The Sight of God in the Theology of Saint Symeon the New Theologian [43]

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.

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Saint Symeon needed to be taught by the Ghost opposite of what had been done with him. Namely is needed by a divine express lighting for that we understand the ecstatic sights that we have.

The ecstasies are explained to us all by the Holy Ghost, in measure in that God considers necessary this thing at personal level.

In the 71th chapter, Niketas authenticates the amazing increase in holiness of Symeon: for he had become „only of the Ghost and he was full of His divine charismata, he being extreme clean with mind and he saw, on right word, as the Prophets of old [oi` Profh/tai pa,lai] the visions and the frightening revelations of the Lord.

And he being thus and he having the apostolic mind [avpostolikh.n th.n di,anoian], since he was under the work of God’s Ghost and he was put in motion by Him, he had the grace of the word pouring out through his lips [Ps. 44, 3]”^[1].

Putting of Symeon among of Prophets and Apostles, because of his visions, is not, we think, an exaggeration from part of Niketas but a pertinent observation concerning at his ecstatic life.

Symeon had colossal divine revelations, alike with  Prophets and Apostles and „driven by impetuous [th/| biai,a|] breath of the Ghost, he made public [a;kwn dhmosieu,ei], [even without his will], those that he saw in God’s discoveries and visions, then when he reached beyond nature”^[2].

Symeon had visions from God and also God pushes him to make them public and this revealing of his theological revelations was itself the accurate mode, concrete, at to do theology.

Symeon does not leave confiscated the theology in the hands of men unclean of passions but he shows through his life, that to do theology means to have a charisma of God and that the entire content of theology is ecstatic and it must be received from God for that to be a credible speech about Him.