a most traditional presentation of classical themes common
to all the Greek fathers who wrote on the spiritual life of asce-
sis and contemplation. But on the other hand, one finds a
new and insistent accent on the operations of the Holy Spirit
to effect the end of the spiritual life and of all Christian asce-
sis and contemplation, namely, greater mystical union with
the indwelling Trinity.
Other writings of Symeon developed around key theo-
logical issues as he engaged in controversy with Stephen and
other official “scholastic” Byzantine theologians. In these
writings Symeon is not exhorting monks but is struggling to
combat the heavy rational theology that he felt was destroy-
ing true Christianity. His writings collected in Theological
Treatises form an integrated series focusing on the unity of
the Trinity.
The fifteen writings collected in Ethical Treatises are
much more uneven. The first two treatises deal with the
economy of God’s salvation; the following nine (numbers
3–11) form a fairly unified presentation of Symeon’s doc-
trine on mysticism; the last four (numbers 12–15) deal with
a variety of subjects of a more practical nature concerning
the way in which ordinary people in the world can attain sal-
vation.
Symeon’s Practical and Theological Chapters is a collec-
tion of ideas about a variety of topics, probably notes gath-
ered by him on points touching the ascetical and contempla-
tive life of Christians. But it is Symeon’s Hymns of Divine
Love, which he completed shortly before his death in 1022,
that will place him in the ranks of the greatest mystics of all
time. These are fifty-eight hymns without any unifying
theme or system of mystical theology, but they show clearly
Symeon’s own mystical experiences through the power of
poetic rhythm. His mystical experiences and personal love
toward Jesus Christ are expressed in a language rarely sur-
passed by other mystics except those who, like Symeon, had
to resort to poetry, as did John of the Cross, to convey the
intensity of such ecstatic mystical union. Each hymn is a po-
etic composition of great power and beauty that can ignite
in the reader a desire to strive to attain such “endless light”
as Symeon must have enjoyed.
In Symeon were combined the two predominant cur-
rents within Eastern Christianity of the earlier centuries. One
was the mystical school of the Desert Fathers, which stressed
the Semitic concept of a total experience of God and human-
ity in the locus Dei, the place of God in the person called in
biblical language the “heart.” The second approach was the
intellectual mysticism of the Alexandrian school of Clement
of Alexandria, Origen, and Evagrios of Pontus. The accent
here was on the human mind, which, when purified of the
hold of the sensible world of passions, was able to “see” God
in an interior light. In addition to producing this synthesis,
Symeon was an innovator in writing candidly of his own
mystical experiences and in presenting these as normative for
all Christians.
Symeon may be judged in the light of his unique, pow-
erful, and affective personality as against the formalism that
had suffocated much of the charismatic and mystical ele-
ments in the church of Constantinople. His works were root-
ed in the great traditions of the Eastern Christian fathers,
both dogmatically and mystically and, as such, present a bal-
anced Christian mystical theology.BIBLIOGRAPHY
The critical Greek text with a French translation of Symeon’s
main works can be found in volumes 51, 96, 104, 113, 122,
129, 156, 174, and 196 of Sources chrétiennes (Paris, 1957–
1973). An English translation of Catéchèses by C. J. de Ca-
tanzaro is available in Symeon the New Theologian: The Dis-
courses (New York, 1980) in “The Classics of Western Spiri-
tuality.” My translation of Hymnes is in Hymns of Divine Love
by St. Symeon the New Theologian (Penville, N.J., 1975). Dis-
cussion of Symeon’s life and thought can be found in my The
Mystic of Fire and Light: St. Symeon, the New Theologian
(Penville, N.J., 1975).
GEORGE A. MALONEY (1987)SYNAGOGUE. The origins of the synagogue are ob-
scure and will probably never be known. This is in part be-
cause the synagogue developed in a nonrevolutionary man-
ner, its significance recognized only once it was a well-
established institution of Jewish life. A hint of the original
function of this institution may be found in its most promi-
nent Greek and Hebrew names used in antiquity, sunagog ̄e
and beit knesset. Both refer to an assembly or house of assem-
bly. Numerous theories have been propounded to explain
the origins of this institution. The most venerable of these
places the origins of the synagogue in Babylonia (modern
Iraq) during the sixth century BCE. There, “by the waters of
Babylon,” this theory suggests, the exiled Judeans assembled
to “sing the Lord’s song in a strange land” (Ps. 137). Ezekiel
11:16, “Though I removed them far off among the nations,
and though I scattered them among the countries, yet I have
been a lesser sanctuary to them for a while in the countries
where they have gone,” has often been cited in support of
this thesis. This approach has roots that go back at least to
the medieval period in Babylonia (modern Iraq), and it was
developed further by Christian Hebraists beginning in the
seventeenth century in their attempt to find biblical anteced-
ents for later Jewish practice. More recent theories place the
origins of the synagogue in third-century BCE Egypt, assert-
ing that Jewish “prayer places” (proseuch ̄e) described in in-
scriptions were in fact the earliest synagogues, or elsewhere
in the Western Diaspora. These approaches assert the priori-
ty of exile and hence distance from the Jerusalem Temple as
a determining factor in the formation of the synagogue. In
recent years the origins of the synagogue in biblical Israel
have been asserted. According to this theory, the Second
Temple–period synagogue was the descendant of the “gate
of the city” of biblical times. None of these approaches is
supported by sufficient data.8920 SYNAGOGUE