The Sight of God in the Theology of Saint Symeon the New Theologian [70]

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, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69.

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However not are only these scriptural quotations through which he substantiates the theology of feeling of glory by the baptized, but these come in relief in his discourse.

Connecting I Pet. 1, 16, Lk. 6, 36 şi A. Ap. 1, 5[1], ie the interior dimension of holiness as likeness with God with the receiving of Baptism in the Holy Ghost, Symeon says that those who are baptized into the Ghost, ie those who see the divine light, „they make light and know on the One who born them, for they and see Him on This one”[2].

But the ecstatic sight presupposes the Baptism, for that in both cases we meet us in real mode with the One who re-created us on us, through the Ghost, with Christ.

The distinction on that always makes Symeon between pedobaptism and ecstatic sight is it that then we received the earnest without to have a certain increase in faith, that allow us the sight of His glory into acquaintance, while the ecstatic sight presupposes an acknowledged knowledge of the One who re-created us ghostually in Baptism.

But Symeon does not leave us to understand that in the case of Baptism, from the cause of babyhood mind, we do not receive the Ghost. He tells us that babies receive on the Ghost but they cannot receive Him interior at the intensity which requires the engaged ghostual life, the relation of great love with God.

This theological discourse is a surprise in chain for those who want to know the baptismal theology of Saint Symeon.

Symeon testifies powerfully that the receiving of the Holy Ghost in ecstatic mode makes you faithful with true[3]. Those who have not on the Ghost in them[4], says Symeon [to read: those who do not feel in them, in real mode, on the Ghost], „they are not faithful from heart”[5].

The ecstatic sight is a reactualization of the Baptism with other words, after how the tears are at Symeon a second Baptism[6].

If we do not reactualize permanent our union with Christ, our communion with Him, if we do not feel always His glory in us, then we have casted the grace of Baptism and His union with us.

Therefore says Symeon that is a blasphemy to affirm that believers receive Him and have on Christ in them in unfelt interior face, unseizable interior [7].

If we do not actualize the Baptism we do not feel anything in our being and we are non-believers in fact, for that we do not show any gift from God in our life.

If we can show that in us is the earnest, that is the Ghost, then we show that we are agreed by God, that He loves us and that He has given us something that is always with us, ie the divine grace.

The faith as living relation with God is an irreprehensible reality in symeonian theology. Neither the apology for sight is not at him a standard one, in which we all see the same thing and at the same intensity.

Taking as paradigm the ecstatic sight of the Holy 40 Martyrs from Sebaste of Armenia and a affirmation of the Holy Martyr Eustratius from the time of his tormentings, Symeon makes a distinction of degree not only between Baptism and ecstatic sight as until now, but and between the sight of beginners and of the perfects.

The sight of the light, says him, not received nobody before to clean and neither received it before to see it in ecstatic mode[8].

But, if for beginners, „is made to them at beginning a brightness and a divine lightenment, but which immediately passes”[9], fugitive, only for the perfect ones will be full, quotidian.

The distinction between the ecstasy of the beginners and of those perfect is an explanatory paradigm, we believe, of distinction between the receiving of the Ghost at Baptism and the receiving of the Ghost in ecstasy.

In both cases unite us with Christ through the Ghost, only that the receiving of Christ by babes is for short time and at a low measure, on when the ecstasy is an acknowledgment of Christ at a degree more high of ghostual understanding.


[1] SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, X, 436-445, p. 290-292 / Ică jr. 1, p. 335-336.

[2] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 446-447, p. 292 / Idem, p. 336.

[3] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 488-489, p. 294 / Idem, p. 337.

[4] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 498-500, p. 294 / Ibidem.

[5] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 500, p. 294 / Ibidem.

[6] About tears as our second baptism or as those who continually cleanses us, to see Ică jr. 2, p. 33; p. 34**; p. 35; p. 38; p. 40; p. 53**, p. 64; p. 65-66; p. 67; p. 69; p. 70; p. 71 etc.

[7] SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, X, 501-502, p. 296 / Ică jr. 1, p. 337.

[8] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 522-524, p. 296 / Idem, p. 388.

[9] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 527-528, p. 296 / Ibidem.

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