ST. SIMEON was, in his life and conduct, a subject of astonishment, not
only to the whole Roman empire, but also to many barbarous and infidel
nations. The Persians, Medes, Saracens, Ethiopians, Iberians, and
Scythians, had the highest veneration for him. The kings of Persia
thought his benediction a great happiness. The Roman emperors solicited
his prayers, and consulted him on matters of the greatest importance. It
must, nevertheless, be acknowledged, that his most remarkable actions,
how instrumental soever they might be to this universal veneration and
regard for him, are a subject of admiration, not of imitation. They may
serve, notwithstanding, to our spiritual edification and improvement in
virtue; as we cannot well reflect on his fervor, without condemning and
being confounded at our own indolence in the service of God.
St. Simeon was son to a poor shepherd in Cilicia, on the borders of
Syria, and at first kept his father's sheep. Being only thirteen years
of age, he was much moved by hearing the beatitudes one day read in the
church, particularly these: _Blessed are they that mourn; blessed are
the clean of heart_. The youth addressed himself to a certain old man,
to learn the meaning of those words; and begged to know how the
happiness they promised was to be obtained. He told him that continual
prayer, watching, fasting, weeping, humiliation, and patient suffering
of persecutions, were pointed out by those texts as the road to _true
happiness_; and that a solitary life afforded the best opportunities for
enforcing the practice of these good works, and establishing a man in
solid virtue. Simeon, upon this, withdrew to a small distance, where,
falling prostrate upon the ground, he besought Him, who desires all may
be saved, to conduct him in the paths which lead to happiness and
perfection; to the pursuit of which, under the help of his divine grace,
he unreservedly from that moment devoted himself. At length, falling
into a slumber, he was favored with a vision, which it was usual with
him afterward to relate.. He seemed to himself to be digging a pit for
the foundation of a house, and that, as often as he stopped for taking a
little breath, which was four times, he was commanded each time to dig
deeper, till at length he was told he might desist, the pit being deep
enough to receive the intended foundation, on which he would be able to
raise a superstructure of what kind, and to what height he pleased. "The
event," says Theodoret, "verified the prediction; the actions of this
wonderful man were so superior {090} to nature, that they might well
require the deepest foundation of humility and fervor whereon to raise
and establish them."
Rising from the ground, he repaired {"here paired" in the original text}
to a monastery in that neighborhood under the direction of a holy abbot,
called Timothy, and lay prostrate at the gate for several days, without
either eating or drinking; begging to be admitted on the footing of the
lowest servant in the house, and as a general drudge. His petition was
granted, and he complied with the terms of it with great fervor and
affection for four months. During this time he learned the Psalter by
heart, the first task enjoined the novices; and his familiarity with the
sacred oracles it contains, greatly helped to nourish his soul in a
spiritual life. Though yet in his tender youth, he practised all the
austerities of the house; and, by his humility and charity, gained the
good-will of all the monks. Having here spent two years, he removed to
the monastery of Heliodorus, a person endowed with an admirable spirit
of prayer; and who, being then sixty-five years of age, had spent
sixty-two of them in that community, so abstracted from the world, as to
be utterly ignorant of the most obvious things in it, as Theodoret
relates, who was intimately acquainted with him. Here Simeon much
increased his mortifications; for whereas those monks ate but once a
day, which was towards night, he, for his part, made but one meal a
week, which was on Sundays. These rigors, however, he moderated at the
interposition of his superior's authority, and from that time was more
private in his mortifications. With this view, judging the rough rope of
the well, made of twisted palm-tree leaves, a proper instrument of
penance, he tied it close about his naked body, where it remained
unknown both to the community and his superior, till such time as it
having eat into his flesh, what he had privately done was discovered by
the stench proceeding from the wound. Three days successively his
clothes, which clung to it, were to be softened with liquids, to
disengage them; and the incisions of the physician, to cut the cord out
of his body, were attended with such anguish and pain, that he lay for
some time as dead. On his recovery, the abbot, to prevent the ill
consequences such a dangerous singularity might occasion, to the
prejudice of uniformity in monastic discipline, dismissed him.
After this he repaired to a hermitage, at the foot of mount Telnescin,
or Thelanissa, where he came to a resolution of passing the whole forty
days of Lent in a total abstinence, after the example of Christ, without
either eating or drinking. Bassus, a holy priest, and abbot of two
hundred monks, who was his director, and to whom he had communicated his
design, had left with him ten loaves and water, that he might eat if he
found it necessary. At the expiration of the forty days he came to visit
him, and found the loaves and water untouched, but Simeon stretched out
on the ground, almost without any signs of life. Taking a sponge, he
moistened his lips with water, then gave him the blessed Eucharist.
Simeon, having recovered a little, rose up, and chewed and swallowed by
degrees a few lettuce-leaves, and other herbs. This was his method of
keeping Lent during the remainder of his life; and he had actually
passed twenty-six Lents after this manner, when Theodoret wrote his
account of him; in which are these other particulars, that he spent the
first part of Lent in praising God standing; growing weaker, he
continued his prayer sitting; and towards the end, finding his spirits
almost quite exhausted, not able to support himself in any other
posture, he lay on the ground. However, it is probable, that in his
advanced years he admitted some mitigation of this wonderful austerity.
When on his pillar, he kept himself, during this fast, tied to a pole;
but at length was able to fast the whole term, without any support. Many
attribute this to the strength of his constitution, which was naturally
very {091} robust, and had been gradually habituated to such an
extraordinary abstinence. It is well known that the hot eastern climates
afford surprising instances of long abstinence among the Indians.[2] A
native of France has, within our memory, fasted the forty days of Lent
almost in that manner.[3] But few examples occur of persons fasting
upwards of three or six days, unless prepared and inured by habit.
After three years spent in this hermitage, the saint removed to the top
of the same mountain, where, throwing together some loose stones, in the
form of a wall, he made for himself an enclosure, but without any roof
or shelter to protect him from the inclemencies of the weather; and to
confirm his resolution of pursuing this manner of life, he fastened his
right leg to a rock with a great iron chain. Meletius, vicar to the
patriarch of Antioch, told him, that a firm will, supported by God's
grace, was sufficient to make him abide in his solitary enclosure,
without having recourse to any bodily restraint: hereupon the obedient
servant of God sent for a smith, and had his chain knocked off.
The mountain began to be continually thronged, and the retreat his soul
so much sighed after, to be interrupted by the multitudes that flocked,
even from remote and infidel countries, to receive his benediction; by
which many sick recovered their health. Some were not satisfied unless
they also touched him. The saint, to remove these causes of distraction,
projected for himself a new and unprecedented manner of life. In 423, he
erected a pillar six cubits high, and on it he dwelt four years; on a
second twelve cubits high, he lived three years; on a third, twenty-two
cubits high, ten years: and on a fourth, forty cubits high, built for
him by the people, he spent the last twenty years of his life. Thus he
lived thirty-seven years on pillars, and was called Stylites, from the
Greek word _Stylos_, which signifies a pillar. This singularity was at
first censured by all, as a mark of vanity or extravagance. To make
trial of his humility, an order was sent him, in the name of the
neighboring bishops and abbots, to quit his pillar and new manner of
life. The saint, ready to obey the summons, was for stepping down: which
the messenger seeing, said, that as he had shown a willingness to obey,
it was their desire that he might follow his vocation in God. His pillar
exceeded not three feet in diameter on the top, which made it impossible
for him to lie extended on it; neither would he allow a seat. He only
stooped, or leaned, to take a little rest, and often in the day bowed
his body in prayer. A certain person once reckoned one thousand two
hundred and forty-four such reverences of adoration made by him in one
day. He made exhortations to the people twice a day. His garments were
the skins of beasts, and he wore an iron collar about his neck. He never
suffered any woman to come within the enclosure where his pillar stood.
His disciple Antony mentions, that he prayed most fervently for the soul
of his mother after her decease.
God is sometimes pleased to conduct certain fervent souls through
extraordinary paths, in which others would find only dangers of
illusion, vanity, and self-will, which we cannot sufficiently guard
ourselves against. We should notwithstanding consider, that the sanctity
of these fervent souls does not consist in such wonderful actions, or
miracles, but in the perfection of their unfeigned charity, patience,
and humility; and it was the exercise {092} of these solid virtues that
rendered so conspicuous the life of this saint; these virtues he
nourished and greatly increased, by fervent and assiduous prayer. He
exhorted people vehemently against the horrible custom of swearing, as
also, to observe strict justice, to take no usury, to be assiduous at
church and in holy prayer, and to pray for the salvation of souls. The
great deference paid to his instructions, even by barbarians, is not to
be expressed. Many Persians, Armenians, and Iberians, with the entire
nation of the Lazi in Colchis, were converted by his miracles and
discourses, which they crowded to hear. Princes and queens of the
Arabians came to receive his blessing. Vararanes V. king of Persia,
though a cruel persecutor, respected him. The emperors Theodosius the
younger, and Leo, often consulted him, and desired his prayers. The
emperor Marcian visited him, disguised in the dress of a private man. By
his advice the empress Eudoxia abandoned the Eutychian party a little
before her death. His miracles and predictions are mentioned at large in
Theodoret and others. By an invincible patience he bore all afflictions,
austerities, and rebukes, without ever mentioning them. He long
concealed a horrible ulcer in his foot, swarming with maggots. He always
sincerely looked upon, and treated himself, as the outcast of the world,
and the last of sinners; and he spoke to all with the most engaging
sweetness and charity. Domnus, patriarch of Antioch, administered unto
him the holy communion on his pillar: undoubtedly he often received that
benefit from others. In 459, according to Cosmas, on a Wednesday, the 2d
of September, this incomparable penitent, bowing on a pillar, as if
intent on prayer, gave up the ghost, in the sixty-ninth year of his age.
On the Friday following his corpse was conveyed to Antioch, attended by
the bishops and the whole country. Many miracles, related by
Evagrius,[4] Antony, and Cosmas, were wrought on occasion; and the
people immediately, over all the East, kept his festival with great
solemnity.[5]
The extraordinary manner of life which this saint led, is a proof of the
fervor with which he sought to live in the most perfect sequestration
from creatures, and union with God and heaven. The most perfect
accomplishment of the Divine Will was his only view, and the sole object
of his desires; whence upon the least intimation of an order from a
superior, he was ready to leave his pillar; nor did he consider this
undertaking as any thing great or singular, by which he should appear
distinguished from others. By humility he looked upon himself as justly
banished from among men and hidden from the world in Christ. No one is
to practise or aspire after virtue or perfection upon a motive of
greatness, or of being exalted by it. This would be to fall into the
snare of pride, which is to be feared under the cloak of sanctity
itself. The foundation of Christian perfection is a love of humiliation,
a sincere spirit of humility. The heroic practice of virtue must be
undertaken, not because it is a sublime and elevated state, but because
God calls us to it, and by it we do his will, and become pleasing to
him. The path of the cross, or of contempt, poverty, and sufferings, was
chosen {093} by the Father for his divine Son, to repair his glory, and
restore to man the spiritual advantages of which sin had robbed him. And
the more perfectly we walk in his spirit, by the love and esteem of his
cross, the greater share shall we possess in its incomparable
advantages. Those who in the practice of virtue prefer great or singular
actions, because they appear more shining, whatever pretexts of a more
heroic virtue, or of greater utility to others they allege, are the
dupes of a secret pride, and follow the corrupt inclinations of their
own heart, while they affect the language of the saints. We are called
to follow Christ by bearing our crosses after him, leading at least in
spirit a hidden life, always trembling in a deep sense of our frailty,
and humbled in the centre of our nothingness, as being of ourselves the
very abstract of weakness, and an unfathomed abyss of corruption.
Footnotes:
1. Act. Mart. T. 2, app {}.
2. Lettres edifiantes et curieuses.
3. Don Claude Leaute, a Benedictin monk of the congregation of St.
Maur, in 1731, when he was about fifty-one years of age, had fasted
eleven years, without taking any food the whole forty days, except
what he daily took at mass; and what added to the wonder is, that
during Lent he did not properly sleep, but only dozed. He could not
bear the open air; and towards the end of Lent he was excessively
pale and wasted. This fact is attested by his brethren and
superiors, in a relation printed at Sens, in 1731; and recorded by
Dom L'Isle, in his History of Fasting; and by Feyjoo, in his Theatro
Critico Universal.
4. Evagrius, l. 1, c. 13, 14.
5. Monsignor Majelli, a domestic prelate to pope Benedict XIV., in his
dissertation on the _Stylites_, or religious men living on pillars,
represents the pillar of St. Simeon enclosed with rails around the
top. Whenever he slept a little he leaned on them, or his staff.
This author shows the order of the Stylites to have been propagated
in the East from saint Simeon, down to the Saracen and Turkish
empires. The inclemency of the air makes that manner of life
impracticable to the West. However, St. Gregory of Tours mentions
one (l. 8. c. 15) V{}filaick, a Lombard, and disciple of the abbot
St. Yrier, who leaving Limousin went to Triers, and lived some time
on a pillar in that neighborhood. He engaged the people of the
villages to renounce the worship of idols, and to hew down the great
statue of Diana at Ardens, that had been famous from the time of
Domitian. The bishop ordered him to quit a manner of life too severe
for the cold climate. He instantly obeyed, and lived afterwards in a
neighboring monastery. He seems to have been the only _Stylite_ of
the West. See Fleury, l. 35, T. 8, p. 54.