**8. Acquisition of Virtues and** *Apatheia* **as a Dynamic Process**

McInnes states that asceticism in Symeon leads to dispassion (*apatheia*) (McInnes 2017, p. 106). He also observes that passions must be rehabilitated in order for virtues to be acquired (ibid., p. 107). There is, however, a dynamic acquisition of the virtues in Symeon's work that leads upwards to the acquisition of *apatheia*. Even *apatheia*, however, should not be understood as a static state. Critically, the ascetic ascent ends with a personal encounter with Christ. It is communion with Christ that gives the fullest meaning to asceticism.

In the Eleventh Ethical Discourse, Saint Symeon writes: "God has arranged for everything to be in order and by degrees. Indeed, just as islands in the deeps of the sea, so should you picture with your mind the virtues to be in the midst of this life" (Symeon the New Theologian 1996, Eleventh Ethical Discourse, p. 132). Symeon argues that there is a certain progression or growth in the virtues and that each degree opens up the next level. He does state, however, that a certain precondition is required before the journey through the virtues can even be started. This precondition is the giving of our life. Symeon states that the virtues must be purchased with our blood (ibid., p. 131). A refusal to die means that no progress in the virtues is made: "Truly, unless one is slaughtered like a sheep for any single virtue and pours out his own blood for it, he will never possess it. God has so ordered it that we receive eternal life by means of our voluntary death" (ibid.).

Saint Symeon understands humility to be the gateway to all the other virtues (ibid.). Without it, none of the other virtues can be attained. After humility, Symeon lists mourning, then meekness, then hunger and thirst for righteousness, then mercy and compassion, then purity, and finally, the vision of God (p. 132). Symeon, it seems, took the Beatitudes as his inspiration for the degrees of virtue. He makes a very important addition to this schema: the condescension of Christ. Symeon writes: "If we ascend just a little at the beginning of the ascetic journey, Christ condescends to meet us" (pp. 133–34). Here the Saint is stressing that the final end of asceticism is an encounter with Christ. The idea of progression from

virtue to virtue is a completely biblical one that finds its model in the Second Epistle of Saint Peter (2 Peter 1: 3–9).
