The Sight of God in the Theology of Saint Symeon the New Theologian [36]
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.
Our greek font.
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We see, with other words, the glory of Someone, not the glory of something.
The symeonian ecstatic theology is personalistic because indicates us a relation with Someone through the intermedium of His glory and not a relation with an impersonal glory, with a phantom-like and depersonalized holistic reality.
Says Symeon, that he who sees, knows that „o[lwj ti,j evstin o` fanei.j pro. prosw,pou auvtou” (all that was shown/ revealed in front of him is of Someone) [293-294 lines].
The glory is of Someone, of the trinitarian God.
Retelling the ecstasy of Catechesis 16, Symeon gives the light the appellative of gluku,j (sweet) [297 line].
He doubled linguistic the characteristic of the light, that to be refelt as sweet, he emphasizes this thing, for to show the personal mode in that he received the light in his being.
The light did not filled him of fear, did not burn him, did not brought him in the threshold of madness but, on the contrary, it filled him with an inexpressible divine sweetness.
Light came into a longing heart for God and it was refelt as sweetness.
The sweetness (glukei/an) and the loging (po,qon) [300 line] are the ecstatic consequences highlighted by Symeon with this occasion. The ardent tears and many come from itself, as a continuation of the two [301 line].
In this context appears the image of the house that disappears and, once with it, and the whole world, moment in that the ecstasy is presented as an extreme deep loneliness in two: he and God are face to face [302-304 lines].
After what he expresses in face of his Father, his perplexity considering at the presence of his body during ecstasy, Symeon indicates us his interiority: an unspeakable joy, love and miss much and rivers of tears of joy flowed him from eyes [304-309 lines].
The Father responds him that the light is what that cleanse us, until when makes us perfect and in this state we can, we gain, we have the boldness to ask Him, Who shows us, who is He and He will answer us that is God, our Creator [311-316 lines].
The increase in knowledge means for Symeon the growth in the sight and the understanding of the divine light.
In the knowledge of God advances slow but constant.
Symeon says, that we go forward kat’ ovli,gon, by little in every day in those of God [317-319 lines].
The sight of God means His authentic knowledge and His knowledge means to know that is His will to us [320-323 lines].
The sight stays in internal connection with the knowledge in the frame of the symeonian’s theology and His knowledge is manifested as personal understanding of to. Auvtou/ a[giou qe,lhma (His holy will) [322-323 lines].
Communion with God, which procures us the sight of His glory, gives us to feel how we behave, how must we talk, how must we manifest before God and people.
This communion with Him we do not suppose how to act, but we are taught interior, by the light, what to say to the glory of God.
Theology of glory is the one that gives us true moral dimension of the spiritual life, for that good deed into consciousness, good deed which we see the consequences in our being, they are realized in personal mode or it is made then, when we see light, when we feel the grace of God in us.
Saint Symeon does not live active moral dilemmas, congested.
Knowledge as sight and that as lighting discharges us of what seems dilemmatic, obscure, obturated in spiritual life.
The advancement and the reaching in familiarity with God is for Symeon a knowledge of what God does in us, thing that is identic – accentuates he – with what God has done and will do with all the Saints [324-328 lines].
Symeon does not speak than by a single modality to advance in communion with God and namely the life of holiness, which translates to a life in that we go forward always in the sight of the light and in lightings and spiritual contemplations.
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Therefore, for that just this mysterious side of the relation of Saints with God means spiritual life, and, in definitive, theological knowledge, Symeon sees our relation cu God, the holy communion with God, as having its foundation in itself initiation, which makes to us God Himself about Himself [328-329 lines].
Symeon debates intensely this capital truth about personal salvation, showing that true knowledge of God we do not receive through our work, through the efforts very tiresome we are making, but His knowledge is a divine gift, is a gift received in purity of heart and it is personal revelation of the divine light of the Trinity.
We begin to receive His knowledge still from this life, but the full receiving of His sight is reserved to the eternal life [329-337 lines].
But, if we do not know that we are children of God from the presence of Holy Ghost in us, says Symeon, then we will not be like God, because He is not in us [343-346 lines].
