The Sight of God in the Theology of Saint Symeon the New Theologian [35]

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.

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If God’s light is seen from the eyes of our heart, if we see light in purity of heart and we have the current lighting of the Ghost, related to different problems of the quotidian life, then there is no great difficulty to give testimony about them.

Symeon spoke very openly about his ecstatic experiences because they were common to him, they were part of the daily rhythm of his life and they were not taboo problems theological.

If in the case of the knowledge as the personal revelation of light, you know it if God gave you in your life, Symeon says that and the reading a holy book, in the case a spiritual man, is not a scanning of surface of the readable information, but his reading is a continues divine revelation of the senses: „even and then when he hears through the divine Scriptures intermedium, speaking to those who have seen God, (the spiritual man) is learned (dida,sketai) about those only (mo,na) through the Holy Ghost” [269-271 lines].

The knowledge through the light unites in the spiritual man with that through the divine illumination.

The grace of the Holy Ghost is the one who reveals to us both. They are manifestations of grade of the Ghost and not of essence.

As said above Saint Symeon, all what we call as being of God are, in fact, the references to the divine light.

Symeon continues with the paradigm of probation, of the immediate experience.

The simply reading of Scripture’s texts considering at the sight does not mean an experience of sight [271-276 lines].

No matter how banal may seem his explanations, full of truism for a spiritual man, Symeon goes on a low syllogism to explain his ecstatic experiences.

The sight of God means to see the light [276 line]. To know God you have not to see anything else irradiating from Him than His light. If we saw the light, then, in that moment, „(we received) first cognizance that God exists” (gnw/sij prw,ti o[ti Qeo,j) [277 lines].

If we know that God exists from what we read about Him and we believe that He exists, the sight of the light demonstrates, in personal mode, to the believer, how shows the God that exists, Who is always and forever [277-286 lines].

Beginning with the line 287, Symeon reconfess the ecstasy of his noviciate years, which we analyzed in the previous section.

Only that here, Symeon does not opt for a simple narration of any ecstatic details, but he remembers the details that requires to be theological interpreted.

The confession retaken here has a preamble constituted by allusions to the reality of the ecstatic experience.

The God that revealed Himself to Symeon is avora,ton [287 line], unseen. But one who sees on the One invisible has a revelation, he sees a light [288-289 lines].

The state of sight contains in it the state of wonder, of astonishment of the one who sees [289 line].

The sight of the light does not indicate, in the first phase, and the knowledge of Him who appeared to you. Symeon states that you can not ask Him, Who reveals in the light, who is, as long as you can not look Him, nor you can comprehend His greatness [289-293 lines].

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