VENERABLE SIMEON

THE NEW THEOLOGIAN (9491022)

Preface

Do not say that it is impossible to receive the Divine Spirit,

Do not say that without Him it is possible to be saved;

Do not say that anyone is a partaker of Him without knowing it;

Do not say that God is invisible to men;

Do not say that people do not see the Divine light

Or that it is impossible in the present times!

It's never impossible, friends!

But it is very possible for those who want to.

Ave. Symeon the New Theologian. Hymn 27 (125-132).

In the Orthodox world, the works of St. Symeon the New Theologian have never been completely forgotten, thanks mainly to Athonite monasticism, although official theology ignored them, and the church hierarchy treated them with restraint. They were first published in print – until then they were known only from manuscripts – at the end of the eighteenth century, but not in the original text, but in a modern Greek translation, or rather, a paraphrase by Dionysius of Zagorey. This translation is often quite inaccurate, and most importantly, incomplete, since Dionysius Zagoreysky feared that much in the writings of St. Simeon might confuse the pious simple reader, and therefore considered himself entitled to "censor" the Holy Father, both in terms of style and content. From this far from perfect and even tendentious translation of Dionysius Zagoreysky, the famous ascetic and spiritual writer of the 19th century, Bishop Theophan (Govorov), made a Russian translation, making changes on his part, so that its text could be called a paraphrase of the retelling2. This translation by Bishop Theophan was published by the Russian Panteleimon Monastery on Mount Athos and became the main source of acquaintance of the pious Russian people with the works of St. Simeon3. Unfortunately, however, Bishop Theophan refused to translate into Russian the Hymns of St. Simeon, published in the original, albeit with large omissions, by Dionysius, since he found them too lofty and thereby dangerous for the average reader. This gap was largely filled in by Hieromonk Panteleimon (Uspensky), who published in 1917 a Russian translation (but not the Greek text) of almost all the hymns, based on the text of Dionysius, the Latin translation of Pontanus (1603) and on some manuscripts of the Holy Mountain of Athos. But subsequent events prevented this publication from becoming widely distributed4. This cautious and even restrained attitude towards the works of St. Simeon, manifested even in such a spiritual writer as Bishop Simeon. Theophanes, who refused to translate the Hymns, is even more characteristic of many hierarchs, and even more so of the professorial theological milieu in our time. Thus, quite recently, Professor P. Trembelas of the Faculty of Theology in Athens, a pillar of Greek conservative theology, stated in a pamphlet published by him that the visions of St. Simeon's light can be explained by a simple strain of nerves! (This statement by Prof. Trembelas caused an outburst of indignation on Mount Athos.) On the other hand, a Russian metropolitan said to me: "I can't stand Symeon the New Theologian, he's not in my spirit. Several times I tried to read it, but I couldn't continue." And one Greek metropolitan went even further. "Who is this Symeon the New Theologian, of whom are you talking to me? He said to me. "Who is he, a Russian?" You, Russians, always invent faces that no one has ever heard of."

Only in the most recent years (1957-1973) was the original Greek text of the works of St. Simeon, restored on the basis of existing manuscripts, published for the first time in the West by the French publishing house Sources Chretiennes (Christian Sources) in nine volumes (the tenth volume, containing the Epistles of St. Simeon, had not yet been published, but we were able to use these Epistles for our work). The publication of Sources Chretiennes fully covers all the writings that really belong to St. Simeon, and thus for the first time provides an opportunity for a scientific and theological study of his works and even a correct and holistic understanding of his personality and spiritual teaching. Naturally, in the West, this edition, in which the Greek text is accompanied by a French translation and extensive commentaries, aroused interest in St. Simeon, who had previously been known in the West almost exclusively in narrow circles of Byzantine scholars, he began to become "fashionable", he began to be read, with varying success, in Catholic monasteries, but on the whole this spiritual food was not always within the reach of modern Western man. On the contrary, it is gratifying to note that on the Holy Mountain of Athos, among its Greek monks, these new editions of the Greek texts of St. Simeon are read with great eagerness, contributing to the spiritual revival that is now taking place on Athos. On the other hand, the publication of Sources Chretiennes has caused the appearance in recent years of extensive and scholarly works by the Germans, W. Volker and C. Deppe, which are little accessible in their scientific heaviness to a wide range of readers. To these can be added the book of the American Jesuit G. Malone, who sympathizes with the Pentecostals, "The Mysticism of Light and Fire", intended for the reader who is not an expert and has no scientific pretensions, but on the whole it is not bad. It is a pity that so little is written about St. Simeon on the Orthodox side. The purpose of this work is not to compete with the above-mentioned scholarly works, which are massive in volume, full of abundant notes, and inaccessible to the non-specialist reader. It would be a task beyond my strength, and at the same time useless, because no one would read such a work. What I would like is to give a lively, objective, well-documented image of the great saint and, in particular, a truthful image of the great saint, accessible to a wide range of educated readers interested in the spiritual life of Orthodoxy and the mystical phenomenon in general, and not only to professional Byzantines, or, especially, only to confessional polemicists. My book was written with great love for St. Simeon, but at the same time, I hope, with love for the truth. I would not like to give a stylized image of St. Simeon, to schematize or simplify his personality, or to make him a forerunner of the modern pentocostal movement, or an extreme "enthusiast," or a kind of Protestant mystic rebelling against hierarchy, or even an "unconscious Messalian," as many of his modern researchers do. And I especially wanted to avoid rhetoric and Orthodox triumphalism. To some, my book may seem incoherent, but the complexity of St. Simeon's personality and the richness of his spirituality sometimes compel me to say things that may seem contradictory. What, however, remains above all contradictions is his vision of God in this life, his love for Christ in the light and in the Holy Spirit, although St. Simeon had to struggle all his life not to lose it. My goal is to let St. Simeon speak as often as possible, which is why the book is full of quotations. I translated these quotations directly from the Greek text, always trying first of all, if possible, to translate accurately and close to the original. For this reason, my text often, but not always, differs from the translation of Ep. And I am ready to admit that his translation is sometimes smoother and even more understandable, but I did not consider myself entitled to "improve" the style of the Holy Father, much less to "correct" his theology. To show the real St. Symeon the New Theologian – this was my task, and if I succeeded in this at least partially, then I will be happy and grateful for this to God and His saint.

PART I