There is, therefore, an interaction between all the virtues, faith and humility being the foundation, hope rising above them, but love is the first, it gives life to all others, and bestows more than it receives. In conclusion, St. Simeon says that this love is Christ: "This love, that is, the head of all virtues, is Christ and God, Who came down to earth and became man for this purpose, having partaken of our earthly flesh, in order to give us essentially from His Divinity, and, having made us spiritual and completely incorruptible, to raise us up to heaven."1132 A little later, however, St. Simeon says that love is the Holy Spirit: "By love he (St. John the Theologian) here calls the Holy Spirit of God, through Whom we receive sonship".1133

The contradiction here is only visible, for in St. Simeon's writings Christ and the Holy Spirit act together. Thus, love gives us adoption and communion with God. Without it we are dead: "It is clearly seen that if anyone does not love God with all his soul and does not find love for Him in the renunciation of himself and of the whole world, he will not be counted worthy of His appearance in the revelation of the Holy Spirit mystically, and will not acquire Him as His head, but remains a dead body in spiritual matters, deprived of the life of all, Christ"1134. Ave. Simeon insists, thereby showing the entire Orthodoxy of his spirituality, that only on the basis of true faith in Christ, as well as the virtues built on this foundation, can love be acquired: "This love none of the people could see, or receive, or combine with it cognitively (???????) to buy it with his own head, if he did not keep it... faith in Christ firm and unshakable, and did not build on this faith all the above-mentioned actions with diligence. And he who has not seen it and has not been united with it, and has not partaken of its sweetness, cannot worthily love it. Because, who has not been seen, how can one love him?" 1135 When St. Simeon speaks of love, he is speaking, as always with him, of conscious mystical experience. As a consequence of the union of the body with the head, which is love, or, in other words, Christ and the Holy Spirit, St. Simeon considers the deification of man1136 and the indwelling of the Most Holy Trinity in him.1137 He speaks of this in the texts we have already quoted elsewhere.1138 Thus, in order to illustrate the connection between love and impassibility, St. Simeon uses the image of the moon and its halo,1139 as we discussed in the chapter on impassibility.1140

In another place, St. Simeon uses the widespread story of the birth of the pearl, which he explains symbolically to say that love for God is a pearl born of the contemplation of Christ's sufferings: "Just as it is said that in a shell, when it is opened, pearls are conceived from the dew of heaven and from the lightning, so think that love for God is also sown in us. The soul, having heard of Him (Christ)... suffering and gradually believing, is revealed in proportion to her faith, which was previously locked up from unbelief. But when it is revealed, the love of God, like heavenly dew united with ineffable light, falls mentally into our hearts and becomes a bright pearl, of which the Lord also says that the merchant who found it, having departed, sold all his possessions and bought that one pearl. In this way, even he who has been vouchsafed to believe, as we have said, and to find in himself the clever pearl of God's love, cannot bear not to despise everything and to distribute everything that belongs to him to the poor, and not to leave it to others who wish to plunder, in order to preserve the love of God unplundered and not diminished at all."1141

Faith, therefore, precedes the love of God, and it is a pearl of incomparable value. In order to acquire it, complete renunciation is necessary. It ends with inner vision, ecstasy. "This love," says St. Simeon, "which daily grows in the heart of the one who prefers it to everything, becomes in him a miracle of miracles, completely inexpressible and ineffable for all, incomprehensible to the mind, not able to be spoken by a word. And (man), falling into a frenzy (???????????) from the ineffability and incomprehensibility of a thing, and having a mind occupied with it, becomes wholly outside the world, not the body, but all the senses, because they also follow the mind, which contemplates what is within it."1142 There follows a conscious vision of light,1143 of which we have spoken elsewhere.1144 The 17th hymn is entirely devoted to the theme of love,1145 as is evident from the title: "(That fear begets love, and love eradicates fear from the soul, and remains alone in it, being the Divine and Holy Spirit)."1146 To express his spiritual experiences, St. Simeon again uses the image of a tree, paradoxically bearing fruit that is different in nature from flowers. This strange flower is fear, but it disappears and makes room for love. "I said strange," writes St. Simeon, "because every nature gives birth according to (its) kind... but Thy fear is both a flower of a strange nature, and a fruit like a strange and alien one".1147 Fear is by nature filled with sorrow and in this sense is fundamentally opposed to love, although without it the fruit of love cannot ripen: "Because fear is not at all in love, but, on the other hand, without fear the fruit does not ripen in the soul".1148 Ave. Simeon is full of amazement: "It is truly a miracle of the highest word, the highest of all thought, that a tree blossoms with difficulty and bears fruit, and its fruit in turn uproots the whole tree and only fruit remains. How the fruit is without a tree, I am not at all able to say, but in any case it remains, in any case love exists without the fear that gave birth to it."1149 Fear and love are opposite in nature and in action: "In fact, love is all joy and fills the one who has acquired it with joy and exultation, and spews him out of the world in a sensual way, which fear can never do." For "love is the Divine Spirit, the all-active, enlightening light, but it is not of the world, nor is it anything of the world, nor is it a creature, for it is not created outside of all creatures, uncreated in the midst of creatures".1151 Ave. Simeon adds: "Listen, if you will, to the actions (?????????) love, and you will know that love is greatest of all."1152

Ave. Simeon says, following the 13th chapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians, about the greatness of love: "He who is therefore devoid of love and all these things, tell me where he will appear, what he will do, how he dares... call yourself faithful?" 1153

Having spoken in the above expressions about uncreated love, which is in the midst of creatures, St. Simeon speaks of his mystical experience of love as a revelation of light: "I sit in my cell by night or by day, and love invisibly and knowingly dwells with me. Being beyond all creatures, visible and invisible, she is again with everyone, as the creator of everything. It is fire and radiance, it becomes a cloud (??????) of light, it becomes the sun. Like fire, it warms my soul and inflames my heart, and leads me to lust and love for the Creator. Like a luminous radiance, it flies all around me, quite inflamed and inflamed by the soul, leaving bright rays for my soul and making my mind brilliant, showing it capable of the height of contemplation, making it seeing. This is what I used to call the flower of fear."1154 After this, St. Simeon tells us that the vision suddenly disappeared, love flew away, and he searched in vain for it, not being able to find the uncreated ray. Then the ray returns and disappears again, and this is repeated several times.1155 Finally, love "suddenly found itself cognitively in me again, in my heart, in the middle, like a luminary, indeed, like the disk of the sun, it became visible" (1156). "Appearing in this way and showing herself cognitively," continues St. Simeon, "she bared my mind and clothed me with the tunic of intellectual feeling (????????? ??????), separated me from the visible and united me with the invisible, and granted me to see the Uncreated and to rejoice... that I have united with the Uncreated, with the Incorruptible, with the Beginningless, invisible to all. That's what love is!" 1157 Pr. For this reason, Simeon urges everyone to acquire love: "Let us run, faithful, with strength, let us hurry, sluggish, with effort! Slow, let us arise in order to take possession of love, or rather, to become partakers of it, and thus to pass from those here and together with it to stand before the Creator and Master, standing together with it outside the visible (things)."1158 Without love there is no salvation, it is the queen of virtues, "The first of the virtues, the queen and mistress, is indeed love. She is the head of all, clothing and glory"1159... "Virtues without love are withered (flowers), and useless. And he is not clothed with divine glory who does not have love; and even if he has all the virtues, he stands naked and, unable to bear his nakedness, would rather hide himself."1160 Love is the Divine Spirit: "The Creator came to earth, took on soul and flesh, and gave the Divine Spirit, which is love".1161

In all these passages, love is contemplated as the uncreated manifestation of God in man, or, more often, as the Divine power that unites us with the Uncreated, it is even identified with the Holy Spirit, less often with Christ. In any case, the meeting of the created with the Uncreated takes place through love and in love. This is a great miracle, filling St. Simeon with wonder.