On the Mystical Life, The Ethical Discourses: St. Symeon the New Theologian, Volume I: The Church and The Last Things

Popular Patristics Series Volume 14

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 his writings were on occasion suppressed by ecclesiastical authorities wary of his fierce enthusiasm, as well as his claims to charismatic authority, St Symeon's works 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 appearing here for the first time in English. Volume I selects those treatises devoted to the Church, the sacraments and the last things. Symeon discusses salvation history from creation leading to the glory of the eschaton. He includes a special section on the cosmic dimension of salvation, the experience of the rapture in the "third heaven" by the apostle Paul, who experienced in every sense the one Light which is God. Addressing such themes as predestination, the knowledge of the saints in the world to come, the day of judgment as the "day of the Lord," and the experience of the sacraments, St Symeon's theology is a summation of a lifelong study of the Scriptures and fathers, of an immersion in the liturgical life of the Church and of lived experience.

Volume II comprises Symeon's analysis of the virtues and Christian life. Volume III provides a translation of his Letter on Confession together with an extensive introduction to his life and thought. All three volumes are also available as a set for a discounted price.

About the Author:  Fr Alexander Golitzin is Associate Professor of Theology at Marquette University. He is author of Et introibo ad altare Dei: The Mystagogy of Dionysius Areopagita.