Saint Symeon the New Theologian and the Theology of the Divine Substance

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    Abstract (may include machine translation)

    St Symeon the New Theologian (942-1022), frequently called "the greatest of Byzantine mystics" had for long been considered as a direct precursor of the fourteenth-century Hesychast teaching on the vision of God, the divine transcendence and immanence. In this study, first published in 2001, I argued that while this assumption is valid at the spiritual level, it is far from being unproblematic on the doctrinal (theological/philosophical) level. In fact, St Symeon had taught a doctrine of substantial participation in God, based on a peculiar understanding of the hypostatic union of the divine and human substances in Christ, as well as on a specific Eucharistic doctrine. The paper also investigates the possible patristic, ascetic and liturgical sources of the doctrine of substantial participation.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)125-146
    Number of pages22
    JournalActa Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
    Volume41
    Issue number1-2
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 2001

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