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Menologion



St. Symeon the New Theologian: What Is "the World"?

This we understand from Scripture and Tradition: A true withdrawal from the world and the things that are in the world consists in this, that when we have fled the world we hate and abhor what pertains to it. However we must discern, that is, come to understand with keen and accurate discrimination, what the terms "the world" and "what pertains to it" mean.

What is the world? And what are the things that are in the world?

Listen carefully! "The world" is not gold, silver, trucks, automobiles, household appliances and the like. These things that serve our legitimate needs belong to us, and we own them lawfully. They are not "the world" we are speaking of here. Nor is "the world" meat, nor bread, nor wine, nor anything else we eat and drink in moderation for health and sustenance. Neither is "the world" our homes and the legitimate occupations we pursue, nor the fields or vineyards we may own and cultivate, nor suburban properties we may possess, for even great and small monasteries have always consisted of such as these.

So what, then, is "the world"? It is sin, plain and simple, brothers and sisters in Christ. "The world" is nothing more than our attachment to things and to the passions that possess us. "The world" and the Kingdom of Heaven, where they are found, are each found to be within us.

Let St. John the Theologian speak of "the things that are in the world": "Do not love the world or the things in the world," he says, "for all that is in the world — the lust of the flesh and the pride of life — is not of the Father, but is of the world" (1 John 2:15f.). St. John here equates "the world" with man's "lust of flesh and pride of life" which contaminate and destroy the creation that came pure from the Hand of God.

Whatever place we leave and whatever place we arrive at, we shall find the same neutral things. Whatever the place, people cannot live alone and without things which God has provided. Everywhere we make use of things that we need for sustaining our bodies and souls and those of our dependents. Everywhere there are parents and women and children — families that require our continuous love and support — and wine, and every kind of fruit; our physical sustenance consists in these and similar things.

But if we be dominated by "the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes" and the pride of our thoughts, how shall we be able in the midst of these good and inescapable things to escape from any kind of sin, without in any way being harmed by its sting? I know well that many of the saints of old guarded themselves from submission to the world, and those of the present still do so. They spend their lives in the midst of the things of this life, its concerns and its cares, and yet complete their lives in perfect holiness, detached from all things.

Of them and their like St. Paul bears witness when he says, "The form of this world is passing away, so that those who have wives should be as though they had none, and those who buy should be as though they had need of no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it" (1 Cor. 7:29 ff.). From these examples we may learn how to live with things and not be corrupted by them.

Thus he who is given to anger should refrain from giving way to it. He who pleads in his defense should not add any qualification in his heart to what he speaks. He who seeks justice for himself should be dead to the world in the disposition of his heart. He who has once attained to that state should eagerly seek and desire not even to spare his body. Those who contend in the spiritual contest have attained this state, and in every generation will continue to do so.


Symeon the New Theologian: The Discourses, 17

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