30. Now, if Saint Symeon demonstrates through these words how the spiritual formation of Jesus takes place in the hearts of others, how much more should we conclude that he himself first acquired this spiritual formation of Christ in his own heart, became His spiritual mother, and, having experienced and learned it himself, became a teacher of it to others? Indeed, this is precisely what we ought to conclude and firmly believe, for no one can rightly teach such divine mysteries to others unless he himself is first deemed worthy to know them through experience and to undergo them through the grace of the Holy Spirit. That the Son of God is continually born spiritually in those who love Him and becomes an infant, fashioning Himself within them through the virtues, and that the one who fears God conceives a spirit of salvation, is confirmed by the God-bearing Maximus in chapter 8 of the Third Century of the Theological Chapters²¹ and by the great Athanasius in his Questions to Antiochus²². The Prophet Isaiah had testified to this even before them, saying: “Because of Your fear, O Lord, we conceived in the womb, and were in labor, and gave birth; we brought forth a spirit of Your salvation…” (Isaiah 26:17–18).
32. Hence, he was deemed worthy to become simple, without form, unrelated to all things, and entirely detached not only from sensible and noetic created things, but also from the very spiritual principles concerning them, through a union beyond the intellect, according to Dionysius the Areopagite²⁵. Hence, he was deemed worthy to become unconstrained by all things, or difficult to constrain, as Gregory the Theologian said: “Two things are difficult to restrain: God and an angel; and the third is the philosopher: immaterial within matter; unconfined within a body; heavenly upon earth; impassible amid passions”²⁶.
33. To speak briefly, although he remained wholly human in both soul and body by nature, he became wholly God in both soul and body through the immeasurably abundant grace of deification, as the God-bearing Maximus said²⁷. This mystery of deification and rapture is something difficult to comprehend, difficult to express in words, and difficult to attain, as Gregory of Thessaloniki said: “A thing difficult to fathom, difficult to speak of, and difficult to attain”²⁸. Scarcely does even one person from an entire generation become worthy to attain this mystery, according to Saint Isaac, who said: “Many have in no way been deemed worthy of pure prayer, but only a few. As for that mystery, and what lies beyond it, even if someone should attain it, scarcely one person is found from generation to generation, by the grace of God”²⁹.
34. Truly, it was a great wonder that God should send a heavenly and bodiless angel from the last and lowest order of the supramundane Powers to stand continually beside the bed of the great Paisios, the beloved friend of God, and guard it like a commander-in-chief, so that no evil or unclean spirit would dare approach it and disturb the Saint's sleep through its thoughts, as his Life relates³⁰.
35. A still greater wonder was for God to send not an Angel or an Archangel from the last and outermost order of the immaterial beings, nor a Dominion, Power, or Authority from the middle order of the Angels, but a Cherubim from the first order of the heavenly minds, which stands nearest to God and has direct access to Him. I say that God sent a Cherubim to the great Makarios the Egyptian to stand continually beside him, illumine him, instruct him in what he ought to do, and grant him an abundance of knowledge and wisdom. For Cherubim is interpreted in Hebrew as “abundance of knowledge,” according to Dionysius the Areopagite³¹. After the Saint's death, this Cherubim appeared going before his holy soul and guiding it, with light and glory, toward the heavens, as his Life bears witness³².
36. Yet the greatest wonder of all, greater than these two, was what appeared in the Saint whom we praise. For God did not send Angels and Cherubim to guard him, who are “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for those who are to inherit salvation,” as the blessed Paul says (Hebrews 1:14). Rather, He sent the very Life-originating and All-Holy Spirit Himself. The God who is so by nature, the Lord of all the Angels and men alike, overshadowed him and guarded him through His light-bearing Grace at all times, but especially when the Saint, as a priest, was inside the innermost sanctuary, celebrating before God the secret and bloodless sacred rite. For that luminous cloud which then overshadowed him and enveloped him completely on every side, as his Life relates³³, was the almighty and light-bestowing grace of the All-Holy and Life-giving Spirit. Through this grace, the Saint was so illumined in both soul and body, in mind and heart, that his divine and sacred face radiated light and shone like another sun. Therefore, no one could gaze steadily upon it, just as no one can gaze at the sun. O glories! O magnificence! O supernatural and heavenly gifts of the sacred Symeon, which plunge every mind into their depths and render every tongue speechless!
Notes:
21. “The Word of God, who was once born according to the flesh, is continually born according to the spirit, by His philanthropy, whenever He wills, in those who desire Him. And He becomes an infant, fashioning Himself within them through the virtues, appearing to the extent that the recipient is able to receive Him—not diminishing the manifestation of His own greatness out of envy, but measuring the capacity of those who long to behold Him. Thus, although the Word of God continually appears according to the manner in which He is participated in, He nevertheless continually remains unseen by all, because of the surpassing nature of the mystery.”
Various Theological Chapters, etc., First Century, chapter 8, Migne, Patrologia Graeca 90, 1181A.
Note: Saint Nikodemos has before him the text of the Philokalia, where the numbering of the centuries differs.
22. “How does a person recognize that he has indeed been baptized and has received the Holy Spirit, when he was an infant at the time of Holy Baptism? The Prophet Isaiah says to God: ‘Because of Your fear, O Lord, we conceived in the womb and were in labor, and gave birth to a spirit of salvation.’ Just as a woman who has conceived in the womb knows with certainty, from the movements of the infant within her womb, that she has conceived a child, so too the soul of a true Christian learns from the joy of its soul that it received the Holy Spirit when baptized, not through the words of its parents, but through deeds and the movements of its own heart, especially at the time of illumination and of partaking of the holy Body and Blood of Christ.”
To Antiochus the Ruler, 2, BEPES 35, 101.
23. Life, 19, 19; 116, 2; 142, 10–15; and elsewhere.
24. “When the day has dawned and the light-bearing one has risen in our hearts, according to the Foremost of the Apostles, the true man goes forth to his true work, in accordance with that prophetic saying; and, using the light as his way, he ascends—or is led upward—to the eternal mountains. In this light, he becomes, O what a wonder!, a beholder of the things that are beyond the world. Whether he is separated or not separated from the matter that had accompanied him from the beginning, as the way itself knows. For he does not ascend on the imaginary wings of the intellect…but truly ascends by the ineffable power of the Spirit, and through spiritual and ineffable assistance he hears ineffable words and beholds things that cannot be seen.”
To Xenia, Most Revered among the Nuns, in Philokalia of the Sacred Neptic Fathers, Athens, 1961, vol. 4, p. 111.
25. On the Divine Names, 7, III, Migne, Patrologia Graeca 3, 872B.
26. Oration 26, On Returning to Himself from the Countryside, Migne, Patrologia Graeca 35, 1245B.
27. On Difficulties, Migne, Patrologia Graeca 91, 1288D–1289A. Compare Andrew of Crete, Oration 7, On the Transfiguration of the Lord, Migne, Patrologia Graeca 97, 933B.
28. On the Life of Peter the Athonite, 20, Migne, Patrologia Graeca 150, 1013B.
29. Discourse 32, Spetsiéris edition, pp. 135–136.
30. See his Life in Megas Synaxaristes…, published by Victor Matthaios, June 19, Athens, 1962, pp. 247–281.
31. On the Celestial Hierarchy, 7, 1, Migne, Patrologia Graeca 3, 205B.
32. See his Life in Megas Synaxaristes…, published by Victor Matthaios, January 19, Athens, 1956, pp. 373–381.
33. Life, 5, 15; 19, 20; 33, 20; 36, 3.
PART FIVE
