St. Symeon's rejection of selfish speculative desire for contemplation can help us fathom and, perhaps, overcome, the modern scandal of a fading subject and its fragmented body, which takes place through a dialectics of desire analogous to that of Symeon's opponents, as it is nowadays put in modern terms by Jacques Lacan. Reading Patristic texts with the help of modern authors, and understanding them in the modem terms, makes us able to discern the eternal value of Patristic theology and, as well, to criticise modernity, by advancing, through the Fathers, beyond its spiritual boundaries.