The Sight of God in the Theology of Saint Symeon the New Theologian [23]

Here, parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22.

Our greek font.

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2. 3. 2. Death and Resurrection of Christ in the Personal Experience

In the Catechesis 13, Saint Symeon discusses these realities in concise mode and programed. He wants to show to the monks under his leadership in what consists the mystery of Christ’s Resurrection in our being^[1].

This avnasta,sewn, the resurrection of Christ has place only in those who desire it, says Symeon, in those who compel to have it, to live and it happens constantly, in mystic face (mustikw/j) in them^[2].

Christ, Whom we received in Baptism and Whom we awared in us, through the sight of the divine light, in our first ecstasy, is buried (qa,ptetai) in us as into a tomb (evn mnh,mati), says Symeon, and raised (evxani,statai), united being with our souls^[3].

But to get to the death and resurrection of Christ in us, we must participate at the His Passions (tw/n Paqhma,twn).

Participation at the Lord’s suffering is done by exiting from world and entering in the tomb of repentance and humility. We have to wait in this tomb our resurrection, because only here is going the true spiritual resurrection^[4].

Our resurrection is a resurrection together with Christ (su.n tw|/ Cristw|/)^[5].

This resurrection is real and not phraseological for Symeon, for he who raised with Christ, together with Him, from the tomb of repentance, sees yet now the glory of His mystical resurrection (th.n do,xan th/j mustikh/j Auvtou/ avnasta,sewj)^[6].

In catechesis that we talk about, we have only a confirmation of the fact that birth, death and resurrection of Christ in us is the same with the sight of the divine light and that repentance and faith, our entire effort for to be proper to God are the sufferings of Christ in us, our together-passion with Christ, for that we rise into Him and we see the glory of His divine-human person.

For to be understood properly by his audience, Symeon states that the Christ’s resurrection which he speaks about is, in fact, our resurrection^[7]. But this resurrection and glory of Christ shown in us through the resurrection of Christ in us^[8], through this the ecstatic consciousness sight.

Our resurrection is the resurrection of our souls^[9]. And the resurrection is an e[nwsi,j, a union of our with the life^[10].

The soul, states Symeon, our soul dead can not rise by itself from his spiritual death, from his passions, if it is „not connecting in unspeakable face and unmixed with God, Who is the eternal life”^[11].

For that we raise together with the Lord, we must have a union with Him in consciousness (evn gnw,sei), sight (o`ra,sei) and sensation (aivsqh,sei)^[12].

All three calificatives of the vision, which are proposed for us to understanding, in symeonian affirmation, shows the fact that the union with God is real and is personal awared, it is partial understood, is ecstatic and, in the same time, is repercussed both in the soul and the body of those who live it.

The soul does not live the divine sight, the presence of the divine light in the distance from the body, but the body participates at the reality of the divine grace.

Without the union with the Lord, without this ecstatic union, Symeon affirms – and on good right – that the soul is dead (nekra,), although it is noera. kai. th/| fu,sei avqa,natoj (according to his nature, rational and immortal)^[13].

Our soul can not achieve the spiritual resurrection and the sight of the light just because that it has the possibility to think and to understand the reality, but only if it is united with the Lord, it begins to see and to feel with true those spirituals.