The Life and Personality of St. Symeon the New Theologian

1. The Brotherly Beggar 5

The Monk Symeon the New Theologian was born in the year 949 in the town of Galati, in Paphlagonia (Asia Minor), of parents who belonged to the wealthy and influential provincial nobility in public affairs.6 This was during the Macedonian dynasty, one of the best periods of Byzantine history. The life of St. Simeon coincides for the most part with the reign of the most famous representative of this dynasty, Emperor Basil II the Bulgar-Slayer (9761025). At the age of about eleven, St Simeon was brought by his father to Constantinople to study in the schools of the capital, in order to later enter the imperial service. His uncle, Basil, then held an important position at court and intended to present his nephew to the emperor, but the young Simeon declined this honor. He also refused, after graduating from what we might call secondary schools, to continue his education in higher schools.7

Later, St. Simeon describes himself during this period of his life in the following, somewhat ironic words: "A certain young man, named George8, about twenty years old, lived in our times in Constantinople, handsome in appearance and having something ostentatious in his appearance, manners and gait, so that even some had bad opinions of him because of this."9 He seemed to be leading the distracted life of a young man in the capital, but he remained deeply dissatisfied. "I thank Thee, O Lord, Lord of heaven and earth," he writes later, recalling this time, "... that when I, ungrateful and contemptuous, like a horse that has broken free from its leash, plunged myself into the abyss, fleeing from Thy power, Thou didst not leave me lying down... but the mercy of Thy heart hast sent for me, and brought me out of thence, and honoured me more brightly. And by Thy ineffable destinies He freed me from kings and rulers who intended to use me to serve their desires as a vessel of no value."10 Under the influence, as it seems, of reading spiritual books, and the lives of saints in particular, the young Simeon keenly felt the insignificance of his state at that time and, in his desire to find the way to God, began to look for a holy man who could guide him and reconcile him with God.11 Those around him did not understand him. "But when I heard," he writes, "all those who unanimously without exception told me that such a saint does not exist on earth at the present time, then I fell into even greater sorrow."12 However, he lived with faith and trust in God, so characteristic of him always: "I never, however, believed this... And he said: My Lord, have mercy! Has the devil become so much stronger than the Lord God that he has drawn everyone to himself and made everyone his supporters, so that no one has remained on God's side?" 13

Such great faith could not remain unanswered: St Simeon finally met the holy man he was looking for. He was an elderly monk of the Studite monastery. His name was also Simeon.14 With this acquaintance, a new period in the life of young Simeon begins. Outwardly, he continued to work in the world as before, but he often visited his spiritual father and zealously fulfilled his instructions. In the beginning, however, Simeon the Studite limited himself to giving his disciple "a small commandment only as a reminder" to keep it. And when he asked him for books for spiritual reading, he gave him a book "On the Spiritual Law" by Marcus the Monk, an ascetic writer of the fifth century.15 Among the sayings of this book that struck the young Simeon, there was one that made a particularly deep impression on him: "Seeking healing, take care of your conscience. And do everything she says, and you will find benefit."16 "From that time on," says St. Simeon, speaking of himself in the third person, "he never fell asleep when his conscience rebuked him and said: 'Why didn't you do this too?' 17 "Stung by love and desire (of the Lord), he sought with hope the First Beauty,"18 and with youthful zeal he put into practice the saying of Mark the Monk, increasing his nightly prayers more and more, as his conscience suggested to him, "because by day he stood at the head of the house of one of the patricians, and every day he came to the palace, taking care of the things necessary for life, so that no one knew what was happening to him,"19 while his nights were devoted to fervent prayer. Tears flowed from his eyes, he multiplied the genuflections, as if the Lord Himself were present, and prayerfully invoked the Mother of God.20

During one of these night prayers, St. Simeon had his first mystical vision of the light that flooded him, filled him with joy, he ceased to feel both himself and everything around him.21 But the first period of religious inspiration and mystical enlightenment, attributed by St. Simeon to the prayers of his spiritual father, did not last long. The young man returned to the secular and distracted life that he had led before. "And forgetting," he says, "all that has been said above, I have come to a complete obscuration, so that I have never even remembered anything small or great, even to the simple thought of what I have previously said. I fell into even greater troubles than had happened to me before, and I was in such a state as if I had never understood or heard the holy words of Christ. But also on that saint who then took pity on me and gave me a small commandment and sent me... I looked at the book as if it were one of the ordinary people. I just didn't think about everything I saw thanks to him!" 22 In another place, St. Simeon expresses himself with even greater force about these years of spiritual weakness: "I threw myself again, miserable, into the pit and deep mire of shameful thoughts and actions. And having descended there, I fell into the power of those who were hiding in darkness, so that not only myself, but the whole world that had come together, could not bring me out of there and deliver me from their hands."23

These confessions of repentance should not be taken literally: in spite of all the weakness he experienced, Fr. Simeon was able to preserve his chastity, as he himself specifies: "When someone called me to the deeds of madness and sin, truly, of this deceptive world, my whole heart gathered inside and as it were hidden, ashamed of itself, invisibly restrained in every way by Thy Divine hand. And I loved all the other things of this world, which are pleasing to the eye, and delight the larynx, and adorn the body, which is smouldering. But impure actions and shameless desires, Thou hast erased them from my heart, O my God, and made hatred for them in my soul, even if by my will I was disposed towards them, and created that I should rather have an inactive desire and actions without desire, the greatest miracle in any case."24 It seems, however, that even during this period, which lasted about six-seven years, Fr. Simeon did not completely break off his relationship with his spiritual father. "I do not know how to say this," he writes, "I do not know what love and faith for the holy elder remained in my unfortunate heart. And because of it, I think, the humane God, after the passage of so many years, had mercy on me through his prayers. And again, by means of it, He delivered me from a great error, snatching me from the depths of evil. For I, unworthy, did not completely depart from him, but confessed to him what happened to me and often went to his cell when I happened to be in the city, although, being unscrupulous, I did not keep his commandments."25

Ave. Simeon, however, ascribes to the direct intervention of God his second and final deliverance from the power of evil forces. He describes it with great emotion in one of his best writings: "When they kept me there and pitifully dragged me around, and suffocated, and mocked... You, merciful and humane Lord, did not despise me, did not show rancor, did not turn away from my ungrateful frame of mind, and did not leave me to be voluntarily raped by robbers for a long time. But even if I rejoiced, being senselessly carried away by them, Thou, O Lord, could not bear to see me led and drawn around. But Thou didst propitiate Thyself, but Thou didst take pity on me, and Thou didst send to me, a sinner and miserable, not an angel or a man, but Thou Thyself, moved by Thy inner goodness, bent down to that deepest pit and stretched out Thy most pure hand to me, immersed in the depths of the mud and sitting somewhere below. And though I did not see Thee (for how could I see, or how could I see at all, being covered with mud and drowning in it?), Thou didst take hold of the hair of my head and pull me out of there, dragging me forcibly. I felt the pain and felt the upward movement and that I was ascending, but I did not know who I was being drawn upwards at all, and who could be the one who held and raised me up. But when you dragged me up and set me on the ground, you handed me over to your servant and disciple, all defiled and with eyes, ears, and mouths full of filth, and even then not seeing you who you were, but only learning that some kind and humane one, such as you are, had led me out of that deepest pit and mud."26 Or, as St. Simeon says in another place: "Yes, Lord, You remembered me when I was in the world, and when I did not know, You Yourself chose me and separated me from the world, and set me before Your glory".27