Athonite Audio The Life of Saint Symeon the New Theologian
The Life of Saint Symeon the New Theologian
Written by: Niketas Stetatos
Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library
Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Book available for purchase:
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674057982
Telegram episode:
https://t.me/athoniteaudio/7644
The Life was written more than thirty years after Symeon’s death by his disciple and apologist the theologian Niketas Stethatos, who also edited all of Symeon’s spiritual writings. An unusually valuable piece of Byzantine hagiography, it not only presents compelling descriptions of Symeon’s visions, mystical inspiration, and role as a monastic founder, but also provides vivid glimpses into the often bitter and unpleasantly conflicted politics of monasticism and the construction of sanctity and orthodoxy at the zenith of the medieval Byzantine Empire. Although the many volumes of Symeon’s spiritual writings are now readily available in English, the present translation makes the Life accessible to English readers for the first time. It is based on an authoritative edition of the Greek.