The Sight of God in the Theology of Saint Symeon the New Theologian [93]

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, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92.

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The whole creation renewed becomes an immense reliefation and presence of God’s glory, for that it, the creation, „reached whole ghostual, together with the Paradise itself [sin afto Paradiso], is premade into an immaterial dwelling and incorruptible, unchangeable, eternal and intelligible.

And will be [and] a heaven unparalleled more shining [as this of now], as another new heaven, more luminous than the seen.

And the earth will resume its unspeakable beauty and new and a face of unsear verdure, beautified by bright flowers and by a spiritual diversity, in which, according to the pious word,  dwells the righteousness [II Pet. 3, 13].

The Sun of righteousness will shine of seven times more [Mal. 4, 2; Is. 30, 26], and the moon will spark of twice times more than the sun which shines now; the stars will be like our sun, whatsoever will be they and however are they now looked by the words of those with high thinking.

All will be above of word, as some what will surpass all thinking, and being spiritual and divine, they will unite with the intelligible [enunte tis noitis] and will make another intelligible Paradise and a heavenly Jerusalem [Heb. 12, 22], likened and united with the heavenly [exomiotisa tis epuraniis che enotisa], and an unwavering inheritance of the sons of God, [for] nobody from those on earth will not be, nowise, heirs of it”[1], but only the Saints.

After how is observed, the transfiguration of the world does not mean a hallowed world, ghostualised, parallel with the Kingdom of God or with the Paradise of Saints, but means just a union of the transfigured world with the Paradise or an extension of the divine life from Paradise in the whole creation of God.

If now the Saints impart of the life of Paradise, of the divine light of Paradise, but they are surrounded by the created world, unghostualised in overwhelming mode, from around them, in the world of eschaton the Saints will live the light in them, this will squirt from them, but it will be and in the whole of creation, for that both they, but and the world from around them will be, in its completeness, the dwelling of glory of God, another temple full of glory, a world in which the interior communion with God is of-all-present and where is not found any infirmity or decadence.

Symeon speaks with accuracy about eschaton for that he had its real experience. All terms of comparison which he uses in the description of the renewable world keep of history, but the reality of the images used are ghostual contemplations of eternal realities.

The Saints, says our Father, according to Mat. 5, 5, will inherit this renewed earth[2]. But they will inherit the future world, for that their souls, „through the gift and the union of the Holy Ghost, stick to God, still being they in bodies and, renewed, they will change, will rise from death and will be restored after dormition, in the unevening light and in glory.

But their bodies not yet, for they will be left in graves and in corruption, following to be made and them so at the universal resurrection, as well as and all this earthly creation, seen and sensible, will be changed and will unite with the heavenly, ie with the unseen and above of feeling”[3].

The ecstatic union with God, about which speaks Symeon, is the one who brings from the death of sin the souls of Saints and it restores them in the divine light, but their bodies receive the full pnevmatization once with the resurrection of all.

The union between body and soul, made through the sight of light and the living in grace, is followed in eschaton by the real union, explicit, overwhelming of the heavenly and of the earthly, ie the transformation of the Havenly Powers and of the Saints into a single choir, into a single world, in which dwells the righteousness and which glorifies on the Most Holy Trinity, the Source of the whole life and of the entire joy.

The angelo-human unity of the Church or the overwhelming reality of the icon of the Proskomedia, in which the Lamb is in the midst of the transfigured creation, experienced now only in part, then will be an ecumenical evidence of the entire uncontainable stretching of the world of God.


[1] SC 122, The Ethical Discourses, I, 5, 84-101, p. 218-220 / Ică jr. 1, p. 130.

[2] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 5, 107-108, p. 220 / Idem, p. 131.

[3] Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 5,  110-119, p. 220 / Ibidem.

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