The Sight of God in the Theology of Saint Symeon the New Theologian [76]

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, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75.

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If through the sacramental impartation of Christ, in Church, we fell the divinity of Christ in our being, then, pulls the conclusion Symeon, Christ is the Head of Church, we are living members of Him, into a full contiguity with Him.

For our Father, the impartation with the Holy Eucharist is a propaedeutic of  christology and of triadology, which are understood only by real members, authentic, conscious of the Church.

In the ethical Discourse 14 Symeon rediscusses the reality of conscious feeling of eucharistic Christ. Speaking about the impartation and about the sight in the same time, about the ghostual understanding of Holy Mysteries, our Father says:

„If you do it in feeling and consciousness [en estisi che gnosi], then impart you of some as these with worthiness. But if do not impart you so, forsooth you eat and drink of them with unworthiness.

If imparted you in clean sight [en teoria catara] from the ones from which imparted you, behold that made you ​​worthy by a meal as that. And if became not you worthy, will not you enclose and will not you unite, noway, of God.

Thus, not to reckon those who impart with unworthiness of Divine Mysteries, that through these they enclose and unite pure and simple of God the unseen.

For this thing will not be done, noway, nor will spend with them ever.

Because only those who, in the impartation [metusia] of Divine Body of the Lord, they worthed to see and to eat, with the eye and the mouth of mind and the discovery of unseen Godhead, into a ghostual touching [by the glory of God o.n.], they know [then], that good is the Lord  [Ps. 33, 9], as some who do not eat and drink only a felt bread in felt face but, in the same time, [they feed], in ghostual face, from God, they feeding with twofold senses, from one in seen face and, from other, in unseen face and they unite, in both of these, with Christ the twofold after nature, making them con-corporal [Eph. 3, 6] and sharer of glory and of His divinity [I Pet. 5, 1].

Because so unite with God those who eat this Bread into consciousness and sight of Mystery and drink from this chalice with the feeling of soul and of heart. But those who make this with unworthiness are vain of the grace of Holy Ghost,  feeding only the body, not and their soul”^[1].

Thus Symeon attentionates us, that the simple consumption of the Holy Mysteries does not mean union with Christ, the true impartation of Him, but only if we see with the soul and with our mind His glory in us and if we rejoice divinely of the feeling of grace, which deifies us in conscious mode.

The real impartation can be demonstrated through the direct and personal possibility, from interior, of narrating of its consequences in our being.

Those who cannot says nothing about the personal soteriology, wants to say, in definitive, Symeon, are those which do not impart in conscious mode of eucharistic Christ, who have never seen His glory and who not yearn after the eternal union with Him.

Therefore, Symeon converses again with presupposed upset and deranged one by his words, with the one does not experience, at all, the wonder of real impartation with the Lord and he tells to this one with condescension:

„But do not be troubled, beloved, listening the truth shown to you by us. For if you confess that the Body of the Lord is Bread of life, who gives life and we know that His Blood gives life those who impart of it, and is done in the one drink it source of flowing life to eternal life [Jn. 4, 14], how, tell me, impart you of these not add nothing more to the soul, but, even if you feel, maybe, little joy, after short time you remain again so how you were before, not having in you any addition of life or gushing spring or seeing a some light?

For those who have not reach to cross beyond of the feeling [of those of here], this Bread is shown to them in felt face, alike a simple eating, while in ghostual face it is uncomprised light and unapproachable [fos ahoriton che aprositon].

All so and the Wine is and it, in similar face, life [zoi], fire [pir], living water [idor zon].

So, if eating and drinking the divine Bread and the Wine of rejoicing, you will not know that you live the incorruptible life [uc esi ghinoscon i zoin ezisas tin anoletron], that you received insed you the Bread as on a light or as on a fire and that you drink the Blood of Master as a flowing water and speaking, if do not have reach at the sight [teoria] and the impartation [metexi] with nothing from all these, how reckon that you made ​​partaker of life [tis zois chinonos]?”^[2].

This passage is one of the clearest examples, for to exemplify the fact, that Symeon identifies the experiencing of union with the Holy Eucharist with the sight of His everlasting glory.

The authentic eucharistic experience is not than the concrete touching of essential of ecstatic experience: the real union with Christ. For those who do not impart mystical, mysterious and real with Christ, the impartation has not real consequences, identifiable interior.

But for those who perceive with their whole being, that the union with eucharistic Christ is a union with the humanity and the deity of Christ, with Christ the full of glory, this is the generator of the greatest fulfillment and of interior joy and the real mode in which spend the salvation and our sanctification.

The holiness is an interior process, on full conscientized by the one in which spends and about it you can talk, if you experiment it in act.

These capital truths of personal soteriology are said outrightly by Saint Symeon. He does not leave place to any ambiguity in the understanding of living relation with God, for that the relation with Him is, as it says and the significance of term which indicates it, an uninterrupted link with God.