Simeon of Taibouthèh | A vow of conversation

Simeon of Taibouthèh

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June 12, 2008

Conference by Dom André Louf on Simeon of Taibouthèh

Posted by Macrina Walker under Events, Simeon of Taibouthèh, Syrian Fathers
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This is my report of the second conference from the colloquium on the Syrian Fathers in Ghent last weekend. Please see my earlier disclaimer regarding the accuracy of my reporting and translations!

Dom André Louf, ocso is abbot emeritus of the abbey of Mont des Cats in France and author of several books, including Teach us to Pray, The Cistercian Way and Grace can do more. He is now a hermit and translates Syrian texts. He was responsible for the French translation of the second series of St Isaac’s homilies.

Our information concerning the life of Simeon comes from two Syrian chroniclers who lived several centuries later: Bar Hebraeus (+1286) and Abdisho Bar Brika (+1318). From these we learn that he had been a doctor before becoming a monk, that he lived during the episcopacy of Catholicus Henanisho (685-699), and that he wrote works on medicine, on monastic life and on the mystery of the cell. From these works we can also gather that he lived in the southeast of what is now Iraq, a region that at that time was undergoing a monastic growth and which was home to well known spiritual writers such as Dadisho Qatraya and Isaac of Nineveh. The latter was somewhat older than Simeon.

The designation “of Taibouthèh” refers not to a place, but means “of grace” and refers to one of his writings. Many manuscripts contain such a “Book of Grace” which had previously been ascribed to Isaac of Nineveh, but which recent critical scholarship believes to originate with Simeon. Simeon also refers to the crucial role of grace in his other works and is particularly concerned with the relationship between asceticism and grace.

A pilgrimage to the sources of Christian truth
Macrina Walker

There are three things I cannot take in: nondogmatic faith, nonecclesiological Christianity and nonascetic Christianity. These three – the church, dogma, and asceticism – constitute one single life for me.

Archimandrite Sophrony
Completed Series
Since, then, there was needed a lifting up from death for the whole of our nature, He stretches forth a hand as it were to prostrate humanity, and stooping down to our dead corpse He came so far within the grasp of death as to touch a state of deadness, and then in His own body to bestow on our nature the principle of the resurrection, raising as He did by His power along with Himself the whole human being. For since from no other source than from the concrete lump of our nature had come that flesh, which was the receptacle of the Godhead and in the resurrection was raised up together with that Godhead, therefore just in the same way as, in the instance of this body of ours, the operation of one of the organs of sense is felt at once by the whole system, as one with that member, so also the resurrection principle of this Member, as though the whole of humankind was a single living being, passes through the entire race, being imparted from the Member to the whole by virtue of the continuity and oneness of the nature. What, then, is there beyond the bounds of probability in what this Revelation teaches us; viz. that He Who stands upright stoops to one who has fallen, in order to lift him up from his prostrate condition?

St Gregory of Nyssa,
The Great Catechism, 32
Some resources
Given a thorough-going faith and love for Jesus Christ, there is nothing in all this that will not be obvious to you; for life begins and ends with these two qualities. Faith is the beginning, and love is the end; and the union of the two together is God. All that makes for a soul’s perfection follows in their train, for nobody who professes faith will commit sin, and nobody who possesses love can feel hatred. As the tree is known by its fruits, so they who claim to belong to Christ are known by their actions; for this work of ours does not consist in just making professions, but in a faith that is both practical and lasting.

Indeed, it is better to keep quiet and be, than to make fluent professions and not be. No doubt it is a fine thing to instruct others, but only if the speaker practices what he preaches. One such Teacher there is: He who spake the word, and it was done; [Ps 33,9] and what He achieved even by his silences was well worthy of the Father. A man who has truly mastered the utterances of Jesus will also be able to apprehend His silence, and thus reach full spiritual maturity, so that his own words have the force of actions and his silences the significance of speech. Nothing is hidden from the Lord; even our most secret thoughts are ever present to Him. Whatever we do, then, let it be done as though He Himself were dwelling within us, we being as it were His temples and He within us as their God. For in fact, that is literally the case; and in proportion as we rightly love Him, so it will become clear to our eyes.

St Ignatius of Antioch, The Epistle to the Ephesians, 14-15.
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