On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, Volumes 1–3 (Popular Patristics Series)

by Symeon

Publisher:

St Vladimir’s Seminary Press

, 1995–1997

Overview

St. Symeon the New Theologian was abbot of the monastery of St Mamas in Constantinople at the turn of the eleventh century. He was also perhaps the most remarkable and certainly the most forceful advocate of the mystical experience of God in the history of the Byzantine Church. Though they were on occasion suppressed by ecclesiastical authorities wary of his fierce enthusiasm, as well as his claims to charismatic authority, St. Symeon’s writings survived in the Orthodox Church and continued to play a vital role in the several renewals of spiritual life and prayer which has sustained the Church in its often difficult history over the past millennium. The treatises on the mystical life, usually rendered as The Ethical Discourses, comprise St. Symeon’s most extensive treatment of the experience of God. They are also appearing here, in these three volumes, for the first time in English.

Contents

Top Highlights

“‘What then? Shall we not light candles and lamps? Shall we not offer perfumes and incense? Should we not invite people to sing, nor gather acquaintances and friends and notables? Is this what you are saying? Is this your decree?’ I do not say this, God forbid! On the contrary, I indeed both advise and encourage you to do these things, and to do them lavishly. Only, I want you to know the way you should do so, and will suggest to you here the mystery of the feast of the faithful. What do the things you do in types and symbols really mean?” (Volume 1, Page 174)

“It is one thing to speak humbly, another to think humbly, and humility is one thing while the blossom of humility is another, and yet another the latter’s fruit and the beauty of that fruit, and still another the energies which come out from the last. Of these, some are proper to us, and some are not. It is our part to conceive, think, reason, say, and do everything which brings us toward humility. Holy humility, though, and the rest of its characteristics, its charismata together with its energies, are God’s own gift. They do not belong to that which is ours [by nature], so that we may take no pride in them. No one, however, will ever chance to be made worthy of these gifts unless first, like laying down seeds for them, he does everything which is his to do.” (Volume 2, Page 15)

“And why do you pick out for yourselves the obscure passages of inspired Scripture and then tear them out of context and twist them in order to accomplish your own destruction? Do you not hear the Savior crying out every day: ‘As I live … I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live’ [Ezek 33:11]? Do you not hear Him Who says: ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand’ [Mt 3:2]; and again: ‘Just so, I tell you, there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents’ [Lk 15:7, adapted]? Did He ever say to some: ‘Do not repent for I will not accept you,’ while to others who were predestined: ‘But you, repent! because I knew you beforehand’? Of course not!” (Volume 1, Pages 83–84)

Product Details

• Title: On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, Volumes 1–3
• Author: Symeon
• Series: Popular Patristics Series
• Volume: 1–3
• Publisher: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press
• Print Publication Date: 1995–1997
• Logos Release Date: 2018
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Spiritual life › Orthodox Eastern Church--Early works to 1800; Monastic and religious life › Early works to 1800; Mysticism › Orthodox Eastern Church--Early works to 1800; Orthodox Eastern Church › Doctrines--Early works to 1800
• ISBNs: 0881411426, 0881411434, 9780881411430, 0881411442, 9780881411447, 15555755, 9780881411423
• Resource ID: LLS:MYSTCLLFTHLGN
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T20:23:58Z

About Symeon

Symeon the New Theologian (sometimes spelled "Simeon") (Greek: Συμεὼν ὁ Νέος Θεολόγος; 949–1022 AD) was a Byzantine Christian monk and poet who was the last of three saints canonized by the Eastern Orthodox church and given the title of "Theologian" (along with John the Apostle and Gregory of Nazianzus).