The Sight of God in the Theology of Saint Symeon the New Theologian [40]

Here, parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39.

Our greek font.

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According to this testimony of Niketas, it results that the number of the symeonian ecstasies is impossible to say, for that Symeon lived mostly in the divine light, he was enlightened by grace and he was filled by the Holy Ghost.

Symeon receives the priesthood into consciousness, he seeing the grace that came in him and constantly reviewing it down over the Venerable Gifts, which he served.

His interiorization with the light was and is, with true, difficult to understand by those who did not have any gracial experience in their lives.

The reporting of Symeon at Church’s life is on measure of his mystical experience and it is seen everywhere in his theological writings.

The height and the correctness of symeonian theology is not given by style, by erudition or by rhetorical emphasis with which he writes but of the greatness of his mystical experiences.

The experience, the mystical and liturgical realism of Symeon, the biblical realism and ecclesial of his work are the expression of his deep interiorization with God.

Precisely because there was in real mode this his personal union with God, Symeon could produce a conquering theology, frighteningly high and beautiful, the divine.

In the 33rd chapter, Niketas describes the image of liturgist of Saint Symeon: „he liturgised together with cohorts of the top, he sitting in the seat of priests, [and] he brought always  [avei.] to God the Sacrifice without the blood, in the sight of the Ghost [evn ovptasi,a| tou/ Pneu,matoj] and with a form of the face like the face of an Angel” ^[1].

Symeon served, in real mode, with the heavenly Powers, he saw the descent of the divine grace over the Venerable Gifts and, he being full of grace, he was like an Angel in the flesh.

By the adverb avei., Niketas wanted to say that Symeon saw in every time, into a some mode, the coming of the Holy Ghost over him and over the Venerable Gifts in front of him.

The sight of the light by Saint Symeon, according to these biographical details, did not happen only into a private space, away from the eyes of others, but it also take place and in the frame of the liturgical services, when Simeon was surrounded by people.

Niketas insists on the pnevmatic aspect of Symeon’s being then when he served: „the grace of the Ghost made ​​him whole like a fire and almost unapproachable [scedo.n avpro,sitoj] for human eyes during his Liturgy”^[2].

Niketas sees in Symeon the attributes of the divine light, because he was filled with the Ghost. He was w`j pu/r [like the fire] and scedo.n avpro,sitoj [almost unapproachable] for those who watched him.

For that he was filled with the light, with the holiness of God, Symeon is characterized through the intermedium of the light divine entitlings.

The divine light that spring out from him, because it was in him, it made Symeon to be like a Angel, ie a being frighteningly beautiful and unapproachable for an unspiritual human mind.