Hilarion Alfeyev, St Symeon the New Theologian and Orthodox Tradition. Oxford/NY: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. XIV+338 .

Father Hilarion Alfeyev is a star of the first magnitude in the rising constellation of Orthodox scholars who have published in recent years.

The aim of this book is to present St Symeon the New Theologian (+1022) as fully representative of the Orthodox tradition: learned in the scriptures, formed by the liturgy, informed by monastic literature and the fathers, and the faithful disciple of an illumined elder, St Symeon the Pious, both receiving from the latter and handing on his teaching to his own disciples, notably to St. Nicetas Stethatos (+ ca. 1090).

The book proceeds topically, covering Symeon’s ties to the monastic tradition of the Stoudios, his reading in the scriptures, liturgical texts, and dependence on the elder Symeon in Part I, “The Historical, Monastic, Liturgical, and Scriptural Background of St Symeon the New Theologian” (9-123). Part II, “St Symeon the New Theologian and the Patristic Tradition of the Orthdox Church” (125-270), moves to detailed consideration of Symeon’s theology against its patristic background under the headings: “Cycle of Daily Readings” (127-42), arguing that Symeon’s schedule provided him with ample reading time, and pointing to the likely materials for his study, including scriptures, hagiography, and patristic texts – either complete, or in florilegia ; “Triadological Polemic” (143-54), particularly with Hymn 21 and the Theological Discourses in mind, and against the background of medieval Byzantine debates; “St Symeon’s Theology based on the Church Fathers” (155-74), with special attention to apophatic theology, the names of God, and the divine light; “The Patristic Basis of St Symeon’s Anthropology” (175-90), attending to Symeon’s understanding of the human being as imago trinitatis , and to his great emphasis on theosis ; “The Patristic Background of St Symeon’s Ecclesiology” (191-207), dealing particularly with its cosmic thrust, together with questions of hierarchy and authority; and finally an omnibus chapter, “Some Aspects of St Symeon’s Asceticism and Mysticism with Patristic Parallels (208-70), where Alfeyev returns with especial attention to questions bearing on the visio dei luminis and Symeon’s traditional vocabulary of mystical experience, including light, ecstasy, and – once more – deification. The “Conclusions” (272-87) rehearse the book’s findings, and then devote a few interesting pages to Symeon’s “afterlife,” noting particularly his importance for subsequent movements of monastic renewal throughout the Orthodox world, and lending rare attention to his popularity in Russia from as early as the fourteenth century.

There were a number of things which I found new and very helpful in this book, and for which I am grateful to its author. These were, first, Alfeyev’s emphasis on Symeon’s Studite background, received through the elder Symeon, together with his dependence on the latter as personal guide whose own main themes he would go on to echo at greater length (102-23). Second, there is Alfeyev’s related clarification of something that has always struck me, and a number of other commentators, as odd or even silly: Nicetas Stethatos’ recourse, in his Life of Symeon , to the language of iconoclasm in order to describe the attack of Stephen of Nicomedia on the New Theologian’s veneration of his elder. Obviously, one thinks, Stephen was not an iconoclast in the eighth-century sense, and Symeon was surely being a little bold in instituting a cult of his master, so what could Nicetas’ appeal to a long-ago controversy be other than pious overkill? Not so, replies Alefeyev, for what was what at stake in the contest between the New Theologian and the Chancellor was the notion of the saint as both living icon and present possibility: “Only the accent in the argument had been removed, from the veneration of [painted] icons to the veneration of the [contemporary] saints” (140). This is indeed a kind of summation of Symeon’s entire message, as expressed later in the book, “that the foundation stone of tradition is nothing else but the direct relationship between God and the human person,” and thus that “true tradition is unimaginable unless mystical experience stands behind it” (224). It is the entire human being, soul and body, who is called to be the “true icon of the Creator” (184) or, as Nicetas refers to his master, “embodied theosis ” (cited in 261) – a phrase to which I shall be returning below. For now, let me point, third, to Alfeyev’s singling out of the importance of the hagiographic tradition for Symeon, surely a key, particularly in light of his own experience with Symeon the Elder, to his understanding of Christianity as the living and “golden chain” of the saints, as the flame of the Spirit passed on without break from one generation to another. Fourth and last, I would underline Alfeyev’s fascinating, if sadly too brief, remarks on St Symeon’s presence, and steady popularity, in Russia: “from that time [i.e., the fourteenth century] Symeon became one of the most widely read Byzantine authors in Russia,” and that that part of the New Theologian’s works which appear most frequently in the Slavonic manuscripts are his hymns, “his most mystical works” (278).

This is simply the best introduction to Symeon presently extant in English, and it rivals the best I know of available in any other language. Serious students of the New Theologian will be obliged to begin here.

I also hope that as many as wish to acquaint themselves with St Symeon will avail themselves of this book. For placing the New Theologian in his patristic and generally traditional context, it is unmatched, and it will surely retain that status for many years to come.

Hieromonk Alexander (Golitzin)
St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, Vol. 46, No 2-3, 2002, pp. 291-300 (abridged)