Rev. D.Th. Dorin Octavian Picioru?

The Sight of God

in the Theology of

Saint Symeon the New
Theologian

Theology for Today
Bucharest

2014

Rev. D.Th. Dorin Octavian Picioru?

The Sight of God

in the Theology of

Saint Symeon the New
Theologian

(Doctoral Thesis)

The translation from romanian
in english belongs to the author.

Theology for Today
Bucharest
2014

Dedicated,
with all the love
and
gratitude,
to Felicitous Hie the seer of God,

my ghostual Father,
the highest mystic of the twentieth
century.

The man who lived days on end in
the glory of God and confessed to me
about his ecstatic sights.

Introduction

The present thesis is an anttempt of
synthetic presentation of the steadfast
character and, in the same time, dynamic
of experience and of orthodox thinking.

Any ghostual reality and theological
subject must rethought, reactualised in
the dimension of present, for as to be an
active factor of dynamization of our
personal life and communautaire.

But the theological actualization
does not presuppose and the dilution of
the Church's teaching, but its perception
at real parameters of orthodox experi-
ence. For the ghostual experience is the
foundation of the theological elaborations
and the one keeps us in Church, as men
with living faith and lucid, attentive at
the changes of the world in which we
live.

Being sustained in the frame of the
discipline Orthodox Dogmatic Theology,
at the section Systematics, our theme will
be debated into a regime of research
proper to the afferent discipline.

The theme of the sight of God will be
presented as component part of personal
soteriology, intending to put in evidence,
into a systematic mode and concise, the
contribution of Saint Symeon the New
Theologian in this question.

We consider that the experience and
the theology elaborated by the one who is

surnamed the third theologian of the
Church are a norm and a unlying guide in
our demarche.

The choosing of theme came from a
profound interior need, from the desire to
deepen the coordinates of the symeonian
theology too little debated at academic
level.

The knowledge of the experience
and of the theology of Saint Symeon
seems to us an immense avail for the
theologians and our believers, as long as
we confront, in direct mode, with the
depersonalized consequences of secula-
rization and of mondialization.

As shield of protection in the face of
the eroding of conscience of ecclesial
appurtenance and of the understanding
of person and of interpersonal relations,
Saint Symeon proposes us a theology of
experience, in which God descends to
man, showing him His glory, for as to
raise on man at the level of Trinity, to
open him to the trinitarian communion.

And this, for that Symeon sees on
man as having his center of gravity in God
and does not in he himself

The closure in himself of the man,
into a subjectivist perspective, cannot
present a mystical experience, a personal
experience with God, but for Symeon the
true relation with God means the
communion of man with God, in and
through His glory, as ecstatic sight.

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Enrolling in the personalist lode of
the Fathers of the Orthodox Church,
Saint Symeon the New Theologian keeps
at a place the interpersonal character and
objective of our relation with God.

Therefore, for him, the orthodox
believer experiences the uncreated grace
and eternal of God, without to close in
himself and without to tear of the
community of Church. And the sight of
God is not an escape from time and nor
can we to force the being as it to produce,
but is lift of ours, by God, through His
glory, for to fill us of the brightnesses of
His glory, and for that this thing makes
us to become fervent believers in the
frame of the life of Church.

The fundamental consequence of
God's sight is a life full of dynamism, of
dedication in the service of Church, a
continuous search to sanctify us the life,
ie so many positive attributes for the life
of Church and of society in which we
unfold the existence.

Therefore, the choosing of the
theme of face, we consider it a gain of
everyone, an ecclesial gain, because the
symeonian theology is a continuous
recourse at experience, equilibrium and
fidelity towards the Tradition of the
Church.

Our work will be composed from
three distinct chapters but which have
interior links between them.

The first chapter will treat the
problem of the biblical and patristic
premises of man's deification and of the
sight of God in the orthodox theology.

We will seek to present the fact that
the seen world has a rational foundation
and ghostual, for that is the personal
creation of the divine Logos through
Whom all things are made [Travra Si'
Auiou kyevezo, Jn. 1, 3, acc. GNT].

The rational and ghostual foun-
dation of the world must seen in relation
with the existence of God's uncreated
energies, which penetrate and sustain all,
both the unseen existences but and on
the seen.

For that the man can impart of grace
in Church and the grace of God
penetrates, in real mode, the being of the
man, therefore we can speak, in the same
time, about the sight of God and
deification, both having internal link.

The second chapter will treat the
theme of the sight of God at Saint Symeon
the New Theologian and its implications
in the personal salvation and it will be the
chapter of force of our thesis.

In the frame of this chapter, after
an introduction in the ecstatic termino-
logy of Saint Symeon, we will present the
racordations of the experience of God's
sight with the triadology, the christology,
the pnevmatology, the ecclesiology, the
sanctology and the eschatology. Step by
step we will show how advised and how

8

organic is included Symeon in the
teaching and the experience of the
Church, for that his own experience
affirms and does not infirm the theology
of the Fathers.

As servant of the Holy Liturgy and
of the Mysteries of the Church, as starets
of monastery, as writer and theologian, as
confessor of the orthodox faith and as
man persecuted on unjust for the
deepness of his theology and of his love
for Church's Tradition and for the Saints
of God, Saint Symeon proves, through
deeds and words, that he is the fulfiller of
his proper theology. Therefore he has
remained as an authentic landmark of life,
experience and theology for our Church.

The third chapter will have righ the
thematic theme the receptation of the
theology of glory in the orthodox space
and of the importance of its assuming in
the postmodern world.

Here we will debate the theology of
the sight of God at the Father Professor
Dumitru Staniloae, beloved and our
venerable theologian, considered, on
right word, the greatest theologian of the
twentieth century, alongside the theology
of glory at Professor Vladimir Lossky,
which was received very warmly in
Occident for his patristic reactualizations
in the domain of the mystical theology.

The last sequence of our work will
vise the condition of the man in
postmodernity and will be a succinct

9

debate on the mode in which can salve an
orthodox believer, of diverse ideological
traps, through the experience and the
theology of the Church.

We give thanks to Father Professor
Dumitru Popescu, our coordinating, for
the special attention on which he has
granted us and for the real support and
the vision of ensemble on which he
offered us.

Alongside of his Holiness and of his
effective support, decisive in the systema-
tization of the theological informations,
we could elaborate this thesis, which we
hope to be of avail to those who will
consult it.

i. The Biblical and Patristic
Premises of the Deification of the
Man and of the Sight of God in the
Orthodox Theology

For to understand into a clear mode,
without dubieties, the theology of the
sight of God at Saint Symeon the New
Theologian, we believe that we must
begin with a synthetic presentation of the
premises of the deification of the man.

Because the sight of God appears in
the divine-human process of deification
as a direct consequence and real of it.

In the frame of the uninterrupted
strivings of to cleanse us from passions,
the sight of God is a gift of God, a descent
of God to us for to raise us at the
impartation of His divine life.

The premises of the deification and of
the sight of God on which we will debate
are the following:

1. The person of the divine Logos as
Creator and Pantocrator of the entire
creation.

2. The rational and ghostual
foundation of the seen world, which
makes it to be „open towards God" 1 .

1 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu, Christ,
Church, Society [Hristos, Bisericd, Societate], Pub.
IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1998, p. 124.

11

3. The uncreated divine energies,
which spring from the being of God and
which are „of the being-making and
deifying works" 2 of the man.

2 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology [Teologia Dogmaticd
Ortodoxd], ed. II, vol. i, Pub. IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1996,

p. 113.

i. i. The Person of the Divine
Logos and His Relation with the
Creation and with the Man

The first verse of Scripture testifies
the frame that „in beginning made
[eTTOiriaev] God the heaven and the earth"
[Gen. 1, i, acc. LXX], in consequence, that
the world has a beginning, it is not
eternal, but its beginning stands in the
will of God of to make/ of to create the
world unseen and seen.

For that God has created the world,
this cannot be confused with Him and
nor is a part of Him 3 , but it was made by
God ouk e£ [from nothing], according to II
Maccab. 7, 28.

But the expression „from nothing"
does not want to say that the nothing
would be a particular substance from
which God would be molded the world
but that before as the entire existence to
be created by God, it did not exist in fact.

Thus, the world being made by God
from nothing and in time 4 , the creation
proves, in fundamental mode, dependent
of God, for that He is the cause of its
existence and the One which keeps it in
existence.

3 Rev. Prof. Acad. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu, Iisus
Hristos Pantocrator [Jesus Christ Pantocrator], Pub.
IBMBOR, Bucharest, 2005, p. 142.

4 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology [Teologia Dogmaticd
Ortodoxd], second edition, vol. 1, ed. cit., p. 226.

13

The world is theonomy, dependent
of God and not autonomous, independent
towards Him. Of fact, „the world cannot
become autonomous, because it has no
conscience and nor liberty for to break its
internal link with God" 5 .

We understand in what consists the
internal link of creation with God, if we
understand, in correct mode, Gen. 1, 2.

The expression: „and the Ghost of
God bring upon water" [km, IIveu|ja 0eou
eTTecjiepeTO cravo) tou uSaiog] is the
testimony of uncombatable of „the
presence of the Ghost of God in
creation" 6 .

For the orthodox exegesis, this
presence of the Ghost of God in creation is
translated through the fact, that the
foundation world is an active one, is the
light of God and that the uncreated
energies are the internal link between
God and His creation.

The creation of the man by God
after the face I image/ icon of God [kmc'
ekova 0eou, Gen. 1, 27] and the breath of
life [ttvotiv (0%], breathed over his face
by God, these show on man as living soul
[i[o)xt]v C^oav] [Gen. 2, 7] in his relation
with Him.

God creates on man as living soul, ie
He creates on man with a real possibility

5 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu, The Man
Without Roots [Omul fdrd rdddcini], coll. Alpha and
Omega [Alfa si Omega], Pub. Nemira, Bucharest, 2001,
p. 59.

6 Ibidem.

14

of to open to his Creator, the men being,
after the expression of Father Professor
Dumitru Staniloae, „souls clothed in
bodies" 7 .

But God „made on man not only as
reason, but as reason clothed with flesh" 8 ,
the body of the man being „a palpable
rationality, concrete, special, in link with
the palpable rationality, concrete of
nature.

He represents the most complex
system of plasticized rationality... [But,
while] the body, as the plasticized
rationality, ceases once with the
death... the soul, of which presence gives
to palpable rationality of the matter the
quality of body proper-said, is a
subjective rationality, conscious, excee-
ding all rationality and the passive
sensibility of nature" 9 .

Hence we deduce that the man is
the one who personalizes the matter into
himself, which understands the differen-
ce between himself and the creation,
which does not understand its internal
rationality. He assumes his condition of
being with body, which lives in the world
and, in the same time, he assumes the

7 Dumitru Staniloae, Jesus Christ: the Light of the
World and the Deifying of the Man [Iisus Hristos:
lumina lumii si indumnezeitorul omului], edition tended
by Monica Dumitrescu, Pub. Anastasia, Bucharest,
1993, p. 5.

8 Idem, p. 7.

9 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology [Teologia Dogmatica
Ortodoxa], ed. II, vol. 1, ed. cit., p. 258.

15

understanding of the world, which does
not have conscience of self and of its
conscience is he himself.

The relation of the man with God
implies the assuming of the life in body
but and the asssuming and his care
towards the entire creation.

But, through sin, says the Father
Professor Dumitru Popescu, „the man
failed to give expression to his vocation,
received from part of the Creator, of to
transform the heaven and the earth in
Paradise, and to raise he himself with the
entire creation towards the immortality
of the Aker, but he had fallen in the
corruption of world, knowing a process of
involution, which approached him of the
beings inferior to him. [...]

Of course, the falling of the
ancestors does not destroyed the face of
God from man, because Adam continued
to speak with God and after his falling in
sin. But the face of God from man was
altered progressive, until the man
reached to confuse, in pantheistical
mode, the Creator with the creation and
to worship to the creature in the place of
the Creator" 10 .

The oldtestamentary Revelation
speaks to us about God, about the Lord
God, about the Lord or about the Ghost of
God 11 . But only once what the Logos of

10 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu, The Man
Without Roots [Omulfdrd rdddcini], op. cit., p. 69-70.

11 Acc. LXX, the name of God appears of 1795
times in 1583 verses, the syntagma the Lord God appears

i6

God incarnates, we find that God is
Trinity of persons.

In the epiphanies of the Baptism
[Mt. 3, 13-17, Mk. 1, 9-11, Lk. 3, 21-22] and
of the Transfiguration of the Lord [Mt. 17,
1-8, Mk. 9, 2-8, Lk. 9, 28-36], we see that
the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost
are the three persons of the Godhead and
that They are our God.

Our God is from eternity Trinity, but
only the incarnated Son makes known to
the men the Trinity, that God is Trinity of
persons, because „Three are Those who
confess in heaven: the Father, the Word
and the Holy Ghost and these Three are
one" [I Jn. 5, 7, acc. GOC].

If Gen. 1, 1 speaks to us about God as
about the Creator of the world, then Jn. 1,
1-3 reveals to us the report between the
Father and the Son or between God and
His Logos in the frame of the creation of
the world and of the man:

„In beginning was the Word, and
the Word was towards God, and God was
the Word. This was in beginning towards
God. All through This were made and
nothing from what was made was not
made without Him", acc. GNT.

But connexing Jn. 1, 1-3 with the
place from Gen. 1, 2, we observe that the
Father makes the entire creation through
the Son, but into the Ghost of God.

of 566 times in 534 verses, the word the Lord of 3663
times in 3298 verses and the sintagma the Ghost of God
of 15 times in 15 distinct verses.

17

Therefore, the Tradition of the
Orthodox Church will talk about the
Logos of God, about the Son, that about
the Creator of the world and as about the
Pantocrator of the entire creation 12 .

From lexical point of view,
naviOKpaicop has the significance of the
All-Ruler or of the Almighty 13 . But in the
life and the orthodox theology, the greek
word Pantocrator was understood as
being an equivalent of the All-Sustainer,
designating through this thing, that the
Logos „is the One from Which come all,
in Which are held all and in Which will
show contained and lighted all, the
Pantocrator, the Sustainer of all" 14 .

If the prime signification was
pretaken in the heterodox theology and
the Pantocrator was understood as
remaining „closed into an inaccessible
transcendence" 15 , the Pantocrator, in the
orthodox tradition, as the All-Sustainer,
was seen as the One what „fills with His
presence both the Church but and the
universe" 16 in its integrality.

12 The name Pantocrator in the LXX, accorded
the Lord God, appears of 126 times in 121 verses.

13 Acc. A Patristic Greek Lexicon, edited by G. W.
H. Lampe, Pub. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1961,
p. 1005.

14 Rev. Prof. Acad. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu, Jesus
Christ Pantocrator [Iisus Hristos Pantocrator], Pub.
IBMBOR, Bucharest, 2005, p. 193-194.

15 Dumitru Popescu, Orthodoxy and Contempora-
neousness [Ortodoxie si contemporaneitate], Pub.
Diogene, Bucharest, 1996, p. 196.

16 Ibidem.

i8

The link of the Logos with His
creation consists in that, that „exists...an
inexhaustible common sense of the
things, a sense which links them, a sense
of indefinite wealth towards which the
man forward. Their unique sense
supreme is the divine Logos. In Him are
the meanings of all.

Only This explains on all, only in
Him the man finds the proper sense of
his existence. Especially one who believes
seizes this supreme sense through a
general act of intuition, through his
spirit" 17 .

The creation, being the work of the
Logos of God, full of His energetic
footprint, of His glory and of the
rationality planted by Him in things, for
to be understood we must resort at
Revelation and at the personal relation
with Him. As long as the senses of the
things lead us at the creator Logos and
our life finds the explanation only in
Him, the creation is a transparent
medium for His understanding. If the
created things send us, through their
senses, at the Creator of the world, then
the creation is not and cannot be a closed
environment in itself.

Saint Irenaeus of Lyon speaks, in the
second christian century, about the
creator Logos as being identical with the

17 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology [Teologia Dogmaticd
Ortodoxd], second edition, vol. 1, ed. cit., p. 239.

19

savior Logos of the world: „For that the
Maker of all things, the Word of God,
Which gave face from beginning the man,
when the work of His hands has
weakened through malice, This gave
healing in many ways. And He has
appointed a time in which to separate the
members, which He made them and
again another time when to restore the
whole man in full mode, making himself,
through Himself, perfect through His

yy 18

resurrection" .

Precisely because we are His
creation, the Logos was incarnate and
became man like us, except sin, for that
to restore us into Himself and to perfect
us through His resurrection, through
which He has deified our nature.

The same Father of the Church
accentuates the fact that we are created
by the Logos of God for that „He is the
One through Which were founded all
things, Which chose to make them,
Which has beautified on all and Which
keeps all. And when I speak of all things,
I refer at ourselves and at our world. [...]

For not the Angels made us, nor give
us these the form on which we have, nor
made us after the face of God any
heavenly Power, namely any [heavenly]
Power very distant from the Father of all
things.

18 Irenaeus, Against Heresies V, 12, 6, in coll. The
Ante-Nicene Fathers. The Writings of the Fathers down
to A.D. 325, edited by Rev. Alexander Roberts and
James Donaldson, volume 1, Oregon, 1996, p. 1114.

20

No one else made us, but only the
Word of God. For that God does not need
of these beings, for that to create the
things which He Himself has established
them, more beforehand, as to be made.

This would happen if He would not
have His hands [ie on the Son and on the
Ghost - our note]. But always are with
Him the Word and the Wisdom, the Son
and the Ghost, through Which and into
Which, in free mode and immediately He
made all the things about which He said,
saying: Let Us make man after the face
and Our likeness [Gen. 1, 26].

For He took from He Himself the
matter of the created beings and the
model of things which He made and the
beauty of each thing in part of the
world" 19 .

In consensus with the Scripture, is
observed that Saint Irenaeus speaks of
the creation of the world as about a work
done by the Father through the Son into
the Holy Ghost.

The creation is witnessed as a direct
work of God and not as a work through
the intermediation of heavenly Powers,
which are not uncreated beings but
created by Him.

In the fourth century, Saint
Athanasius the Great, in Kam 5 EXXr\v(AV
[About Greeks], also spoke about the
Creator of the world as being the Logos of
God:

Idem, IV, 20, 1, p. 1006-1007.

21

„And if the world was made through
word and wisdom and knowledge, and all
was adorned, is necessary then as He who
leads and adornes it not to be other than
the One is the Word of God" 20 .

And for to be perfectly understood
by his readers, Saint Athanasius comes
and makes clarifications about who is this
the Word of God:

„I speak about the Word of Himself
[Auioloyov], living and work of God, of
the One who is good and God. This is
another than those created and than all
creation. For He is of Him and He is the
only Word of the good Father, Which
adorned and lights all through His
demeanor of care [TTpovola].

Being the good Word of the good
Father, This adorned all with ordeliness
[th.n dia,taxin], uniting those who are
some against others [contrary] and
through this [working] the ornament of a
unique harmony" 21 .

In the same apologetic work, Saint
Athanasius the Great continues to speak
to us about the Pantocrator of all
creation, about the divine Logos, saying
the following magisterial things:

20 Athanasius Theologus, Kara ' EXXr\v(x>v, 40, acc.
TLG # 001 40. 19 - 001 40. 23/ Saint Athanasius the
Great, Word Against the Greeks [Cuvdnt impotriva
elinilor], in coll. PSB [Fathers and Ecclesiastical
Writers], vol. 15, with greek translation, introduction
and notes by Rev. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, Ed.
IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1987, p. 75-76.

21 Idem, acc. TLG [Thesaurus Linguae Graecae] #
001 40. 29 - # 001 40. 38/ Idem, p. 76-77.

22

„For the Same Word almighty and
all-perfect saint of the Father, dwelling
and expanding His powers in all and
everywhere and luminating on all the
ones shown and on all the ones unseen,
keeps them in Himself and gathers them,
not leaving nothing empty of His power,
but [being] through all and in all and in
each in part, giving life to all and
guarding them on each in part 22 . [...]

[Because] the Wisdom of God,
carrying the entire [universe] as on a lyre,
and gathering the ones from air with the
ones from earth and the ones from
heavens with the ones from air and
uniting thus the entire with the parts and
leading them on all with the command
and His will, constitutes a single universe
and a unique ordeliness, beautiful and
harmonious of it, He being unmoved
through the power of the Father, but
moving them on all the ones created by
Himself, for each are of Him, through the
will of the Father" 23 .

From the words of Saint Athanasius
is observed that the divine Logos, as the
One who created all things and the
existent beings, do not leave them of self,
autonomous, but He enlightens them and
He supports them on all through His
grace, uniting on all with Himself and

22 Idem, acc. TLG # 001 42. 1 - # 001 42. 7/ Idem,

p. 79.

23 Idem, acc. TLG # 001 42. 26 - # 001 42. 34/
Ibidem.

2 3

bringing them on all at the unity with
Himself.

His presence in world through His
grace draws the world at Himself, as One
who exceeds all and is outside of all after
His being, together with the Father and
with the Holy Ghost.

Saint Maximus the Confessor will
speak about the divine Logos in the terms
of Church's Tradition, seeing in Himself
the supreme Reason of the entire
existence.

In Quaestiones ad Thalassium
[Answers to Thalassius], Saint Maximus
sees the fulfillment of all existence in the
divine Logos, as One who has into
Himself all the senses/ the reasons of the
world.

Says this: Christ „showed into
Himself the end, the one for which have
received the ones created the distinct
beginning of their existence.

Because for Christ or, better said, for
the mystery of Christ [Xpioiov |iuarr)piov]
have received existence all centuries and
all that are happening within the
centuries, for He is the beginning and
their end" 24 .

24 Maximus Confessor Theologus, Quaestiones
ad Thalassium, 60, acc. TLG # 001 60. 46 - # 001 60. 51/
Saint Maximus the Confessor, About Various Heavy
Places from Divine Scripture or Answers to Thalassius
[Despre diverse locuri grele din Dumnezeiasca Scriptura
sau Raspunsuri catre Talasie], 60, in coll. FR [Romanian
Philokalia], vol. 3, second edition, with translation,
introduction and notes by Rev. Prof. Acad. D.Th.

24

As creator and savior Logos of the
world, Christ God is the One which gives
stability into Himself those who grow in
Him through virtues.

This thing tells us Saint Maximus in
the same chapter cited anterior, when
talking about the role of the revelation of
humanity of the mystery of Christ:

„This, for as all the ones which move
after nature to stand from the cause of
nature of the One unmoved, through
their move towards self and of the one to
the other.

And so [each] to take the experience
of knowledge from work, through the
One into Which he was worthy to stay in
unchangeable mode" 25 .

In the expression of Father Professor
Dumitru Popescu, Saint Maximus the
Confessor showed „that this rational
order of creation is based on the divine
ideas of all the things seen and unseen,
which arise from Logos and return in
Him as into a unifying center of theirs.

The unity of creation is based on the
existence of a single Creator, the Father
through His Logos, Which is All-sustainer
or Pantocrator.

This is the principal motive for
which on the highest vault of each
orthodox dwelling guards the icon of

Dumitru Staniloae, Pub. Harisma [Charisma], Bucha-
rest, 1994, p. 332.

25 Idem, acc. TLG # 001 60. 56 - # 001 60. 60/
Ibidem.

25

Christ, the Pantocrator of the entire
universe .

In conclusion, the existence of the
person of the creator and savior Logos of
the world is the first premise of the
deification of man and of the sight of God,
for that the One which creates on man,
He embodies and deifies His human
nature taken from the Ever- Virgin Mary.

He showed into Himself that the
matter allows itself to be crossed by the
glory of God, that there is no opposition
between the sensible and intelligible in
Christ 27 , but into Him we see „the glory of
the Only-Begotten from the Father" [Jn. 1,
14, acc. GNT].

2 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu, Jesus Christ
Pantocrator [Iisus Hristos Pantocrator], op. cit, p. 12-13.
27 Idem, p. 13.

i. 2. The Rational and Ghostual
Foundation of the Seen World and
its Interior Relation with the Salva-
tion of Man and the Transfigu-
ration of Creation

The second premise of our deifi-
cation and of the sight of God has interior
link with the prime, with the existence of
the creator and savior Logos.

For that the One which created the
world is the Logos of the Father, from
this motive the cosmos and the man are
full of rationality, and both the man and
the cosmos have their existence and the
remaining in existence through the work
and His grace.

This thing is one very important in
the orthodox theology, fundamental, for
that „the rationality of creation in Christ
exceeds the dilemma between man and
creation, showing that Christ, as creator
and savior Logos, has not come to save
only the man, but the entire creation.

The salvation brought by Christ has a
cosmic dimension. Beginning from Pente-
cost, the Church constitutes the mean
through which Christ forwards with the
man and the creation towards the heaven
and the new earth of the God's
Kingdom" 28 .

The fact that all creation is destined
to the transfiguration tells us Rom. 8, 19,

Idem, p. 15-16.

27

2i: „For the creation awaits with
eagerness the discovery of the sons of
God. [...] For and the creation itself will
deliver/ release of the bondage of corrup-
tion into the liberty of glory of the sons of
God" [acc. GNT and GOC].

With other words, when the Saints
will be filled with glory and the creation,
in its integrality, will be filled by the glory
of God, for that through the body of
Christ, on which deified it and with
which He ascended at the right hand of
the Father, comes to us all the brightness
of God's glory.

Speaking about the consequences of
Christ's resurrection in the life of the man
and of the existence of the cosmos,
Father Professor Dumitru Staniloae
writes in his Dogmatics:

„Through the resurrected body of
Christ, irradiates, untrammeled, the
power of the One who made this body
incorruptible, leading on all those who
will impart with Him at resurrection and
incorruptibility, nay leading the entire
creation at incorruptibility and at
transparency, ie at the maximum transfi-
guration and comunicability between
persons through the Ghost and at a total
personalization of the cosmos, in Christ
and in men; for that exists an ontological
continuity between the matter of the body
and the matter of the cosmos" 29 .

29 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology [Teologia Dogmaticd

28

On the basis of this ontological link
between our body and the materiality of
the cosmos is founded the future
transfiguration of creation.

Rev. 21, 1 speaks to us about the
sight of a „new heaven and new earth"
[acc. GNT], ie about a heaven and an
earth transfigured through the glory of
God.

Philip. 3, 21 says that the Lord „will
change at appearance the body of our
humiliation after the body of His glory,
through the work of His power and He
will subdue to Himself all" [acc. GNT].

Because the creator Logos has
created our body and the matter is open
to His eternal irradiation, therefore we
can deify us.

And for that through His grace we
can cleanse us the soul and the body of
passions, therefore we can see on God, if
we will be „clean with the heart" [Mt. 5, 8,
acc. GNT].

Discussing about what means for
man and cosmos this transfiguration of
the body, Father Professor Dumitru
Staniloae says:

„The body will not cease [to exist],
but it will be transparent, that we will see
through it, unmediated, on God into
glory, being total ghostualised, all and all
will belong to all, beyond the division in
subjective and objective, beyond the

Ortodoxa], ed. a Il-a, vol. 2, Pub. IBMBOR, Bucharest,
1997, p. 119.

2 9

reasons of nature, of the passional fight
for to master the nature and on others,
seen as exterior objects, of the fight of
each for to defend of others.

Single the resurrection opens us the
perspective of escape the fatality of
nature which leads at death, it opens a
dignified plan of us and of our
aspirations; and once with it, the
perspective of a deeper sensibility and
delicacy" 30 .

Our deification and the sight of the
glory of God are, of fact, the ones which
give us our statute of ghostualised beings
in eternity. Once with the resurrection of
the dead and the transfiguration of all
creation begins the mystic wedding of the
Son of God with His creation.

Speaking of this moment, Father
Professor Dumitru Popescu writes in his
Dogmatics: „the coming of Christ and the
premaking of the world means a raising
of it into a new state, transfigured by the
Ghost, Which is in Christ. The Ghost will
not work in hidden face in the world, but
He will bring at sight the effect of His
work.

The entire creation becomes pnev-
matic, incorruptible, deified, transparent
through the light and the glory which
arise from the being of the Trinity, as
fullness of the uncreated energies. In its
state of resurrection, the matter remains
all matter, but matter fully transfigured.

Idem, p. 120-121.

30

The light of the resurrected body of
Christ will fill the world and will
overwhelm it.

This premaking of the creation in
Ghost will confer the world an
unspeakable beauty. The luminous face
of Christ will light on all and on all.

The things will no longer appear as
independent from the persons, but as
medium of manifestation of the love of
Christ and of the angelic and human
persons, into a personalism of the perfect
communion.

The face of the new world will be
the result of the event of supreme power
of the universal Pentecost, and the
brightness from the Tabor will extend
over the entire world as generalized
Tabor" 31 .

But the matter can be deified for
that „is not amorphous uniformity but
plasticized rationality, which can be
transfigured by the power of the Ghost" 32 .

Saint Maximus the Confessor,
speaking in Ambigua about the creation
and the role of man, says that „the man
was made by God, from His goodness,
from soul and body, for that the rational
and mental soul given him, being after
the face of the One who made him,
through desire and through his entire
love, to tend with strength and from all

31 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu, Jesus
Christ Pantocrator [Iisus Hristos Pantocrator], op. cit,
p. 419-420.

32 Idem, p. 420.

3i

the power towards God and towards the
knowledge of Him and to deify through
likeness" 33 .

The dynamism of the relation of
faithfulness and love between man and
God represents just the advancement of
the man towards the likeness with his
Creator.

For that the human body is always
personalized by its soul, through the
grace of God, just therefore we can be
„mystically guided, in unspeakable face
and unknown, towards the power and the
glory of God, by all creation uncontaina-
ble" 34 .

But we can speak about the
salvation or the deification of man in
Orthodoxy for that we do not separate, in
this synergic work, on man from nature 35 .

If we separate on man from cosmos,
we can no longer explain how it occurs,
in fact, the deification of man, which is a
personal reality.

For, said Father Professor Dumitru
Staniloae, „the entire nature is destined
to the glory of which will impart the
people in the Kingdom of Heavens and
still from now it refeels of the quietness

33 Saint Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua, with
translation from greek, introduction and notes by Rev.
Prof Dumitru Staniloae, Pub. IBMBOR, Bucharest,

1983* P- 93-

34 Idem, p. 158.

35 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology [Teologia Dogmaticd
Ortodoxd], second edition, vol. 1, ed. cit., p. 223.

32

and of the light which irradiate from the
holy man.

The glory of Christ on Tabor has
covered and the nature. But it can remain
hidden for the eyes and the feeling of
many and the nature can be demeaned
and affected of the wickedness of some of
the people.

At its row, the nature can be the
environment through which the man
who believes, receives the divine grace or
the uncreated energies beneficial, but
and the place through which are
exercised over him influences, which
push at evil" 36 .

Thus, the cosmos is destined to be
filled with the glory of God and, likewise,
and the man is destined to be an
irradiated environment by the glory of
God and from which to irradiate, then,
this.

But the rationality of the cosmos
and of human nature can be perverted, as
long as we infest, with our passions, our
proper nature and the environment in
which we live.

We can personalize the environ-
ment in which we live through our
ghostual irradiation, after how we can, all
alike of easy, to vitiate it through our
passions or to vitiate the relations on
which we have with other neighbors of
our.

Idem, p. 224.

33

From here returns and „our
responsibility to the nature given by
God... as a duty of to use the resources
with sparing and does not alter through
pollution. This thing protects us and it of
passions and of the searching of an
infinite satisfaction in world" 37 .

Discussing the problem of the
existent relations between the reasons of
the things and the human reason, Father
Professor Dumitru Staniloae talks about
the creation of the things as about
„plasticisations and sensiblenesses of His
reasons" 38 , of the divine Logos.

The reporting of the man towards
the reasons planted by God in things
must be a gnosiological one, for that God
„created on man with an adequate
reason" 39 for the knowledge of the world.

Because he observes the fact that
the things created by God have and
rationality and elasticity 40 , therefore our
theologian says: „AH is rational in things
and in the component energies, as and
between them" 41 .

However, the rationality of the world
is not a reality closed in itself but „is for
man and it culminates in man, [and] not
the man is for the rationality of the
world" 42 .

37 Idem, p. 226.

38 Idem, p. 240.

39 Ibidem.

40 Idem, p. 241.

41 Ibidem.

42 Ibidem.

34

But the reasons of the things have,
for Father Staniloae, a double importance
in the life of the man, bodily and ghostual
in the same time, for that they are „of
avail of the man for to maintain
biological, but [they have]... and... the
scope to enhance spiritual [on man]
through the knowledge of the meanings
and of the conformity increasingly higher
of them with him and of the last sense of
their, which is God" 43 .

In their ghostual sense, the reasons
of the things „are seen as mean of God's
love, so of the dialogue of God with us
and of the dialogue between us" 44 .

Thus, in the perspective of the
knowledge of God, the deification of man
is the reality into which discovers us
unsuspected of vast virtualities of the
matter of our body but and of the
spirituality of our soul.

The sight of the glory of God is, on
the one hand, a filling of us with the glory
of God and, on the other hand, a raising
of us at the communion with the Most
Holy Trinity, at the experience of the
divine life.

But there where the matter is seen
closed in itself is confused „the
transcendence of God with His absence
from creation" 45 and the man is
understood as having an autonomous

43 Idem, p. 243-244.

44 Idem, p. 244-245.

45 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu, The Man
Without Roots [Omulfdrd rdddcini], op. cit., p. 15.

35

existence, without „his roots thrusted
deep in the transcendent reality of the
Creator and in the immanent reality of
the cosmos" 46 , in the same time.

But there where the man is seen as
dependent of God is possible the
advancement in the communion with
God, for that the man is created to fulfill
in God and for that the souls of men and
the matter are open to God's glory.

In conclusion, if the matter does not
have a rational and ghostual foundation,
planted in it by the creator Logos, we can
not talk about the deification of man, as
relation always progressive in the
knowledge of God, but nor about the
sight of God, as brightness of the divine
light in our lives.

46 Ibidem.

i. 3- The Uncreated Divine
Energies and Their Presence in the
Synergistic Acts of the Deification
and of the Sight of God

The third premise of the deification
of man and of the sight of God has and it
interior link with the two anterior
discussed. Only if our Creator is the
divine Logos, and only if our body and the
cosmos are rational and transparent
environments, we can speak about the
deification of man and the sight of God.

The Scripture speaks about God as
about the living God [0eou Cgovtoc] 47 , i e
about God, Which irradiates us with His
glory.

Is arhipresent in Scripture the
indication of the existence of God's glory
and of God's uncreated energy 48 . The
living God manifests His eternal glory in
the life of faithful people for to rise them
at the communion with Himself.

47 To see Deut. 4, 33; 5, 26; I Kings 17, 36; Hos. 2,
1; III Maccab. 6, 28, acc. LXX and A. Ap. 14, 15, acc.
GNT.

48 The syntagma the glory of the Lord appears at
Exod. 16, 7; Numb. 12, 8; Ps. 17, 31; Habak. 2, 14; Is. 26,
10; 35, 2 etc., acc. LXX, but about the divine light it
speaks in many modes.

In fact, any revelation of the Scripture is made in
ecstatic mode and is a revelation, in the light of God, of
what God transmits to us.

In GNT, we find referrings at the glory of God in
Mt. 16, 27; 25, 31; Mk. 8, 38; 10, 37; Lk. 9, 26; Rom. 1, 23;
4, 20; I Pet. 5, 10; Rev. 11, 13 etc.

37

Speaking about of our relation with
resurrected Christ and ascended at the
right of the Father, Father Professor
Dumitru Staniloae writes:

„The light of the Trinity, which is
proper and the Son of God, it will show
and through the body what He will take,
through the words and His loving deeds,
but it will show full in His body after
resurrection. And from His body will
spread in those who will believe in Him
and will make deeds, like Him, in the
earthly life, but fully in their body after
their resurrection [from the dead] .

If the body can be environment,
through which spread wise words and are
made good deeds, it's natural can be and
a seen environment of the spiritual light,
and from it to irradiate this light and in
the universe with which is connected,
although this apparation of spiritual light
through matter is a great mystery" 49 .

Is possible our irradiation by the
glory of God for that the matter is open to
the uncreated energies and eternal of
God and through the sight of God's glory,
we see on those around of God and not
the being of God.

Therefore, Father Professor Dumitru
Popescu speaks about the distinction
between the being and the works of God,
wroting the following:

49 Dumitru Staniloae, Jesus Christ: the Light of
the World and the Deifying of the Man [Iisus Hristos:
lumina lumii si indumnezeitorul omului], op. cit., p. 201-
202.

38

„The eastern theology considers...
that God can be known after His works,
but not in His being, thus that the
uncreated energies, as expressions of
God's work, come to protect the mystery
which surrounds the being of God, ie to
substantiate the trinitarian apophatism.

All thus, the eastern theology
considers that the process of the
perfection of believers in Christ and
Church is not realized through
constrainable external means., .but
through the transfiguration of the entire
human nature from interior, through the
energy of the Holy Ghost, thus that the
uncreated energies come to base the
deification of man in Christ" 50 .

But the sight of the divine light or of
the uncreated energies does not mean a
closing in itself of the man for to
contemplate His glory but an opening of
us to the overwhelming greatness of God's
life.

For that „the uncreated energies
remain, in the same time, both exterior of
the human nature, but and interior. They
remain exterior, because they spring from
God's being, and interior, because they
have the role to deify the human nature.
[But] the uncreated energy does not
remain just exterior of the human nature,
because it is not added entity from

50 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu, Christ,
Church, Society [Hristos, Bisericd, Societate], op. cit., p.
101.

39

exterior of the human nature, but divine
power which penetrates in the human
nature for to transfigure it in Christ" 51 .

Polemizing with the false dogma of
the created grace, Father Professor
Dumitru Popescu shows here that the
grace is not parallel with the man or does
not embrace on man in exterior mode,
but deifies him inside, for that the man
which is depassioneting himself is an
transparent environment of the glory of
God.

Therefore, in the process of our
deification, „the human nature remains
created nature, [but] it acquires through
the uncreated energies some supernatural
qualities which make as the process of
deification of the human nature does not
remain only a pious metaphor, but a true
reality" 52 .

Through the presence of the
uncreated energies of God in our life,
received in the Holy Mysteries, in the
personal ascetic life and in the frame of
the sight of God, we realize the endless
advance in the near to God, in deification,
which is a divine-human reality what is
acquired in Church.

If we deny the foundation of our link
with God and namely the divine grace, we
have only a hypothetical link with God.
The real link with God is the personal

51 Idem, p. 105.

52 Ibidem.

40

link with God through His glory of which
we impart into a fervent ascetic life.

Saint Gregory Palamas speaks about
the distinction between the divine being
and His energies and about our imparting
of the eternal energies of God in the
context of the Change at face of the Lord,
saying: „the entire Church of God
declared that the grace seen by the
Apostles [in] unspeakable [mode] in
Tabor is uncreated, as being divine light
and unspeakable and brightness of the
divine nature, but not nature, for this is
above of any manifestation and
impartation" 53 .

We do not impart of the being of
God in ecstatic mode but the glory of God,
for „the soul sees on God in light,
through body, through the intermedium
of the body" 54 .

Talking about what is happening in
ecstasy with us, Saint Gregory Palamas
writes the following:

„When see the Pious men in
themselves that divine light - and they
see it when they are worthy of the
deifying impartation of the Holy Ghost,
when they are researched unspeakable by
the perfecting rays - then they see itself

53 Rev. Prof. Acad. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The
Life and the Teaching of Saint Gregory Palamas, with
four treates translated [Viafa si invafatura Sfdntului
Grigorie Palama, cu patru tratate traduse], second
edition, with a preface reviewed by the author, Pub.
Scripta, Bucharest, 1993, p. 265.

54 Idem, p. 203.

4i

their deification garment, their mind
being filled of glory and of brightness
unsaid of beautiful what springs from the
grace of the Word, so as the body of the
Word was filled with glory on mountain
through the divine light what flowed
from His deity.

For the glory on which His Father
gave Him, and He gave it to those who
obey Him, as says the word of Evangel;
and He wanted as to be those with Him
and they see His glory [Jn. 17, 22, 24] " 55 .

Saint Gregory speaks about the
filling of the glory of God of those which
clean of passions and, in the same time,
of the fact that the glory of the Son is
identical with the glory of the Father and
with of the Holy Ghost.

But he specifies that Christ gives us
His glory, to those who obey Him, filling
us with His divine life and lifting us to
the union with Himself through the
Ghost and, through Himself, with the
Father.

Father Professor Dumitru Staniloae
tells us about the divine grace as about
the divine power which comes to us from
the transfigured humanity of Christ,
saying the following:

„Speaking of grace we must
emphasize both its quality of the
inexhaustible power what comes to us
from the infinite deity dwelt in Christ's
humanity, and the perspective of light

Idem, p. 178.

42

what opens us in the infinity of
communion with the person of Christ or
with the Holy Trinity, Which has opened
to us in Christ, from love.

The grace is the open window to the
infinity of God as person, or as [and] the
trinitarian communion of persons, once
what God has put us through grace in
relation with Himself' 56 .

The relation with God, stresses our
author, is done through His grace,
through His uncreated energies and in
relation with Him we impart of the
infinity communion with Christ or with
the Most Holy Trinity.

Also Father Professor Dumitru
Staniloae, in the discussion about the
personal salvation, speaks to us about the
creating of a unique link, deep personal
between us and Christ through the sight
of His divine glory:

„The glory of Christ communicated
to us, those who are in relation with Him,
believing Him, is unending and do not
scare us, but manifests a great intimacy
toward us. Those who look at Christ and
insist in communion with Him, become
ever more righteous, more imprinted of
the glory of Christ, of Christ Himself as
model: <But we all, with the open face,
reflecting as a mirror the glory of the
Lord, prechange us towards the same

56 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology [Teologia Dogmaticd
Ortodoxd], vol. 2, second edition, ed. cit., p. 200.

43

face, from glory in glory, as from the
Ghost of the Lord> [II Cor. 3, 18]" 57 .

On the one hand, emphasizes the
sight of the glory of God in the frame of
our relation with Him and, on the other
hand, that exists a continuous imprinting
of ours by the glory of God behind our
frequent ecstatic sights.

On measure what we grow in
deification, we are imprinted by the glory
of Christ and we become more proper for
our relation with Him.

But our relation with God, through
His glory, is not only a vertical relation
but, in the same time, is the horizontal
one.

Therefore, Father Professor Dumitru
Popescu warns about the danger of
oversize the vertical or the horizontal of
our relation with God:

„It would be absurd to believe that
the uncreated energies establish only a
vertical link between God and believers,
without to establish and the inter-
personal link between believers.

The uncreated energies are not
entities separated between them, as
though would be separated from God and
the work of the Ghost [is not] included
individualistic in every human person,
but superior ghostual power which
embraces in Christ the community of
believers in dynamic mode and
perichoretic.

Idem, p. 225.

44

The uncreated energies are dynamic
interpersonal decks" 58 .

Thus is emphasizes the active role of
the presence of the uncreated energies of
God in the personal salvation but and in
the interpersonal relations between
members of the Church of Christ.

For us to be of God we must be into
His grace and to see His glory, on the one
hand, but, on the other hand, we
manifest as people of communion and of
brotherhood in Church and in world.

In conclusion, the three premises of
human deification and of the sight of God
discussed by us and namely: the person of
the creator and savior Logos, the rational
foundation and ghostual of the world and
the presence of the uncreated energies in
our life must be seen as reciprocal
interpenetrating and being the starting
point towards the understanding of
experience and of theology of Saint
Symeon the New Theologian.

For that, only when we see on man
and the cosmos as works and direct prints
of the divine Logos and the world, in its
totality, as rational and transparent for
the uncreated energies of God, we can
understand that the deification through
grace is the scope of the orthodox life and

58 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu, Christ,
Church, Society [Hristos, Bisericd, Societate], op. cit., p.
107.

45

the sight of God is the receiving in act of
the light of God in our life.

2. The Sight of God at Saint
Symeon the New Theologian and its
Implications in the Personal Sal-
vation

The Ecstatic Terminology

2. 1. The Symeonian Ecstatic
Terminology

The first stake of our research is that
of to dismount the extremist conjectures,
which peripatetises in baneful mode in
the row of the contemporary theologians,
made on account of person and of opera
of Saint Symeon the New Theologian.

And one of them is that Saint
Symeon would not enroll, in full mode, in
the row of the Holy Fathers of the
Orthodox Church 59 .

59 If Jean Darrouzes (who is not too sympathetic
with Saint Symeon), in the introduction at SC [Sources
Chretiennes] 51, p. 30, said that Saint Symeon did not
try to be an innovator in the domain of the theological
language, and that he is a theoretician of the spiritual
life doubled of a mystic one, which is inspired from his
personal experience, but and the fact that „we can
recognize [at him] a traditionally engaged faith and
current notions of the oriental spirituality" (Acc. Idem,
p. 32), however there is a baleful current of opinion
among the orthodox theologians and, equally, hete-
rodox, of discrediting of Saint Symeon the New
Theologian, which is seen as out from the patterns of

47

Besides this, stay other two
affirmations, totally unfounded, and
namely, that he would be a precursor of
the protestantism and a mystic with
strong accents ofsingularization.

For to respond to the prime grave
accusation at his address, that he would
not fully enroll in the Tradition of the
Fathers of the Church, we must examine
his theological issues and the mode in
which he exposes the faith and his
mystical experience.

Orthodoxy, through the writing and through his very
personal approach of the spiritual life.

Father lea jr. sketches, in the introductory article
at lea jr. 1, entitled Saint Symeon the New Theologian
and the Mystical Challenge in the Byzantine Theology
and the Contemporary, the dispute Trembelas vs. Teoclit
(lea. jr. I, p. 28), which, for us, is an explicit paradigm of
the motives of the unfavorable reception of Saint
Symeon.

And any names we want to enumerate here, as
opposers of the symeonian theology, all of them would
have something in common: the helplessness or the lack
of desire of to receive full on Saint Symeon in their
lives, for that they do not receive, in full mode, the
exigences of salvation.

His exigences are the exigences of holiness.

Who fight with Symeon, struggle with what he is
not or with what he cannot and he does not want to do.

Saint Symeon is not the source of the frustrations
of these opposers, but he is who gives voice to the
painful truth of their remoteness from the path of
salvation.

For that Saint Symeon, although „a bunch of
paradoxes" for contemporaries and his followers, he
was credited by the Church as „an authoritative
expression of the faith", acc. Rev. Lect. Univ. PhD.
Calin-Ioan Duse, The Integration of Saint Symeon the
New Theologian in the Eastern Spirituality, in rev. The
Theological Horizons [Orizonturi teologice], Oradea,
2001, p. 140, 145.

4 8

Just therefore, we will begin the
discussion of the theological opera of
Saint Symeon with an analysis of the
ecstatic semantics of our Father, for to
observe which are the words on which he
uses for to express his ecstasies and as he
is situated, from this perspective, in the
ecstatic patristic theology area.

Symeon exploits the significances of
opaco, the verb which expresses the sight

having, very often, mystical connota-

, • 60
tions .

In Chapters 1, 1, those who see bodily
(ocoiiaiLKCog opcoaiv) 61 are put in opposition
with those who understand ghostually
(TTveuiiaiLKCog voouai) 62 .

This opposition is the paradigm in
which he discusses always the difference
between sight and unsight.

60 To see SC 51, Chapters, I, 1, p. 40; I, 51, p. 54; I,
52, p. 54; I, 101, p. 70; II, 8, p. 73; II, 19, p. 76; III, 21, p.
86; SC 156, Hymns, II, 18, p. 178; II, 104, p. 184; IV, 89, p.
196; VII, 2, p. 208; XIII, 72, p. 262; XV, 51, p. 280; XV, 54,
p. 280; XV, 91, p. 284; SC 174, Hymns, XVII, 346, p. 38;
XVII, 374, p. 40; XVII, 527, p. 50; XVIII, 8, p. 74; XVIII,
109, p. 84; XVIII, 119, p. 84; XIX, 21, p. 96; XIX, 29, p. 96;
XIX, 140, p. 106; XX, 223, p. 126; XXI, 105, p. 138; XXI, 151,
162, 170, p. 142; XXI, 495, p. 168; XXII, 5, 8, p. 170; XXII,
157, 165, p. 182; XXII, 173, p. 184; XXIII, 232, p. 204;
XXIII, 483, p. 220; XXIV, 248, p. 244; XXIV, 367, p. 252;
XXV, 43, p. 258; XXVII, 104, p. 286; XXVIII, 60, p. 298;

XXVIII, 179, p. 308; XXVIII, 196, p. 310; XXIX, 8, p. 314;

XXIX, 67, p. 318; XXIX, 92, p. 320; XXIX, 108, 116, 128, p.
322; XXIX, 214, p. 328; XXX, 196, p. 354; XXX, 391, p.
366; XXX, 415, p. 368; XXX, 524, p. 376; XXXI, 4, p. 384;
XXXIV, 17, p. 428; XXXV, 76, p. 446; XL, 1, p. 484; SC
196, Hymns, XLII, 77, 78, p. 42; XLII, 85, p. 44; LI, 2, p.
184; LIII, 10, p. 212.

61 SC 51, Chapters, 1, 1, p. 40 / lea jr. 3, p. 365.

62 Ibidem / Ibidem.

49

The understanding of God's presence
or the personal knowledge of Him,
whereof speaks Saint Symeon, is for him
identical with the sight of the divine light
(tou Geiou c|>(j0t6<;) 63 .

Therefore, Christ is the One who
enlightens (cj)Gm(ei) on man 64 , for that
the clean heart sees the light (cjDcog) of
Trinity 65 .

3 Idem, Chapters, II, 13, p. 74 / Idem, p. 393.

64 About lightenment as result of the sight of the
light, to see in SC 51, Chapters, I, 2, p. 40; I, 4, p. 41; I,
34, p. 49; II, 15, p. 75; II, 16, p. 75; III, 42, p. 92; III, 84, p.
107; SC 156, Hymns, I, 144, 146, p. 168; I, 211, p. 174; XV,
98, p. 284; XV, 105, p. 284; XV, 187, p. 292; SC 174,
Hymns, XVII, 66, p. 18; XVII, 237, p. 30; XVII, 338, p. 36;
XVIII, 97, p. 82; XXI, 12, p. 132; XXI, 104, p. 138; XXI, 145,
p. 140; XXI, 147, 156, 164, 168, p. 142; XXIII, 223, p. 202;
XXIII, 262, p. 206; XXIV, 243, p. 244; XXIV, 368, p. 252;
XXV, 11, p. 254; XXV, 43, p. 258; XXVI, 100, p. 276;

XXVIII, 176, p. 308; XXVIII, 197, p. 310; XXIX, 13, p. 314;

XXIX, 201-202 (lightened by the divine Ghost), 209 ,
214, p. 328; XXX, 161, p. 352; XXX, 578, p. 380; XXXI,
101 , p. 392; XXXII, 14 (divine lightenments), 18, p. 402;
XXXIII, 64, p. 418; XXXIII, 142, p. 424; XXXIV, 70, p.
432; XXXIV, 80, 81, p. 434; XXXIV, 106, p. 436; XL, 1, p.
484; SC 196, Hymns, XLII, 201, p. 52; XLIV, 155, p. 82;
XLVIII, 139, 152, p. 142; XLIX, 10, p. 146 (ghostual
lightenment: 4)QTLO|ioO iTveu|a(raKOi>); L, 158, p. 168; L,
244, p. 174; LI, 8, p. 184; LIII, 7, p. 212; LV, 6, p. 252; LV,
192, p. 268.

65 Idem, I, 2, p. 40 / Ibidem.

In Idem, Chapters, III, 26, p. 88, Symeon speaks
about the cleansing of the eye of the soul. In Idem, III,
29, p. 88, he shows that the clean heart is the one works
all the virtues and lead them until perfection. About the
clean heart or about the cleansing mind's eyes to see
and SC 51, Chapters, III, 32, p. 89; III, 35, p. 90; SC 156,
Hymns, XI, 46, p. 234 (mind's eye: xbv b$QuX\ibv xov
vobc); XV, 53, p. 280 (6|i|iaoi voepdlg); SC 174, Hymns,
XVII, 525, p. 50 (clean with the heart); XXII, 107, p. 178
(mind's eye); XXII, 108, p. 178 (soul's eyes); XXIII, 429,
p. 216 (in ecstasy we see only Trinity); XXVII, 134, p.

50

For as to understand, in authentic
mode, the exposing of the symeonian
theology we must retain that opaco has
right content on (Jdcoc. And when Symeon
speaks about sight, he refers at the sight
of the light of Most Holy Trinity and not
to any kind of light.

The sight of the light, he expresses
when as an impartation of it, using the
verb i-ieTexco and its derivatives 66 , when as
an union (ouv + opaco/ ovvafyeioL/ evuoiQ 67 )
with the light 68 or with God 69 . In Hymns
42, 202 appears and the substantive kol-
vgovloc (union/ communion) 70 , expressing

288; XXXII, 15, p. 402 (mind's eyes); XXXII, 82, p. 406
(heart's eyes); XXXIII, 62, p. 416 (Ibidem); XXXIII, 63, p.
418 (Ibidem); XXXIV, 78, p. 434 (Ibidem).

66 See SC 51, Chapters, I, 2, 3, p. 40; II, 13, p. 74; II,
16, p. 75; III, 4, p. 81; SC 156, Hymns, VIII, 84, p. 220; SC
174, Hymns, XVI, 31, p. 12; XVIII, 120, p. 84; XXIX, 362,
p. 338; XXX, 266, p. 358; SC 196, Hymns, L, 149, 158, p.
168.

In the Hymn 50, Saint Symeon uses the
substantive iiexouoLa (participation/ communion) for to
indicate the union with light. See the places from SC
196, Hymns, L, 58, p. 160 si Idem, L, 201, p. 170.

67 SC 174, Hymns, XXIX, 283, 285, p. 334; XXX,
157, 158, p. 350; XXX, 460, p. 372; XXXI, 119, p. 394;

XXXIII, 128, 422 (ineffable union: ctiTOppr|TG) gvojogl);

XXXIV, 16, p. 428 (union made in knowledge and
sensation); XXXIV, 27, p. 428 (ineffable union); XXXIV,
60, p. 432; SC 196, Hymns, XLII, 204, p. 52; XLII, 225, p.
54 (ineffable union); XL VI, 33, 116; L, 28, p. 158; LI, 58,
p. 188 (mysterious union); LI, 142, p. 196.

68 See SC 51, Chapters I, 3, p. 40; III, 60, p. 98; SC
156, Hymns, 1, 107, p. 164.

69 SC 51, Chapters, 1, 101, p. 70; III, 21, p. 86 (God
reveals Himself to men in the measure of the intimate
union with them); III, 58, p. 97 (the ecstasy is union
with God); III, 78, p. 104; SC 156, Hymns, VI, 13, p. 204.

70 SC 196, Hymns, XLII, 202, p. 52; L, 200, p. 170.

5i

the union in sensation, conscious, with
the divine glory and in 46, 32 we find
another of its correlative and namely:
ouvouoia (union/ communion/ connecti-
on) 71 .

The verb dvapAiiTG), with the sense to
see before the divine light, before
eschatology, punctuates one of the
principal coordinates of the symeonian
theology 72 .

For Symeon, the sight must to
produce, to begin from this life 73 .
Therefore, the discussion of dvocpAiTTCO, as
and of other symeonian ecstatic verbs,
must be connexed with the reality of the
sight as gift from God or as enworthiness
oflight 74 .

The sight of the light is at Symeon
and evoLKT|ai<;, ie dwelling in us of the
Trinity 75 .

71 Idem, Hymns, XLVI, 32, 116.

Father Ica jr. translates in this context from 46,
32, on owovo'ia with togetherness [impreunare in
romanian] acc. Ica jr. 3, 248, for to show that the union
with light is entire, beingly, total. See also its use in SC
196, Hymns, XLIX, 26, p. 148.

72 See SC 51, Chapters, I, 4, p. 41.

73 See SC 156, Hymns, I, 84-87, p. 164.

74 See SC 51, Chapters, I, 4, p. 41; I, 40, p. 51; SC
156, Hymns, V, 22, p. 202; SC 174, Hymns, XXV, 66, p.
260; XXV, 90, p. 262; XXX, 388, p. 366.

75 See SC 51, Chapters, I, 7, p. 42/ Ica jr. 3, p. 366.
In SC 51, Chapters, I, 79, p. 64, Symeon called the

seer oflight as „home of the Trinity" (oiko<; rfjg TpiccSog).

For the indwelling Trinity in us to see also SC 51,
Chapters, III, 72, 102; SC 174, Hymns, XIX, 54, p. 98; XX,
201, p. 126; XXVII, 1-2, p. 278 (the soul is the dwelling of
Christ); XXVIII, 61, p. 298 (Christ dwells in us); XXVIII,
176, p. 308; XXX, 392, p. 366; XXIX, 165, p. 326 (Holy

52

The descent 76 of the light in our
being is, in the same time, the ascent
towards the light and in the light of God.
The ecstatic ascension is expressed by
Symeon in paradoxical terms because the
descent of light to us is, in the same time,
our ascent to God.

At him we find, most often, the
divine condescension as ray (olkxiq) of
light 77 , as brightness (cay^r]) 78 or as bright

Trinity in us and in all); XXIX, 166-167, p. 326 (God
dwells in His Saints in especially); SC 196, Hymns,
XLIV, 153, p. 82 (The Holy Ghost lives in us); XLVIII,
140, p. 142, LI, 134, p. 194.

76 SC 156, Hymns, XIII, 71, p. 262.

77 We find in SC 51, Chapters, I, 35, p. 50 the
expression „fw/j mikro.n" („small light"). This
expression does not designate that divine light is tiny,
but that his spiritual power, the his power to receive
the light is low (see Chapters, II, 11, p. 74). The detail
that we point out here is very important to Saint
Symeon, because through it our author speaks of the
sight as a divine reality, we receive in the measure of the
personal cleansing.

About the rays of the divine light to see and SC
174, Hymns, XXIII, 233, 246, 252, 255, 256, p. 204; XXIII,
260, p. 206; XXIII, 362, 368, 370, 373, p. 212; XXIII, 385,
397, p. 214; XXVII, 99, p. 286; XXIX, 224, p. 330; XXXII,
19, p. 402 (the divine rays of Your deity); XXXV, 52, 59
(the deity rays) p. 444.

78 See SC 51, Chapters, I, 86, p. 66; II, 8, p. 73; SC
156, Hymns, VII, 5, p. 208; SC 174, Hymns, XVII, 325, p.
36; XVII, 334, p. 36 (the light bearing brightness: ai;glh
fwtofo.roj); XVII, 344, p. 38; XVII, 354, p. 38; XVII, 358;
p. 38; XIX, 17, p. 96; XX, 29, p. 112 (brightness of
immortality: ai;glh| avqanasi,aj); XXII, 8, p. 170 (small
brightness: ai;glh mikra.); XXII, 19, 33, p. 172; XXII, 157,
p. 182; XXII, 171, p. 184; XXVIII, 175, p. 308; XXVIII, 217,
p. 312; XXIX, 7, p. 314; XXIX, 173, p. 326 (shines in the
heart); XXIX, 179, p. 326; XXIX, 193, p. 328; XXX, 160, p.
352; XXX, 243, 245, 247, p. 356; XXX, 267, p. 358 (the
divine spark); XXXII, 15, 19, p. 402; XXXIV, 59, p. 432;
XXXIX, 62, p. 480; SC 196, Hymns, XLIV, 14, p. 78;

53

lightning 79 , dazzling, that comes soon in
man.

We find in the symeonian writing
and the coming of light as arrow (peloc) 80
or the entering light in heart as wound 81 .

In Hymns, n, 71, the ecstatic sight is
as a OTTf|<; |iLKpa<; (small hole) in heaven 82 ,
while in Hymns, 12, 63, the ecstasy is
described as a \iiKpav 0L\)yr\v (small bright-
ness) 83 in the ghostual life of the
orthodox believer.

In Hymns, 17, 326, the ecstasy is
described as a covering of him by a (Jdcotcx;
vetyekr\ (cloud of the light) 84 and in
Hymns, 18, 63, we find the sight as
eKozaoiQ (ecstasy/ wonder/ the change of
the status) 85 .

We can observe at Symeon and the
recurrence of Gecopia 86 . The sight as

XLIV, 155, p. 82; XLV, 5, p. 102; XLV, 29, p. 104; XLIX,
26, p. 148; L, 238, p. 174.

79 See SC 51, Chapters, III, 54, p. 96; III, 59, p. 98;
SC 156, Hymns, II, 5, p. 176; II, 130, p. 186; VIII, 64, p.
218; XV, 55, p. 280; SC 174, Hymns, XVI, 24, p. 12; XVII,
35, p. 16 (the flashing light: to $6Sq to cciraorpcciTTOv);
XXXIV, 79, p. 434; XXXV, 76, p. 446 (flash); SC 196,
Hymns, XLI, 104, p. 18 (flash of glory); XLVII, 18, p. 122.

80 SC 156, Hymns, V, 23, p. 202.

81 Idem, Hymns, VI, 15-16, p. 204.

82 Idem, Hymns, XI, 71, p. 238.

83 Idem, Hymns, XII, 63, p. 246; SC 174, Hymns,
XVIII, 62, p. 78 (the thin and very small brightness:
A.61TTT1 d'iykr\ Km |aiKpOTaTr|).

84 SC 174, Hymns, XVII, 326, p. 36.

85 Idem, Hymns, XVIII, 63, p. 78.

86 See SC 51, Chapters, I, 34, p. 49; II, 10, p. 74; II,
11, p. 74; II, 14, p. 75; II, 15, p. 75; II, 18, p. 76; III, 23, p.
87; III, 61, p. 99; SC 156, Hymns, I, 150, p. 168; XI, 53, p.
236; XII, 15, p. 244; XIII, 67, p. 262; SC 174, Hymns, XXV,
2, p. 254; XXVIII, 8, p. 294; XXVIII, 60, p. 298; XXXIV,

54

contemplation which presupposes GecopLa,
expressses both the ghostual understand-
ing of the world as well as the sight of the
realities of the ecstatic light.

The contemplation as sight produ-
ces a ghostual knowledge in man.
Therefore, Symeon speaks of the divine
light as about „to votitov fyQc," („a light
thought [with the mind]") 87 .

But he uses this expression, not as if
talking about a cerebralization of the
divine light or as though the divine light
would be a reality which the mind
possesses and scientifically inventories, to
say, but in the sense that the mind
understands the light on the measure of
its illumination by God and knows that
the light is of God, that is divine and that
it is God's love for itself

The symeonian expression want to
say, that divine light is not illogical,
irrational and ambiguous visual effect, but
is the divine energy that illuminates the
mind, that reveals the mind, that
sanctifies man in his totality, not the man
to exhaust it with his mind.

The ecstatic vision is a crystal, clear,
bright, clean, simple view 88 . The adjective

26, p. 428 (the real vision: dlr|0oOg SewpLag); SC 196,
Hymns, XLIII, 73, p. 62 (the mystical contemplations:
BewpuSv tqv |j,uotlk(2)v); L, 58, p. 160; L, 161, p. 168 (the
mystical contemplation); L, 234, p. 174 (contemplation
of the mind); LV, 14, p. 254.

87 SC 51, Chapters, I, 38, p. 51/ lea jr. 3, p. 374. We
find the expression and in SC 174, Hymns, XVI, 2, p. 10;
XXIII, 222-223, P- 2 ° 2 ; XXIII, 464, p. 218.

88 Idem, Chapters, I, 39, p. 51/ lea jr. 3, p. 374.

55

ipavog, used by Symeon in the
characterization of the divine sight,
wants to say that the ecstatic sight prints
with the highest acuity in our soul and is
received with maximum accuracy.

It is true (alr\Qf\) and can be
confirmed only by those who live it 89 .
Alongside opaco, Symeon uses and pAim*) 90 ,
both being the constatation verbs of the
divine sight. Symeon does not want to
explain by them the light but affirms the
existence of ecstasy in his experience.

The ecstatic vision is a ghostual
(TTveuiiaTLKCog) sight, is a sight with mind's
eyes (loig voepoic opcov 6c|)0aA,|idlg) 91 . The
divine light is, in the same time, true

To see and SC 51, Chapters, I, 77, p. 63:
„4)(jOT6g...Ka8apoO"; II, 3, p. 72: „t(2>v aioQr\oe(x>v xpavcog kcu
KaBapQg"; II, 8, p. 73; II, 17, p. 75: „kv dnlcp...9eL(jO ^aru";
SC 156, Hymns, VII, 16, p. 210; XII, 15, p. 244; XV, 2, p.
276; SC 174, Hymns, XX, 14, p. 110.

89 Idem, Chapters, I, 40, p. 51 / Ibidem.

90 Ibidem / Ibidem. A se vedea si Idem, Chapters,

I, 50, p. 54; I, 51, p. 54; I, 52, p. 54; 1, 101, p. 70; II, 6, p. 72;

II, 8, p. 73; SC 156, Hymns, I, 159, p. 170; I, 160, p. 170; I,

161, p. 170; II, 18, p. 178; IV, 45, p. 194; VII, 1, p. 208; VII,
20, p. 210; XI, 47, p. 236; XI, 88, p. 238; XIII, 65, p. 262;
XV, 8, p. 276; XV, 17, p. 292; SC 174, Hymns, XX, 39, p.
112; XXI, 18, p. 132; XXI, 105, p. 138; XXII, 68, p. 176; XXII,

162, 165, p. 182; XXIII, 112, 116, 119, p. 196; XXIII, 243, 244,
245, 248 , 250, 251, p. 204; XXIII, 295 , p. 208; XXIII,
388, p. 214; XXIII, 425,427, 429, p. 216; XXIII, 501, p. 220;
XXIV, 6, p. 226; XXVI, 22, p. 270; XXVII, 163, p. 290;
XXVIII, 16", p. 294; XXVIII, 17, 18", 19, p. 296; XXIX, 79,
p. 318; XXIX, 117, p. 322; XXIX, 210, p. 328; XXIX, 226, p.
330; XXX, 414", 415, p. 368; XXXII, 12, p. 400; XXXIX,
44, p. 480; XXXIX, 51 , p. 480; SC 196, Hymns, XLI, 102,
p. 18; XLII, 75 , p. 42; XLI I, 85, 87, p. 44; XLIV, 21, p. 72;
XLIV, 117, p. 78; XLV, 97, p. 110.

91 Idem, Chapters, I, 41, p. 51/ Ibidem.

56

(<xlr\Qwbv) but and unreached (afiuiov) 92 . It
is unreached for those who are ghostually
blind, ie for those who have not ever seen
it.

The theme of the blind from birth
(xvfyloQ 4k yevezr\Q) is at Saint Symeon the
paradigm of the blind of the light, of the
ignorant in the sphere of the mystical
experiences, the one who does not want
the light because he did not saw it and did
not know it 93 .

Symeon puts the knowledge
(YvcooLa) 94 and the unpassion (aTTaGda) 95 in
direct connection with divine light. For
him, the knowledge is a direct result of
divine views and the sight keeps to the
unpassion.

He who has no the experience of the
light will imagine about those described
by Symeon only „the false manufactures"
(avai\Xdo\iaxa i[/eu6f|) 96 .

Light, the ghostual knowledge
(gained as result of the sight of light) and
the unpassion are at Symeon those that
make the faithful to fill the state of G<eg)oi<;
(deification) 97 .

92 Ibidem/ Ibidem. See and SC 174, Hymns,
XXVII, 42, p. 282; XXVII, 66, p. 284.

93 Ibidem/ Ibidem. See and SC 51, Chapters, I, 50,
p. 54; I, 51, p. 54; I, 53, p. 54; I, 98, p. 69; III, 23, p. 87.

94 See SC 51, Chapters, I, 65, p. 58; II, 10, p. 74; II,
14, p. 75; SC 174, Hymns, XIX, 33, p. 96; XIX, 70, p. 100.

95 SC 51, Chapters, I, 98, p. 69/ lea jr. 3, p. 388. See
about unpassion and in SC 51, Chapters, III, 33, p. 89.

96 Idem, Chapters, 1, 100, p. 70/ Idem, p. 389.

97 SC 174, Hymns, XXIV, 269, p. 246.

57

Our Father uses and the verb
GeoTToiico (to make god) 98 to indicate the
state of deification and the derivatives of
TeAio), as for example on r\ xeXeioxr\
(perfection) 99 , but and the compound
substantive GecoGeiori (deification) 100 .

The grace is, in the ghostual man, as
a divine fire that puts demons to flight 101 .
Those who are in grace live „the liberty of
the Ghost" (xr\v eleuGepiav tou ilveu|aa-
toc) 102 and have boldness (TTapprioiav) to
God 103 . The symeonian soteriology, as a
inner sensation 104 , conscious of grace, is
the direct consequence of the sight of
divine light.

The substantive OTTmoia appears also
in the symeonian theology with an
ecstatic qualification 105 .

Those of the divine light are
designated, sometimes, as goodies/
eternal and invisible assets (xQv ocIgovlgov
Km dopaicov ...ayaGcov) 106 by Symeon or as
glory (So£a) of God 107 .

9 Idem, Hymns, XXII, 40, p. 174/ lea jr. 3, p. 140.
To see and Idem, Hymns, XXX, 360, p. 364.

99 Idem, Hymns, XXIII, 413, p. 214.

100 Idem, Hymns, XXIX, 286, p. 334.

101 SC 51, Chapters, I, 68, p. 59/ Idem, p. 380.

102 Idem, Chapters, I, 78, p. 63/ Idem, p. 384.

103 Idem, Chapters, 1, 101, p. 70/ Idem, p. 389.

104 SC 174, Hymns, XXVI, 19, p. 270.

105 SC 51, Chapters, I, 85, p. 66/ lea jr. 3, p. 386.

106 Idem, Chapters, I, 88, p. 67/ Ibidem. To see
and SC 51, Chapters, II, 18, p. 76; III, 50, p. 95; III, 78, p.
104; XXVIII, 213, p. 310; XXX, 357, p. 364.

107 Idem, Chapters, I, 89, p. 67/ Ibidem. To see
and SC 51, Chapters, II, 11, p. 74; SC 156, Hymns, 1, 151, p.
168; I, 178, p. 170; I, 188, p. 172; II, 89, p. 182; II, 110, p.

58

Saint Symeon has the extraordinary
plastic expressions when he wants to
express his interiorization with God. For
example, who sees God is clothed with
God's light like a bright garment 108 and
that means the enclothing in Christ 109 ;
Christ opens the heavens and He bends
together with the Father and the Ghost,
showing Himself to whom is believer 110 ;
he eats and feeds beautifully from His
sight and unites with Him going beyond

184; VII, 5, p. 208; XI, 88, p. 238; XII, 12, p. 242; XII, 129,
p. 254, XII, 138, p. 254; XV, 2, p. 276; XV, 25, p. 278; XV,
59, p. 282; XV, 78, p. 282; XV, 85, p. 284; XV, 53, p. 288;
XV, 187, p. 292; SC 174, Hymns, XVI, 20, p. 12; XVI, 31, p.
12; XVII, 34, p. 16; XVIII, 7, p. 74; XVIII, 15, p. 76; SC 174,
Hymns, XIX, 10, p. 94; XIX, 57, p. 98; XIX, 149, p. 106;
XX, 36, p. 112; XX, 47, p. 114; XXI, 276, p. 152; XXI, 277, p.
152 (glory of the glory: tr\c, &6E,r\c, 5o£av); XXI, 495, p. 168;
XXII, 68, p. 176 (glory of the glory); XXIII, 4, 190 bis,
XXIV, 14, p. 228; XXIV, 268, p. 246 (height of the glory:
vtyoQ Sofrig); XXIV, 272, p. 246; XXIV, 368, p. 252; XXV,
35, 36, p. 256; XXV, 66, p. 260; XXVI, 19, p. 270; XXVIII,
187 , p. 308; XXVIII, 213, p. 310 (the eternal glory:
ai-QvLou 5o£r|<;); XXIX, 164, p. 326; XXX, 266 (the divine
glory), 274, p. 358; XXX, 284-285, p. 360 (the divine
glory); XXXI, 49, p. 388; XXXII, 90-91, p. 408 (the divine
glory); XXXII, 112, p. 410; XXXV, 52, p. 444; XXXIX, 51
(the divine glory); 57, 63, p. 480. SC 196, Hymns, XLI,
104, p. 18; XLII, 77, p. 42; XLI 1, 193, p. 52; XLIII, 73, p. 62;
XLVII, 46, 54, p. 124; XLVIII, 21, p. 132; XLVIII, 110, p.
138; LVIII, 100, p. 286.

108 Idem, Chapters, I, 90, p. 67/ Ibidem. The
image of the dressing in light as a divine garment is and
SC 156, Hymns, XIII, 7, 256; SC 174, Hymns, XXX, 325-
326, p. 362 (dressing in the immaterial garment); SC
196, Hymns, XLV, 63, p. 106 (the bright and divine
vestment).

109 Idem, Chapters, II, 8, p. 73/ Idem, p. 392. To
see and SC 156, Hymns, XV, 178, p. 292; XV, 214, p. 294;
SC 196, Hymns, L, 187-190, p. 170.

110 SC 156, Hymns, 36-38, p. 234/ Idem, p. 77.

59

the heavens 111 ; our union with God/ the
sight of God is an ineffable and divine
wedding (yai-ioc) 112 or he calls the ecstasy
right nourishment from „the bosom of
the glory" (tou KoA-TTouifig 8o£r|c;) 113 of God.

These examples are just a few
eloquent images of the symeonian
theological discourse.

But Symeon speaks not only in the
antinomic terms of sight and unsight in
his theology, but he speaks and in
apophatic mode about the divine sight,
showing that „more lighting of His is an
full unsight (dpA,a|aa)" 114 for man.

Aplajda represents at Saint Symeon
not a lack of sight, but an overwhelming -
ness of sight, an uncomprehension of the
light by man. ApA,ei|da must be under-
stood all in the relation with the light
received as gift, as enworthiness of the
sight, in which we see from the divine
light as we can comprehend at personal
level.

Two other characteristics of the
sight of the light which we detach from
the symeonian theology is that divine
light is seen above the sensation (imep
oaa0r|aiv) 115 and that on it we receive

111 Idem, Hymns, XIII, 67-68, p. 262.

112 Idem, Hymns, XV, 175, p. 292.

113 SC 174, Hymns, XXIV, 263, p. 246. To see and
SC 196, Hymns, L, 143, p. 166, where the sight of the
light is depicted as a feeding from one breast (|ia(6<;).

114 SC 51, Chapters, II, 2, p. 71 / lea jr. 3, p. 390.

115 Idem, Chapters, II, 2 , p. 71; II, 3, p. 72. In SC
174, Hymns, XVII, 395-396, p. 40, Symeon says that the
divine light clothed him in the garment of mind's

6o

through His Ghost (Sia tou nveu|iaiog
Auiou) 116 , of Christ.

We see the light ghostually, in other
words, not physically. In the symeonian
theology, the divine sight is not a falling
in the sensuality, but a rise, through the
Ghost, at the divine light.

Therefore, in Chapters, II, 8,
Symeon speaks about sight as about the
climbing at „the height of the ghostual
contemplation" (ui[/o<; TTveuiiaiLKfjg Geco-
piag) 117 .

The glory of the Ghost 118 , which we
see in ecstasy, is the glory of the Lord (zr\v
doEfiiv Kupiou) 119 because it is the glory of
the Trinity 120 .

Whenever Symeon indicates the
glory as being of a divine person, he does
not envisage an exclusive revendication of
it for that divine person. He speaks as
and the Scripture, confering the posse-
ssion of the divine light when to the one,

sensation (aloG'poeQg %ix6Sva voepag), namely gaved him
the capacity to seize the light with mind, with a
spiritualised mind, transparentised by grace.

116 Idem, Capitole, II, 3, p. 72 / lea jr. 3, p. 390.

117 Idem, Chapters, II, 8, p. 73 / Idem, p. 392. To
see and SC 174, XVII, 339, p. 36.

118 Idem, Chapters, III, 21, p. 86 / Idem, p. 401; SC
156, Hymns, XI, 50, p. 236; SC 174, Hymns, XIX, 53, p. 98
(the grace of the Ghost); XXII, 177, p. 184 (the divine
light of the Ghost: fytic, tou nveu|iaTO<; Selov); XXVII, 67,
p. 284 (the light comes from the Holy Ghost); XXXIV,
84, p. 434 (the grace of the Ghost); SC 196, Hymns,
XLII, 103-104, p. 44 (the light of the Ghost).

119 Idem, Chapters, II, 15, p. 75 / Idem, p. 393.

120 SC 156, Hymns, II, 91, p. 182; SC 174, Hymns,
XIX, 56, p. 98 (the grace of Trinity).

6i

when to the other of persons, he knows
that the light is commune of the
trinitarian persons.

In the research of his theology must
never be applied the principle of
discrimination of the existing theological
datas but that of their corroboration.
Symeon is revealed to us as a fully Father
of the Church in the measure in that we
are approaching, through experience and
sensation of grace, to his ghostual
experience and his mystical theology.

Without our real communion with
God, his theology has no internal
articulation with us and we cannot
generate than extremist, deplorable
views, with address at his theology.

And this, for that Symeon speaks
about theology as being a full and mystic
learning (eTTiYVGoaeax;) 121 of us by the grace
of God 122 , through which we become
teodidacts 123 .

121 SC 174, Hymns, XVIII, 7, p. 74; XXXIV, 82, p.
434 (the exact knowledge: eiuYvwaei ctKpiPel); XL, 95, p.
492.

122 SC 51, Chapters, II, 15, p. 75/ lea jr. 3, p. 393. To
see and Idem, Chapters, III, 38, p. 91, where the soul
that sees God recognizes Him, Who roses him from the
dead.

123 Idem, Chapters, III, 84, p. 107/ Idem, p. 418.
To see and SC 51, Chapters, III, 85, p. 107. Into an article
on theme of the understanding of the scriptural text,
Father Professor Constantin Coman stressed „the
decisive and indispensable contribution of the Holy
Ghost to the act of understanding" of the Scripture, acc.
Rev. Prof. DTh. Constantin Coman, About the Recourse
of the Systematic Studies at Holy Scripture [Despre
recursul studiilor sistematice la Sfdnta Scriptura], rev.
Theological Studies, Series III, II (2006), no. 2, p. 189.

62

In this context he assimilates Gecopia
with dTTOKaA-uij/Lg 124 . The revelation is the
sight of the light and those which are seen
in light are designated by Symeon as
|i,uair|pLG)v 125 .

Only these mysteries of light
represent for Symeon a knowledge of
God 126 . It is observable in the symeonian
writing and the recurrence of the
derivatives from (J)odvG) (to show/ to
reveal) 127 , through which is designated
the divine revelations or the ecstatic
sights.

We find in Chapters, II, 16 a
formulation of the theological knowledge

124 Idem, Chapters, II, 15, p. 75/ lea jr. 3, p. 393.

In SC 51, Chapters, III, 22, p. 86, Symeon
assimilates revelation with contemplation, but brings
into the equation and knowledge. He says that God
reveals Himself to those worthy and as He is revealed
as it is seen by them and the sight of Him means the
knowledge of Him.

In other words, the sight means the theological
knowledge and the knowledge is on measure of His
revelation, the revelation that is on measure of the
intimacy with God of those worthy. What wants to
point out Saint Symeon is not the reality of the
restrictive knowledge of God, but the fact that the act of
the knowledge is proportional with our intimacy with
God.

To see and Idem, III, 77, p. 104; SC 174, Hymns,
XXV, 43, p. 258; XXVIII, 36, p. 296; XXXV, 4, p. 440; SC
196, Hymns, XLIX, 17, p. 148.

125 Ibidem / Ibidem.

126 Ibidem / Ibidem.

127 SC 174, Hymns, XXIV, 255, p. 244; XXV, 10, p.
254; XXV, 47", p. 258; XXVIII, 36, p. 296; XXVIII, 179, p.
308; XXIX, 90, p. 320; XXXV, 2, p. 440; SC 196, Hymns,
XLV, 29, p. 104; XLVIII, 108, p. 138; XLVIII, 137, 152, p.
142; L, 31, p. 158; L, 238, p. 174.

63

as entrance in the divine light 12 or in „to
puGco tou Geiou (Jdgotoc" („the depth of the
divine light") 129 , as in II, 17 or as an
„(J)co<;...ev OG)fi"(„light... in Light"), accord-
ing as he specificates in II, 18 130 .

The knowledge in which we enter
through sight is unspeakable (dTTopp^-
tgoc) 131 . Accepting, alike, the terminology
of Sinai and that of Tabor, our Father
assimilates and on yvofyoc, with (jDCOiog 132 ,
both the darkness and the light
designating the glory of God.

And Symeon does not simplifies,
through these assimilations, the
understanding of the ecstasy, but the
understanding of the ecstatic termi-
nology. This type of the synthetic
understanding of the scriptural and
patristic terminology is a constancy at
Saint Symeon.

Another characteristic of the
ghostual life, which appears in frequent
mode at Saint Symeon, is that, the
salvation and, in the ultimate instance,
the perfection, are realities which do not
occur in ayvuoTUQ mode, without
consciousness or unconsciously, but in
YVCooTCog mode, consciously 133 .

12 SC 51, Chapters, II, 16, p. 75 / lea jr. 3, p. 393.

129 Idem, Chapters, II, 17, p. 75 / Ibidem.

130 Idem, Chapters, II, 18, p. 76 / Idem, p. 394.

131 Idem, Chapters, II, 16, p. 75 / Idem, p. 393.

132 We refer in this citation at SC 51, Chapters, II,
18, p. 76, where Saint Symeon says that, then when the
mind is fully covered by darkness and divine light, it
reaches at the sight of God.

133 SC 51, Chapters, II, 20**, p. 77 / lea jr. 3, p. 394.

6 4

Therefore, for him, the feeling of the
grace and the sight of God are absolutely
real, conscious, deifying for that they are
those which form, in fundamental mode,
the personal holiness.

For this fact, we encounter often in
his writing referrings to the interior link
between knowledge and the union, in
beingly (ouaicoScoc) 134 mode, with light.

Desiring to prevent any puerile
accusations against God's sight, in
Chapters, II, 21 he warns of the capital
danger of bad allegorisation of Scripture,
through which is tangled what must to
live now an orthodox christian with what
must live in future or in eternity 135 .

We, as many are worthy, we see
God, says Saint Symeon, but and God
sees us 136 . God speaks in ecstatic mode
with His friends and gives them all to talk
about Him 137 .

Those who have seen and see God
are the whole people (oXokAtipok;) 138 and
they make part of that xpuaf| aluaig (gold
chain) 139 , uninterrupted, of the Saints.

To see and SC 174, Hymns, XXIX, 168-169, p. 326
(God dwells in Saints in conscious [yvojoxcog] and
beingly [ouoLOj5ojg] mode); XXXIV, 81, p. 435.

134 SC 196, Hymns, LI, 138, 141, p. 196.

135 SC 51, Chapters, II, 21, p. 77 / lea jr. 3, p. 395.

136 Idem, Chapters , II, 24, p. 78 / Idem, p. 396.
To see and SC 156, Hymns, 1, 161-162, p. 170; VIII,

1-5, p. 214; SC 174, Hymns, XVI, 17, p. 10; XVIII, 97, p. 82;
XXX, 386, p. 366.

137 Idem, Chapters, II, 24, p. 78 / Idem, p. 396.

138 Idem, Chapters, III, 5, p. 81 / Idem, p. 398.

139 Idem, Chapters, III, 4, p. 81 / Ibidem.

65

From these cited places, we observe
that Symon puts the ecstasy on account
of Saints and those who sanctify their life
in continuously and, on the other hand,
he highlights the fact that the sight of
God and the ascetic life full of
discernment are those that sanctify us,
those that make us, in total mode, of
God.

Saint Symeon, regarding the holiness
as conscious personal reality, uses on
dioLoxaoiQ and on xcopioiiog, for to show the
distance and the interior separation
between Saints and the sinful world 140 .

But this separation at Saint Symeon
is not dictated by subjectivism or religious
intolerance, but is a consequence of the
presence of grace in our being, that puts
out us from passions and from the
transients and moves us at the eternal
life.

We must remark the fact, that
Symeon speaks about the receiving of the
Holy Ghost as about an cognizant 141
earnest (dppapcov) 142 . Those who preserve
the earnest are the inheritors of the
Kingdom.

140 Idem, Chapters, III, 42, p. 92/ lea jr. 3, p. 407.
To see and SC 174, Hymns, XVII, 397-398, p. 40 (the
light separated him from those seen). To see the
problem of x(opLO|i6<; and in SC 196, Hymns, 52, 148, p.
210.

141 Ibidem/ Ibidem.

142 Idem, Chapters, III, 47, p. 94/ Idem, p. 408. To
see and Idem, III, 48, 49, 50, p. 94; III, 53, 54, 55, p. 96;
SC 156, Hymns, I, 73, p. 162; SC 174, Hymns, XVII, 817, p.
68; XVII, 854, p. 70; XXVIII, 219, p. 312.

66

For the uncreated divine grace 143 ,
Symeon uses a wide range of entitlings, of
which we mention: appapcov (earnest), TTup
(fire) 144 , (light) 145 , ofypayiQ (seal/

143 About the divine grace as uncreated (ccktlotcx;)
to see SC 174, Hymns, XVII, 245, p. 30; XVII, 359, p. 38.

144 SC 51, Chapters, III, 59**, p. 97-98; SC 156,
Hymns, I, 34, p. 158 (spiritual fire); VI, 1, p. 204; XI, 78,
p. 238; XIII, 13, p. 256; SC 174, Hymns, XVII, 325, p. 36;

XVII, 832, p. 70 (sweet fire: iTup yXvKaCov); XXII, 36, p.
172; XXII, 157, p. 182; XXII, 171, p. 184; XXII, 175, p. 184;

XXIV, 20, p. 228; XXIV, 25, p. 228; XXV, 33, p. 256;
XXVIII, 157, p. 306; XXX, 1, p. 340 (the divine fire); XXX,
11, p. 340 (Ibidem); XXX, 52, p. 344 (Ibidem); XXX, 81, p.
346 (Ibidem); XXX, 145, p. 350; XXX, 427, p. 368;

XXXIII, 127, p. 422; SC 196, Hymns, XLV, 35, p. 104.

145 SC 156, Hymns, I, 72, p. 162; I, 160, p. 170; I,
226, p. 174; II, 6, p. 174; II, 104, p. 184; III, 4, p. 188; IV,
22, p. 202; VII, 5, p. 208; VII, 16, p. 210; VIII, 84, p. 220;
IX, 5, p. 224; IX, 32, p. 226; XI, 58, p. 236; XII, 8, p. 242;
XII, 47, p. 246; XIII, 1, p. 256; XIII, 60, p. 260; XIV, 61, p.
270; XV, 105, p. 284; SC 174, Hymns, XVI, 31, p. 12; XVII,
35, p. 16; XVII, 67, p. 18; XVII, 237, p. 30; XVIII, 8, p. 74;

XVIII, 13*", p. 74; XVIII, 109, p. 84; XVIII, 120", p. 84;

XIX, 14, p. 94; XX, 27, p. 112; XX, 205, p. 126; XXI, 1, p.
130; XXI, 2, p. 130; XXI, 7, p. 132; XXI, 9, p. 132; XXI, 104,
p. 138; XXI, 162, p. 142; XXI, 297, p. 152; XXII, 11, p. 170;
XXII, 19, p. 172; XXII, 159, p. 182; XXII, 174, p. 184; XXII,
177, p. 184; XXII, 202, p. 186; XXIII, 94, p. 194; XXIII, 112,

p. 196; XXIII, II3, ll6, 117, ll8, 133, p. 196; XXIII, 222, p.

202; XXIII, 228, p. 204; XXIII, 464, p. 218; XXIV, 16", p.
228; XXIV, 17, 18, 19, p. 228; XXIV, 265, p. 246; XXV, 33,
p. 256; XXV, 44, 47", 50, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, p. 258;

XXV, 90, p. 262; XXV, 149, p. 266; XXVI, 19, p. 270;

XXVI, 96, 100, p. 276; XXVII, 42, 43", p. 282; XXVII, 80,
86, p. 284; XXVII, 129, 136, p. 288; XXVIII, 161, p. 306;
XXVIII, 168, p. 308; XXVIII, 190, 206, p. 310; XXVIII, 217,
p. 312; XXIX, 203, 204, p. 328; XXIX, 205 (God's light:
cjicog ©eou), 211, p. 328; XXX, 243, p. 356; XXX, 304, p.
360; XXX, 313, 314, p. 362; XXX, 428, p. 368; XXXI, 49, p.
388; XXXIII, 26, 31 (light of life), p. 414; XXXIII, 38
(divine light), 40 (unapproachable light), p. 416; XXXIII,
64, p. 418; XXXIII, 127, p. 422; XXXIII, 131 (divine light),
138-139 (Ibidem), 139, 140, p. 422; XXXIII, 141, p. 424;

XXXIV, 70, p. 432; XXXIV, 112, p. 436; XXXV, 4, p. 440;

67

signet) 146 , to kclXXoq 147 / copoaoTric 148
(beauty), la\iT\r\d6va 149 / la\n\p6ir\Q 15 °
(brightness), uScop (water) 151 , riSovfjc Km
yA-UKao|j,ou tou Gdou (pleasure and divine
sweetness) 152 , liapyapLiri ttoA,utl|j,co (most

XXXV, 53, p. 444; XXXIX, 2, p. 476; XXXIX, 44, 54, 57
(divine light), 62, 63, p. 480; XL, 1, p. 484; XL, 14, 17
(simple light), p. 486. SC 196, Hymns, XLII, 88, 103, p.
44; XLII, 134, p. 48; XLII, 187, (great light), 192, p. 52;
XLIV, 21, p. 72; XLIV, 114, p. 78; XLIV, 243, p. 88; XLIV,
373. 374, P- 96; XLV, 5, p. 102; XLV, 32, p. 104; XLV, 97,
106, p. 110; XLVII, 46, p. 124; XLVIII, 20, p. 132; XLVIII,
139, 152, p. 142; XLIX, 18, 24, 27, p. 148; XLIX, 68, 87, p.
152; L, 41, p. 160; L, 238, p. 174; L, 239, p. 178; LI, 1, 8, 9",
p. 184; LI, 15, 17, p. 186; LII, 5, 6, p. 198; LIII, 10, p. 212;
LV, 6, p. 252; LV, 116, p. 262; LV, 192, p. 268; LV, 200, p.
270.

146 Idem, Hymns, I, 73, p. 162; SC 174, Hymns,
XVII, 819, p. 68; SC 196, Hymns, XLII, 88, 103, p. 44;
XLII, 134, p. 48; XLII, 187, p. 52 (great light).

147 Idem, Hymns, II, 18, p. 178; XV, 14, p. 278; XV,
79, p. 282; XV, 153, p. 288; SC 174, Hymns, XXI, 170, p.
142 (divine beauty); XXIII, 501, p. 220; XXIV, 7, p. 226;

XXIV, 29, p. 228; XXIV, 246, p. 244; XXV, 2, p. 254;

XXV, 71, p. 260; XXVII, 118, p. 288; XXX, 196, p. 354;
XXX, 375, p. 366; XXXI, 3, p. 384; XXXIX, 1, p. 476; SC
196, Hymns, XLII, 76, p. 42; XLVII, 49, p. 124; XLVIII,
152, p. 142; XLIX, 29, p. 148; LII, 10, p. 198.

148 SC 174, Hymns, XXIV, 250, p. 244.

149 SC 156, Hymns, II, 18, p. 178; SC 174, Hymns,
XX, 11, p. 110; XXX, 571, p. 378; XXX, 586-587, p. 380
(divine shinings); XXXI, 49, p. 388; SC 196, Hymns,
XLIII, 16, p. 56.

150 SC 174, Hymns, XXIV, 270, p. 246.

151 Idem, Hymns, VI, 2, p. 204; SC 174, Hymns,
XVII, 523; p. 50; XVII, 831, p. 70; XXIV, 20, p. 228; SC
196, Hymns, XLV, 35, p. 104; XLVIII, 22, p. 132; L, 39, p.
158.

152 SC 174, Hymns, XVI, 30, p. 12; XXI, 163, p. 142
(divine sweetness); XXIV, 15, p. 228; XXV, 86, 260
(divine sweetness); XXVIII, 143, p. 306 (divine
sweetness); XXVIII, 218, p. 312; SC 196, Hymns, L, 146, p.
166.

68

precious pearl) 153 ; ouvaireax; iw kokkco
(grain of mustard) 154 , Cu|jm-|<; (yeast) 155 ,
llitmog 156 / evd\)\ia 57 / TTepipoAioc; 158 (gar-
ment/ vestment), ipocjiri (food) 159 , ttooic;
(drink) 160 , 8uva|j,i<; l6 7 Kpaiog 162 (power/
strength), aozr\p ae\,Xa\ii\r\c, (ever bright
star) 163 , 6o\ir\v dGavaoiac (scent of immor-
tality) 164 , (J)A,6£ (flame) 165 , \ieyoLX(x>o\)vr\
(greatness) 166 , zp\)$r\ (delight) 167 , %apa
(happiness) 168 , 0r|aaup6<; (treasure) 169 , Trriyn

153 Idem, Hymns, XVII, 539, p. 50; XVII, 540, p.
50; XVII, 573, p. 52; XVII, 620, p. 56; XVII, 650, p. 58;
XVII, 701, p. 60; XVII, 825, p. 68; XX, 206, p. 126; XXX,
409, p. 374; XXX, 539, p. 376; SC 196, Hymns, XLII, 86,
P-44-

154 Idem, Hymns, XVII, 760, p. 64; XVII, 766, p.
66; XVII, 773-774, p. 66; XVII, 791, p. 66; XVII, 828, p.
70; XXVIII, 93, p. 300; XXVIII, 107, p. 302; XXX, 500, p.
374; XXX, 540, p. 376.

155 Idem, Hymns, XVII, 829, p. 70.

156 Idem, Hymns, XVII, 833, p. 70.

157 SC 196, Hymns, XLV, 33, p. 104.

158 Ibidem.

159 SC 174, Hymns, XVII, 834, p. 70; SC 196,
Hymns, XLV, 32, p. 104; L, 149, p. 168.

160 Ibidem; SC 196, Hymns, XLV, 32, p. 104.

161 Idem, Hymns, XVIII, 15, p. 76; XIX, 10, p. 94;
XXIX, 164, p. 326.

162 Idem, Hymns, XXV, 41, p. 258.

163 Idem, Hymns, XVIII, 18, p. 76; XXII, 5, p. 170;
XXII, 150, p. 182; XXII, 169, p. 184; SC 196, Hymns, XLII,
85, p. 44; XLV, 38, p. 104 (ever bright star).

164 Idem, Hymns, XVIII, 158, p. 88.

165 Idem, Hymns, XVIII, 88, 82 (great flame: c|jX6^
[ieydlr\); XXII, 8, p. 170; XXII, 33, p. 172; XXII, 157, p. 182;
XXV, 34, p. 256.

166 Idem, Hymns, XIX, 10, p. 94.

167 Idem, Hymns, XIX, 152, p. 106; XL, 93, p. 492;
SC 196, Hymns, XLV, 37, p. 104.

168 Ibidem; XXV, 86, p. 260; SC 196, Hymns, XLV,
32, p. 104; LIII, 11, 13, p. 212.

169 Idem, Hymns, XX, 207, p. 126; XXI, 181, p. 144.

69

(spring) 170 , oTTivGrip (spark) 171 , kvkpyem
(work) 172 , emQXov (premium) 173 , eleoc,
(oil) 174 , oxefyoc, (crown) 175 , omycov (drop) 176 ,
Xa\n\aQ (torch/ rushlight/ lamp) 177 , elpr|vr|
(peace) 178 , (cori (life) 179 , 0KT|vr| (tent) l8 °,
Oelog oIkoc (divine house) 181 , avdoxaoic,
(resurrection) 182 , hvanavoic, (rest) 183 , Ax>u-
ipov (bathing) 184 , TTOia|i6g (river) 185 , pelOpov
(flow) 18 , apiog (bread) 187 , olvog (wine) 188 ,
TTavSaLola (banquet/ feast) 189 , ttA,outo<;
(richness) 190 , Tronpiov (chalice) 191 etc.

170 Idem, Hymns, XX,2o8, p. 126; SC 196, Hymns,
XLV, 35, p. 104 (spring of life: ittiyti (wfig).

171 Idem, Hymns, XXIII, 273, p. 206; XXX, 501, p.
374 (divine spark); XXX, 537, p. 376 (spark of the divine
Nature).

172 Idem, Hymns, XXVIII, 157, p. 306 (foreign
work: evepyet-ag £kvr\c,).

173 Idem, Hymns, XXVIII, 220, p. 312 (pi. to
eiTa0A.a).

174 Idem, Hymns, XXX, 36, p. 342; XXX, 41, p. 344.

175 Idem, Hymns, XXX, 328, p. 362; SC 196,
Hymns, L, 138, p. 166 (divine crown); LIII, 16, p. 214.

176 Idem, Hymns, XXX, 409, p. 374.

177 Idem, Hymns, XLII, 87, p. 44; SC 196, Hymns,
XLV, 39, p. 104; L, 31, p. 158.

178 SC 196, Hymns, XLV, 32, p. 104.

179 Idem, Hymns, XLV, 33, p. 104; LI, 2, p. 184;
LIII, 12, p. 212 (eternal life).

180 Ibidem.

181 Ibidem.

182 Idem, Hymns, XLV, 34, p. 104; LI, 2, p. 184.

183 Ibidem.

184 Ibidem.

185 Idem, Hymns, XLV, 35, p. 104; L, 147, p. 166.

186 Ibidem; L, 148, p. 168.

187 Idem, Hymns, XLV, 36, p. 104.

188 Ibidem.

189 Idem, Hymns, XLV, 37, p. 104.

190 Idem, Hymns, XL VIII, 109, p. 138; LI, 145, p.

196.

191 Idem, Hymns, L, 147, p. 166.

70

An ecstatic symeonian entitling is
and to opa|ia (sight/ vision) 192 . He calls
the ghostual changes from his life and his
visions right Qa\)\idoza (wonders) 193 . In
Hymns, IV, 45, Symeon says, explicitly,
that to see means „Qolv\iol 0au|iaia)v" (the
wonder of wonders) 194 .

Exists and places where he uses on
fycLVOQ together without; without as this to
mean something redundant, but on the
contrary an expression even more painful
of the longing for God 195 .

In the Hymn I, Symeon presents the
coming of light in heart as a rising in
heart of a sun (^Xioq) 196 or a sun disk
(SioKog fjAiou) 197 .

The two ecstatic entitlings are fluid
at Symeon, as and the sight also, for that

192 SC 51, Chapters, III, 64, p. 99.

193 SC 156, Hymns, I, 47, 160. About the sight as
9a0|ia, as wonder, to see and SC 174, Hymns, XXX, 524,
p. 376; SC 196, Hymns, L, 4, p. 156.

194 Idem, Hymns, IV, 45, p. 194.

195 Idem, Hymns, VII, 16, p. 210.

196 Idem, Hymns, I, 39, p. 160 / lea jr. 3, p. 53.
About the sight of the light in heart as a sun, to

see places: SC 156, Hymns, VII, 4, p. 208; VIII, 74, p.
220; SC 174, Hymns, XVII, 327, p. 36; XVIII, 17, p. 76
(unsunset sun: t\Iioq aSurog); XXI, 8, p. 132; XXII, 6, p.
170 (great sun: r\Xioc, \ieyaQ); XXII, 150, p. 182; XXII, 168,
p. 184; XXIII, 233, p. 204; XXIII, 260, 261, p. 206; XXIII,
360, 364, 370, p. 212; XXIII, 388, 398, p. 214; XXV, 10, p.
254 (more than the sun); XXVII, 98, p. 286; XXXIV, 79,
p. 434 (great sun); SC 196, Hymns, XLII, 85, p. 44; SC
196, Hymns, XLV, 38, p. 104 (unsunset sun); L, 95, p.
164.

197 Ibidem/ Ibidem. To see and SC 174, Hymns,
XVII, 385-387, p. 40, where the light is shown in the
middle of heart as a ^cooxiip (luminary) but also as a sun
disc.

7i

they attest the sight of the light in
similarity with some bodily and does not
solidify the mode of the manifestation of
the light in his being.

The light takes diverse forms,
according as God wants to show them to
the seer of His light. Therefore, the light
that appears like a sun, in the same
symeonian fragment, is and $VoC 98 , flame
or tongue of fire.

In Hymns, 29, 9, the light shows
itself to him like a full moon (oXocJdgotov
oekr\vr\v) 199 to Saint Symeon, while in 50,
41 as a spheric light (4>cog ofyoLipoeidec,) 200 .

The ecstatic symeonian entitlings,
with other words, are not all aprioristic
given, but some touches the ecstatic
events personally experienced.

Therefore, at Symeon merges the
traditional ecstatic entitlings with the
ones personally experienced.

The personal experience is vital for
salvation, for that the inheritance of the
Kingdom of Heavens is on measure (tcc
\ikxpa) of lightenment and of love which
we have 201 .

In Hymns,VIII, 41-42, Saint Symeon
expresses in concise mode the fact that
the cleaning manifestation of the Ghost in

19 Idem, Hymns, I, 40, p. 160 / Ibidem. To see
and SC 174, Hymns, XX, 238, p. 128; XXVIII, 140, 142, p.
304.

199 SC 174, Hymns, XXIX, 9, p. 314.

200 SC 196, Hymns, L, 41, p. 160.

201 SC 156, Hymns, 1, 149-150, p. 168 / Idem, p. 55.

72

our being is on measure of cleaning and
of personal lightenment 202 .

The assimilation of light with the
glory, ie of (Jdcoc with So£a 203 , is pretty
evident at him: „tou (jDCOTOc r\ So£a" (glory
of the light) 204 ; „cj)cog aQavaoiaQ" (light of
immortality) 205 ; „c})Gm zf\c, Qdac, doE^c,"
(the light of divine glory) 206 ; „ctiyXr\v
clQolvoloiolq" (sparkle immortality) 207 ; „to
cjicoc zf\Q xapiiog" (light of grace) 208 ; „to
fytic, xf\Q So£r|<;" (light of glory) 209 ; „So£av
xr\v dGavaiov" (immortal glory) 210 ; „6o£r|<;
Qdac," (divine glory) 211 .

The adjectives and adverbs of the
light, and they are very important in our
discussion, because they expresse the
light ecstatic seen, with dogmatic
exactitude, as light of God: dTrpoancx; (un-
approachable) 212 , dGeaiog 213 / dopaio^ 214

202 Idem, Hymns, VIII, 41-42, p. 218.

203 SC 174, Hymns, XXVI, 19, p. 270.

204 SC 156, Hymns, 1, 184, p. 172.

205 Idem, Hymns, II, 89, p. 182.

206 Idem, Hymns, I, 210, p. 174.

207 Idem, Hymns, II, 5, p. 176. To see and SC 174,
Hymns, XVI, 25, p. 12.

208 Idem, Hymns, II, 18, p. 178.

209 Idem, Hymns, VII, 5, p. 208; SC 174, Hymns,

XXI, 1, p. 130.

210 Idem, Hymns, VIII, 93, p. 222.

211 SC 174, Hymns, XVII, 455, p. 44; XVII, 465, p.
46; XVII, 485, p. 46; XXI, 12, p. 132.

212 SC 156, Hymns, XI, 57, p. 236; XI, 69, p. 238;
XIV, 61, p. 270; SC 174, Hymns, XVIII, 13, p. 74; XX, 36, p.
112; XX, 44, p. 114; XXI, 2, p. 130; XXI, 276, 297, p. 152;

XXII, 36, p. 172; XXII, 161, p. 182; XXVII, 43, p. 282;
XXVIII, 206, p. 310; XXXIII, 40, p. 416; SC 196, Hymns,
XLII, 76, p. 42; XLIX, 24, p. 148; LV, 117, p. 262.

213 Idem, Hymns, XI, 56, p. 236; SC 174, Hymns,
XXIV, 297, p. 248.

73

(unseen), aoieKiog (unbearable) 215 ,

■> I r 216 / 5 r 217 / v 218 / " 1 a

acppaoioc / aTToppriioc; /appriiog /capOey-
ktoc 219 (unspeakable), axpaviog (un-
blemish) 220 , Gelog (divine) 221 , xf|g avco
(from above) 222 , TTpcoiri (prime/ initial/
first) 223 , aopeoiog (unextinguished) 224 ;
yA-UKeia) o(j)66pa (very sweet) 225 , ko%r\\j&-
iLoiog 226 / cqjopc})o<; 227 (formless/ amor-
phous), octtA<ou<; (simple) 228 , aouvGeioc
(uncompounded) 229 , d^pioicx; (indivisi-
ble) 230 , dve^peuvriTog (cannot be

214 SC 174, Hymns, XXX, 19, p. 342;

215 SC 156, Hymns, XI, 57, p. 236; XI, 81, p. 238; SC
174, Hymns, XXII, 36, p. 172; XXV, 44, p. 258; XXVIII,
161, p. 306.

216 SC 174, Hymns, XVIII, 120, p. 84; XXIV, 270, p.
246; SC 196, Hymns, XLVIII, 21, p. 132; XLIX, 26, p. 148;
L, 146, p. 166.

217 Idem, Hymns, XXIV, 7, p. 226; XXVIII, 187, p.

308.

218 SC 196, Hymns, XLIII, 73, p. 62; XLIV, 114, p.
78; XLVIII, 20, p. 132; XLIX, 27, p. 148; L, 39, p. 158.

219 Idem, Hymns, LII, 6, p. 198.

220 SC 174, Hymns, XIX, 14, p. 94; XXV, 149, p.
266; SC 196, Hymns, XLVII, 46, p. 124.

221 Ibidem; XX, 205, p. 126; XXVII, 65, p. 284;
XXVII, 129, 136, p. 288; XXIX, 211, p. 328; XXX, 52, p.
344; XXXIII, 38, p. 416; XXXIII, 131, p. 422; XXXIII, 138,
p. 422; XXXIX, 51, 57, p. 480; SC 196, Hymns, XLIV, 243,
p. 88; XLVIII, 22, p. 132; L, 41, p. 160; L, 147, p. 166; L,
296, p. 178; LI, 15, p. 186.

222 Idem, Hymns, XIX, 57, p. 98.

223 Ibidem.

224 Idem, Hymns, XX, 205, p. 126; XXX, 23, p. 342.

225 Idem, Hymns, XVIII, 82, p. 80.

226 Idem, Hymns, XXII, 159, p. 182.

227 SC 196, Hymns, L, 42, p. 160.

228 Idem, Hymns, XXII, 160, p. 182; XXIV, 15, p.

228.

229 Ibidem.

230 Ibidem.

74

investigated) 231 , Ax|ttto<; (understood/ com-
prised/ distinguishable) 232 , aKaxdl^-nxoc,
(not understood/ incomprehensible) 233 ,
ipavoc (limpid/ transparent) 234 , dXr\Qw6c,
(true) 235 a8uiog (unreached) 23 , dveoTTepoc
(without evening) 237 , olkziozoq (un-
created) 238 , avapxcx; (unbeginning) 239 ,
olvXoq (immaterial) 240 , dvaAAoiGoioc
(unchangeable) 241 , cmepiypoL-nzoQ (un-
circumscribed) 242 , dGavaiog (immortal) 243 ,
dTTepUriTTTOV i\dvxr\ (boundless with all) 244 ,
avddeoc, (faceless/ without image) 245 ,
c6(J)0apTOQ (incorruptible) 246 , dyripcoq
(unoldening) 247 , dauyKpiTCx; (incompa-
rable) 248 etc.

In Hymns, XIX, 68, enters in the
frame of the theological discussion and

231 Idem, Hymns, XXII, 161, p. 182.

232 Idem, Hymns, XXIII, 234, 238 p. 204; XXIII,
380, p. 212.

233 Idem, Hymns, XXIV, 296, p. 248.

234 SC 174, Hymns, XXIV, 368, p. 252; XL, 1, p.

484.

235 SC 174, Hymns, XXXIV, 26, p. 428.

236 SC 196, Hymns, XLIV, 373, p. 96.

237 SC 174, Hymns, XXVII, 43, p. 282; SC 196,
Hymns, L, 293, p. 178.

238 Idem, Hymns, 19, p. 342.

239 Idem, Hymns, XXX, 20, p. 342.

240 Ibidem.

241 Idem, Hymns, XXX, 21, p. 342.

242 Idem, Hymns, XXX, 22, p. 342.

243 Idem, Hymns, XXX, 23, p. 342; SC 196,
Hymns, L, 148, p. 168.

244 Idem, Hymns, XXX, 24, p. 342.

245 Ibidem.

246 SC 196, Hymns, LI, 146, p. 196.

247 Ibidem.

248 Idem, Hymns, LII, 6, p. 198.

75

the verb Qeao\±ai M9 for to qualify the
ecstatic sight and in the Hymn 31 we
found twice the substantive 0ea
(vision) 250 .

In the Hymn 34 makes its
appearance the substantive irelpa
(experience) 251 for to indicate the divine
sight and in 38, 74 the substantive
avaiolx] (sunrise) 252 . In the Hymn 50, 234
we find iTpaY|iama (occupation/ quoti-
dianness) 253 put in direct link with irelpa
and yvcooLa.

The light enters in our being and
our members become carrying of light
(cJ)G)TO(})6pa) 254 . The whole symeonian
theology is built around this deifying
experience: that of seeing the divine light.

From those on which we have
presented results that Symeon is
profoundly scriptural and traditional in
his ecstatic terminology without being
less innovative. Symeon's terminological
innovations are not intellectualistic but
pragmatic ones. He describes what he
saw, the forms under which he had seen

249 SC 174, Hymns, XIX, 68, p. 98; XXIX, 204, p.

328.

250 Idem, Hymns, XXXI, 2, 3, p. 384.

251 Idem, Hymns, XXXIV, 17, p. 428; XXXIV, 48,
p. 430; SC 196, Hymns, L, 234, p. 174.

252 Idem, Hymns, XXXVIII, 74, p. 472; SC 196,
Hymns, XLV, 34, p. 104.

253 SC 196, Hymns, L, 234, p. 174.

254 SC 174, Hymns, XVI, 33, p. 12; XIX, 15, p. 94
(A«|iiTpo4)6pou£;).

76

the divine light and he does not seek to
bring in front of his readers the
expressions for the sake of expressions.

But, from the descriptions of these
very strict, exactness of ghostual
experience until at the suspectness of
Saint Symeon that he fantasizes on the
theme of the divine sight or of the fact
that he would propose a non-traditional
mystique is a long and unrealistic path.

The textual research indicates us the
complete orthodox and traditional
legitimacy of the symeonian ecstatic
terminology, for that he expresses a
personal experienced teaching, before to
be a humble and full rallying to the
teaching of the previous Church Fathers.

Triadology

2. 2. The Most Holy Trinity in
the Personal Ghostual Experience

The symeonian triadology has two
major characteristics: is apologetic, then
when responding of public and personal
contestations and doxological, persona-
listic, when not made for the large public,
but is integrated into the personal
prayers.

But the combative dimension of
symeonian triadology has nothing to do
with the malicious and the imperso-
nalism of a modern dogmatic treatise,
but combines the living piety, total and,
especially, attentive, with the fidelity
towards the faith of the Church's Saints,
towards Tradition.

In this section, we begin the
presentation of teaching about the Most
Holy Trinity at Saint Symeon, beginning
with its public dimension, combative, for
to conclude with the personalistic, inte-
rior, as a manifestation of his love
towards God.

78

2. 2. i. The Apologetic Dimen-
sion

The three Theological Discourses are
the apologetic emblem of the symeonian
theology.The theological concision unites
here with the simple majesty, delicate of
the mode to do the ghostual theology.

Therefore, Symeon does not begin
the first of his theological discourse with
a revolutionary impulse to a theology
made by any tyro, but with the indication
of the fact that the understanding of God
has nothing to do with a soul ocuGocSouq
(stubborn) and full of xok\ir\pav (auda-
city) 255 .

He is sharp, trenchant, and justly, to
those who innovate without a traditional
base or which repertoires of traditional
writings for to flabbergast in front of
ignorants 256 .

Therefore, we believe that a
knowledge of the issues of the symeonian
triadology means a precise understanding
of the theology of glory.

255 SC 122, The Theogical Discourses, I, 3-4, p. 96/
lea jr. 1, p. 75. The admonestations of Saint Symeon are
not gratuitous, but are part of the arsenal of
discreditation of those who are improper for theology.
They specificate the deficiencies of the false theologians
and they are never personal attacks.

To see in this sense Idem, The Theological
Discourses, 1, 172-173, p. 108; I, 273-282, p. 116; I, 332-337,
p. 120; I, 403-404, p. 126.

256 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 4-10, p.
96/ lea jr. 1, p. 75.

79

Only if we believe in the trinitarian
God about that speaks to us Scripture
and the Fathers of the Church, we can
experience the sight of God. The tria-
dological stake is capital for understan-
ding the ghostual life, the sight of God
and the personal salvation.

The trinitarian problem of the first
discourse is to demonstrate the fact that
the Father is not greater than the Son 257 .

Because only \i\)OT0Ly(x>yo\)\i€Voi (ini-
tiates into those hidden, sacred) know the
ones that are said by the Ghost 258 ,
Symeon affirms the fact that the
trinitarian persons being eternal united
(dd r\v(x>\i€Vtt) and eternal alike (dd
GoaauiGx;) it can not exist between them
the anteriority and posteriority rela-
tions 259 , and, in definitive, nor any degree
of excellence of any person before
another. If they renounce at the idea of
the degree of excellence of the Father
towards the Son, says Symeon, he can
talk about the Father as the cause (oaiiov)
of the Trinity 260 . The preexistence
(TTpotiTTap^av) of the Father towards the
Son is radically contested by Symeon 261 .

257 Idem, The Theological Discourses, 1, 10, p. 98/
Idem, p. 76.

258 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 24-25, p.
98/ Ibidem.

259 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 31-32, p.
98/ Ibidem.

260 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 43-45, p.
100/ Idem, p. 76-77.

261 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 49-50, p.
100/ Idem, p. 77.

8o

The Son is together-eternally (ouv-
a'iSiov) and together-without-beginning
(ouvavapxov) with the Father 262 . The
Father is into the Son and the Son is into
the Father in entirely, because Both are
the one-honor (6\iozi\iov) and the one-
being (6|j,oouolov) 263 .

But, stresses our Father, Symeon,
the Father is the cause of Son in
regarding His incarnation, and the idea of
the gradual, consecutive apparition of the
trinitarian persons has no relation with
the Most Holy Trinity 264 .

The idea of cause (ainov) in Trinity
is not rejected definitively by Symeon,
but only purged of the idea of the primacy
and of the consecution.

The ineffable and divine birth of the
Logos from the Father may be orthodox
formulated in sentence: the cause of the
Son is the Father 265 .

But the fact that the Father is cause
of the Son does not mean that the Father
is TTpcoiov (first) 266 .

If we introduce the primacy of the
Father in the Trinity and the consecution
of the persons of the Trinity, we are only

262 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 52-53, p.
100/ Ibidem.

263 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 54-56, p.
100/ Ibidem.

264 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 64-70, p.
100-102/ Ibidem.

265 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 72-74, p.
102/ Ibidem.

266 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 75, p.
102/ Ibidem.

8i

falling into polytheism, because we divide
the Deity in three gods 267 . If the Father is
TTpcoiov, continues Saint Symeon, then we
have as Seuiepov the Son and as ipiiov the
Holy Ghost 268 . The affirmation which he
examines (that „the Father is greater than
the Son") it discloses in I, 101 as a
dogmatization covered of the tritheism
(ipiGekv) 269 .

Commenting John. 1, 1, Symeon
draws us the attention that the Logos was
not known as Son than in the frame of
the incarnation and that God was not
known as Father until not revealed to us
this thing His incarnate Son 270 .

Triadology is a post-incarnational
revelation made in the space of the
oikonomia of salvation 271 . Therefore all
what we know about Trinity we have
learned from the Son, Who becames
man. Retaking the discussion about cause
in Trinity, Symeon affirms the fact, that
the idea of cause should not be
interpreted as a primacy of the Father
towards the Son or the Ghost.

Although the Father is odnov, the
cause of the Son, He is not TTpcoiov, the

2 7 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 75-77, p.
102/ Ibidem.

268 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 96-97, p.
104/ Idem, p. 78.

269 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 100-101,
p. 104/ Idem, p. 79.

270 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 104-106,
p. 104/ Ibidem.

271 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 106-119,
p. 104-106/ Ibidem.

82

first. Neither the Son is Seuiepov, the
second, although He is from the Father.
Nor the Ghost is a third, a tri,ton,
although He proceeds from the Father 272 .

Trinity is one from the beginning (ev
e£ apxric) and Her existence excludes any
anteriority* 13 .

Symeon believes that is not a
boldness to analyze those about God,
about the trinitarian God into Whom we
have been baptized. We must know that
God is Trinity 274 , but we do not examine
„how or when or wherewith or how is
Trinity the creator of all" 275 .

Through this Symeon discourages
the vainglorious research, haughty of the
knowledge of God, which proposes to
inventory problems that not related by
the Holy Tradition, but a gnosticizing
speculation of the theological research.

In the second discourse, Symeon
draws attention that the triadology does
not occupy with the research of God's
being 276 . '

272 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 124-126,
p. 106/ Ibidem.

273 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 126-129,
p. 106/ Ibidem.

About the problem of the non-anteriority in
Trinity to see and Idem, The Theological Discourses, I,
131-138, p. 106; I, 236-237, p. 114; II, 68-69, P- x 34; H> 10 °"
101, p. 138.

274 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 240-246,
p. 114/ Idem, p. 83.

275 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 246-247,
p. U4/ Ibidem.

276 Idem, The Theological Discourses, II, 53-55, p.
134/ Idem, p. 92.

83

The discussion about (Jduok; (nature)
and ouoloc (being) does not have the
revelational covering. But the discussion
about the persons of Trinity can
emphasize to us the truth, that the Father
„gives birth in the timeless and eternal
face to the Son the one-being, Which
[Son] in noway doesn't leave Him, and
together with Which, together-proceeds
and the divine Ghost from the Father the
one-being and Which [Ghost] is the one-
being with the Son" 277 .

His assertion excludes any tempora-
lisation of the persons of the Trinity, any
interval between the birth of the Son from
the Father and the procession of the Holy
Ghost from the Father and shows the
eternal communion between the trini-
tarian persons, Which have in common,
in perichoretic mode, the same being of
the Godhead.

Debating the parallelism between
the image of God in man and the Holy
Trinity, Saint Symeon affirms that the
Father cannot be without the Son and the
Ghost 278 .

For as to confess in orthodox mode
about Trinity, says Symeon, we must say
that the Father gives birth to the Son but
He did not pre-existed the Son, that the
Son is begotten of the Father but without
to be posterior to the Father and that the

277 Idem, The Theological Discourses, II, 81-84, p.
136/ Idem, p. 92-93.

278 Idem, The Theological Discourses, II, 105-108,
p. 138/ Idem, p. 93.

8 4

Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, but
is together-eternal and the one-being with
the Son and with the Father 279 .

The symeonian triadology focuses in
the second theological discourse, primar-
ily, on the attestation of the Trinity's
unity.

Who denies a person from Trinity or
talks about her in unrevelational mode,
he abolishes the Trinity 280 . The God
Father was made known to us by the Son
and His Ghost and those of the Holy
Ghost we have learned from the Father
and the Son, together-eternal with
Him 281 .

All three persons of Deity have one
and the same will 282 , stresses Symeon.
This thing is capital in our relation with
Trinity, because we receive the grace of
the Trinity and see His glory and not a
substitute of His presence.

Our relation with God is an
impartation of His glory but reality of
God's being is not understood for all
creation 283 .

The God's being is for us dTTpoanov
and ctK0LZ0Lv6r\zov , unapproachable and not

279 Idem, The Theological Discourses, II, 108-m,
p. 138 / Ibidem.

280 Idem, The Theological Discourses, II, 167-170,
p. 142 / Idem, p. 95.

281 Idem, The Theological Discourses, II, 187-190,
p. 144 / Idem, p. 96.

282 Idem, The Theological Discourses, II, 205-
209, p. 144 / Ibidem.

283 Idem, The Theological Discourses, II, 242-
246, p. 148 / Idem, p. 98.

85

understood 284 . Therefore, the Holy Scrip-
ture says about God only that He exists
but not and how is He 285 .

In the end of the second discourse,
Symeon says that, although we cannot see
the being of God, if we see „the
unapproachable glory of His divine light
and endless", we have seen God 2SD . The
sight of the Trinity's glory makes us to
have on God in us, Who speaks us and
introduces us into His mysteries those
hidden 287 .

And the third discourse has right
center of its problematizations the unity
of the Trinity, without as Symeon to look
the triadology in a substantialist mode.
But he emphasizes, in preponderant
mode, the triadologic details which his
opponent has required from him.

Here, Symeon speaks about the
theology of Trinity as about a knowledge
in that we were introduced by the Ghost
and affirms the fact, that the Trinity's
persons are unmixed (aouyxuTOug) and
undivided (aSimperouc) in Their divine,
common nature 288 .

2 4 Idem, The Theological Discourses, II, 250-251,
p. 148/ Ibidem.

285 Idem, The Theological Discourses, II, 257-259,
p. 148/ Ibidem.

286 Idem, The Theological Discourses, II, 297-
299, p. 152/ Idem, p. 100.

287 Idem, The Theological Discourses, II, 300-303,
p. 152/ Ibidem.

288 Idem, The Theological Discourses, III, 30-33,
p. 156/ Idem, p. 102. To see and Idem, The Theological
Discourses, III, 81-84, p. 160.

86

As to talk about God, we must
confess Him to be in three persons and
the one after nature 289 . The revelation
brought by the incarnated Son
essentialized this triadological doctrine 290 .

Triadology must be received
through faith 291 , says Simeon. We must
keep and confess only those who have
been revealed and we must not seek to
understand more than that 292 .

We do not know the being of God,
concludes and the third discourse, but we
know that those around of God, those
that come from God and those who are in
God are one light 293 .

In III, 142-157, Symeon puts the equal
sign between all nominations which the
Scripture gave of God's works that come
to us, saying that all are not something
else than the divine light 294 .

289 Idem, The Theological Discourses, III, 84-85,
p. 160/ Idem, p. 103.

290 Idem, The Theological Discourses, III, 86-97,
p. 160/ Ibidem.

291 Idem, The Theological Discourses, III, 130, p.
164/ Idem, p. 105.

292 Idem, The Theological Discourses, III, 129-132,
p. 162-165/ Idem, p. 104-105.

293 Idem, The Theological Discourses, III, 133-135,
p. 164/ Idem, p. 105.

294 Idem, The Theological Discourses, III, 142-157,
p. 164/ Ibidem.

Saint Symeon says here, that life, immortality,
the fountain of life, living water, love, peace, the truth,
the Kingdom of Heavens, the bridal chamber, the bed,
the Paradise, the delight, the land of the meeks, the
crowns, the clothes of the Saints, the pearl, the grain of
mustard, the true vine, the lump, the hope and the
faith are not than the different expressions of the reality
of divine light, of the glory of the Trinity.

87

The light is of the Trinity and each
person of Trinity is in relation with us
through the uncreated light which we see.

The third theological discourse ends
in the positive note of the impartation of
light, as a consequence of the relation of
the believer with the trinitarian God.

We found scattered in the three
theological discourses and a number of
the ascetic qualities for to be proper of the
light.

Symeon shows in the first Discourse,
that triadology is a medicament given to
us for to not get sick of atheism and
which must make us doxological and not
full of the boldness, that we can
understand rational on those supraratio-
nal of the Trinity 295 .

Reporting the knowledge of God at
our faith, entering thus in the perimeter
of the ghostual experience, Symeon
shows that God gives us, at all, in His love
of people, ir\v TTepi Auiou yvtioiv (those
about His knowledge) 296 .

295 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 141-155,
p. 106-108/ Idem, p. 80.

About suprarational of the triadological dogma
to see Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology [Teologia Dogmaticd
Ortodoxd], ed. II, vol. 1, Ed. IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1996,
p. 199: „The effort towards the understanding of the
single-distinct constitution of reality helps us ascend to
the suprarational paradox of the perfect unity of the
three distinct Persons, which is represented by the unity
of being of the three divine Persons".

296 SC 122, The Theological Discourses, 1, 185-196,
p. 110/ lea jr. 1, p. 81.

88

Our Father speaks of a knowledge of
God being in relation with Him and not
about a knowledge gained, in exclusive
mode, from the reading of the theological
books. For this reason, he sees the
measure of our knowledge as being direct
proportional with the measure of faith
which we have it 297 . Because he puts at
base of the theological knowledge, of
Yvcooecoc, on mcmoc;, the personal faith.

The faith is the one that receives
from God the knowledge. And the
knowledge or the ghostual experience
consists in the receiving from God of
many o\)\iei(AV (signs), aw\,y\iax(AV (enig-
mas), dooTTipcov (mirrors), evepyeitiv
(works), GeiGov aTTOKaA-uijjecov (divine reve-
lations), eA,A,a|j,i|KG)v (enlightenments) and
in the deepening in Gecopia, in contempla-
tion 298 .

But the certitude (TTAjpcxjDopia) of the
faith is given by the coming of the Holy
Ghost (TTapouaiac tou 'Ayiou Uveviiaxoo) in
our being and more fully enlightenment
we have through the sight of the divine
light, which it is our teacher in the
mysteries of God 2 ". The faith must to
follow the repentance (\iexoivoia) 300 . The

297 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 189-190,
p. 110/ Ibidem.

298 Idem, The Theological Discourses, 1, 195-198,
p. 110/ Ibidem.

299 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 200-203,
p. 110-112/ Idem, p. 82.

300 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 255, p.
114/ Idem, p. 83.

89

repetance is what provides us the
knowledge that we are people but and the
knowledge of God 301 .

Repentance destroies the wall
(id-xog) that separates us from God's
light 302 and therefore its importance is
essential in the symeonian theology 303 .

The faith and the repentance bring
ghostual knowledge 304 .

In II, 304-305, Symeon speaks by
another condition of the glory's sight and
namely: „if\Q icov evioXQv Autou aKpipouc
(JjuA-aKfjg" (the exact keeping of His com-
mandments) 305 .

The perspective of the purification of
passions of the ghostual life is the frame
in that Symeon lives and sanctifies his
life. And in this perspective, the ghostual
knowledge is acquired not studying the
theology or the philosophy from books,
but by repentance we understand the
mysteries (liuarrpiGov) of our faith 306 .

But Symeon does not exclude the
theological study (he himself was a man

301 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 256-257,
p. 114/ Ibidem.

302 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 253, p.
114/ Ibidem.

303 About the role of repentance in the theological
knowledge to see and SC 122, The Theological
Discourses, I, 273, p. 116; I, 304 -306, p. 118; I, 313-319, p.
120.

304 SC 122, The Theological Discourses, I, 304-
306, p. 118/ lea jr. 1, p. 85.

305 Idem, The Theological Discourses, II, 304-305,
p. 152/ Idem, p. 100.

306 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 306-311,
p. 118 / Ibidem.

90

who knew the scripting Tradition of the
Church) but he does not antepune the
theological study to ascesis, for that he
considers primordial in the ghostual life
the cleansing of passions, the way to the
sight of God. His focalization was on
methods to struggle with himself, of the
mode in that we do worthy of the sight of
God.

It becomes evident the non-
discrimination of the theological study by
Simeon from the next reference at
knowledge. Those who have beautifully
repented, he says, to those is revealed the
knowledge of God contained in the holy
books 307 .

With other words, we must not to
transform theology into an attribute of
those who are doing very easily with the
textual study and with the memorizing of
the holy texts of the Church, but must
decipher the texts of the Tradition with
the help of the divine grace, that comes
into our ascetic lives 308 . Not the
autonomous mind 309 must prevails in the

307 Idem, The Theological Discourses, I, 313-325,
p. 120/ Ibidem.

308 In SC 122, The Theological Discourses, I, 380,
p. 124, Saint Symeon warns in trenchant mode to the
fact, that we cannot make theology without purity,
without sanctifing our lives in continuous mode. The
purity is the place where the grace likes to live and that
only the pure can see, aided by grace, the depths of the
holy writings of the Church.

To see and SC 122, The Theological Discourses,
II, 33-35. P- B 2 ; H» 60-62, p. 134.

309 About the devastating problems aroused by
the autonomous mind of man that does not want to

9i

understanding of Tradition's texts, but
the mind that is lightened by grace and
humble is what that keeps the deep
meanings of faith and can transmits of its
in consciousness of cause.

In conclusion, the symeonian
Theological Discourses put before us a
triadology without mystifications and
which guarantees the energetics relation
between the Trinity and the faithful man.

Symeon does not propose us a
substantialist triadology, that gives
preeminence to the divine nature in the
detriment of the trinitarian persons, who
possess, in perichoretic mode, the same
divine being, but highlights, in special
mode, the unit of being of the Trinity,
because it was defectious understood in
his time.

Therefore, in measure in that we
know the triadological positioning of
Saint Symeon, we cannot suspect of the
idecent pietism or of the ailing
exacerbation his relation with God and

obey God in noway, to see Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru
Popescu, The Man Without Roots [Omul fara radacini],
op. cit., p. 11-12: „the modernity transferred the center of
gravity of the world from God to man, thus that the
man feels so autonomous in the face of the Divinity,
that considers the will of God as a kind of attempt
against his own freedom. In this anthropocentric
conception, the man realizes himself by himself,
without God's help. The sacred is the principal obstacle
in the way of his freedom, and he does not feel free
only in measure in that eliminates the sacred from
nature".

9 2

we cannot see the his ecstatic experience
in outside of a real relation, personal with
Trinity.

2. 2. 2. The Personalistic Dimen-
sion

If in The Theological Discourses,
Saint Symeon is connected at the living
thesaurus of Tradition, presenting the
triadological dogma as a ghostual
contemplation, in Hymns we are dealing
with doxological expressions started from
the largest communion with Holy Trinity.

In his prayer, the trinitarian God is
not a God about Who you talk to others,
but with Who you are talking, to Which
you adress through the prism of love that
links you to Him.

Having the experience of the fact
that „the divine light of Trinity is in all" 310
that are in existence, Symeon feels a
direct relation with God through the sight
of His glory.

In n, 36-38, He presents Christ as
One who opens the heaven and bends/
inclins toward him, together with the
Father and the Ghost.

Holy Trinity is known by him as
„0(ofi tw ipiaaYiG)" (threefold-holy
Light) 311 , for that is bv kv toiq Tpioi
Km ev evi za Tpla" (one in Three and
Three are in one) 312 .

The verb ttocpockutttgo used at u, 37,
with the acceptation to look out/ in

SC 156, Hymns, I, 226, p. 174 / lea jr. 3, p. 57.
Idem, Hymns, XI, 38, p. 234 / Idem, p. 77.
Idem, Hymns, XI, 39, p. 234 / Ibidem.

94

outside 313 , defines the ecstasy as an act of
mercy of the Trinity to the faithful,
descenting to him, looking at him.

The Trinity, continues Symeon, is
the one Light „that lights my soul more
than the sun and shines my mind that is
darkish" 314 .

In the first line, the divine light
overwhelms the mind one who sees (right
for that it is stronger than the visible sun)
but the brightnesses of it illuminates the
mind, purifies it. And this cleansing of the
darkness of passions cannot be made by
the rays of the heavenly star, but only by
the divine light ecstatic seen.

Symon emphasizes in this context
the reality of the sight of the divine light
and its ghostual character, overwhelming
and paradoxical in the same time, that to
be an initiator in the knowledge of the
Trinity.

Thus, „in the light of the Ghost look
those who see, and those who look see in
it the Son, and the worthy to see the Son
looks the Father [acc. Jn. 14, 9] and who
looks to the Father, that one contem-
plates the Father together with the Son"
315 . In outside of the divine light, with
other words, we do not know in clear

313 Both recent romanian translations of the
Hymns translate iTapaKuirrovTa, from SC 156, Hymns, XI,
37, p. 234, wiht: „They bend/ inclin [towards him]", acc.
Ica jr. 3, p. 77 si Hymns, ed. Staniloae, p. 361.

314 SC 156, Hymns, XI, 41-42, p. 234/ Ica jr. 3, p.

77-

315 Idem, Hymns, XI, 50-53, p. 236/ Ibidem.

95

mode, from experience, but only from
books, about the eternal communion,
interpersonal, of the trinitarian persons,
about the being unity of the Trinity and
about His the ever-being light that
sanctifies us. The sight of the Trinity's
glory is what brings the true knowledge of
God and puts us in an abyssal,
paradoxical relation with our God.

Just therefore at ipavel 0eo)pia (the
limpid/ clear contemplation) 316 reaches
few, for that this contemplation is given
to the Son, Who is more-before-of-all-
ages with the Father and the Ghost 317 .

In the Hymn 15, Symeon specifies
the fact, that those receiving the light
from the Son are believers and they are
not from outside the Church: „Your glory,
[the glory] of the divine Divinity only
believers (ttlotol) see it, while all un-
believers (amouoi) seeing You remain
blind, the Light of the world!" 318 .

The faith in the Trinity is what helps
us not to be blinded by too overwhelming
evidence of the divine glory. Christ, says
Symeon, ever shines on those who see
Him 319 .

But the scope of the divine sight is
not that to take us out of the world and to
separate us from the world - as and how
the world would be an evil or would the
devil work - but to live in paradoxical

316 Idem, Hymns, XII, 15, p. 244/ Idem, p. 79.

317 Idem, Hymns, XII, 15-17, p. 244 / Ibidem.

318 Idem, Hymns, XV, 88-90, p. 284/ Idem, 92.

319 Idem, Hymns, XV, 96, p. 284/ Ibidem.

96

mode, both in the world and above the
world and the our senses, our relation
with Trinity through the sight of His
glory.

The Trinity's light raises us to the
divine sight, which is beyond of those felt
(tqv oda0r|TCOv) and of those seen (icov
6pco|j,evG)v) in this world, for that we want
to be, always, enlightened by His light and
we want to make immortal (dGavaioug)
from mortals and gods (Geoi) who see
God 320 .

The Hymn 19 discusses the
energetics presence of Trinity in our being
from the reality that should be quotidian
to us, familiar for every christian in part
and namely: from the feeling of grace in
our being.

Symeon writes: „Who having the
grace of the Ghost (zr\v xapiv tou
U.ve\)\ioLzo(;) in heart, he did not receive the
indwelling in him of the glorious Trinity,
Which enlightens and makes him
god?" 321 .

The conscious/ aware presence of
the grace in our being, as a direct result
of the ecstatic sight, means the feeling of
the inner dwelling of the Trinity.

Continuing with the assertion, that
the grace of the Trinity (xapiu ifjc
TpiaSoc) is what makes us gods 322 , we

320 Idem, Hymns, XV, 103-108, p. 284-286/ Idem,
p. 92-93.

321 SC 174, Hymns, XIX, 53-55, p. 98/ Idem, p. 118.

322 Idem, Hymns, XIX, 56, p. 98/ Ibidem.

97

understand very clearly, that Symeon is
conscious of the synergistic act of
deification, stipulating thus an universal
consciousness of the personal deification
process of the orthodox christians.

For that, at Symeon, the divine sight
has a relational and paradoxical
character, because it is, in fact, the
simultaneous existence of the Trinity in
us by His light and of ours in communion
with the Trinity, through the sight of His
glory.

The reality of the feeling of grace is
part from the foundation of the state of
consciousness, of the very deep awareness
of the personal deification.

Gods or Saints are born into the
consciousness of cause, they live very
mysterious and personal the deification,
for that they live the largest interior
communion with the trinitarian God.

In Hymns 19, 74, Symeon defines the
process of deification right the fact of „to
liturgise (A-eLTOupyelv) [of God] in the
purity of heart and into the purity of
conscience 5 .

Heart (KapSia) and conscience
(auveiSr|ai<;) about that Symeon speaks
vise the center of entire being of the
believer, the abyss where it takes place
our communion with God.

The cleaning of our innerness is
produced by the descent of the grace in
us, which is living, permanent irradiation

Idem, Hymns, XIX, 72, p. 100/ Ibidem.

98

of the Trinity but God's grace sanctifying
us and, in the same time, exceeding all of
our and, through it, the Trinity draws us
to Himself.

Just therefore Symeon says: „If you
have seen (eGeaoco) Christ, if you have
taken (eloLfiec,) the Ghost and if you were
brought (TTpoar|vex6r|<;) by Both at the
Father" 324 , we know the ones he tells us,
and we realize that the stance of a
celebrant of the Trinity is thing „great and
trembling, above all [human] glory,
splendor, domination and [transient]
power" 325 .

We observe that for Symeon the
deification is the central occupation of the
whole universe and that it is synonymous
with the state of the interior liturgising,
of the ministry and the inner mostglory
of Trinity.

The relation of the faithful man with
the Trinity is not only the most living
theological thrill and the most proper
narration of God's presence in creation,
but, in the first line, is a theological life, a
continuous banquet of the ghostual
happiness, for which every moment
means a new delight and a discovery of
overwhelming greatness, trembling of the
Trinity.

The ghostual knowledge is a
celebration, a feast of wonderness of God.

Idem, Hymns, XIX, 68-69, P- 98-100/ Ibidem.
Idem, Hymns, XIX, 71-72, p. 100/ Idem, p. 119.

99

The Hymn 21 speaks about the
knowledge that about our learning by the
Trinity, through the divine light: those
who see God „have as didascal/ teacher
(bibaoKalov) the Ghost, and they do not
need to learn from people, but being the
enlightened (Xa\ii\6\ievo\,) by His light, look
at the Son, seeing the Father and worship
the Trinity in persons, of God united by
nature (r\v(x>\ievov irj fyvoei) in unspeak-
able mode 326 .

It is noted that Symeon emphasizes
the communion and the interpersonal
relations at the level of Trinity and, in the
same time, stresses the fact that the
Ghost leads us through the Son at the
Father and thus introduces us into the
communion with the Trinity.

If in the apologetic side of his
triadology emphasizes the problem of the
Trinity's unity, in the side doxological
but, Saint Symeon speaks about the real
communion of the faithful with the
Trinity through the sight of His glory and
the real initiation of it, through ecstasy, in
the divine life and love between persons of
the Trinity.

Thus, the ghostual knowledge is a
lightenment, is a divine revelation for the
believer.

Triadology, according as we
understand from the symeonian
discourse, is a dogma that we can

32 Idem, Hymns, XXI, 102-107, p. 138/ Idem, p.

130.

100

experience if we live the sight of the divine
light.

It is not only a veritable expose of
Tradition, but also a mysterious lighting
and a divine reality to which we accede,
an internal cohabitation with Trinity,
because the Trinity dwells in us by Her
grace and thus lives up to Himself.

Those who accede, through the
Ghost, to the knowledge of the Holy
Trinity, they see the glory of God and
they don't have the reflex of the curious
seekers 327 in those mysterious of God. The
ghostual experience destroys from
swaddle the tendency for cerebralization
of the Trinity's mystery.

For the ghostual man, the Trinity is
not a distant object of research and that
has nothing to do with himself, but is the
source itself of man's spiritual life,
because he lives in the deep communion
with Trinity.

But in the communion with the
trinitarian God we enter as response at
His more-loving initiative to us. And
therefore, we not only bring us to Him,
but we want to bring the whole cosmos to
fulfill into God's glory.

For that the matter is a structure
with rational and ghostual foundation
and has right sense the ghostualisation,
its transfiguration, our bodies are made
of this matter, through the sight of His
glory we personalize and we sanctify in us

Idem, Hymns, XXI, 495, p. 168/ Idem, p. 138.

101

the matter of our body and this irradiance
of divine light extends and to what is
around us.

Symeon recognizes those who know,
through lightenment, the dogma and the
truth of the Trinity, because they can give
details about this reality from the
discovery of the Trinity in their being.

At the beginning of the Hymn 31,
praising Most beautiful Trinity, our
Father affirms the initiative of the Trinity
in the personal discovery of the faithful
and the fact that, in ecstasy, is seen the
beauty but not the being of the Trinity 328 .

The being beyond-being (ouola
uTTepouoiog) of God is unknown both to
Angels and men 329 .

Light of the Trinity but is the reality
that we impart in ecstatic mode and this is
the subject that Symeon wanted to clarify
in his entire opera.

The reality of the sight and the
possibility of the God's sight by any
christian in part is the quintessence of the
symeonian theology.

The Hymn 33, which has right the
prolegomena an extended triadological
confession, puts light of Trinity face in
face with the human reality made after
the image and likeness of God 330 . The first
man, like as aipouGiov emelec, (the

32 Idem, Hymns, XXXI, 1- 6, p. 384 / Idem, p. 191.

329 Idem, Hymns, XXXI, 6, p. 384 / Ibidem.

330 Idem, Hymns, XXXIII, 1-25, p. 412-414 / Idem,

p. 199.

102

humble sparrow), alias 8paK0vra (the
serpent) the old and great, fell because
they lost the light of the Trinity 331 .

To experience again the communion
with the Trinity, in Church, is the
consequence of the sight of the Trinity's
light and the feeling of the grace in our
being, which gives us to live a paradoxical
relation with God, through that the
Trinity is in us through His glory and we
in the glory of Trinity, being together with
Trinity.

The light's sight is a irrepressible
interior reality for who lives of it. The
light sparkles on our soul and body and
makes them shine 332 .

Of course, our being full of light
does not shine a light on to see it all (it's
here word about the uncreated light) but,
in the first line, sees the one who lives it
and other ghostual people, who would
see the ecstatic during his sight.

He who lived the light sees himself
invaded by light and in light he sees the
mysteries of God, what God wants to
reveal to him.

The consciousness's state of ecstasy
and, evident, the awareness and the
remembrance of it is marked in the
Hymn 34.

The sight of the Trinity's light is a
„tt]v evcooLV ev yv6oei (union in

331 Idem, Hymns, XXXIII, 25-26, p. 414 / Ibidem.

332 Idem, Hymns, XXXIII, 141-142, p. 424 / Idem,

p. 202.

103

understanding/ in state of conscious-
ness),...^ (xXoQr\oei (in sensation), ...irdpa
(experience) Km opaoei (and sight)" 333 .

All four members of the symeonian
statement catalogs the ecstatic's sight
right a total experience and a direct link
with the glory of the Trinity.

The sight of God is a vision without
a external mediation, namely is not
produced with the aid of a heavenly
Power, but is a direct view of the glory of
God, through the work of the Holy Ghost.

The glory of God reveals us those of
the Trinity, because we find „the grace of
the Ghost, and through Him and in Him
[we see] the Son together with the
Father. And [the soul] will see [the glory
of the Trinity], as it is able (Suvoctov) to
look at it.

And thus, through Them and from
Them, it will learn in face of unspeakable
and it will speak and it will write all to all
and they will make teachings on measure
of God (GeoTTpeiTfj), alike with the teachings
of all the previously Holy Fathers" 334 .

Symeon, in accord with this passage,
is observed that he sees the didascalic
initiative, but and the writing and the
editing of the theological books, as the
post-ecstatic achievements at that we are
pushed to the Trinity Herself and that

333 Idem, Hymns, XXXIV, 16-17, p. 428/ Idem, p.

203.

334 Idem, Hymns, XXXIV, 84- 90, p. 434/ Idem, p.

205.

this books have the endorsement of the
earlier patristic books.

The patristic writing, with other
words, is not an inventory of the
theological data on base a predetermined
chronology, but is a reality that keeps the
man who divinizes himself and it will be
write and edit until the second coming of
the Lord.

The personal measure determines
the understanding concerning of those of
the God's light and differences gradually
on the seers to God. This does not means
then, that there are the special lights for
each Saint in part, but everyone imparts
the unapproachable light of God on his
measure.

The impartation by the Holy Ghost,
by glory, is for Symeon the indication that
someone is a Holy man 335 . This state of
TTapprioia, the boldness to God, translates,
in fact, the reality of the communion with
God.

We have boldness to God not if we
are without grace, the good deeds and
the sight of God and we hide behind a
personal experience that is only the
linguistic type and not factual, but only if
God revealed to us and He continuously
discovers Himself to us, if we feel that He
lightens always and if we feel un-
interrupted His grace in our being.

The presence of Trinity in us
through Her glory, of the grace of Trinity

Idem, Hymns, XXXIV, 96-97, p. 434/ Ibidem.

105

that embraces and, in the same time,
exceeds all, is what that guarantees our
theology and supports our state of
TTappr|0Lay.

Symeon knew this thing entirely, for
that his theology was one with his
experience, was on measure of his ecstatic
experience.

But, how his experience was the
result of real communion with God, he
does not speak anywhere in his opera
about the states subjectivist or fantastical
of the spirit, but about a senzation and a
paradoxical ghostual experience of com-
munion with the Trinity through the
sight of His glory.

The addressability the most proper
of Symeon to the Trinity is retrieve in the
nomination of God right (DiAoncuLpiicx;
(Lover of mercifulness) 336 .

The mercifulness of God is
manifested in his life as crossing over all
his sins, for to fill his heart with the
brightness of His glory 337 . For this the
unspeakable mercifulness he is archi-
thankful, because he knows very sure,
that only the mercifulness of Trinity filled
him with so much grace and not his good
works.

And we observe enough limpid, how
the Hymns 44 and 45 begin in doxological
mode concerning to Trinity, for to

SC 196, Hymns, XLV, 1, p. 102/ Idem, p. 244.
Idem, Hymns, XLV, 1-3, p. 102/ Ibidem.

io6

transform in the highlights very
condensed of the triadological dogma.

Prevails the happiness, the
gratitude, the thanksgiving for the graces
poured into his being by the Mostpure
Trinity and these transform, suddenly,
into a concise theology of the reality of
the trinitarian persons and of the eternal
relations between them.

Symeon emphasizes the God's desire
to have a faithful with a dovkdav yvrpiav,
with a real, true service 338 . They are the
ones who get in their heart on the Father,
on the Son and on the Holy Ghost in face
conscious, in their being, on the Trinity
who lives (oIkouvtoc) and walks (e\ii\ep\,i\a-
touvtoc) together with them 339 .

Of fact, the fulminant Hymn 58
requires nothing else, than the real
presence of God in every orthodox, who is
baptized christianly in the Church of God.

As was able to ascertain, Saint
Symeon speaks with boldness with the
Trinity, because He is the God of his love,
of his heart, for that he has a real
communion and paradoxical with God.

He is the doxological and very
grateful to Her, he feels unworthy for the
gifts of Her but, in the same time, he feels
and follows which teaches the Trinity.

338 Idem, Hymns, LVIII, 209, p. 294/ Idem, p.

295.

339 Idem, Hymns, LVIII, 205-208, p. 292-294/
Idem, p. 294-295.

He speaks as a servant of the
Trinity's love, as a friend of the Lord, as a
theodidact, who made from his life
theology and from theology one of the
most encouraging invitation at the
personal experience of the God's pres-
ence.

Any alignment of his with the
extremism, with the psychic unbalance or
with the phraseological theology comes
only from people who have not experi-
enced the faith as a way to sight, but as a
historical form of the epistemologi-
zation and the repertoire of the Church's
Tradition.

io8

Christology

2. 3. The Sight of the Christ's
Glory and the Path of Deification

We could tell from the beginning,
anterior of the laborious textual analysis,
that the relation of Saint Symeon with
Christ is the central theme of his
theology, of where pass on, in abrupt
mode, to the theology of glory. This thing
becomes evident even if we do only a
frugal reading of his work.

The person of Christ is one that
absorbs the full attention of Symeon and
Symeon speaks with Christ and about
Him, seeing Him both personally, in his
being, but, in the same time, and
objectively, as the Pantocrator, the one
Who keeps all and is the interior
foundation of all creation visible and
invisible.

The personal reporting and, in the
same time, objective, realistic of Symeon
at the person of Christ is the deepest
experience and knowledge of his life.

This thing we want to emphasize
from good beginning, for that not to by
considered the communion of Symeon
with Christ right a reality of the domain
of the strict subjectivity, which has
nothing to do with Christ as the real
person, objective, Who is the Head of the

Church and the Almighty, the Pantocrator
of the entire existence.

The centrality of the Christ's person
in the theology of Saint Symeon does not
start from the fact that our Father has an
exclusive initiation, of the textual type in
the christology of the Scripture and of the
anterior Fathers, but because Symeon
saw the glory and the beauty of Christ in
ecstatic mode.

The Christ of Symeon is the Christ of
the Church, Who is above all, but He is
the Lord of his life in the same time, with
Who he is in communion, until he no
longer live, but Christ lived in Symeon.

We present in this section the
mystical oikonomia of Christ, about Who
Symeon speaks to us, the continuous
miracle that happens with those who
deify themselves and, in the frame which,
each relives, in personal mode, the whole
oikonomia of salvation experienced by
Christ in His humanity.

110

2. 3- l. The Birth of Christ in the
Personal Experience

The Ethical Discourse 5 attacks a
thorny problem for every generation of
believers and theologians, who poste
regarding the Sacraments and the
mystical experience on the field of the
personal unconnection, by grace, at the
God's life.

Saint Symeon discusses here the
false orthodox attitude of those who say,
that they have the Ghost of God in
unknown/ unconscious (dYvc6oia)g) 340 face,
Whom they received from their Baptism,
but that they have no an interior evidence
of His by sight (Gecopia) and revelation
(dTTOKoduijrci), but received Him and keep
Him in them only by faith (mam) and
thought (A-oyioi-iG)) 341 , ie through an
interior attitude that does not touch at all
the ecstatic experience of the glory.

Symeon dismounted step by step
the affirmations of his opponents, that,
after how is observed, they had an
intellectualist relation and not a graceal
one with God.

Commenting on Gal. 3, 27 (the verse
from which Symeon begins his theologi-
cal contraoffensive), our Father says that
Christ, the One with that we dress us in

340 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, V, 1, p. 78/ lea
jr. 1, p. 247.

341 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 2-13, p. 78-
80/ Idem, p. 247-248.

Ill

Baptism (a real, mysterious dressing),
being the true God and the true man,
came to make man god through His
divinity 342 .

Our deification, emphasizes Symeon,
is produced by the deified body (Sia ifjg
GecoGeLorig CGOOTTOiel) of Christ and through
this we do not know Christ as man, but as
perfect God known in two natures 343 .

The deification (GeoTOiov) of man is a
reality for all ages, for that Christ
divinizes us „through His divinity and not
just through His body" 344 .

According to the christological
dogma, where the person of Christ is not
divided because of the two natures of His
hypostasis 345 , Symeon punctuate without
right at appeal, that we have clothed in
Baptism with God, with Christ God and
that the dressing with God was felt by our
being 346 .

If we say that the dressing with God
is a metaphor, resulting by the symeonian
syllogism, that Holy Baptism is not a
Holy Mystery, but a symbol. Those who
do not feel that Christ is in them,
although they were baptized orthodox,

342 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 14-35, P- 80-
82/ Idem, p. 248.

343 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 38-41, p. 82/
Idem, p. 249.

344 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 58-59, p. 84/
Ibidem.

345 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 59, p. 84/
Ibidem.

346 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 59-68, p. 84/
Ibidem.

112

are for Symeon veKpoi kcl\ y\)\±vo\, namely:
dead and naked 347 .

The dressing in Christ is for Symeon
the first part of the equation of our
ghostual birth.

Binding to the famous
pnevmatological text from I Thess. 5, 19,
Simeon says that the address of this verse
are those who have Xol\ii\ol6olv , the candle/
the torch 348 , that „Kmo|ievr|<; Km aoipaTTiov
exouoric to cJdcoq" (burns and has a bright
light) 349 .

Translating the expression into the
next phrase, Symeon says that the
pauline verse is an encouragement for
those who see in themselves the Ghost,
which burns and gives light to them 350 ,
and not a moral exhortation without
coverage in our being or a reference to an
inner reality, that is only a mental
projection. But his opponents consider
the theological confession of Symeon
right a blasphemy, because, in their
conception based on Jn. 1, 18, God is
unseen to the faithful 351 .

The symeonian citations lead to a
contrary result, reaching to the

347 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 72-73, p. 84/
Idem, p. 250.

348 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 78, p. 84/
Ibidem.

349 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 80, p. 86/
Ibidem.

350 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 82-83, p. 86/
Ibidem.

351 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 83-90, p. 86/
Ibidem.

ii3

conclusion that the Gospels speak about
the sight of God and the sight of God is on
the measure of power (Suvoctov) of man to
see Him 352 .

Proper with Mt. 5, 8, Acts 5, 4, Jn. 14,
21 and I Jn. 4, 20, Symeon shows that
where is the purity and the exactness
keeping of the commandments, there is
and the sight of God, of where comes the
perfect love 353 .

For that we will have a section
where we will analyze the relation
between Baptism and ecstasy, where we
will achieve the distinction - more
evident at Symeon - of what we receive in
Baptism and what we receive in ecstasy,
we will remain in the sequence of our
work only to substantiate the ghostual
reality of our birth in Christ. In the
Ethical Discourse 8, taking into account
the indwelling in us of Christ and of the
Ghost, of the Trinity at Baptism, Symeon
presents our ghostual birth conscious,
produced by a bpoooq oupavicx; (heavenly
dew) 354 , ie of the love of God united with
an ineffable light (appriicp (Jdcotl), that is
falling in spiritual face, alike a lightning
in our hearts and becomes a beautiful
pearl 355 .

352 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 106-107, p.
86/ Idem, p. 251.

353 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, V, 108-135, p.
86-88/ Ibidem.

354 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, VIII, 79, p. 206/
Idem, p. 301.

355 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, VIII, 79-82, p.
206-208/ Ibidem.

ii4

The pearl of God's love will grow in
us daily, by renunciation of ourselves and
by fulfillment of the commandments, so
that it will become a miracle of miracles
(Qol\)\iol 0au|i,aia)v) 356 .

In the allegory of the prisoner, where
Symeon shows the difference in degree
between ecstasy and the indwelling in
Kingdom of God, he states that the
ecstasy, „this rapture of mind (hp-nayi] tou
vooq) is not of the perfects (leXdcov) but of
the beginners (dpxapicov)" 357 .

The output at light (from the prison
of the God's unsight) or the sight of the
first ecstasy means the first making
contact with the glory of God.

But to see the light is not perfection
but the beginning of perfection, because
perfection means sitting unceasing in
God's glory.

Just therefore, Symeon speaks about
the enlargement of the opening in this
allegory, of 6ttt]v, about the increasing of
light that begins to see it someone who
purifies of passions, situation in that „the
growing habit (r\ owr\Qeia) with the light's
sight erases that small wonder" 358 of the
initial ecstasy.

The ghostual growth presupposes
the experimental understanding of the

356 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, VIII, 82-92, p.
208/ Idem, p. 301-302.

357 SC 122, The Ethical Discourses, I, 12, 338-339,
p. 296/ Idem, p. 160.

358 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, 1, 12, 365-369, p.
298/ Idem, p. 161.

H5

fact, that „there is something else more
perfect and higher than the state
(Kaiaoiaoeox;) and this sight (Gecopiag) 359 ,
than the first ecstasy that we've had.

The sight of light ever more
increases our inner repulsion towards the
dark prison (zr\v §vXukt\v) of the mind,
which does not see the light and, in this
situation, we support with great heavi-
ness the conviviality with our deprivation
of His glory 360 .

But the first ecstasy that we had is
the foundation of ghostual life, is the
beginning of the spiritual life, as personal
relation, conscious with God. In the
absence of ecstasy, any auto-entitling as
ghostual man or charismatic father is a
fictionalisation of our own interiority and
an insolent and disgusting personal
affirmation, in the face of those who
know, in authentic mode, these divine
realities.

Just therefore Symeon called the
first ecstasy „a beginning of those what
are introducing in piety and that now
(apu) were stripped (dTTo6uoa|ieva)v) for
the struggles of the virtue" 361 .

The adverb apu, which uses it
Symeon in the phrase cited above,
translates, without equivoque in

359 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, 1, 12, 375-377, p.
300/ Ibidem.

360 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 12, 413-415, p.
302/ Idem, p. 162.

361 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, 1, 12, 416-417, p.
302/ Ibidem.

n6

romanian language, with: right now, just
now.

Symeon used it intentionally in
phrase, because, in our opinion, he
wanted to indicate the concomitance
between the incipient purification of
passions and the ecstatic sight.

When we get in real mode, and not
imagined, to cleanse us from passions in
some degree, we come to see the light of
God, as a fast ecstasy, unexpected.

Our erminia is not an enforcement
of the symeonian text. Because Saint
Symeon continues by saying, that after
this Gecopiav, after our ghostual birth into
consciousness (for that we to be proper to
the symeonian style) follows „[long] years
without return (avemaTp6(j)G)<;) at that
sight" 362 .

The long search, with longing, with
far more discerning and ascesis of the
light seen at the beginning of our
ghostual life, is rewarded - says Symeon
in same context - by the sight and more
of the light and of the mysteries which it
brings in us, to the point where that we
accustome with the divine light and we
live the coexistence (ouvcov) of it 363 .

But until the continuous coexistence
with light from this life, there must be the
first sheen/ brightness of the light in our

3 2 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 12, 418, p.
302/ Ibidem.

363 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, 1, 12, 418-426, p.
302/ Idem, p. 162-163.

liy

being. It must be therefore, the birth into
consciousness through Trinity's glory.

In the Ethical Discourse 1, 10, the
reality of our ghostual birth or of Christ in
us becomes a conception of Christ by
ourselves.

Says Symeon, that we do not
conceive Him „physically, like how to
wear (ouvelapev) the Virgin and the
Mother of God, but ghostually (-nve\)\ioL-
tikcoq) and beingly (ouaicoScoc)" 364 on
Christ.

The conception of Christ has place
in our heart 365 , but, according to II Cor. 4,
7, we have in us and the treasure
(0r|oaup6v), ie on the Holy Ghost 366 .

Making this new augmentation at
the reality of the God's presence in us,
Symeon asks us to think at the presence
of the Trinity in us and not at a Christ
separated from the Trinity.

Then when we hear to talk abut
Christ in us, says Simeon, we must
understand that together with Christ is in
us and the Ghost, but and the Father,
because Holy Trinity is consubstantial
(6|ioouoLov) and inseparable (dxcopioTov) 367 .
The conception of Christ in our heart

3 4 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 10, 17-19, p.
252/ Idem, p. 143.

365 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, 1, 10, 20, p. 254/
Ibidem.

366 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, 1, 10, 27, p. 254/
Idem, p. 144.

367 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 10, 29-38, p.
254/ Ibidem.

n8

makes, but through the faith from all the
heart in Holy Trinity, through a total
faith and through an ardent repen-
tance 368 .

Faith and repentance make from
our souls some TTapGevoug 8r|A,a6r] (virgins
clean) and in such souls appears the dew
from heaven, the fountain with water of
immortal life, the divine fire, ie the
presence in us of the Holy Trinity 3 9 .

The beginning of the real and of
conscious ghostual life, in conclusion, is
the sight of the God's glory and filled us
by the Trinity's grace.

Symeon emphasizes the impossi-
bility of existence of a relation with God
without the overwhelming awareness of it
and he presents the beginning of our
deification as an act of the Trinity and as a
feeling of the Trinity's energy in ourselves.

Christ is together with the Father
and with the Spirit in our being and this
means the energetics presence of God in
us. But the presence of Christ in us does
not make Him our prisoner, for that He is
above us. Or just for that He is above all,
He comes and He is born in us, that we
raise ourselves to Him.

The ghostual realism which it
disengage the symeonian theology is

368 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 10, 39-40, p.
254/ Ibidem.

369 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 10, 42-51, p.
254-256/ Ibidem.

bound, in fundamental mode, to the
divine reality of the grace and of the
ecstatic contact, directly with God 370 .

119

370 Mr. Dorin Ielciu, into an evaluated article at
the life and the mystique of Saint Symeon, he score very
well both the presence of Christ in the life of Symeon
and the awareness of this divine presence of Christ in
him: „The mind becomes bright as Christ, because no is
separated from Him, but through it working,
irradiating, thinks Christ, though Symeon knows
himself, for he felt with Christ's mind as his mind", acc.
Dorin Ielciu, The Saint Symeon the New Theologian -
Byzantine Mystic, in rev. The Orthodox Faith III (1998),
no. 1-2, p. 147.

120

2. 3- 2. The Death and the Resur-
rection of Christ in the Personal
Experience

In the Catechesis 13, Saint Symeon
discusses these realities in concise mode
and programed. He wants to show to the
monks under his leadership in what
consists the mystery of Christ's
Resurrection in our being 371 .

This dvaoiaoecov, the resurrection of
Christ has place only in those who desire
it, says Symeon, in those who strive to
have it, to live and it happens constantly,
in mystic face (liuoiLKCog) in them 372 .

Christ, Whom we received in
Baptism and Whom we awared in us,
through the sight of the divine light, in
our first ecstasy, is buried (Qecnxexai) in us
as into a tomb (ev \ivr\\ioLzi) , says Symeon,
and raised (e^avLOTami), united being
with our souls 373 .

But to get to the death and
resurrection of Christ in us, we must
participate at the His Passions (twv
naGipcrrcov).

Participation at the Lord's suffering
is done through exiting from world and

371 SC 104, The Catecheses, XIII, 35-36, p. 192/ lea
jr. 2, p. 173.

372 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 36-37, p. 192/
Ibidem.

373 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 38-39, p. 192/
Ibidem.

121

entering in the tomb of repentance and
humility. We must to wait in this tomb
our resurrection, for that only here is
going the true ghostual resurrection 374 .

Our resurrection is a resurrection
together with Christ (obv ico XpiaiG)) 375 .

This resurrection is real and not
phraseological for Symeon, for that the
one who raised with Christ, together with
Him, from the tomb of repentance, sees
yet now the glory of His mystical
resurrection (ir\v do&v xf|g |juaTiKT|<; Autou
dvaoiaoecog) 376 .

In the catechesis which we are
discussing, we don't have than a
confirmation of the fact that the birth, the
death and the resurrection of Christ in us
is all one with the sight of the divine light
and that the repentance and the faith, our
entire effort for to be proper to God are
the sufferings of Christ in us, the together-
passion with Christ, for as we resurrect
into Him and we see the glory of His
divine-human person.

For to be understood properly by his
audience, Symeon states that the Christ's
resurrection which he speaks about is, in
fact, our resurrection 377 . But this resur-
rection and glory of Christ shown in us

374 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 48-50, p. 194/
Ibidem.

375 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 54, p. 194/
Ibidem.

376 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 54-55, p. 194/
Ibidem.

377 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 56-57, p. 194/
Ibidem.

122

through the resurrection of Christ in us 37 ,
through this ecstatic consciousness sight.

Our resurrection is the resurrection
of our souls 379 . And the resurrection is an
evcooLQ, a union of our with the life 380 .

The soul, states Symeon, our soul
dead cannot rise by itself from his
ghostual death, from his passions, if it is
„not connecting in unspeakable face and
unmixed with God, Who is the eternal

i-r »38i

life .

For as we raise together with the
Lord, we must have a union with Him in
consciousness (ev yv6oei), sight (opaoei)
and sensation (aloQr\oei) 382 .

All three calificatives of the vision,
which are proposed to us for under-
standing, in the symeonian affirmation,
shows the fact that the union with God is
real and is personal awared, it is partial
understood, is ecstatic and, in the same
time, is repercussed both in the soul and
the body of those who live it.

The soul does not live the divine
sight, the presence of the divine light in
distancing from the body, but the body

37 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 61-64, p. 194/
Ibidem.

379 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 65, p. 194/
Ibidem.

380 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 65-66, p. 194/
Ibidem.

381 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 69-70, p. 196/
Idem, p. 174.

382 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 70-71, p. 196/
Ibidem.

123

participates at the reality of the divine
grace.

Without the union with the Lord,
without this ecstatic union, Symeon
affirms - and on good righteousness -
that the soul is dead (vacpa), although it is
voepoc Km if| (JiuoeL dQdvaxoc, (after his
nature, rational and immortal) 383 .

Our soul cannot achieve the
ghostual resurrection and the sight of the
light only for that it has the possibility to
think and to understand the reality, but
only if it is united with the Lord, it begins
to see and to feel with true those
ghostual.

Symeon continues the theological
explanation by the presentation of the
three qualifications of the vision as being
interdependent. Thus, he says, the
ecstatic knowledge, this ecstatic yvtioic,
which we are discussing, is not without
opaoecog, without the ecstatic sight 384 .

The knowledge and the ecstatic sight
have occur simultaneously. What you see,
you know and what you know is a result
of the ecstatic sight.

But the sight (opaoig) is not without
aloGrioeax; (sensation) 385 . What we see in
ecstasy, we feel with the soul and the light
floods us and the body.

3 3 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 71-72, p. 196/
Ibidem.

384 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 72-73, p. 196/
Ibidem.

385 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 73, p. 196/
Ibidem.

124

If in the frame of the unghostual
experience, of the bodily experience (as
calls it Saint Symeon), we can feel
something, as the blind for example,
without and we see that thing at
proper 386 , but in the ghostual, „|j-f| dc,
Gecopiav ekQr\ 6 voug tcov inrep evvoiav ific
|i,uoiLKf](; kvepydac, ouk odaGaveroa" (if the
mind does not reach until the sight of
those beyond mind, it does not feel the
spiritual work) 387 . The sensation of those
ghostual is reserved for those who have
seen the ecstatic light 388 .

Symeon incites his followers to the
real living of the resurrection of Christ,
saying that many people believe in the
Lord's resurrection, but very few are
those who have it in themselves and look
it in pure face (pAiTTOViec; KocGapcoc;) 389 .

Those who lived it in themselves are
those who truly worship the Lord, as Holy
and Lord of their 390 and they know the
interior content of the song: Resur-
rection of Christ seeing (Geocadqjevoi), let's
worship the Holy Lord Jesus, the one,
Who without sin..." 391 .

3 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 75-77, p. 196/
Ibidem.

387 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 78-79, p. 196/
Ibidem.

388 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 80-81, p. 196/
Ibidem.

389 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 90-92, p. 196/
Ibidem.

390 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 92-93, p. 196-198/
Ibidem.

391 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 98-100, p. 198/
Idem, p. 175.

12 5

Resurrection of the Lord from the
grave, the historical, says Saint Symeon,
which the Scripture indicated it by the
absence of the Lord's body from the
grave, it was not seen by anyone 392 .

The witnesses of the resurrection
are the witnesses of the sight of Christ
risen, Which was shown in front of them,
but not the witnesses of the divine event
of the resurrection, of the moment when
it occurred, as were present at Trans-
figuration of the Lord, on Tabor, the
three Apostles.

But the wonder, that can occur in
each of us, says our Father, is that now, in
each of those who believe can occur the
Christ's resurrection, and not only once,
but in every moment 393 . The resurrection
of Christ, which we sing it and we believe
it, we have experience of it then, when
„Hiiriself the Master Christ risens in us,
shining (A,a|jTrpo(j)opouvTO<;) and flashing
(dTTaoipaTTTOViog) with the scintillations of
incorruption and of His divinity" 394 .

392 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 104-105, p. 198/
Ibidem.

393 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 106-108, p. 198/
Ibidem.

394 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 109-111, p. 198/
Ibidem.

Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev discussing the problem
of the Christ's sight in the symeonian theology said, in
an article very erudite, that „Symeon never spoke about
any appearance of Christ as a visible image, but only
about the light and sometimes about the voice of
Christ", acc. Hilarion Alfeyev, The Patristic Background
of St. Symeon the New Theologian's Doctrine of the
Divine Light, in rev. Studia Patristica, vol. XXXII, edited

126

The presence of the Ghost in us,
stresses Symeon, gives us the grace to see
the Lord Himself resurrecting in our
being 395 and resurrecting and us once
with Him. The resurrection of Lord in our
being is an kmfyaveiav , a ghostual
revelation of Christ in us, a ghostual
revelation of Himself in our being, being
seen with idlg TTveuiiaiLKolc 6|j,|j,aai (ghost-
ual eyes), ie with the eyes required by Mt.

Christ, continues Symeon, comes in
us together with the Ghost (5m tou
IIveu|iaTo<;) and resurrects us from the
dead (avioxa fpac; 4k veKpcov) and makes
us to see Him live ((covm) and whole
(oA<ov) in our being, giving us the grace to
know Him in limpid mode (ipavcoc), as
the one Who resurrects together with us
and He is glorified together with us, acc.
Eph. 2, 6 and Rom. 8, 17 396 .

This resurrection is of the true
believers, says, towards the end of
catechesis, our Father, and not of the
believers on halfness (fpiTuaToi) 397 .

They do not see anything and will
not see anything from those ghostual 398 .

by Elizabeth A. Livingstone, Pub. Peeters Publishers,
Louvain, 1997, p. 235.

395 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 113-114, p. 198-
200/ Ibidem.

396 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 119-124, p. 200/
Ibidem.

397 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 125-127, p. 200/
Ibidem.

398 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 127-128, p. 200/
Ibidem.

12 7

The faith in that is not God, Who
resurrects the man, is a dead faith 399 , and
alike with they are dead and those who
have a such of faith without the interior
intimation of the God's presence 400 .

The end of the symeonian catechesis
is encouraging, hardener, for those who
are eager to purify and sanctify their lives:
„the faith in God ever makes living and, it
being alive, makes alive those who
approach it with good intention
(TTpoGeoecoQ dyaGfig) and receive on it,
which, even before the work of the
commandments, it took many from death
to life and showed them the Christ-
God" 401 .

The faith that feels in it the
movement of grace, the divine
lightenment and sees the light of God is
the living faith and it makes us live, for
that it is our ghostual life.

Symeon, as how is observed, blends
the theological reasoning with the
concrete experience of ecstasy, for to talk
about the orthodox faith mysteries.

These mysteries are not a dozen
speculation, made easy, but is a complex
experience, a personal revelation of the

399 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 138-139, p. 200-
202/ Idem, p. 176.

400 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 145-147, p. 202/
Ibidem.

401 Idem, The Catecheses, XIII, 147-151, p. 202/
Ibidem.

128

eternal life, which is given to you by the
divine Trinity, in your life full of longing
for holiness.

Our Father shows that the dogmas
of faith are not the mental abstractions or
the landmarks of a christian philosophy
that can be ideologised, but the divine
realities which we can experience in our
lives, in the frame of the deepest relation
with the trinitarian-God, which we love
Him.

129

2. 3- 3- The Ascension of Christ
in the Personal Experience

A very realistic and plastic
expression in the same time of the
experience of the Christ's ascension in
our being, we find in the Ethical Discours

4-

Here, Saint Symeon speaks about his
relation with God, more precisely about
his ecstatic relation with God, as about
the fact to be to xf|g So£r|<; eKKpe\ioioQai tou
0eou (hanged/ pendent of the God's
glory) 402 . The one who is hanged by the
divine light is, in the same time, and the
one who wants God always (m\)zr\v
(kvacoc; em(Timv) 403 .

To be with the God which you see
Him means to desire Him always, to seek
to see Him always. The finding of God
does not mean nothing but the continual
increasing of the desire to want more
Him, of to be with Him. The communion
with God, in the frame of a life in which
is present the divine light, is an escalation
of any term of comparison. In the Ethical
Discours 3, the ascension is presented as
rapture (apTTayfiv) 404 .

402 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 76-77, p.
14/ lea jr. 1, p. 221.

403 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, p. 77, p. 14/
Ibidem.

404 To see the verb dpiTccCco and in Acts 8, 39, I
Thess. 4, 17, Rev. 12, 5, where rapture has the evident
meaning of ascension, taking, lifting by the Ghost.

130

Commenting II Cor. 12, 2, Symeon
says that Paul speaking about „rapture,
showed first of [all] the [ecstatic] sight
(xf\(; apTTayfjc Gecopiav TTpcoiov

k6r\X(x>oe)" 4 ° 5 .

The divine sight is a rapture, a total
stealing of the mind by what shows you
the Holy Ghost.

The ecstasy is presented here not as
a dislocation of the mind from the human
being, but as a total perplexedness of the
human mind. The mind is stolen, is
captured, is caught entirely in the con-
templation of light.

There's nothing more important than
the sight of God's glory means, in
definitively, the rapture of mind by what
God reveals us.

But texts in which Symeon speaks
explicitly about our ascension together
with Christ in the frame of the ecstasy, we
found, for example, in the Hymn 15 and
Catechesis 36.

In the Hymn 15, 97-108, Symeon
speaks about the descent of Christ to us, a
real descent, for to lift us, together with
Him, at the Father:

„But since You, as said, You are out
of all that exists, and those that enlighten
them, make them to be outside (e&Qev)
from those seen, and as how You, as the
One who are above, together with Your
Father, You are inseparable from us, as

405 SC 122, The Ethical Discourses, III, 247-248, p.
408/ lea jr. 1, p. 204.

131

the One who are integer together with us,
and, although You are in the world,
though You are incomprehensible to the
world - because You being in all things
there, You are as the One above all -
whole thus, to us, Thy servants, we are in
the midst of those felt and seen, take us
out (kEpLyeiQ) from all things there and
take us up on the entirely, together with
You, enlightened by Your light, and You
make us be immortals from mortals. For
to remain what we are [You make us]
Your sons by grace, alike You [I Jn. 3, 2],
gods who see God" 406 .

Is observed how Symeon speaks
about the sight of the Christ's glory as
about an ascension with Him to heavens.

We cannot, with other words, tells
us Symeon, lift us to the sight of the
Christ's glory than together with Him,
Who comes to us, but Who is beyond all
that exists and rises us, with Him, at His
sight.

In Catechesis 36, speaking about the
act of our ascension with Christ, Symeon
denominates it right shattering/ tremen-
dous mystery" (cJdplktov \±\)oxr\piov) 407 .

This mystery consists in the fact
that: „taking me (A,ap6|ievo<;) and
ascending You (dveA,0cov) to heaven, You
take me together (o\)voLvr\yoLye(;) with You,

406 SC 156, Hymns, XV, 97-108, p. 284-286/ lea jr.
2-93.

407 SC ir
lea jr. 2, p. 374.

3, p. 92-93.

407 SC 113, The Catecheses, XXXVI, 167, p. 344/

132

whether in the body, I do not know,
whether outside the body, You alone
know, Who did that" 408 .

Is observed how Symeon combines
the historic plan of the Christ's oikonomia
with the world with the personal plan of
the Christ's oikonomia in the salvation of
everyone of us.

He speaks, also, about the Ascension
of the Lord with the body into heaven but
and the ascension of the Lord, together
with Him, into heaven, as an entry in
ecstasy.

If You taking me and You ascending
to heaven is an expression of assumption
and of ascension of the human nature by
Christ on the throne of the Trinity, the
next part of the phrase quoted, indicates
the fact that the ecstatic sight is a
together ascension with Christ or the
living of the Christ's ascension by our
person.

Symeon, like as Paul, do not know
how is going the ecstasy, how does take
place in his being. But he is sure that
Christ is the One who knows how to get
to the sight of the light, for that together
with Him we ascended at the sight of the
Trinity's light.

Simeon lives the inexpressible
astonishment of the divine glory, that
„unmeasure height" (ico a|ierpr|TG) ui|rci) 4 ° 9 ,

408 Idem, The Catecheses, XXXVI, 167-170, p.
344/ Ibidem.

409 Idem, The Catecheses, XXXVI, 172, p. 344/
Ibidem.

133

which made him tremble in his whole
being and to mourn his own
wickedness 410 .

Our ascension with Christ is thus
true and not purely rhetorical. The sight
of the light is a sight of the Christ's glory
and, in the same time, an ascension with
Christ to the unmeasured glory of the
Trinity.

Any human endeavour, that wants
to reach the divine light is a failure, says
Simon, as long as Christ Himself is not
born, is not suffering, does not die and
does not rise in us, and, not in the last
line, if does not ascend in us and not lift
us in the glory of the Trinity.

410 Idem, The Catecheses, XXXVI, 172-175, p. 344/
Ibidem.

Pnevmatology

2. 4. The Holy Ghost and the
Sight of the Divine Glory

Although Saint Symeon is the
Theologian of the Trinity and he never
sees a divine person as being separated
from the other two, though we find in his
theology a rich pnevmatology, as we have
found a rich christology applied in the
frame of the personal salvation, but
unsystematic presented.

The energetics presence of the
Ghost in his being is amply discussed,
because the Holy Ghost is the One who
lifts us to sight, at the divine light, the
light which is, in fact, the grace of the
Trinity.

But at Symeon, Christ is the
backbone of the entire ghostual life and
the person of the Holy Ghost is never
seen as separated from Christ, but where
is Christ is and the Ghost present or
Christ is seen through His Holy Ghost by
the believer.

In this section of our work, we will
present various hypostasises of the sy-
meonian theology, where the person of
the Holy Ghost is presented as having
direct link with the ghostual knowledge
and with the sight of the divine glory.

135

2. 4- i. The Holy Ghost, the True
Faith and the Experience of the
Grace

The Ethical Discours 10, occasions
us a trenchant discussion about faith and
the sight of the divine glory. Saint Symeon
has in view here the orthodox christians
canonically baptized and not any kind of
believers.

Speaking about the sight of the glory
of God, he says, „the deity, namely the
grace of the Most Holy Ghost, is not
shown to anyone, never, without faith
(ouSeA ouSeTTOie 6i%a maiecoc; TTe^ocvepG)-
mi); and if it shows, however, by a man,
in paradoxical face, it shows frightening
and fearful (cj)opepa Km c^pucrr]), not
luminating , but burning, not being alive,
but frightening punishing" 411 .

The exemplification which brings
Saint Symeon, at this affirmation entirely
true, is the case of Saint Paul, who, on the
road to Damascus lost its natural light of
the eyes then when he saw the glory of
Christ 412 . Saint Paul, concludes in his
argumentation Saint Symeon, „could not
see the slightest brightness (ouSe \iiKpav
dTTauyTiv)" 413 of the Christ's glory on the

411 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, X, 88-92, p.
264-266/ lea jr. 1, p. 325.

412 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 92-97, p.
266/ Ibidem.

413 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 102-103, p.
266/ Ibidem.

136

road to Damascus. The unbelief of Paul is
for him the sure indication, that only
believers see God's glory, as a lighting and
holiness of their being.

For this reason he says further, that
„for those who are still in unbelief (zr\
dTTLoiLa) and are mastered by passions
(idle TTaGeoL kolx€xo\i£Voiq), the grace is
completely unapproachable and un-
seen .

Symeon does not indicates here the
unbelief 'that state of non-membership to
the Orthodox Church, but as full non-
attachment to God. The unbelief of a
believer is shown in that, that he does not
come off fully of his passions and he is not
looking to see the glory of the Trinity,
that is to sanctify him and to deificate him
in integral mode.

Without the purity of heart and
without the fulfillment of the divine com-
mandments, we cannot be lighted in
continuous mode 415 .

Commenting Jam. 2, 17, Symeon
shows that the fulfillment of the
commandments or what we call good
deeds must to set us up into a pressed
evidence, clear, into an evidence of our
faith 41 . The faith and our deeds must be
concordant.

414 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 104-106, p.
266/ Ibidem.

415 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, ui, p. 266/
Ibidem.

416 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 201-202, p.
274/ Idem, p. 328.

137

Therefore says Symeon: „those who
confess that Christ is God, but they do not
keep His commandments, they will be
considered not only those who reject Him
(dpvou|ievoi), but and that those who
dishonor Him (azi\idCovzeQ)" 417 .

The faith that manifests itself
through facts is it that receives the
experience of the Ghost.

For Symeon, the faith cannot be a
real one if it has not a touch with the
grace. He says, in trenchant mode, that
„cannot [even] be called faithful in
accomplished face (ttlotoc TeXdco <;)... [that
who] does not receive the Ghost of
God" 418 .

Bringing in support of this assertion
Jn. 4, 14, Jn. 7, 39 and I Pet. 2, 22, Symeon
shows that the Lord Himself testified the
presence and the interior sensation of the
grace in our being, in so that, „if That one
says that the Ghost is given (SiSovoa) those
who believe in Him, all those who have
not (\ir\ exovieg) the Ghost are not
believers from the heart" 419 .

Symeon asks the sensation of the
grace, sensation that means a personal
relation, real, of the orthodox faithful
with God. The personal faith must to be
the interior foundation where experience

417 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 202-205, p.
274/ Ibidem.

418 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 488-489, p.
294/ Idem, p. 337.

419 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 448-500, p.
294/ Ibidem.

138

occurs the glory of God and where the
ghostual growth is a personal evidence
and not a simple supposition with tradi-
tional character.

Faithfulness to God, for Symeon, is
not measured in ascetic deeds and not in
acts of the exterior presence in the Church
of God, but in revelation of God to us, in
ecstatic revelation, as an expression of our
right living in His face.

Just therefore, „if anyone says that
each of us, the faithful, received Him [the
Ghost] and has Him in insensitive face
(dvoaa0r|TG)<; A,a(telv), that one blasphemyes
(plaoctiriiiel)" 420 against Christ, Who said
that we feel the grace of the Holy Ghost in
our being 421 .

The sight of the divine light is the
beginning of the sensation of the grace.

In symeonian theology, the sight of
the light, as beginning of our relation,
conscious and real, with God, is the
foundation of the ghostual life, without
thereby to diminish somewhat the Holy
Sacrament of Baptism.

The Baptism presupposes the
ecstatic sensation of the grace.

It is not contrary to the personal
ecstatic experience, but this is a personal
actualization, absolutely necessary, of the
grace received at Baptism.

420 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 501-502, p.
296/ Ibidem.

421 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 502-506, p.
296/ Ibidem.

139

Light of the Trinity is a divine reality
perceived by the believer, the believer
that cleanses himself 'from passions.

Symeon says in express mode that
thing: „none from people could not ever
see it before being cleaned, [and] cannot
receive it before seeing it. For many
people saw it, but they have not acquired
it (ouk 6Kir|oavTo) [in stable mode], exact-
ly with those who are worthy to see a
large treasure in the royal treasures, but
they go there with empty-handed.

Because, at many times, those who
repent ardent (touc |ieravoouvm<; Gepiicog)
it makes itself to them at beginning a
divine brightness and a lighting (kXXa\xy\nQ
Qeia Km (J)C0TLO|i6(;), but that quickly
passes.

And if they give themselves entirely,
up to death, and they will seek it with
tiredness, depicting the Lord as worthy by
it and without reproach in all, they will
receive it again, in perfect face, when it
will return" 422 .

There is therefore a confirmation of
repentance and of faith of the beginners
from part of Trinity, then when they see
the divine light and when they begin to
feel in them, living and working, the Holy
Ghost but there is and an increasing
filling of our by Ghost, until the return of
the divine light in us, as a quotidian
presence.

422 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 522-532, p.
296-298/ Idem, 338.

The initial ecstasy makes us to see
the endless treasure of the divine glory
but this we does not have as stable wealth
in our being.

Symeon uses the aorist of Kiao|jm,
preceded by negation, for to show that
light does not enter into our definitive
possession only because we saw it once or
several times, and emphasizes through
the adjective a£io<;, that the sight is not a
gift of God, at which we have no personal
contribution, but it is a worthiness/ a
worthy gained by doing with longing of all
His commandments.

But the most important message of
the text quoted is, that the ecstasy is a
confirmation from God of our faith and it
is not a badge that we put ourselves alone
on the chest. We are not those who
declare ourselves believers, but God is the
One who confirms our zeal and our
faithfulness to Him.

The ecstasy is the first engrossing
letter, the first shattering email from God,
how that He saw our sincere zeal for Him.

But His sight must to turn into a
living longing, acute in our being, for His
sight in continuous mode, into a running
full of love and hope, for only He is the
single fulfillment and the eternal rest of
ours.

Conscious, the consciousness grace-
ful relation of the believer with God is the
foundation of deification.

i4i

If we live the Godhead's brightness in
the purity of our soul, says Simeon, then
this XoL\n\oLQ, the divine brightness is
„knowledge of the divine and heavenly
things (r\ yvtioic, icov Geicov Km oupavicov
TTpayi-iaTCOv) given by the Holy Ghost to
that who is israelite with the mind" 423 ,
namely seer of God.

The sight of the light is what
procures us the ghostual knowledge 424 .
Saint Symeon repeats often this thing.

How he repeats, also, and the fact,
that only through cogitation on the divine
meanings, through full ascesis, ghostual
readings and tears we cleanse our soul,
for as to receive the divine light 425 .

The dynamism of faith is the
principal premise of the ghostual life at
Saint Symeon. The living faith or what
makes us to be alive unto God is the
sensation of grace in us and the sight of
His glory.

Speaking about the faith, that
manifests itself as a fulfillment of God's
commandments, Symeon states that Holy
Apostles and Holy Fathers have gained,
by such a faith filled with an over-
whelming dynamism, „the love of God

423 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, XIV, 184-187, p.
434/ Idem, p. 396.

424 About the theme of the divine sight, that
brings us the spiritual knowledge, to see and lea jr. 1, p
81, p. 82, p. 91, p. 92, p. 100, p. 154, p. 163, p. 255 etc.

425 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, XII, 182-184, p.
396/ lea jr. 1, p. 379. About ascesis as a preamble of sight
to see and lea jr. 1, p. 84, p. 85***, p. 100, p. 204-205, p.
305, p. 338.

142

into the knowledge" (rP|<; tou 0eou aya^Q
kv yv6oei) 426 and „the knowledge of God
in love" (ev aydi\r\ yvtiow 0eou) 42? .

We stressed the last two citations by
the greek text for to clarify and better the
fact, that Symeon called the grace right
the divine love and presents it, in the
Hymn 18, into a majesticness full of
enthusiasm, full of divine fervor.

In this Hymn, Symeon shows that
the ecstasy is determinant for our
cleaning from passions, for that the light
seen ecstatic „is shown for little time and
it is contracting/ it withdraws, but erases
one, just one between the passions of the
heart (iwv -naGcov zf\Q KapSiag). For man
cannot overcomes the passions, if it did
not come in aid and, moreover, it does
not chase away all at once.

For the psychical man (6 avQpixwoc, 6
iJjuxikoq) may not receive all at once the
Ghost entire and to become unpassioned
(dTTaGric), but then when he accomplished
all those found in his power (m dq
5\)va\iw)" 428 . The presence of the Holy
Ghost in the believer's life is an active
presence, cleansing, deifying, of which he
is conscious 429 .

42 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, XV, 156, p. 454/
Idem, p. 405.

427 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, XV, 158, p. 454/
Ibidem.

428 SC 174, Hymns, XVIII, 50-57, p. 78/ lea jr. 3, p.

112.

429 Father Duse said, into an article of his
dedicated to Saint Symeon: „The deification is a
permanent process of ontological transformation, but

143

His humbleness consists in the fact,
that he feels himself a dwelling of the
Trinity's grace but, in the same time, he is
conscious of his defaults, at the fact that
he is not always at the measure to delight
the Holy Ghost, Who dwells into him.

The union with God, about that
speaks Symeon, is a real one, it is an
experience lived in overwhelming mode of
the believer.

Then when we have an ecstatic
sight, „man unites ghostually and
physically (evourai TTveuiiaiiKCOc; ie Km
ocoiiaiLKCog) with God, because the soul
does not separate from the mind, nor the
body from the soul, but by a union in the
beingly face (ouaicoScoc; evcoaei), man
makes himself threehypostatic through
grace, a god through adoption (Qeoei
0e6c), made from body, soul and the divine
Ghost of which he imparts (\iexdlr\fye)" 430 .

without that the faithful man to lose his created
nature... for that the possibility of union [with God] is
given by the status of person of human", acc. Rev. PhD.
Calin-Ioan Duse, The Deification after Saint Symeon the
New Theologian [Indumnezeirea dupa Sfantul Simeon
Noul Teolog] in rev. Theological Horizons [Orizonturi
teologice], I (2000), no. 2, p. 117, 124.

And P. Miguel said, into an article about grace at
Saint Symeon, that „the sin is solely responsible, after
Symeon, for the lack of spiritual experience: the
habitation of the Holy Ghost in us cannot be but
conscious", acc. P. Miguel, The Consciousness of the
Grace after Symeon the New Theologian [La conscience
de la grace selon Simeon le nouveau Theologien], en
Irenikon XLII (1969), no. 3, p. 325.

430 SC 104, The Catecheses, XV, 72-77, p. 288/ lea
jr. 2, p. 186. About the full man, spiritual, that cannot
be without the Holy Ghost, to see and lea jr. 1, p. 337**.

144

Thus, we constate, that the ecstatic
sight is not at Symeon a collateral
theological subject but, on the contrary, it
is the foundation of our deification.

The ecstatic sight is lived by soul in
inseparable mode from his own body and
the fully man, the whole man is the one in
which the Holy Ghost reigns in his being.

The living faith, full of the grace of
the Ghost is the true faith, because God
speaks to His true children, those who are
living for that they stand in the graceful
relation with the Living One.

Those who see through the Ghost
the Trinity's glory and feel in they the
grace as an alive source of eternal life,
they are believers that must go full of
longing towards the permanent dwelling
in them of the divine light.

The symeonian theology does not
know a ghostual life in which relaxation
has a positive side but, on the contrary,
continue desire towards more, towards
more sight of the light and of
understanding of it mysteries, represents
the true orthodox-christian interiority.

For that, in the frame of the
ghostual experience, after how says
Father Professor Dumitru Staniloae,
„man has the perspective of an eternal
advance in the divine light and in his
spiritual enrichment" 431 .

431 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The
Personal Relation with Christ in the Light of Divine
Infinity, after Saint Symeon the New Theologian
[Legatura personala cu Hristos in lumina infinitafii

H5

2. 4- 2 - The Personal Ecstatic
Testimonies and Their Validation

Undoubtedly, we cannot venture to
pronounce, in trenchant mode, on those
about the theology of glory without to
have ever the experience of the sight of
the divine light.

It would be the one between the
things of the most embarrassing with
possible and a muster of cheap vedettism
from our part, to trample a domain so
holy and shattering for any humble
christian.

Therefore, the symeonian testimo-
nies about his ecstasies, in our opinion,
take account the most important thing in
the frame of the theology of glory and
namely the real understanding, authen-
tic, about how we must deify our whole
being.

His ecstatic confessions are not
gratuitous, they do not have a stressful
morgue, they do not stiff exhibitions of
private experiences, but, on the contrary,
they are generated by holy conscience,
that these ecstatic experiences will be
enlightening for those who will listen and
read later.

dumnezeiesti, dupa Sfdntul Simeon Noul Teolog], in

Studies of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology [Studii de

teologie dogmaticd ortodoxd], Pub. Metropolitan of
Oltenia, Craiova, 1990, p. 316.

Saint Symeon speaks about of his
own sights and of his proper holiness
driven by the divine grace, that incited
him to speak, to give confidence to those
who are cleansed of passions and,
especially, to show them that holiness is a
reality shockingly beautiful and not a trite
story, that happened or not in foretime.

Speaking about the sight of God,
Symeon wants to be authentic and less
didactic, strongly emphasizing the identi-
ty of his ecstatic experience with the
ecstatic experience of all previous Saints,
without that through this emphasis in
force to consider him worthy of God's
mercifulness, which it showed as sight of
His glory. His confessions are full of
humbleness, contentedness, gratitude
and of a truth conquering.

They are extensive guarantees for a
theology of the glory wholly orthodox,
because they have „the force an personal
unmediated experience" 432 .

Thus, in the following sequences of
this subchapter, we will punctual
excogitate various ecstatic symeonian
testimonies, we try to present a clear
analysis, internal, in proper terms 433 , of
theology of glory.

432 Rev. Prof. John A. McGuckin, The Biblical and
Theological Paradigms of the Sight of the Divine Light to
Saint Symeon the New Theologian [Paradigmele biblice
si teologice ale vederii luminii dumnezeiesti la Sfdntul
Simeon Noul Teolog], in lea jr. 4, p. 420.

433 Father McGuckin finish his study cited in
note above, dedicated the theology of glory at Saint

147

2. 4- 2 - !• The First Ecstasy of
Saint Symeon

Without to enter into an exegetics-
historicist perspective 434 , our research,

Symeon, with the express desire to continue the
internal exegesis of the symeonian ecstasies.

He said: „With all the literary, historical and
theological complexities of it, this important collection
of epiphany stories, deserves and requires an analysis
fuller and more rigorous in their proper terms", acc.
Idem, p. 422.

434 We believe that the historical perspective of
Father McGuckin, with the sight I in 969 [acc. Idem, p.
407] and the sight II in 976 [acc. Idem, p. 410] is
interesting, possibly credible, but we tend to believe
that we must to punt more on the undated sights,
according his expression [acc. Idem, p. 417], namely the
current sights in the life of Saint Symeon, of which he
confessed the ones he wanted or made a synthesis of
them, intended to present the sight as a divine reality in
his life.

We do not believe that our Father wanted to
make a systematization, a hierarchy, a chronology of
his ecstasies, designed to give us a historical perspective
on the frequency and the number of them.

We agree that he speaks about a first ecstasy,
about how was at the beginning of his ecstatic life. But,
then, the things are complicated. We do not know
clearly about what ecstasies he speaks, but it is evident
that he speaks about realities personal lived.

We tend to give right to Father Golitzin, when he
affirms, that „we cannot specify the exact number of
occasions in which Symeon was visited by the
appearing of the divine light. His writings and Life of
Niketas suggests that this thing was quite frequently,
although it varied in intensity", acc. Hierom. Alexander
Golitzin, Symeon the New Theologian: the Life, the
Epoch, the Thinking, in lea jr. 1, p. 466.

But, both, Father Golitzin [acc. art. cit., p. 466]
and Father McGuckin [acc. art. cit., p. 407], designates
right the first epiphany relating Catechesis 22, which
the first sees it repeated by Niketas in Life, 5 [acc. Idem,

148

theological and linguistic in the same
time, of the symeonian confessions,
leaves from the premise of the
indeterminacy of the number of ecstatic
experiences which Saint Symeon has had.

According to a theological consensus
statuted of Life, 5, Catechesis 22 is
designated as the first ecstatic symeonian
confession that we have.

The ecstatic relating is comprised
between 88-103 lines 435 , being concise and
presented, by humbleness, under the
name of the young George, who lived in
Constantinople and had almost 20
years 436 .

The symeonian ecstatic confession is
contextualized. It appears as a emphasis
of God's oikonomia with those who fulfill
with zeal His will.

Young George, alias Symeon,
appears as standing in prayer and saying
the prayer of heart, of repentance: „The
God, have mercy on me, the sinner!" (88-
89 lines).

His desire was the commiseration
from part of God, the forgiveness, the

p. 467] and, the second sees it retaked in Catecheses 35
and 36 [acc. Idem, p. 408-409].

Therefore and we will discuss this epiphany
relating of Catechesis 22 as the first ecstatic symeonian
experience, after how confesses and Saint Niketas
[Stethatos] in Life, 5, acc. OC [Orientalia Christiana] 12,
V, 1-8, p. 8/ ed. Iliescu, p. 18 and Life, ed. Koutsas, apud.
Ica jr. 4, p. 247.

435 Acc. SC 104, The Catecheses, XXII, 88-103, p.
372/ Ica jr. 2, p. 242.

436 Idem, The Catecheses, XXII, 22-23, P- 366/
Idem, p. 239.

149

discharged from the passions of his being
and not the sight of the divine light.

The sight comes as a divine surprise
in his life.

Symeon states a single thing
regarding the prayer of George: the fact
that it was made more with mind than
with the mouth (89-90 lines).

Our young man was into a state of
mental's prayer, into a cry of his mind to
God. Were preponderating the mind and
the heart, the interior effort in front of
God and not the articulated words.

The specification of this fact is very
important, because the sight comes into a
state of interior concentration, of repen-
tance, the interior perception of the light.
The light comes in the time of his prayer,
when he was ready to receive it and
without any notice from God.

When Symeon begins the relating of
the ecstasy of George, he begins abruptly,
talking about an eXla\ityic, Qda [divine
brightness], that comes auj)vr|<;, in
unexpected mode, that appears suddenly
in his being and it shines, being shown
coming from above [ei\e^avev avcoGev] [90
line].

Symeon does not explain to the
auditorium the terms communiqued by
him. It is presupposed that they had to
know what means that divine brightness.

We have, from the first enunciation,
a few certain things: during the prayer of
George it came, in unexpected mode, in

150

his being, a brightness from part of God,
which he has lived it as coming from
above, from heaven.

Symeon does not speak about a
simple eA,A,a|ii|jLg, that would have caused
by something physical but not the adverb
avG)0ev, an adverb that expresses the
place, the location from where something
comes to us, to those on earth, should
not lead us with the thought, that it
indicates a terrestrial or cosmic source of
light.

We believe that avcoGev wants to
emphasize the role which it has the
adjective Qeia, that accompanies eXXa^iQ.

The light is divine, is from above, ie
is from God.

George asked God's mercy and God
shows His mercy as light.

But the phrase open by Symeon is
not finished.

After specifying that the light comes
from above, Symeon affirms that the
divine brightness filled the whole place
where was the young George [91 line] .

The aorist of ttAjpog), and namely
ki\Xr\p(x>oe, which Symeon uses here, in our
opinion, it does not indicate the fact that
our young man looked around, with his
physical eyes, and saw that everywhere,
in his cell, was light, but, rather, that
everything what sees him now, in this
moment, was only that brightness.

Symeon looks retrospectively the
things and compendious.

i5i

He has not present the ecstatic
event in progress, like a televisual horse
racing, where is showing to us, finally, in
slow motion, which of the competitors
walked first across the finish line and
how it actually happened.

Symeon includes in running the
event details that he did not realized
during the ecstasy, but he understood the
post-ecstatic, at some time after the
event.

This thing is evident from the
following two phrases.

If, further, in the phrase following
that in which we reported before,
Symeon said that the young man „did not
know [anything by himself, to him, who
prayed] and he forgot that he was in the
house or under a roof (91-93 lines),
immediately Symeon opens an another
phrase and says: „because everywhere he
sees only light and he did not know
whether he was walking on the earth"
(93-94 lines).

The idea of the roof, of oxkyr\, that
suddenly disappears, collapses, that he
does not see it because the light, it will
reappear in the symeonian description.

The light of God coming down,
coming in human, and it takes over
completely, is what separates us from
things seen, catapulting us, suddenly, in
the vastness of the divine light.

The divine light does not give us the
possibility to think something related of

152

the visible world, but we see (Jdcoc \±6vov,
only light in that moment.

The transition from what we see to
that what-we-do-not-expected-to-see of
the ecstasy, but which we was ready to
see it, fills us with amazement. Our
young man forget everything he knew,
what he wanted, what he believed that he
was.

The symeonian relating presents
again post-ecstatic details.

It says that the young George felt
not in him the fear of not falling into sin,
he did not take care of things from the
world and he bore himself like one
immaterial (94-98 lines).

But the ecstatic state, that to be olcoc
(Jjcou aula) ouvcov [completely united with
the immaterial light] (97 line), does not
permit the evidence of the world with
which we are accustomed, but is a
transposition of us in eternity.

Therefore and returns Symeon at
the narration of the ecstatic event,
through characterization of divine bright-
ness right the immaterial light and
through emphasis the fact that light was
in the young George with such interior
evidence, that he himself felt the light (97-
98 lines).

The utilization of Soicelv from the
line 98 does not indicate a conjecture, a
simple supposition of the young George.
The verb 8ok<eg), used with his intransitive
significance as in Acts 15, 28; 17, 18, I Cor.

153

12, 22, Hebr. 12, 11 translates with: to seem,
in comparison with the transitive form
where it means: to think, to believe, to
presuppose, to consider 437 .

In the symeonian text, we have that
connotation of the verb that we find and
in the synodal tomos from Acts 15, 28.

When Symeon said about the young
George, that to him it seemed that he was
made light entirely, that he is a light in
the light of God, more concrete said, he
had no doubt that this was reality.

He lived not a state of unreality, of
appearance, which might be presupposed
based on the aorist of the verb Sokcg), but
he was convinced, as the Synod's Fathers
from Jerusalem, that this was reality: he
was filled with divine light, because he
was in the light of the Trinity and not into
an impersonal light and depersonalized.

Our young man sees himself joined
with the light, made entirely the light and
seeing only those who appeared to him in
the light which revealed him the Trinity.

He does not choose what to see in
the light, but he sees in wonder, he was
only the one seeing eye of those that God
shows him. For that the ecstasy is
precisely in this: in our raising to com-
munion with the Trinity, through His
glory.

Symeon touches with more
perspicacity the fact that light flooded the

Acc. Gingrich Lexicon, apud BW 07.

154

young man without that he to oppose the
interior resistance.

The light flooded him with
everything. Being into a state of
repentance and of fervent prayer, into a
deep state of concentration, by ghostual
introspection, our young man is kid-
napped with the mind to God and he sees
the divine light.

The ecstatic state is incompatible
with the memory, says Symeon, using the
participle kmkaQ6\ievoQ.

He forgot all world suddenly [98
line], then when appeared the light.

The detail, how that he arrived in
this moment „full of tears and
unspeakable joy and gladness" [99-100
lines], it does not belong of the ecstatic
moment, but it is a ghostual result of the
ecstasy in his life.

That what keeps by ecstasy, by
development of the ecstatic moment is
the final specification, that „his mind
ascended into heaven and it saw another
light more limpid than the one that was
close to him. And standing in proximity
of that light was showed to him, in
paradoxically face, that old man Holy and
wise and alike with Angels" [100-103 lines],
and namely Saint Symeon the Pious, his
ghostual Father.

The problems raised by the end of
ecstatic confession to an exegete are
insurmountable, as long as we consider
that we are dealing with a prime light and

155

with a second light, the latter being
separated from the first by its reality.

The symeonian expression oupavov
avf\XQev 6 vovq ocutou [his mind was
exalted/ ascended to heaven, acc. 100
line], it should not be interpreted as a
crossing from an ecstatic sight with
terrestrial connotations at an ecstatic
sight with heavenly qualities, divine, for
that this passage does not exist in reality.

Our young man was already in the
light, he was full of light.

The ascension of mind about which
Symeon speaks and the heaven that he
indicates for us here, is not than a
revelation more intense, from part of God,
of those things seen in the divine light.

Speaking in anthropomorphic man-
ner about this ecstatic situation, Symeon
wants to tell us only that, his mind was
widened in the light of divine, that it
received a more pronounced sight of the
mysteries of light, this crossing towards
an all-more-knowledge I sight of those
from the light being called oupavov,
heaven.

The young George, with other
words, he did not pass from heaven to
another as in mythology, but he passed
from one ghostual heaven to another and
more impressive, from the light to a light
and more clear/ limpid, ie from an initial
sight to a more divine and overwhelming,
in which appeared his ghostual Father.

156

Symeon points out all these ecstatic
details, internal of ecstasy, for to show
that the ecstasy is not only sight but also
the advancement in the sight, in knowl-
edge, in the discovery, from part of God,
of those divine.

The increasing clarity of light is a
divine gift and the sight of Symeon the
Pious in light was a confirmation, from
part of God, of his holiness.

Saint Symeon the New Theologian
was taught, on the one hand, about those
of the light of God, God Himself initiated
him into the mysteries of His eternal
glory but, in the same time, God ensures
him that the holiness is known by Him,
that Saints are His people and that only
they can be credible with truly for those
who want to sanctify their lives.

157

2. 4- 2. 2. The Ecstasy During His
Noviciate 438

The text that we find in Catechesis
16, 78-107 439 , which relates the sight of a
young brother of the monastery, it
constitutes in the second ecstatic descrip-
tion, that we analyze here.

Saint Symeon anonymizes again his
own experience, he had at 28 years, as
novice at Stoudios, putting it on account
of a young man. Niketas will describe it
in Life, 19, as the third of his ecstasy 440 .

The confession begins with the habit
of the young man to pray. He fulfills the
commandment of his Holy abbot to pray
with the prayer: „Holy God" [78-79 lines].

The fulfillment of the command-
ment to pray is immediately rewarded by
God, for that the young Symeon was
moved „towards tears and towards divine
longing", the fact that brought to him an
interior joy (xapav) and a pleasure (r\6o-
vr\v) immense [80-82 lines].

438 We punt in this context on the emphasis on
that makes the Metropolitan Basil Krivocheine in the
starting note to Catechesis 16: „Dans la vision de la Cat.
16, il s'agit par contre d'un novice, vivant avec son pere
spirituel dans le meme monastere" [But in the vision of
Catechesis 16, it is rather a novice, who lives together
with his spiritual Father in the same monastery], acc.
SC 104, p. 238, n. 3.

439 Acc. SC 104, The Catecheses, 78-107, p. 244-
246/ lea jr. 2, p. 193-194.

440 Acc. OC 12, II, 19, 13-23, p. 28-30/ Life, II, 19,
ed. Iliescu, p. 34-35/ Life, II, 19, ed. Koutsas, apud lea jr.

4, P- 257-

158

The antechamber of the sight is
again the prayer. But at this time the
prayer is joined with a state of joy, the
ghostual impetus and confidence in God,
ie is animated by a sensation resulting
from the atmosphere of repentance, that
we found it and in the ecstasy previously
analyzed.

It is seen the increase of young
novice in this description.

The young man, being with his face
to the ground [82-83 lines], into a state of
adoration of the Trinity, is again invaded
by the divine light.

Introduced by the adverb l6ou - that
expresses, in this case, the huge surprise,
the unexpected ecstatic - the symeonian
confession tells us, first, about a (Jdcoq ttoA-u
(more light), that shines his mind, taking
the mind wholly to it, along with the soul
[83-85 lines].

This divine light shines upon him as
and the first description.

Symeon used emA.a|ii|jav, ie the same
formula as the first time, showing that
the light which shone upon him, this
immense divine light was seen by his
mind and the sight of it nailed the mind
and his soul in its contemplation.

Using the verb Xa\ifiav(A into a such
context, with the meaning of rapture,
seizure, taking is strategic for Symeon.

The insinuation in text of this verb
keeps to clarify the fact, that the soul
prepared by longing and love by God does

159

not oppose resistance to the divine light,
at its sight, but, rather, it is captured to
the full by its presence, then when it is
revealed by God.

A false-ghostual discussion, better
said an intellectualist-theological one, of
the report between grace and freedom in
the frame of the ecstasy, ceases to exist by
itself in the symeonian theology.

One who expects with longing God's
mercy, namely His sight, does not think
in terms of equity, of the counter-value
the God's presence in his life, but the
divine condescension as light is received
with an impressive opening, beingly, by
his own person.

The light is not violent with
Symeon's freedom but it guarantees the
authenticity of its beingly expression, for
that the perception of the light in his
being is more than he could have ever
imagined, that means the divine mercy.

The light reveals not a rationalist,
atheist or gnostic mind, who prefers a
God built by the computer of mind or the
absence of the Being creative, but a mind
full of longing, of waiting to the Loved
One.

Symeon confirms into all this
direction of thought, because, he says:
„the unexpected of wonder filled me with
wonder and made me to be like into an
ecstasy" [85-86 lines].

The sight filled Symeon not with
disorder but with wonder, the supreme

i6o

admiration that human beings can
achieve.

That the light was perceived as a
miracle is a evidence in the opera of Saint
Symeon. From the symeonian theology
resulting in express mode the fact, that
did not exist a greatest miracle in his life
than the sight of the divine glory.

The hcomoLQ was real for Symeon.
Particle coc, from the phrase anterior
regiven, has not at Symeon the dubitative
character but, we believe, rather that he
puts, through the intermedium of it, the
equal sign between sight and ecstasy.

The sight of the light which he lived
it is an ecstasy, is an output by itself ie
that state, evoked more above in other
words, when the soul was captured by the
sight of the Most Holy Trinity's light.

The young Symeon forgets the place
where he was and who he was [86-87
lines]. His seizure by light and this
forgetfiilness - real forgetfiilness - about
that he speaks here are post-ecstatic
details.

When he came out from ecstasy was
found himself crying: „Lord have mercy!"
[87-88 lines]; the cry emphasizing, both,
his immense joy but and his surprise.

The line 88 ends the relating proper-
said of the ecstasy. Until the line 107, we
have a theological elaboration of his
reality and, especially, of its consequences
with that has resulted the ecstasy.

i6i

Symeon says that the young man
spoke with the light [92 line] . Using the
aorist T\poo(^\iilr\oa, he indicates the fact
that he did not listen passively to what
the light said him or what was told to him
from the divine light, but that he
conversed with the light, he had a
personal attitude towards the light, he felt
it as a personal irradiation of Godhead.

The personalistic attitude of Symeon
opposite at light is seen from the fact that
designated it that being conscious of the
fact that they converse [92 line] .

In this situation, the form of perfect
otSev, from 92 line, translated by to know,
knowing, by us, indicates understanding,
mutual discussion of the trinitarian God,
Who reveals His overwhelming glory, and
Symeon.

But Symeon accepts and the direct
significance of otSa, as we have seen,
because he speaks about a sight of us by
God, through light, but and about a sight
of Him, by us, through intermedium of
the light.

In the light, Symeon conversed with
God but he also saw God. Converse with
Him whom he saw.

The sight of the light scattered the
fog and the earthly thought from his soul,
removed the burden of the soul and it has
made that his body become suddenly
vigorous, stripping the garment of the
corruption [92-99 lines].

l62

Symeon was invaded by a great joy,
by a sensation of the mind and by a divine
sweetness [100-101 lines], that we could
not acquire only from the prayer without
divine sight.

Of fact, this is the message which he
wants to induce to his listeners and
readers: that the ecstatic sight produces a
divine knowledge and it has amazing
reactions, at holistic level, in the faithful
man and is not just a passenger event,
who could be forget easily by him.

He lives, post-ecstatic, an amazing
interior freedom, he forgets the syllogistic
attitude that requires your life in the
world and he forget and the death, the
fact that he is a mortal man [102-105
lines], for that „all sensations of the mind
and of the soul were glued only (\16vr\v) of
that ineffable joy of the light" [105-107
lines].

All these evidences show us that the
sight is not a mental disorder, nor a
paralysis of conscience, is not an un-
welcome and uncomfortable pressure of
God in our being, but is the meeting, at a
deep personal level, of God with the
faithful man and the entry in com-
munion, through His glory, with the
Most Holy Trinity.

163

2. 4- 2 - 3- The Ecstatic Con-
fession and the Validator Comment

In the Ethical Discourse 5, we have a
symeonian typical muster of the tren-
chant testimony of the personal ghostual
experience, doubled by a rigorous theo-
logical validation, which has no defect of
logic or of the hook at mystical Tradition
of the Church.

In 5, 251-354 441 , Saint Symeon makes
a fulminant apology to the divine sight
and to the direct theological experience,
presenting theology as on a consequence
of the ecstatic sight.

Symeon begins the experiential
explanations, which we wish to comment
here, from the traditional syntagma: „the
light of knowledge" (c^wc yvrioeixx;) [251
line].

He tells his audience, that at the
hearing of this syntagma, we must not to
understand that we can have a real
theological knowledge without the sight
of the divine light [251-253 lines].

Not the knowledge is what that
produces the light, warns Symeon, but
„the light produces in us the knowledge"
[254-255 lines].

The yvtioiQ/ gnosis/ knowledge or
cognizance (as we translate, taking as
paradigm the liturgic usance) does not

441 Acc. SC 129, The Ethical Discourses,V, 251-354,
p. 98-106/ lea jr. 1, p. 255-258.

have at Symeon than the ecstatic
foundation.

The ecstatic knowledge is for him the
true knowledge, beingly knowledge,
ontological, in that we are fingerprinted
by the glory of God.

The knowledge by collecting data,
the knowledge as multilateral experience
is subsumed for him the knowledge that
sight. The one that gives the tone in his
relation with his listeners or his hierar-
chical superiors is the ecstatic experience,
this being the promoter of law of his
theology.

Without the ecstatic sight we can
not know, in real mode, on God. Symeon
repeats this thing by every time, he
massive making angry those who had no
idea about a such experience.

In the text to which we refer, he
says: „someone can not know God than
only through the sight of the light (\ir\ Sia
xf\Q Gecopiag) that gushes from Him" [255-
257 lines].

Saying that, Symeon emphasized his
relation with a living God, with a God
who is not an antiquity of the Church,
well preserved by its theologians or an
impeccable fake, that is covered with
eulogies, for as not to know the non-
actualness and His inoperability.

Symeon gives testimony about an
overwhelming experience of the reality of
the Creator of the heaven and of the
earth, and he asserts the fact that, his

i6 5

relation with God is one as possible
common, quotidian and in no case a
relation occasioned just by any celebra-
tion or tradition or by his position as
priest of the Church.

The God whereof speaks Symeon is
living, He is the single God and He
irradiates us with His glory, that brings us
His knowledge.

Bringing in face of his auditorium
the paradigm of the witness, the one who
can give a testimony about a man or a
city only if he saw these [257-262 lines],
Symeon concludes: „(also none cannot
speak) about the above Jerusalem and
about the invisible God, Who dwells in it,
about the unapproachable glory of His
face and about the work and the power of
His Most Holy Ghost, so about the light,
if he first sees not the light with the eyes
of his soul and (if he not) know with
exactness the lightings and its works in he
himself "[263-269 lines].

The symeonian syllogism is irrefuta-
ble at practical level and contemplative.

You can know and speak about
something, only if you have experience
that fact. We cannot know what we do
not know nowise.

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.

i66

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 ghostual 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 (SiSaoKenu) about those only
(\iovol) through the Holy Ghost" [269-271
lines].

The knowledge through the light
unites in the ghostual 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 para-
digm of probation, of the immediate
experience.

The simply reading of Scripture's
texts considering at the sight does not

167

mean an experience of sight [271-276
lines].

No matter how banal may seem his
explanations, full of truism for a ghostual
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)" (yvQoiQ
TTpcoiL oil 0e6g) [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 dopaiov [287 line], unseen. But
one who sees on the One invisible has a
revelation, he sees a light [288-289 lines].

i68

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 cannot ask Him,
Who reveals in the light, who is, as long
as you cannot look Him, nor you can
comprehend His greatness [289-293
lines].

We see, with other words, the glory
of Someone, not the glory of something.

The symeonian ecstatic theology is
personalistic because indicates us a
relation with Someone through the inter-
medium of His glory and not a relation
with an impersonal glory, with a
phantomlike and depersonalized holistic
reality.

Says Symeon, that he who sees,
knows that „oA,gx; ziq koziv 6 fyav&c, TTpo
TTpoocoTTOu auiou" (all that was shown/
revealed in front of him is of Someone)
[293-294 lines].

The glory is of Someone, of the
trinitarian God.

Retelling the ecstasy of Catechesis
16, Symeon gives the light the appellative
of yXvkvq (sweet) [297 line].

He doubled linguistic the character-
istic of the light, that to be refelt as sweet,
he emphasizes this thing, for to show the
personal mode in that he received the
light in his being.

The light did not filled him of fear,
did not burn him, did not brought him in
the threshold of madness but, on the
contrary, it filled him with an inexpress-
ible divine sweetness.

Light came into a longing heart for
God and it was refelt as sweetness.

The sweetness (ykweiav) and the
loging (ttoGov) [300 line] are the ecstatic
consequences highlighted by Symeon
with this occasion. The ardent tears and
many come from itself, as a continuation
of the two [301 line].

In this context appears the image of
the house that disappears and, once with
it, and the whole world, moment in that
the ecstasy is presented as an extreme
deep loneliness in two: he and God are
face to face [302-304 lines].

After what he expresses in face of
his Father, his perplexity considering at
the presence of his body during ecstasy,
Symeon indicates us his inferiority: an
unspeakable joy, love and miss much and
rivers of tears of joy flowed him from eyes
[304-309 lines].

The Father responds him that the
light is what that cleanse us, until when
makes us perfect and in this state we can,
we gain, we have the boldness to ask Him,
Who shows us, who is He and He will
answer us that is God, our Creator [311-316
lines].

The increase in knowledge means for
Symeon the growth in the sight and the
understanding of the divine light.

In the knowledge of God advances
slow but constant.

Symeon says, that we go forward
kkt' oAlyov, by little in every day in those
of God [317-319 lines].

The sight of God means His
authentic knowledge and His knowledge
means to know that is His will to us [320-
323 lines].

The sight stays in internal
connection with the knowledge in the
frame of the symeonian's theology and
His knowledge is manifested as personal
understanding of to Autou cqaou QeXr\\ia
(His holy will) [322-323 lines].

Communion with God, which
procures us the sight of His glory, gives
us to feel how we behave, how must we
talk, how must we manifest before God
and people.

This communion with Him we do
not presuppose how to act, but we are
taught interior, by the light, what to say
to the glory of God.

Theology of glory is the one that
gives us true moral dimension of the
ghostual life, for that good deed into
consciousness, good deed which we see
the consequences in our being, they are
realized in personal mode or it is made
then, when we see light, when we feel the
grace of God in us.

171

Saint Symeon does not live active
moral dilemmas, congested.

Knowledge as sight and that as
lighting discharges us of what seems
dilemmatic, obscure, obturated in
ghostual life.

The advancement and the reaching
in familiarity with God is for Symeon a
knowledge of what God does in us, thing
that is identic - accentuates he - with
what God has done and will do with all
the Saints [324-328 lines].

Symeon does not speak than by a
single modality to advance in communion
with God and namely the life of holiness,
which translates to a life in that we go
forward always in the sight of the light
and in lightings and ghostual contem-
plations.

Therefore, for that just this
mysterious side of the relation of Saints
with God means ghostual life, and, in
definitive, theological knowledge, Symeon
sees our relation cu God, the holy
communion with God, as having its
foundation in itself initiation, which
makes to us God Himself about Himself
[328-329 lines].

Symeon debates intensely this
capital truth about personal salvation,
showing that true knowledge of God we
do not receive through our work, through
the efforts very tiresome we are making,

1 7 2

but His knowledge is a divine gift, is a gift
received in purity of heart and it is
personal revelation of the divine light of
the Trinity.

We begin to receive His knowledge
still from this life, but the full receiving of
His sight is reserved to the eternal life
[329-337 lines].

But, if we do not know that we are
children of God from the presence of Holy
Ghost in us, says Symeon, then we will
not be like God, because He is not in us
[343-346 lines].

2. 4- 3- The Symeonian Ecstasies
from the Life Written by Saint
Niketas

In the description of the Life of Saint
Symeon, his Father, Saint Niketas
Stethatos punctuates more ecstasies of
him, the first being that from I, 5.

After how we said into a previous
section, the first symeonian ecstasy is
recognized and by Niketas, as being the
one before coming of Saint Symeon at
Stoudios, after what he met on Saint
Symeon the Pious 442 .

The ecstatic description of the I, 5,
begins with the detail that Symeon was at
prayer, on time at night and he was
united with Prime Mind, as a vol KaGapco
[pure mind] 443 .

Niketas puts the accent on ghostual
rationality of man who prays, which is
brought of purity of mind and on his
relation with God as Prime Reason, as the
Fountain of any clean thinking.

The ecstatic sight is integrated also
in the context of private prayer,
prolonged, of Saint Symeon.

It was a night prayer, where Symeon
sees, suddenly, „a light from above,
shining upon him, [an] unmixed [dki-

442 Acc. OC 12, I, 4, 1-34, p. 6-8 [ed. Hausherr]/
Life, ed. Iliescu, p. 16-18/ lea jr. 4, p. 246-247 [ed.
Koutsas] .

443 Idem, I, 5, 1-2, p. 8/ Idem, p. 18/ Idem, p. 247.

174

Kpiveg] [light coming] from heaven, im-
mense [aitkexov], that filled all with the
light and purity, as and how the day had
come" 444 . The light and the purity are two
pregnant realities of the niketian de-
scription and the divine light is presented
as the foundation of purity of mind of
Saint Symeon.

To Symeon, which stands in the
light, says Niketas, it seemed to him that
he did not see anymore the house and the
cell in that he prayed, for that these two
no longer espied 445 and he was ^p-noLyevxoL
kv to depi" [ravished in the air] 446 , he
forgetting his body 447 .

In I, 5, 9-10, Niketas recognizes that
he reproduces what he heard from
Symeon and what wrote and Symeon
about this sight 448 .

The oral and written tradition
merges in Life written by Niketas and it is
the living mode, coherent in that was
transmitedto us the holy and multilateral
Tradition of the Church.

The sight, says Niketas, was received
by Symeon as a „foreign enormity" [to
£evou tou TepaoTiou], as a colossal
experience, for that he did not live such
discoveries [aTTOKoduilrccov] 449 .

444 Idem, I, 5, 2-4, p. 8/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.

445 Idem, I, 5, 5-7, p. 8/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.

446 Idem, I, 5, 8, p. 8/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.

447 Idem, I, 5, 7-8, p. 8/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.

448 Idem, I, 5, 8-9, p. 8/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.

449 Idem, I, 5, 10, p. 8/ Idem, p. 18-19/ Idem, p.

248.

175

If Niketas recognizes that this is the
first symeonian ecstasy, in the same
night, Niketas says that Symeon lived and
another divine sight, distinct from ecstasy,
but in extension of it - for that it was
„into the work of light" 450 - in which he
saw Saint Symeon the Pious 451 .

In this second sight [elSoc], Symeon
sees „a too-bright cloud, without form and
without interruption, full of unspeakable
glory of God, [which came] from the high
heaven" 452 .

Thus, ve$£lr\ [the cloud] and So£a
[glory], the two classical ecstatic
representations of ghostual experience,
recur and at Niketas and they punctuate
the ecstatic realities of Saint Symeon.

From this is observed, that Saint
Niketas proves himself a fidel disciple of
Saint Symeon the New Theologian even
and in the smallest details.

Speaking about the apparation of
Saint Symeon the Pious in the light,
Niketas uses the substantive opa|ia [sight/
vision]. Symeon, his Father, had a „tou
cjDpiKTOu 6pa|iaiog" [frightening vision], in
which he saw his Father, Saint Symeon
the Pious 453 .

At the end of the first chapter of
Life, in I, 9, Niketas presents the second
symeonian ecstasy without as modern

Idem, I, 5, 14, p. 8/ Idem, p. 19/ Ibidem.
Idem, I, 5, 13-14, p. 8/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.
Idem, I, 5, 14-16, p. 8/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.
Idem, I, 5, 18, p. 10/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.

editors of the text to include in subtitle
this thing.

On the way to Constantinople,
weeping and mourning, being again
alone, Symeon has the third divine sight
[if we consider the first, described by
Niketas, as being two sights], in the
middle of the mountains 454 .

Here, he was walking on mountain
road, and „suddenly the grace of the
Ghost from above wrapped him on the
Righteous as a fire, that once Paul [Acts
9, 3; 22, 6] and filled him integer of joy
and unspeakable sweetness, increasing in
him [eTTau^oaoa] the love of God and faith
in his ghostual Father" 455 .

Niketas does not want to make from
the third symeonian ecstasy it describes
an another revelation in road to
Damascus, ie a muster of identical se-
quentiality with the ecstasy of Paul, but
he presents the ecstasy in the form in
which it happened.

The annexation of the symeonian
ecstasy at the pauline one does not keep
than of the detail to go to a principal
town, at the fact that it occurs while the
mystic was on road and at that one that
the light wrapped him suddenly. But the
two ecstasies are not identical in nature
and nor God did not want the same thing
when He gave the two.

454 Idem, I, 5, 12-18, p. 16-18/ Idem, p. 25/ Idem, p.

251.

455 Idem, I, 5, 18-22, p. 18/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.

177

If in the case of Paul, the ecstasy was
a converting meeting with his Lord, in the
case of Symeon, the ecstasy from road
had the role to increase the love of
Symeon to God and to his ghostual
Father, the Saint Symeon the Pious.

We must see in this ecstatic
description of Saint Niketas the decisive
role which has the ecstasy in our ghostual
growth.

The ecstasy and the ghostual Father,
that God's direct guidance and direct
guidance of Father, of his spiritual
Mentor, blends in divine mode in the for-
mation of Symeon.

Symeon needs divine-human certi-
tudes for to grow in Christ, the divine
revelations but and the personal example,
charismatic, of the ghostual Father. He is
led by the Ghost, through divine light but
and the ghostual Father, through the
same Ghost, Who dwells in him.

If in the two previous ecstasies we
had the cloud and the glory, in the third
we have part of the image of the fire, of
ttup, which wrapped him.

In II, 19, we have part the fourth
ecstatic symeonian experience described
by Niketas.

Is by itself understood that we have
another consecution of the symeonian
sights, as long as in Koutsas's edition this
the fourth ecstatic place is counted as the

178

second 45 and in Hausherr's edition they
are not supertitles at subchapters.

After an interview with his Father,
in which he prophets him an astonishing
increase in himself of the grace, Symeon
enters in his cell and has place the sight
which we denominate as being the 4th 457 .

Symeon makes a prolegomenon of
the ecstasy, presenting it as rapid help
came from part of God 458 . Thus, „the light
arose as early morning [TTpcoX|ioy], and,
unexpectedly, wrapped him from above a
bright light like a lightning [daipaTrfj] [ace.
Acts 26, 13], which catched his mind,
raptured it with all and filled it with a
too-sweet joyousness" 459 .

Niketas presents the 4th ecstasy as a
rapture of the mind in light, where it is
filled with an extraordinary joyousness.

Suddenly the night disappears and
the light appears in the life of Saint
Symeon as a blinding light of morning, as
a luminous lightning, which wrapped him
entirely.

While Symeon was with his face at
ground in behind of this ecstasy and
cried, he saw „a frightening miracle" 460 ,
namely „he saw with the mind a bright
cloud [c})G)Toei6f| vecJ)eA<r|v] falling in entirely

456 To see the supertitle from II, 19 out of lea jr. 4,

p. 257.

457 OC 12, II, 19, 7-8, p. 28/ Life, ed. Iliescu, p. 34/
lea jr. 4, p. 257.

458 Idem, II, 19, 12-13, P- 2 §/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.

459 Idem, II, 19, 13-16, p. 28/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.

460 Idem, II, 19, 19, p. 29/ Idem, p. 35/ Ibidem.

179

over him, producing all the pleasure and
sweetness in his soul and it filled him
with divine grace reducing to the end the
thickness earthly of the fleshly
thought" 461 .

We have therefore, as and in the
case of the ecstasies I and II, an
immediate continuity between the
ecstasies IV and V. The light is seen as a
lightning but and as a bright cloud, it
sanctifies Symeon, in evident mode.

The 6th ecstasy described by Saint
Niketas occurs also in the night 462 , in the
moment when Saint Symeon wanted to
write his father and to teach, how to
correspond this one with men Saints
[avdpoLQ Ayiouc] and, especially, with Saint
Symeon the Pious 463 .

Just when Symeon began his letter
to his natural father, „suddenly, shone
him an infinite light [cJjcoc; aTTeipov] from
heaven and it tore the roof of his house
and filled again the soul of him with a joy
and untold pleasure, thus that the im-
mensity of that light, the candlestick
[luxvov] that lighted - because it was
night - was dark with all.

And, behold, as from this divine
light came a voice that said: <the Apostle
and the disciple of Christ, the mediator
and our ambassador at God>" 4 4 .

4 1 Idem, II, 19, 20-23, p. 28-30/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.

462 Idem, III, 23, n, p. 32/ Idem, p. 38/ Idem, p.

259.

463 Idem, III, 23, 3-6, p. 32/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.

464 Idem, III, 23, 8-13, p. 32/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.

i8o

Putting in antithesis the heavenly
light and the light of the candlestick has
the role to emphasize the immensity of
the divine light which saw Symeon and
this ecstasy is a new guarantee from part
of God of the holiness of Saint Symeon
the Pious, the Father of Saint Symeon.

Symeon, after how we find from III,
24, was not a monk at this data 465 .

He was still a novice in the
Monastery of Saint Mammas 466 .

All 6 ecstasies presented by Niketas
are anterior to his monastic life and they
had the role to initiate him and to
strengthen Symeon in mystical life and, in
the same time, to increase his confidence
in his Father, in Saint Symeon the Pious.

Symeon enters in the monastic life
as a man with a great ghostual en-
hancement, with a great zeal for holiness
and with a steadfast confidence in the
holiness of his Father.

God Himself watched this whole
interior union of Symeon with his Father
and Symeon never abdicated from it. The
whole interior rallying at life of God and
the full confidence in his Father were the
two major interior coordinates of the New
Theologian.

The end of the 23rd section narrates
the fact, that Symeon wrote that letter to
his father in ecstatic mode, being in light,

4 5 Idem, III, 24, 1-4, p. 34/ Ibidem/ Idem, p. 260.
466 Idem, III, 22, 4, p. 32/ Idem, p. 37/ Idem, p.

258.

i8i

because God guided his hand to write 467 .
Niketas uses the expression „dictated
from above" [if] v avcoGev pr|0eloav] for that
to remind us the detail, that the express
revelation of truths, in written form, is
not a singular thing but it is refind at
Saints of Scripture and in the lives of
many Saints of the Church.

The light of God made again for
Symeon a day without evening in the
middle of the night and Symeon writes
those whom God speaks to him, being
surrounded by divine light.

After his entry into monasticism,
our Father lived a life of „an extreme
purity" [ckpov eKKocGapGevii] 468 .

In III, 24, Niketas says that Saint
Symeon „became entire attention, entire
full of the warmth of the Ghost, entire full
of divine revelations and lightenments
[Gdwv aTTOKaluijjecov km. eAAdqjA|rcG)v]" 469 .

From here on neither Nikita and nor
us can no longer have an inventory,
however probabilistic, of the symeonian
ecstasies.

From III, 26 results that the divine
sight it becomes quotidian Saint Symeon
shortly after what he became a monk.

About this quotidianness of the sight
of the light, Saint Niketas writes: „From

467 Idem, III, 23, 17-20, p. 32-34/ Idem, p. 38/
Idem, p. 260.

468 Idem, III, 25, 1-2, p. 34/ Idem, p. 39/ Idem, p.

260.

469 Idem, III, 26, 3-5, p. 36/ Idem, p. 40/ Idem, p.

261.

182

this reason and before all, gathering
himself the whole from the ones from
outside, he stood at prayer.

And, at the beginning of the day, as
the one unharmed [by anything], was
ravished [apTTaCcov] up his mind and he
united [o\)yyiv6\ievoQ], in immaterial
mode, with the God the One immaterial,
he did not have the thinking attracted of
no care, nor divided in senses.

For the Divine Himself, before his
prayers, take it soon and enveloped it the
mind of his soul in His natural/ proper
light [ico e^uia) 4>cofi] and it melted the
earthly from it, filling it by the warmth of
the Ghost and the heart by all joy-
ousness .

Saint Symeon united with the light
still before at morning prayer, at when he
woke and it, the light, removed from his
soul every thought and earthly stain.

Niketas accentuated the role of the
light in the life of Symeon through that,
that it makes him daily with an im-
material mind, abstracted from all care
and earthly reality.

But we have at Niketas and a
trenchant emphasis of the fact that divine
light, which saw Symeon, it is proper of
God, that it is of His, that it is something
natural for God, it is proper Himself.

Life together with God excludes any
impurity and bodily care. The ghostual

470 Idem, III, 26, 11-18, p. 36/ Idem, p. 40-41/
Ibidem.

183

life is an immaterial life, lived in the light,
lived as continues union with divine light.

The end of the 27th chapter shows
us the nights full of grace of Symeon, in
which he saw himself „sometimes,
coming out of himself, through divine
contemplations and he united, in mystic
face, with God" 471 .

From IV, 29, 1, we find that this
quotidian filling with light of Symeon
happened in the two years of monasti-
cism, which preceded the moment of his
ordination into priest 472 .

In IV, 30, the chapter dedicated of
his cheirotonia, Niketas says, that
Symeon, „the seer of the frightening vi-
sions, that he contemplated with eyes of
Cherub" 473 , received the priesthood after
much interior resistance" 474 .

In the moment of cheirotonia,
„when the most-wise Symeon was made
priest by the bishop, and he said prayer
over him, and he had the knee and the
head bowed in the face of the Mystery, he
saw a vision and, behold!, the Holy Ghost
descending in the face of infinite light,
simple and formless [aveipov fyuTOQ ai\Xo\)v
Km dvdSeov], it covered his most-holy
head, [Ghost] Whom, in the 48 years of
priesthood, he saw Him descending

471 Idem, III, 27, 14-15, p. 38/ Idem, p. 42/ Idem, p.

262.

472 Idem, IV, 29, 1, p. 40/ Idem, p. 44/ Ibidem.

473 Idem, IV, 30, 12-13, P- 40-42/ Idem, p. 45/
Idem, p. 263.

474 Idem, IV, 30, 6-7, p. 40/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.

184

[Kaiepx6|ievov] over the Holy Sacrifice,
brought by him to God, [after] how he
himself said to someone, hiding himself,
as and how he spoke about another one
and [it] is written in his sayings" 475 .

According to this testimony of
Niketas, it results that the number of the
symeonian ecstasies is impossible to say,
for that Symeon lived mostly in the divine
light, he was enlightened by grace and he
was filled by the Holy Ghost.

Symeon receives the priesthood into
consciousness, he seeing the grace that
came in him and constantly reviewing it
down over the Venerable Gifts, which he
served.

His interiorization with the light was
and is, with true, difficult to understand
by those who did not have any gracious
experience in their lives.

The reporting of Symeon at
Church's life is on measure of his mystical
experience and it is seen everywhere in
his theological writings.

The height and the correctness of
symeonian theology is not given by style,
by erudition or by rhetorical emphasis
with which he writes but of the greatness
of his mystical experiences.

The experience, the mystical and
liturgical realism of Symeon, the biblical
realism and ecclesial of his work are the
expression of his deep interiorization with

475 Idem, IV, 30, 13-21, p. 42/ Idem, p. 45-46/
Idem, p. 263-264.

i8 5

God. Precisely because there was, in real
mode, this his personal union with God,
Symeon could produce a conquering
theology, frighteningly high and beautiful,
the divine.

In the 33rd chapter, Niketas
describes the image of liturgist of Saint
Symeon: „he liturgised together with
cohorts of the top, he sitting in the seat of
priests, [and] he brought always [del] to
God the Sacrifice without the blood, in
the sight of the Ghost [ev OTTiaoia tou
nveu|iaiog] and with a form of the face
like the face of an Angel" 476 .

Symeon served, in real mode, with
the heavenly Powers, he saw the descent
of the divine grace over the Venerable
Gifts and, he being full of grace, he was
like an Angel in the flesh.

By the adverb del, Niketas wanted to
say that Symeon saw in every time, into a
some mode, the coming of the Holy
Ghost over him and over the Venerable
Gifts in front of him.

The sight of the light by Saint
Symeon, according to these biographical
details, did not happen only into a private
space, away from the eyes of others, but it
also take place and in the frame of the
liturgical services, when Simeon was
surrounded by people.

Niketas insists on the pnevmatic
aspect of Symeon's being then when he

47 Idem, IV, 33, 2-5, p. 44/ Idem, p. 47/ Idem, p.

265.

i86

served: „the grace of the Ghost made him
whole like a fire and almost un-
approachable [oxedbv dTTpooLioc] for
human eyes during his Liturgy" 477 .

Niketas sees in Symeon the
attributes of the divine light, because he
was filled with the Ghost. He was coc ttup
[like the fire] and oxe8ov aTrpoaiToc [almost
unapproachable] for those who watched
him.

For that he was filled with the light,
with the holiness of God, Symeon is
characterized through the intermedium
of the light divine entitlings.

The divine light that spring out from
him, because it was in him, it made
Symeon to be like a Angel, ie a being
frighteningly beautiful and unapproach-
able for an unghostual human mind.

Two of his disciples see Symeon in
mystical situations.

Symeon from Ephesus, the
Ephesian, sees him during the Divine
Liturgy dressed in patriarchal vestment
[TTonjpiapxiKTiv ozoXr\v] 478 , sign that
Symeon could be ordained whenever as
patriarch of Constantinople, as long as
God allowed this thing and Meletius,
tonsured as a monk by Symeon, he
confesses to Niketas: „Often I saw a
bright cloud [v€$elr\ ^zivr\v] covering
him whole, when he stood in altar during

477 Idem, IV, 33, 11-13, P- 44/ Idem, p. 48/ Ibidem.

478 Idem, IV, 33, 14-19, p. 44/ Ibidem/ Idem, p.
265-266.

187

Holy before putting. And, on right word,
for those who are distinguished through
the height of virtues, they are worthy and
of the divine glory" 479 .

Niketas demonstrated by this wit-
nesses that not only Symeon confessed
himself that he sees the light of God, but
and other ghostual people, from around
him, ascertained the presence of the Ghost
in his being.

Symeon could not hide, could not
hide the amazing ghostual increase, for
that the Holy Ghost Himself was the One
who gave him away and which confessed
him as holy man in front of disciples, of
friends and of his hierarchical superiors
and of the people that listen him.

But Niketas is still doing something
essential in mystical biography of
Symeon.

He shows that the bright cloud or
the glory of Trinity that was seen on
Sinai, on Tabor, at the bank of the Jordan
or in way to Damascus and in island
Patmos were not ecstatic unrepeatable
evidences in the economy of salvation,
but the presence of the Ghost is quotidian
in the life of those who sanctify them-
selves, anytime they live and wherever
they are on the face of the earth.

The sight of the light not keeps of
place, of the historical moment, of social
or ecclesial rank, of age, of gender, of

479 Idem, IV, 33, 19-23, p. 44/ Ibidem/ Idem, p.

266.

i88

ethnicity or financial situation of the
believer, but of his inner purity, the
holiness of his person, which is the only
requirement for that the Lord reveals to
us His light.

Just therefore Meletius sees Symeon
covered by the bright cloud of glory the
Godhead and Niketas says that he was
like fire, like an Angel when he served.

Everyone perceives Symeon, the full
of the Ghost, on measure of his ghostual
growth and each of them Symeon showed
them into an apart mode.

In the 36th chapter, we have
described another ecstasy of Symeon
spent the night. It has a special character
from cause the charisma that he received
it in behind it.

Niketas describes the ecstasy in the
following terms: „This being, therefore,
the work that the brave one had it in
hidden in every day, into a night, while he
stood and offered his prayers to the Lord,
he saw a vision and, behold!, a bright
cloud [vefykXi] (Jdcotoc] descending from
heaven through the roof of house was
placed over his honorable head and,
covering it whole for a lot of watches, it
filled by a very ardent pleasure and untold
and by a joyousness and a cheerfulness
impossible to said, and from there he
heard and a mystic voice [|iuoiLKf|(; cJdgovtic]
that taught him foreign mysteries [Ejkva
liuornpia] and hidden [k€kp\)\i\i€Vol].

189

Therefore, even and when this cloud
has been lifted, he found his heart in
God's wisdom [oocjna 0eou] sheding the
waters of the divine grace.

And then he had not been himself,
but the grace of God pulled him whole to
Himself and it made from his tongue a
reed what writes sharp [Ps. 44, 1] and from
his thought a fountain of the wisdom of
God [Bar. 3, 12].

Therefore, although he was with all
unlearned in the teachings of the outside
[a|ia0T]<; gov TTavir| tgjv GupaGev liaGipaicov],
he theologized [eGeoloyei] like the Beloved
and the entire nights he traversed, in
order, those of theology [Tf|<; GeoA-oyiag
oAm<;]" 480 , for that „he was worthy by the
apostolic gift, saying the word of the
teaching [aTTOoioA-UKfic o^icoGdc; 5o)pelag tou
A-oyou xf\Q SiSaaKaAiac; c))r||jX]" 481 , as an
organ of the Ghost 482 .

During this ecstasy, Symeon receives
the charisma of the theology. Now
Symeon is taught by God, in mystic
mode, the dogmas of faith and Symeon
feels himself taken in posesion, inhabited,
mastered by the Holy Ghost, Who
teaches him all.

Niketas do not mention at a venture
the detail that Symeon lacked culture and
science of his time, ie teaching from

480 Idem, V, 36, 1-15, p. 48/ Idem, p. 51-52/ Idem,
p. 267-268.

481 Idem, V, 37, 9-10, p. 50/ Idem, p. 52/ Idem, p.

268.

482 Idem, V, 37, 10-11, p. 50/ Ibidem/ Ibidem.

190

outside. Niketas remembers this thing,
for to put in prime-plan the theology as
charisma.

Just for that Symeon is taughtby the
Ghost, for that he received at above the
theological teaching, he is the Theologian
par excellence of the Church.

Niketas, as and Symeon otherwise,
pointing out the fact that we have a real
theological knowledge only as a result of
the ecstatic revelations from part of God,
tells us bluntly for all that we can not
confide in our own theological deduc-
tions, because God single teaches us
about Himself, that only He can show us
the true theology and that on it we
receive as a result of the personal purity.

Theology is a divine gift and not an
exclusive product of human intelligence.

In the 69th chapter, Niketas
describes to us an another ecstasy of
Saint Symeon, in that the divine light
penetrates his whole body and makes our
Father to be only light, only the heavenly
fire:

„Into a day, therefore, how he
standing at a pure prayer and talking with
God, he saw a vision. And, behold!, the
air began to shine in his mind and being
in cell seemed him that he spends in
daylight. But it was night, at the first
watch.

And how began to light [fyaiveiv] at
above, as the brightnesses of the morning
sun. ..home and all [things] have passed

191

and he thought that he was not in the
house.

As out of himself with all [^Lomia)
oA-coc], he observed with all the mind that
light which shows to him: it grew a little
and made the air to shine and brighter
and he realized that he ended up with
whole body in outside of the earth.

And how that light continues to
shine even more clear and it appeared
shining above him as the noon sun, he
understood that he stood in the middle of
what he saw and he was filled whole, in
all the body, of the happiness and of the
tears of pleasure that invaded him.

For he saw the light itself touching,
in amazing face, at his body and entering
a little in the members of him [kcci'
oliyov yw6\ievov kv xolq auiou].

[...]

He saw so how little by little that
light was given whole his entire body, the
heart and his visceras and it makes him
whole fire and light [iriip olov Km c^jcoc;]" 483 .

Being taught by a heavenly voice
about the what were done with him 484 ,
Symeon understood that „the glory that
enveloped him. ..[is] the happiness that has
to be given to the Saints in the eternal
face" 485 .

4 3 Idem, IX, 69, 1-16, 18-20, p. 92-94/ Idem, p.
88-89/ Idem, p. 288.

484 Idem, IX, 69, 22-23, P- 94/ Idem, p. 89/
Ibidem.

485 Idem, IX, 70, 1-4, p. 94/ Idem, p. 90/ Idem, p.

289.

192

This ecstasy initiates Symeon in the
eternal existence of Saints, when all will
have the bodies fully transfigured and the
light will live in them in eternal mode.

Presenting the direct action,
intensive, transfiguring of light on body,
Niketas speaks us, in subsidiary, and
about full filling of the soul by the Holy
Ghost, ie about the full pnevmatization of
human being.

What the Holy Ghost did in this case
with Symeon was not than that at
entrusted to him, in personal mode and
experiential, about how shown the full
pnevmatization of the risen body of the
Lord and, through He, of all Saints.

Symeon foretasted in ecstatic mode
the state of full deification of man, and
namely our eshatological condition, that
of resurrected beings and transfigured by
the grace of the Trinity.

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

193

divine charismata, he being extreme clean
with mind and he saw, on right word, as
the Prophets of old [01 Iipoc^Tca iraAm]
the visions and the frightening revela-
tions of the Lord.

And he being thus and he having the
apostolic mind [ocnooxokiK^v xr\v SLavoiav],
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]" 48 .

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 [ifj
pima] breath of the Ghost, he made public
[ckcov 8ipoaieiki], [even without his will],
those that he saw in God's discoveries
and visions, then when he reached
beyond nature" 487 .

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

4 Idem, IX, 71, 9-15, p. 96/ Idem, p. 91/ Ibidem.
487 Idem, XII, 111, 8-10, p. 154/ Idem, p. 139/ Idem,

p. 318.

194

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 as to be a
credible speech about Him.

195

Soteriology

2. 5. The Path of Deification and
the Sight of God

In this chapter we try to present
symeonian soteriology from the perspec-
tive 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 ghostual
Father, which to coordinate step by step
our life.

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 ghostual
Father.

196

2. 5- i. The Emergence of Light
in Those Who are Cleansed of Pas-
sions

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 488 .

God appears in our life as a sun
(r\kioc,), as a real sun, although it is
KeKp\)\i\ikvoQ (secret/ hidden) for all mortal
nature 489 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 490 and, says Symeon, „You are seen
by themselves and into You pop up who
that once were dark, unchaste, adulter-
ous and decayed, sinners, tax collectors.
[For that] repenting, they are sons of Thy
divine light (uloi c^cotoc; Sou Gdou), light
gives birth to all from the light, [from
itself], since, with true, the light makes
them perfect, sons of God, that some who
take I know [all], and [are] gods by
grace y .

The decayed life which we had
formerly, washed through the tears of
repentance, is not an impediment for the
sight of God.

4 SC 156, Hymns, VIII, 1-5, p. 214/ lea jr. 3, p. 70.

489 Idem, Hymns, VIII, 6, p. 214/ Ibidem.

490 Idem, Hymns, VIII, 7, p. 214/ Ibidem.

491 Idem, Hymns, VIII, 7-12, p. 214/ Ibidem.

197

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 person-
al salvation, for that the holiness is living
in grace and 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 [oLzeleozoc, r\
KaGapoic] for that the desire of cleaning
and the longing to see the light are end-
less 492 .

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 493 .

The light seen by Symeon is as a
sweet sun [yA-UKug 6 t^Iloc], lived in
unspeakable mode in our senses 494 .

Idem, Hymns, VIII, 39-40, p. 218/ Idem, p. 71.
Idem, Hymns, VIII, 50-51, p. 218/ Ibidem.
Idem, Hymns, VIII, 54, p. 218/ Ibidem.

198

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 ghostual senses and
those bodily is the divine light, which
attracts the soul to an inexpressible
longing and divine [ttoGov aveK^paozov Km
Oelov] 495 by Holy Trinity.

The light that comes from above and
that springs in our being as a sun it does
not want to leave us on earth, but hangs
us, through the longing for God, at the
light of the Trinity.

The light springs in us for that to
burn us for longing and wants that us to
keep in our being all what is shown to us
in ecstasy, all that immensity and amaz-
ing wealth of divine light 496 .

The sight of light is but a spare of us
by God 497 .

When God has mercy on someone -
and not when we consider that we must
have mercy - „[then], suddenly, after how
I saw Him shining before my face, thus I

495 Idem, Hymns, VIII, 55, p. 218/ Ibidem.

496 Idem, Hymns, VIII, 56-57, p. 218/ Ibidem.

497 Idem, Hymns, VIII, 62, p. 218/ Ibidem.

199

see Him shining utterly in me and utterly
fills me with all joy, of all fullness of
desire and most divine sweetness, on me,
the humble [His servant]" 498 .

From the confession of Saint
Symeon results the fact that Christ, the
One full of glory, which the Disciples saw
Him in outside of their body, he, and all
who see the divine light, they see Him in
plenary mode, full of the Ghost, in
themselves.

Christ's ascension into heaven and
the descent of Holy Ghost to those who
expected the fulfillment of the promise is
in fact „a presence of depth and of
ghostual elevation" 499 of Christ in those
and in our being.

The sight of Christ's glory or the
indwelling of Trinity's light in us is what
that fulfills us and perfects us and this
dwelling is real and acknowledged by us.

About the sight Symeon says that it
is a capital event, defining, in our being:
„the transformation/ [our] change is
evident, is a foreign change. Which what
is made perfect in me and hit me [on me]
is unspeakable.

For that, if would see someone that
sun dwelt [in us], that with all [how we
see], we see entering in heart, and living
in us in entirety and shining also [in
entirely], would not be dead from cause

498 Idem, Hymns, VIII, 63-66, p. 218-220/ Ibidem.

499 Acc. Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology [Teologia Dogmaticd
Ortodoxd], ed. II, vol. 2, ed. cit., p. 122-123.

200

of the miracle and should not become
speechless and [once with he] and all
those who meet the man who lived it?" 500 .

The divine light produces a radical
change in our being, a foreign one from
our daily experience. After that we will
not ever be the ones before, whatever we
do. The sight of light means our accep-
tance by God in the communion of His
divine life. It is a crossing over our earthly
condition, for that we get „the divine
glory" 501 and we enrich „from Himself the
Source of living forever" 502 .

And this is possible, for that „the
sight of the divine light does not depend
however only of his spreading through
the body of Christ, but and of the
voluntary opening for it of the human
persons" 503 , how said Father Professor
Dumitru Staniloae.

In the Hymn 7, the sun shines in the
heart of Symeon in immaterial mode
(auAxoc) 504 and he wants the light for that
to compose hymns of thanks to his Father,
Saint Symeon the Pious 505 .

500 SC 156, Hymns, VIII, 67-73, P- 22 °/ j r - 3> P-

7i-

501 Idem, Hymns, VIII, 93, p. 222/ Idem, p. 72.

502 Idem, Hymns, VIII, 97, p. 222/ Ibidem.

503 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The
Personal Relation with Christ in the Light of Divine
Infinity, after Saint Symeon the New Theologian
[Legatura personala cu Hristos m lumina infinitafii
dumnezeiesti, dupa Sfdntul Simeon Noul Teolog], in
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology Studies [Studii de teologie
dogmatica ortodoxa], op. cit., p. 315.

504 SC 156, Hymns, VII, 3-4, p. 208/ lea jr. 3, p. 68.

505 Idem, Hymns, VII, 7-9, p. 208/ Ibidem.

201

The doxological function of ecstatic
experience is combined with experi-
mentation of the relation with God as
longing, as desire always ardent for to see
Him.

At Symeon the longing for God is
ttovoc 506 , is suffering, pain, acute weight of
its entire innerness.

Just for this symeonian's ascesis is
not, more chosen, one of borne of the
physical burdens, but rather of the
intensity of feeling, of education in inner
waiting of the divine mercy, of borne of
the exigencies of faith and of longing for
God.

The cleaning of passions is at
Symeon an evidence sanctioned by God
Himself, for that He looks like a sun that
illuminates fully our being.

In symeonian theology, the sun is
not a literary motive but an ecstatic
evidence.

Symeon does not speak of religious
symbols, he does not portray symbolic
paintings, ie a continuous series of
metaphors without substance divine, but
he reveals the mode how is shown the
divine light in his being.

Just therefore, our exegesis at the
opera of Symeon does not have and nor
must to have ever a character pure
literary but the one eminently theological,
for that he talks about the real presence of
light in his life.

Idem, Hymns, VII, 17, p. 210/ Ibidem.

202

The symeonian theology is, with
precedence, the theology of confession, of
ecstatic confession and must be perceived
as such.

The slip from this coordinate of
ecstatic confession, in boarding of his
theology, is not destinated than to a
cheap sensationalism or a literaturisation
too little valid for the theological spec-
trum.

Only if it is perceived as a clear
testimony, unliar of a holy life, full of
divine revelations, the symeonian theolo-
gy is, with true, a protreptic for our lives.

Symeon requires facts, epywv from
us, for that and God saves us if we show
facts, if we are not idle 507 .

But for he the good works are not a
scope in itself, but „all ascesis and all facts
that are done by us are that impart us by
divine light like a rushlight" 508 .

The divine sun and human rushlight,
although total contrasting into a theology
that would follow the difference of degree
between them, are not without an inner
connection in symeonian theology.

The divine light, with all its
frightening and unthinkable immensity
for the faithful man, however does not
crush the human rushlight, the human
being, but fills it with grace. Union
between God and man through ecstasy,

p. 202.

507 Idem, Hymns, XV, 33, p. 278/ Idem, p. 90.

508 SC 174, Hymns, XXXIII, 130-132, p. 422/ Idem,

203

through the sight of the light, it's a real
union, conscious.

Faithful man understands what
happens with him. Just therefore, Symeon
stresses repeatedly that ,^v(x>oi(;...yivezai
a\i$ozep(AV kv yvuoei" (union of the two
[of God with man] is fully into
acquaintance/ consciousness) 509 .

The ascesis required by Symeon is
an interior awareness of ghostual changes
that occur with us, the awareness that
culminates with the sight of the light, in
that we never lose the understanding of
the fact, that what we see is something
real and not a mental fantasy, that is not
exceeding the world in which we are.

The sight of the light into
consciousness [kv yv6oei] means fot
Symeon the acute reception, over-
whelming of the divine realities that are
facilitated to us in ecstatic mode.

Thus explains the fact why Symeon
problematizes not what he sees, but he
wonders continually by the amazing
wealth of ecstasies that he had.

In the Hymn 34, 79, assimilating the
doipaTTTi with an r|Aio<; \ieyac,, Symeon says
that the sight of the light, however we
would show it, as flash or as a huge sun,
does nothing else in us than interior
enlightens us 510 . But here, in the Hymn

509 Idem, Hymns, XXXIV, 20, p. 428/ Idem, p.

203.

510 Idem, Hymns, XXXIV, 78-80, p. 434/ Idem, p.

205.

204

34, we have a formula that guarantees, in
our opinion, the hesychast dimension of
the symeonian experience.

He says that the light shines in us
and it is understood voepcog ev KocpSux,
with the mind in the heart 511 .

If Simeon had not seen the sight of
the light as a result of unceasing prayer,
we have not had in his descriptions the
placements of the ecstasy in the frame of
assiduous peculiar prayers.

In the Hymn 35, our soul is the
mirror [eooTTipov] that receives the ray of
the divine sun, ie the rays of Godhead
[cLKxivcLQ ific ©eoiriioc] 512 . But we are
mirrors in that not only that is reflected
the light, but it and impresses in us, for
that we are living mirrors, ghostual.

In the Hymn 42, suitable to the
proceeding of the terminological assimi-
lation about which we talked, Symeon
affirms: „And in union [with You], I see
You as on a sun, and I see You as on a
star, and I keep You in my bosom as on a
pearl and I see You as on a rushlight
located inside of a vessel" 513 .

511 Idem, Hymns, XXXIV, 78, p. 434/ Ibidem. This
formula and the whole boarding of the sight of God at
Saint Symeon, makes us convinced at the fact that
Symeon was a hesychast and that the hesychast prayer
method, kept in traditional mode on his name, it
belongs and not is no an exaggeration of Tradition's
reception.

512 SC 174, Hymns, XXXV, 55-59, p. 444/ Idem, p.

208.

513 SC 196, Hymns, XLII, 85-87, p. 44/ Idem, p.

230.

205

All forms under which is seen the
light and is indicated scripturally repre-
sents for Symeon a divine reality that
reveals ecstatic the believer.

But exist the sight as long as exist
the union with Trinity's light.

The light gushing into our being,
rises in us, only on the fund of ardent
search, of God's unquenchable and an
ascesis conscious by the work of the grace
in our being 514 , for to rise to the com-
munion of life and love of Most Holy
Trinity.

514 Into an article by youth, Father Professor
Dumitru Popescu said about the relation between the
good works and salvation at Saint Symeon: „the facts do
not operate the believer's salvation from outside,
automatic and mechanical, but rather they have a
soteriological and ontological sense", acc. Mast.
D.[umitru] Popescu, The Good Works after Saint
Symeon the New Theologian, in rev. The Orthodoxy XIV
(1962), no. 4, p. 542-543-

206

2. 5. 2. The Unpassion and the
Divine Light

The sight of the light does not mean
at Symeon than the beginning of con-
scious ghostual life. The first ecstasy does
not mean the human deification but the
real beginning of the dispassion, of the
purification of passions.

Therefore he is not absolutising the
sporadic sight, that takes you by surprise,
namely the sight of the beginners, but he
speaks about the advance in purity and in
the permanentness of light in us as the
real state, plenary of the deification.

The Ethical Discours 4, that holds
perfectly on the entitling of this section,
has right scope the speech about
unpassion/ apathy [oLiuxQeiav], about how
shows in fact the unpassion in the one
who sanctifies life.

Saint Symeon begins his speech
from a maximal quota, for that he asks
from the one who speaks about
unpassion to have the soul loose of „iTaor|g
eTTi0u|j,La<; TTOvripag Km k^aQovc, koyio\±o\)"
[all evil desire and of the passionate
thought] 515 .

In addition to experience the state of
unpassion Symeon requests and an
excessive clarity of mind for to speak on
this subject, for that the speaker about

515 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 4-5, p. 8/
lea jr. 1, p. 219.

207

unpassion should not have a „troublous
mind" and not an „unclean heart" when
debates it 516 .

Those that are impassioned, says
Symeon, and talk about unpassion ignite
and more by the longing for it 517 , while
those who are bound, even and in very
little, through any passion, of this world,
are far by „its haven" 518 .

The haven of the unpassion excludes
the interior darkening and the inner fight
with the holiness 519 .

Doing the first step in discussing of
the state of unpassion of the ghostual
man, Symeon speaks of its acquisition
through voepac, aioQr\oe(^Q [the feeling of
mind], through Gecopiag [contemplation/
sight] and through TTavTOupyou kvepydac,
OL\)zr\Q ndpav oAxoc [the work of-all-
working of that total experience/ full], of
the presence of light in our being 520 .

He puts the whole process of
cleaning the passions thus, on account of
divine illuminations, of ecstatic sights and
of light's works in our being.

Symeon focuses on the ghostual
aspect of the process ofdispassion and of

516 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 10, p. 8/
Ibidem.

517 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 18-21, p. 8-
10/ Idem, p. 219-220.

518 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 21-24, P- 10 /
Idem, p. 220.

519 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 30-33, p. 10/
Ibidem.

520 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 34-35, p. 10/
Ibidem.

208

the reaching in state of unpassion of
whole being, without as by this to put in
shadow the whole ascesis in that is
integrated and the body, in that we are
fully integrated in our relation with God.

When Symeon speaks about
unpassion does not dissociate the soul
from the body (after how he does not in
frame of the ecstasy), but he focuses on
the aspect which he wants to discuss it,
keeping into a normal balance both
dimensions of the human person.

If for one who has unpassion this is
a irelpav olcog, a total experience, holistic
of our being, a feeling of living work,
current of divine light in our being, at
opposite pole, the one who doesn't have
and spoken about it he treats it
fraudulent, venturing in „many thoughts
and in diverse analogies" 521 , without that
he has the interior certainties of its 522 .

Symeon, no doubt, had in view on
experimenters and theologians who self-
titled knowledgeable of the process of
personal sanctification but could not say
something concrete about the details of
this divine-human process.

Symeon does not take revenge in
their face if he talks about this subject,
but he narrates the state of unpassion
which he lived and which he could explain
very coherent and credible.

521 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 36-37, p. 10/
Ibidem.

522 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 39, p. 10/
Ibidem.

In face of analogies and of
theological phraseology, Symeon came
with admirable concreteness of his mysti-
cal experience.

Nobody whole at mind could react
negatively in face of his experience, as
long as he gives clear testimonies,
concrete, at each theological problem
that received general responses, non-
experiential, from academic theology of
his time.

Symeon is credible in his theological
discourse for that he endorsed in
meticulous mode the theology of the
Church and he could explain it coherently
thanks to his ghostual experience 523 .

In the discourse of face, he says in
trenchant mode this thing, when he
speaks of authentic sources which we can
base in the treatment of unpassion's
reality.

The first source in the treatment of
the subject is the experience of the
previous Saints, who lived the state of
unpassion as their proper quotidian life 5M .
The second source is our proper mystical

523 In the early pages of his doctoral thesis,
dedicated to the theology of Saint Simeon, MR Hilarion
Alfeyev said the following: „My belief is that at Symeon
we find a mysticism that is absolutely traditional, in the
orthodox acceptation of the term and this thing I will
try to prove throughout this work", acc. Hilarion
Alfeyev, St. Symeon the New Theologian and Orthodox
Tradition, Ed. by Oxford University Press, Oxford and
New York, 2000, p. 4.

524 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 52-54, p.
12/ Idem, p. 220.

210

experience, that, as long as is real, is
identical in essence with the one of the
previous Saints 525 .

Symeon was not only convinced of
the identity between his mystical experi-
ence, mysterious and the Saints always,
but, moreover, without this interior
certitude he could not ever write
anything and he would not be considered
of it as something authentic, fully ortho-
dox.

He lived as a living member of the
Church, fully convinced of his situation in
interior of the infinite connections that
bind us to each other 526 and, in the same
time, he knowing very well his helpless-
ness and the personal ignorance.

525 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 54-59, p. 12/
Ibidem.

526 If Father Professor Dumitru Staniloae used
the image of „the net of the meshs" (acc. Rev. Prof.
D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The Orthodox Dogmatic
Theology [Teologia Dogmaticd Ortodoxd], vol. 1, ed. cit.,
p. 202. To see the whole image in p. 201-202) for to show
the multiple links between human persons, we propose
the image of endless network of computers, with
unsuspected of many connections, which is connected
to the same source of energy.

The Church's members are connected with all at
the life of the Holy Trinity from where comes to us the
divine grace. If someone is connected at grace, if is wired
at Trinity's life, he will feel the same divine power and
the same divine work as and his forerunners or as and
his contemporaries which are connected at grace.

For this motive Symeon feels connected at the life
of God, for that God shows His glory in his being, he
feels how works the grace in him, how he sanctifies by
what lives and thinks he and he sees that his experience
is not a singular, but it is found and at Saints before him
and at all living members, aware of the grace of them,
of the Church.

211

But, retaking the traditional exegesis
at Jn.14, 2, Symeon, based on his great
ghostual discernment, affirms that
„ttoAAol \±kv 'AyiOL oAlyoi Se anaGeig"
[many are Saints, but few are impas-
sioned] 527 .

Our Father wants to say that Saints,
in their earthly life, had varying degrees of
holiness (if we look, in parallel mode, at
their lives) and, likewise, are and in
eternity, for that each grows on measure
of his proper comprehension.

While some have had a beginning
and a certain advance in life full of grace,
namely of holiness, others reached yet of
here at the state ofunpassion.

Just therefore Symeon speaks about
unpassion as about a high degree of
holiness, without as thereby he excluds
from the row of Saints on those who have
not acquired yet of here the unpassion.

ATrdcGeia i[fuxf|c; [The apathy of the
soul] and aTraGeia o<jd\±aTO<; [the apathy of
the body] are not identical, says Syme-
on 528 .

The apathy/ the unpassion of the
body is not useful of the single one, while
the unpassion of the soul attracts after it
and the body, for that introduces of it in
the process of sanctification 529 .

527 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 62, p. 12/
lea jr. 1, p. 221.

528 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 65-66, p. 12/
Ibidem.

529 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 66-67, P- 12 /
Ibidem.

212

Acquiring of virtues and the sight of
the light are those that lead us to
unpassion, for Symeon, and no waivers as
such at certain things or passions, that
not lead us immediately to something
positive, to our fill by grace 530 .

For our Father the unpassion is a
filling of grace, of something concrete
from point of view ghostual and is not a
ontological negative state.

Putting in antithesis of the various
virtues and states which we have here
does not than take out in relief difference
of holiness of some and of others.

Symeon knows and the beginning of
virtues and their completeness for that he
traveled all this interior process and he
knows to talk about it in fidelity mode.

His demarche is that one of known
to us the fact, that some ghostual states
are in our power to achieve, to live and
others are divine gifts 531 .

What is Scopov 0eou [the gift of God]
cannot be experienced unless it God gives
us, after what we exercise in the virtues
that make us proper to the charismata 532 .

Thus standing the things, Symeon
shows that the perfection of virtue is „of
the men who walk in the light" 533 and

530 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 67-84, p. 12-
14/ Ibidem.

531 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 89-96, p. 14/
Idem, p. 222.

532 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 94-96, p. 14/
Ibidem.

533 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 120, p. 16/
Ibidem.

213

those who are unpassioned and perfect
are those who have overcome, in perfect
mode, the demons in their being 534 ,
dressing in brilliant [laiiTTpcoc] face in zr\v
(cor|c})6pov tot) Kupiou veKpcoaiv [killing of-
life-bearers of God] 535 .

The death about that Symeon speaks
here, this death which it brings the divine
brightness, the divine light in our being is
the true definition of unpassion.

ATrdcGeioc is not a state of interior
insensibility in mystical symeonian
theology, a kind of petrification of our
feeling, in which we do not react interior
at any stimulus from outside or from
within us.

But the unpassion at Symeon is a
charismatic state, coming behind of a real
killing of passions from our being, that
consists in our filling by the light and the
happiness into it.

Symeon speaks about unpassion as
about the divine state in that we are filled
by all the good from part of God and in
which He gives us in abundant [Sou|aA,GO<;]
mode and unceasing [dfiiodeiiruax;] the in-
corruptible delight and eternal [zr\v c«j)0ap-
zov ipu(J)T]V Km aevaov] 536 '.

For our Father, the unpassion is a
charismatic state that occurs in history

534 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 135-137, p.
18/ Idem, p. 223.

535 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 137-138, p.
18/ Ibidem.

536 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 257-259, p.
26/ Idem, p. 226.

214

and not in outside it, but it represent a
filling of us by grace.

The characteristics of unpassion are
at Symeon dppr|Tou x a P&C [unspeakable
joy] 537 , our decorating with app^ico 6o£r|
Km aaTpocTTTOuari Qda oxokr\ [un unspeak-
able glory and with a divine bright
garment] 538 , in so kind that, those who
live this divine state refeel it as to ttoA-u
papoc trig doEftQ [a great weight/ burden of
glory] 539 , of divine [glory].

The positivity of unpassion and the
fact that it represent a filling of light and
not a notable absence of interior reac-
tions, emerges, we believe, sufficient of
markedly from the following passage,
where Symeon speaks about interior
unification of man lived in this state of
holiness: „when the human desire [r\
6tti0u|jXo£ tou dvGpcoTTOu] was filled with all
these (of the divine light), uniting
[ouyKpaGev] the whole irascible [Q\)\iikov]
part with rational [Ioylotlkq] part and
lustful/ willing [em0u|iTyuiK(3], then the
three make one in the sight of the light of
trinitarian oneness [Tpia8iKf|<; evaboc] and
into this they know their Master's own
delight.

For then will no longer recognize at
all their threefold division, for they will be

537 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 260, p. 26/
Ibidem.

538 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 264-265, p.
26/ Ibidem.

539 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 268-269, p.
26/ Ibidem.

21 5

in all one" 540 . The divine light is one that
unifies ghostual and bodily senses of man
faithful and in this interior unity he
delights of Lord's glory.

Symeon presents unpassion as a
state of inner unification brought to light
and preserved through the virtues and
personal charisms.

This thing is seen more clearly of
cosmic allegory from 4, 769-788, where
Symeon resembles on Saint with the
heaven, where his heart is the disc of
moon, „the divine love" [kyia aya-m]] is the
light of moon and „holy unpassion" [hy'ia
diTaGeia] is kukA-ckiStic; oxkfyavoc, [the crown
of roundness/ of the circle] of moon 541 .

The unpassion, continues here
Symeon, is one that protects them and
keeps them unharmed on Saints of bad
thought and sin, defends them the
enemies and makes them unapproachable
to their adversaries 542 .

But here is not word about an
external protector shield, but about an
interior shield, which manifests as a desire
and fulfilled non-acceptance of the sin, of
the wickedness of any kind.

Symeon uses here three significant
verbs, in our opinion, for to describe the
role of the state of unpassion in Saints.

540 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 424-429, p.
38/ Idem, p. 231.

541 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 774-783, p.
62-64/ Idem, p. 241.

542 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 782-788, p.
64/ Ibidem.

2l6

He uses on Trepu})<EpG) [to surround],
for to indicate the fact that unpassion
protects us from the inside by all evils
outside us; on TrepiiTTG) [to treat with great
care, to care] for to show the dynamism of
unpassion in our being and on TTepi-
cj)poupeco [to guard], for to emphasize the
steadfastness in which keeps us the state
of unpassion.

From symeonian allegory results
very clear, that the unpassion is an
establishment of holiness in our being, a
state in which we can keep by all kinds of
unfriendly attacks.

Symeon specificates once again that
the allegory or the icon [eliccov], after how
says his Holiness, that we presented it is
a prefiguration [emvoriGeiaa] of the things
that occur in Saints and not a fiction 543 .

The unpassion is a quotidian interior
reality for one who has it and it manifests
as non-attractiveness to the bodily, owing
to the ardent longing for the eternal and
of interior fulfillment that brought it the
light.

Comparing the icon of the bride with
the bride herself namely making the
difference between perception of reality
through an image and the reality as such,
Symeon defines the unpassion as an
experience in divine light, as the marked
reality of a life experienced beyond the
senses, the sensuality.

543 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 791-794, p.
64/ Ibidem.

2iy

He says: those who „joined in
beingly [ouaicoScoc] face with God Himself
and were worthy by the sight [Qkac] and
His impartation [|ie0e^eo)g], they no longer
expect to have passionate inclination nor
to the icon of creatures [xr\ dKOVi tcov
TTonpaTGOv] and nor (any) passionate
(annexation) by the shadow of the seen
[xr\ aiaa twv 6pco|j,evG)v].

For their thinking remaining in
those above feeling [ev zoiq unep aia0r|aiv]
and mixing with them and (being)
dressed with brightness of the divine
nature, they have no feeling (directed) to
those seen, which they had previously" 544 .

Therefore, the unpassion is not an
amputation of feeling of the one
ghostualized but, on the contrary, is
raising at a mode of life, in which the
ghostual and bodily senses of man are
imbued with light and the ghostual man
lives in the flesh with feeling of eternal
life.

Our mixing with the light or our
union, in beingly face, with God, about
that speaks Symeon, represents just the
content of the unpassion. Our non-
attraction to sin is not due, in this divine
state, to a human effort but to the
immensity of light, of the grace that fills
us with all. After this passage, Symeon
guarantees those said about unpassion
with his proper experience of unpassion.

544 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 917-924, p.
74/ Idem, p. 245.

218

He tells his auditorium that this
\ioLK<xpiov t\<xQoq [happy suffering] 545 was
given and to him, although he feels
between those who are oi dTTeppi|j,|j,evoi
[unexpected/ unwanted/ rejected/ abort-
ed] 546 .

After many prayers, said our Father,
and he was worthy to suffer the love for
people of God and His grace 547 .

The scandalizationthat can produce
a such trenchant confession is void, as
long as the unpassion is real in that who
gives details about it.

Symeon is not only convinced by his
proper experience of unpassion, but he
acknowledges and its importance for the
future christians, who want to seek God
and find Him 548 .

Our Father positions prophetically
in this situation, as one who feels taught
in mystic face by God 549 and who knows
the real value of his words for those who
sanctify their life, on the one hand and,
on the other hand, emphasizes the
decisive role of his writings in what
regards the benefit [dfytltiav] and the
encouragement [TTpoipoTTf]v] of those who

545 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 925, p. 74/
Ibidem.

546 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 927, p. 74/
Ibidem.

547 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 927-928, p.
74/ Ibidem.

548 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 931-932, p.
74/ Ibidem.

549 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 930, p. 74/
Ibidem.

219

will seek the sight of God 550 . He considers
his writings as a part of the Church's
Tradition 551 , as authentic transmission of
the divine truth, revealed through per-
sonal revelation from part of God and as a
testimony what will impel considerable on
those who will sanctify their life in the
future.

In the end of his majestic discourse
that I commented, Symeon more gives
another eloquent definition of the
unpassion.

Our Father says that what guards us
unblemished [6l\i6\io\)q] is the ignition into
our being of the one flame and greater of
the fire of divine's desire 552 .

With other words, the unpassion is
the state in which we are full of the glory
of God and in that the glory potentiates
us and more the longing for God, that we
are the true pyres burning by the longing
of God.

From the symeonian exposure
results the fact that the unpassion is a
divine reality at that we arrive at self in
the our ghostual increase, if we listen the
exhortations of the Holy Ghost from our
heart.

550 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 930-931, p.
74/ Ibidem.

551 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 932, p. 74/
Ibidem.

552 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 936-938, p.
74/ Idem, p. 246.

220

The unpassion is our filling of the
divine light and the adaptation at eternal
life still here, on earth.

Any attempt to assimilate of it with
the insensibility or with a state pure
human, at which we arrive through self-
censorship is not found in symeonian
theology.

At our Father the unpassion is a
divine gift reached by one who is cleansed
of passions, which sees the divine light
and he is filled by it, in so kind that he
does not seize anymore the pleasures of
the world, for that he is kidnapped by the
pleasure infinite greater which produces
in him the glory of the world what will
come.

221

2. 5- 3- The Light and the Salva-
tion as Holiness

Saint Symeon sees the true fulfill-
ment of human as the reach to holiness
and he does not propose us a lower bar
for the desire of our heart.

For his Holiness the free will is one
that is able to target a such high [ui^og] 553 ,
because „God wants to make us from
men gods [0eoug], but with our will, not
without our will" 554 .

The proper choice and the fulfillment
of all commandments are at Symeon the
human effort, of course supported by
grace, which we must submit it for to be
proper the name of christian.

In The Ethical Discourse 13 Symeon
says, concerning the conditions of our
sanctification, that we arrive to holiness
„when we observe with accuracy [dKpipcoQ
ir|pa)|iev] all that we promised Him and
will run again for all that we have
rejected, not returning us again at our
vomiting like dogs [II Petr. 2, 22].

By result, if we keep all that He told
us and that says to us the Lord Himself,
we are really faithful [ttlotol], showing
from facts our faith, and make us Saints
['Ay lol ] an d accomplished [zeleioi] as and
He [Mt. 5. 48], in the whole celestial

553 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, VII, 597, p. 198/
Idem, p. 298.

554 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, VII, 598-599, p.
198/ Ibidem.

222

[erTOupavioi], sons [xeKva] of the heavenly
God [Jn. 1, 12], like Him [6|joioi Auico] [I
Jn. 3, 2] in everything, by adoption [Qeoei]
and grace [xapiii]" 555 .

After how is observed from this
quote, Simeon equalizes all the funda-
mental terms of the phrase.

He puts the equal sign between
faithful [ttlotol], Saints ['Ayioi], accom-
plished [xeleioi], heavenly people [eTToupa-
vioi] and the sons of God [0eou xeKva].

With other words, in the multiple
entitling s of holiness we must not see
only a synonymous reality. The true
believers are the Saints and the holiness
means perfection, the filial communion
with God, our filling by heavenly quali-
ties.

The desire to save us, the facts of
our faith and the grace, which are
subsequent to the receipt of the grace
through Baptism, are those that deify us.

In the same discourse, Symeon sees
the sin as non-fulfillment of God's
commandments 556 , which are sacred and
maker-of-life [tcov ayicov Km (goottoigov] 557 .

This sin of the non-deification
through the fulfillment of command-
ments, adds Symeon, has serious conse-
quences on a personal level, for that

555 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, XIII, 185-192, p.
412-414/ Idem, p. 386.

556 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, XIII, 193-204, p.
414/ Idem, p. 387.

557 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, XIII, 193-194, p.
414/ Ibidem.

223

„separate us from the Church of His
servants Saints [zf\Q 'EkkX^oiolq tcov Ayicov
8ouA,cov Auiou] and we put off through sin
the divine garment which we clothe at our
Baptism, and that, as we believe, is Christ
[Gal. 3, 27], and not only that, but we are
deprived of eternal life [if\Q ocIgovlou Ccotic]
and of the shortcoming light itself [tou
dSuiou (jDCOTog], of the eternal goodnesses
[icov alcovLCOv ayaGcov], of consecration
[tou dyiaai-iou] and of adoption [ifig
vioQeoioLc]" 558 '.

And in this second passage quoted,
Symeon aligns the eternal life with the
shortcoming light and with the eternal
goodnesses, that proper realities of living
of the Saints and of the servants of God.

Those who do not fulfill the
commandments, emphasizes he, they are
self-condemned to Gehenna 559 .

But heavenly people, the deified are
those who „see with the mind on the Lord,
...are limpid enlightened and in conscious
face by His light, ...remain always in the
sight of His glory.. .[and] they see in
themselves on God" 560 .

The holiness keep by the command-
ments but and by the presence of grace in
our being and the continue sight of the
divine light.

55 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, XIII, 201-207, p.
414 / Ibidem.

559 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, XIII, 219-220, p.
416/ Ibidem.

560 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, XIII, 270-273, p.
418/ Idem, p. 389.

Those who fall from light and from
the Kingdom of Heavens, says Symeon,
they must repent and cry for to regain
them in themselves 561 .

For not create the impression that he
knew not about what he speaks then
when he speaks about the Saints and
holiness, Symeon gives the real signal-
ments of holiness in The Ethical Dis-
course 9.

Says He, if the nations are
recognized after clothes, ie after the port
which they have it and after the language
which they speak it 562 , „the Saints are
recognized after their decency [Koo|iL6ir|-
toq] and after the becomingness of their
walking [tou euaxrpou paSia|j,aTO<;] and
after others from their outside, but the
distinctive (sign) [yv6pio\ia], proper to
them, with that they come before us is
the word that is born of them with all the
exactness [aKpipdag] and the truth
[dAx|0eia<;]" 563 .

From these details we find that
Symeon puts the equal sign between
holiness and knowledge of the truth.

The Saints are recognizable for those
who are cleansed of passions, namely for
those who see with the eyes of the heart
on the ones from front of them.

5 1 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, XIII, 278-281, p.
420/ Ibidem.

562 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IX, 275-276, p.
240/ Idem, p. 314.

563 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IX, 277-280, p.
240/ Idem, p. 314-315.

225

The Saints are those who are
distinguished by other believers just
through the exactness with that they
understand and debate the teaching of
faith and through the truth and the power
of their words.

Those who have the Ghost in them,
they have and the true faith and the facts
of this belief: „everyone has... the grace of
the Ghost [zr\v x<xpiv tou IIveu|iaTO<;]
through the making -of-good [ctyaQoepyioLc]
and the true faith [aXr\Qwr\Q moiecog]" 564 .

With other words, we cannot have
the grace of the Ghost, we cannot feel
Him in us without the true faith and the
good facts conformable to this divine
faith. For that the grace to be in us, we
must confess and to fulfill the divine fund
of the Orthodox faith.

But Symeon goes far with the string
like endless of his confessions and
presents his reception, of the one who is
filled with holiness, by those who have
nothing to do with holiness:

„And if they hear about someone
that fought in lawful manner in the
commandments of God, that he has been
humbled with heart and with thoughts,
that he was purged from all kinds of
passions and he proclaimed to all the
great things of God [xa iieyocMa tou 0eou]
- namely how God made them for him,
according to His non-lying promises and

5 4 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IX, 290-291, p.
240/ Idem, p. 315.

226

how, then when he spoke to the benefit
of those who heard him, he said that he
was able to see the light of God and God
in light of the glory [Kon;r|£iGo0r| c^cog Ifielv
0eou Km ©ebv kv cj)a)u 6o£r|<;], and how he
knew in conscious face in himself the
quotidian coming and the work of the
Holy Ghost [xr\v ki\i^ioixT\ow Km kvkpyeiav
tou Ayiou IIveuiiaTOc] and he has done
Saint in the Holy Ghost [Ayioq kv Ayia)
Ilve\)\±aT\, ykyovev] - immediately, as some
rabid dogs [icwec, A-uoocoiec] they bark
against him and rush to eat him, if is with
possible, the one who says these" 565 .

The road to holiness begins with
true faith, with the whole process of
cleaning the passions and with personal
revelations of the light and of the divine
mysteries from part of God.

The ferociousness of his opponents
contrasts totally with his complete
entrusting on own holiness, given by the
presence of light in his being.

In measure in that Symeon would be
talking without probations guaranteed to
him by God, without distinction which
brings the light in us, his opponents
would have been legitimate to challenge,
but without to transform in some dogs
ready to tear a man who speaks to them
in peaceful mode.

But then when Symon gives details,
when he brings guarantees over guaran-

5 5 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IX, 359-370, p.
246/ Idem, p. 317.

227

tees about the wonders of God's mercy to
himself, his opponents were fighting not
only with Symeon, but, in the first row,
with God, Who makes all those promised
by Him in those who purify their life by
passions.

The fight of theological's opponents
of Simeon's was a struggle with the Holy
Ghost, namely with One by whom
Symeon spoke.

And in Hymns we find the
identification of salvation with the
holiness.

In the Hymn 34, into an apologetic
context, Symeon said: „Who would have
called Saint [ever] if he not would be
imparted by the Holy Ghost?" [r\ ug
kKlr\Qr\ Ayioc; \ir\ liemoxcov Ayiou Ilve\)[ia-

to?;] 566 .

And as Symeon called impartation
by the Holy Ghost the ecstatic sight, the
Saint is the seer of God, he is one who
feels in him the grace of God.

In the Hymn 42, our Father is more
direct in the equalization of salvation with
holiness.

Speaking of the exclusion of some
from the impartation of Holy Mysteries,
Symeon switches our attention from what
happens with those who not see now the
Sacraments, in the Church, at the
eschatological plan of the Kingdom of
God: „and now sinners are shut out from

566 SC 174, Hymns, XXXIV, 96-97, p. 434/ lea jr.
3, p. 205.

228

the Church and are off with all to impart,
or, better said, those who are not Saints
are deprived even and of the sight the
divine [ific icov Gelcov Qkac, dTToaTepouvmi
ol |j-f| TTeA-oviec Ayioi].

How does, alas!, they will unite then
with the too-undefiled body of God and
they shall be members of Christ [I Cor. 6,
15] defiled? There is not such thing,
brothers, and will not ever happen!

And those who are separated from
the divine body, ie the Church, and the
choir elected, where they will go? Tell! In
what kingdom, in which place they hope
to dwell? Tell me!

For the Paradise and the bosom of
Abraham [Lk. 16, 22] and any place of rest
is surely of the saved [tcov aa)(o|jivG)v].
And the saved are, with safety, all Saints,
according as gives witness and teaches
whole Divine Scripture [ol Se oG)(6|jevoi
dow Ayioi TTaviox; navTeQ coc raoa ©da
|i,apiupe, TpacJiT] Km eKSi6aaKei].

For even if there are many
(dwelling-places) [Jn. 14, 2], they are but
one, ie inside the pantry wedding [tou
vu|j,(t)(ov(x;] [Mt. 22, 10].

For as how is a sl<y and in it the stars
are distinguished between them in the
honor and glory [I Cor. 15, 41], so is one
bridal chamber and a single Kingdom, for
the Heaven, the Holy City and every
place of rest are only God" 567 .

5 7 SC 196, Hymns, XLII, 151-171, p. 48-50/ Idem,
p. 231-232.

In the passage quoted now sees very
clear, how the existence in the Church
requires a holy life, for that you to be
proper the Holy of God, the Holy
Communion and holiness is for the saved.
And although they differ between them
as degree of holiness, they live with all in
the same Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God does not
presuppose a uniformity of holiness, for
that the holiness keeps the person and its
uniqueness.

The uniqueness of the relation of
the Saint with God means the personal
degree of holiness, which God receives
such how it is, as long as is a together-
work with Him.

Our Father speaks about salvation
as holiness but he does not indicate
standards to achieve for to be proper to
the Kingdom.

Into a personal definition of
salvation, he says: „the salvation is
absolution from all evils and, therewith,
the finding eternal of all the best" 568 .

But, although he speaks here about
what we receive in eternity, however the
absolution of passions, of the bad and the
finding of the best forever to experiences
still at now and continues in all eternity.

As far as we are concerned, for us is
very evident the realistic tone of Saint
Symeon in relation to salvation.

5 Idem, Hymns, XLII, 205-206, p. 52/ Idem, p.

232.

230

For his Holiness there is no
salvation of the rank one for Saints and
salvation of the rank second for other
believers. In his theology, the salvation
have the character of the most sustained
communion with God, in that all what
happens with us is an interior evidence
and in that the holiness is not an exterior
mirage to which all run on forever but,
rather, is a conscious interiorization and a
personal understanding all more pro-
found of God's glory.

Just therefore it seems to us very
realistic and credible expressed his
soteriology, for that the salvation is at
Symeon a predatory interior reality, is the
foundation of the believer's personal life
and presupposes a continuous supply de-
tails of living it.

Symeon cannot talk about an
unconscious salvation or indifferent of
people as long as the gracious link with
God presupposes awareness of it, joy, the
holiness and the illumination by grace.

Symeonian soteriology is a natural
prolongation of triadology and of his
christology, where, as we showed in the
previous sections, God unites Himself
through His glory, in conscious mode and
full, with he who purifies by passions and
who fulfills His commandments from a
great longing of God 569 .

569 Commenting the contribution of Father
Professor Dumitru Staniloae at the understanding of
the symeonian theology, Father Vasile Pop said into an
article of him: „Only loving God and only in the

231

In Chapters, I, 7, Symeon speaks
about the indwelling of the Trinity in the
perfected as about a intensification and
greater of their longing after God.

He says: „The indwelling in
conscious face and felt of the tri-
hypostatic Godhead in the perfect [zoiq
zeleioic] is not a fulfillment of their
longing [of God] but, rather, a beginning
and a cause of a loging [of Him] even
bigger and stronger" 570 .

If to the perfect ones the personal
holiness seems a continuous state of non-
holiness is by itself understood that
Symeon could not speak about a
salvation in that the holiness is not
present.

To be Saints means for Symeon to
stand in grace and fill us always by grace,
ie to manifest us in normal mode, as
some orthodox christians conscious of
our relation with God.

What is the most baffling for the
postmodern reader of Saint Symeon is
that, at him the holiness is not put on a
pedestal, at that reach only some, but it is
the most natural print, quotidian, banal

consciousness that is loved by God, the man forward
into a life that never tires of God", cf. Rev. Lect. D.Th.
Vasile Pop, The Man and God. Hymns of Saint Symeon
the New Theologian in the Writings of Father Dumitru
Staniloae [Omul si Dumnezeu. Imnele Sfdntului Simeon
Noul Teolog in scrierile parintelui Dumitru Staniloae], in
rev. The Theological Horizons [Orizonturi teologice] II
(2001), nr. 1, p. 72.

570 SC 51, Chapters, I, 7, 3-6, p. 42/ Idem, p. 366.

232

we could say, of an orthodox christian life
at that we can reach everyone.

The universalistic character of
symeonian soteriology and non-typo-
logical in the same time manifests as an
organic work of the Church, because the
entry in Church through Baptism means
the beginning of personal holiness in that
you can move forward at endless.

For Symeon no one can obstruct our
relation with God and the advance in
holiness, as long as growth means con-
tinuous increase in the communion with
Him and receiving sustained help from
His part towards to understand Him and
more.

In the last passage which I quoted
from Chapters appears before us a reality
of perfection refelt always as personal
imperfection.

Namely the indwelling of the Trinity
in the perfect does not mean a maladive
state of jubilation, of proud jubilation
but, on the contrary, gives rise at a
unchecked longing towards the coverage
of that ico dieAiaTO) xkkei [end without
end] of the love of God.

Reaching at end, as says Symeon,
reaching at the perfection in holiness,
which is always a personal measure and
not an impersonal one, does not propa-
gate in us the feeling that we have
reached at a satisfactory final from
personal point of view but, instead, the
one that we have not found a beginning

233

[dpxT]v] of our longing and of our love for

God 571 .

For that they cannot to comprise the
perfection of love for God, the perfect
have the consciousness that they do not
love God 572 , for that they do not feel fully
fulfilled in their love for God.

This consciousness of impetuous
love of those perfect, always refelt as
imperfect and deficient, gives rise at the
most profound and misunderstood hu-
mility for those who are not ghostual
men, for that Saints consider themselves
unworthy of God's salvation 573 .

The sinfulness on which imput to
themselves the perfect, in definitive, is
not just at the level of the coarse, in that
are deepened the sins of juvenescences
and of their ignorance but, instead, it
comes from feeling of their unperfection
in front of supraperfection of God's glory.

The experience of divine light
creates the consciousness of the congen-
ital imperfection of the perfect. They
understand in those ecstatic moments,
with all their being, that they can never
be proper to the divine light, for that they
will never can to comprise the greatness
of its discoveries.

The humility of Saints arises from
the greatness of discoveries [II Cor. 12, 7],
as to paraphrase on The Divine Paul,

Idem, Chapters, I, 8, 14-15, p. 42/ Ibidem.
Idem, Chapters, I, 8, 15-17, p. 42/ Ibidem.
Idem, Chapters, I, 8, 17-19, p. 42/ Ibidem.

234

from the deep intimate of them with
God, being a charismatic state.

It is not with priority the outgrowth
of remembrance of proper deeds but, in
essential mode, is an understanding of
proper power, a reduced power, to en-
compass the glory of God.

The feeling of the grace is the
earnest [dppocpcov] 574 and the full en-
trusting [TTA<r|poc})opLav] 575 of our salvation.

In symeonian soteriology this
enunciation represents a capital truth for
the authentication of an orthodox be-
liever.

The authentic orthodox beliver is
the conscious of the treasure of grace
from himself, which not extinguish the
torch of grace from him and is seer of
divine glory through his continual
cleansing of passions.

This believer lives in history and is
identifiable by other confreres, which and
they were cleansed of passions and are
filled of the Ghost, as gives testimony our
Father: „and now are unpassioned
[anaGdg] men, Saints [Xyioi] and [men]
filled of divine light [TTeTTAx|po|jivoi tou
Geiou (jDCOiog], which spend in our midst
and kill their until into both all their
earthly [members] [Col. 3, 5] of all
uncleanness and passionate appetence,
that not only that do not think or no
more starting sometime, from them-

Idem, Chapters, III, 47, 4, p. 94/ Idem, p. 408.
Idem, Chapters, III, 47, 7, p. 94/ Ibidem.

235

selves, to do the evil, but nor when are
dragged to this by another do not suffer
any change of unpassion, which is proper
to them" 576 .

Symeon knew from himself the
holiness and he saw it and in those who
lived orthodox. He did not feel like an
imperious need the reporting at the past
of Church for to talk about holiness, for
that he confessed openly about the
holiness of Church's men contemporary
to himself.

His theology speaks about this
continuous reality of holiness in the
Church and, implicit, about the Church's
holiness, as Body of Christ.

In the Catechesis 14, that treats just
about the reality of ghostual experience,
Symeon talks about the absolute con-
sciousness of the one that purifies the
passions, about this the divine-human
process that occurs in him: the one that
puts over his passions „the command-
ments like some medicines, and the trials
as on a hot iron, humbling and crying and
requiring boiling the help of God, he sees
clearly the grace of the Holy Ghost
coming [bpa kvapytic, xr\v xapiv tou Ayiou
Tlve\)\iazoQ i\apayevo\ievr\v], snatching them
and erasing them one by one, until his
soul is made with completely free of all
this. Because the coming of the Ghost
does not make him worthy of freedom [to

57 Idem, Chapters, III, 87, 9-16, p. 108/ Idem, p.

419.

236

the passions] just in part, but in
accomplished face and clean [xeXdox; Km
KaGapcog]" 577 .

The same awareness of the cleaning
appears and less later, in the catechesis
cited anterior, where Symeon affirms in
trenchant mode, that „God, He who
dwells in him, teaches on an such man
about the future and the present, not
through word, but through work, through
experience and reality [epyw Km TTeLpa km,
TTpctYM-ftTi]. Because God revealing to his
mind's eye, looks him how many wants
[He] and how many are useful to him [the
faithful], and the other [that exceeds
him] convinces him not to seek and nor
to search, nor to spy out with curiosity,
because even those that God reveals to
him and shows them [expressly] he can
not looks with shamelessness" 51 .

Our relation of communion with
God is the one in the frame of which we
learn from our own illuminations of the
grace.

The measure of our ghostual
knowledge is given by the measure where-
with God shows us those of His.

What exceeds us, that measure at
that we cannot reach noway, is one that
we do not even want it, for that we can
not have the longing by it in our heart, if

577 SC 104, The Catecheses, XIV, 88-96, p. 210/ lea
jr. 2, p. 179.

578 Idem, The Catecheses, XIV, 150-157, p. 216/
Idem, p. 181.

237

God would have not attracted us to the
boundless horizons of this longing.

In the measure in that we feel an
untold wish to God, at a some personal
intensity and we see that we cannot more
than that, for Symeon this thing means
that we intuited the measure of our
ghostual living.

For that, as said and Father
Professor Dumitru Staniloae, the sight of
God „not means that God is known in
perfect mode. He remains and for the
eastern christian always a mystery. For
never the light received from the person
of Christ is not a complete understanding
of His person and of the Holy Trinity" 579 .

Looking the unbeatable chaining of
the symeonian reasonings, extracted from
direct experience of holiness, we cannot
reach at an other conclusion than of his
and namely at the fact that the personal
salvation is a personal advance in
holiness, ie in living in and through the
grace of God.

Our Father does not grant the
monopoly of holiness to a certain
categories of believers from the Church,
but he confesses one salvation for all, on

579 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The
Personal Link with Christ in the Light of Divine Infinity,
after Saint Symeon the New Theologian [Legatura
personala cu Hristos in lumina infinitdfii dumnezeiesti,
dupd Sfdntul Simeon Noul Teolog], in Orthodox
Dogmatic Theology Studies [Studii de teologie dogma-
tied ortodoxa], op. cit., p. 316.

238

measure of everyone, as personal sensing
of divine glory, as a sacred link with God
the Holy and as an eternal communion
with Him.

For Saint Symeon, the holiness is the
normal state, quotidian of the christian
orthodox, that is learned primarily from
the relation alive, gracious and ecstatic
with God and not from books or through
an exterior mimicry of it.

239

2. 5- 4- The Union with God and
the Communional Images

The pre-critical editions and the
critical of symeonian operas suffer of
what we call false-puritanical pudibondery
and, equally, and many of the articles
which dealt of symeonian opera, then
when is puted the problem of reception of
the communional images, of biblical
paradigms or realistic, which illustrates
the relation between God and believers
who see His glory.

From our point of view, we believe
that a such ghostual impotence, which
manifests as lack of appetency for the
realistic-mystical expression of Symeon,
fundamented on the paradigm of the
Incarnation, comes from the fact that the
authors suffer from advanced docetism
and of damaging interior non-alignment
at the mysterious process of deification,
where all these become current personal
realities.

The advanced docetism about that
we speak defends in theological terms the
total reality of the Incarnation in
christological dogma but it cannot to
accept its real consequences and in the
frame of personal salvation.

The interior non-alignment at the
process of deification represents just the
lack of any interior reporting at the trini-
tarian God, through the ascesis cleansing

240

of passions, for to reach at the sight of
divine light.

But both syntagms, under umbrella
of whom we have grouped a whole serie
of theologians, that have nothing to do
with real mystical experience and that
contests it in terms how can the clear,
from different personal motives, these
two talk about the divorce and the
schizoidy, really staggering, between the
theology as archiving of theological datas
and charismatic theology, as direct expe-
rience and contemporary of us of Trinity's
life.

Saint Symeon precisely against of
such theology and of such theologians,
that had nothing to do with the direct link
with God and considered it superfluous,
gave them the realistic replicas of the
union of God with the believers.

His vehemence was not based on
vainglory and on the revanchist sentiment
that he must to give a rough replication
of their, but on the direct experience of
the mysteries of deification and on the
zeal to confess the truth in full mode.

Thus, in the ethical Discourse 1,
Symeon speaks of our communion with
God, quoting copiously from John 14 and
17 580 and concluding: „the union [evcoaiv]
which [the Son] has it in the natural
[(Jduolkcoc] face with His Father, on this He

5 0 The verses quoted here are Jn. 14, 20; 17, 20;
21; 22; 24; 26, acc. SC 122, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6,
40-57, p. 226-228/ lea jr. 1, p. 133.

241

promises to have in grace [kv xapiii] and
to us, if we want [ekv QeX(x>\iev]" 581 .

The same thing will be repeated still
two times in the discourse quoted, he
said: „the glory which the Father gave the
Son, the Son gives us through the divine
grace [SlSgooiv r\\iw Qda xapni]; and a
thing even greater is that, like He is in
the Father and the Father in the Son, so
the Son of God will be in us, and we, if we
want [el pouA,6|ie0a], we will be in grace in
the Son" 582 , for that „He taught that the
union [evcoaiv] which He has with His
Father, the one we have and we in similar
[6|i0L0)g] face with Him" 583 .

The reality of the man's union with
God connects at Symeon with the full
assumption of human nature by God the
Word.

Just for that the Logos of God took
the entire human body and He has made
God and man, Symeon speaks about a fill
of light of each part of our body.

Our deification does not exclude any
part of the body and the our soul, for that
Christ has deified, in full mode, the body
and His soul, which He assumed in His
pre-existing hypostasis.

From this integral assumption of
humanity and from its pnevmatization, ie

5 1 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 63-65, p.
228/ Ibidem.

582 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 68-72, p.
228/ Idem, p. 134.

583 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 118-119, p.
232/ Idem, p. 135.

242

from the reality resurrected and glorified
body of the Lord, Saint Symeon speaks
about a pnevmatic soteriology, in the
frame of it the man is integral filled of
light and makes like of the Lord's body
[conf. Phil. 3, 21].

His exemplifications, in our opinion,
are admirable through their concreteness
and their theological non-ambiguity,
alike with the communional images of
Scripture.

In the following we will debate a
series of communional images from
symeonian theology, which have scandal-
ized on many, but which have not
another role, than on that to touch, with
the utmost rigor, the divine reality of our
real communion with God.

We have, therefore, a realism of the
image, of the human paradigm which
illustrates the personalist realism of our
union with God.

And we begin our descent theo-
logical in the personalistic symeonian
imagology with the image of the divine
breastfeeding.

In the ethical Discourse 4, into a
context full christologic-pnevmatological,
where the deified are presented as
dressing in Christ, ie in light and
„they see themselves adorned with an
unspeakable glory and with a divine
garment bright" 584 and where the Master

584 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 264-265, p.
26/ Idem, p. 226.

243

„makes Himself to them food and eternal
drink and immortal" 585 , in this context
Symeon introduces the image of the
divine breastfeeding about that I was
talking, paraphrasing and changing in the
same time the pauline image of the
paternal breastfeeding from I Cor. 3, 1-2.

In concrete, Symeon says: and the
Master „is seen by some, as a bright
breast [c})G)ToeiSTi<; |-ia(6<;] puts in the
mouth of their mind [to tou vooq ocutcov
oz6\iolxi €\ifioLXX6\i€VO(;] and that gives to
suck [0r|A,a(eiv] those, how many are
babes [vtittioi] in Christ [I Cor. 3, 1-2] and
are not in state to receive solid food
[oxepe&Q Tpo(J)f]<;], whom He makes
suddenly food and drink, and produces
them a such sweetness, that they do not
want or, rather, nor cannot to wrest from
Him. And to those weaned [oL-noyoLloL-
ktlo06lol] He behaves like a loving parent
of children guiding [-noLidoLyuytiv] and
educating [TTaiSdcov] them" 586 .

Commuting such the center of
weight from the ghostual Father [pauline
paradigm] at the heavenly Father
[symeonian paradigm], the text of face
cannot provoke adverse reactions, as long
as it expresses, very direct, the reality of
divine sight. The divine light, the initial
ecstasy is for beginners as a breast, which

5 5 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 270-271, p.
26/ Ibidem.

586 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 271-279, p.
26-28/ Idem, p. 226-227.

244

nurtures and develops them towards the
receiving of solid food, ie of the divine
dogmas understood ecstatic.

Symeon does not bring in prime-
plan the image of divine breastfeeding for
to fall into a sexual boarding coarser of
the ecstasy, how accuse those who are
ashamed, about whom we were talking at
beginning, but he uses the pauline
paradigm at the ecstatic and realistic
level of the mystical feeding.

The difference between vtittioi and
the ones dmyakaKxioQeioi, ie between the
suckers babes and those who finished
with breastfeeding, confirms the differ-
ence of degree of holiness between those
who start on the road of holiness,
enlightened being by the sight of the
Trinity's glory and those who are guided
through light, those the mystery of God.

The image of divine breastfeeding or
of the sight of light as a breast bright
expresses, as was seen, a distinction of the
mystical experience extreme of important
and not a motive of stumbling for the
readers of Saint Symeon.

All in the ethical Discourse 4,
Symeon builds, on base of the pauline
place from Eph. 4, 13, the image of the
perfect man, where he analyzes each part
of the mystical body of this man, ie of his
virtues. What scandalizes again in this
description extreme of interesting and of
divine is the reality of the hidden parts of
man.

245

But precisely this reality of the
hidden parts, identified with the sexual
organs of man, represents the greatest
virtues of the mystic.

We render the symeonian passage
with the cause, as to see the full
enunciation of our Father:

„The members and the parts that
must covered [\ielr\ Km |j,6pia a kyKalm-
zeoQai xpecov] are unceasing prayer of the
mind, sweetness of the tears that comes
from their shedding, gladness of heart
and its unspeakable comfort" 587 .

The general context of this
imagological paradigm suggests us very
clearly, that is not the word about the
internal parts of the human body, for that
these are analyzed step by step, in
phrases itself standing, as and these of
face, but the sexual organs of the man,
taken as a paradigm, for to contemplate
the ghostually [TTveuiiaiLKCog 0ecopou|ieva] 588
his constitutive parts - this emphasizes
Symeon - and not bodily and sensual.

If for kidneys and loin, understood
mystically, Symeon cites Scripture in
abundant mode [Ps. 25, 2; Eph. 6, 14; I
Pet. 1, 13; Eph. 3, 6; I Cor. 9, 23] 589 , for the
sexual organs, understood mystically, he
does not bring any scriptural argument,

5 7 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 375-378, p.
34/ Idem, p. 229-230.

588 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 370, p. 34/
Idem, p. 229.

589 Acc. Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 382-
390, p. 36/ Idem, p. 320.

246

but all the arguments which brings are
itself virtues as such, that he designates
right secret experiences, mystical, of
ghostual human.

The unceasing prayer of the mind [r\
aSiaXeiTrroc; eu%f] Kara vow] - behold, a
new argument of the hesychast
experience of Saint Symeon! - that was
the real frame in that he sees the light of
God, is accompanied by the sweetness of
tears, of the joy of heart and of
unspeakable comfort, which lives the
ghostual man that lives clean and sees
divine light.

The verb kocA<utttg), an extension of
the root Kodup, where comes and Kodupri
[hut] 590 , indicates us that those who are
covered, those parts covered are, of fact,
very intimate, very personal for us and
are guarded from malicious glances,
hostile.

As and the sexual organs, covered
from good shame, correct, all the same
and the secret things of ghostual life, tells
us, with other words, Symeon, are and
must be kept in the secret of our hearts,
as long as there is not someone who
wants to know, with humbleness and
longing after the divine truth, those that
occur in the deep of being of those who
deifies.

The disclosure without attention of
the divine discoveries, without discern-
ment, without reporting at auditorium is

Cf. Liddell-Scott Lexicon, 21632, apud BW 07.

247

an act of ghostual indecency, alike to that
to expose us the naked body in front of
masses of people.

The ghostual exhibitionism, as and
the bodily besides, asks persons with that
we have a great communion or that binds
us a ghostual experience similar as inten-
sity.

All into a christologic-pnevmatolo-
gical context, in the Hymn 15, Saint
Symeon chooses to talk about „the
frightening things" 591 of our deification.

These frightening things through
their divine beauty and through their
greatness non-understood are the conse-
quence of the fact that the Son took flesh
and gave us on His Ghost the divine and
made us on all His relatives, a single
house of David 592 .

Besides the fact that we are o-nkp\±a,
the divine [seed] of Christ, and more
frightening is, tells us, in pressed mode,
our Father, that our Lord is together with
us and now and in ages and He lives in all
who love Him, being in entirety with
us 593 .

The adjective oXoq [integer], fol-
lowed by a second, of \iovoq [single], make
crucial distinctions in 15, 134-136.

Symeon insists on the defining value
of the two adjectives for to show that our
relation with Christ is integral, without

591 SC 156, Hymns, XV, 115, p. 286/ lea jr. 3, p. 93.

592 Idem, Hymns, XV, 122-124, P- 286/ Ibidem.

593 Idem, Hymns, XV, 129-134, p. 286-288/
Ibidem.

248

rest and that the mystical relation has not
intermediaries but is a relation \±6vov
\±6voq, of the single with the One single,
with the Single 594 .

The integrality of relation with
Christ of the believer is a direct result of
the integral assumption and of the
integral deification of His humanity, on
the one hand and, on the other hand, our
communion with Christ realizes through
His Ghost, through the sight of the divine
light, in direct mode, living only with
God and through Him.

Into a natural gradation of the
exposure, Symeon announces us things
and more shattering than what said so
far 595 , the fact that „make us members of
Christ [I Cor. 6, 15], and Christ makes
Himself our members" 596 .

With this phrase begins the dilem-
matic passage, where Symeon confesses
the presence of Christ in every part of our
body:

„Christ [makes Himself] my hand,
Christ [makes Himself] my foot, of the
very-villain, and I, the villain, [make
myself] the hand of Christ and foot of
Christ. I move the hand and Christ in
entirety is my hand - for, understand me!,
is undivided [d|iepiaTov] the divine God-
head -, I move the foot and, behold!, it
flashes as He.

594 Idem, Hymns, XV, 135, p. 288/ Ibidem.

595 Idem, Hymns, XV, 140, p. 288/ Ibidem.

596 Idem, Hymns, XV, 141, p. 288/ Ibidem.

249

Do not say that / blaspheme, but
receive these and give worship to Christ,
That makes you [oe ttolouvtl] thus!

For if you want and you [oh
0eAr|aeia<;], you would become and you
member of Him, and so all the members
every one of us will be members of Christ
and Christ our members; and all the
indecent He will make them decent [I
Cor. 12, 23-24], adorning them with the
beauty and the glory of the Godhead, and
we will make gods coexisting together
with God, no-longer-seeing at all the
indecency of the body, but all likening us
with Christ through all the body and
every member of our will be Christ
integer.

For He becoming many, He remains
undivided, and each is Christ Himself
integer. You recognize so unwrong that
Christ is and the finger, indeed and [my
sexual] organ [palavov] and did you not
tremble and were you not ashamed?

For God did not ashamed to make
Himself like you, but you are ashamed to
make yourself like that One ['AUa 0e6<;
aoi o\±o\,oc, ouk fioxw0r| yevkoQai ou Se
6K6LVC0 o\ioioc, aioxwr\ yeYOvevai;]?

I am not ashamed, say you, to make
me like the One, but when I heard you
talking, that the One makes Himself like
of the shameful member [tou doxrpovog
|aeA,ou<;], has sneaked me in soul the
thought that you say a blasphemy.

250

- Evil you think, for these are not
shameful [ou aaxrpa]. But they are secret/
hidden [KpuiTia] members of Christ, for
they cover and for the fact that they are
more honorable than others [I Cor. 12,
23], as secret/ hidden members and
unseen by all of the One Mysterious,
from That is given the seed [I In. 3, 9] in
the divine copulation ou to oi\ep\ia,
SiSomi kv owoDo'm Geia], formed in shat-
tering face in the divine form by the
whole Godhead itself, for is God whole
He who unites with us \pkoc, 0e6<; yap oq
ouvevourai |ie0' rpcov], o, shattering mys-
tery!

And is made, indeed, an ineffable
wedding and divine [yaiiog 6 appriiog Km
Oelog]: God unites/ copulates/ mix [\iiyv\)-
mi] with each of us and - I will say again
these - each unites of pleasure with the
Master" 597 .

To see from this ample quoted text,
that Symeon substantiates his theological
affirmations on two capital realities: on
the integrality of assumption of human
nature by God and on the mystical
experience of deification.

Christ was not ashamed to take the
integer human flesh and to become man,
deifying and the human sexual organs
but we are ashamed to talk about the
integral assumption of the body by Him
and we do not want to see how happens

597 Idem, Hymns, XV, 142-177, p. 288-292/ Idem,
p. 93-95.

251

and in us this total deification of our
body.

For Symeon is not a blasphemy to
speak about Lord's genitality, as long as
the problem in cause is seen as trans-
figured reality, full of light at His Resur-
rection from the dead.

If the resurrected body of the Lord
was full of glory, wants to tell us Symeon
and the entire teaching of the Church,
then and we will be full of glory, still now,
if we deify our whole being.

But it should be emphasized here
that our full union with the Lord and His
existence in every member of our full of
light is a direct consequence of the
hypostatic union, for that Symeon speaks
about a union of us with the deity of
Christ, which is not divided after the
number of our members or after the
number of people who partake of it.

From this passage is seen very clear
the steadfastness of Saint Symeon on the
integralist aspect of the assumption of the
human body in the hypostasis of the
Logos, without which there cannot be the
salvation and the deification of believers.

Symeon defends the filling of grace
and the deification of human sexual
organs of the Lord, after how Saints
before him had defended, against Apol-
linarius toward example, the existence of
mind and of human reason in His
humanity.

252

Only if God took and deified every
human member we can talk about our
real deification.

The soteriological symeonian real-
ism is the soteriological realism of
Church from always, which is based on
unspeakable hypostatic interpenetration
of deity and of humanity in the person of
the incarnate Word and on the abyssal
relation, through the Ghost, of Christ
with all believers.

Just therefore Symeon insists on the
reality of union and of our wedding with
God.

When Symeon speaks about
ouvouoia Qda or about ydiioc, does not
refer at something exterior but at the
abyssal relation which the glory of God
provokes in our being.

Citing I Jn. 3, 9 and speaking about
the seed of God, about the light that gives
birth to us as sons of God and that unites
us with the trinitarian God, Symeon does
not make than an extensive exegesis of
the johanneic place.

His entire theological structure is
substantiated scriptural and experiential
and it can deduces very easy, if we follow
the scriptural quotations that appear in
his texts as motives of the theological dis-
sertation or as milestones of identification
of his own ghostual experiences.

The union, our wedding with God or
the sight of His divine light are one and
the same reality. The multiplicity of

253

forms in that talking about ecstasy does
not want to draw the attention, than on
the fact that the nuances of each human
characterizations of divine sight repre-
sents the unspeakable richness of
meanings of the direct experience of the
divine sight.

The Scripture and the Fathers,
using diverse examples for to explain us
the divine sight tell us in definitive, that
it is a reality much too overwhelming that
any human example to be able to deplete
or to encircle into a mode proper to itself.

The scriptural and theological
discourse about the Kingdom of God and
about the sight have the role only to
increase the longing after their experi-
encing and do not replace experience as
such.

Therefore they are invitations,
continuous suggestionarises of our love
of God, for to want to taste the unspoken
ones of God.

This thing is seen and in the case of

the image of the poor and of the

598

princess^ .

The princess, embodiment of the
divine light, stays in her bedroom
[koitcovoq] [r. 879] and the poor lover sits
out, humiliated for his miserable condi-
tion.

But if princess, alias the divine light,
through a small opening [4k |iiKpa<; oTrrjg]

598 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 874-892, p.
70-72/ lea jr. 1, p. 244.

254

[r.88i] of the heavenly tent, stretches her
hand covered with gold, then the lover
wants to have as wife for ever.

When the hand of princess, ie the
light, withdraws and he does not see
anything, the poor lives „an unbearable
pain" [0ATii|av acj)6pr|T0v] [r. 888] and fills
of a longing and more vividly for the light.

The image of the lover for persons
heavy accessible is an introduction in the
discussion about the crossing from
knowledge of God through the contem-
plation of His creation at the sight of His
glory.

The contemplation of the creatures,
says Symeon, is a climb in stairs at the
love, the faith and the pure fear of the
Lord 599 . But those who „have united in
beingly face with God \ovolo)5cjq xQ 0ecp]
Himself and were worthy of the sight
[Qeac] and the His impartation [|ie0e^eo)g],
are not attracted in passionate face or
with passionate union of the icon of
those created, nor of the shadow of those
seen.

For their thinking spending in those
beyond of feeling [uiTep aia0r|aiv] and
being mingled with them and clothed
with the brightness of the divine nature,
they do not have the feeling straightened
to those seen as and before" 600 .

599 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 911-917, p.
72-74/ Idem, p. 245.

600 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 917-924, p.
74/ Ibidem.

255

Our interior accommodation with
the divine light is that which moves/ take
out our feeling from union with the world
and unites us with those of eternity.

In symeonian theology, the pas-
sional part of our being is not desired to
be destroyed or diminished perhaps, but
directed towards the divine light and
towards the wishing of God and
continuous potentiated.

As well as the volitional part of
being the believer as well Siavoioc, our
thinking are redirected by the sight of
light and just in our filling of light find us
the true natural movement of human
being.

The ghostual life is not at Symeon a
superior floor of human existence but the
true mobility of our being, the true
dynamism and the real fulfillment of us
in the relation with God. Life in God is
the normal life of the man and it is a life
of holiness.

The image of the cutting of the
darkness 601 is synonymous in its under-
standing with the opening of the bedroom
from before.

The Master of the world put the
darkness of His light as concealment/
cover [aTOKpupT]v] [r. 166] of Him.

But when He wants to renew us the
being with all, to rise us from the dead
through the light of His glory [r. 167-168],

601 SC 122, The Ethical Discourses, I, 12, 166-183,
p. 284-286/ Idem, p. 155-156.

256

then He „will cut the darkness [Siaiei-ivei
to GKOiog] and will pass on there our
mind and He will lean on there as
through an opening ott^c] and He will
let us see Him into an indistinct face, as
can be seen the disc of the sun or of the
moon.

From here the mind learns itself, or,
better said, it knows [ylvcook€l] and is
initiated [jiueiTai], entrusting itself that
there is not, with true, another partial
impartation Ij-iepiKfi |ieioxfj] by the
goodies the uttered of God" [r. 169-175]
than this.

The cutting of the darkness and the
crossing through the opening are not than
two suggestive images of the ecstasy.

The habituation with the divine light
from the final of the ethical Discourse 1
designates however the quotidian experi-
ence of the light, that is no longer a
lightning rapture of us by the light, but a
cohabitation with the light, a continuous
experience with it, according as live it the
perfect in holiness.

In this divine state, the perfect, says
Symeon, learns from light „ wonders over
wonders and mysteries over mysteries
and sights over sights, being illuminated
by it, as to say so, in all the clock. [...] For
if he would want to write this things, he
would not reach any paper or any ink,

257

but he would lack, I believe, and the time
to tell them in detailedness" 602 .

The state of the quotidian sight of
the light in our being is not a ecstasy but
a cohabitation with light, where the
deified „sees himself [in light] and the
ones concerning himself and on those
nearly of his and he predicts, knowing
beforehand [many things].

And he knows that, if he will reach
outside of this prison, and even and more
after the resurrection [of all from the
dead] and he will see this light of
unbearable [aoieKiov] so as is it, [then he
will see] and the goodies from that" 603 .

But for to reach at the divine light,
as presence and continuous sight in our
being, Symeon puts us before the image
the dead bones that cannot be reani-
mated, raised at life than of the Ghost of
God.

In the ethical Discourse 7, Symeon
shows that the bones of all our virtues
cannot form a living man, a full man,
without the presence of the Holy Ghost
in us:

„For as, if someone put dead bone
[tic; ootouv veicpov] near dead bone and
articulation [apiioviav] near articulation
[Eze. 37, 7-8]. ..[this] at nothing uses, if is
not the One who makes to see flesh and
nerves [over them] and He makes not to

602 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, 1, 12, 426-431, p.
302/ Idem, p. 163.

603 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 12, 434-439,
p. 304/ Ibidem.

258

unite the articulations with the nerves, all
so if over those dead bones is put flesh
and skin and is made from them a body,
again neither this will not be of any use,
[if] lacking the Ghost, Who makes alive
and moves it, ie [if] is devoid of soul" 604 .

The presence of the grace in us
represents for Symeon the soul of our
ghostual life.

Everything that we undertake for
our salvation is not guaranteed than by
the divine light, which, then when it
comes in us, entrustes us by the truth of
love and of our zeal for the holy life.

In the image of the girded oven, of
the soul full by the fire of Godhead,
Symeon shows the cleaning and the our
filling by light, as union with the light
and as brightness of us through it:

„As the girded oven [kKKai6\ievoQ
KAipavoc]... after to gird strong, it makes
wiht all transparent and like the fire... so
and the soul. ..after what. ..were consumed
[all bad ones from it, from the cause of
light,] ...remains only the being of the soul
without passions [r\ zf\Q tyvxf\Q ouola \iovr\
Xcoplc TTaGouc]..., [moment in that] the
divine fire and inmmaterial unites with it
in beingly [ouaicoScoc;] face and presently
this lights and shines and imparts [of
light].

[For]. ..he imparts by the divine light
and unspeakable [Geiou Km dpprjiou cj)0)-

604 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, VII, 310-318, p.
178/ Idem, p. 289.

259

toq], and he makes fire through im-
partation [\ikQ^iv] ,,6o \

The image of union of the divine fire
with our being is a personalization of all
what means ardent dynamism in Scrip-
ture.

Saint Symeon uses from full the
image of the light and of the fire, as and
that of the divine enthusiasm, of unspeak-
able joy for to emphasize the paradigm of
the divine sight.

If in the last image presented by us,
the fire of the light ignited the heart and
melted any impurity of heart, in the
image of the bride who unites with her
Bridegroom, the principal print that is
fixed us in soul, that is transmitted us to
understanding, is the cleanness of heart.

In the ethical Discourse 15, the bride
[vu|i(j)r|], our clean soul, our whole being
full of cleanness, „unites to sleep [irj
evcoaei ovyKOixaCoiievoQ] with the Bride-
groom Christ and rises together with Him
[ouvavLoiaiievog] towards eternal life or,
instead, [she remains] in Him always and
she bears on Him, Who [remained] in

i_ »6o6

her

The conjugal union between bride
and Bridegroom is real and it is one from
the traditional mystical expressions of
union with light.

05 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, VII, 521-537, p.
192-194/ Idem, p. 296.

606 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, XV, 34-37, p.
446/ Idem, p. 401.

260

Symeon does not use only on evcooLg
in equation, but he precises, as and Paul
in Ephes. 5, 23-32, that this union is one
that is making in Koliog, in the conjugal
bed, ie in the largest profoundness of our
being.

In the Hymn 15 appears the same
image of the bride, of the soul-bride of
Christ, where „the all souls become brides
with which unites [evoumi] The Creator,
and they [unite] the same with Him, and
has place the ghostual wedding [6 ycL\ioQ
t\V€\)\iolxik(x)q\ , This mingling [ou|i|iLyvu|ie-
voq] with them into a proper mode to
God" 607 .

Symeon, as and Paul, does not
render a libidinous image, lascivious of
our relation with God, as a sublimation of
sexuality and as a hypostasiation of it in
the sphere of our mystical reports with
God, but he uses the realism and the
dynamics of sexual union as paradigm of
union with God, which leaves in us real
traces, concrete, deep.

The image of the conjugal union is
deep scriptural and patristic, Symeon
doing nothing, than to give a personal-
ization very suggestive, clear, striking in
the good sense of the word, for the one
who meets it in his writings.

Saint Symeon has the astounding
quality of to be conqueror in his writings,
precisely in that he uses quotidian

07 SC 156, Hymns, XV, 221-223, P- 2 94-/ lea j r - 3>

p. 96.

26l

images, extreme of known, banal, which
raises them, suddenly, at the deep value
of the mystical experience and, through
that, he explains the deepest mysteries of
deification.

The conjugal union or the
drunkenness - as we will show
immediately - realities very concrete and,
at the first sight, having nothing to do
with the ecstasy, they become at Symeon
approachs to the mystery of holiness, of
the divine union between God and the
believer man for eternity.

On Symeon interests no the
conformity of the example, of the
paradigm with the mystical union,
ecstatic, but the one between the senses
of paradigm, which he emphasizes it in
evident mode.

In the Catechesis 23 608 , where he
conforms the joy of seeing the light with
the drunkenness which provokes us the
wine, Symeon is not attentive than at two
aspects: that of the euphoria which
provokes the mystical sight and of its
realism in our entire being.

The euphoria of the sight of divine
light aligned of the euphoria of the wine
is characterized through the strong
attraction to it [r. 161], through the
delectation which he feels when he sees
the light [r. 164], through the
insatiableness with that he wants it [r.

608 SC 113, The Catecheses, XXIII, 158-201, p. 24-
28/ lea jr. 2, p. 254-255.

262

165-167], through the longing of it [r. 167-
170].

But the realism of euphoria and of
the presence of light in entire being of its
seer is described by Symeon in terms very
direct: „the scintillation of the [divine]
wine [oiiA-pa tou oivou] and the radius of
[heavenly] sun [olkziq tou tiAIou] that
scintillates shining on the face of which
he drinks it perambulate until in his
bowels/ intestines, until in the hands and
his feet and until in his back, making him
in entirety fire [irup okov] on the one who
drinks it and in state to burn and to melt
on enemies who approach by him from
all parts" 609 .

The sight of the light, of the divine
wine, presents as a filling of us the
mystical drunkenness is at Symeon a
transformation of us in men full of
enthusiasm, of ghostual vitality and
bodily, that feel in us the light as fire, that
strengthens us in the battles with the
demons and makes us frightening for
them.

The divin enthusiasm about which
Symeon speaks is not a human state, of
human inflammation, but is the shedding
of the heavenly wine, of the heavenly fire
in us, ie a divine-human state.

In the final phrase of the passage
which we discuss the divine drink, the
divine wine does not produce the

609 Idem, The Catecheses, XXIII, 185-191, p. 26/
Idem, p. 255.

263

alteration of us but the curing of us 10 .
The health [byemv] and the charm of
beauty which gives birth to the ghostual
health are at Symeon without Kopov,
without satiety 611 .

And for that I began this section
under the sign of the divine paternity,
with strong maternal accents at ecstatic
level, speaking of the divine breast-
feeding, we conclude our exposure about
the symeonian imagology of the union
with light all with a maternal confession,
in that Symeon presents himself as
feeding on himself from the milk of light:
„And remembering us of the joy
and of that light and of its sweet pleasure,
we cried and complained us as a suckling
baby who sees his mother and, remem-
bering the sweetness of milk, he bursts in
tears, searching again [the bosom] that,
as to suck on saturated" 612 .

Thus, the joy of light produces
continuous reminders of it and provokes
us continually at wishes of it and more
intense, and more clear and more vivid in
our being.

The sight of the light is not a
secondary search in the life and in the
theology of Saint Symeon, but represents

610 Idem, The Catecheses, XXIII, 198-201, p. 28/
Ibidem.

611 Idem, The Catecheses, XXIII, 200-201, p. 28/
Ibidem.

612 SC 196, Hymns, XLIX, 87-91, p. 152-154/ lea jr.
3, p. 258.

itself the finding, the refinding of our
soul 613 .

To refound us the soul says Symeon
here means „to see God, to reach in His
light taller than all the creature seen, and
to have Shepherd and Teacher on God" 614 .

From this cause, His sight what and
the images with the help which
represents the union with Him, through
that he ignites and more the longing for
Him, do not represent illegitimate images
in his theology but percussive anthropo-
morphic expressions of some ecstatic
experiences that exceed any description.

By every time Symeon has attracted
the attention that his images, whatsoever
would be they, must not taken ad
litteram, but they must contemplate
ghostually.

Just therefore we cannot be of
accord with they that scandalize by his
mystical images, as long as they do not
ask interpreted literally but after their
mystical meaning, which reveals us the
profound realities of our communion
with the Most Holy Trinity.

13 Epistles, I, apud. Ica jr. 3, p. 317.
614 Ibidem.

265

2. 5- 5- The Divine Light and the
Ghostual Father

Maybe into another unfolding of all
exposure we had to start with this theme
which we approach now 615 .

The importance of the ghostual
Father in the life and the theology of
Saint Symeon is capital, as long as he
considers his calling at the mystical life of
the Church, the receiving of the light and
the forwardness in its sight as tracks of
the entrust in his Father and of his
veneration until at end.

The divine light is the gift of God
but to it we reach led by the ghostual
Father, of the man filled of the Ghost,
that teaches us those of the unpassion.

In the Hymn 1, Saint Symeon calls
his Father Apostle of God 616 . The title

15 Saint Justin Popovich, speaking about culture
and holiness in his profound evaluation of european
culture, said: „ Outside of Saints do not exist teachers
and pedagogues perfect, nor a true culture without
holiness. Only the Saint is the true pedagogue and
teacher; only the holiness is the true light. The true
culture, the true enlightenment are nothing else than
the irradiance of holiness. Only Saints are truly
enlightened", acc. Archim. Justin Popovich, The Man
and the God-Man. The Abysses and the Acmes of
Philosophy [Omul si Dumnezeul-Om. Abisurile si
culmile filozofiei], introd. study and trans, by Rev. Prof,
loan lea and Deac. loan I. Ica jr., preface by Prof.
IoannisN. Karmiris, postface by Panayotis Nellas, Publ.
Deisis, Sibiu, 1997, p. 83.

For Saint Symeon the ghostual Father is a Holy
man, a man in whom is evident the grace of the Holy
Ghost.

266

which he confers to Saint Symeon the
Pious is not one gratuitous.

In the Hymn 15, speaking about the
assuming and the deification of humanity
by Christ in His divine-human hypostasis,
Symeon shows that his Father reached an
unpassioned man still of here: Christ „has
made integer man, being integer God
with true, the One, not divided [after
natures], [ie] perfect man in all. Same
being God and on the entirely [God] in all
integer members.

So has made and now, in the last
times, Saint Symeon the Pious, the
Studite.

This is not ashamed by the members
of any man, neither to see on others
naked, neiter to be seen he himself
naked. For he had on Christ integer and
he himself integer was Christ. And all his
members and the members of any other,
in part and on all, on which he was seeing
as on Christ and therefore he remained
unmoved [aidvr|TO<;], unharmed [ol^Xol^q]
and unpassioned [dTrecGric], as the one that
was himself integer Christ" 617 .

Symeon the Pious is the Apostle of
the Lord just for that he reached
unpassioned as and the Apostles, but he
received as and the Apostles, through
divine descovery, the true teaching about
God.

95-

SC 156, Hymns, I, 49, p. 160/ lea jr. 3, p. 53.
Idem, Hymns, XV, 202-213, p. 294/ Idem, p.

267

The ghostual Father is not only an
orthodox liver or anyone of the priests
confessors - as though this would be his
single mode of marking - but, for
Symeon, that one becomes the ghostual
Father, which confirms for him God
Himself, in different modes and un-
interrupted.

The institution of the ghostual
paternity is not one of human right, does
not reclaim it anyone when he wants and
how he wants, but it is one of divine right,
is guaranteed by God, Who gives His
grace to those who love Him.

In the previous chapter we showed
how God led him to Symeon the Pious,
how he received through the prayer and
his intercession the divine sight, fact for
that Symeon has never recanted of his
Father through that have come to him
the life and the salvation.

The gratitude and the thanksgiving
of Symeon for his Father is immense, is
overwhelming, is vivid and on it we
refmd at all the step in his writings.

In the Hymn 18 we have a such of
muster of gratitude full of ghostual
pathos to the person of his Holy Father:

„Who led me [coSriYTioev] pulling me
to these beauties? Who raised me at
unpassion from the abyss of the world?
Who separated me from the father, the
brothers [Mk. 10, 29] and the friends, the
relatives and the pleasures and the joys of
the world?

268

Who showed me the path of
repentance and of mourning, that I found
the day that has never ended? An Angel
was, not man. And yet man [AyyeA-og r\v,
ouk avGpcoTTog. avGpcoTTog 6'], who mocked
[e|iTTodCenu] by the world and trampled
upon the dragon [Ps. 90, 13] and the de-
mons tremble in the presence of him" 618 .

Symeon expresses his gratitude in
ablaze mode, stormy, ie ghostually,
through the Holy Ghost, Who was in him
but he does not exaggerate in noway
when he qualifies him in such terms on
his Father.

For that, through him, he lived the
unpassion which he saw at his Father,
Symeon sees in him angelical qualities,
although he recognizes that the one was
man, but a man who defeated on demons
and tread in foots the vile passions.

The paradoxical humanity of the
inghostuated man makes the object of
gratitude of Saint Symeon. He venerates
on his Father just for that he proves to be
a man with the divine life and for that God
Himself presents him on Father right a
norm of piety.

God shows in ecstatic mode to
Symeon that his Father, Saint Symeon the
Pious, is the man that he needs, for that
he is His friend. God sends on Symeon at
His beloved, at Saints, as to learn from
them, but, in express mode, He sends at

618 SC 174, Hymns, XVIII, 124- 132, p. 84-86/
Idem, p. 114.

the Saint from his proximate nearness, for
that to grow ghostually through the
submission and the obedience to that.

The disclosure of the Father has
right scope the immediate communion
with this one and is the entrusting of the
fact, that and now we can live in holy
mode if we fulfill the will of God.

But we know the thrilling shout of
Symeon to the weakness of his century:
„Do not say that is with infirmity to
receive the divine Ghost, do not say that
is with possibility to save ourselves
without Him, do not say that someone
can impart of Him without knowing it!

Do not say that God does not let
Himself seen by men, do not say that the
men do not see the divine light [cjjcog
0e!ov ] or that the thing is with infirmity in
the present times! Never is not with
infirmity [OuSeTOie abwazov] this thing,
friends, but is very with possibility [kiav
dwaxbv] those who will, but those whose
life gave them the cleaning of passions
and made them clean the eye of mind" 619 .

This shout to contemporaries and
followers is, on the one part, a funda-
mental distrust in the suppression of the
endless chain of holiness in the Church
and, in the same time, an absolute
confidence in the fact, that God will bring
to every man who seek Him the ghostual
Father that he needs.

619 Idem, Hymns, XVII, 125-134, p. 288/ Idem, p.

170.

Symeon cannot conceive the Church
without Saints and, in the same time, he
cannot see the salvation and the holiness
outside of the cleaning of passions and of
the sight of the divine light.

The ghostual Fathers are gifts of
God in our lives, but on they we need to
seek through our cleaning of passions,
through our searching perpetual as to
find authentic ghostual life.

For the meeting with the Father
must to sanctify us the life, as to
understand him and to follow him.

In the Epistle 3, Symeon substanti-
ates the sending of the Father in our life
on the uncurbed love of God for our
salvation: „if He gave death on the His
Son the One-Begotten that to save us
through Him, how is with possibility
really, that then when we ask Him to
send us or, as to say better, to show us a
servant of Him, Holy and true, as to lead
us to salvation and to teach us His ways;
how is with possibility, I say, to hide a
such man from us and to deprive us of a
guiding? No, no! Not is with possibil-

»620

ity •

The intimation of the true servant of
God, of the ghostual Father is a gift of
God but which we receive it due of the
excess of zeal and of the interior
cleanness. The same happened and with
the centurion Cornelius, says Symeon 621 ,

Epistles, III, apud lea jr. 3, p. 328.
Idem, III, apud Idem, p. 328-329.

2 7 1

which received advising through Angel
and through Apostles due of his godly
life.

For to recognize on Father,
concludes Symeon, the one that sends us
God in special mode for us, „we need of
more zeal and bearing of care" 622 .

The entrance of the Father in our life
is providential and through him we learn
the ghostual mode through that to ap-
proach us to God.

Our approach to the Father and the
relation with him is, in the same time, an
advance in our relation with the God of
our heart.

In the ethical Discourse 6, Symeon
regards on the ghostual Father in his
hypostasis of ghostual doctor [tov TTveu|ia-
tikov locipov] 623 .

This „receives [on his patient], keeps
him, comforts him, shows him all the
love and the simplicity, as to entrust him
that he will cure him with the medicines
[cj)ap|iaKCoy] which he asked them and he
will fulfill his lust" 624 .

The ghostual Father utilizes the
medicines which shows to him the Holy
Ghost, ie he heals on patient together
with the Ghost.

He is an authentic medic as long as
he works with and through God's power

22 Idem, III, apud Idem, p. 328.

623 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, VI, 279, p.
140/ lea jr. 1, p. 272.

624 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, VI, 298-301, p.
140-142/ Idem, p. 273.

and, in the same time, is an intercessor of
us to God and a good counselor 625 .

The ghostual experience, in this hard
and thrilling process of the healing of
passions, is the principal trump of the
ghostual Father.

If we find on the Father, „we receive
through him the forgiveness of our
sins" 626 , for that he leads us at the au-
thentic mode of cleansing of passions and
in the same time is our guiding towards
the sight of God.

Then when Symeon reports his
ghostual experience at the experience of
his Father, he sees his own experience as
being on full tributary to person and to
love of his Father:

„To us. ..as to speak like a fool [II
Cor. 11, 23]. ..[God] revealed to us through
His Ghost, ...through the intercessions
[liceaiaig] of The Felicitous and our Holy
Father Symeon, as to see, like says the
Apostle, the graces that were given to us
by God [I Cor. 2, 12]. [...]

And the fact that He took face in us
[Gal. 4, 19], the One who is with true
God, what else is then that He premakes
us and He forges us again with all on us
ourselves and He changes us at face in
the face of His divinity?

Thus I knew that was and Saint
Symeon the Pious, who lived as ascetic in
the Studion Monastery and the itself

Epistles, I, apud lea jr. 3, p. 310.
Idem, I, apud Idem, p. 317.

273

experience giving us insurance about
those regarding at him [xr\ vdpa auirj xa
TTepl toutou pepaLCoGevieq].

For through the discovery of the
Ghost that was in him, he sealing us our
faith in him, we guard on it without
contradictions.

More, igniting from his light, as
from a lamp, the candlestick of our soul,
we guard it unextinguished, guarded
being by the prayers [euxoag] and the in-
tercessions [TTpeapeimg] of him, from
which freshened being our faith in him
increase and will increase - I speak with
boldness in God! - bearing its fruit
hundredfold in itself the the divine
light" 627 .

The light came in the life of Symeon
through his Father and is kept in him
through the intercessions of him.

Symeon confesses with much con-
scientiousness this thing and he
considers it a great welldoing in his life
and not as on a curtailment of his person-
ality.

The true relation ghostual Father -
ghostual son is one that raises reciprocal
on two in face of God and of themselves.

The Father does not feel condemned
at stagnation if he cares on his ghostual
son but, contrariwise, he grows ghostual -
ly through this divine work of birth of the
new ghostual man and the ghostual son

27 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, IX, 226-232,
246-259, p. 236-238/ lea jr. 1, p. 313-314.

274

does not feel injured in his human dignity
for that he listens to Father, but just
through his obedience he acquires his
true freedom and dignity in the face of
God, ie on that of to be master over his
passions.

The ghostual Father borns through
many interior torments on his son into
the Lord.

In the Epistle 3, Symeon himself,
which was modeled into the Ghost by his
Father, he says, at his row, to an
apprentice: „My beloved in the Lord, I
received you at my bosom when you
come to me and I modeled you, with
much warmth, apprentice through
teaching and with many painstakings I
made you, again, after the face of Christ
through repentance and I born you,
again, ghostual child through great
patience, strong painstakings and tears of
day with day, even if you did not know
nothing through how many attempts I
passed for you" 628 .

The patience and the torments
provoked by the misunderstanding and
the lack of sapience of the ghostual son,
the care to tell him the truth of salvation
and the mode in that you lead him to the
divine light on this represents the
torment of day with day of the ghostual
Father.

The ghostual Father palpitates at
every move for his son, he carries in his

Epistles, III, apud lea jr. 3, p. 323.

275

heart and he suffers for his unful-
fillments, after how he enjoys of his
successes.

Not only the son shows a total
transparency and a boundless love
towards Father, but and he is a door
always open towards his heart and a
guiding sun in his face.

In the same Epistle, Symeon shows
that and the Father must to say the
greatnesses which he receives from God
to his spiritual children, as thanksgiving
brought to God for the gifts received from
Him:

„In the same face and all who have
received a ghostual gift from God, have
before of all the duty to share it to their
ghostual sons, and, more then, and to the
friends, to the acquaintances and to his
servants, to the rich and to the poor.

Yet and if he has received word of
wisdom, word of acquaintance, the gifts
of healings [I Cor. 12, 8-9], the guidance
of souls, power of help or the discern-
ment of salvation" 629 .

The special relation of the Father
with his ghostual sons asks that the first
to know the receiving of a vision or of a
gift to be they. The ghostual son must to
hear from the Father how illuminates
God on him and through this to
understand how illuminates God and on
he himself. The identity of the illumi-
nation with the Father but on his

Idem, III, apud Idem, p. 325.

276

measure, creates in the ghostual son a
special soaring towards increasingly,
towards all more cleaning and holiness,
for that he observes that the holiness, the
growth in holiness is that brings mutilple
understanding and gifts over gifts from
God.

The ghostual Father is the one that
„comprises those of the Ghost" 630 and he
can explain from his together-feelings
with the Ghost of God.

Those who have not received the
grace of God as the Apostles and who
have not seen the light of God 631 , says
Symeon, those cannot help on someone
as to be born into the Ghost.

Here Symeon does not speak of a
purely human competence, that of being
a good pedagogue or a good interpreter
of Scripture, of the Fathers and of the
canons of the Church, but of the presence
of the Ghost in us and of the experience of
the sight of the light which are the
materials through that we rebuild the
human being and we make from it a
ghostual being.

Therefore and excludes from start
Saint Symeon, from any work of man's
ghostual rebirth, those who were not
sanctified through the Ghost.

The ghostual Father is irreplaceable,
is the personal marvel, living, predatory
from our life and his departure from us or

10 Idem, III, apud Idem, p. 334.

11 Idem, IV, apud Idem, p. 351.

277

his move at the Lord leaves an immense
void, that we cannot fill it with anything
else.

The end of the 4th Epistle, this
trenchant, the shaking confession of the
spiritual torments aroused of the love of
God and of the ghostual Father, gives us
the possibility to see the interior dramatic
dimension of life holy and of the struggle
for the correctness of theological life:

„[...] I am hated for the love of
Christ. [...] I am condemned by all
because I want to honor my Father and
my ghostual Teacher. [...]

I am proclaimed by them heretic,
because I teach on all to seek the grace of
above and the coming in conscious face of
the Holy Ghost and that without it not
makes the forgiveness of sins, nor can
anyone to release of passions and of the
irrational lusts, nor to make son of God,
nor to sanctify accomplished without the
grace of the Holy Ghost. [...]

[For] the devil has risen on me his
servants and he leads war with me as to
cease to proclaim in words and to do with
the deed the commandments of the
Evangel and of the Apostles and to
endeavor to renew the evangelical living
which was outdated somewhat and
became despised, as the men not to have
boldness that they can be saved without
to receive the grace of the Holy Ghost

278

and without unpassion, and to deceive
without to receive Him and to perish" 632 .

Saint Symeon feels outraged un-
justly of his confreres malicious and
envious on his ghostual experience and
on the love toward his Father and, in the
same time, he knows that his persecution
is for righteousness, for the remembrance
of the true evangelical living to his
contemporaries.

If from a such theological passage,
some commentators has pulled the con-
clusion that Symeon is a precursor of the
protestantism, this affirmation proves
itself one gratuitous. Symeon has not
pushed never on his disciples as to make
a new Church (evident thing from point
of view historic), in which to live after the
example of evangelical living, as Luther,
Calvin and Zwingli, but he fought against
a false opinion, generalized in the Church
of his time, about the true orthodox
living.

Symeon shows through the icon of
his Father, of him and of his apprentices
Holy that the true evangelical living and
orthodox was not lost in the Church, but
that just this the authentic living began to
be persecuted by the Church's men,
which do not live at the height of its
exigences.

In conclusion, those who were not
born through a ghostual Father, through

i2 Idem, IV, apud Idem, p. 357, 358.

279

a Saint which binds in uninterrupted
mode of the string of Church's Saints,
cannot know the relation so much deep
and overwhelming of the Father with his
sons, what and of God with us, His sons.

Saint Symeon shows on the ghostual
Father right the guarantor of authenticity
of ghostual life on earth and as the one
that reborns us, through the Ghost, on
each in part.

280

Sacramentology

2. 6. The Holy Mysteries of the
Church and the Feeling of the Divine
Grace

Symeonian sacramentology has a
direct connection at the reality of God's
sight, for that in the Holy Mysteries you
feel the presence of the divine grace, if
you are received in ecstatic mode on the
Holy Ghost.

Saint Symeon deals of all the
Mysteries of the Church more or less,
without as to write in express mode a
special work about the Mysteries of the
Church.

But his opera, after how we will see,
has multiple and enough of important
sacramentological traces, from which we
can understand the role and the impor-
tance which he gave them in the mystical
life of the Church 633 .

33 Father Gheorghe Sima, into an article from
his period of youth, dedicated of Saint Symeon, said
that at him, „the Holy Mysteries have... a christologic
character, pnevmatologic and ecclesial and are not
simple symbols and ceremonies", acc. PhD Student
Gheorghe Sima, The Work of the Holy Ghost in the
Mystery of Repentance at Saint Symeon the New
Theologian [Lucrarea Sfantului Duh in Taina Pocainfei
la Sfdntul Simeon Noul Teolog], in rev. Theological
Studies [Studii Teologice], XLII (1990), no. 3, p. 50.

28l

2. 6. i. The Holy Baptism and
the Sight of God

We have remembered several times
before now the defining role of Baptism
in our life, the role of the sacramental
gate through that we enter in the
communion with the Most Holy Trinity.

The Holy Baptism is the moment of
our entry in the relation with God and, in
the same time, the moment of our
creation as living members of the
mystical body, secret of Christ, ie of the
Holy Church.

And we begin the commentary at
the sacramental theology of Symeon with
a place very concise, in that speaks to us
about what represents the Baptism in our
life but and about the ghostual life:

„From the divine Baptism we receive
the forgiveness of sins [zr\v icov
TpapTipevcov ka\±$avo\iev afyeoiv] and we
are, in the same time, release of curse [ific
TTpcor|v Kaxapac, eA,eu0epou|j,e0a] and through
the coming of the Holy Ghost we are
sanctified [6lyiol£6\i€Qol].

But the perfect grace [zr\v xeleiav
Xapiv], after how was said: „I will dwell
and I will walk into them" [II Cor. 6, 16],
we do not [receive] then [ou xoie].

For this thing is of those who have a
safe faith [icov pepoaomaKov] and show it
from facts [icov epycov].

282

Because, after Baptism, we incline
towards evil facts and of shame and
[through these] we cast with all this
consecration [xbv ayiao\±bv eiq aitav ai\o-

But, through repentance [jiecocvoLqc],
confession [eZoiioloy^oei] and tears
[SaKpuai] we take, on their measure [kolzol
oLVOLloyioLv], first the forgiveness of sins,
and, together with this, and the sancti-
fication of above of the grace" 634 .

The passage which we have quoted
is an inexhaustible gold mine for the
understanding of the role of Baptism in
our life.

In the first row, we find that we
cannot cleanse from sins and we cannot
fill of the Ghost through ourselves or only
believing in Christ.

Saint Symeon binds the forgiveness
of sins, our cleaning from the curse of sin
and the coming of the Holy Ghost in us
by the moment of receiving of the Holy
Baptism, moment in that we enter in
Church.

The Baptism is for him a
consecration of us. The sanctification is
all one with the coming of the Ghost in
us, which means the forgiveness, the
deletion of sins from our being.

The forgiveness and the release of the
curse are not aprioristic to the coming of
the Ghost in us but just the coming of the

34 SC 51, Chapters, III, 45, 9-19, p. 93/ lea jr. 3, p.

408.

283

Ghost means the cleaning of sins, the
deleting of the curse from us and our
indwelling by the Ghost.

The sanctification, our filling of
holiness is a coming of the Ghost in us, ie
a discovery, a sacramental experiencing in
us of the coming of the Ghost.

Symeon is categorical in what
regards the coming of the Ghost and he
speaks of sanctification which the Ghost
produces in us as about a personal reality.

He who baptizes refelt in the deep of
his being the coming of the Ghost, this
personal discovery, the personal interi-
orization of God with us, through the
intermedium of His glory.

But exists a difference of degree,
emphasizes our Father, between the
feelings of the grace by those who are
baptizing, by beginners, in comparison
with those who are sunken in holiness or
are perfect into it.

The new-baptized infants or the
new-baptized adults not having a safe
faith, a faith shown through facts, ie a
continue life of holiness, assumed, it
inclines to evil and facts of shame.

Through a such careless life or
through the apostasy, the unknowing and
the forgetfulness of faith into that we
baptized, we experience the casting of
proper holiness, of the lose of feeling of
the grace from our being.

Saint Symeon uses in this passage
the verb aTTOpaAAco, an expressive verb,

284

that announces that we cast, leave,
abandon something, in our case,
something from us, something that
defines us in fundamental mode as
members of the Church: the presence of
the grace from our being.

The coming of the Ghost in us and
the keeping of Him in us represent just
what we receive from God and what
makes us living members of the Church.

In the measure in that we, says
Symeon, cast this holiness, we cast it with
all, wholly [airav], we cannot enjoy by its
return in us, than through repentance,
the sacramental confession of sins and
tears.

The holiness being the presence of
the Holy Ghost in us, His indwelling in us
and His remaining in us, just therefore at
Symeon the holiness is fluctuating, is an
interior reality extreme of dynamic, that
represents our con-habitation with God.

For Symeon the holiness is lost
through sin and regain through repen-
tance. But the repentance brings in us a
coming of the Ghost on measure of our
opening to God - therefore Symeon uses
in text the expression Kara clvclXo^vclv -
and, once with it, and the cleansing from
sins.

Into a such soteriological perspec-
tive, in that the holiness is the together-
habitation with God in our being and
where it can be lost into a twinkle and can
be refound immediate, through repen-

285

tance, confession of sin and tears,
through the pain for those that we have
made and through the re-receiving of the
Ghost, we understand why Symeon
insists so much on the reality of the
feeling of grace, of continuous feeling of
God in us.

The ghostual life is a life of the
permanent feeling of grace, which
integrates and the awareness of loss or of
attenuation of its feeling through our sins
but and its abundant receiving through
our facts of piety.

The entire symptomatology of the
presence of God's grace in us has to do
with ghostual life, mystical of Church
and, after how we see at Symeon, the
ghostual life begins with the Holy
Baptism and continues on all the par-
course of our life and in eternity.

If we cast on the Ghost from us, if
we disembarrass of Him through sin, on
the measure of our repentance, of our
return, the Holy Ghost returns in us and
is always with us.

The connexion between Baptism
and the ghostual life or, better said, the
continuation of divine life in us, planted
at Baptism in our being, is made through
continuous repentance for our sins.

Speaking about repentance in our
life, he says that this is a work
i)TT6|j(t)oavei 635 , an open reality, temporal
indeterminated.

Idem, Chapters, III, 46, 1-2, p. 94/ Ibidem.

286

The Baptism is the moment in that
our souls receive the earnest that will be
brides of Christ 636 .

But Symeon emphasizes the fact,
that we must take the earnest from
Baptism, ie on the Ghost in our being and
to have Him in conscious [yvcootcoc] face
in ourselves 37 .

The receiving of the earnest at
Baptism does not presuppose however
and the consciousness of secure salvation
of our person, nor an indifferent com-
portment to ghostual life or one
triumphalist opposite of the errors of
other kinds of believers, which are in
outside of the Church.

The earnest, emphasizes Symeon,
the presence of the Ghost, must be refelt
of our entire being, through „the work of
the commandments and the acquiring of
the virtues" 638 .

Just in the frames of ghostual life, of
life lived through the commandments
and virtues, we feel the safe presence of
the Ghost in us.

3 Idem, Chapters, III, 47, 3-4, p. 94/ Ibidem.

637 Idem, Chapters, III, 47, 10-12, p. 94/ Ibidem.

A romanian commentator of symeonian
theology remarks the fact, that „the secret feeling of the
presence of grace or of the work of Ghost is in
indissoluble correlation with the sight of the Christ's
glory in light and love", acc. Rev. Lect. PhD student
Calin-Ioan Duse, The Mystery of Holy Baptism at Saint
Symeon the New Theologian [Taina Sfdntului Botez la
Sfdntul Simeon Noul Teolog], in Theological Horizons
[Orizonturi Teologice] I (2000), no. 3, p. 164.

638 SC 51, Chapters, III, 48, 15-16, p. 94/ lea jr. 3, p.

408.

287

Symeon puts the earnest in the
direct link with the stable feeling, firm
[doctiaA-Tic] of the Ghost.

Our current dwelling by the Ghost is
possible only through our total attach-
ment to His presence and through a life
of holiness. Our bonding by the Ghost,
our inflaming feeling and the confession
of abyssal relation with Him represent
and our personal holiness and the
ecclesial character of our being.

The salvation and the holiness are at
Symeon our living experience, continu-
ous, of our relation with God, into that
initiated us the Holy Baptism and which
we keep it trough a tireless fight with the
sin and through the fulfillment of all His
commandments .

Speaking of earnest or of ring [tov
SocktuAaov] 639 , ie of receiving of the Ghost
at Baptism, Symeon speaks in Chapters
III, 50 about Baptism as about a our
betrothal with Christ.

If in Baptism we betrothed with
Christ through the Holy Ghost and our
christian life is a life lived in beautiful
fidelity to our Bridegroom, then the
Kingdom of Heavens, says Symeon, and
the eternal goods, we receive them after
we leave from here, after our dormition,
having through earnest the certitude of
eternal marriage with our Bridegroom 640 .

639 Idem, Chapters, III, 49, 24, p. 94/ Idem, p.

409.

640 Idem, Chapters, III, 50, 27-33, 1- 4> P- 94"95/
Ibidem.

288

Into a such perspective as the
symeonian, our life in Church is a life of
intense longing for our Bridegroom, of
calling and feelings in cleanness for Him,
in unceasing calling of Him in our being,
for to prepare us of the great crossing to
Him and to our eternal wedding with
Him.

The personal eshatology transforms
thus into a crossing in rejoicing, into an
eternal wedding with our Bridegroom
and of Church in its integrality and not
into a loneliness without finish, excruci-
ating and aberrant.

The death is an entrance in joy for
one who has lived in holiness, is the
complete fulfillment of personal life and
an eternal forwardness in the com-
munion with the Bridegroom Christ.

From symeonian perspective the life
has sense, one eternal, for that the joy of
communion with God transcends history
and makes from the the sacramental act
of Baptism, spent in history and, in the
same time, in eternity, an opening and a
real entrance and abyssal of us in eternal
life.

Symeon also deals of Baptism in this
third series of chapters and in the
chapters 89 and 90.

In the chapter 89, the Baptism is
evaluated from the point of view of
freedom of the human will.

Our Father tells us, that „the power
to determine on ourselves [auie^ouoLov]

289

and the freedom of our choice
[auTOTTpooapeiov] are not removed [d(J)oa-
pelxat] [from us] through Baptism, but it
gives us the freedom to not be tyrannized
against of our will [aKOvmg fpac; lupav-
vd,a0oa] by the devil.

For after Baptism stays in our power
either to remain from proper will in the
commandments of the Lord Christ, into
Whom we baptized, and to walk on the
path of His commandments, either to
deviate us from this straight road and to
return us at the adversary [tov dviiTTodov]
and the our enemy [e^Opov], the devil,
through the evil facts" 641 .

The Baptism, regarded under the
aspect of our deparasiticalness of demons
and of their tyranny is a chasing of the
demons from us through the coming of
the Ghost and of our dwelling by grace
but, in the same time, is and the moment
of proper independence, experienced as
real dependence, deep of God.

The true freedom of man, reminds us
our Father, we do not receive it through
birth, ie through natural descent, but it is
a gift of God that we receive it in
Baptism, from He Himself.

The exercising in the true freedom
means the exercesing in the fulfillment of
the commandments and in our feelings
into the Ghost, for that „those who
succumb after Baptism to the wills of the

41 Idem, Chapters, III, 89, 8-16, p. 109/ Idem, p.

420.

wicked and make the things willed by
that, those are alienated [dTTaAAoipiouai]
on themselves of the holy womb of the
Baptism" 642 , ie of the eternal life of the
Ghost.

The verb aTTaAAoipioa) [to remove, to
alienate], as and the verb aTropaAAco, of
that I remembered previously, are verbs
that represent, in distinct mode, in the
writing of Symeon, our personal action
through which we choose evil, against us,
through which we choose the communion
with demons. Our alienation from God is
a personal choice but one evil, not good,
through which we renounce at the dignity
of sons, friends, of communionals of God,
in the favor of maliciousness and of
inconsistent rejection of our racordation
at the life of God, at the true life.

Our removal of the holiness of the
Baptism means our casting of the Holy
Ghost, of the One who is live in us from
Baptism.

But through the ethical Discourse 10
we approach and more of discussing of
the interior relation between the grace of
Baptism and the sight of the divine light.

Speaking here about Baptism, our
Father attentionates on his listeners that
the receiving of the Baptism, without the
feeling in us of the Ghost, is a catastrophe
for our life 643 . We cannot be, he says here

42 Idem, Chapters, III, 90, 17-19, p. 109/ Ibidem.
643 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, X, 166-170, p.
270/ lea jr. 1, p. 327.

291

in accentuated mode, we cannot be, „in
unfelt face/ imperceptible [interior] [<xve-
TToaa0r|TG)c;], sons of the day and of the
light" 644 .

As to be the sons of glory we must
perceive with the eyes of the heart, to see
the light of God. And for that to save us
must not to enter only in the water of
Baptism and to boast us that we are
orthodox-christians, but and to live and to
keep the Ghost in us: „because our
salvation is not only in the water of the
Baptism, but and in the Ghost" 645 .

If we baptize us in water must to
show that is live, in daily mode, the Ghost
of God in us and that we have the facts of
the Light.

With other words, the orthodox-
christian life is the ghostual life, the state
of to-be-always in the grace of Trinity, the
experience, in quotidian mode, with and
through the glory of God.

The treating of sacramental reality of
Baptism is not at Symeon one sweetish or
relativistic from point of view dogmatic-
theological.

The contrary, the realism of
Baptism, the living experience of the real
act of our union with the Ghost, is a
characteristic of our whole life.

Symeon does not report at his
personal past as to speak about Baptism.

644 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 169-170, p.
270/ Ibidem.

645 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 188-189, p.
272/ Idem, p. 328.

He reports at the Ghost from him, that
attests the fact, that in his childhood he
was baptized in Christ, that he was united
with Christ and with the Ghost through
Baptism.

The consequences of Baptism are
quotidian for Symeon. In the same
discourse quoted anterior, in the ethical
Discourse 10, in the frame of polemic in
going with a certain mentality incitizenly
then and now in Church, Symeon says
something surprising for those who see in
fixed mode, non-dynamic, the action of
the Holy Mysteries in our life.

He says that „not all the baptized
receive through Baptism on Christ, but
only those who have safe faith [pepoaomo-
toi] and have prepared themselves in the
perfect knowledge [ev yv6oei zeleia] or
into an anterior clearing [TTpoKaGapaei] and
thus they came at Baptism" 646 .

The instinctual reaction at the
hearing of a such theological statement,
based on the premise of static evidence of
Baptism is an error, if we do not let
Symeon to explain us until at end what
he has to say in definitive about the
feeling of the Ghost at Baptism.

For Symeon, the Baptism is not an
act ended once with the otpust of service
and the evidence of grace received then is
interior one, overwhelming. For our
Father the Baptism is a real receiving and

4 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 324-328, p.
282/ Idem, p. 332.

293

conscious of the Ghost in our being, ie of
the interior dynamism overwhelming, that
makes us extreme of enthusiastic and of
vigorous in the experience of the ghostual
life.

After how we have seen anterior,
Symeon is not against the pedobaptism,
but he confesses, without denial, the
receiving of earnest of the Ghost through
Baptism.

The phrase aforesaid of Symeon
does not refer at the Baptism of the babes
but at those who have matured in faith
and who have received on the Ghost into
consciousness, in ecstatic mode.

In the support of the conscious
experience of the Ghost in our being, he
brings right testimony A. Ap. 8, 14-17 647 .

His commentary at this lucan text
and at Gal. 3, 27 is that „just received the
Holy Ghost, [those] have received on the
Lord Jesus. For is not one Christ and
something else the Ghost" 648 .

Symeon does not propose us a re-
nunciation at Baptism but a con-
sciousness and a reliving of union with
Christ through the Ghost. The sight of
light that emanates, gushes from the
divine-human person of Christ, ie the
ecstatic sight, is a reliving fully assumed, a
direct reconfirmation, coming from part
of God, of the earnest of Baptism.

647 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 330-336, p.
282-284/ Ibidem.

648 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 342-344, p.
284/ Ibidem.

294

The ecstasy does not replace the
Baptism but acknowledges its extraor-
dinary latencies, on the measure of power
of faith, of the increase in faith and
holiness of the believer.

But, in the measure in that the
Baptism was received by us in babyhood
and we parted without knowing, through
our sins, of the feeling of the Ghost, the
sight of divine light is not only a
reconfirmation of the earnest received
but it is refelt in personal mode as the
first true knowledge of God.

Symeon emphasizes this thing of
many times and we have shown this. Just
therefore, he folds on the lucan text
aforesaid, he emphasizes that the
receiving of the Ghost into consciousness,
in ecstatic mode, means of fact the full
awareness, firm, that we have received on
Christ and on the Ghost, that we have
received the grace of Trinity.

And after what we have said all
these, our underlinings at the text from
10, 324-328 its find their total ghostual
transparency, because, as says here, only
„those who have safe faith [pepoaoTTiaTOi]
and have prepared themselves in the
perfect knowledge [ev yvddoei zeleia] or
into an anterior clearing [TTpoKaGapaei]",
fell, in evident mode, that they are
inhabited by the glory of the Trinity.

The increase in grace and the
ecstatic sight represent the safe faith,
proven ecstatic, of which speaks us

295

Symeon and the perfect knowledge is a
fruit of the ecstatic sight, of entrusting,
re-entrusting from part of God, that the
earnest of sight and of eternal union with
Him is in us.

From the moment when Symeon
enters on evangelic terrain in the ethical
Discourse 10, we assist at a tour of force
citational in the support of conscious
indwelling of Christ in us.

He cites Jn. 1, 1-5, for to show that
God is everywhere through the light of
His glory 649 . From Lk. 10, 22 results that
the Son discovers Himself to anyone He
wills 650 and from Jn. 1, 12-14 results that
we become in real mode the sons of God
through faith and Baptism, and that we
can see the glory of God in our being 651 .

However not are only these scrip-
tural quotations through which he
substantiates the theology of feeling of
glory by the baptized, but these come in
relief 'in his discourse.

Connecting I Pet. 1, 16, Lk. 6, 36 and
A. Ap. 1, 5 652 , ie the interior dimension of
holiness as likeness with God with the
receiving of Baptism in the Holy Ghost,
Symeon says that those who are baptized
into the Ghost, ie those who see the

649 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 370-379, p.
286/ Idem, p. 334.

650 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 401-403, p.
288/ Ibidem.

651 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 419-425, p.
290/ Idem, p. 335.

652 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 436-445, p.
290-292/ Idem, p. 335-336.

296

divine light, „they make light and know
on the One who born them, for they and
see Him on This one" 653 .

But the ecstatic sight presupposes
the Baptism, for that in both cases we
meet us in real mode with the One who
recreated us on us, through the Ghost,
with Christ.

The distinction on that always
makes Symeon between pedobaptism and
ecstatic sight is it that then we received
the earnest without to have a certain
increase in faith, that allow us the sight of
His glory into acquaintance, while the
ecstatic sight presupposes an acknowl-
edged knowledge of the One who re-
created us ghostually in Baptism.

But Symeon does not leave us to
understand that in the case of Baptism,
from the cause of babyhood mind, we do
not receive the Ghost. He tells us that
babies receive on the Ghost but they
cannot receive Him interior at the
intensity which requires the engaged
ghostual life, the relation of great love
with God. This theological discourse is a
surprise in chain for those who want to
know the baptismal theology of Saint
Symeon.

Symeon testifies powerfully that the
receiving of the Holy Ghost in ecstatic
mode makes you faithful with true 654 .

653 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 446-447, p.
292/ Idem, p. 336.

654 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 488-489, p.
294/ Idem, p. 337.

297

Those who have not on the Ghost in
them 655 , says Symeon [to read: those who
do not feel in them, in real mode, on the
Ghost], „they are not faithful from
heart" 656 .

The ecstatic sight is a
reactualization of the Baptism with other
words, after how the tears are at Symeon
a second Baptism 657 .

If we do not reactualize permanent
our union with Christ, our communion
with Him, if we do not feel always His
glory in us, then we have casted the grace
of Baptism and His union with us.

Therefore says Symeon that is a
blasphemy to affirm that believers receive
Him and have on Christ in them in unfelt
interior face, unseizable interior 658 .

If we do not actualize the Baptism
we do not feel anything in our being and
we are non-believers in fact, for that we
do not show any gift from God in our life.

If we can show that in us is the
earnest, that is the Ghost, then we show
that we are agreed by God, that He loves
us and that He has given us something
that is always with us, ie the divine grace.

55 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 498-500, p.
294/ Ibidem.

656 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 500, p. 294/
Ibidem.

657 About tears as our second baptism or as those
who continually cleanses us, to see lea jr. 2, p. 33; p.
34**; P- 35; P- 38; p. 40; p. 53**. P- 64; P- 65-66; p. 67; p.
69; p. 70; p. 71 etc.

658 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, X, 501-502, p.
296/ lea jr. 1, p. 337.

298

The faith as living relation with God
is an irreprehensible reality in symeonian
theology. Neither the apology for sight is
not at him a standard one, in which we all
see the same thing and at the same
intensity.

Taking as paradigm the ecstatic
sight of the Holy 40 Martyrs from Sebaste
of Armenia and a affirmation of the Holy
Martyr Eustratius from the time of his
tormentings, Symeon makes a distinction
of degree not only between Baptism and
ecstatic sight as until now, but and
between the sight of beginners and of the
perfects.

The sight of the light, says him, not
received nobody before to clean and
neither received it before to see it in
ecstatic mode 659 .

But, if for beginners, „is made to
them at beginning a brightness and a
divine lightenment, but which imme-
diately passes" 660 , fugitive, only for the
perfect ones will be full, quotidian.

The distinction between the ecstasy
of the beginners and of those perfect is an
explanatory paradigm, we believe, of
distinction between the receiving of the
Ghost at Baptism and the receiving of the
Ghost in ecstasy.

In both cases unite us with Christ
through the Ghost, only that the re-

659 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 522-524, p.
296/ Idem, p. 388.

660 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, X, 527-528, p.
296/ Ibidem.

299

ceiving of Christ by babes is for short time
and at a low measure, on when the
ecstasy is an acknowledgment of Christ at
a degree more high of ghostual under-
standing.

In the end of the Hymn 15, Symeon
attacks fugitive the problem of the
Baptism but explains us on full in what
regard our ecclesial identity received
through Baptism and reminds us and
how quickly produces the loss of feeling
of grace: receiving on God through
Baptism on when we were small or,
better said, making us sons of God on
when we were babies, sinning we were
immediately thrown out of the house of
David and happened it to us without to
feel something and to run [back at Him]
through repentance" 661 .

We threw us out of the Kingdom, ie
of the house of David, as long as we do
not stay at the height of exigencies of
faith and of interior feeling of the Holy
Ghost.

In the Epistle 1, our Father reiterates
the gracious reality of the Baptism
expressed here, naming on the Ghost
wealth and divine inheritance, acc. Col. 1,
12, Eph. 3, 8, II Cor. 4, 7 662 , and
specifying the fact that these „are given to
the baptized immediately by the divine
Baptism" 663 .

661 SC 156, Hymns, XV, 253-257, p. 298/ lea jr. 3,
p. 96-97.

662 Epistles, I, apud lea jr. 3, p. 306.

663 Idem, I, apud Ibidem.

But in the Epistle 4, he presents our
life as on an assumed life for God, for that
we promised us then when we were
baptized 664 .

Our returning at an evil life, sinful,
is for Symeon a violation of our promises
made at Baptism 665 .

For him our road after Baptism is a
road together with Christ, is a life lived in
the Ghost and any deviation from it
makes through a return through repen-
tance at the union with the feeling of
Trinity's grace.

In conclusion, symeonian soteri-
ology is, in the same time, sacramental -
for that it begins once with the Baptism -
and is, alike, and ecstatic, for that the
sight of the light represents the explicit
knowledge of Him who saves us.

The earnest of Baptism is not than
reconfirmed through ecstasy and
understood on measure of our ghostual
development. But the reaching at light
presuposses our entry in Church through
Baptism and an interior growing
intimation, through the fulfillment of
divine commandments, of divine grace
received at Baptism.

Symeon sees the Baptism as an entry
in communion with God and as a
quotidian actualization of it 666 until the

664 Idem, IV, apud Idem, p. 346.

665 Idem, IV, apud Idem, p. 347.

666 Speaking about the authenticity of theological
experience, Father Daniel Benga said into an article

full union and for eternity of each of us
with God.

301

relative recent, that „any authentic religious experience
cannot take place than in the ecclesial space" and that
the orthodox theology being „through excellency a
charismatic theology and liturgical" is „always living,
[is] a form of ierurgy or [a] holy work, something that
changes our life", acc. Rev. Lect. D.Th. Daniel Benga,
Attempts of Orthodox Theological Epistemology
[Incercari de epistemologie teologica ortodoxa], in rev.
The Orthodoxy [Ortodoxia] LVI (2005), no. 3-4, p. 91**,

93-

302

2. 6. 2. The Holy Communion,
the Feeling of Grace and the Ecstasy

As and in the case of Baptism, Saint
Symeon explained, from soteriological
point of view, the divine consequences
that arise in our being the conscious
union, full of longing, with the Body and
the Blood of the Lord.

The discussion about Holy Com-
munion has right fundament our union
with Christ and with the Ghost, with
entire Trinity in Baptism and the keeping
our relation alive, incandescence with the
God of our salvation.

But, before all, the symeonian
eucharistic theology characterizes our
sacramental union with Christ right a real
experiencing, personal of mystery of
divine-human person of Christ.

The impartation with eucharistic
Christ is the personal event of deep
personal communion of the faithful with
Christ, through which we acquire a
proper understanding, interior of christol-
ogical dogma, for that we live the real
communion with Christ, the personal
dimension of Christ's presence in the
Eucharist.

The eucharistic realism of Symeon
comes from the realism of divine-human
person of Christ.

For that Christ is alive, forever alive
and He Himself gives us as eternal life,

303

just therefore the interior reception of
eucharistic Christ is an exciting one,
deifying for us, for that is His indwelling
in us and the unspeakable joy that He is
in personal mode with us and not just
substantial.

For Symeon, the Eucharist is not
understood in terms of substantiality or
of replacement of Christ with the Holy
Eucharist but, contrariwise, the Eucharist
is, for Symeon, one that strengthens our
link of communion with Christ, Who is in
a personal mode in relation with us.

In the ethical Discourse 4, as to
begin with a suggestive passage, Symeon
initiates an eucharistological discussion
starting from the image of loving father,
that stays at the table with his sons 667 .

Then when the heavenly Father
(Symeon moves the center of attention
from the paradigm at the reality sug-
gested by this) wants to sit at the table
with His sons and to enjoy with them, He
does not give them something different
from Himself but He gives Himself to
them, acording Jn. 6, 33, as Bread, that
comes down from heaven, for to give life
to the world 668 .

Symeon does not quote at hap-
pening on the Evangelist John with 6, 33.
For Symeon, The Holy Eucharist is not a
symbol or something in that is not

667 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 280-281, p.
28/ lea jr. 1, p. 227.

668 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 285-289, p.
28/ Ibidem.

304

communicated to us the life of Christ but,
in Eucharist, Christ communicates to us
His glory and He is with us, with those
who are imparting with Him in eucha-
ristic mode.

However the Eucharist does not
replace on Christ as person, but Himself
Christ crucified and risen, Who ascended
at heaven and is seated at the right hand
of the Father, unites with us in the
Eucharist.

As and John the Theologian,
Symeon the Theologian speaks about the
impartation with eucharistic Christ in the
terms of interior communion with Christ,
through which Christ remains in those
who impart with Himself and the
believers remain in the deepest relation
with Christ. Through Eucharist we unite
and are with the Son of God incarnate,
Who is the real food of His sons, of the
members of the Church and Who is with
His Church in any moment.

Priests and bishops of the Church
prepare the Precious Gifts and bring
them, put them before, on altar, as these
to be sanctified by the descent of the
Ghost. These are the fruit of the earth
and of our work.

However, once with their sanctifi-
cation, we do not speak about bread and
wine but about eucharistic Christ, of His
Body and Blood the ones deified, those
filled of divine light.

305

However never Symeon does not
identify in substantial mode the Eucharist
with Christ but he speaks about the
impartation with Christ as about a im-
partation, alike, of humanity and divinity
of the person of Lord.

Says Symeon here, in the trace of
johannine citation enunciated: „and from
Him and with Him feed unceasing until
at satiety [Kopov xpefyovxai aevaox;],
preparing through impartation for eternal
life and sanctifying the soul and the
body" 669 . The impartation is for sons, for
the sons that stay at the table of love with
their Father the Beloved. The impartation
leaves real traces in our being, for that it
sanctifies us, prepares us for eternity, for
our continuous impartation of His sight
and it longer has a defining role which
surprises Symeon: Holy Communion
saturates, delights in continuous on
those who impart in repeated mode of it.

As and in the case of Baptism,
Symeon insists on the absolute positivity,
on the beneficial stunning aspect, at
personal level, of receiving of the Holy
Mysteries, on the fact that they fill us of
the glory of God, that they sanctify us, fill
us of all the joy and the gratitude.

The deprivation of the impartation
with Christ, says Symeon, is received by
the sons, who abuse of their freedom 670 ,

669 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 289-291, p.
28/ Ibidem.

670 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 292-293, p.
28/ Ibidem.

as a deprivation of good 671 , of the good
which they lived in them being in
enthusiastic mode, then when they sat at
the table with their heavenly Father.

Those who are restored through re-
pentance, as living members, awakeners
of the Master's table, come with more
boldness, says Symeon, and with more
longing to Christ and with trust in the
glory of God 6y2 .

Is easy of observed the fact that, in
this passage, our Father sees the depriva-
tion of the Holy Mysteries as a moment
of interiorization and of conscietization
and more of necessity of union with God,
which lives it and the one who does not
see the light, which is private from the
sight of the divine light.

With other words, the true love of
Christ conscietizes and more then when
we live our remoteness from Him as the
greatest personal drama.

When we feel how good was for us
with Christ and how bad we feel without
Him, then we understand, into an
overwhelming mode, His direct role, of
irreplaceable and deifying, which has
Christ in our life.

The ethical Discourse 1, this
theological overwhelming panoply,
brings us and closer of the core of sy-

71 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 297, p. 28/

Ibidem.

672 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, IV, 307-309, p.
30/ Ibidem.

307

meonian eucharistic theology, ie of
interior feeling of grace.

Speaking about Lord's resurrection
from the dead, Symeon leads the
discussion towards our deification,
through the impartation of Him.

If then when raised, Christ has
deified first the soul and then made as
His body to be full of glory 673 and, in
consequence, He descended in Hell and
rose the souls of Saints from there, but
not and their bodies, thing reserved of
universal resurrection 674 , all alike, says
Symeon, „when we take the Ghost of the
Master and of our God, make us together-
sharers [o\)\i\iezoxoi] and of Godhead and
of His being.

For eating His Tooclean Body, ie the
Divine Mysteries [0eia Muarr)pia], we
make indeed concorporal [auaaG)|joi] and
related [ovyyeveiq] with Him entirely
[oIokAtipgx;], like says and the Divine Paul:
„we are bone from His bones and meat
from His meat" [Eph. 5, 30]; and again:
„From the fullness of His divinity we all
took and grace upon grace" [Jn. 1, 16 and
Col. 2, 9]. Reaching so these, makes us,
through grace, like Loving of people God
and our Lord Himself, renew with the
soul, made incorruptible and living as
raised from the dead, ie seeing on the

73 SC 122, The Ethical Discourses, I, 3, 69-74, p.
200/ Idem, p. 123.

674 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 3, 74-78, p.
200/ Ibidem.

308

One who reckoned fit to make Himself
like us and seen being of Him, we who
have vouchsafed make us like Him
[a£iG)0evTec; 0|j,olol yevkoQai auico], as
someone sees from afar the face of his
friend, talks and speaks with him, and
hear his voice" 675 .

The receiving of the grace at Baptism
and the sight of the light in ecstasy do not
exclude the receiving of eucharistic
Christ. The receiving of the Holy Ghost
means the beingly union with God, from
where the insistence of Saint Symeon in
to name the ecstasy a beingly union, at
the interior level of our being, with the
glory of God.

The union with the glory of Christ
presuppose and the sacramental union
with Him, the One eucharistic.

After how tells us the text just cited,
the union with the Holy Mysteries, with
eucharistic Christ means our transfor-
mation in together-relatives with Christ,
for that we are concorporal with Christ,
for that Christ is in us and with us. As
and the union with the glory of Christ,
the union with the glory of eucharistic
Christ, which is the same eternal glory of
the Trinity, means the union, the
unmixed mixing with the humanity and
the deity of Christ. Our entire body and
soul unites with the integral humanity of
Christ and with His divinity.

75 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 3, 82-98, p.
202/ Idem, p. 123-124.

309

Our eucharistic concorporeality
with Christ is plenary and not partial, ac-
centuates Symeon. The impartation with
Christ is the experience, at the actual
ecclesial degree, of eternal union with
Christ, our Bridegroom.

Just therefore Symeon speaks of our
full likeness with the person of Christ
through the impartation with Him, which
is coinhabitation and the real union with
Him.

Make us like Him: this is the direct
result of conscious impartation and full of
His person. The consequences of impart-
ation are astounding, for that make us
like Him, incorruptible, resurrected with
the soul, seeing on Him as living, as the
One living Christ, Who stands with us
the living.

The feeling of the deity of Christ, of
eternal life what emanates from Christ,
means real experience, shakable beautiful
and deep of presence of God in us.

His feeling in us, as the One we rise
from the dead and our transformation
through Him, our transfiguration
through Him, starting from our soul and
continuing with our whole body, means
His undeniable evidence in our life.

The impartation into consciousness,
ie through the sensing of His divinity,
united in inseparable mode with the
Body and His Blood is the certainty of our
faith, the reactualization of our union
with Him and the consciousness that this

310

union will increase all more in this life
and in throughout eternity.

In the expectation of eternal union
with our Bridegroom, our longing of Him
is saturated of the impartation with Him,
the One eucharistic and this impartation,
in paradoxical mode, opens us an appe-
tite and more for the wish of His sight, of
eternal union with Him.

The sacramental impartation with
Christ not means a slighting of necessity
of His sight but, contrariwise, it is the
abyssal ecclesial event that stimulates His
search, the desire to see Him as He is.

The Holy Eucharist is neither a
closure of Christ in history or a depriva-
tion of Him of transcendence, but the
impartation with Him fills us of life of
everlasting ness, while we are still men of
history and, on the other part, makes us
to experience very deep His transcen-
dence, just in this immanence thrilling
and saving for us, through which we
impart us with Him at the Holy Liturgy.

Christ vouchsafes us, how says
Symeon, on each of us of the likeness
with Him, of the pnevmatization of our
entire being, without thereby to become
sole possessors of the Ghost or of Christ.

Each of us filled with the glory of
Christ and sanctify us through it and our
source of holiness is the eternal glory of
the Trinity.

In the measure in that recant us of
Fount of our life, of the glory of the

3ii

Trinity and we believe that we can save
by ourselves and we despise the ecstatic
unions and sacramental with Christ, we
experience the devastating vacuum of
helplessness, of loneliness and of self-
destruction, as closing in the narrow
circle, suffocating, of egoism.

Therefore Symeon stresses un-
checked, that the true union with the
eucharistic Christ is not an egoistic act or
a personal relation with God, which give
us a primacy to others, but it descends us
into a greater self-knowledge, in which
we live intense our relation with God.

The receiving of the Holy Mysteries
opens us the being to love all, for that
emphasizes us the opening of our love to
God, through the experience of His love
to us, which we live it in our being and
not from outside of us.

Little farther, all in the ethical Dis-
course 1, Symeon prolongs the discussion
about Matrimony with the one about the
reality of union with Christ through the
sacramental impartation of Him.

Christ, says he, gives us Himself
towards impartation „from His flesh and
from His bones, which He showed
Apostles after He rose from the dead,
saying: „Touch and see that the ghost has
not flesh and bones, how you see Me
having" [Lk. 24, 39], and from those itself
He gives us to eat [Jn. 6, 56], and through
this impartation/ communion [xf\c, kolvco-
viac] makes us one with Him. [...]

312

[Therefore] the Church of believers,
ie of sons of God inwritten in heavens
[Heb. 12, 23], cannot be a full body and
entire [Suvonm dvai dc, oti\±a apuov Km
oAxkAjpov] for God, without its Head,
Himself Christ God and cannot live the
true life and incorruptible [fj (f|v zr\v
ovtgx; Cg)T]v koli a,v6leQpov], if it is not
nourished by Him, in every day, with the
Bread the one of all days [Mat. 6, 11],
without which we have no life [into us]
and we cannot increase until [at the
stature] of perfect man, until at the
measure of age of His fullness, [which is]
of all those who love Him" 676 .

Is observed how Symeon reports, on
the one part, at the eucharistic Christ as
at the real Body of the Lord, about which
testifies the Evangel, without to make
abstraction through this of the person of
Christ or to reduce on Christ only at
Eucharist, and how, on the other part, he
sees the Church right the mystical Body
of Christ, in which each believer is a
living member, recognized and attested in
heavens by God, who must keep the life
into it, through the daily impartation
with Christ, the Head and the
Bridegroom of Church.

Believers live, stresses Symeon, from
the life of Christ, which flows through
them, thanks to their union with Him.
Without the life of Christ, without the

7 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 138-144,
166-173, p. 232-234, 234-236/ Idem, p. 135-136.

313

feeling of life of Christ in us, we cannot
be living members of Christ, for that we
do not feel in us His life, ie His deity.

And without the daily impartation
with Him we cannot raise at the stature of
perfect believer, of man in which is alive,
in evident mode, Christ God.

In the 10th chapter of the ethical
Discourse 1, Symeon explains what means
our impartation with worthiness 677 .

To eat with worthiness the Body of
the Lord, says he, means to receive and to
have in us His body took from the Ever
Virgin Mary and to feel in us the reality of
deity of the Son of God, ie the deity of
Him who sits of the right hand of the
Father 678 .

If we say that Jesus Christ, the
Incarnate Son of God is God and man,
then, conformable of symeonian logic
and of truth, of reality, we must impart
with Christ the One mostglorified, ie with
Christ the One full of Father's glory.

For that now, Christ „is no longer
known after flesh [II Cor. 5, 17]. ..but He is
[in Eucharist] in body in unbodily face
[daG)|iaTG)<; kv a(0|i(m], mixing in unspeak-
able face with beings and our natures and

77 About the impartation with worthiness
Symeon longer talk and little farther, in same discourse,
in 10, 172-174, p. 264, where reiterating the problem of
personal worthiness at the impartation with Christ, he
shows that the worthiness consists in the impartation of
eternal life of Christ, of conscietization, thus, of divine
presence of Christ in our being.

678 SC 122, The Ethical Discourses, I, 10, 58-62, p.
256/ lea jr. 1, p. 144-145.

3H

deifying us as on some what are
concorporal with Him and flesh from His
flesh and bones of His bones [Eph. 5, 29].

This is the great thing of His un-
speakable oikonomia [zf\Q cifypaozov o'lko-
vo|iLa<;] and of His descent more above of
word in us, this is the mystery full of all
frightening, which I wavered to write it
and of which approach I trembled" 679 .

Symeon intuits, in impeccable
mode, the personal sense of oikonomia of
salvation made in the person of Christ.
The work of Christ in us means just our
full deification - alike of full deification of
His humanity - through our impartation
of Christ full.

We cannot impart only of what we
see but and of what we feel, from enough,
in our interior union with Him, that is
His deity, which sanctifies us in full
mode.

In this sense named Symeon the
Holy Eucharist as being the Body of the
Lord, but not as a human body un-
ghostual, empty of the Ghost, but full of
the Ghost, fact for that is aocoiiaiox;.

If in the case of ecstatic sight is
experienced the glory of Christ, as
cleansing light, lightening, sanctifying, in
eucharistic impartation with Him we
experience His glory as being likewise:
cleansing of passions, lightening, sancti-
fying of the body and of our soul.

79 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 10, 67-75, P-
256/ Idem, p. 145.

315

Imparting us with Him we receive
„the grace of the Ghost, ie the fire of
Godhead. ..[that gushes] from nature and
from His being" 680 .

The eucharistic impartation, as and
the ecstasy, makes us close, somewhat, to
His unapproachable person, through the
glory that gushes from it.

In the sight and the feeling of His
glory we experience the unapproachable
life of God and His transcendence,
without as it to subsume, into something,
to His gracious immanence, to Christ's
descent at us, through His glory and
trough the giving the Body and of His
divine Blood toward our impartation.

Through His immanence lived by us,
we feel how great is His transcendence,
His real misunderstanding and His un-
comprehension by us.

But His transcendence becomes for
us a real one, felt interior, in personal
mode, on measure what unite us with His
glory or impart us with Him, the One
eucharistic.

Only in the Church, with other
words, we know who is God, how shows
our God the unapproachable, how fells
He through the faith and the holy life
into Him and which are the life and His
love real.

The ghostual experience is the
crucible where melts and rebuilds the

0 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, 1, 10, 123-125, p.
260/ Idem, p. 146.

3 i6

being and our life and where the feeling
and the sight of God bring us a real
attitude and theology about the life of
God.

In the ethical Discourse 3, Symeon
puts the equal sign between the content of
ecstasy and the eucharistic impartation.

Although one is the ecstasy and
another is the eucharistic impartation,
however Symeon finds them a common
denominator: the person of Christ.

Says he, into a grandiose mode: „The
unspeakable words, spoken to Paul in
Paradise, ie the itself eternal goodies
which the eye has not seen and the ear
has not heard and at the heart of man has
not ascended, which God has prepared
those who love Him [I Cor. 2, 9], is not
find closed on a height, are not bounded
by any place, are not hidden in any deep,
are not kept at the head of the earth or of
sea, but they are before you and before
your eyes [Rom. 10, 6-8; Deut. 30, 12-14].

But what are these? Together with
the goodies what are put the one part in
heavens [tgov <xt\ok€\,\i£V(av ev zoic, oupavdlg
dyaGcov], Itself the Body and the Blood of
our Lord Jesus Christ, which we see and
we eat and we drink in every day, are in
recognized face those goodies.

Because in outside thereof you will
not find anywhere nor any a single thing
from those said, even if you pervades
running the whole creation.

317

And if you want to know, that those
said are true, make yourself Holy trough
the work of commandments and so
impart you by the Holy ones and you will
know then exactly/ with the detail, the
power [zr\v Suvoqiiv] of those said to

»68i

you

Although symeonian theology is
preponderant ecstatic, however, as we
see, the ecstatic does not elude at him the
real presence of Christ in the Holy
Eucharist.

Symeon does not ignore the Divine
Eucharist but identifies it with the eternal
goodies seen by Paul in ecstasy. Through
the impartation with eucharistic Christ
and through the sight of the glory of
Christ does not occur with us something
different, but, in both cases, we fill us by
the holiness of Christ and we become
conformable, alike Him.

But in both unions with Christ we
must be proper the reception of His glory
through a life of holiness. The terminal
phrase from the quoted text, after how is
seen very well, urges us to holiness, if we
want to do a hermeneutic of interior
presence, of eucharistic Christ, in our life.

For to talk about the presence of
Christ, reminds us Symeon and if we
want to make Theology in ultimate
instance, we must talk about the God,
Which we feel in us but and above us,

Idem, The Ethical Discourses, III, 426-441, p.
420-422/ Idem, p. 209-210.

3i8

Who is always together with us, but is, in
the same time, in outside of all creation
and not by a God lost in sidereal hori-
zons, Who does not have touching with
the world and is not present in the world
through His grace 682 .

The polemic of Symeon with non-
experimental theology, fixedist, we find
at all the step in his charismatic theology.

Responding those surprised by his
affirmation [that the Holy Communion is
itself the content of ecstatic sight],
Symeon cites Jn. 6, 43-44, affirming, that
nobody cannot recognize, to understand
His divinity, if not will attract him the

Father toward this divine understand-

683
ing \

682 Into a recent interview, Father Professor
Dumitru Popescu emphasized the capital importance,
in actual orthodox theology, of reliefation of the
presence of God in the world, saying:

„If you say that God does not exist in the world,
categorical that then the world becomes a matter which
manipulate it how you want. Today we live into a times
in that the deterioration of circumambient environment
and the disequilibriums of world economy appear to
aggravate all more. [...]

[But, if] God created the earth from love for man,
in consequence the earth belongs to God. We are not
our own masters and neither of the body and neither of
the air or of the earth. All comes from God. Just the
perspective of presence of the Ghost of God in the world
can glimpses an existence more viable for man and for
creation", Rev. Prof. Acad. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu, The
Church Must to Assume the Culture of Times, but
Without Making Compromises [Biserica trebuie sa-si
asume cultura vremii, dar fard a face compromisuri],
interview realized by Ciprian Bara, in the newspaper
The Light [Lumina], no. 21 (2008), p. 8.

683 SC 122, The Ethical Discourses, III, 456-468, p.
422-424/ lea jr. 1, p. 210.

319

If only those taught by God can
believe in the Son of God 684 , all likewise,
says Symeon, only those who impart with
the Holy Mysteries of the Lord have the
eternal life into them and on these will
raise them the Lord in the day of then 685 .

Our Father goes and farther in his
unbeatable syllogistical, conquering and
he connexes the impartation with the
Holy Mysteries with the interior under-
standing, personal, of the interior reality
of the Most Holy Trinity.

Starting from Jn. 6, 56-57, Symeon
says that „the our union/ communion
[zf\q koivcovlocc] with Him, through Eucha-
rist, makes in evident mode [Siappr|Sr|v]
[for us], as the union and the life which
has that One with the Father.

For as that One is united in natural
face [(JiuoLKCog] with God and His Father,
all so and us... through the eating His
Body and trough the drinking His Blood
we will unite with Him and we will live in
Him through grace [kccicc xapiv].

And that we do not reckon, that all
keeps of bread seen, from this reason He
said, in more rows: „I am the Bread that
comes down from heaven" [Jn. 6, 51]. And
He did not say: „That came down". [...]
But He says: „That comes down", ie
evermore comes down, and always, and

4 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, III, 474-475, p.
424/ Idem, p. 211.

685 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, III, 495-498, p.
424-426/ Ibidem.

320

comes and in the clock of now at those
worthy [eiw, xoug o^ioug

Our union through grace with the
Son is all just as close, of indestructible,
as and that between Him and the Father.

Experiencing the interior link with
the Son, reminds us Symeon, we under-
stand from experiential point of view and
at our level, the natural link, interior and
personal of trinitarian persons.

Triadology and Christology, in evi-
dent mode, are understood at personal
level in symeonian theology, through our
link with Christ and in the impartation of
Him.

The union with eucharistic Christ is
heingly, essential and revealing. Without
it we cannot have true life into us, we do
not know what means the living link with
God and we cannot understand, in
personal mode, nor the hypostatic union
of natures in the person of Christ and nor
the heingly link, of indestructible, of trini-
tarian persons.

The ecstatic sight confirms the over-
whelming reality of eucharistic impar-
tation and the eucharistic impartation
with Christ centers our longing on the
sight and the feeling of Christ in our life.

Little lower, in the same discourse,
Symeon invites on those that reduce the
Eucharist at what is seen, at an
understanding, the interior contem-

Idem, The Ethical Discourses, III, 507-517, p.
426/ Idem, p. 211-212.

321

plation of eucharistic Christ: „As you do
not surmise nothing bodily. ..this little
bread [tov \iiKpbv apiov], small piece that
was deified [xr\v okiypy |a,epiSa 0eoTTOir|-
Geioav], to see it with eyes of the mind
made entire like the Bread which comes
down from heaven, Who is true God and
bread and drink of eternal life, lest,
remaining in unbelief and only at the
bread seen in all senses, to eat not the
heavenly Bread, but only on the earthly
and to be devoid of life, uneating
ghostually [TTveu|iaTiK(o<; |j-f| ctDaycov] the
heavenly Bread, as says Christ Himself:
„the Ghost is Who what makes living, the
body does not use at nothing"" 687 .

As to feel on Christ in the Holy
Eucharist we must see on Christ in it and
in the same time, when impart us with
Him, to fell how this union with Him is
real and deifying. Otherwise, unbelieving
that Christ is there and without to feel His
divinity in us, impart us only in appear-
ance with Him, for that we have not
seized inward His power the life- creating,
the glory of His divinity.

Without the feeling of His divinity
impart us only with bread and wine (for
that we believe that we receive only that
which we see that we receive), lacking us
of the true consequences of impartation.

Symeon attracts the attention that
we must be, first, united with Christ

687 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, III, 528-538, p.
428/ Idem, p. 212.

322

through the love and the faith in Him
and through the fulfillment of His
commandments, for that to feel Him in
us eucharistically and to fell how to
scatter in all our being His glory and
makes us gods through grace.

We, those who impart us, in
conscious mode, of Christ entire and
make us one with Him, are called by
Symeon „to let us ravished in the Ghost,
in itself His true life, in the third heaven,
or, rather, in itself the heaven of Holy
Trinity, for that seeing and hearing
simultaneously those spoken and that
remain unspoken, taste them and smell
them and touch them beautiful with the
hands of soul [ie with the ghostual senses
of the soul o.n.], to exalt praise of
thanksgiving to the God the loving of
men" 688 .

The impartation is the prelude of
ecstasy, the deepest and clearest
motivation for to cleanse us of passions
and to wish the sight of God.

The impartation and the sight open,
doxological, towards the adoration of
God or these two modes of real union
with God increase us the interior
dimension, doxological, of our relation
with the Creator, the Saviour, the Sancti-
fier and our Judge.

The dramatic consequences, at
personal and ecclesial level, of interior

688 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, III, 558-564, p.
430/ Idem, p. 213.

3 2 3

unintimation of eucharistic Christ, reveal
us, in their true monstrosity, in the
ethical Discourse 10, where Symeon
stresses the following: „And if not stay
thus the things, if we do not make
partakers, still being in body, of the
eternal goodies and neither we, the
chosen, do not receive the grace, follows
that Christ Himself is just a Prophet and
not God.

And all which tells His Evangel are a
prophecy about future things and not a
gift of the grace. And, in similar face, the
Apostles prophesied and have not ful-
filled those prophesied, and did not take
neither they [nothing] and neither have
shared and others. [...]

But if those who eat His body and
drink His blood have eternal life, after His
divine word [Jn. 6, 54], and we eating
these not feel in us nothing more than
the felt food, nor receive in conscious face
another life, then impart us with a simple
bread and not with God.

For, if Christ is God and man, and
His Holy Body is not only body [r\ Ayia
£ap£ Auiou ou oap£ |j,6vov], but body and
God in inseparable face but and unmixed,
He is seen, through body, and then
through bread, for sensible eyes, but
unseen, through Godhead, for sensible
eyes, but seen by eyes of the soul.

Therefore and says somewhere:
„ Who eats My Body and drinks My Blood
remains in Me and I in him" [Jn. 6, 56].

324

And He did not say, that remains in them
and they in Him, but „in Me", ie in My
glory, in My light, in My deity" 689 .

The eucharistic theology of Symeon
is, as shown here, the promoter of
ecclesiality and of the experience of
interior union with the Son of God
incarnate.

If through the sacramental impart -
ation 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, au-
thentic, 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 under-
standing of Holy Mysteries, our Father
says: „If you do it in feeling and
consciousness [kv aioQr\oe\, Km yvddoei],
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 [kv
Gecopia KocGocpa] from the ones from which

9 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, X, 738-745,
758-773> P- 312, 3H/ Idem, p. 344-345, 345-

325

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 Mys-
teries, 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 [lieiouoia] 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

326

Holy Ghost, feeding only the body, not
and their soul" 690 .

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 demon-
strated 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

690 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, XIV, 224-247,
p. 438-440/ Idem, p. 397-398.

327

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 [c^cog dxwpriiov Km 6ii\p6-
oltov].

All so and the Wine is and it, in
similar face, life [(cor|], fire [ttup], living
water [uScop Ccov].

So, if eating and drinking the divine
Bread and the Wine of rejoicing, you will
not know that you live the incorruptible
life [ouk ear] yiv6oK(x>v d (cofiv e(r|aa<; zr\v
dvcoleGpov], 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 [Gecopia] and the
impartation [iieQe^ei] with nothing from
all these, how reckon that you made
partaker of life [xf|c; Ccofjg kolvgovoc]?" 691 .

This passage is one of the clearest
examples, for to exemplify the fact, that
Symeon identifies the experiencing of

91 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, XIV, 248-267, p.
440/ Idem, p. 398.

328

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 sanctifi-
cation.

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.

In the Hymn 30 Symeon retakes the
distinction between the union with
Christ through the ecstatic sight of His
glory and the union with Christ through

329

the ghostual impartation of Body and His
eucharistic Blood:

„This thought union [voepav evwoLv],
[the ecstatic], I already said it in different
mode and manifold and the felt union I
say that is one of the Mysteries. For
cleansed through repentance and
through flowings of tears, imparting me
by a body deified as God, become
through this unspeakable union and I
god. [...]

[After how] the body and the
soul. ..are one in two beings, through
following, these which are one and two,
imparting of Christ and drinking His
Blood, uniting through both beings and
natures with my God, become and they
gods through impartation and are called
with the same name, with the name of
Who of which imparted in beingly face

[i £ ~ r -p>6Q2

OUOLCOOCOC \l€X€OX0V\ y .

Symeon can speak with power about
the reality of deification, for that this is a
personal reality for his Holiness.

It was not an abuse of daring for
Symeon and not a grandomania, the fact
of to talk about his relation with Christ,
as long as this relation is real one or must
be thus for all the baptized in Christ.

Symeon does not put the monopoly
on a genus of unwonted experience, to
which can accede only some of us, but for
our Father the union with Christ and the

92 SC 174, Hymns, XXX, 463-472, 474-487, p.
372-374/ lea jr. 3, p. 188-189.

330

sanctification through Him is a personal
characteristic of any orthodox christian
in part.

Symeon speaks decent about things
which should be quotidian for all and
being quotidian, would be our true
subject of discussion, pressing and our
all-inclusive subject of discussion.

But for that does not stay the things
even so good in Church, Symeon speaks,
through the Ghost, and reproves the
human ambitions and the human daring
of any member of it, but, especially, of
clergy, saying to the bishops, which were
not experiencing the glory of Trinity and,
of otherwise, to the whole clergy, that
„remain you unknown My frightening and
divine Mysteries, [you, those] who
fancied that you hold a bread, which is, of
fact, Fire, which despides Me as on a
simple bread and seem you that you see
and eat just a eating not having My
unseen glory" 693 .

From this passage is observed, that
Symeon not only that identifies the con-
tent of ecstasy with the eucharistic
impartation with worthiness, but he asks
from those who impart to seize, to fell the
grace and to see the light of God.

Is evident the effort of our Father of
conscientizing the abyss of ignorance
from the mind of those, which, then and
now, they believe that imparting us

693 SC 196, Hymns, LVIII, 92-96, p. 284-286/
Idem, p. 292-293.

33i

means to eat something, on Christ, but
does not feel any remarkable transfor-
mation in our life.

Symeon says unconscious and non-
experimental, that unintimation of the
Ghost cancels all their ecclesial effort and
shows them dead members, ruptured
from the trunk of Christ's Church, even if
they, from formal point of view, are inside
of Church.

The ecclesial eucharistic experience
is a personal event with capital followings,
as and the Baptism and the Chrismation,
and any elusion of discussion about the
feeling of grace in the frame of
committing of Holy Mysteries means, of
fact, an annulment of the personal soteri-
ology.

This thing he repeats in the Epistle
4, where Symeon says to his apprentice,
that the one „does not know in the
feeling and the knowledge of soul, that he
remains in God and God in him, that one,
with safety, did not impart in worthy face
with the Most clean Mysteries.

For how is with possibility as that
one, which is united with God not to
know this, out if he is not very callous?
And if the one who eats the Body and
drinks the Blood of Christ has eternal life
and at judgment will not come, but has
moved from death at life, [then] is
evident, that the one who does not know
that he has eternal life and he did not
pass from death at life, as the one who

332

passes from a darkish room into a
luminous one and brilliant, one like this
did not know the mystery of God's
iconomy, nor was delighted of eternal
life" 694 .

The eucharistic experience, in
conclusion, does not mean a scriptic
taking at acquaintance about what
happens then when impart you, but con-
sists in the understanding of what is
spend with us in the act of sacramental
union with the Lord.

The real union with Christ God
means to feel His divinity in us, His glory,
to deifying permanent and to be
conscious of the gradual deification, daily
of our being.

Saint Symeon accentuates in his eu-
charistic theology the identity of
experience between the ecstatic sight and
the eucharistic impartation, at which we
are called in corpore and which repre-
sents the real manifestation of the
ecclesiality of our life.

To be in the Church, tells us he,
means to live through all pores of our
being the wonder of our deification, ie our
full raccordation at the life of the Trinity.

Epistles, IV, apud lea jr. 3, p. 352-353.

333

2. 6. 3- The Holy Confession and
the Interior Experience of Grace

Although we have tendency to
evaluate only the Epistles i and 2 for to
find the details related of the Mystery of
Holy Confession in symeonian opera,
however a detailed research of his opera
demonstrates us, that Symeon presented
not only the repentance as Mystery but
and the repentance as component part of
ascesis.

He speaks about contrition, about
repentance as interior ghostual state both
before, in and after the sacramental con-
fession, antecedent to the impartation
with the Holy Mysteries, present in us
when impart us but and posterior of this
real union with the Lord.

Symeon cannot have a vague
consciousness of proper sinfulness and
nor cannot stipulate an emancipation
towards the sacramental act of the
confession of sins, as long as, for him, the
sin was a mortal virus, which affected our
entire being and without the cleansing of
sins cannot reach at the sight of God.

In the Hymn 34, he says with
sorrow, that „those who have sinned led
to corruption not only the body, but and
itself their soul and... we are corruptible
and with the body and with the soul, as
some what are kept, in the same time, of
the corruption of death understood with

334

the mind [tou vot|tou Gavaiou], as well as
the sin" 695 .

But those who have sinned are we
all, entire humanity, from which Symeon
not excludes noway, but he sees as the
most sinful among all.

The universalism of sin reclaim the
universalim of personal soteriology 9 and
the sight of sins is not only a re-
memorization of our faults but and a
charism: „the soul that has begun to be
kindled of the divine [grace] sees first in
himself the darkness of passions [icov
ttocGcov CocJdov] rising as a fame in the fire of
the Ghost and sees as into a mirror the
blackness produced in him by fume and
he laments and feels that thorns of
thoughts and the brushwoods of pre-
judgments ignite and premake perfect in
ash" 697 .

For that the sin is entered in every
fiber of our being, the cleansing power of
grace is felt through repentance as that
what regenerates us in total mode.

695 SC 174, Hymns, XXXIV, 36-40, p. 430/ lea jr. 3,

p. 204.

696 Father Duse said, into an article about the
sight of light at Saint Symeon, that this „ surprises
suddenly the ontological minus of the human being in
his separation of God, [but] and his integrity through
the conscious and loving relation with God through the
deifying grace", acc. Rev. PhD student Calin-Ioan Duse,
The Sight of Divine Light after Saint Symeon the New
Theologian [Vederea luminii dumnezeiesti dupa Sfdntul
Simeon Noul Teolog], in The Theology [Teologia] IV
(2000), no. 4, p. 118.

697 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, VII, 526-531, p.
194/ lea jr. 1, p. 296.

335

Saint Symeon is attentive at the
consciousness of sin that we must have.
He knew that we cannot cleanse us from
sins, if we do not feel in our being the sin,
if we do not know why must cast from us
in real mode.

For that the feeling of grace is an
interior presence, Symeon insists all just
as more and on the interior feeling of sins,
which are interior realities, palpable for
our consciousness and not are some
inventions of our proper fantasies or
reminiscences of a mentality of darkish
middle age.

The sins are interior presences and
therefore, our Father draws attention on
the fact of not to be disregarded to these
fatidical presences for the health and our
life: „you know, that those who do not
repent and not guard exactly and with
much fear His commandments, they will
not have any avail, but God will punish
them with much worse than on the pagan
nations and the unbaptized.

Not deceived, my brethren, and no
sin does not seem small and not to be
despised by you, as and how would not
make a such great harm for our souls.
Because the grateful servants [of the
Master, ie the Saints] do not know any
difference between a small sin and a great
sin, but, even if they fall only with the
look or the thought or the word, they
reckon that they fell from the love of God,
thing that, I am convinced, is and true.

336

Because the one what cogitates a
small thing in outside of the will of God
and does not repent immediately, banish-
ing the attack of thought, but receives
and keeps this thought, this is reckoned
sin, even if he does not know that this is a
bad thing [to \skv kv dyvoia tou kockov
eivoa touto AoyiCeToaJ .

The scrupulousness opposite of sins
of Saint Symeon is a divine charism, for
that only the Holy Ghost can show you
which are your sins with true, which is
the interior abyss of your decadence.

Even if we do not know which are
the sins and what is the sin in front of
God and we do not know that we sin, the
sin deepens in us in continual mode.

Our Father asks to take act, through
repentance, about the real interior world
of our being and there to call the Ghost of
God, Which burns in integrality, as a
divine fire, says Symeon, all the darkness
of our sins.

From the knowledge of sins and from
the complaint for them begin our prepa-
ration for the sacramental confession.

In the frame of the Mystery of
Confession, we must come with the
complaint for our sins, with the pain for
them and with the feeling of the immense
longing after the forgiveness of God.

The finale of Catechesis 3 presents
the repentance as on a continuous victory

698 SC 96, The Catecheses, III, 249-264, p. 300-
302/ lea jr. 2, p. 48.

337

of personal falling and as deifying state
for us, which is at the opposite pol of
desperation: „wound towards death is all
unrepentant sin [6i\iemv6r\zoc] and un-
confessed [ave^ayopeuTCx;], as and the fact
of to fall someone into desperation
[dTTOYVCOGLv], thing that keeps of the
choosing and our volition.

For, if we would not be surrendered
on ourselves to recklessness and desper-
ation, demons could not do nothing
against us.

But even and after what we were
wounded [of sin], if we want, we can make
us more brave and more skilful through a
kindled repentance.

For the fact of to rise and to fight
again after what they were wounded and
they died is a thing proper to those very
brave and courageous, worthy and full of
all admiration.

Because to preserve us unwounded
does not keep of us, but to be immortal
and mortal keeps of us" 6 ".

The repentance is, at our Father, the
interior coordinate of our ghostual
manhood, the continuous victory over
the personal fallings.

The longing after the forgiveness of
God, whereof I was talking, is expressed
here best, for that any victory over us
from the part of demons is a motive in
plus of interior mobilization, of raising

699 Idem, The Catecheses, III, 347-358, p. 308/
Idem, p. 51.

338

and more virulent against of proper
passions.

But, above of this, at Symeon, the
repentance and the sacramental
confession of sins (for that he never sepa-
rates them), make us immortal, ie keep us
in the glory of God.

In the Catechesis 4, Symeon empha-
sizes the interior presence of grace in the
frame of repentance and the role of tears
in personal salvation: all those of the
cleansing of passions „works them the
divine fire of the puncture together with
the tears or, rather, through tears.

But without tears. ..no thing from
these has not made and nor will be made
sometime in ourselves or in any other.
[...] [For] without tears and without
unceasing puncture has not cleansed ever
any man or has made Holy or received the
Holy Ghost or saw God or knew Him
dwelling in him or he saw on This ever
dwelling entire in his heart, without to be
foreruned the contrition and the puncture
and unceasing tears, gushing always as
from a fountain, as to flood and to wash
the house of soul and to bathe it in the
dew and to cool the soul comprised and
kindled by the unapproachable fire [I
Tim. 6, 16]" 700 . The divine grace is re-
ceived and kept in us through repentance
and the repentance is the road towards
the sight of God.

700 Idem, The Catecheses, IV, 439-452, p. 350/
Idem, p. 65-66.

339

The forgiveness is asked through
repentance and the forgiveness means
the receiving and more abundant of grace
in us, without which we are not living
members of Christ.

At our Father, the repentance and
the sacramental forgiveness of our sins
and the unceasing weeping for our
interior nakedness are alike some gates of
the altar, which open to us towards our
sacramental union with Christ, our God:

„The Holy of Saintsl, say, in every
day, some and they herald the others
crying with great voice. [...] And the
others hear on those saying these.

What is it, so? Who is not Saint is,
indeed, and unworthy? No!

But who does not herald [k&yye-
AAgov] in every day the hidden of his heart,
who does not show repentance worthy
[\iexavoiav a&av] for them and for all
made into nescience, who does not weep
ever and do not walk grieving and not
cross with zeal those said before, this is
not worthy.

And who do all these and spends his
life in sighs and tears is very worthy to
make sharer of these Divine Mysteries
not only in day of holiday but in every day,
and, even if is daring thing to say this,
stillfrom the beginning of repentance and
of his return.

Because this is forgiven, as one who
wants to insist until end in deeds as

340

these, walking in humbleness and in
broken heart [Ps. 50, 10].

For making so and being thus, he
lightens the soul in every day [c})G)Ti(emi
zr\v i[/uxfiv oaipepoa], helped at this by the
impartation of those Holy and he rises
more rapid towards a cleanness and
perfect holiness" 701 .

The daily confession of sins, merged
with the daily impartation with eucha-
ristic Christ, is for Symeon an authentic
experience of the state of repentance but
and of ghostual fulfillment.

Our worthiness in the face of im-
partation with the Lord is not formed by
our good deeds, but from the recognition
of self the recognition of our ghostual
poverty in the face of His unspeakable
abundance.

The one integrates into repentance
as in the normal flux of his life is, for
Symeon, worthy by the daily impartation
with the Lord, for that his forgiveness
means the real assuming of proper
helplessness.

For this continuous assuming, in
that does not slip not a bit of self-
justification, he lights daily through
impartation and he rises rapid, very fast,
towards a perfect holiness.

Saint Symeon does not something
else in this passage than to transmit us
his total dipping in the eucharistic

701 Idem, The Catecheses, IV, 604-622, p. 362-
364/ Idem, p. 70-71.

34i

communion and ecstatic with God. He
himself was the one who practiced the
confession of sins and the current
impartation with the eucharistic Christ
and, in the same time, he was filled of
divine sights, which lead at an astounding
increase, in short time, of his life.

Saint Symeon is an authentic
recordman of eucharistic experience and
ecstatic, for that he proved through his
increase, that these two paths are
connexed and that the Church is the
frame of experience of God's glory and of
increase, stunning of rapid, in holiness.

The repentance attracts and keeps
in us the divine grace, but the interior
feeling of grace keeps, in the same time,
and of sacramental forgiveness.

Through the passage from the
Catechesis 33, which we will quote
immediately, we pass from the
repentance as habitual state, effervescent
of the orthodox christian at the problem-
atic concerning at the confessor priest
and at the feeling of grace, both in priest,
what and in the one who confesses to
him.

In the catechesis above mentioned,
our Father sketches, in antithetic mode,
the ghostual profile of the true priest
confessor: „one which seems to have into
himself - if this is with possibility - all
virtues, but does not have in him the light
of the Holy Ghost, neither sees well his
deeds, neither is entrusted in perfect face,

342

if they are on the liking of God, that one is
not worthy to receive foreign thoughts
[ouSe koyio\iobc, dAAoipiouc; koxiv ava-
dexeoQon a£ioc], even if would be done by
people patriarch, until he will not have
light shining into himself.

For says Christ: „Walk until you
have the light, as catch not you the
darkness. And he who walks into
darkness does not know where he goes
[Jn. 12, 35 ]"" 702 .

Cannot confess, says Saint Symeon,
the priests and the hierarchs who do not
feel in them on the One who forgives or
through Which they forgive, ie on the
Ghost.

The worthiness of confessor is given
by God as a charisma, trough a virtuous
life and through the interior entrusting,
that God wellwishes into us.

The relation of personal communion
with God and the presence of grace and of
light in our being are those which
guarantees us, as priests confessors, the
real clearing and cure of those who
confess to us, for that through the Ghost
we realize all operations of the interior
renovation of christians. Therefore,
Symeon urges the clergy of Church, in his
integrality, to ask on the old and the
archiereuses of Church, as to learn 703 how

702 SC 113, The Catecheses, XXXIII, 33-43, p. 250-
252/ Idem, p. 339.

703 Idem, The Catecheses, XXXIII, 218-221, p. 264/
Idem, p. 344.

343

to make us „alike with God through

W704

experience ' .

For him the ghostual experience is
the interior frame in which we must
receive the cheirotonia and only through
the Ghost we can see and to cleanse from
sins on those who confess to us.

Our Father does not contest the
sacramental cheirotonia of the unworthy
and their presence in Church (for that
just against of their unstraightening he
spoke), but he stresses the fact, that the
worthies/ the apostolic dignities [icov
dTToaioliKCOv d£iG)|iaTG)v] 7 ° 5 , which we
receive through cheirotonia, are not
received with true in our being, if we do
not have and the interior perfection
which these ask from us, ie the knowledge
of the mysteries of God [tou 0eou
|iuoir|pLCOv] 706 , of the road of personal
deification.

Exists, thus, for Symeon, members
of the clergy which have entered through
the cheirotonia from men, how says he,
without receiving and the feeling of grace
in their being, the conscious feeling,
uninterrupted, deifying, ie and the cheiro-
tonia of God and these serve those of the
Master without as to feel, in active mode,
how deify them through the grace of God

704 Idem, The Catecheses, XXXIII, 221, p. 264/
Ibidem.

705 Idem, The Catecheses, XXXIII, 223, p. 264/
Idem, p. 345.

706 Idem, The Catecheses, XXXIII, 224, p. 266/
Ibidem.

344

and how deify and on those whom they
serve.

Our Father makes, on right, this
fundamental distinction between the
members of clergy legal cheirotoned, for
that he could not stipulate [how he has
not made it neither at Baptism or in the
frame of discussion about the sacra-
mental impartation] a receiving and a
work of Mystery, without as the one who
serves or the one who receives it not feel
nothing in its frame.

For Symeon a Holy Mystery is
personal experienced in real mode,
through it unite us with God's glory and
all participants at it, ie both the clerics
and the believers, live from full its
deifying irradiance.

On the base of the living reality and
plenary of sacramental experience,
Symeon will talk about the charisma of
the forgiveness of sins, where merges both
the sacramental forgiveness, de facto, but
and the ghostual ability of to integrate on
the one which was confessed in the pro-
cess of his full clearing of passions.

In the finale of the ethical Discourse
15, putting in antithesis the inferiority of
unworthy priest confessor with of the one
in which dwells the Ghost of God and
Which is his priestly worthiness itself, our
Father says:

„If the one quiets and the first-
standing of others and the teacher of
others does not know all this [of deifica-

345

tion] the thread of hair/ full, then nor the
one who seems that quiets is not
hesychast, but sits in nescience, closed
only with the body and nor the one who
seems that is first-standing is not first-
standing, but, walking in the path which
he does not know, or rather, outside of
this path, he throws them, together with
him, in the precipice of eternal fire.

Nor the one who seems that he
teaches is not a teacher of others, but he
is a liar and a deceiver, for that he does
not have in him the true wisdom, on our
Lord Jesus Christ.

But what must be said really, about
some as these, in which regards [the
power] of to bind and to loose [tou 6ea|ieiv
Km A<ikiv], when those who have in
themselves on the Holy Ghost, Who
forgives sins, tremble not to do
something against the thought of the
One who is in them and speaks in them?

But who is so crazy and taken of a
boldness so great, that to say and to make
the things of Ghost before as he to receive
the Ghost and to serve those of God
without the power of God?" 707 .

Is observed very limpid the fact, that
Symeon speaks here about the feeling of
the Ghost, in they themselves, by clerics
and about a real bearing of the grace of
priesthood, into consciousness, by each
in part.

707 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, XV, 180-196, p.
456-458/ lea jr. 1, p. 405-406.

346

The Cheirotonia, so after how lived it
Symeon, means the real coming, felt
interior, conscientious of the Holy Ghost
in the frame of legal cheirotonia, when
we stand in knees, under the hands of
cheirotoner archiereus and the keeping,
throughout our entire life, of real feeling
of this divine fire, who descended upon
us then.

For that Symeon has experienced in
real mode and he was experiencing the
presence and the work of cheirotonia's
grace into him and in those whom he
shepherded them and he increases them
into ghostuality, he knew that it is and
should be a common experience, quotid-
ian, for each cheirotoned cleric, by Christ,
in Church.

The feeling of grace, repeats invari-
ably Symeon, is the true impartation of
God and of Mysteries of His Church and
without this does not exist the christian
life, but a surrogate of life, a pseudo
churchly life, lived in parasitical mode.

Just therefore, Symeon asks from
himself and from all members of the
Church a real experience with God, which
is made through the continue repentance:

„For was not ever heard, nor is
written in the Divine Scriptures to receive
someone the sins of other and to account
for him, without as the one who has
sinned to be shown, first, fruits worthy of
repentance, proportional with the kind of

347

sin and without to have put at its basis
his fatigues" 708 .

If the profile of true priest confessor
must be that of a bearer of the Ghost into
consciousness, the profile of true penitent
is that of a worker, together with the
Ghost, at the straightening of self.

Both human members of the
Mystery of Holy Confession are, in
symeonian theology, conscious of the
presence of grace in their being and of
the absolute necessity of God's forgive-
ness, refelt as abundant filling of Holy
Ghost.

Their personal relations with God
are intersecting with their relation of
confessor - ghostual son, making from
this latter the most expressive inter-
human relation, substantiated on the
presence of Trinity's grace in their life,
but and on that of conscience of common
responsibility for their salvation.

Every detail of the relation with God
and of relations which imply the
ghostuality sits, in symeonian theology,
under the seal of the presence of grace
and of the largest and of plenary personal
fulfillment.

Saint Symeon asks ghostual
experience from the confessor priest.

The confessor cannot be „one
inexperienced, lest through much cutting
and through the cuts and the burnings
which are not at their time throw you in

Epistles, I, apud lea jr. 3, p. 309.

34 8

the deep of despair or through his
compassion beyond measure leave you
ill... and so give you to eternal damna-
tion" 709 .

He must know to give canons, in
correct mode, to his ghostual sons,
through the fact that he sees, through the
Ghost, their true interiority and possi-
bility of understanding and straightening.

But the authentic confessor, as
intercessor 710 at God of his sons, can do it
in real mode, ie seizing interior God's
desire with those, just for that he is full of
Holy Ghost and he knew into the feeling
of soul, that he is loved as a friend of the
Emperor of all 711 .

For our Father, the confessor is the
one who won real boldness to God
through the sweats of his ascesis and
which has become an authentic inter-
cessor at God due to communion with
This 712 .

He knows and feels that is in him
the Ghost of God and, in the same time,
through This, he can see souls of others
and he prays for them with the authen-
ticity of a real intercessor.

But the confessor-intercessor to God
not only that he asks mercy for his sons
but he and receives it into consciousness,
seeing, in gracious mode, the straight-
ening or the unstraightening of his sons.

709 Idem, I, apud Idem, p. 310.

710 Idem, I, apud Idem, p. 311.

711 Idem, I, apud Idem, p. 311-312.

712 Idem, I, apud Idem, p. 312.

349

The passages from the Epistle 1,
which discommode in large measure on
the representatives of non-experimental
theology, refers to the transmission of
charisma of the forgiveness of sins in the
Church.

The first of these is this: „That is
allowable to a monk, which has no
priesthood, to confess us, this thing you
will find making himself by all, since has
been given by God to His inheritance the
garment and the attire of repentance and
were named monks, as stays written in by
God instilled writings of the Fathers...

But before these, only archiereuses
have received the power to loose and to
bind, through succession, from the Divine
Apostles.

Once with the crossing of time the
archiereuses, becoming reprobates, this
frightening undertaking passed to the
priests, who had a taintless life and were
made worthy by the divine grace.

After which and they reaching
mixed, and both archiereuses, as and
priests likening the rest of the people and
of those many who fall, as and now, in
the ghost of wandering and of empty
speaking and they perish, it passed, as
said, at the chosen nation of God, ie at
monks, not because it would have been
taken from priests or archiereuses, but
because these have alienated on them-
selves from it" 713 .

Ibidem, apud Ibidem.

350

The passage presented, read through
immersion in its interior logic, speaks to
us not about a crossing, in corpore,
sacramental, of power to forgive the sins
from archiereuses at monks, but about a
crossing, preponderant, identifiable his-
torical, of feeling of grace from archi-
ereuses, then at priests and, in the end, at
monks and we say, today, at the people of
the Church.

And is not the word here about a
transformation of sacramental priesthood
into a popular priesthood, as in protes-
tantism (how it would want to interpret
this passage and those which we will
quote in its prolongation) but about the
keeping in Church of charisma and of
science of authentic clearing of sins,
which have it and know it the charismatic
Fathers, bearers of God, which, through
the receiving of confession of thoughts
and through the noting of believers in the
act of continual ascesis, under their
advising, make them cleanse themselves,
in real mode, of passions.

Saint Symeon, as authentic priest of
Church, who has felt and has saw the
coming of priesthood's grace over him at
his cheirotonia, he could not deny the
cheirotonia and his cheirothesia into
confessor, ie the coming of the Ghost in
his being, when he experienced it into a
direct mode and plenary.

But he could neither deny the
historical reality of the Church and

35i

neither we cannot do this, as long as it is
more than evident, that not all those who
are cheirotoned feel and the presence of
the Holy Ghost in them or have life of
Saints.

When he speaks of the power to
bind and to loose the sins he does not
refer at the cheirothesic act, through
which a priest becomes and confessor
[felt as a pure formal sacramental act, if
we do not feel how works the Holy Ghost
through us] but at the charisma 714 which
the Lord has given the Apostles and
which these have conscientized it through
a life of deep holiness 715 .

The personal holiness, wants to say
Saint Symeon, is the one receives the
charisma of forgiveness of sins.

We reproduce of the second passage
from the Epistle 1, which goes on the
same interior line of receiving of charisma
[nor cannot be otherwise] and which
cannot be understood in authentic mode,
until we do not see all symeonian
syllogistical on this theme:

„The Saints Apostles have trans-
mitted, through succession, this authority
those who held their seats. ..and the
apprentices of Lord have guarded with
exactness this authority. But, after how I
said, once with the crossing of time, the
worthy were mixed with the
unworthy... [that many showed them-

Idem, I, apud Idem, p. 313.
Idem, I, apud Idem, p. 314.

352

selves] hypocriting hypocritical the vir-
tue.

For, since when those who held the
seats of Apostles showed themselves
bodily and lovers of pleasure and of glory
and were inclined to heresies, the divine
grace has left them and this authority has
been taken from them. Therefore, leaving
they and all other which must have those
who serve the Holy, has asked them only
to be orthodoxies.

But I believe that they were not
neither any this.

For orthodox is not only those who
have not introduced new dogmas in the
Church of God, but and those who have
earned a life in accord with the right
word [of teaching].

On one as this the patriarchs and
the metropolitans from various times, or
have searched him but they not found
him, or finding him they preferred, in the
place of him, on the unworthy, asking
only to expose, in writing, the symbol of
faith and accepting only this: as he not to
be neither a zealous for good, neither to
fight with someone from the cause of evil,
pretending that thus holds the peace in
Church - but thing that is worse than any
enmity and cause of great unseating.

Therefore, from this cause, the
priests were made worthless and have
reached as the nation. ..knowing and
covering each other the passions, have

353

reached worse than the nation, and the
nation worse than them.

But some of the nation showed
themselves better even than many priests,
lightening in that dark devoid of light as
some charcoals. [...]

And, because between people re-
mained only the attire and the coat of
priesthood, the gift of the Ghost passed at
monks, as at some who came, through
facts, at the life of Apostles, and [this] was
made known through signs.

But and here the devil has worked
on those of him... and the monks have
reached worthless and they have made
with all unmonks.

Thus, neither the monks only with
the coat, neither those cheirotoned and
entered in the rank of priesthood, neither
those honest with the dignity ofarchieria,
ie the patriarchs, the metropolitans and
the bishops has not been given by God
pure and simply, so, only from the cause
of cheirotonia and of its dignity, and the
power to forgive the sins - not to be! -,
but they were permitted only to serve the
Holy, and I reckon, that many of them
not any this - lest, grass being, not to be
burnedl - , but only those, which between
priests, archiereuses and monks are
numbered through cleanness together
with the choirs of Christ's disciples" 716 .

The decadence of majority of the
members of Church is explained by our

Idem, I, apud Idem, p. 314-315.

354

Father through the prism of loss of
feeling of grace, which has been removed
from them, for that they do not have a
life of holiness.

Is observed that Symeon has no
accents of protestant avant le temps,
through which to ask the abolition of the
sacramental priesthood, but he shows
that, although, in functional mode, the
Church has sacramental hierarchy and
respects a certain orthodox conduct and a
certain conformity, more formal, with the
orthodoxy of Church's faith, than person-
al experienced, few are those which have
a saintly life and feel what spends with
them in the Mystery of Cheirotonia or in
all the Mysteries and the services of
Church.

But, in the same time, on measure
what Symeon ascertains the lack of
gracious experience at the members of
clergy contemporary himself, he not
preaches a forsaking of Church by the
Ghost and neither a loss with all of reality
of holiness from Church, as long as his
life and his mystical experiences prove a
strong raccordation at the life of Trinity
and at life of Church.

He has not a ecclesiological theology
vacuumed of holiness, after how we will
see into a subsequent section, and
neither sees a rupture of the Church,
from his time, of the initial life of the
Church or of the direct action of the Most
Holy Trinity.

355

Saint Symeon has no a vocation of
protester, after how would want to bring
him out a protestant hermeneutic, but
one of mystical Theologian, of verbalizer
of holiness of christian living in Church,
that is proper and absolute necessary in
any century.

In the third passage that we will
quote from the Epistle 1, will see and
better the mode in that Symeon restored
for his generation and for ours, the
understanding of the power to forgive the
sins, under both dimensions, ie not just
historic and not just charismatic, but
historico- charismatic 71 ' the one who
listened of his ghostual father and „he
spat on all the glory from world...
realizing all the virtue which we hear it
reading in the Holy Scriptures and he
crossed, likewise, all the work of those
good, he has experienced in every day the
progress, the change, the rank [on which
he has it] and he was taken towards the
height of divine glory... [that one can]
know on himself that he has reached

717 Father Du?e noted into a article about the
Holy Confession at Saint Symeon, that „for him the
Confession constituted an indivisible all, a charismatic
act", for that the repentance, so how saw it Symeon, as
„permanent state" or as on a personal reality with
„eschatological character", „is that leads to theology,
understood here as a contemplation of God, reached on
the tallest steps of purity and of unpassion", acc. Rev.
Lect. PhD student Calin-Ioan Duse, The Mistery of Holy
Confession at Saint Symeon the New Theologian [Taina
Sfintei Spovedanii la Sfantul Simeon Noul Teolog], in
Theological Horizons [Orizonturi teologice] II (2001),
no. 1, p. 115, 107**, 108.

356

partaker of God and of His charismata
and he will be known so and by those
who see well, nay even and by those with
weak view. [...]

For all those who have guarded... the
commandments of God until at death...
[they have found their souls] in the light
thought with the mind and so, in this
light, they saw the unapproachable Light,
on the Lord Himself. [...]

[For that Christ comes] to those who
seek Him, how knows only He Himself...
[and He gives them] the grace of seeing
on He Himself.

This means to find your soul: to see
on God, to reach in His light taller than
all the creature seen, and to have as
Shepherd and Teacher on God, from
Which he will know, if you want, and the
power to loose and to bind and, knowing
it exact, he will worship the One who
gave it to him and he will communicate it
those who need it.

Some like them know, child, that is
given to them the power to loose and to
bind by God the Father and by our Lord
Jesus, through the Holy Ghost: those who
are His sons through adoption, Saints and
slaves of Him.

To a Father like this [to Saint
Symeon the Pious] I was apprentice and I.
He did not have the cheirotonia from
men, but he inscribed me in appren-
ticeship with the hand or with the Ghost
of God and he commanded me, to which

357

was put long ago in motion towards this,
with strong desire, by the Holy Ghost, to
receive beautiful the cheirotonia from
men, after the model followed of cus-
tom" 718 .

Is observed from this last citation,
that Symeon requires from those who
want to enter in sacramental hierarchy of
the Church the experience of receiving of
the Ghost, ie of the sight of light, for to
receive, afterwards, and the legal cheiro-
tonia.

The Father confessor must have, in
the same time, the legal sacramental
cheirotonia and, simultaneously, the legal
cheirothesia into confessor, but and the
interior presence, conscientized of the
Holy Ghost, through Which he has, with
true, the power to bind and the loose the
sins of men.

In the last part of the passage
quoted is seen, how the charisma of
forgiveness, about which speaks Symeon,
is not the sacramental, through which the
priest looses or binds the sins of men,
but, instead, is the charismatic power of
to introduce on someone, through the
Ghost, in the true experience of the
cleansing of passions.

Saint Symeon the Pious was not
priest, says Symeon, but he introduced
him, through the Ghost, in the com-
munion with God, Which cleanses us
from passions.

Epistles, I, apud lea jr. 3, p. 316-317.

358

The charismatic Fathers about that
speaks Symeon here, those who have the
power to bind and to loose, can be and
from outside of clergy, between monks
and laymans, but this power to bind and
to loose is not the sacramental on which
we know it in the Mystery of Holy
Confession, but the presence in them of
the Holy Ghost, on which they can
transmit it and to us, whence we can
ignite and us the lamp (how said, at a
time given, Symeon) and through this
become our true cleaners of sins.

They cleanse us from sins not
through the sacramental forgiveness of
the Holy Confession, but just through
ghostual contagion, through the receiving
from them of the feeling of grace, which is
in their being and through that we can
clean and us of sins.

Saint Symeon is full grateful to his
ghostual Father, after how I said, for that,
through him, he received on the Ghost,
has acquired the sight.

The entrance in the communion
with God, through the apprenticeship to
a charismatic Father, means the entrance
in full forgiveness of sins and in the
deleting with all of the passions.

Become us, we believe, very evident
the accuracy of our commentary, in the
light of the finale of Epistle 1:

„To seek, so, better, with tiredness,
such of men, who are disciples of Christ,
and with the anguish of heart and many

359

tears to pray Him entire days, as to get
down the veil from the eyes of our hearts
as to recognize them, in the case in that
will find one like this in this evil gener-
ation and cunning, for as, finding him, to
receive through him the forgiveness of
our sins, obeying us the commandments
and his orderlinesses from all the soul, so
how and that one listening the words of
Christ was made partaker of the grace
and of His gifts and received from Him
the power to loose and to bind the sins
ignited being by the Holy Ghost" 719 .

Is observed how Symeon sees the
power to forgive the sins of the
charismatic Fathers just in the science of
to lead, toward to clean of the passions,
through ascesis.

If in sacramental mode, wants to tell
us Symeon, we receive the forgiveness of
sins made by us, the charismatic Fathers
teaches us, through the Ghost, not only
how to cleanse us the sins, but and how
to separate us, interior, of our passions,
how to reach, through the Ghost, at
unpassion and deification.

But we cannot, in no case, to accuse
on those two Saints remembered, on
Symeon, the Father, and on Symeon the
New Theologian, the Apprentice, that
have usurped the dignity and the charis-
matic power of cheirotonia and of legal
cheirothesia, but, contrariwise, we must
see in their effort of to render right,

Idem, I, apud Idem, p. 317.

measured and total understanding of
charism of forgiveness of sins, an effort of
restoration, extraordinary of benefic, of
understanding of charisma of forgiveness
in the Church, which presuppose, as the
Father confessor to be a ghostual Father
with legal cheirotonia, but and with the
real experience, overwhelming of the Holy
Ghost.

Is not enough, reminds us our
Father, the New Theologian, to receive
the legal cheirotonia from the hands of a
father bishop, but we must receive, and
from God, the entrusting of this cheiro-
tonia, through the sight of His light and
through the profound communion with
God, through which to be the speaking
mouth of God in the Church.

Symeon connexed the sacramental
forgiveness with the forgiveness of sins
through ascesis and through the sight of
God.

In the Epistle 2, Symeon debuted
with a discussion concerning at epithy-
mias, at the practical canons given the
penitents.

In the face of sacramental
confession, says him, must not to despair
from the cause of the crowd of personal
sins, but neither to have a thoughtless
boldness, ie on the one to expect the
forgiveness of proper sins only for that
have fulfilled us the canon given by
confessor 720 .

Idem, II, apud Idem, p. 318.

36i

The forgiveness does not come only
for the formal fulfillment of canon, but
through the entrance in the quotidian
circuit of repentance, where repentance
become our daily work 721 .

Giving the examples of repentance of
Saints David, Manasseh and Peter,
Symeon concludes, that these „have
received the forgiveness only from the
repentance, the crush and the puncture
of their [heart] and from the tears which
they have shed from the deep of their
soul and from the condemnation of their
conscience" 722 .

Therefore, says he, „the forgiveness
of each sins does not make from his
works, as does not boast someone [Eph.
2, 9], but from the love of God and from

"723

grace ' .

Our Father does not approach the
confession only from the prism of the
confession of sins and of the receiving of
blessing and of priestly absolution, but he
debates the ghostual fund of forgiveness,
ie the direct action of God in the forgive-
ness of our sins.

If, often, the Mystery of Confession
is looked from bottom to top, from the
forgiveness through confessor, which
presuppose the concomitant forgiveness
from part of God, Symeon looked the
forgiveness of sins from top to bottom, ie

Ibidem apud Ibidem.
Idem, II, apud Idem, p. 319.
Ibidem apud Ibidem.

from the presence of God's grace in the
one that confesses, on the measure of his
repentance, which is followed of the
absolution of sins, sacramental, through
confessor.

More briefly, Symeon asks to feel the
direct forgiveness of God through repen-
tance and then to come to receive the
absolution of sins in the Mystery of Holy
Confession, refelt as a full forgiveness and
as a union with Christ, as living member
of the Church.

Thus the ascesis and the repentance
precede, accompany and continue the
state of liberation of under the weight of
the sins and of ghostual joy, ie the state
initiated by the sacramental absolution of
sins, which integrates it in the quotidian
ghostual life.

The repentance asks the unreturn at
the committed sins, says Symeon, ie a
continuous ascesis, a continuous guard-
ing as to live in the will of God 724 and the
full forgiveness, refelt plenary in our
being, is that, when we have arrived to
hate in us the sin in perfect mode, ie then
when strengthen us in those good and we
have made strong through the different
attempts of our life 725 .

Our rupture from sins 726 , how says
Symeon, is the target of frequent
confession of proper mistakes and,

Ibidem apud Ibidem.
Idem, II, apud Idem, p. 321.
Idem, II, apud Idem, p. 322.

363

through it, what and through the
frequent impartation, we come to cleanse
us and to sanctify us in full mode our
being.

For Symeon, as we have seen, the
full forgiveness has a double aspect: the
feeling of grace and of forgiveness from
part of God through repentance, direct
connexed with the feeling of sacramental
forgiveness of sins and through looking of
epithymias as stable exercise in the
perimeter of repentance.

Symeon do not undermine the trust
in the legal cheirotonia of Church and
nor in the Mystery of Holy Confession,
but, on the contrary, as priest of the
Church and experiencing of the Ghost,
who saw how is cheirotoned by the Ghost
through the hand of bishop, Symeon asks
from all holy life, ie the experience of the
Ghost, for to serve and to feel the grace of
the Holy Mysteries and services of the
Church.

In conclusion, Symeon is not a
destabilizing of the hierarchical order
from the Church, he does not instigate at
the democratization of priesthood and at
the elimination of hierarchical sacramen-
tal steps, but he shows that, in the lack of
charismatic hierarchy, which should
serve the Mysteries of the Church and be
lightened by the Ghost at every step, God,
and not Symeon, has given those who live
holy, which are or not in clergy, to

364

continue to lead on men, in accurate
mode, at the life of holiness, through
ascesis and the receiving of the Holy
Ghost into consciousness.

36 5

2. 6. 4- The Holy Matrimony and
the Holy Priesthood as Sacramental
Paradigms of Union with God

We wanted a synchronous discus-
sion of the two Holy Mysteries for to
highlight their role paradigmatic for the
union with God 727 .

If in the case of matrimony, the
interior unity of those two grooms is
analogous to the union between Christ
and the Church and it presupposes as
foundation the personal union with God
of each of them, in the frame of
cheirotonia, the man who receives the
grace of the priesthood and unites in
direct mode with God, from Which he
receives the divine grace, he makes, into
consciousness, the servant of God in the
Church and the intercessor to God of the
speaking flock entrusted himself.

These two fundamental ideas are
processed by Symeon in his sacrament -

727 Father Alexandria ]oi\a, into an article about
the Holy Ghost, substantiating on a relevant quote, we
believe, from the Panarion of Saint Epiphanius, affirms
that: „The Mystery of Priesthood is equivalent, in
spiritual plan, of the Mystery of Matrimony", acc. Rev.
PhD student Alexandru Joi^a, The Sanctifying Work of
the Holy Ghost in Church [Lucrarea sfinfitoare a
Sfantului Duh in Biserica], in Theological Studies [Studii
Teologice] XXXII (1980), no. 7-10, p. 646.

For that in the frame of matrimony the couple
beget sons and educates them, says this, in the frame of
cheirotonia, the bishop is the one who gives birth at
fathers and the ghostual fathers, the priests, are the
ones who give birth at ghostual sons, acc. Ibidem.

366

ological theology into a personal mode
and very expressive.

Thus, in the Hymn 27, Saint Symeon
puts in relation on the monk seer of God
with the married man, for to show the real
mode of union between the believer and
God: „who has made from his cell heaven
through virtue, that one understands and
sees Him sitting in it on the Creator of
heaven and of earth, to Whom he
worships and coexists always together
with the unbygone light, with the
unevening light and with the
unapproachable light, of which it does
not separate noway [ou ouSoc|ia)<; xcopiCe-
ica], of which it does not depart at all
neither the day, nor the night, nor when
eating, nor when drink, nor in sleep, nor
on the road or when he changes the
place.

But so how he lives, so and he dies
or, still and more limpid, he coexists
everlasting together with Him, with the
soul.

For, how will be disparted the bride
to bridegroom or the husband to his wife,
with which has harmonized [ouvr|p|j,6o0r|]
once for always? Tell me, the Legislator
does not guard, really, the law?

For the One who said: „And will be
the two one body" [Gen. 2, 24; Mat. 19, 5],
how not will be in entirety a ghost [I Cor.
6, 17] together with him, [with the soul] ?
For the woman is in man and the man in
woman, and the soul is in God and God in

367

soul and so He unites and He is known in
all the Saints [evourai Km yvupiCemi kv
Trilg AyLOLg ramy]" 728 .

The seer of light is always together
with the light, for that it is not seen in
outside of him, but inside of him and his
displacement through cell or in outside of
it does not disturb the presence of light
from him, for that no the physical
movement or the walk take us off from
the living relation with God, but the sin.

The union of the seer of God with
the light is an interior harmonization with
it, after how the marital relation between
the two is a reciprocal inwardization.

If the marital union forms a single
body from the two, ie it makes on the two
not to have a singular mode of life, but
common, in which both partners assume,
deepen and bearing interior one another,
all the same, says Saint Symeon, is and
the union of the seer of God with the
divine light, in which he is seized by light
and he carries it in himself, on measure
what is worn of exhortations to holiness,
to full purity, coming from the part of
light.

The husband carries his wife in
himself, for that he carries in himself all
the love, the respect and all the prayer of
the everlasting fulfillment for his wife, ie
her face, her relation with him, after how
the ghostualized carries in himself the

728 SC 174, Hymns, XXVII, 39-56, p. 282/ lea jr. 3,

p. 168.

368

light of God, carries in himself on God
through His glory, into a beingly union
with himself, in which he has deepened
step with step, through holiness.

Through this illustrative annexation,
Symeon does not propel the sight of God
only in monachal life, depriving thus of it
on laymans, but he puts in analogy the
ghostualized monk and the married
couple, for to show the abyssal com-
munional dimension of the relation
between man and God and of the relation
of love existent in the married couple.

Symeon ends the passage quoted
with the underlining of real union of
Saints with God, of rhythmation of their
life with the glory of God, the interior
rhythmation, which is refound and in the
married couple and in which the couple
can increase, fitting to the grace of
ghostual love and of fidelity between
them received in the Holy Mystery of
Matrimony.

Symeon does not speak about any
couple and neither not presuppose, that
can be done a real rhythmation, ghostual,
of the two, without the grace of God. He
envisages the ghostual marriage, the real
orthodox marriage, in which the two are
ghostual humans and which increase in
conscious mode in the union with God
and in the interior union between them
and between them and their sons.

In the ethical Discourse 1, Symeon
will reset in discussion the interior union,

369

the relation, extreme of deep, of the
married couple, into a christological
context and ecclesiological communio-
nal:

„That one, [Christ], taught that the
union which He has with His Father, on
the one we have it and us in similar face
with Him, and the disciple and His
Apostle said that it is as the union which
the man has with his wife and the woman
with her husband. [...]

And wanting to show in over-
whelming face our union with God, he
continues saying: „For this - ie for Christ
- will leave the man on his father and on
his mother, and will cleave to his wife, ie
of Church, „and will be both one body"
[Eph. 5, 31], ie that of Christ and God.

And that this is the meaning of the
word and we do not speak these starting
from reasonings, same [Apostle] adds and
says:

„This mystery great is, and I speak
about Christ and about Church" [Eph. 5,
32]. With true, so, great and beyond than
great is and will be the mystery this, for
that the union and the communion, the
intimacy, the kinship which the woman
has it with her husband and the man with
his wife, same, in worthy face of God and
beyond any thought and word, has it the
Master and the Maker of all with entire
Church, as and with a single woman,
uniting with her in taintless face and
beyond unspeakable, being and conliving

370

with her in inseparable face and indis-
soluble, as loved one and embraced by
Him" 729 .

Thus, on the one part, Symeon
speaks about our mystical union with
Christ, which is analogous with the union
between the Father and the Son and, on
the other part, he speaks about the com-
munion of ghostualized marital couple,
which is analogous of the mystical union,
extrem of deep and of perplexing, of God
with us.

Synthesizing the double symeonian
analogy we arrive at the paradigm of the
real union between God and man, which
is possible only on the basis ofcreational
conformity of man with God.

Symeon, like Paul, does not speak
about the relation between man and
woman in the frame of couple married
and about our relation with God as about
some nonspecific realities of man but, on
the contrary, he highlights the fulfillment
of man in the frame of the relation of re-
ciprocal communion.

But Symeon is attentive to empha-
size the difference of degree between the
relation of spouses and the relation of the
ghostualised with God.

If in the frame of matrimony, the
communion keeps of interior rhyth-
mation of the two, which presupposes,
mostly, and the sexual relations, as mean

729 SC 122, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 118-121,
144-162, p. 232, 234/ lea jr. 1, p. 135, 136.

37i

of interior approach, the relation of God
with the seers of His glory, says Symeon,
excludes any impurity, for that He unites
with us „in taintless face and beyond of
unspeakableness", ie in mystical mode,
through the sight of His light.

The deep sense of matrimony is the
union of the two between them under-
lamed on the union with God of each in
part. But, in the same time, the
experience of matrimony gives us strong
motivation to communion with all our
brothers into Christ in the space of
Church.

The Mystery of Holy Cheirotonia is,
also, the sacramental frame of union of
the cheirotoned with God, through which
this becomes the active servant of God for
his brothers, being the active receptacle
of divine will.

Both Holy Mysteries have the verti-
cal dimension of union with God deep
sticked in the horizontal dimension of
unity, on the one part, in the frame of
family, of small Church, where the two
assume and bear reciprocal in their being
and, on the other part, in Church, in the
Church extended, where the priest, and
the hierarch especially, represents the
focus of active unity of members of
Church, bearing of care to each in part.

In the Hymn 58, Saint Symeon
shows, into a thrilling mode, the interior
profile of the true priest and the ecstatic

372

experience that is asked of one who
comes to receive the cheirotonia:

„And the one who not received in
him on Christ, on His Father and on the
Holy Ghost, on the One God dwelling
and walking [II Cor. 6, 16] in conscious
face in his heart, how will show a sincere
service? From who else will learn the
humbleness [, if not from the Holy
Trinity] or how will learn the divine will?

Who will be intercessor for him or
will placate him with God and will show
him as on a worshiper, of God the single
clean and taintless, and which not be
ashamed, [ie to that One] to Which the
Cherubims do not dare to fix the regards,
for that is unapproachable for all Angels?

Who will guarantee, that this will
keep without sin [Kpaxelv avoqiaprr|TG)<;]
and will serve without doom [lepoupyeiv
dKamKpLicog] the frightening service of
Sacrifice the without blemish?

Which angel, which man will can
say this or that he can do this? For I say
and I give testimony to all - nobody
deceive himself and nor delude himself in
words! - : anyone has not left first the
world and will not hate from soul the
ones of world [I Jn. 2, 15] and will not love
in sincere face only on Christ and will not
lose for Him his soul itself [Mat. 16, 25],
not caring of nothing from the ones of
man's life, and not is as one, which dies
in every instant and will not complain
and will not mourn long for Him and will

373

not have only His appetence and will not
vouchsafe [KaTa£iG)0rj], as through many
troubles and painstakings to take the
Divine Ghost, Whom gave the Divine
Apostles, as through Him to banish any
passion and to realize easy any virtue and
to earn to himself springs of tears -
whence come the cleanness and the
contemplation of the soul, the knowledge
of the divine will, the lightenment of
divine brightness and the sight of
unapproachable light [I Tim. 6, 16],
whence is given the unpassion and the
holiness all those who were vouchsafed to
see Him and to have on God in heart
[Kam^LCoGeloLV bpav Km exeiv xbv 0e6v kv
KocpSia], to be guarded by Him and to
guard His divine commandments -
[whoever does not have these] dare not to
receive the priesthood [kpcoouvriv] and
the leading of souls [i^uxcov TTpoamaiav] or
to begin something in this regard!

For so how Christ brings on Himself
and brings He Himself sacrifice to God,
His Father, so He Himself brings us
sacrifice [TTpoac})<Epei] and on us and all He
receives us [dexemi] .

Because the undertaking of such
things will be to judgment and doom, for
that it is worse than the murder, worse
than the adultery and the fornication and
than all other sins.

For all these are done now towards
some mortal, because, without fail, we sin
to each other. But the one who dares to

374

sell the divine and to make trade with the
grace of the Ghost, that one sins, without
fail, towards of God Himself' 730 .

Symeon shows, after how we can
observe, that the ascesis, the road of
cleaning, that makes us to see on God
and His conscious indwelling in us are
our entitling to approach to cheirotonia.

Our relation with God, anterior
cheirotonia, develops more particularly
post factum, then when we see the
serving God and on us, as His servants,
through the prism of boldness which God
instills in our heart of to bring Him the
taintless Sacrifices and in the living word
which He pours it in us, as to feed with
His word on God's people, the Church.

The ascesis and its ecstatic fruits
make us proper to priestly ministry, for
that through these leave us led by God,
occupied by the Ghost of God, through
Which we speak and we serve the divine.

The profile of true priest, which
Symeon paints us in words, has nothing
to do with ghostual imposture, with the
simony and with the priesthood under-
stood as mean of subsistence.

For Symeon, the priesthood means
the separation of all for the love of Christ
and the life in which, the Ghost of God is
the true promoter and supporter of our
initiatives. The Mystery of Holy Cheiro-
tonia, after how emerges of here, puts us

730 SC 196, Hymns, LVIII, 206-262, p. 292-298/
lea jr. 3, p. 294-296.

375

in the posture of servants of God and of
leaders of Church's members to salvation,
lived in the boldness which brings it the
holy life, our deep communion with God.

From this passage and from the
following which we will quote, will
emerge the fact, that the preparation for
the sacramental cheirotonia and the
cheirotonia in itself were for Symeon
capital events in the life of those who
receive them and which change, in funda-
mental mode, the interiority and their
engagement in the Church's life.

We must observe here and the
magistral comparison which Symeon
makes it between His Sacrifice brought
the Father and our bringing, by Him, at
the Father. After how He has brought
Himself as clean Sacrifice to the Father,
all so, those who come at cheirotonia
with a holy life, clean and Saints, are
brought right clean sacrifices to the
Father and He receives at Himself.

Symeon accentuates the receiving of
priesthood's grace into the cleaning of
heart and the priest's quality of living
intercessor, who has the audacity of love
to God and manifests it in the prayer and
the intercession for his believers and for
entire world, for that he has a deep
communion with Him.

In the Catechesis 28, Symeon
returns on the aspect of personal holiness
of the priest:

376

„Of some as these, [that sanctify
their life in continuous mode o.n.], is the
fact of to bind and of to loose [Mat. 16, 19;
18, 18], of to serve the Holy and to teach,
but not of those who received the vote
and the cheirotonia only from men.

For says the Scripture: „nobody
takes from itself this honor, but only the
one called of God" [Heb. 5, 4]. Not said:
the one who received the cheirotonia
from men, but the one who had previously
been decided and arranged to this by God.

For [the priests] made by men and
through men are thieves and robbers, as
the Lord said: „I am the door. All who
have entered and enter not through Me,
but they jump on elsewhere, they are
thieves and robbers" [Jn. 10, 7, 9, 10] " 73 \

If the passages from the anterior
subchapter spoke about the power of to
bind and to loose the sins and, on their
base, we established, that Symeon did not
refer at the sacramental power of forgive-
ness of sins, but at the power of to put,
through the Ghost, on disciples, in the
true trajectory of cleansing of passions, in
the passage just quoted we are dealing
with an express reference at the priest-
hood and at the sacramental power of to
forgive the sins and with a distinction
between the priests who feel the Ghost's
work in them and those who do not feel it.
In the passage of face, Symeon does not

731 SC 133, The Catecheses, XXVIII, 291-300, p.
150-152/ lea jr. 2, p. 300.

377

contest the legal cheirotonia of those who
do not feel the Ghost's work in them.

He says that they received the
cheirotonia from men, but in illegal mode
from the point of view of mystical
experience, which asks as the one that
comes at cheirotonia to be hallowed vessel
of the Ghost through ascesis and divine
sight.

The pauline citation and the johan-
neic from the symeonian text reveals us
the fact, that the cheirotonia is choice and
calling of us by God and that, in the true
sense of the word and in fact, feels that is
priest and serves the Holy, the one who
feels in him, in any time and, especially,
then when he serves, the grace of God in
his being.

The lack of interior dimension of the
priesthood manifests as lack of boldness
to God, as blasetion, liturgical routine,
effeminacy of liturgical side and of
predicatorial of priest, as packing of him
into a read and stiff typiconal ministry,
without the conquering experiencing,
seizing of God's glory, that descends at
each holy service and fills all those who
senses the His energetics presence in
Church.

For Symeon, the priest must be full
of grace, to have the boldness of love in
front of God, to know to lead in evident
mode on men through the Ghost and to
deify, through the ghostual irradiance of

378

his being, on the ones who can perceive
it.

The priest is a charismatic Father for
Symeon, a servant of the altar conscious
of the holiness and the glory of God and
not a liturgical services provider 732 , that
does not know the value and the deepness
of things which he serves.

Therefore, on good righteousness,
Symeon is trenchant in which regard the
demonic boldness of those which are
approaching of cheirotonia with un-
believing hearts, that buy the grace on
money or that behave indifferent, after
what dress, into unconsciousness, with
the priestly cassock.

In the Catechesis 34, we have a
passage, which we might entitle him: the
pradigm of true priesthood. Here we find
on Symeon in his hypostasis of servant of
the Holy Ghost.

Symeon recognizes that he is not at
the height of God's Saints, but he sees in
him the grace of priesthood, who works
with power:

„ We, being indigent and unworthy,
are away from any holiness and of the
Holy men of God. But we cannot deny the
gift given to us from God \rqv dcopeav tt]c
6o6eioav rpiv (xtto 0eou], as some what are

732 Rev. PhD Student Dorin Octavian Piciorus,
The Priest of the Postmodern World: a Provider of
Services or a Charismatic Father? [Preotul lumii
postmoderne: un prestator de servicii sau un Parinte
harismat?], in the newspaper The Bell [Clopotul], no. 1,
2006, p. 13.

379

constrained by His grace to serve you the
words of God and to discover you the
talent, which we have been given through
tha charism [x<xpio\ioi], that we have been
made through prophecy with the setting
of hands [I Tim. 4, 14] of archiereus [\iezk
emOeoecog tcjv xeLpddv tou dpxiepecoc], that
accomplished us into priesthood [tou elg
xr\v kpcoouvriv fj/jag TeAeLCoaai^wc]" 733 .

Emerges from here, that Symeon is
conscious of the power of the Holy Ghost,
which cheirotoned priest and that he is
responsible of serving of his ghostual
sons.

He confesses to his audience with
respect at the feeling of grace in his being
and this confession of ghostual under-
standings, that come from the charism of
priesthood which he received it, he
considers it his real contribution at their
ghostual growth.

Symeon knows that he received the
grace of the priesthood in the frame of
legal cheirotonia, ie through a legal
bishop of the Church, but is conscious, in
the same time, that God is the One who
has cheirotoned through bishop, that He
called him to the priesthood, that,
through Him, he saw descending the
Ghost over the Gifts brought by him and
that, without His presence into him, he
could not feel a priest, a real intercessor,
a true liturgist of Church.

733 SC 113, The Catecheses, XXXIV, 138-145, p.
282/ lea jr. 2, p. 350.

380

The interior realism of symeonian
priesthood enroll in the full realism of any
liturgical act of the Church, which pro-
moted it the New Theologian.

The conscientizing of deifying di-
mension of the Holy Mysteries is the
center of symeonian sacramentology.

If in the frame of matrimony, the
Mystery of Church develops married
couple towards a reciprocal interior-
ization the increasingly higher, in the
frame of priesthood however, the man
called by God to His service, for that he
has renounced and renounces at all for
Him, he experiences daily the road of
interiorization with the Master of his life.

Saint Symeon surprises, in funda-
mental mode, the unifier character and
communional of matrimony and of
priesthood, that keeps of our real com-
munion with God.

Only in the measure in that we live
in real mode, tells us, in essence, Symeon,
the immense outpouring of grace which
we receive it in the two Holy Mysteries
and we grow, in personal mode, in
holiness, we can feel us one body with the
husband or our wife or feel us one ghost
with God of our love.

3 8i

Ecclesiology

2. 7. The Saints as Living Mem-
bers of the Church

If we talked, anterior, about the
Mysteries of the Church and, in the same
time, about the real feeling of grace in
their frame 734 , without just and maybe, to
live as living member of the Church
means to be racorded at the sacrament -
ological life of Church, but and at the
sight of God's glory through our cleaning
from passions.

The authentic ghostual man does
not separate the receiving of the Holy
Mysteries to the hesychastic life, of
personal ghostual life, as long as he is not
one who lived restrictive to their, but one
who integrates the whole unfolding of life
of the Church in his person.

The symeonian ecclesiological
theology is most evident expressed in the

734 Father Vasile Citiriga says, into a his article,
that the Holy Mysteries „are acts of union between
divine and human. ..[for that they] actualize always the
saving work of Christ... and through this they sustain
the Church.

Through Mysteries, the believer receiving the
fruits of redemption, lives anticipated and tastes from
the richness of eternal life, on the measure what he
unites with Christ", acc. Rev. Conf. D.Th. Vasile
Citiriga, The Dogmatic Grounds of Eternal Life
[Temeiurile dogmatice ale viefii vesnice], in The Ortho-
doxy [Ortodoxia] LVI (2005), no. 3-4, p. 71.

382

ethical Discourse 1, but its footprint is
subtly integrated in all his opera.

But, as and until now, Symeon does
not regard the Church from point of view
canonical, administrative, organizational,
liturgical or historical, but from the point
of view of the interior link of each,
through his life of holiness, with Christ,
the Head of the Church 735 .

Going on this personalist lode with
Christ of living members of the Church,
Saint Symeon does not approach the
ecclesiology from the point of view of a
certain christian, who cannot seize
interior the colossal holiness of the
Church, but through the prism of Saints,
that unite, into consciousness, with
Christ.

The union with Christ must be real
one and not imaginary. Just therefore
Symeon refers at the Saints as at
authentic members of the Church. For
him, the Saints are conscious of their real
union with Christ, which is evident in
their whole being.

The Saints, says Symeon, „are
all. ..members of Christ, God the over

735 His Eminence Kallistos Ware, talking about
the unity of the Church, said: „So united is the bond of
love between members of the Body of Christ, that
nobody accomplishes ruptured from other. We are
saved as a family. The Church prays not only for the
completion of every man in the frame of his time, but
and for the coming of Kingdom of Heavens for all and
in all", acc. Kallistos Ware, One Body in Christ: Death
and the Communion of Saints, en Sobornost (1981), no.
3, p. 190.

3§3

all... [and] they must to cleave [KeKoAAr|-
\ikvoi] to Him [I Cor. 6, 7] and to unite
[owr\\±\±kvoi] with His body, as the One to
be Head [I Col. 1, 18].

For the Saints, from age and until in
the day of then, are members of
Him... [and these] many are made one
body of Christ, as a single man. [...]

[Thus,] some fulfill the orderliness of
hands, working until now and making
His tooholy will, making them again
worthy on the unworthy and saving them
for Him; others have the orderliness of the
shoulders, bearing one another's burdens
[Gal. 6, 2] or even the lost sheep and
found by them...; others have the
orderliness of the chest, springing to the
thirsty and hungry the righteousness of
God, the abyss the too limpid of the word
of wisdom and of knowledge the
unspeakable...; others have the orderliness
of womb, receiving on all in the inwardly
of them, through love conceiving the
Ghost of saving and having in them the
disposition, which comprises His mys-
teries the unspeakable and hidden; others
have the role of the thighs, bearing in
them the fruitfulness of the meanings
worthy of God of mystical theology and
nascent on earth the Ghost of saving, ie
the fruit and the seed of the Ghost in the
hearts of men through their word; and
others have the role of the feet and of the
soles, showing manhood and patience in
trials that Job, noway tottering or weak-

3 8 4

ening in their steadfastness for the good
ones, but bearing the burden of His

gifts" 736 .

From the symeonian passage results,
that God is the promoter of personal
diversity of Saints and that the diversity
of charisms received by them not affect
the unity of the mystical body of the
Church, but, on the contrary, this
charismatic diversity is the factor of
interior cohesion of its.

Each Saint is a living member (\±kkr\v)
of Christ, a member with certain
charisms received from God and these
are active, just due to the interior unity
between Saints and God.

If the Lord used in Jn. 15, 1-7 the
paradigm of the vineyard, which supports
the branches and Saint Paul the pradigm
of the body in Eph. 4, 12; 5, 23-32, for to
emphasize the inextricable interior link
between Saints and God, Saint Symeon
develops here, after our opinion, the
pauline paradigm and he exemplifies the
real mode in which must be understood
Eph. 4, 11-13. When Symeon talks about
the totality of Saints, which must be
contemplated as a single man and
designates the personal role, distinct, of
each in the mystical construction of
Church, he regards the Church as on a
charismatic institution 737 , formed from

736 SC 122, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 1-30, p.
224-226/ lea jr. 1, p. 132.

737 In the introduction at a study dedicated to
symeonian ecclesiology, Father Alexander Golitzin said:

3§5

people full of the Holy Ghost and who
feel living members of Christ and
manifest this interior life of them through
those which they say and do.

The charisms were not received an
unconscious mode, wants to tell us
Symeon, or without the cleaning of
passions of every Saint in part and their
union with Christ is a continuous willed
annexation of Him, a continuous effort
and a continuous desire of to be with
Him.

Saint Symeon describes here a real
state of personal unity with Christ and
not an ideal of mystical communion.

If some of the Saints have the role of
hands of Christ, that clean on men, if
some bear, through their prayers, the
infirmities of the many and convert to the
faith on the unbelievers ones, if some feed
the Church through their word and
others born mystic on the future Saints,
through their mystical life and others
carry the wickedness burden of men and

„the great trust of Saint Symeon stays just into a
thinking of charismatic type and - because I have not a
better word - into a christian subjective experience on
the other part, from which is in objective mode
constituted the Church, both as a historical and
eschatological reality, existing under the institutional
form received from the Apostles, which has never been
far from the mind and his heart, for which I find no
indication in his operas, through which he would be
dreamed, ever, to contest it", acc. Alexander Golitzin,
The Body of Christ: Saint Symeon the New Theologian on
Spiritual Life and Hierarchical Church, a conference
exposed at Bose, September, 2002, conf

http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/symeon.

386

devils, says in subtext Symeon, each one
received the gift after the personal ascetic
effort and after the qualities and the
personal interior dispositions.

Without the annexation with all of
Him, the Saints cannot stand and cannot
function in Church as some living
members of Christ and any interior
detachment from Christ means ruin,
death, eternal loss of ours.

The Church is the body of Christ [to
oti\±a zf\Q Xpiaiou], says Symeon, and it is
the place which takes into a together-
harmony [o\)V0Lp\ioloyo\)\ievov] on all the
Saints of God and it is entire [apuov] and
harmonious [oXokAjpov] 738 .

With other words, the holiness of
the Church is due to the holiness of the
Head of Church, of Christ and of interior
racordation of those Saints at Christ and
the unity of the Church is given by the
charismatic unity of relation between
Christ and the Saints and of Saints among
them.

The personal charisms of the Saints
build the unity of the Church in active
mode and the divine breath, which every
Saint brings in the Church, is a following
of personal relation, direct, living with
Christ God.

The manifestation of Saints as living
members of Christ, as members in which
Christ is living and active, is seized by the

73 SC 122, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 31-33, p.
226/ lea jr. 1, p. 133.

387

faithful, both during their live and after
their repose, when they come to their
Holy Relics as to worship and to receive
divine power in their ghostual life 739 .

As to argue the affirmation, how
that „all the Saints, being members of
Christ, make themselves a body of Him
and they will make still and in future" 740 ,
Symeon brings in its support on Jn. 14, 20;
17, 20, 21, 22, 26 741 .

From the johanneic places cited,
results that Christ is in active mode
present in Saints, that Christ wants the
unity of the Church and He realizes it
through those who are stuck of Him in
interior mode and that He gives those
Saints the eternal glory of the Holy
Trinity, for that they to be perfect into all.

Is observable how Symeon cites
accurate the Scripture, without to force
the texts and understands them in their
full scriptural sense.

739 Into an article dedicated to the veneration of
Holy Relics, Father Professor Constantin Galeriu said,
that the Saints bear, „yet from this life an earnest of
immortality" in their being and that the veneration
which we give it to the Holy Relics comes from the fact,
that „exists a continuity between the life from here and
the life after death, on the other plane of existence. Is a
continuity of dynamic existence, active, not dimin-
ished, but always enriched", conf. Rev. Prof. Constantin
Galeriu, The Veneration of the Holy Relics [Cinstirea
Sfmtelor Moaste], in The Metropolia of Banat
[Mitropolia Banatului] XXX (1980), no. 10-12, p. 643,
648.

740 SC 122, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 38-39, p.
226/ lea jr. 1, p. 133.

741 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 44-57, p.
226-228/ Ibidem.

388

He extracts his theology from the
depths of Scripture and from the personal
revelations which God provokes in his
being.

The symeonian conclusion behind
of those texts cited is identifiable in two
lapidary affirmations and namely: „the
mode of union [evcooeGx; tpottov] [between
God and Saints] is beyond of mind and of
all understanding" 742 , for that „the union
[evcooiv] which [Christ] has it, in natural
[ctiuoLKCog] face, with His Father, on this
He promises that we have it in grace [kv
Xapin], if we want" 743 .

The tropos of interior union,
whereof speaks John and Symeon here, is
a real one for Saints, but both for
themselves, and for those who venerate
them, is incomprehensible due to its
depth unutterable.

Symeon not only that guarantees us
the existence of this real union with
Christ, citing the Scripture, but he
guarantees us and through his proper
charismatic link with God, the reality of
personal link of Saints with Christ.

If we are attentive at scriptural
citations of Symeon and at the interior
logic of his discourse, we observe that he
has not taken on Saints as paradigm of
real union with Christ from the cause of a

742 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 59-60, p.
228/ Ibidem.

743 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 62-64, p.
228/ Ibidem.

3 8 9

ghostual elitism or from teologal snob-
bism, but for that, in thereof being, this
union is real and conscientized into a
continuous interior rhythm.

But through this, we believe, he did
not create a dangerous fissure between
members of the Church, dividing on
Saints from the regular believers of
Church, for that in his soteriological
vision and ecclesial cannot exist true
believers without having a certain degree
of interior holiness.

And, after how we have seen, for
Symeon the conscientization of presence
of grace in us from Baptism and the full
union with God, through the fulfillment
of commandments and ascesis, repre-
sents the true ethos of orthodox life.

Symeon show us here, in the frame
of I, 6, that the triadology and the
christology are those which explains the
divine-human reality of the Church.

Without the real coupling at the
grace of Trinity and without to feel us
living members, active of Christ, we do
not feel the real parts of the body of
Christ, of Church and we cannot experi-
ence, in personal mode, the relation of
great deepness with the Most Holy
Trinity, through which we live „the love
with which God and the Father loved on
His Son, the Only Begotten and [into

390

which], our God.. .will be in us and
Himself the Son of God will be in us" 744 .

Symeon reports at the experience of
Saints for that they live the real union
with Christ but they can and to narrate it
to those who want to listen. Our relation
with Christ does not make from outside of
us, ie this is not an exterior relation with
Him, but from our interior, for He unites,
in real mode, with us.

We feel the love of the Father for the
Son from the depths of our being, for that
the Son of the Father is in us from
Baptism and He teaches us the love of the
Father to Him and of Him to His Father
and to the Holy Ghost. Due to assume of
human nature in His hypostasis, He was
„akin with us through body... and made
us, with true, partakers [of His deity]...
[being] one body together with Christ
into the Ghost" 745 . Each member of the
Church is member of Christ and each one
is given the showing of the Ghost toward
his personal benefit 746 .

Symeon insists on the impartation
all of Christ, on the multiple existence of
personal relations with Christ, which are
on the measure of the personal char-

747

isms .

744 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 73-76, p.
228/ Idem, p. 134.

745 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 76-77, 81-
82, p. 228/ Ibidem.

746 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 88-90, p.
230/ Ibidem.

747 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 104-106, p.
230/ Idem, p. 135.

39i

His insistence on the fact of to
comment and of the process the scriptural
vision about Church, quoting and com-
menting pauline ecclesiological texts,
shows us on Symeon as on one, which
integrates, in creative mode, in the
Tradition of the Church.

Symeon appropriates and presents
in personal mode and personalist the
human-divine principle of unity of the
Church, ie the interior link of each one in
part with God, through the Ghost.

Our entry in Church, through
Baptism, as real annexation of the Lord,
the reconscientization and its daily deep-
ening in our life, forms the personalistic
coordinate of symeonian ecclesiology and
of the personal soteriology which he
propagated it in Church.

Citing Eph. 5, 28-29, in connexion
with the Jn. 6, 56 748 , Symeon shows that
the Holy Eucharist is the factor of the real
unity with Christ of the members of
Church 749 , naturally alongside the real
faith, clean, in Him. For that to have life,
we must stand in direct link with the
Head of the Church, eating daily on
eucharistic Christ 750 .

The feeding with the Body and the
Blood of Lord, which presuppose our

74 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 130-143, p.
232/ Idem, p. 135-136

749 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 143-144, p.
232-234/ Idem, p. 136.

750 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 6, 165-171, p.
234-236/ Ibidem.

392

continuous sanctification through grace,
is that which makes us to feel in us the
sap of the life-creating of the Body of
Christ.

To be members of Christ, in
paradoxical mode, means to have on
Christ in us and to eat on eucharistic
Christ for to unite, in beingly mode, with
us.

Changing the ecclesiological para-
digm of the body with that of beingly
union with Christ, Symeon speaks about
Church as about a beautified world
[koo\±ov copa'LO|ievov] 751 , but he names it
and Empress [r\ BaoiXiooa] of Sover-
eign 752 , followed by the virgins [i\apQevoi]
from Ps. 44, 16, ie by each of us, which
sanctify us the life 753 .

Symeon has in view, in all these
images of the union with Christ, the
mystical union, ecstatic with Christ, not
only the sacramental union with Christ.

Even if he does not present us, of
each date, the substrate of an affirmation,
the fund of reality as such, he has of each
date in view the full content, totalizer of
ghostual life, which presuppose both the
sacramental union with Christ but and
the mystical union with Him. In I, 7, the
real space of the Church does not looked

751 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 7, 4, p. 236/
Idem, p. 137.

752 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 7, 11, p. 236/
Ibidem.

753 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 7, 16, p. 238/
Ibidem.

393

only in the dimension of personal frame,
where is highlighted the aspect of our
interior link with Christ, but Symeon tries
to present and a realistic-integrative
vision of the whole pleroma of the
Church: „For as Christ God is Head of the
Church, all so He makes for it temple
[voloq], after how and the Church itself
was made a temple of Him and a beau-
tiful cosmos [k6o\ioq copalog]" 754 .

The interior process of sanctifi cation
produces per-total an impressive ghost -
ual vision of the Church. The Church
appears at a its ghostual contemplation
as a beautiful world, as a world full of
holiness and divine wisdom.

The personal relation of each of us
with God creates a thrilling image of
Church, the image of a living community,
total engaged, which produces conquer-
ing beauty, both at personal level, but
and in its outside.

The image of Church as temple of
God is used by Symeon as a direct
evaluation of I Cor. 3, 16, showing that we
are, with true, living temples of God, for
that the Holy Ghost dwells into us 755 .

The Church is the temple, the citadel
and the cosmos of the Emperor God, in
which speaks God 756 , but is, in the same

754 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 7, 22-24, P-
238/ Ibidem.

755 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 7, 41-42, p.
238-240/ Idem, p. 138.

756 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 7, 44-47, p.
240/ Ibidem.

394

time, body of Christ, His bride and His
upper world 757 .

But the members of the mystical
body of Christ, of the Church, are the
Saints and not just those baptized in the
Church, which not actualise daily their
relation with God, on which God Himself
had initiated with them and in them from
their Baptism.

From the perspective of personal
union with Christ, the Church is formed
from Saints and it widens continuous and
it will comprise, in definitive, on all the
Saints from all ages, fact for which, „ until
will not come at existence [all the Saints]
or until will not arise all well-pleasing [of
God], nor the body of Christ is whole, nor
the upper world is fill - and this I say that
is the Church of God - but many are
[between future Saints] today, in world,
unbelievers and between those who
believe in Christ many are sinners and
fornicators, which must to change their
life through repentance, many are disobe-
dient and will have to make listeners,
many are which must to be born and they
to be well-pleasing of God until at the last
trumpet.

For must to be born and to be
brought at existence all those pre-known
and to fill the world above the world of
the Church of those first-born, the
Jerusalem from the heavenly [Heb. 12, 22-

757 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 8, 1-2, p. 240/
Ibidem.

395

23]. And then will be and the fullness of
Christ's body by the God of the pre-
decided, [of those who have] to make
alike the image of His Son [Rom. 8, 29].
For these are the sons of light and of His
day [I Thes. 5, 5 ]" 758 .

In the passage from here, the
Church is presents by Symeon as the
number of those Saints pre-known by
God, who will sanctify the life and will
enter in the upper world of the Kingdom
of God.

Conformable to the parable of the
tares found in the cornfield of wheat or of
the fishes from seine, the formation of
Saints does not know, in absolute mode,
a linearity of christian life from one end
at other of their life, but the Saints are
born through the conversion of notorious
sinners, while many of the faithful will
prove, unfortunately, improper the entry
in the bridal chamber.

The intensity and the sincerity of the
living of interior relation with God is that
which forms the Saints and their exis-
tence is not prescribed by a mundane
forum but by God Himself.

God is the One who shows His
friends, Which glorifies on the Saints,
Which makes them known to the
believers, and the hierarchy of Church
affiliates the divine evidence, shown in
different modes in the Church.

758 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 8, 3-18, p.
240-242/ Idem, p. 138-139.

396

But we must not confuse the
predecision of the Saints by God, whereof
speaks Symeon here, which is all one
with the divine prescience, with the pre-
destination or with the pagan fatalism, in
which does not exist real human liberty,
men are damned or absolved in dictatorial
mode and the whole divine oikonomia of
Christ is superfluous.

Symeon does not introduce in the
orthodox faith the heresy of predes-
tination, but he emphasizes the aghio-
logical theology of Paul, in which the
Saints are presented as the prescients of
God and as the sons of the Kingdom of
God, how show the three places pauline
cited by Symeon, from the passage on
which we comment it.

The historical dimension of the
Church has its decisive role in the
creation of the Church of the top, as long
as here are formed the Saints, on earth,
and the historic time precursory of the
Parousia keeps just of the formation of
this number of prescient Saints by God.

In this perspective of the formation
of Saints, the history, the time and the
space appear as some forming frames of
the members of Church, as some frames
which presuppose the sanctification of
the members of Church and not as a
major inconvenient, which would excuse
of our lack of personal inghostualization.

The weights of history, the historical
pressure of any kind exercised upon us is

397

not a wall in front of personal holiness,
but this is realized, with the grace of God,
even and when all things seem to be with
all against of the ghostual development
of the living members of the Church.

The Church is not and cannot be
swallowed by history, as long as the
reality of real personal union with God
proves that the secularization or the
devalorization of church life in the
postmodern world and in any other
historical paradigm, are not then some
tasteless intellectual presuppositions,
made at writing table and which have
nothing to do with the living longing after
the union with God of believers and with
the unchecked aspiration to holiness.

The Church is the people of God in
which lives, in conscious mode, the grace
of God and which witnesses, without any
censorship, the saving truth of the Holy
Tradition of Church.

The courage of Saints, the monu-
mentality of their life and their visible
role or subterranean in the sanctification
of world are ghostually seizable finger-
prints of deep mystery of the Church.

The mystery of the Church consists
precisely in the greatness of personal
relations of God with the Saints and of
the Saints between them and of the
Saints with all members of the world.

The perfection of the body of
Church through Saints does not make
from Church an entity which has nothing

39 8

to do with the damned, with the common
sinners.

The growth in holiness of each
believer in part comprises the assuming
of whole world once with it and does not
mean, any moment, a desolidarization of
brothers who did not want to believe in
God.

The holiness presupposes the solida-
rization, the assuming all in our life and
in our prayers, and a painful prayer for
the whole existence.

Talking about the descent of God the
Word to us, Symeon presents the entire
humanity as on the daughter of the
mutinous against Him, as on a sinful
woman, guilty of fornication and
killing 759 .

And the goodness of God is
indicated very expressive by him through
the fact, that He preferred a bride fallen,
depraved, for that has staked on the
justification and its sanctification.

In conclusion, the Saints are not for
Symeon some privileged, which have
primacy towards others, for that they
have certain personal trumps. Through
Baptism we are with all privileged, for
that God puts us into a living relation,
direct with Himself, from which we
cannot fall, only if we want to mock us.

759 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 9, 22-25, P-
248/ Idem, p. 141.

399

The Church is just this complex
number of personal relations with Christ
and our source of ghostual life means the
union with Christ through ecstasy and
the impartation with Christ through the
Holy Mysteries. And the holiness is the
principal characteristic of the members of
Church and it creates the unity of the
Church.

As everyone to be a living member of
Christ's body, he must stand in the
interior unity with Christ and with the
Saints from all ages and from everywhere
on earth, ie to stand, through holiness, in
link to both with the Head of the Church,
with Christ, but and with the other
members of the Church, ie with the
Saints before him but and with the con-
temporary of himself.

400

Eschatology

2. 8. The Sight of Light and the
Eschatology

The last theme of symeonian the-
ology which we discuss here and namely
the universal eschatology proves, once
again, the eternal validity of personalist
theology, as long as the holiness is the
interior reality which reveals in perfect
mode in the stage of plenary trans-
figuration of whole creation.

If now, our interior relation with
God can be put under the sign of question
by those who have not the ghostual
perception of God's presence in believers,
then, in the day the one of then, our
interior becomes explicit for all, the
reality of union with Christ will be
incontestable and the living relation with
God will prove our source of joy and
eternal fulfillment.

We will begin our discussion all
with the ethical Discourse i, in which
Symeon speaks, very concentrated, about
the transfiguration of the world through
the Ghost.

Symeon, starting from what has
done Christ God for us, through His
incarnation as man, speaks about the
growth in holiness and he says that, after
the dormition of Saints, their bodies do

not remain „altogether incorruptible, nor
again altogether corruptible, but, keeping
in them both the signs of incorruptibility
[xf\c, afyQapoiac, xa yvtopiopata], but and
[on those] of corruptibility, are kept
towards being made incorruptible in
perfect face [leXeiox;] and renewed [ava-
Kmvia0f|voa] at the resurrection from lat-
ter" 760 .

The reality of the Holy Relics
indicates, on the one part, that has not
come the time of renewal, of total
transfiguration of creation but that it has
begun still of now.

The personal holiness is a full
rallying, assumed, at the process of the
transfiguration of creation.

The transfiguration of bodies is
reserved, says Symeon, of eschatology, for
that „it ought not as the bodies of men to
be resurrected and to be made
incorruptible before of the renewing of
creatures [xQv kxio\iclx(x>v dvaKmviaeox;],
but so how this [the creation] has been
brought first at existence incorruptible,
and after it the man, all so again, first, the
creation must to premade and so to
change from corruptibility at incorrupt-
ibility, and so, together with it and
suddenly with it [ouv ocuifj Km a\ia a\)xr\],
will renew and the corruptible bodies of
men, for as the man, making again
ghostual [-nve\)\ioLxiKb(;] and immortal [ccQa-

7 ° Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 3, 115-119, p.
204/ Idem, p. 124.

402

volxoq], to dwell into a place incorruptible
[dcj)0apTa) xcopio)], eternal [aiSico] and
ghostual [TTveu|iaiLKCo]" 761 .

The sight of divine light has direct
link with the transfiguration of creation,
for that this will renew through the
divine light and the sight of light leads to
the incorruptibility of soul still of now
and of body in partial mode but, in full
mode, in the next age.

Symeon speaks about a concom-
itance of the transfiguration of creation
and of the man and about a habitation of
men, which will have a ghostual body,
into a transfigured creation, transformed
into a place of incorruptibility and of
eternal joy, of eternal communion with
their Creator.

The renewal of creation is at our
Father a its restoration in the beauty
which it had it from the beginning, at the
initial beauty [to dpxolov kolXXoq] 762 .

Paraphrasing on the Apostle John,
Symeon invites us to believe on full, that
will be new heavens and new earth 763 and
that will exist a general resurrection of
the people 764 and that „the heaven and
the earth and all ones from it, ie all crea-

761 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 3, 120-129, p.
204/ Idem, p. 124-125.

762 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 3, 148-149, p.
206/ Idem, p. 125.

763 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 4, 1, p. 206/
Ibidem.

764 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 4, 3-5, p. 206/
Ibidem.

403

tion will be renewed and freed from the
bondage of corruption [Rom. 8, 21], and
the things will share together with us of
the brightness [A,ot|j,TTp6Tr|To<;] from there,
and in the face in which on all of us will
attempt the fire [to irup SoKii-iaoei],
according to the Divine Apostle [I Cor. 3,
13], all so and the whole creation will be
renewed through fire [Sia TTupoc olvolkolivio-
Gipenu]" 765 .

But this fire, which transfigures the
world, which transforms it, is none other
than the divine light, which will cleanse
and will prechange all creation, after how
prechanges and deifies on the one who
sees it in ecstasy.

From this we deduce, that Symeon
unites in his theology the personal
soteriology with the transfiguration of all
creation and he considers the trans-
figuration of the world an extension, from
part of God, of personal transfiguration,
which takes place in the believers.

The determined role of the sight of
light is understand on full only from
eschatological perspective, for that the
eternal life presupposes a permanent
remaining in the divine light, a ours
eternalization in the joy of communion
with God.

The world will not have part of an
end, of a its destruction in hollywoodian
style, where all creation dissolves into a

7 5 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 4, 5-11, p.
206/ Idem, p. 125-126.

404

total chaos, but, according to symeonian
theology, the world will be prechanged
through the divine light, having part of a
new beginning, of its reestablishment in
the beauty, into which God had created
from the beginning, ie being full of the
divine light.

But the new beginning of the world
will be everlasting, the eschatology not
dealing with the final, in the sense of the
last things which can be said about God's
creation, for that it would put point at a
moment given, but of the last things
which will initiate an eternal perspective,
non-temporal of creation and of man.

The eschatology, from dogmatic
point of view, in paradoxical mode,
comprises under its cupola, as we know,
both the realities of the second coming of
the Lord, the prechanged of world and
the resurrection of the dead, together of
the last Judgment, but and the two kinds
of eternity assumed: the eternal joy with
God or the eternal misery in the company
of demons.

But at Saint Symeon, the escha-
tology is not a problem just of those from
future but is a reality on which you live it
yet of now, in ecstatic mode, if you see
the glory of God, which is just the real
ambience and deifying of everlasting life.

Now, we will continue to present the
variant of future of symeonian escha-
tology, for to return us, in the finale of
this section, at the actual variant,

405

ecstatic, through which we live already
the eschatological reality of creation.

The actual creation, continues our
Father, being as an obsolete vessel and
speckled by our sins 76 , „will be remelted
and remodeled, and will be made shining
[ka\n\pa] and unlike newer [Kmvoiepa
douYKpLicog] than the one that is seen
now" 767 . The divine light will produce the
transfiguration of creation and of men
instantaneous. The renewed creation, says
Simeon, will not be identical with the one
before of the falling of man in sin, but
with much more beautiful and divine on
full, for that „all creation will be made, at
a sign of God, not as it was brought at
existence, material and sensible, but will
be remade through a birth from new [zr\
-noLliyyeveoicL], into a immaterial dwelling
and ghostual, above all feeling" 768 .

The palingenesis about which speaks
Symeon will be an instantaneous divine
work and it will consist in the transfor-
mation of world and of man in trans-
figured existences, ghostual.

The pauline place from I Cor. 15, 51-
52 supports the instantaneity of trans-
figuration of creation 7 9 , without as this

7 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 4, 20-25, p.
208/ Idem, p. 126.

767 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 4, 25-27, p.
208/ Ibidem.

768 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 5, 10-13, p.
212/ Idem, p. 128.

769 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 5, 14-16, p.
212/ Ibidem.

to mean a decorporalization of men or an
abolition, aneantization of matter.

The transfiguration of the world and
of men means just the transfiguration of
matter, of entire existence, in so kind that
we will inherit „the whole earth spiritual
and ghostual...[as some which will
acquire] incorporeal bodies [01 6lo6\iolzol w
oco|iam]...[and we will get to have] a
feeling beyond of feeling [utt^p dioQr\oiv kv
oda0r|(Ki]" 770 .

The ghostual print of future world,
transfigurated, is refound in the life of
every Saint in part yet of now.

In the anterior sections we have
called this state of living of the eternal
life a quotidian life, a continuous living in
the divine light.

The incorporeal bodies of trans-
figured world and the feeling above of
feeling about which speaks Symeon are
ecstatic prints of ghostual man, are the
consequences of the cleansing of passions
and of the sight of light, of continuous
sanctification of our life.

And Symeon speaks here not about
of eternal existence in light of all, but
only of those which, still of now, have
sanctified the life.

He does not elude the existence of
contrary will to the one of God and the
reality of Hell, but he sees in happy
eternity a ghostual reality, of which will

770 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 5, 20-22, p.
214/ Ibidem.

407

impart whoever have begun to impart of
it, still on when they were in the flesh.

And the entrance in the eternity of
communion with God presupposes the
orthodox Baptism and living in the
Church, through cleaning of passions, of
the sight of God, of His eternal light.

The resurrection means for Symeon
the achievement of the real state of to be
alike to the Holy Angels 771 .

The whole creation renewed be-
comes an immense reliefation and
presence of God's glory, for that it, the
creation, „reached whole ghostual,
together with the Paradise itself [ouv
ocutco IiapaSeLOG)], 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 [Mai. 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

771 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 5, 77, p. 218/
Idem, p. 130.

408

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 [evouvmi Tolg voriiriic;] and
will make another intelligible Paradise
and a heavenly Jerusalem [Heb. 12, 22],
likened and united with the heavenly
[e£o|j,oiG)0e,aa idle eTTOupavLOic; Km evcoGe,-
oa], and an unwavering inheritance of the
sons of God, [for] nobody from those on
earth will not be, nowise, heirs of it" 772 ,
but only the Saints.

After how is observed, the trans-
figuration 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,

772 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 5, 84-101, p.
218-220/ Ibidem.

409

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 773 . 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" 774 .

The ecstatic union with God, about
which speaks Symeon, is the one who

773 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 5, 107-108, p.
220/ Idem, p. 131.

774 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 5, 110-119, p.
220/ Ibidem.

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 resur-
rection 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 Heavenly 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 Prosko media, 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.

All members of God's world will see
then on their Emperor, „how will come
with glory and more power our Emperor
the desired and too-sweet, Jesus Christ
God, to judge the world and to give each
after his works. [...]

[And], as into a big house or in the
imperial palaces are many places of rest
and abodes, and in both these kinds of
too-divine places is a great otherness, all
so and in the new creation He will make

4ii

divisions, attributing each the legacy after
his worthiness and the brightness and the
glory which it is entitled from virtues and
his deeds.

But whereas they will be ghostual
[TTveu|j,aTLKCOv] and transparent [biafyavtiv]
and united with those abodes and divine
resting places, the Kingdom of Heaven
will be, in general, as a single hearth, as
and it is, and this will be shown to all the
Righteous, of over all, unseeing in it than
the Emperor of all, co-present [ou|iTTa-
povm] with each and each coexisting
[auvovm] together with Him, shining in

each and each shining in Him [kv eKaoicp
6KA,a|j,TT0vm Km eKaoiov A,a|j,TTOVTa kv

Autco]" 775 .

The eschatological explanations of
our Father have an overwhelming
realism, after how can be observed.

The final judgment will represent
the entry of each believer in part, after his
level of personal inghostualization, in the
Kingdom of God; the eternal life means
the union and the living together with
the Heavenly Powers and this mode of
existence of eternity not means some-
thing else than the continuing of interior
relation with Christ, the Emperor and our
God.

The living in eternity means the
brightness of Christ God in each of us and
ours in Him, as a without end progres-

775 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 5, 120-137, p.
222/ Idem, p. 131.

412

sion in the understanding and the com-
munion with Him.

Symeon accents very much this
detail of our communion with Christ, for
that the ghostual life is an interior reality,
the single legal reality of man and will be
the true constitution of the new world.

The reality of the transfigured world
has as foundation the life in the glory of
God, ie just the content of this theology of
glory, on which we debate it in the pages
of this book.

Is from self understood the impor-
tance of the eschatological transfigu-
ration of the world in the symeonian
theology, if all the energy of this theology
was filed in to show the capital impor-
tance of the mystical life of the Church.

The mystical life proves its full
relevance for history and for eternity and
the absolute primacy in the orthodox life,
when we inherit, in personal mode, in
eternity, its soteriological consequences.

In I, 12, Symeon talks about the
Ascension of the Lord and about the
ecstatic report with us through the prism
of His glory: „God descended on earth
and ascended again at heaven and He has
put the darkness right His hiding [diTOKpu-
pfiv].

For it ought not to show us with the
glory of His Father before of Judgment.
But this will be made at the time on
which His Father has put it into His
possession [A. Ap. 1, 7]. [...]

413

[Because] thus are the hidden
mysteries [za |i,uair|pia KeKpu|j,|j,eva] of the
Kingdom of Heaven and is not given to
everyone to know them, after the word of
the Lord [Mt. 13, 10] " 7y6 .

The hiding in which has hidden
Christ God is His light. But He did not
hide for all, for those what see His light,
they know His mysteries the too
mysterious, hidden those who do not
have the clean heart through the fulfill-
ment of His commandments.

The glory of Christ will be seen by
all at His second coming and at
Judgment, but each will perceive it at his
level of ghostual growth or will be an
insupportable fire, for those who does not
love on Him, on the God of the whole
world.

Is very evident from the following
passage, how that the interior intimation
of His glory is real for those who rebuild
through faith and the fulfillment of com-
mandments: „before ascending at heaven
and to put the darkness His hiding, He
has given us His holy commandments, as
on some implements... and the faith in
Him as on a master. [...]

[And we being] vessels, the faith
master, and the commandments the
implements, through which the master
Word remakes and renews on the workers
of His commandments, [we can], as

77 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, 1, 12, 137-144, p.
282/ Idem, p. 154-155.

414

through their work, cleanse us and to be
enlightened us by the Ghost, advancing
in the knowledge of the mysteries of the
Kingdom of Heaven" 777 .

The faith and the ascesis, as
fulfillment of commandments, create in
us the cleanness, where descends God's
light.

The ghostual experience or the
knowledge of the mysteries of God has
nothing to do with the occultism, with
the secretomania of caste or with the
initiation in perverse mysteries and
intellectualist.

The knowledge of the mysteries of
God means the sight of the divine light, of
what shown us by God in the divine light,
the light on which we see it only if
sanctify us the life.

Any attempt of dodge of the
sacramental entry in Church, through
Baptism or any misunderstanding of the
ghostual life, unresolved at time with
Fathers, which already have tasted from
the sight of light, with men which know
and the joy but and the dangers of
ghostual life, it does not lead at the sight
of divine light, but at the blackest
ghostual deception, at the falling in the
net of demons, which show us a pseudo-
light, what throws us into a lamentable
extremism. The divine sight has signs and
clear manifestations from ghostual point

777 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 12, 150-158, p.
282-284/ Idem, p. 155.

415

of view and the differentiation between
the true sight and the sight brought by
demons is reserved those with deep
mystical experience and with a great
ghostual discernment.

Saint Symeon does not refer in his
opera and at what is not authentic sight,
but other Holy Fathers did it into a
magistral mode.

His Holiness was comprised with all
of desire of to highlight the reality and
the divine splendor of the mystical
experience, for as each of us can compare
our experience with the truth of an over-
whelming experience.

Returning us at the eschatology for
today, after how I promised, Saint
Symeon speaks in the ethical Discourse 10
about the link between eschatology and
the ecstatic sight, saying: „the coming of
the Lord [TTapouoia tou Kupiou] at the
believers was made and is made always
[yeyove Km ad yLveiai] and was made by
all those who will it.

And if He is the Light of the world
and He told His Apostles that will be with
them until at the end of the world [Mt.
28, 20], how, being already with us, He
will come? Nowise. For we are not sons of
darkness and sons of night [I Thes. 5, 5],
as the light to take us by surprise
[KamA,apr|] [Jn. 12, 35], but sons of light
and of the day of the Lord" 778 .

77 SC 129, The Ethical Discourses, X, 679-686, p.
308/ Idem, p. 343.

The coming of the Lord is a
cotidianity for those who see the light in
their being and for they His second
coming is no longer expected but
glorified in their whole being.

The Lord showed into light all His
Saints, ie to all those who were thirsty
and were hungry for His glory. Just
therefore, the Saints are not sons of the
night, of unseeing light, but of the day, of
communion, in light, with their Master.

For those who live in light yet of
now, the history has ended already. They
live longer in eternity than in history and
the changing of world means the sight of
light and in the matter around them not
only in their being.

But the prechanging of world brings
an immense plus of holiness and of
gladness thereof, for that means the ever-
lastingness them in light, their stead-
fastness, for eternity, in the sight of the
glory of the Most Holy Trinity.

Do not understand of here, that the
Saints do not want the coming of the
Lord, His parousia for all. Contrariwise,
their daily communion with Christ, His
sight provokes them an even greater love
and waiting of His coming on the clouds
of light of His glory, as to judge the
world.

The second coming is an immense
mystery, for that it is not known by
anyone except God: „The ones what will
to be then do not know any the Angels of

417

God. For given being, that they did not
know any of His coming on earth, in
what kind and how [it will be], or when
He would come down and make Himself
man, all the more they must not know
His coming from behind with glory. [...]

[For this] showed even and the Lord
speaking about His coming, „that the
Powers of the heavens will be shaken"
[Mt. 24, 29], in the sense that they will be
amazing and they will marvel seeing, all
at once, [on] those which until then they
have not seen at all" 779 .

The waiting is intense for the entire
Church and the surprise of His coming
will be overwhelming. Any scenario of
His coming we could imagine it will be
extreme of fade, of inexpressive and of
corporal in that day.

Saint Symeon surprises extraordi-
narily well the idea of the surprise of His
coming and of His transfiguring presence
for the entire creation.

The coming of the Lord will not be,
rather, a spectacular event, which will not
engage us in no way, but, contrariwise,
will be a capital event for us and for the
entire creation, on which we will feel it
the deepest in our being.

At His coming, He will be
recognized by His Saints, for that and the
Lord recognizes His Saints 780 . But and the

779 SC 122, The Ethical Discourses, I, 12, 226-231,
235-238, p. 288, 290/ Idem, p. 157.

780 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 12, 267-268,
p. 292/ Idem, p. 158.

4i8

Saints will recognize one another, for that
Christ will dwell in all the Saints 781 .

The books of conscience [ai piploi
tou ouveiSoioc;] will open 782 and from the
being those who will be found with a holy
life „will shine Christ God, the hidden
now in them, as has shone, before of
ages, from the Father, and the Saints will
be like of the Most High. [...]

[For] if the Saints are like of God
and they will know on God as much as
God knew on them, and as the Father
knows on the Son and the Son on the
Father, all so must to see and to know
each other and the Saints, nay even and
those who have not ever seen in this
world. [...]

For as the Father will never be
deprived of the knowledge of the Son or
the Son of the Father, all so nor the
Saints, made gods through adoption. ..will
never be deprived of the knowledge
among themselves, but among them-
selves they will see their glory and of
themselves, as the Son sees it on of the
Father and the Father on of the Son" 783 .

The eschatological symeonian per-
spective is, according as one can see, one
of ghostual knowledge, of profound

7 1 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 12, 268-269,
271-272, p. 292/ Ibidem.

782 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 12, 273, p.
292/ Idem, p. 158.

783 Idem, The Ethical Discourses, I, 12, 285-287,
299-304, 307-312, p. 292, 294/ Idem, p. 159.

419

communion between Saints and God and
among themselves.

The consciousness of relation with
God sees here the true value, for that only
those who have a real communion, yet of
here, of on earth, with God, will have part
of His recognition, of the communion
with all the Saints and of His glory
forever. The ghostual life is our adapta-
tion at the conditions of eternal life, our
preparation for to be proper of eternal
communion with God.

Saint Symeon leads us, through his
theology, at the abyssal understanding of
the fact, that just the ghostual experience
can give us a real and total gladness and
fulfillment, which will not be lost
through death, but will be potentiated
overwhelming of much.

The postmodern world, which seeks
totalising experiences and fulminant,
which seeks a rapid knowledge and
intensive of our existence, it can find in
the symeonian theology the profound
sense of human fulfillment: the ghostual
experience of eternal life, the eternal
communion with our God, of all.

3. The Receptation of the
Theology of Glory in the Orthodox
Space and the Importance of its
Assuming in the Postmodern World

3. 1. The Sight of God in the The-
ology of Father Professor Dumitru
Staniloae

As to understand the contribution of
Father Professor Dumitru Staniloae at the
theology of glory of God we must leave
from „the ontological aspect and person-
alist of grace" 784 in his theololgy, to the
deep creases of his theological episte-
mology, which „is both holistic and
relational. It includes both the logical
dimension of reason implicit to the
cataphatism, but and the existential
dimension (experiential or participative)
inherent to the apophatism" 785 . In the
following we will concentrate the

7 4 Emil Bartos, The Concept of Deification in the
Theology of Dumitru Staniloae [Conceptul de
indumnezeire in teologia lui Dumitru Staniloae],
doctoral thesis, Pub. The Christian Book, Oradea, 2002,
p. 414.

785 Silviu Eugen Rogobete, An Ontology of Love.
Subject and Supreme Personal Reality in the Theological
Thought of Father Dumitru Staniloae [O ontologie a
iubirii. Subiect si Realitate Personala supremd in
gdndirea teologicd a pdrintelui Dumitru Staniloae],
doctoral thesis, trans, by Anca Dumitrascu and Adrian
Guiu, coll. Plural Religion, Pub. Polirom, Iasi, 2001, p.
86.

421

attention only toward the last step of
mystical apophatism and namely toward
the sight of divine light, although in his
theology blends harmonious the cata-
phatism and the apophatism and only
uniting them on these two, we can speak
of an articulated theology of glory.

In OSAM II, 5, Father Professor
Dumitru Staniloae, highlighting the steps
of the apophatism speaks about the divine
darkness described by Saint Dionysius
the Areopagite, as about „a too great
abundance of light" 786 .

Meditating at a text of Saint Gregory
Palamas, Father Staniloae finds that „the
sight of the divine light is not a negative
theology" 787 and that „of the sight of this
light is vouchsafed only those like Moses,
on when of the negative theology, any
worshiper of God" 788 .

We have here a prime distinction
between the theology of glory and the
negative theology.

The theology of glory presupposes
the experience of the light and its articu-
lation in cataphatic concepts, anthropo-
morphic or perceived as such, on when
the rational negative theology is a con-
ceptualization of the ecstatic confessions
or a commentary at the ecstatic descrip-
tions of the Saints.

786 OSAM [The Orthodox Spirituality. Ascetica
and Mystica] [Spiritualitatea ortodoxa. Ascetica si
Mistica], ed. 1992, p. 196.

787 Idem, p. 197.

788 Idem, p. 199.

422

If in the frame of the theology of
glory the source texts are created by
those who have experienced them and are
commented by those who are congenial
with these, in the frame of negative
theology do not exist the source texts
created by its promoters, but the
theologians from this branch make
conjectures on the margin of the source
texts created by Saints or by the
theologians, which share, in reverent
mode, the details of ecstatic theology and
they are positioned critical or indifferent
across from them.

The negative theology, says our
author, is not sight 789 , but „an anticipative
icon of the sight of divine light" 790 . Only
when the mind is „ravished by God,
passes beyond, at the sight of light" 791 .

He who sees the light does not enter
into an experiential vacuum 792 , but he
sees the uncreated light of God, having
the conscience „that it cannot be
contained in concepts and expressed in
words" 793 , this in the first row and, in the
second row, that the light comes from the
being of God, „which remains with all
inaccessible [to us], and that itself the
accessible light remains an infinite reserve
[of experienced]" 794 .

789 Ibidem.

790 Ibidem.

791 Idem, p. 201.

792 Ibidem.

793 Ibidem.

794 Ibidem.

423

The light produces in us an
„apophatic knowledge" 795 - for that the
Holy Ghost „is the head of the trinitarian
work turned towards the world" 796 -
however, in the same time, „the divine
light, seen in unintelligible face, remains
and for hesychasm a mystery, which do
not exclude, but implies the apophatism,
without to let it only on this in vigor.

What distinguishes this apophatism
of sight beyond sight of the light is the
fact, that this apophatism is not a
vacuum, but an overwhelming divine
presence; and is not an intellectual
negation and a feeling on darkness of the
presence of God, but an overwhelming
experience of this presence" 797 .

Father Professor Staniloae highlights
thus the fact, that the sight is a presence
of light in us, that it brings a divine
knowledge the one which sees it and a
profound communion with God 798 .

With other words, Father Professor
Dumitru Staniloae assumes the theology

795 Ibidem.

796 Rev. Prof. Acad. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu,
Jesus Christ Pantocrator [Iisus Hristos Pantocrator], op.
cit., p. 137.

797 OSAM, ed. 1992, p 201.

798 Father Professor Stefan Buchiu, commenting
the apophatic knowledge at Father Staniloae, wrote:
„The divine infinite knowledge at which accedes the
mind in ecstasy, give birth in the human subject at the
sentiment of plenitude, of plenary joy, of an unending
love", acc. Rev. Doc. D. Th. Stefan Buchiu, The
Apophatic Knowledge in the Thinking of Father
Staniloae [Cunoasterea apofaticd in gdndirea Pdrintelui
Staniloae], Pub. Libra, Bucharest, 2002, p. 194.

424

of glory and considers it an unique
personal event and savior.

The knowledge of light „is an eternal
progress" 799 , continues his Holiness, and
the experiencing of the light gives us the
understanding „of absolute unknow-
ability of divine being" 800 .

The experiencing of the light is an
understanding through communion of the
trinitarian God and the one who is full of
light „becomes to himself and more full
of mysteries, as a deified being, beyond
nature, inspiring he himself a continuing
self-amazement" 801 .

The sight of light deifies us on
measure what fills us of a theological
experiential understanding of the dogmas
of faith.

The deification is the foundation of
charismatic theology, of theology of sight,
for that is, in the same time, an
ontological reality, interior. The light
penetrates in us and it remains in us and
it is the one which personalizes us
continuous, because disinfests us of the
irrationality of passions 802 .

799 OSAM, ed. 1992, p. 210-202.

800 Idem, p. 202.

801 Ibidem.

802 Father Professor Dumitru Popescu said, into a
critical evaluation of Olivier Clement, that „the the-
ology, the spirituality and the eastern
ascetica... [considers the passions] irrational beingly
motions, which alters not only the existence, but and
the human ontology", acc. Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru
Popescu, Christ, Church, Society [Hristos, Biserica,
Societate], Pub. IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1998, p. 131.

425

In OSAM III, 2, Father Professor
develops the discussion about ecstasy,
describing the ecstatic sight right the
event, which occurs in the link full of love
between man and God 8 ° 3 .

„God sends His energy in man" 8 ° 4 ,
says Father Professor Dumitru Staniloae,
and this divine energy, „once com-
municated to man. ..it turns towards God,
and in this its return, it dresses the form
of the affection of human subject,
awakened by the divine energy" 805 .

The sight takes place in the frame of
personal relation between man and God
and it provokes on man at a love and a
greater communion with God.

The communion and the reciprocal
love between man and God is the frame
in which produces the event of ecstasy,
for that the divine sight is „just the
smiling irradiation of divine love" 806 in
our being.

The evaluation of sight, on which
makes it Father Professor Dumitru
Staniloae, is extreme of positive: „The
light is simultaneously knowledge, and
the light of knowledge is the fruit of love.
But a light or a knowledge, which springs
from love, which is not than an expres-
sion of the state of love, is, in the same
time, life" 807 .

803 OSAM, ed. 1992, p. 260.

804 Idem, p. 261.

805 Ibidem.

806 Idem, p. 280.

807 Ibidem.

426

Discussing about the role of mind
during of ecstasy, Father Professor says,
that the mind no longer sees, in this
moment, on himself, but it works only
through the divine work 8oS . The sight is
the moment when we live „the love with
which God loves us and we love Him" 809 .

Then we experience not an
ephemeral love, bodily, possessive, but
„an uncreated love, springing from the
being of God" 810 .

The central role of ecstasy in our life
is shown by Father Professor Dumitru
Staniloae in that, that in the frame of
sight of light, God gives us His work 811 for
as to deify us.

The exist of mind from itself which
takes place in the frame of divine sight, is
not ontological, he specifies, but is a
union of the mind with the divine light 812 ,
on which he sees it in himself but and
beyond himself 813 .

The sight of the divine light means
„the supreme step of self-conscious-
ness" 814 and the light of God „is spreading
from soul in outside, on the face and on
the body the one who has it inwards" 815 ,
deifying the entire being of its seer and
luminating and on those who see him

808 Idem, p. 281.

809 Idem, p. 283.

810 Ibidem.

811 Ibidem.

812 Idem, p. 284.

813 Idem, p. 285.

814 Idem, p. 286.

815 Idem, p. 289.

427

and maintain themselves at discussion
with this.

The Saints Dionysius, Maximus,
Gregory Palamas and Gregory of Nyssa
appear in recurrent mode in the pages of
the theology of glory of Father Professor
Dumitru Staniloae.

Is observed over all the personalist
mode of the theology of glory, on which
his Holiness has developed it and the
heat of communion and of beingly
confession, plenary, on which educes it
his theology to the one who reads it.

Is observable therefore, that Father
Professor Dumitru Staniloae speaks from
within of the theology of glory and not
from outside it. This does not put under
the sign of question the mystical
experiences but he explains them on
measure what he assimilates them.

In the introduction and in the
commentaries which accompany the
translation of the symeonian Hymns,
Father Professor returns at the theme of
ecstatic knowledge as and personal
communion, through love, of the man
with God. Speaking about the
impossibility of transmission of proper
experience through words 816 , Father

816 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae, The
Personal Relation with Christ in the Light of Divine
Infinity, after Saint Symeon the New Theologian
[Legatura personala cu Hristos in lumina infinitafii
dumnezeiesti, dupa Sfdntul Simeon Noul Teolog], in
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology Studies [Studii de teologie
dogmatica ortodoxa], op. cit, p. 310.

428

Professor prepares the ground for the
presentation of our capital union with
Christ, with the One who „has the
supreme sense or the richness of all senses
toward which tends the man" 817 and
through Whom and into Whom „become
and us the possessors of all senses, [ie]
become gods after grace" .

Therefore he identifies right the
central theme of the symeonian Hymns
the light, which irradiates from the
person of the risen Christ 819 , saying that
„the sight of the divine light does not
depend... only of its spread through the
body of Christ, but and of the voluntary
opening for/ toward it of the human
persons" 820 . The opening towards the
light of Christ means ascesis and breaking
of the crust of the proper egoism 821 . The
absolute positivity of sight in our life is
seen and from the distinction on which
our author makes it between the one
which only theorizes and the one which
experiences it at proper: „No the
theoretician theologian sees the divine
light and unites in love whit Christ, but
the ghostual man or the Saint, which was
purified of passions, who has left the
egoism and opens with the will toward
the love of God and of fellowmen" 822 .

817 Idem, p. 312.

818 Ibidem.

819 Idem, p. 315.

820 Ibidem.

821 Ibidem.

822 Ibidem.

429

Through this Father Professor shows
that the ascesis is the integrant part from
theology and that the ascesis, the
cleaning of passions, is the road toward
sight, toward the mystical experiences,
mysterious, divine.

The sight of Christ's glory is, in the
same time, knowledge and an endless
invitation of deepening in knowledge, in
the knowledge as personal relation with
God: „In union with Christ, the man has
the perspective of an eternal advancement
in the divine light and in his spiritual
enrichment.

For the light what is communicated
to him from Christ is the irradiation of
God's infinite being, which is unbounded.
The man, as hypostasis of the human
being, increases in its knowledge through
the energies potential contained in it.

But when he unites with Christ
comes from Him and the works or the
energies of God's being, which is infinite.
He feeds thus from all the divine content,
from the infinity itself, from all what is
created and uncreated" 823 .

The ecstatic sight is an anticipation
of the Kingdom of God, where, „united
with Him, we will be filled with all of
light and all the universe will be in the
Kingdom of Heavens a Kingdom of light,
a Kingdom of light spread between the
persons of the Holy Trinity and from Her

Idem, p. 316.

430

between the human persons united with
Christ" 824 .

The divine darkness, repeats Father
Professor, is the too much light which
comes from God's being 825 . At Saint
Symeon the New Theologian does not
exist „the obscure nights" of John of the
Cross 826 , but only the joy of „the size of
divine light" 827 , which overwhelmed on
this.

His commentaries at Hymns show
how much he was familiarized with the
flame of theology of Saint Symeon. Over
all Father Professor Dumitru Staniloae
gives righteousness of Saint Symeon,
enthuses of his words and sees in them an
accurate interpretation of our faith.

In n. 239 at the Hymn 18, as to give a
single example of correct evocation and
enthusiastic of symeonian theology,
Father Professor Dumitru Staniloae
wrote:

„Into a time, when in Occident
appeared the beginnings of Scholastica,
which will pretend to define rational on
God, in Orient was affirmed, through
Symeon, in accentuated mode, the union
of knowledge with the conscience of the
mystery of God and, in general, of reality.
It is the testimony of a spiritual
maturity" 828 . And the theological maturity

824 Ibidem.

825 Idem, p. 317.

826 Hymns, the edition Staniloae, n. 117, p. 366.

827 Idem, n. 144, p. 375.

828 Idem, n. 239, p. 413.

43i

of Symeon, on which observed it Father
Professor Dumitru Staniloae, consists just
in that, that he does not attempt at the
mystery of God's life and of living relation
with Him, but he presents it right the
target and the fulfillment of the entire
humanity.

The sight of God is the foundation of
salvation and of true joy, for that the
eternal life is a continuous deepening in
the sight and the understanding of the
divine light.

In conclusion, we observed how our
great theologian has appropriated, with
much fidelity, the scriptural ecstatic
terminology and on that of the Fathers,
and he spoke in the perimeter of sources,
without as to try to contradict them, but
showing himself as one who has learned
from them.

The theology of glory at Father
Professor Dumitru Staniloae is person-
alist and communional, for that the sight
means the knowledge and the love of
God, through our cleaning of passions
and through the wish of Him with all our
being.

The centrality of Christ in our life
means our filling of light, which flows
from His person and the sight is the
preamble of eternal life, where all will be
one in the light of glory of the Most Holy
Trinity.

3.2. The Mystical Theology and
its Receptation by the Orthodox
Professor Vladimir Lossky

In the introductive study at
romanian edition of archiknown book of
Professor Vladimir Lossky, Essai sur la
Theologie Mystique de VEglise d'Orient,
Father Professor Vasile Raduca notes the
fact, that Vladimir Lossky has demon-
strated through this book, „that Theology
cannot be separated of Mystica.

The theology is the rational
representation of mystical experience, of
the intimate living of the truth and of the
divine mystery" 829 .

Appeared in 1944, this little mystical
orthodox dogmatic wanted to restore the
truth, how that the theology, in the
measure in which „makes the showing of
the divine mystery, so the data of
Revelation, is a mystical theology" 830 .

Professor Vladimir Lossky observes
very correct, that the Church, naming its
Theologians the triad of the Saints John
the Theologian, Gregory of Nazianzus
and Symeon the New Theologian,
showed that cannot do theology without
mystica 831 and that the mystica is „the

29 Rev. Vasile Raduca, Introductive study, in
MTEC [The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church], p.

25-

830 MTEC, p. 35.

831 Idem, p. 37.

433

peak of all theology.. .[or] the theology
through excellency" 832 .

Therefore, the scope of theology is
the deification 833 , which does not mean
the stopping at a certain stage of knowl-
edge, but the continuous advancement
towards God, towards the One who „is
beyond of [all] what exists" 834 .

Emphasizing the role of mystical
experience, our theologian shows, that
Saint Dionysius the Areopagite has
presented the ascension towards sight as

on a road made through the cleansing of

83s

passions .

Putting the equal sign between
apophatism and mystical experience 836 ,
Professor Lossky speaks about a personal
experiencing of God, Which is not living
as an object 837 .

But our author, we believe, is
situated outside of the truth of experience
as such, then when conceives the
mystical sight right a union with God,
which does not mean and His knowledge
in the same time 838 . As we have seen
anterior, the union with the light, the
sight of light, means of fact the filling of
divine knowledge, of mystical theology.

832 Ibidem.

833 Ibidem.

834 Idem, p. 54.

835 Idem, p. 56.

836 Idem, p. 57.

837 Ibidem.

838 Ibidem. He says, literal: „God no longer
appears as object [in ecstasy], whereas is no longer the
word about knowledge, but of union".

434

Evaluating the reality of ecstasy at
Saint Dionysius, he says that this divine
experience presupposes „an exit from the
being as such" 839 and that Dionysius, in
comparison with Plotinus, has a kindred
theology with the scriptural 840 .

The theological cataphatism of the
names of God speaks us about His
energies, which descends to us 841 but
„they do not approach us to His
inaccessible being" 842 .

„The conscience of the inability of to
touch on God" 843 , says Professor Vladimir
Lossky, evaluating a fragment from the
Stromata of Saint Clement of Alexandria,
would not be an appanage of our mind, if
we would not be comforted by grace 844 .

The conscience of the uncognos-
cibility of being of God means a real
meeting, he says, with „the personal God
of Revelation" 845 .

But the uncognoscibility of divine
being does not temper the fervent seeking
of believers to see God, of to see His
glory. The sight of His glory means the
abyssal conscientization of the uncognos-
cibility of His being, but and of the
infinity of knowledge, on which presup-
poses it the sight of divine light.

839 Idem, p. 60.

840 Ibidem.

841 Idem, p. 62.

842 Ibidem.

843 Idem, p. 63.

844 Ibidem.

845 Ibidem.

435

Wondering, if not perchance the
radical apophatism of the Fathers refers
only at a theology of ecstasy 846 , Professor
Lossky reaches, again, at a conclusion
outside of mystical experience, speaking
about apophatism as about „a disposition
of mind, who refuses to form concepts
about God" 847 .

Is observed that Vladimir Lossky
wanted to remove the theology from the
sphere of a rationalist understanding and
fractional of academic approach, however
not on the base of personal experience
eminently mystical, but, more, through
the intermedium of the theological con-
cepts pretaken orthodox.

But the concepts about God is
shattered through the ecstatic experience,
for that the mind which has not seen the
light does not know that thinks absolute
hilarious, fanciful about God.

The killing of the idols of the mind is
made through the sight of divine light.
But our author gives priority of negative
theology in the detriment of sight, for
that, he says: „the negative theology is
not just a theory [theorizing] of ecstasy
itself, but is the expression of that funda-
mental attitude, which makes from
theology, in general, a contemplation of
the mysteries of Revelation" 848 .
Remaining in large part the prisoner of

846 Idem, p. 65-66.

847 Idem, p. 67.

848 Idem, p. 70.

436

the occidental approach of mystical
experience, in which the negative
theology does not mean sight but an
Utopian corrective of imagination,
Professor Vladimir Lossky gives us the
impression that replaces, sometimes, the
ghostual experience in the theological
approach with the rationalist approach,
sentimental at the life and the dogmas of
the Church.

We understand, however, fairly
trenchant from his pleading, that our
author wishes to see in apophatism an
expression of ghostual knowledge and that
„the apophatic principle of theology" 849 is
for this a limitation of the rationalization
of God, of the impetus of to replace „on
God through the idols about God" 850 .

The 2nd chapter from book ends
with the glorious affirmation and correct
of the fact that our God is the Holy
Trinity and not „the impersonal God of
the philosophers" 851 .

The triadology on which our author
highlights it in evidence has the declared
scope, of to specify the relation between
the trinitarian God and the faithful man:
„the happiness of the Kingdom of
Heavens is not a sight of being [of God],
but, first of all, is the participation at the
divine life of the Holy Trinity" 852 . On the
idea of participation at God will focus and

849 Ibidem.

850 Ibidem.

851 Idem, p. 72.

852 Idem, p. 93.

437

the 4th chapter, which treats the reality
of divine uncreated energies.

Starting from the affirmation, that
the trinitarian theology asks „a impart-
ation from what in what more intimate of
human person with the God-Trinity" 853 ,
the author speaks about the paradox „of
accessibility at [the divine] nature, which
is inaccessible" 854 .

The participation at the divine
nature, stipulated by II Pet. 1, 4,
represents just the foundation of
deification, for that „the being of God or
His nature proper-said. ..is inaccessible,
uncognoscible, uncommunicable...[on
when, through] the energies or the divine
works, ie those natural powers and
inseparable of being, in [through] which
God proceeds outside, He shows, com-
municates, gives" 855 on Himself.

Our theologian attracts the
attention of its readers, that in the
Orthodox Church „the presence of God in
His energies. ..[is] understood in realistic
sense" 856 . The energies that come from
God are not created, but „are the
overflows of divine nature" 857 . They come
out from the nature of God, „ without to
separate of it in this procession, which
makes it known" 858 .

53 Idem, p. 97.

854 Idem, p. 98-99.

855 Idem, p. 100.

856 Idem, p. 102.

857 Ibidem.

858 Idem, p. 103.

43 8

To make the experience of uncreated
energies of God means to see the light, for
„He is fully present in every ray of His
deity" 859 .

From this motive, in the chapter
dedicated to the deification (chap. 10),
our theologian sees the scope of the
entire christian life and of virtues, as
being the interior acquirement of grace 860 ,
that „fixation in good" 861 of our interior-
ity.

The grace is not a recompense for
merits 862 , says he, but „o presence of God
in us, which asks, fom our part, steadfast
endeavors. [But]... these endeavors does
not determine, not in the least, the grace,
nor the grace does not move our freedom
as a power what would be foreign" 863 .

All the preparation for to speak
about sight at Professor Vladimir Lossky
begins with the discussion about prayer,
which is seen as the interior space, in
which occurs the union with God 864 .

The role of prayer is that of interior
passage towards the sight of God, for that,
„on a certain stage, when leaves the soul
sphere, in which the mind is in motion,
all motion ceases, the prayer ceases and

859 Ibidem.

860 Idem, p. 228.

861 Rev. Marc-Antoine Costa de Beauregard, Pray
Without Ceasing! [Rugafi-va neincetat!], trans, from
french language by Rodica Buga and Rev. Prof. Nicolai
Buga, Pub. IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1998, p. 271.

862 MTEC, p. 228.

863 Idem, p. 229.

864 Idem, p. 236.

439

it" 865 and takes place the rapture of

1866
mind

In ecstasy, the man no longer
belongs, but he is led by the Holy
Ghost 867 . Appealing at the symeonian
theology, our author speaks and him
about ecstasies as about the personal
events on which live the beginners and
not the perfect 868 .

He appeals, both, at the paradigm of
Tabor, for to speak about sight, but and
at that of Lord's tomb in the Resurrection
day, as and the Holy Fathers of
Church 869 .

Our inghostualization gives us the
capacity of to see the light of God 8yo . And
the sight does not occur into a state of
unconsciousness and of its interior
elusiveness, for that „the callousness in
the inlying life is an abnormal state" 871 .

The sight is a plenary state, refelt in
fundamental mode by us, for that „the
divine light appears here, in world, in
time" 872 , but is „the beginning of Parusia
in the holy souls, the beginning of
discoveries from end, when God will
show all in His unapproachable light" 873 .
Professor Vladimir Lossky catches very

5 Idem, p. 237.

866 Ibidem.

867 Ibidem.

868 Idem, p. 238.

869 Idem, p. 252.

870 Idem, p. 253.

871 Idem, p. 254.

872 Idem, p. 261.

873 Ibidem.

440

well in his theology the eschatological
dimension of ecstasy, but and the
eschatological dimension of transfigu-
ration of the world through the divine
light: „The bodies of the Saints will make
the same with the glorified body of the
Lord, as shown to the Apostles in the day
of the Change at face. God will be all in
all and the divine grace, the light of the
Holy Trinity will shine in the crowd of
the human hypostases, in all those who
have acquired it and which will be make
as some new suns in the Kingdom of the
Father, like the Son, transformed by the
Holy Ghost, the Giver of light" 874 .

The acquirement of grace, as its
interior feeling and the sight of God, are

74 Idem, p. 263-264. Father Professor Dumitru
Popescu, into an article dedicated of the centrality of
Christ in theology and in the life of all creation, put a
pressed accent on the reality of interior rationality of
creation and on its interior dynamism.

Therefore, said this: „The most efficient path for
the undermining of the centrality of Christ consists in
the negation of the interior rationality of creation. [...]
The orthodox theology, influenced by scholasticism
and aristotelianism, commits a grave error then, when
identifies the shape of things and of beings with their
exterior appearance, as and how God would be a
Sculptor, which is concerned only of the exterior form
and unchangeable of the statue on which he forms it",
and not and of its interiority, acc. Rev. Prof. D.Th.
Dumitru Popescu, The Centrality of Christ in the
Contemporaneous Orthodox Theology [Centralitatea lui
Hristos in teologia ortodoxa contemporana], in The
Orthodoxy [Ortodoxia] LIII (2002), no. 3-4, p. 14, 15.

In the measure in which is denied the interiority
of relation of God with the man and with the entire
creation, through the divine grace, the deification of
man and of creation is not possible.

44i

at our theologian itself the content of
personal holiness.

Only from the perspective of
experience, he says, can be understand
the dogmas 875 , and „the measure of
personal exaltation of each" 876 is that,
which determines the theology on which
we write it. The theology, for that is, first
of all, experimental understanding of the
life of God, is the personal dynamism of
our life and represents the level of real
communion of us with God.

In conclusion, with his small
sideslips from the sphere of under-
standing of ecstatic experience, the
theology of Professor Vladimir Lossky
reactualises the need of a theological
writing based on personal experience and
reminds us that the theology cannot be
otherwise than mystical, than personal.

Our author shows faithful of the
triadology of the Scripture and of the
Fathers and tells us that the living God of
the Church is the God, Which comes
down, through His energies, until at us,
as to deify us and lift us up to Him.

The sight of God is a ghostual reality
in his theology, a reality which appears in
people's lives which cleanse of sins and
represents the experience in advance,
before of time, of the glory of the eighth
day.

875 Idem, p. 267.

876 Idem, p. 277.

442

3- 3- The Interior Dissolution of
the Man in Postmodernity and the
Consequences of Personal Assuming
of the Theology of Glory

In our entire theological pleading of
until now, we showed, in essence, that
the ghostual man and the seer of the glory
of the Trinity is the man, which person-
alizes continuous in his relation of great
communion with God and that the
interior life is unitary one at the orthodox
christian, which inghostualises, in
Church.

The one who assumes the theology
of glory, the one who goes towards the
knowledge what more personal with God,
through his cleaning of passions, cannot
be than a man, which has eradicated in
his being „the opposition between the
sensible world and the intelligible
world" 877 , this presupposes opposition
between body and soul or between man
and the glory of Trinity, on which the
postmodern ideology recognizes it as on
de facto existence.

For Father Professor Dumitru
Popescu the elimination from our
thinking of this opposition between
sensible and intelligible means an
abolition of the shaky foundation of the

77 Rev. Prof. Acad. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu,
Jesus Christ Pantocrator [Iisus Hristos Pantocrator], op.
cit., p. 30.

443

phenomenon of secularization 878 , which
is the anti-theology of postmodernity, for
that „estranges the man increasingly of
God and transforms him in the prisoner
of autonomous material world" 879 .

His Holiness, seeing the current
situation of the postmodern world right a
consequence of the dehumanizing divorce
between God and man in modernity,
speaks of three major mutations 880 , on
which the postmodernity has inherited
and has continued from the sphere of
thinking of modernity.

The first mutation which this
emphasizes it is that of transferring of the
center of gravity of the world from God at
man 881 , fact for which the man is centered
on its proper interests and closes in
himself, is seen as an autonomous being
in his reports with God, eliminates from
his life any recurrence at eternity and
considers „the will of God, as a kind of
attempt against of his proper freedom" 882 .

The second major mutation is the
artificial separation between the public
life and the private 883 , where the ghostual

878 Ibidem.

879 Ibidem.

880 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu, The Man
Without Roots [Omulfdrd rdddcini], op. cit, p. 11.

881 Ibidem.

882 Ibidem.

883 Idem, p. 12.

To see and Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu,
The Orthodoxy and Europe [Ortodoxia si Europa], in
The Orthodoxy [Ortodoxia] LVI (2005), no. 3-4, p. 3:
„the secularized culture is based on the radical
separation between the public domain and the private".

444

life is pushed and closed in the sphere of
private life and is not permitted to
penetrate the social life, as personal mode
of thinking, what follows of our com-
munion with God. Preponderancing the
political interests, economical, financial
and of advertising in the public sphere,
the interests ofmondaine life into a word,
the religious life is always disturbed as
long as it reaches, in positive mode, in
the forefront of the mass-media.

A third mutation on which Father
Popescu highlights it is that, that the
man becames the discretionary master of
the world 884 , which exploits chaotic his
internal resources and external, being, on
the one part, the one who provokes and
deepens his proper profound crises of
personality and, on the other part, being
the one who spoils the equilibrium of
creation through stunning economical
and technological performances, but
which provokes, from sins, climatological
disorders of planetary proportions.

The closing of God in heaven, into a
transcendence which does not interest
us 885 or the abolition of God as
dynamising factor of human life, makes as
the man, which is tributary of post-
modern ideology, to be into a continuous
deparasitation of self and sinking of him
in the life more or less illusory of the
moment.

884 Idem, p. 13.

885 Idem, p. 15.

445

The moment of now, the trice, its
ephemerality lived sensualist and
egoistical in the same time is preferred to
a life conscientized as relation with God
and as personal assuming of history, for
to be transfigured in our person.

The conceitedness of the post-
modern, concretized in that, that we are
the biggest manipulators of information
of until now, for that we are the most
advanced technological, is manifests, in
parallel, with a humanism of nihilistic
essence and atheistic, which does not see
in man than a tool of work, which is
beneficial to society only in the measure
in which is exhausted in the benefit of a
new technological discovery or of the
growth of economic profitability and
which is remunerated only for his motric
force or for the special efficiency of his
neuronal capacities.

The man is seen as a complex
structure just from anatomic point of
view, which is in course of complete
knowledge from scientific point of view,
as a summum of diseases, of psychoses, of
necessities, which will be satisfied, is a
patibulaire being, proscribed, when exits
from the rigid system of the humanism
without man and an insignificant number
as long as is not a factor of decision in the
actual society.

The depths of the man are censored
and methodical extirpated from the
secular discourse or they are stolen to the

446

ghostual life and appear right constitutive
elements for the foils of novel, for the
area of a piece of theater or for an
advertising generating of a guaranteed
profit.

However in culture and art the
bottomless depths of man are populated
only by subliminal monsters, on when, in
philosophy and science, the soul is an
enigma preferable at the level of
intellection, but not and at that of
personal racordation at the life of God.

For that does not give two coins on
the ghostual necessities of the soul and of
the man in his totality, because the
interior life is despised in postmodernity,
the postmodern overplayings the educa-
tion and the professional preparation, as
biographical landmarks of self-standing
and he prefers, in the exchange of these,
the retardation or the ghostual back-
wardness and emotional, staking on the
accumulation of disparate dates, against
of his growth in wisdom, of obtaining of
the interior equilibrium and of deepening
in holiness.

Is preferred, into a word, the
identitary discourse based on a minimal
anthropology, of spontaneous origin, is
eulogized, into an exasperating mode, a
man who comes from nowhere and is
drived chaotic and extremist in life, but,
of most of the time, is not found
something interesting, in paradoxical
mode, into a maximal anthropology,

447

which sees in man a creation made by
God, from love and for to be fulfilled in
love, into a responsible life and full of
transfiguration, into a holy life.

The concept of life as a jungle
masters the frivolity and the incoherence
of deepness of the autonomous post-
modern, makes him to be, in false mode,
a dynamic man and good-willing, with
charisma and projects of life, but which
do not have nor the seal of the grace and
nor the dimension of eternal fulfillment.

Into a schizophrenic mode, the
postmodern without roots lives an active
life, which empties him of enthusiasm
and removes him, of most of the time, of
the natal places and of his proper family
or a life of the experiment, extremist of
most of the time, in which the violence
and the lubricity sends him, always,
towards underground zones, occult.

Having in its substance the nihilism,
as method of intellection and the
deconstruction as primordial stake, on
which is founded always the new concep-
tion about man, world and existence, the
postmodernity refuses to receive lessons
from history, considers that it can unravel
by itself and prefers to be indifferent or
false traumatized, panicky traumatized of
future into much that to fantasize about
him into a depersonalized mode.

If the postmodernity and could
translate until end the conception about
man and existence, from its gnoseologic

44 8

mythology in fact, in reality, the future
would not have neither any alternative
gods, the man would transformed into a
performant robot of a post-human epoch,
which would no longer have no christian
impress and no identitary conscience.

The futurological milenarism of
postmodernity, the myth of perennial
happiness on the face of an earth
untransfigurated by grace, but full of an
architechnologised life and ultra-
performant, beats head in head with a
future imagined as unchaining of ener-
gies, as a maladive territory of the
anarchism and as a negation of any
gnoseology or of personal praxeology.

The black future, horror, of post-
humanity of after postmodernity is the
final vision of this world, a secular
eschatology, which has nothing to do
with the perpetuation of life and nor with
its everlastingness.

But turning us back in the present,
where we recant of communism and we
opt, more or less energetic, for a
capitalist era in Romania, we are put in
the face of the fact to analyze lucid the
two ethoses of social life from orthodox
perspective.

Thus, the communist ethos of life,
which „tends to sink the man in the
anonymous mass of nature and to speak

449

of equality" , of a equality which
depreciates the personal choice and the
human dignity, is an ethos of that we
want to rid, although it went deep under
skin, and we live the pathetic fervor of a
future capitalist, on which we do not
critical review and „ which tends to raise
the individual above nature and to speak
of liberty" 887 , understood into a discre-
tionary mode and egocentric.

But, says Father Professor Dumitru
Popescu, both ideologies, and the one
that we want to separate and the one that
we want to appropriate, are impersonal
ideologies 888 , which do not unify interior
on man, for that „puts both the freedom
but and the equality, above the man and
of society, as to dominate and to orient
the society towards the earthly world,
into a total indifference to the heavenly
one" 889 . The orthodox perspective upon
the world and of man transpires from the
Holy Scripture and from the Holy and the
uninterrupted charismatic Tradition of
the Church and makes us to constate,
„that are not important for us nor the
equality and nor the liberty, but the
communion or the personal relations

i , »8qo

between men y .

886 Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Popescu, Christ,
Church, Society [Hristos, Bisericd, Societate], op. cit, p.
90.

887 Ibidem.

888 Ibidem.

889 Ibidem.

890 Ibidem.

450

The impersonalism of the political
ideologies cannot integrate in the com-
munional dimension of the Church, where
the experimental knowledge of the life of
God, the impartation of the glory of God
makes us to be proper of some relations
of real communion between us.

The authentic relation with God is
the foundation of real perception of the
human condition, of existence in its
ensemble and is the mode through which
we obtain an interior clarification over
the blessed future of humanity, of the
future from the perspective of its Creator.

The false dilemma between the
preeminence of equality or of liberty is
seen in that, that in the measure in which
we dissolve the reality of communion
inter-human, ridding us of the ecclesial
communion and of interior relations and
direct of the Church with the Holy
Trinity, „both the liberty, but and the
equality... [cannot approach us], as long as
they are thought in themselves.

[For that] the true liberty cannot be
achieved through the unlimited devel-
opment of proper powers and wealth,
because the human being is not made for
the individualistic autonomy and for the
frantic course for material goods, which
leads at soulish vacuum and grave social
inequalities, but for communion and love.

And nor the simple searching of
equality cannot create the social righ-
teousness, because this is not accom-

45i

plished through terror and deprivation of
liberty, but just in the reciprocal
communion, in which each gives the
other listening and love, for to become
thus man of humanity" 891 .

In the face of the postmodern
ideology, the Orthodox Church is not at
all in failure of ideas and nor it feels that
is made to it a serious competition to its
ontological project from always, that of
the deification of the man.

The sight of God, being the
foundation of deification of the man,
gives us to understand the fact, that the
theology of glory, on which we analyzed
in this book, is the personal solution of
the orthodox christian, through which
does not live in his life the danger of
secularization and nor on that of
relativization of ghostual life.

The orthodox christian, which
makes from his life an ontological project
of the continuous depassioning, which
cleanses and lives the personal revelation
of Trinity's glory in his life and deepens
in the life of holiness of the Church of
God, he lives the communion with the
Trinity, with those of a being with
himself and with the entire cosmos in
Church into a personal mode and
enthusiastic, as a son of resurrection and
of eternity, which lives on earth and in
heaven in the same time and not as a man
submerged in the quagmire of history,

Idem, p. 91.

452

which is led of the fashion of the time
and is exhausted by projects of life, which
splits you up interior and does not unify
you.

The mystical life or the theology of
glory, the savior deep of orthodox
churchly life, is the reach of any orthodox
christian in Church, for that each of us
can understand and to love on the
trinitarian God in personal mode, at our
ghostual level, through the direct
experiencing of Trinity's glory, both
through the personal prayer, through the
receiving of the Holy Mysteries, but and
through our entire life of communion
and of loving facts of faith.

The orthodox triadology cannot be
understood in accurate mode without the
uncreated grace of which we impart in
different modes in Church and nor can
we understand personal the interior unity
of the persons of Trinity and nor the
relation of communion with the Trinity,
without the personal revelation of His
glory, received as a gift of His love for us.

Nor the christology and nor the
pnevmatology of Church do not have an
interior reality for us, as long as we do not
live together with Christ and with the
Ghost in our being, as we do not see the
oikonomia of Christ and of the Ghost as a
reality on which we live it effective and
nor the Holy Mysteries of Church, the
Holy Liturgy, the prayer, the works of
almsgiving, the services of Church, the

453

books of Scripture and of the Fathers
cannot be seised interior, without as the
glory of Trinity to flood us on full.

The personal soteriology is an
interesting philosophy, on which we can
accumulate it, from notional point of
view, very easy, but it has no link with us,
no interior link with our life, as long as
we do not understand from ourselves
that, without the grace of God, the the
faith and our acts have no transforming
sense, transfiguring and if we do not feel,
that our premaking of day with day is a
reality shattering of beautiful and of
perplexing, which makes us ceaseless
praise on God, for His mercy with us.

The dynamism of angelology, of
sanctology, of mariology and of the
orthodox culte becomes for us the
personal dynamism in the frame of the
theology of glory, in the measure in
which our life is a communion with the
Saints, lived plenary and, in the same
time, is an assuming of the entire
existence in prayer, for which we come to
shed tears for any human drama and
even for adjudicated unhappiness of the
demons, but and to rejoice for any
repentance, wonder and beauty of God.

The orthodox eschatology, as entry
of creation in eternity, through its full
pnevmatization, refinds its beginning in
the theology of glory, where the sight of
divine light, yet from this life, means the

454

actualised living of eschatology, of eternal
life.

The deification of the man, as
ontological road, ascetical and ecclesial,
as and the sight of God, an integrated
part of this interior divine -human
process, gains the capital importance for
our life, if we look to them from future
towards present or, better said, from
eternity towards our present life.

The existential project of the
Church, being one of eternal advance-
ment in good, in the communion with
God and with the entire existence, being
the project of absolute fulfillment of man,
cannot be devanced by any other project
of life and nor can it be subsumed to
other.

Therefore, in conclusion, the
consequences of personal assuming of the
theology of glory are the interior human
fulfillment, manifested as interior unity of
soul and of body, as integral deification of
the man and the living of a state of
continuous divine enthusiasm, which
does not end once with the death, but he
enters, once with it, into a process of
eternal acceleration of personal perfec-
tion.

The theology of glory is the experi-
mental knowledge of the dogmas of the
Church, of the culte, of the entire traject
of the Church, of the man and of the
cosmos in its integrality.

455

Without the personal experience of
the sight and of the glory of God, all what
we call churchly life has a static character,
distant, impersonal.

456

Final Conclusions

Our doctoral thesis, bearing the
title: The Sight of God in the Theology of
Saint Symeon the New Theologian, has
debated, in three distinct chapters, from
dogmatic point of view and, in synthetic
mode, the problem of the sight of God in
orthodox theology and, with precedence,
in the theology of Saint Symeon the New
Theologian.

In the first chapter, entitled The
Biblical and Patristic Premises of the
Deification of the Man and of the Sight of
God in the Orthodox Theology [p. 10-45],
we have presented the role of the divine
Logos, as Pantocrator of the entire
creation.

For that the Logos of the Father is
the Creator of the world and for that He
is present from beginning in world and
He sustains and He comprises all things
through His uncreated energies, there-
fore the creation has a rational founda-
tion and spiritual.

We can talk about a real relation
with God and about the sight of the glory
of God, only starting from the three
biblical and patristic fundamental
premises, which are fundamental in the
experience and the orthodox theology: 1.
the divine Logos [p. 12-25]: 2. the rational
and spiritual foundation of the world [p.

457

26-35] an d 3- the uncreated energies [p.
36-45] •

These three premises have been
debated in distinct mode in our work, but
they have been seen, in continuous
mode, as interdependent and as funda-
mental starting point towards the debate
of experience and of theology of Saint
Symeon the New Theologian.

Because, only when we see the
entire creation as work of the divine
Logos, entirely rational and filled of the
source of life of the uncreated energies of
the Most Holy Trinity, we can
understand, that the scope of our life is
the deification through grace and the
sight of God is the direct experiencing
and real of His everlasting light.

The second chapter of thesis - the
one that has been the subject, as such, of
our doctoral research - bears the title:
The Sight of God at Saint Symeon the New
Theologian and its Implications in the
Personal Salvation [p. 46-419] and is
formed, outside the introductive
subchapter, concerning the symeonian
ecstatic terminology [p. 46-76], on the
fundamental levels of an Orthodox
Dogmatic: 1. Triadology [p. 77-107]; 2.
Christology [p. 108-133]; 3. Pnevmatology

[p. 134-194]; 4- Soteriology [p. i95" 2 79]; 5-
Sacramentology [p. 280-380]; 6. Ecclesi-
ology [381-399] and 7. Eschatology [400-
419].

45 8

For that Saint Symeon is not a
systematic author in all theological
problems discussed here, our personal
effort has consisted in the systema-
tization and the synthesising of theolo-
gical problematic discussed.

We have systematized and compres-
sed greatly theological material, for to
reproduce, as we could of clear, the
experience and his mystical theology.

In our research made at the level of
the ecstatic terminology we have con-
cluded the fact, that Saint Symeon uses
scriptural and patristic expressions, for to
describe his ecstasies, but and some
personal, staking on percussive images.

In triadology, Saint Symeon speaks
about the relations of love and of com-
munion between the persons of the Holy
Trinity, he defendes the unknowability of
being of the Holy Trinity, but he teaches,
that we can impart, in the ecstatic sight,
of His glory, on our personal measure.

The triadology is not the produce of
human cogitation, but the Son discovered
to us, in the frame of the oikonomia of
salvation, that God is Trinity of persons:
Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

The Son is born of the Father and
the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father,
without to exist any anteriority between
the persons of Trinity or rapports of
subordination of the divine persons
between Them.

459

The one who sees on Christ in
ecstasy, he sees, along with He, and on
the Holy Ghost, and Both bring him at
the Father, the ecstasy not being some-
thing else, than the lift and our inclusion
in the frame of the eternal communion of
the Most Holy Trinity.

In christology, Saint Symeon
emphasizes the centrality of Christ's
presence in the mystical experience, but
and the interior link between the Son and
the Holy Ghost in the ghostual experi-
ence.

For as we know on Christ, says us
Symeon, we must live the birth, the death,
the ressurection and His ascension at
heaven, in real mode, through the sight of
His glory, the thing which escapes us of a
pietist perspective and of the exterior
imitation of His life.

Christ is made known to us on the
measure of our ghostual growth and,
through the sight of His glory, He reveals
to us and teaches us the ones about
Himself.

The christological realism of the
symeonian theology consists in that, that
we see, in real mode, in the divine sight,
on Christ, on the Pantocrator of the
entire creation and not in idealistic
mode, as a desideratum, which is not
fulfilled ever.

Our real relation with Christ does
not make Him to be captive of our
subjectivity but, contrariwise, He escapes

us of loneliness and of unloving, for that
He introduces and us, through the Holy
Ghost, in the too-divine mystery of His
life.

In pnevmatology, Symeon puts at
the foundation of the ortodox life the
conscious feeling of the divine grace and
he considers the sight of God right a
sight, through the Holy Ghost, of the
glory of the Most Holy Trinity.

From the ecstatic descriptions of
Saint Symeon and of his apprentice is
observed, that the ecstasy is, at Symeon, a
descend of the divine light in our being,
for as to ascend us at God and to open us
to the continuous relation with the
trinitarian God.

Without this initiative from the part
of God, which is the divine ecstasy, we do
not have the exact knowledge of which
may be experienced from the glory of
God.

Through the Holy Ghost, we come
to see something from the glory of God's
glory, as says Symeon, on our personal
measure and the ecstasy is seen as
conscious beginning/ conscientized of the
process of personal deification.

In soteriology, our Father orders the
discussion about the personal salvation,
under the form of these three classic
stairs of salvation and of our sanctifi-
cation: the depassioning , the unpassion
and the deification.

461

The point of departure on the path of
personal deification is the first ecstasy on
which we have it. The depassioning or the
cleaning of passions means, in the same
time, the fulfilment of all divine com-
mandments and the acquirement of the
holy virtues.

Saint Symeon speaks about a
unpassion of the soul and of other of the
body, the unpassion of the soul being
assured by the sight of Trinity's glory.

Our deification is, for Symeon, the
state in which we see the glory of God in
continuous mode, it living not only in our
soul but and in the entire body, through
the Holy Ghost, each member of our
becoming the hallowed member of Christ.
Therefore he speaks, in maximal mode,
about salvation, putting the equal sign
between salvation and holiness.

In sacramentology, Saint Symeon
reportes at the Holy Mysteries of the
Church as at the sacramental channels,
instituted by Christ, through which flows
into us the life of the Trinity.

The Baptism is seen by Symeon as
the sacramental gate through which we
enter in Church and which stays at the
base of ulterior divine sight.

Holy Eucharist is the beingly
impartation of the humanity and of the
divinity of Christ, Symeon showing, in
the extensive mode, that this union with
the eucharistic Christ must lived in
plenary mode by us and that it has

462

overwhelming consequences in the
divine-human process of personal
deification.

The Confession restores our link
with Christ, ruptured by sin and it must
give us the feeling of the forgiveness of our
sins.

The Priesthood and the Matrimony
are seen as sacramental unions with
Christ God, the Church and the family
being the environments in which God
works in mystic mode.

In ecclesiology, Saint Symeon pres-
ents the Church from the perspective of
the life of those Saints, which form the
mystical body of Christ.

He approaches the ecclesiological
problematic from eschatological perspec-
tive, seeing the Church in full forming,
untill when will be fulfilled the number of
Saints preknown by God and God will
reveal it, to all, in eternity.

The Saints is formed here, in the
frame of Church and they will inherit the
Kingdom of God, which will be the
Church of all His Saints.

From symeonian perspective, if each
believer of the Church would be racorded
at the life of Trinity, in real mode, and he
would want to deify himself, then would
not exist the danger of secularization and
nor the one of the relativization of
ghostual life.

In eschatology, Saint Symeon
presents, as happening in concomitant

463

mode, the coming of the Lord and the
transfiguration of the entire creation,
through the glory what irradiates from
His body, and, after the final Judgment,
the chorus of the Saints will form a single
chorus with the one of the heavenly
Powers, praising and seeing forever the
Trinity's glory.

The sight of God is presented in this
frame as an experiencing of the coming of
Christ to us and as a preparation for the
existential mode which we will have it, as
transfigurated beings, in His Kingdom.

The eternal life will highlight, in
pregnant mode, the importance on which
has it the sight of God in the life of the
believers, for that the eternal life happy
means the continuous sight of the
unspeakable glory of the Most Holy
Trinity.

Synthesizing the themes of the
symeonian theology, of the third
Theologian, through excellency, of the
Church, alongside Saint John The
Evangelist and Saint Gregory of
Nazianzus, we can say that they are fully
scriptural and patristic, he accentuating
the presence of God in creation, through
His uncreated energies and the divine-
human trajectory of man's deification and
of the transfiguration of the entire
creation, which has rational foundation
and spiritual.

464

The theology of Saint Symeon is
constructed, in fundamental mode, on
the centrality of the person of Christ in
the ghostual life, seen in the frame of the
interior link between Christ and the Holy
Ghost and it has in prime-plan the
thorough discussion about the sight of
God, on the base of personal experience.

Considering the theology as
foundation of the orthodox spirituality
and the spiritualiy as experience of the
theology, Saint Symeon talked about the
sight of God as relation and conscious
communion with the trinitarian God.

But his mystical experiences,
Symeon expressed them in paradoxical
terms, the sight of Trinity's light being
confessed, in concomitant mode, right a
descent of uncreated divine light to us for
to ascend us at the eternal communion
with the Most Holy Trinity.

Reiterating often the reality of the
divine sight in his books, Saint Symeon
has specified, in continuous mode, that
the ecstasy is not a closing of the man in
his proper subjectivity and nor an escape
from self into an impersonal reality,
through the uncreated light, in the com-
munion with the trinitarian God.

Putting accent on the voluntary
opening of the believer towards God,
through our cleaning of passions and
through a fervent ecclesial life, lived in
the rhythm of the Saint Liturgy and of
obedience to a ghostual Father, Saint

465

Symeon was for his century an authentic
apologist against the devastating tenden-
cies of secularization in the life of Church
and of society.

Accentuating the importance of
ecclesial ghostual experience in our life,
Saint Symeon defended the relation of
love and of deep communion of the
faithful with the trinitarian God, but and
the true reporting of us, filled of love and
of brotherhood, as real membres of the
same mystical body of Christ.

But all his apology, for the cleaning
of passions and for the sight of God, had
eschatological orientation, for that not
only the man but the entire creation will
be transfigured, through the glory which
will irradiate from the person of Christ,
then when He will come to judge the
world with righteousness.

Symeon does not see a separation
between history and eternity, nor an
antagonism between the body and the
soul of man, he does not consider the
matter as being opaque the grace but
transparent to it and destined to
transfiguration, his theology being a
maximalist one and full of optimism and
escatological dynamism.

Therefore we believe that the
importance of symeonian theology for
the contemporary world is considerable
of great, for that he puts at the founda-
tion of the orthodox life the ghostual
experience and the real communion with

466

the trinitarian God through His grace,
which escapes us of the secularization
and of the moral relativism, of the
dualism between sensible and intelligible,
of the closing in our subjectivity and of
pantheism.

For that we cannot get out from the
closed circle of the proper passions and
nor can we to find the real rationality,
than through the person of Christ, the
Creator Logos and Saviour of the entire
creation.

The third chapter of our thesis,
which bears the title: The Receptation of
the Theology of Glory in the Orthodox
Space and the Importance of its Assuming
in the Postmodern World [p. 420-455] has
three subchapters.

The first two presents [1] the
theology of the sight of God at Father
Professor Dumitru Staniloae [p. 420-431]
and respective [2] the receptation of the
mystical theology by the professor and
the russian theologian Vladimir Lossky
[p. 432-441].

The third subchapter discusses, on
the base of theological synthesis of Father
Professor Dumitru Popescu, the sideslips
of postmodernity and the ideologies
which undervalue on man and decreed
the absence of God from creation [p. 442-

455] •

Father Professor Dumitru Staniloae
has reactualised, like none other in the

467

orthodox space, a theology of glory or of
the mystical sight, on biblical line and
patristic, with the specific and in the
traditional ecstatic terminology.

He considered on Saint Symeon the
New Theologian right the third Theolo-
gian of the Church and the one who
saved the ortodox life, for his century,
from secularization and theological rela-
tivism.

His ecstatic theology is entirely
personalist and communional, for that all
our efforts of depassioning and of filling
by the glory of God have right scope the
eternal advancement in the relation of
love and of knowledge of the glory of the
Most Holy Trinity.

His Holiness spoke, with prece-
dence, about the centrality of Christ in
our ghostual life and about the interior
relation between Christ and the Ghost in
the frame of the oikonomia of salvation
and of the ghostual life.

The sight of the glory of Christ, yet
of now, means our filling of light, which
flows from Christ's person and which will
transfigurate the entire creation at His
coming intro glory.

The professor and the theologian
Vladimir Lossky tried, also, a reactuali-
zation of the mystical theology in the life
of the Church, during of his exile in
Occident.

He spoke, in trenchant mode, about
the fact, that the teology cannot be than

468

mystical and personal, that it means
direct experience and that the ecstatic
sight is a meeting with the Living God,
Who revelead Himself to us and Who is
preached in the Orthodox Church.

He stressed in constant mode, that
God descended to us, through His
uncreated energies, for as to deify us and
to ascend us to Him.

But exists and some sideslips from
the understanding of ecstatic experience
in his theology, for that he saw the
ecstasy as a union with God which does
not produce and knowledge in the same
time and he did not reveal, in pregnant
mode, the interior link between Christ
and Holy Ghost.

Father Professor Dumitru Popescu
sees the essence of secularization in the
desire of discretionary autonomy of the
actual society towards the natural re-
sources and of environment, based on the
antique dualism between spirit and
matter.

For that the transcendence of God
was preached, in the occidental hetero-
dox theology, as an absence of Him from
creation, the matter as a medium which
opposes the grace and the grace as
antagonistic or which encroachs the
freewill, therefore, concludes his Holi-
ness, we assist at a accentuated
depersonalization in postmodernity and
at the haughty singularization of the man.

469

On the base of these considerations
of Father Professor Dumitru Popescu but,
first of all, on the base of the dates
disseminated from the symeonian
theology, we concluded, that cannot
produce a salvation of the man from the
claws of secularization and of the
nihilism, than through his integration in
the divine-human project of deification.

For the deification of man is the
project of personal perfection, on which
the Orthodox Church preached it from
always and on which Saint Symeon has
explained it in paradoxical terms, into an
exemplary mode.

Because we cannot speak of the
feeling and of the sight of God, as real
means of the deification of the man in
Christ, in his integrality, both inseparable
from cosmos and beyond of cosmos, if we
do not see them in paradoxical terms, as
it described them, untold of well, Saint
Symeon the New Theologian.

470

Index of Abbreviations

I. Sources

1. BW = BibleWorks. The com-
puterized biblical library, v. 07.

2. FR = Romanian Philokalia,
Staniloae edition.

3. Ica jr. 1 = Sfantul Simeon Noul
Teolog, Discursuri teologice si etice,
Scrieri I, studiu introductiv si traducere
de Diac. loan I. Ica jr. si un studiu de
Ierom. Alexander Golitzin, Ed. Deisis,
Sibiu, 1998.

[Saint Symeon the New Theologian,
Theological and Ethical Discourses,
Writings I, introductive study and
translation by Deac. loan I. Ica jr. and a
study by Hierom. Alexander Golitzin,
Pub. Deisis, Sibiu, 1998]

4. Ica jr. 2 = Sfantul Simeon Noul
Teolog, Cateheze, Scrieri II, studiu
introductiv si traducere de Diac. loan I.
Ica jr., Ed. Deisis, Sibiu, 1999.

[Saint Symeon the New Theologian,
Catecheses, Writings II, introductive
study and translation by Deac. loan I. Ica
jr., Pub. Deisis, Sibiu, 1999]

47i

5. Ica jr. 3 = Sfantul Simeon Noul
Teolog, Imne, epistole si capitole, Scrieri
III, introducere si traducere de Diac. loan
I. Ica jr., Ed. Deisis, Sibiu, 2001.

[Saint Symeon the New Theologian,
Hymns, Epistles and Chapters, Writings
III, introduction and translation by Deac.
loan I. Ica jr., Pub. Deisis, Sibiu, 2001]

6. Ica jr. 4 = Sfantul Simeon Noul
Teolog, Viafa si opera, Scrieri IV,
introducere si traducere de Diac. loan I.
Ica jr., Ed. Deisis, Sibiu, 2006.

[Saint Symeon the New Theologian,
The Life and the Opera, Writings IV,
introduction and translation by Deac.
loan I. Ica jr., Pub. Deisis, Sibiu, 2006]

7. Hymns, Staniloae edition =
Sfantul Simeon Noul Teolog, Imnele
iubirii dumnezeiesti, p. 329-705, in Pr.
Prof. Dr. Dumitru Staniloae, Studii de
teologie dogmatica ortodoxa, Ed. Mitro-
poliei Olteniei, Craiova, 1990.

[Saint Symeon the New Theologian,
The Hymns of Divine Love, p. 329-705, in
Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae,
Studies of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology,
Pub. Metropolitan of Oltenia, Craiova,
1990]

8. LXX = The Septuagint, Alfred
Rahlfs edition, acc. BW.

472

9. OC 12 = Un grand mistique
byzantin. Vie de Symeon le Nouveau
Theologien (949-1022), par Nicetas Stetha-
tos, texte grec inedit, introduction et
notes critiques par le Irenee Hausherr, et
traduction francaise et collaboration avec
le Gabriel Horn, en col. „Orientalia
Christiana", vol. XII, Ed. Pont. Institutum
Orientalium Studiorum, Roma, 1928.

10. PG = coll. Patrologiae Cursus
Completus, Seria Graeca, Jacques Paul
Migne edition.

n. PSB = coll. Paring si Scriitori
bisericesti [Fathers and Ecclesiastical
Writers], Pub. IBMBOR, Bucharest.

12. SC = coll. Sources Chretiennes,
Pub. Du Cerf, Paris.

13. SC 51 = Symeon le Nouveau
Theologien, Chapitres Theologiques,
Gnostiques et Pratiques, introduction,
texte critique et notes par J. Darrouzes,
en SC 51, Paris, 1957.

14. SC 113 = Symeon le Nouveau
Theologien, Catecheses, introduction,
texte critique et notes par B. Krivocheine,
traduction par J. Paramelle, en SC 113,
Paris, 1965.

15. SC 122 = Symeon le Nouveau
Theologien, Traites theologiques et ethi-

473

ques, introduction, texte critique et notes
par J. Darrouzes, en SC 122, Paris, 1966.

16. SC 129 = Symeon le Nouveau
Theologien, Traites theologiques et ethi-
ques, introduction, texte critique et notes
par J. Darrouzes, en SC 129, Paris, 1967.

17. SC 156 = Symeon le Nouveau
Theologien, Hymnes, no's 1-15, intro-
duction, texte critique et notes par J.
Koder, traduction par J. Paramelle, en SC
156, Paris, 1969.

18. SC 174 = Symeon le Nouveau
Theologien, Hymnes, no's 16-40, texte
critique par J. Koder, traduction et notes
par L. Neyrand, en SC 174, Paris, 1971.

19. SC 196 = Symeon le Nouveau
Theologien, Hymnes, no's 41-58, texte
critique par J. Koder, traduction et notes
par L. Neyrand et J. Paramelle, en SC 196,
Paris, 1973.

20. OSAM = Pr. Prof. Dr. Dumitru
Staniloae, Spiritualitatea ortodoxd. Asce-
tica si mistica, Ed. IBMBOR, Bucuresti,
1992.

[Rev. Prof. D.Th. Dumitru Staniloae,
The Orthodox Spirituality. Ascetica and
Mystica, Pub. IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1992]

21. TLG = Thesaurus Linguae
Graecae, computerized library, compo-

474

nent of the program Musaios 2002 A. It
contains inscriptions and books written
in greek by Holy Fathers, philosophers,
scientists, letters, etc. The patristic
citations we have written with their
initials established by us and the paginal
references contains the chapter, the
paragraph and the page of cited edition.
When we transcribed, in the subsoil of
page, the text in original, the patristic
citations contain and the citations from
TLG.

22. MTEC = Vladimir Lossky,
Teologia Mistica a Bisericii de Rasarit,
traducere, studiu introductiv si note de
Pr. Vasile Raduca, Ed. Anastasia, Bucu-
resti, f. a.

[Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical
Theology of the Eastern Church,
translation, introductive study and notes
by Rev. Vasile Raduca, Pub. Anastasia,
Bucharest, without year of publication on
cover]

23. Viafa, ed. Iliescu = Sfantul
Nichita Stithatul, Viafa Sfdntului Simeon
Noul Teolog, traducere de Hie Iliescu, Ed.
Herald, Bucuresti, 2003. Reproduce OC
12.

[The Life, Iliescu edition = Saint
Niketas Stethatos, The Life of Saint
Symeon the New Theologian, translation
by Hie Iliescu, Pub. Herald, Bucharest,
2003. It reproduces OC 12]

475

II. Auxiliary Citations

/ = what follows after sign
represents identical textual variants or
approximate of the place anterior cited.

( )> []>{} = these have been used
selective, for to circumscribe the
reproducing of the verses or of the parts
of text, but and of the scriptural citations.

# 001 = the number of the volume
conformable to the citation from TLG.

10** = in the 10th verse, appears
twice the expression or the searched
word.

chap. = chapter

Chapters = The 225 of Practical
Chapters, Gnostic and Theological

acc. = according with

conf. = conformable with

The citations of Scripture:

OT) Gen. = Genesis; Exod. = Exodus;
Numb. =Numbers; Deut. = Deuteronomy;
I Kings = The First Book of Kings; Ps. =
Psalms; Is. = Isaiah; Eze. = Ezekiel; Hos. =
Hosea; Habak. = Habakkuk; Mai. =

476

Malachi; Bar. = Baruch; III Maccab. = The
Third Book of Maccabees.

NT) Mt. = The Evangel after
Matthew; Mk. = The Evangel after Mark;
Lk. = The Evangel after Luke; Jn. = The
Evangel after John; Acts = The Acts of the
Apostles; Rom. = The Epistle to the
Romans; I Cor. = The First Epistle to the
Corinthians; II Cor. = The Second Epistle
to the Corinthians; Gal. = The Epistle to
the Galatians; Eph. = The Epistle to the
Ephesians; Philip. = The Epistle to the
Philippians; Col. = The Epistle to the
Colossians; I Thess. = The First Epistle to
the Thessalonians; I Tim. = The First
Epistle to Timothy; Heb. = The Epistle to
the Hebrews; Jam. = The Catholic Epistle
of James; I Pet. = The First Catholic
Epistle of Peter; II Pet. = The Second
Catholic Epistle of Peter; I Jn. = The First
Catholic Epistle of John; Rev. = The
Apocalypse of Saint Apostle John.

coll. = the cited collection

etc = exists several verses or known
texts but unquoted

ed. = the cited edition

Pub. = the publishing house who
printed the book

477

Epistles = The letters of Saint
Symeon the New Theologian

Ibidem = same place cited

Idem = same source cited

Hymns = The Hymns of Divine Love

o. n. = our note

op. = the cited opera

p. = page.

v. = the computerized version of a
program

The Life = The life of Saint Symeon
the New Theologian written by Saint
Niketas Stethatos.

vol. = the volume from which is

cited

vs. = versus

General Bibliography
I. Primary Sources

A.

1. Friberg NT, acc. BW. [GNT]

2. Greek Orthodox Church NT, acc.
BW. [GOC]

3. The Septuagint, Alfred Rahlfs
edition, acc. BW. [LXX]

B.

4. Athanasius Theologus, S., Kara
'EXXr\v(x>v , in Contra gentes and de
incarnatione, edited by R. W. Thomson,
Pub. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1971. [TLG]

5. Idem, Cuvdnt impotriva elinilor
[Word Against the Greeks], in coll. PSB 15,
translation from greek, introduction and
notes by Rev. Prof. Dumitru Staniloae,
Pub. IBMBOR, Bucharest, 1987.

6. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, St., in
coll. The Ante-Nicene Fathers. The Writ-
ings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325,
edited by Rev. Alexander Roberts and

479

James Donaldson, volume 1, Oregon,
1996.

7. Maximus Confessor Theologus, S.,
Quaestiones ad Thalassium, in Maximi
confessoris quaestiones ad Thalassium,
col. Corpus Christianorum, Series Graeca
7/ 22, vol. 2, edited by C. Steel, Pub.
Brepols, Turnhout, 1990. [TLG]

8. Idem, Despre diverse locuri grele
din Dumnezeiasca Scripturd sau Rdspun-
suri cdtre Talasie [About Various Heavy
Places from Divine Scripture or Answers
to Thalassius], 60, in coll. FR, vol. 3, ed. a
Il-a, translation, introduction and notes
by Rev. Prof. Acad. D.Th. Dumitru
Staniloae, Pub. Harisma, Bucharest, 1994.

9. Idem, Ambigua. Tdlcuiri cu multe
si addnci infelesuri din Sfinfii Dionisie
Areopagitul si Grigorie Teologul [Ambi-
gua. Interpretations with Many and Deep
Meanings from Saints Dionysius the
Areopagite and Gregory the Theologian],
translation from greek, introduction and
notes by Rev. Prof. Dumitru Staniloae, in
coll. PSB, vol. 80, Pub. IBMBOR, Bucha-
rest, 1983.

10. Nicetas Stethatos, St., Un grand
mistique byzantin. Vie de Symeon le
Nouveau Theologien (949-1022), texte grec
inedit, introduction et notes critiques par
le Irenee Hausherr, et traduction fran-

480

caise et collaboration avec le Gabriel
Horn, en col. „Orientalia Christiana", vol.
XII, Ed. Pont. Institutum Orientalium
Studiorum, Roma, 1928. [OC 12]

n. Idem, Viafa Sfdntului Simeon
Noul Teolog, [The Life of Saint Symeon the
New Theologian], translation by Hie
Iliescu, Pub. Herald, Bucharest, 2003. It
reproduces OC 12. [The Life, Iliescu
edition]

12. Symeon le Nouveau Theologien,
St., Chapitres Theologiques, Gnostiques et
Pratiques, introduction, texte critique et
notes par J. Darrouzes, en SC 51, Paris,
1957. [SC 51]

13. Idem, Catecheses, introduction,
texte critique et notes par B. Krivocheine,
traduction par J. Paramelle, en SC 113,
Paris, 1965. [SC 113]

14. Idem, Traites theologiques et
ethiques, introduction, texte critique et
notes par J. Darrouzes, en SC 122, Paris,

1966. [SC 122]

15. Idem, Traites theologiques et
ethiques, introduction, texte critique et
notes par J. Darrouzes, en SC 129, Paris,

1967. [SC 129]

16. Idem, Hymnes, no's 1-15,
introduction, texte critique et notes par J.

481

Koder, traduction par J. Paramelle, en SC
156, Paris, 1969. [SC 156]

17. Idem, Hymnes, no's 16-40, texte
critique par J. Koder, traduction et notes
par L. Neyrand, en SC 174, Paris, 1971. [SC
174]

18. Idem, Hymnes, no's 41-58, texte
critique par J. Koder, traduction et notes
par L. Neyrand et J. Paramelle, en SC 196,
Paris, 1973. [SC 196]

19. Idem, Discursuri teologice si
etice, Scrieri I [Theological and Ethical
Discourses], Writings I, introductive
study and translation by Deac. loan I. Ica
jr. and a study by Hierom. Alexander
Golitzin, Pub. Deisis, Sibiu, 1998. [Ica jr.

1]

20. Idem, Cateheze, Scrieri II
[Catecheses], Writings II, introductive
study and translation by Deac. loan I. Ica
jr., Pub. Deisis, Sibiu, 1999. [Ica jr. 2]

21. Idem, Imne, epistole si capitole,
Scrieri III [Hymns, Epistles and Chapters],
Writings III, introduction and translation
by Deac. loan I. Ica jr., Pub. Deisis, Sibiu,
2001. [Ica jr. 3]

22. Idem, Via$a si opera, Scrieri IV
[The Life and the Opera], Writings IV,
introduction and translation by Deac.

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III. Collections, Dictionaries,
Computerized Libraries and Data-
bases Web Used

1. A Patristic Greek Lexicon, edited
by G. W. H. Lampe, Pub. Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 1961.

2. BibleWorks, v. 07 [BW]

3. Romanian Philokalia, Staniloae
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4. Gingrich Lexicon, apud BW 07

5. http://www.marquette.edu

6. Liddell-Scott Lexicon, apud BW 07

7. Patrologiae Cursus Completus,
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8. Fathers and Ecclesiastical Writers,
IBMBOR edition, Bucharest [PSB]

9. Sources Chretiennes, Du Cerf
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10. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, col-
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n. Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, v.
Musaios 2002A [TLG]

Content

Introduction (4-9)

1. The Biblical and Patristic Premises
of the Deification of the Man and of the
Sight of God in the Orthodox Theology
(10-45)

1. 1. The Person of the Divine Logos
and His Relation with the Creation and
with the Man (12-25)

1. 2. The Rational and Ghostual
Foundation of the Seen World and its
Interior Relation with the Salvation of
Man and the Transfiguration of Creation
(26-35)

1. 3. The Uncreated Divine Energies
and Their Presence in the Synergistic
Acts of the Deification and of the Sight of
God (36-45)

2. The Sight of God at Saint Symeon
the New Theologian and its Implications
in the Personal Salvation (46-419)

The Ecstatic Terminology

2. 1. The Symeonian Ecstatic
Terminology (46-76)

Triadology

2. 2. The Most Holy Trinity in the
Personal Ghostual Experience (77-107)

2. 2. 1. The Apologetic Dimension
(78-92)

2. 2. 2. The Personalistic Dimension
(93-107)

Christology

2. 3. The Sight of the Christ's Glory
and the Path of Deification (108-133)

2. 3. 1. The Birth of Christ in the
Personal Experience (110-119)

2. 3. 2. The Death and the
Resurrection of Christ in the Personal
Experience (120-128)

2. 3. 3. The Ascension of Christ in
the Personal Experience (129-133)

Pnevmatology

2. 4. The Holy Ghost and the Sight
of the Divine Glory (134-194)

2. 4. 1. The Holy Ghost, the True
Faith and the Experience of the Grace
(135-144)

2. 4- 2 - The Personal Ecstatic
Testimonies and Their Validation (145-
172)

2. 4. 2. 1. The First Ecstasy of Saint
Symeon (147-156)

2. 4. 2. 2. The Ecstasy During His
Noviciate (157-162)

2. 4. 2. 3. The Ecstatic Confession
and the Validator Comment (163-172)

2. 4. 3. The Symeonian Ecstasies
from the Life Written by Saint Niketas
(173-194)

Soteriology

2. 5. The Path of Deification and the
Sight of God (195-279)

2. 5. 1. The Emergence of Light in
Those Who are Cleansed of Passions
(196-205)

2. 5. 2. The Unpassion and the
Divine Light (206-220)

2. 5. 3. The Light and the Salvation
as Holiness (221-238)

2. 5. 4. The Union with God and the
Communional Images (239-264)

2. 5. 5. The Divine Light and the
Ghostual Father (265-279)

Sacramentology

2. 6. The Holy Mysteries of the
Church and the Feeling of the Divine
Grace (280-380)

2. 6. 1. The Holy Baptism and the
Sight of God (281-301)

2. 6. 2. The Holy Communion, the
Feeling of Grace and the Ecstasy (302-
332)

2. 6. 3. The Holy Confession and the
Interior Experience of Grace (333-364)

2. 6. 4. The Holy Matrimony and the
Holy Priesthood as Sacramental Para-
digms of Union with God (365-380)

Ecclesiology

2. 7. The Saints as Living Members
of the Church (381-399)

Eschatology

2. 8. The Sight of Light and the
Eschatology (400-419)

3. The Receptation of the Theology
of Glory in the Orthodox Space and the
Importance of its Assuming in the
Postmodern World (420-455)

3. l. The Sight of God in the
Theology of Father Professor Dumitru
Staniloae (420-431)

3. 2. The Mystical Theology and its
Receptation by the Orthodox Professor
Vladimir Lossky (432-441)

3. 3. The Interior Dissolution of the
Man in Postmodernity and the
Consequences of Personal Assuming of
the Theology of Glory (442-455)

Final Conclusions (456-469)

Index of Abbreviations (470-477)
General Bibliography (478-492)

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