The Sight of God in the Theology of Saint Symeon the New Theologian [44]
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.
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Soteriology
2. 5. The Path of Deification and the Sight of God
In this chapter we try to present symeonian soteriology from the perspective of three classical stages in orthodox theology: the cleaning of passions, the unpassion and the deification, which and he accepts it in his writings, as we shall see.
But Symeon stresses continuously the fact that we come to sanctify our lives if we are in living obedience to a spiritual Father which to coordinate our life step by step.
Thereby the personal salvation is seen as a continuous advance in holiness, through the experience of the sight of God God, in daily obedience to a spiritual Father.
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2. 5. 1. Emergence of Light in Those Who are Cleansed of Passions
In the Hymn 8, our Father shows that those who love God are loved in turn by God as some His friends and to them He is shown[1].
God appears in our life as a sun (h[lioj), as a real sun, although it is kekrumme,noj (secret/ hidden) for all mortal nature[2] but, especially, for the whole mind that intellectualizes the reality and the manifestations of God in the world and in the faithful man.
The Light is it that rises in those of God[3] and, says Symeon, „You are seen by themselves and into You pop up who that once were dark, unchaste, adulterous and decayed, sinners, tax collectors. [For that] repenting, they are sons of Thy divine light (uivoi. fwto,j Sou qei,ou), light bears all from the light, [from itself], since, with true, the light makes them perfect, sons of God, that some who take/ know [all], and [are] gods by grace”[4].
The decayed life which we had formerly, washed through the tears of repentance, is not an impediment for the sight of God.
The repentance is at Saint Symeon the interior estate that makes God to spring into our being, ie to give us the sight of His light.
From the passage quoted above reemerge in clear mode that divine light is what that makes us sons of God and that light brings us the perfection, the holiness.
The estate of holiness keeps in fundamental mode of the seeing of the divine light.
Just therefore we debate the sight of God as the fundamental reality in personal salvation, for that the holiness is the living in grace and the sight of the divine light.
The repentance and the purity are contiguous at Symeon. The repentance is not, at fact, only a distinct thurm in the divine-human process of the cleaning of passions.
For Symeon the cleaning is endless/ without final [avte,lestoj h` ka,qarsij] for that the desire of cleaning and the longing to see the light are endless[5].
Desire of light comes from the sight of it and as we see more light, on both we feel that we have in noway the wealth of it in integral mode[6].
The light seen by Symeon is as a sweet sun [gluku,j o` h[lioj], lived in unspeakable mode in our senses[7].
The sweetness of light is not refelt by the soul in opposition with the body, but, after how we see from the symeonian text, the soul and the body feel, they communicate in proper mode, real, by the light of God, they resenting it as sweet.
The divine sun, the light, comes in us not producing an interior disaster but, contrariwise, a re-binding, a relationship of us with God.
What sweetens our senses, what sanctifies us both the spiritual senses and those bodily is the divine light, which attracts the soul to an inexpressible longing and divine [po,qon avne,kfraston kai. qei/on] [8] by Holy Trinity.
[1] SC 156, Hymns, VIII, 1-5, p. 214 / Ică jr. 3, p. 70.
[2] Idem, Hymns, VIII, 6, p. 214 / Ibidem.
[3] Idem, Hymns, VIII, 7, p. 214 / Ibidem.
[4] Idem, Hymns, VIII, 7-12, p. 214 / Ibidem.
[5] Idem, Hymns, VIII, 39-40, p. 218 / Idem, p. 71.
[6] Idem, Hymns, VIII, 50-51, p. 218 / Ibidem.
[7] Idem, Hymns, VIII, 54, p. 218 / Ibidem.
[8] Idem, Hymns, VIII, 55, p. 218 / Ibidem.
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