Particular historical styles within one religion, while
maintaining the temporal integrity of the figura, may differ
in the interpretation and emphasis that they give to the epi-
genetic or to the performative orders of symbolic time or to
one of the dominant symbols. But the religious figura is si-
multaneously a transformative nascent state and a living tra-
dition. Symbolic time, by sustaining a system of religious rec-
iprocity, an intentional vision, and a processual articulation
of reality, is structured in its development and unity as an
epiphany of intentional life.
SEE ALSO Calendars; Ritual.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mircea Eliade’s Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return
(New York, 1954) remains the fundamental study of periodi-
cal return to the mythical time of the origin. Henri Hubert
and Marcel Mauss, in “La représentation du temps dans la
religion et la magie” in their Mélanges d’histoire des religions
(Paris, 1909), pp. 189–229, first described the qualitative na-
ture of calendrical time. The performative structure of the
ritual process is analyzed in Arnold van Gennep’s classic
work of 1909, The Rites of Passage (Chicago, 1960), and in
Victor Turner’s The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-
Structure (Chicago, 1969). Francesco Alberoni has made a
significant contribution to the understanding of dynamic
structures of the nascent state in Movement and Institution
(New York, 1984). Symbolic intentionality is presented in
relation to the Christian liturgical year in my book Tempo
symbolico: Liturgia della vita (Brescia, 1985). Henri-Irénée
Marrou offers a thoughtful approach to the theological inter-
pretation of time and history in Théologie de l’histoire (Paris,
1968). For an illuminating analysis of studies of time in an-
cient cultures and of the concept of periodicity in historiog-
raphy, see Arnaldo Momigliano’s “Time in Ancient Histori-
ography,” in his Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography
(Middletown, Conn., 1977). Clifford Geertz’s The Interpre-
tation of Cultures (New York, 1973) makes an important
contribution to the study of religion as a symbolic system.
The temporal forms within narrative are discussed by Paul
Ricoeur in Time and Narrative (Chicago, 1984).
New Sources
Baumgarten, Albert I., ed. Apocalyptic Time. Leiden and Boston,
2000.
Bradshaw, Paul F., and Lawrence A. Hoffman. Passover and Eas-
ter: The Symbolic Structuring of Sacred Seasons. Notre Dame,
Ind., 1999.
DARIO ZADRA (1987)
Revised Bibliography
SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN (949–
1022) was a Christian mystic. Symeon is called “the New
Theologian,” first because, like John the Evangelist, he
speaks of mystical union with the Trinity, and, second, be-
cause Gregory of Nazianzus, known as “the Theologian,”
had also written passionately on the Trinity. Symeon’s per-
sonal life and his writings reflect a good deal of the polemical,
because he considered himself a zealot battling the fossilized
segments of the institutional church for a return to radical
gospel Christianity. That he, as all mystics who articulated
their experiences in writings, would be branded as a danger-
ous reformer walking the slender line between orthodoxy and
heresy is not surprising. His ardent, passionate nature, plus
the genuinely rare mystical graces that he had experienced,
compounded to “force” him, as he confessed, to share his
mystical experiences freely with others.
Symeon was born at Galatia in Paphlagonia (in Asia
Minor) in 949. This was the time of the powerful Macedo-
nian dynasty, which had given the Byzantine empire its
greatest periods of peace and expanding prosperity. Symeon’s
parents, Basil and Theophano, belonged to the Byzantine
provincial nobility, which had won favor with the adminis-
tration and had acquired some modicum of wealth.
There are two main sources of knowledge about Sym-
eon’s life: the Life written by his disciple, Nicetas Stethatos,
and the writings of Symeon himself. Symeon’s uncle Basil
brought him to the imperial court of Constantinople, where
he continued his secondary education. Refusing to pursue
higher studies, he was taken under direction by a holy monk
of the Stoudion monastery in Constantinople, who allowed
him to enter the monastery in his twenty-seventh year.
The fervent life of the novice under the guidance of his
charismatic spiritual director caused jealousy among the
monks, and Symeon transferred to the neighboring monas-
tery of Saint Mamas. Here he made great progress in learning
and in spiritual perfection, and within three years he was ton-
sured monk, ordained priest, and elected abbot. By his dis-
courses (catecheses) to his monks, he strove to lead them into
a greater consciousness of God’s presence indwelling them,
but not without stirring up great opposition, especially from
Stephen, archbishop of Nicomedia and chief adviser to the
patriarch of Constantinople. Stephen emphasized reason,
philosophy, and rhetoric in his theology; Symeon’s theology
was charismatic and apophatic, stressing a mystical and inte-
rior way of negation that doubts the capacity of reason to
comprehend mystery.
Under attack, and desirous of more solitude for prayer
and writing, Symeon resigned as abbot in 1005. Four years
later, the official circle of theologians headed by Stephen suc-
ceeded in having Symeon exiled to a small town called
Paloukiton, near Chrysopolis on the Asiatic shore of the Bos-
porus. There he passed thirteen years in the small monastery
of Saint Marina in prayer and writing, dying in 1022.
Symeon, as one of the most “personal” writers in Byzan-
tine spirituality, reveals himself in his writings in all his sin-
fulness and ecstatic joy in union with God. His central work
can justly be considered his thirty-four discourses, Catecheses.
As these were preached before a live audience of his fellow
monks of Saint Mamas, usually during the morning office
of matins, they represent a genre unique in Byzantine spiritu-
ality. Two characteristics shine forth in this writing. One seesSYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN 8919