In many respects, Symeon anticipates the new sense of mystical closeness with Jesus that is seen more and more in the Middle Ages. All his writing denies that mystical union with God is exclusively reserved for the canonized saint of the hagiography, or reserved to the unusual times of life, but is rather like air and water for a living creature, the substantial meaning of all existence. For Symeon, the highest degree of mystical union comes about when the soul is deeply conscious of its sinfulness and its need.
His writings were kept in manuscripts on Mount Athos and became the favored reading of many monks there. The passionate Jesus-centered devotion of Symeon made it seem to many Athonite monks in the fourteenth century that they, in their turn, had found a spiritual guide who had anticipated their Hesychastic revival, and anticipated them in stressing the elements of light-filled transfiguration and deeply personal affectivity as keys to spiritual renewal.
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From A. Holder (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Christian Spirituality, here edited by ELLOPOS.
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