The Sight of God in the Theology of Saint Symeon the New Theologian [63]

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, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62.

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2. 5. 5. The Divine Light and the Ghostual Father

Maybe into another unfolding of all exposure we had to start with this theme which we approach now^[1].

The importance of the ghostual Father in the life and the theology of Saint Symeon is capital, as long as he considers his calling at the mystical life of the Church, the receiving of the light and the forwardness in its sight as tracks of the entrust in his Father and of his veneration until at end.

The divine light is the gift of God but to it we reach led by the ghostual Father, of the man filled of the Ghost, that teaches us those of the unpassion.

In the Hymn 1, Saint Symeon calls His Father the Apostle of God^[2]. The title which he confers to Saint Symeon the Pious is not one gratuitous.

In the Hymn 15, speaking about the assuming and the deification of humanity by Christ in His divine-human hypostasis, Symeon shows that his Father reached an unpassioned man still of here: Christ „has made ​​integer man, being integer God with true, the One, not divided [after natures], [ie] perfect man in all. Same being God and on the entirely [God] in all integer members.

So has made and now, in the last times, Saint Symeon the Pious, the Studite.

This is not ashamed by the members of any man, neither to see on others naked, neiter to be seen he himself naked. For he had on Christ integer and he himself integer was Christ.

And all his members and the members of any other, in part and on all, on which he was seeing as on Christ and therefore he remained unmoved [achinitos], unharmed [avlavis] and unpassioned [apatis], as the one that was himself integer Christ”^[3].

Symeon the Pious is the Apostle of the Lord just for that he reached unpassioned as and the Apostles, but he received as and the Apostles, through divine descovery, the true teaching about God.

The ghostual Father is not only an orthodox liver or anyone of the priests confessors  – as though this would be his single mode of marking – but, for Symeon, that one becomes the ghostual Father, which confirms for him God Himself, in different modes and uninterrupted.

The institution of the ghostual paternity is not one of human right, does not reclaim it anyone when he wants and how he wants, but it is one of divine right, is guaranteed by God, Who gives His grace to those who love Him.

In the previous chapter we showed how God led him to Symeon the Pious, how he received through the prayer and his intercession the divine sight, fact for that Symeon has never recanted of his Father through that have come to him the life and the salvation.

The gratitude and the thanksgiving of Symeon for his Father is immense, is overwhelming, is vivid and on it we refind at all the step in his writings.

In the Hymn 18 we have a such of muster of gratitude full of ghostual pathos to the person of his Holy Father: „Who led me [odighisen] pulling me to these beauties? Who raised me at unpassion from the abyss of the world? Who separated me from the father, the brothers [Mk. 10, 29] and the friends, the relatives and the pleasures and the joys of the world?

Who showed me the path of repentance and of mourning, that I found the day that has never ended? An Angel was, not man. And yet man [Anghelos in, uc antropos. antropos d’], who mocked [empezete] by the world and trampled upon the dragon [Ps. 90, 13] and the demons tremble in the presence of him”^[4].

Symeon expresses his gratitude in ablaze mode, stormy, ie ghostually, through the Holy Ghost, Who was in him but he does not exaggerate in noway when he qualifies him in such terms on his Father.

For that, through him, he lived the unpassion which he saw at his Father, Symeon sees in him angelical qualities, although he recognizes that the one was man, but a man who defeated on demons and tread in foots the vile passions.

The paradoxical humanity of the inghostuated man makes the object of gratitude of Saint Symeon. He venerates on his Father just for that he proves to be a man with the divine life and for that God Himself presents him on Father right a norm of piety.

God shows in ecstatic mode to Symeon that his Father, Saint Symeon the Pious, is the man that he needs, for that he is His friend.

God sends on Symeon at His beloved, at Saints, as to learn from them, but, in express mode, He sends at the Saint from his proximate nearness, for that to grow ghostually through the submission and the obedience to that.

The disclosure of the Father has right scope the immediate communion with this one and is the entrusting of the fact, that and now we can live in holy mode if we fulfill the will of God.