SOME THOUGHTS FROM SAINT SIMEON THE NEW THEOLOGION

From his "One Hundred & Fifty-Three Practical & Theological Texts"...

104. Anyone who thinks himself intelligent because of his scholarly or scientific learning will never be granted insight into divine mysteries unless he first humbles himself and becomes a fool (cf. I Cor. 3:18), discarding both his presumption and the knowledge that he has acquired. But if he does this and with unhesitating faith allows himself to be led by those wise in divine matters, he will enter with them into the city of the living God. Guided and illumined by the divine Spirit, he will see and learn what others cannot ever see or learn. He will then be taught by God (cf. John 6:45).
. . .
106. Even now, living in our midst, there are people who are dispassionate and saintly, filled with divine light, who have so mortified whatever in them pertains to the earth (cf. Col. 3:5), freeing it from all impurity and impassioned desire, that not only do they themselves not think or act maliciously, but even when drawn in this direction by another they are unwavering in their dispassion. Those who accuse these saints of folly, and who do not believe them when in the wisdom of the Spirit they teach about divine matters, would have recognized them had they understood the sacred writings of that are read and sung daily. For if they possessed a mature knowledge of the Holy Scriptures they would have believed in the blessings spoken of and bestowed on us by God. But because out of self-conceit and negligence they do not share in these blessings, in their unbelief they slander those who do share in them and who teach others about them.

As to those that fall away from God, I wonder where it is they exist, those that are far removed from Him that is everywhere, and verily, O brothers, is it a wonder full of great trembling, one that requires the reasoning of an illumined mind,




in order properly to understand this thing and not to fall into heresy as a result of ignorance of the words of the Holy Ghost. They, too, will wholly have existence within the universe, but outside of the divine light and even outside of God.



For, just as those that cannot see the shining sun, although they are wholly bathed in its light, end their days outside of the light, severed from any sense or sight of it, so too in this universe is the divine light of the Trinity,



and in its midst the sinners that are enclosed in darkness, unseeing, bereft of any divine sense, but consumed and chastised by their conscience, will know for all eternity unspeakable affliction and ineffable pain.

(St. Symeon the New Theologian, Hymns, I, 215-231)

___________________________________________________