Symeon the New Theologian was a Byzantine mystic who lived between 949 and 1022, later canonized by the Eastern Orthodox Church. At 14 he entered the Monastery of Studios, under the spiritual guidance of Symeon the Studite, a holy fool and author of some Ascetic Capita. Later, he moved to the Monastery of St. Mamas and became its hegumen in 980. After some controversies about his teachings, culminating in the confrontation with Stephen the Synkellos, Symeon is sent back to St. Mamas in 1005 and exiled to the Monastery of St. Marina till the end of his life. His biography was written by his disciple, Niketas Stethatos (1000-1090) who was responsible for gathering his oeuvre. St. Symeon’s work consists of hagiographical texts (the lost Vita of Symeon the Studite), epistles and mostly ascetical-mystical writings. The last category includes 36 sermons (Catechetical Discourses), 58 Hymns of Divine Love, 3 Theological Discourses, 15 Ethical Discourses and 225 Practical and Theological Chapters, present in Greek manuscripts from the 13th to the 15th century. There are also 33 Theological Discourses and 24 Alphabetical Chapters mostly based on the Catechetical Discourses. Additionally, the Three Methods of Prayer, very similar to Tractatus de Sobrietate et Cordis Custodia by Nikephoros the Monk (13th c.), represents a Hesychast text about the practice of the Jesus Prayer which was attributed to St. Symeon.
At the beginning of the 17th c., Jacobus Pontanus (1542-1626) translated and printed the 33 Orationes and the 24 Alphabetical Chapters, published in Patrologia Graeca 120. A partial collection of the Practical and Theological Chapters was included by Nicodemus the Hagiorite (1749-1809) and Macarius of Corinth (1731-1805) in the Philokalia, printed in Venice in 1782. Some of the works of St. Symeon the New Theologian (entitled logoi) were published by Dionysios Zagoraios in a Neo-Greek paraphrased form in 1790.
In the Slavic tradition, the oldest and incomplete (in fragments) form of the Catechetical Discourses and the Practical and Theological Chapters are found in South Slavic manuscripts from the 14th century. Catechesis no. 26 is part of RNL Hilf. 35 and 47, NLCM 672 and 1036, while some Practical Chapters are found in Ryapov Sbornik (Archive BAS 80). The method is also present in 14th South Slavic and Serbian miscellanies: RNL Hilf. 35 and 47, NLCM 672 and 1036, Dečani 71 and Peć 90. However, the oldest and most complete form of the works of St. Symeon is preserved in Russian witnesses from the early 15th c. (RSL 49, SHM 950). This collection is entitled 24 Slovo and it contains 6 Catechesis, 16 Hymns, 62 Practical and Theological Chapters and the Pseudo-Symeonian Method. This kind of standard collection of Symeonian works was known to the community of Pasius Velichkovsky (1722-1794) because it was translated from Slavic to Romanian around 1766. Staretz Paisius himself translated from Greek to Slavic the Life of St. Symeon and the Hymns of Divine Love (Neamț 214), 12 Discourses (Neamț 220, BAR 375) and, most probably, 155 Practical Chapters (Neamț 215, 216, 217, 223).
