Our Notes & References

An unusually well preserved example of this mystical guidance on spiritual growth, in delicate calligraphy on attractive blue paper.

After twenty-five years serving as an abbot of the Monastery of Saint Mamas in Constantinople, Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022) stepped down to write his spiritual instructions, sharing his personal mystical experiences. His “central theme is the conviction that, by applying the classical methods of mental prayer, one experiences a contemplative “vision of light” […] Symeon emphasised that such experience is attainable by all who earnestly immerse themselves in the life of prayer” (Britannica). His mystical practices prepared the way for Hesychast mysticism, “a 14th-century Eastern movement in contemplative prayer” (id.).

The manuscript contains a selection of Symeon’s moral instructions, or “Words”, about monastic life, as well as his poetic “Hymns of Divine Love”, including an “alphabet in couplets” encouraging new monks, prayers and stories of his own spiritual struggle and exploits, the thoughts on mental paradise, the attainment of divine purity, the height of contemplation one can ascend, repentance and what the attention to prayer is, defining three kinds of it. The volume ends with the brief quote of St Barsanuphius about the superiority of mental labour and faith over physical rituals.

It is interesting to note that the publication of Symeon’s works happened rather later, and more or less around the creation of this manuscript: “very few of Symeon’s works have been published in Slavonic and Russian languages” (Otkrytaia pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, our translation): his works remained untranslated until the publication of the collection of spiritual opuses by Orthodox authors Dobrotoliubie [Philokalia] (1793), which included a list of his short moral instructions in the form of maxims. In 1852 a separate edition of Symeon’s “Twelve Practical Words” in modernised Church Slavonic was printed at the Moscow University press; the “Words” from the 1852 edition have some similarities with the present manuscript, but their translations differ significantly, and the manuscript includes 24 “Words” instead of 12. The choice of the “Words” and other writings for this volume was most likely determined by the compiler’s or scribe’s personal taste.

Our text is written on lovely blue paper with a watermark showing the Yaroslavl coat of arms (a bear holding a spear in a crowned roundel), the abbreviation “IaMPG1” for Yaroslavl Paper Manufacture, and the date “1805”. The headpieces with backgrounds in black ink are calligraphed with elegant asceticism, and the decorative initials in different sizes are rendered in red. As witnessed in a handful of neat marginal comments, the manuscript was read, yet very carefully as its pages are in near mint condition.

With uncommon provenance from a 19th-c. Russian business woman. The volume was presented on June 22, 1868 by “M. Maksimina” to her “beloved sister in the holy spirit and benefactress” Klavdiia Ivanovna Ganeshina. Ganeshina (1821-88) was herself a merchant and a hereditary honourable citizen of Moscow. She was one of the owners of an estate which they sold in the early 1880s to an important Moscow lace-making company. Her husband Vasilii Alekseevich Ganeshin (1799-1866) was also a hereditary honourable citizen of Moscow.

Provenance

Klavdiia Ivanovna Ganeshina (gift inscription in verso of upper flyleaf from “M. Maksimina”); Ia. A. Khomiakov (recent inscription in Russian on upper flyleaf).

Bibliography

The editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Saint Symeon the New Theologian” // Encyclopaedia Britannica; Drevo. Otkrytaia pravoslavnaia entsiklopediia, “Simeon Novyi Bogoslov”, 2023.