The Sight of God in the Theology of Saint Symeon the New Theologian [22]

Here, parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21.

Our greek font.

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The long search, with longing, with far more discerning and asceticism of the light seen at the beginning of our spiritual life, is rewarded – says Symeon in same context – by the sight and more of the light and of the mysteries which it brings in us, to the point where that we accustome with the divine light and we live the coexistence (sunw,n) of it[1].

But until the continuous coexistence with light from this life, there must be the first sheen/ brightness of the light in our being. It must be therefore, the birth into consciousness through Trinity’s glory.

In the Ethical Discourse 1, 10, the reality of our spiritual birth or of Christ in us becomes a conception of Christ by ourselves.

Says Symeon, that we do not conceive Him „physically, like how to wear (sune,laben) the Virgin and the Mother of God, but spiritually (pneumatikw/j) and beingly (ouvsiwdw/j)”[2] the Christ.

The conception of Christ has place in our heart[3], but, according to II Cor. 4, 7, we have in us and the treasure (qhsauro.n), ie the Holy Ghost [4].

By this new augmentation at the reality of the God’s presence in us, Symeon asks us to think at the presence of the Trinity in us and not at a Christ separated from the Trinity.

Then when we hear to talk abut Christ in us, says Simeon, we must understand that together with Christ is in us and the Ghost, but and the Father, because Holy Trinity is consubstantial (o`moou,sion) and inseparable (avcw,riston)[5].

The conception of Christ in our heart makes but through the faith from all the heart in Holy Trinity, through a total faith and through an ardent repentance[6].

 Faith and repentance make from our souls some parqe,nouj dhladh. (virgins clean) and in such souls appears the dew from heaven, the fountain with water of immortal life, the divine fire, that the presence in us of the Holy Trinity[7].

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The beginning of the real and conscious spiritual life, in conclusion, is the sight of the God’s glory and filled us by the Trinity’s grace.

Symeon emphasize the impossibility of existence of a relation with God without the overwhelming awareness of it and he presents the beginning of our deification as an act of the Trinity and as a feeling of the Trinity’s energy in ourselves.

Christ is together with the Father and with the Spirit in our being and this means the energetics presence of God in us.

But, the presence of Christ in us does not make Him our prisoner, for that He is above us. Or just because it is above all come He comes and He is born in us, that we raise ourselves to Him.

The spiritual realism that it disengage by the symeonian theology is linked, in fundamental mode, to the divine reality of the grace and the ecstatic contact, directly with God[8].


[1] SC 122, The Ethical Discourses, I, 12, 418-426, p. 302 / Ică jr. 1, p. 162-163.

[2] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 10, 17-19, p. 252 / Idem, p. 143.

[3] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 10, 20, p. 254 / Ibidem.

[4] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 10, 27, p. 254 / Idem, p. 144.

[5] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 10, 29-38, p. 254 / Ibidem.

[6] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 10, 39-40, p. 254 / Ibidem.

[7] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 10, 42-51, p. 254-256 / Ibidem.

[8] Mr. Dorin Ielciu, into an evaluated article at the life and the mystic of Saint Symeon, scoring very well both the presence of Christ in the life of Symeon and the awareness of this divine presence of Christ in him: „The mind becomes bright as Christ, because no is separated from Him, but through it working, irradiating, thinks Christ, though Symeon knows himself, for he felt with Christs mind as his mind”, acc. Dorin Ielciu, The Saint Symeon the New Theologian Byzantine Mystic, in rev. Orthodox Faith III (1998), no. 1-2, p. 147.

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