Reconfiguring the trinity: Symeon the new theologian on the 'holy spirit' and the imago trinitatis

Abstract

This article challenges the widespread view that the Byzantine theological discourse was averse to innovation and confined to restating official doctrine. It makes the case that the mystic Symeon the New Theologian constructed an alternative Trinity where the Spirit as the third hypostasis besides the Father and the Son is equated not with the product of the Father, which is suppressed, but with the common divine nature, and where this new third hypostasis is placed before the other two hypostases, which it is said to engender.