September 16, 2009
Dear brothers and sisters,
Today we pause to reflect on the figure of the Eastern monk Symeon the New Theologian, whose writings exercised a noteworthy influence on the theology and spirituality of the East, in particular, regarding the experience of mystical union with God.
Symeon the New Theologian was born in 949 in Galatia, in Paphlagonia (Asia Minor), of a noble provincial family. While still young, he went to Constantinople to undertake studies and enter the emperor’s service. However, he felt little attracted to the civil career before him and, under the influence of the interior illuminations he was experiencing, he looked for a person who would direct him through his moment of doubts and perplexities, and who would help him progress on the way to union with God.
He found this spiritual guide in Symeon the Pious (Eulabes), a simple monk of the Studion monastery in Constantinople, who gave him to read the treatise “The Spiritual Law of Mark the Monk.” In this text, Symeon the New Theologian found a teaching that impressed him very much: “If you seek spiritual healing,” he read there, “be attentive to your conscience. Do all that it tells you and you will find what is useful to you.” From that moment — he himself says — he never again lay down without asking if his conscience had something for which to reproach him.
Symeon entered the Studion monastery, where, however, his mystical experiences and his extraordinary devotion toward the spiritual father caused him difficulty. He transferred to the small convent of St. Mammas, also in Constantinople, where, after three years, he became director — the higumeno. There he pursued an intense search of spiritual union with Christ, which conferred on him great authority.
It is interesting to note that he was given there the name of “New Theologian,” notwithstanding the fact that tradition reserved the title of “Theologian” to two personalities: John the Evangelist and Gregory of Nazianzen. He suffered misunderstandings and exile, but was restored by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Sergius II.
Symeon the New Theologian spent the last phase of his life in the monastery of St. Macrina, where he wrote the greater part of his works, becoming ever more famous for his teachings and miracles. He died on March 12, 1022.
His best known disciple, Nicetas Stathos, who compiled and re-copied Symeon’s writings, prepared a posthumous edition, followed by a biography. Symeon’s work includes nine volumes, which are divided in theological, gnostic and practical chapters, three volumes of catechesis addressed to monks, two volumes of theological and ethical treatises, and a volume of hymns. Nor should we forget his numerous letters. All these works have found an important place in the Eastern monastic tradition down to our day.
Symeon focuses his reflection on the presence of the Holy Spirit in those who are baptized and on the awareness they must have of this spiritual reality. Christian life — he stresses — is intimate and personal communion with God; divine grace illumines the believer’s heart and leads him to the mystical vision of the Lord. In this line, Symeon the New Theologian insists on the fact that true knowledge of God stems from a journey of interior purification, which begins with conversion of heart, thanks to the strength of faith and love; passes through profound repentance and sincere sorrow for one’s sins; and arrives at union with Christ, source of joy and peace, invaded by the light of his presence in us. For Symeon, such an experience of divine grace is not an exceptional gift for some mystics, but the fruit of baptism in the life of every seriously committed faithful — a point on which to reflect, dear brothers and sisters!
This holy Eastern monk calls us all to attention to the spiritual life, to the hidden presence of God in us, to honesty of conscience and purification, to conversion of heart, so that the Holy Spirit will be present in us and guide us. If in fact we are justly preoccupied about taking care of our physical growth, it is even more important not to neglect our interior growth, which consists in knowledge of God, in true knowledge, not only taken from books, but interior, and in communion with God, to experience his help at all times and in every circumstance.
Basically, this is what Symeon describes when he recounts his own mystical experience. Already as a youth, before entering the monastery, while prolonging his prayer at home one night, invoking God’s help to struggle against temptations, he saw the room filled with light. When he later entered the monastery, he was given spiritual books to instruct himself, but the readings did not give him the peace he was looking for. He felt — he recounts — like a poor little bird without wings. He accepted this situation with humility, did not rebel, and then the visions of light began to multiply again. Wishing to be certain of their authenticity, Symeon asked Christ directly: “Lord, are you yourself really here?” He felt resonate in his heart an affirmative answer and was greatly consoled. “That was, Lord,” he wrote later, “the first time you judged me, prodigal son, worthy to hear your voice.” However, this revelation did not leave him totally at peace either. He even wondered if that experience should not be considered an illusion.
Finally, one day an essential event occurred for his mystical experience. He began to feel like “a poor man who loves his brothers” (ptochos philadelphos). He saw around him many enemies that wanted to set snares for him and harm him but despite this he felt in himself an intense movement of love for them. How to explain this? Obviously, such love could not come from himself, but must spring from another source. Symeon understood that it came from Christ present in him and all was clarified for him: He had the sure proof that the source of love in him was the presence of Christ and that to have in oneself a love that goes beyond one’s personal intentions indicates that the source of love is within. Thus, on one hand, we can say that, without a certain openness to love, Christ does not enter in us, but, on the other, Christ becomes the source of love and transforms us.
Dear friends, this experience is very important for us, today, to find the criteria that will indicate to us if we are really close to God, if God exists and lives in us. God’s love grows in us if we are really united to him in prayer and in listening to his word, with openness of heart. Only divine love makes us open our hearts to others and makes us sensitive to their needs, making us regard everyone as brothers and sisters and inviting us to respond with love to hatred, and with forgiveness to offense.
Reflecting on the figure of Symeon the New Theologian, we can still find a further element of his spirituality. In the path of ascetic life proposed and followed by him, the intense attention and concentration of the monk on the interior experience confers on the spiritual father of the monastery an essential importance. The young Symeon himself, as has been said, had found a spiritual director who greatly helped him and for whom he had very great esteem, so much so that, after his death, he also accorded him public veneration.
And I would like to say that this invitation continues to be valid for all — priests, consecrated persons and laypeople — and especially for young people — to take recourse to the counsels of a good spiritual father, capable of accompanying each one in profound knowledge of oneself, and leading one to union with the Lord, so that one’s life is increasingly conformed to the Gospel. We always need a guide, dialogue, to go to the Lord. We cannot do it with our reflections alone. And this is also the meaning of the ecclesiality of our faith, of finding this guide.
Thus, to conclude, we can summarize the teaching and mystical experience of Symeon the New Theologian: In his incessant search for God, even in the difficulties he met and the criticism made of him, he, in a word, allowed himself to be guided by love. He was able to live personally and to teach his monks that what is essential for every disciple of Jesus is to grow in love and so we grow in knowledge of Christ himself, to be able to say with St. Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
It seems strange to not see “Saint Simeon the New Theologian.” Is venerable Simeon a saint in the Roman Catholic Church? He lived prior to the Great Schism.
I am not absolutely sure, but I don’t think he was canonized in the East until after the 14th century. I can’t find an exact date.
Since Symeon the New Theologian is an hesychast, he wasn’t obviously considered a Saint in the Roman Catholic Church.
Diane,
hesychasm was never a controversy amongst us, and phyletism is more of a bad practice than a heresy. (In any case, it’s not ‘huge’ by any stretch of the word).
The devil didn’t cease trying to undermine the Church after the Seventh Ecumenical Council. He was just getting started. ;)
True, but he did it from the outside, not from the inside. (Turks and communists).
How come the hesychast of Manresa, founder of the Jesuits is then a R.C. Saint?
He was certainly not anti-hesychastic when it comes to method of praying. (See appendices to the Exercicia Espirituales)
Lucian
so there is no sin in the Orthodox Church – only pressure from outside? Realised eschatology indeed.
Lucian,
If you really believe hesychasm was never a subject of controversy in Orthodoxy, I would strongly suggest you read up on 14th century Byzantine ecclesiastical history. It took four general synods (one of which actually condemned hesychasm) with anathemas flying in both directions before the issue was resolved.
Hesychasm was a controversy in the Orthodox church. Why else would there be at least two council of bishops dedicated to it?
As for the Othodox church having no sin- well, the Orthodox church, ( the Greek “part” at least), was “under glass” for five hundred years or so- ( the Russo-Slavic part was also in a kind of glass house being subject to imperial political control)- the glass is removed and there’s the opinion that, somehow,despite not having undergone the “temptations” and pressures by the church in the west, they are without error.
As for Satan working on the church only from the outside, I seem to remember that Stalin was a seminarian. Plus, one must add the huge number of church officials who were KGB agents.
At the synod You mentioned the condemned or opposing party was formed by people who lived and learned in the West (Barlaam of Calabria and others). It was nothing like the first Seven Synods, when the Eastern Empire was turned against itself, half of it fighting against the other. That’s why it hasn’t entered common conscience here in the East as an Ecumenical Synod. (I know some people like conspiracy theories, but -as attractive these might be- they are not true). — And the exact same goes for the previous synod, under Photios, which condemned the Filioque: it’s meaningless -or at least pointless- for us, since what was condemned was never our problem to begin with.
And yes, no major heresies in the East after the Seventh Synod. (Just like there were no major heresies in the West in the first millennium either: they all originated and ran havoc in the East).
Lucian
the ideo that the anti-Palamite party was composed exclusively or mainly of western-educated beople is, to speak plainly, nonsense. Modern scholars have shown how pro- and anti-Latin sentiment was not the issue at stake, and Palamas’ opponents included men as throughly Byzantine as Nicephorus Gregoras (who had earlier opposed Barlaam strenuously).
By the way, I haven’t forgotten or evaded your question about created grace in Byzantine theology – it just needs a bit more time and attention to write an answer than I can spare just now. But I hope to reply very soon.
The idea is that it was composed of few men. (And I don’t believe history can be rewritten).
You have a fascinating blog.,I thoroughly enjoy the debate. In fact, I have “borrowed” from it in my blog and my latest post, “Rome and Orthodoxy” is really my contribution to your debate. I tried earlier to post it to you in the Comments, but it is too long. If you think it is a contribution, make use of it in any way you like. The title of .my blog “Oh Ineffable Glory !!” is taken from a prayer of St Symeon the New Theoogian.
Yours,
D. David Bird osb
I don’t think it was composed of a few men. It seems to me that there was quite a political/ theological tussle.
Michael, thank you. My jaw pretty much hit the floor when I read Lucian’s claim that “hesychasm was never a controversy amongst us.” LOL!
Lucian,
many of your comments suggest that you really do not understand Catholic Theology – which, since you’re not Catholic, is even not that important.
But since you apparently seem to think that you do understand it by giving explanations like
“Since Symeon the New Theologian is an hesychast, he wasn’t obviously considered a Saint in the Roman Catholic Church.”
I ask you to refrain from such explanations – for your own sake, because they are just plainly wrong.
First of all, the Catholic Church has never officially condemned Hesychasm.
And Second, there are for example quite a number of saints after the Great Schism who opposed the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus etc.)
So you see: not being declared a saint officially (Symeons Castholic Feast Day is March the 12th) does not imply anything at all.
Lucian,
history has to be written continuously, sinc research confirms some interpretations and di◘sproves others. Nobody now would turn to Gibbon’s Decline and Fall for an objective account of late Roman and Bzantine history. It is widely read as litterature and as a historical landmark in its own right, but the work of subsequent historians has made it unreliable as an interpretative tool. It is just the same with histories of the hesychast controversy – be they by Orthodox or RC scholars- which are now several generations old. Research has moved the interpretative process forward.
hesychasm was never a controversy amongst us
Well, it wasn’t. And neither was the Filioque.
Lucian:
What can one say in response to this combination of historical ignorance and invincible certitude?
What can one say in response to this combination of historical ignorance and invincible certitude?
You might try with “You’re wrong!”. :-)
In any case, compared to the “surroundings” of the first Seven Councils, do You think that this council is similar to the others? I mean, when You think of the tornados, hurricanes and thunderstorms unleashed by Arianism, Nestorianism, Monophysism, Origenism, or Iconoclasm… are the events surrounding this council in any way similar in scale or amplitude (geographical, demographical, as well as historical) to the other ones? Was there some major anti-palamite party in the East, with a great number of adherents, wrecking havoc throughout the entire Empire, and lasting for several hundred years? A wide-scale schism, characterized by powerful internal conflicts, threatening to tear the whole Empire assunder? Strong infighting marked by bitter, century-long struggles? — To my humble knowledge, none of the sort: and the exact same goes for the previous “eighth” ecumenical council, held under Photios, which condemned the filioque, which was another non-problem for the East.
Lucian,
Your argument is interesting but doesn’t accord with historical facts.
Look at this map of the Byzantine Empire in 1375;
Byzantium is in red. Not much territory not compared to the grand empire of the 7 councils.
The hesychast debate was quite contentious. Politics distorted the debate as it distorted all the theological debates.
Before we let this argument spin out of control in angry finger pointing, perhaps we should apply the same methodology to this dispute about history that we recommend in handling issues of theological controversy. I suspect this is more about terminology than facts.
In Lucian’s favour: Lucian appears to see the word “controversy” as implying a higher degree of intense conflict than other participants in this argument. No one died over hesychasm, it did not lead to a schism either before or after its successful resolution. To that extent, it was a dispute of a different order than the Christological arguments of the 4th to 8th centuries. Let’s contrast this, for example, with Orthodoxy’s lasting inability to deal the neocalendrist and Old Believer schisms.
Against Lucian: Given that the whole dispute has gone down in history as the “Hesychast Controversy” and is so referred to even by Orthodox sources, Lucian should at least acknowledge that his denial of the appropriateness of the term is somewhat unconventional.
Now this aside, I can’t say that Lucian’s discourse is not without explicit historical errors. For example, the West was beset by specific heresies in the first millennium: Pelagianism and Donatism. Albeit, only Arianism posed an existential threat to Orthodoxy in the West.
Also, I think Lucian is too glib about dismissing the filioque as an issue in the East. If Orthodoxy considers the Catholic understanding of the filioque to be a heresy, as some have affirmed here, what is one to make of its unforced acceptance by the Melkites who formed the majority in the Chalcedonian Antiochan Patriarchate, at great material cost to themselves? Does this not imply significant “apostasy” to the filioque-as-heresy crowd?
In the absence of any mechanism for calling an Orthodox “ecumenical” council to deal with this crisis, Orthodoxy essentially resorted in response to schism and appeals for coercion on the part of the Turkish authorities.
Similarly, no Orthodox “ecumenical” council could be called to deal with the loss of about half the Moscow Patriarchate to Catholicism on one hand and Old Belief on the other, and it is going to be very hard to convince me that Old Believers are not involved in ecclesiological heresy.
Even on a purely disciplinary level (and most of the canons of ecumenical councils were disciplinary in nature), one would think that the schismatic chaos surrounding asymmetric recognition of autocephally and overlapping patriarchal authority in Orthodoxy might merit on its own some form of “ecumenical” resolution. Yet Orthodoxy can’t even gather a Pan Orthodox synod to deal with these problems. All of this leads me to seriously doubt Orthodox claims that it has never held an “ecumenical” council on its own in the second millennium because it has never needed one.
Evagrius,
Thanks for proving my point. As You can see (from the same map), there are quite a few green(ish) spots on it, whose spread was more important to us at the time. :-)
Michael,
Yes, there were a few less signifficant heresies in the West in the first millennium, and a few insignifficant ones in the East in the second millennium, but no major “earthquakes”, that was my point.
Michael: As always, a compelling (and charitable) response. Thank you!
Probably needs a whole article of its own but I am constantly struck buy the continued refusal to understand “created” grace as not something “created” but a reference to grace that is given in the mode of the receiver. It is not the grace that is at issue but the creaturely manner or mode in which it is received…why?….because we cannot be in direct, unmediated receipt of God’s essence. Energies solves the same problem without having been run through the later scholastic mill, but the teaching of Aquinas is what endures as the formal Catholic teaching.
Its been discussed in countless venues yet we continue to have it held up as some Catholic horror. Pre-Internet, I could comprehend. Now…It just seems…silly.
M.
Wise words, Mary. Thank you.
Energies solves the same problem without having been run through the later scholastic mill, but the teaching of Aquinas is what endures as the formal Catholic teaching.
Kinda-sorta sounds like “six of one, half a dozen of the other” to me. But I’m just a dumb layperson who likes to look for points of convergence rather than points of divergence.
Diane
Dear Diane,
I would be exceptionally careful about drawing equivalents here. In Catholic teaching concerning grace, and I am speaking of the western Church here, “created” grace generally tends to refer to what is called sanctifying grace. That has its own manifestations and powers and purposes associated with it.
St. Gregory Palamas refers to the energies primarily with respect to what the west would call the prayer of union, the action of the Trinity dwelling within each human person and transfiguring the body, mind and soul of that person.
For the west the prayer of union can be referred to as the essential Trinity indwelling. In this case, essential and substantial are better words than essence, yet one can find texts where the prayer of union is spoken of in terms of God’s essence indwelling.
This is exceptionally confusing to people within the tradition and from outside.
But in all cases, the fact of the matter is that the western Church and the eastern Church both teach that grace is received in the mode of the receiver, and therefore we cannot ever truly know or experience the fullness of the divine being of God.
This is all very brief and simplified but it is true as far as I have taken it here.
Mary
Mary
I have always thought and taught that “santifying grace” was the same as “uncreated grace” i.e. the divine indwelling itself. Of course the very fact that one or both of us is confused is a testimony to the unstasfactory way that Latin scholasticism dealt with the problem. When it comes to safeguarding both the reality of the divine indwelling and the absolute divine transcendance, I have long thought talk of divine energies infinitely preferable to the term “quality in the soul” used to describe sanctifying grace. They are both TRYING to do the same thing I think: the latter sees the problem from man’s side, while the former tries to see it from God’s side. Palamas to my mind succeeds better than the later Latin scholastics who decided that grace was a “quality in the soul”. This seems to me lamentably inadequate to the fact that the Trinity really does come and make its abode within us (Jn 14:23).
Dear Father Paul,
How good it is to be able to discuss with a sympathetic soul!!
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Grace/Grace_003.htm#08
http://home.earthlink.net/~mysticalrose/grace.html
The top one is Father John Hardon and this latter one is Father Foley who essentially refrains Father John. Father John keeps his teaching focused on “What would St. Thomas Aquinas say?”
Do I think that the distinctions drawn are important? Yes. I do. It is important for keeping the balance between nature and grace and between faith and works. That is one service it performs.
Sanctifying grace may be seen as the seed-bed for our reception of the Indwelling. The Furrow and the Plough are the sacraments and the Church, the liturgy, the individual will etc…but the seed stock of sanctifying grace comes at our Initiation to faith and makes straight the path to union. It is a gratuitous grace whose only requirement is our willed assent or the synergy of the divine and creaturely will.
It is not quite the same thing as union, which requires no active or conscious assent at all. Union comes to the uninitiated as readily as to the old soul. No one knows the day nor the hour.
Also it is particularly useful to keep the distinction when we are comparing east and west, in that there are those in both east and west who would deny the experiential immediacy, the divinely existential moment of Union which is not something that remains with us, but that comes and goes.
In contrast the ploughed and seeded furrows of sanctifying graces are there with us always, sustaining the soul, making it possible to work to cultivate acquired virtues, making it possible to sustain custody of the heart, the mind and the senses, making it possible to be ready with the Bridegroom comes.
It is in this way that I have come to understand the teachings of east and west concerning grace and the prayer of union and theosis which is the perfection of faith and works in the deification of the soul, and the transfiguration of the person.
M.
Father Paul: I dunno…may I be permitted a preference for the term “sanctifying grace”? To me, “energies” sounds rather icky. Just a personal feeling, but there it is.
Sanctifying grace sounds more like what Our Lord describes when He speaks of the Vine and the branches–the life-giving sap flows from the Vine into the branches. Or, again, when He speaks of Living Water. “Sanctifying” describes the effect of this Grace. Is that not just as valid as terms like “energies” or “uncreated” which do not address the effects?
Also, I confess I do get tired of Western-scholasticism-bashing. Why must we always posit one tradition against the other? Can we not recognize each one as valid and meaningful in its own way? Can’t we see them as complementing each other? Must we see them as somehow in competition, vying for the title of “Which One’s Better”?
I know you are not a scholasticism-basher…but please do recognize that some of us do have “Latin souls”; it’s in our blood, just as statues and Novenas and Sacred Heart pictures are in our blood. I for one have always found profound meaning in the concept of Sanctifying Grace. I would never dream of imposing such categories on my Eastern brethren…but, by the same token, does that mean they and their sympathizers must assert the superiority of the Eastern way over ours?
It kind of reminds me of how I feel when Eastern Catholics and Orthodox go on and on about how spiritually superior icons are to statues etc. (And I say this as someone who loves icons but also loves statues and Raphael Madonnas and Fra Angelico Annunciation scenes.) In the immortal words of the old Cole Porter song, “No, no, they can’t take that away from me.”
The term “energies” does sound “icky” to us – because we live in America in a New Age atmosphere where the term has been co-opted (from science, where it is used in a manner which is just barely analogous to any spiritual use of the term) to refer to misunderstood and dumbed-down Hindu ideas. The only time Roman Catholics may be aware of the use of the term within Christianity is the Monothelite heresy.
I would like to see an actual explanation of the meaning of the Greek term first – so we can clear up a lot of misunderstanding from under our feet.