Dimensions of Time in Symeon the New Theologian’s Works

Symeon the New Theologian was a mystical monk living in Byzantium in the tenth-eleventh centuries. He was abbot of the monastery of Saint Mamas, an active person, involved in the public life of his period. The aim of my paper is to show how this Byzantine monk and the audience of his works perceived the time and the gap between the ideals of the first Christian centuries and the ones of their own era. In his quest for a spiritual revival of Saint Mamas community, Symeon struggles against the widespread idea that the human being depends on the social and religious context of his time. In his preachings, despite the audience’s beliefs, he expresses the thought that every epoch has its own saints and that it is still possible to live in the Constantinople of the tenth-eleventh centuries as a Christian from the Apostolic times. In this respect, he gives as an example the life of Saint Symeon Eulabes, from Stoudion monastery, his spiritual father, whose cult he legitimizes and ardently promotes, against the official position of the patriarch. I would argue that his discourses and positions are part of a larger debate concerning the problem of the cult of the new saints after the end of Iconoclasm. Symeon’s biographer, Niketas Stethatos, supported the same position, in his attempt to validate and promote the cult of his mentor.