet to reach God. All surviving manuscripts break off after the fifteenth discourse of Isaiah (out of twenty-six), but there are quotations from the rest of the work in a fragmentary commentary on Isaiah that was apparently a reworking of Dadisho's. •
Commentary on the Paradise of the Fathers, which is a commentary on the
Paradise of the Fathers of
Enanisho in the form of a series of questions posed by some monks to their superior concerning the issues raised by the
sayings of the Egyptian Fathers collected by Enanisho He also wrote a few short work on similar ascetic themes. Both of his commentaries were translated into
Arabic and
Sogdian. Although only fragments of the latter survive, the Arabic version survives both complete and abridged and in both
Arabic script and
Garshuni. The
Commentary on the Paradise was also translated from Arabic into
Ethiopic. The Arabic version of the Abba Isaiah commentary describes Dadisho as a disciple of
Isaac of Nineveh. These translations assured him a wide diffusion among the
Oriental Orthodox. Dadisho is the earliest writer to credit an Egyptian monk,
Mar Awgin (a figure he may have invented), with introducing monasticism to Mesopotamia in the 4th century. ==Notes==