Simeon was born, towards the end of the fourth century, in Sís, a
village near Nicopolis (the modern Islahíyeh, in Northern Syria).[92]
His parents seem to have been fairly substantial people of the lower
ranks. He had one surviving brother named Shimshai; the rest of the
family died early. While still a child he tended the flocks of his
parents, thus becoming accustomed to solitude and privation, and having
early opportunity for undisturbed contemplation. He grew up to be a
strong and good-looking youth, but of small stature. At this period of
his life he repeatedly collected storax, a sweet-smelling resin, and
burnt it as an offering without knowing to whom; perhaps in doing so he
was unconsciously following some old pagan custom. For, though baptized,
he was still at that time without any education, whether religious or
secular.
On one occasion, when Simeon accompanied his parents to church in his
native village, he was powerfully arrested by the words of the gospel
about the blessedness of the poor and the mourner. He had, moreover,
according to a not improbable tradition, visions which pointed him to
the path of renunciation; and he gave himself with zeal to asceticism.
Even at this early stage the old Syrian biography of Simeon makes him a
worker of miracles. The first of these is very peculiar, and deserves to
be shortly told as characteristic for its narrators, and also for the
readers for whom they wrote. Simeon, after a twenty days’ fast, longed
for some fish, and went accordingly to the daughter of a fisherman, who
had made a large catch in a neighbouring lake, and asked her to sell him
five pounds of fish. Untruthfully, but upon oath, she declared that she
had none. Just after he had turned and gone a mysterious power suddenly
seized upon her and her fish; the latter tumbled out on the road before
him and leapt towards him, while the girl rushed after them like one
demented. All this occurred in presence of the people, and of the
soldiers then in garrison to defend the place against Isaurian pirates.
Simeon finally quieted the fish and the girl, delivering to the latter a
severe admonition. He then went on his way, but soon saw a large fish
right in front of him, which he took, after crossing himself; God so
blessed it that he and other shepherds, as well as two soldiers, lived
upon it for three whole days.
Simeon was still but young when he entered the monastery of Eusebonas at
Tel’edá, in the district of Antioch. To this and other monasteries he
handed over his entire fortune, which had been not inconsiderably
increased by inheritance from an aunt. At the head of its eighty or one
hundred and twenty monks was Heliodorus, who had entered its cloisters
whilst still a little child, and never again quitted it; he had never in
all his life seen a pig or a cock. Here Simeon remained for nine or ten
years, distinguishing himself above his fellows by his severe
mortifications. They fasted only on alternate days, he on every week
day; only on Sundays did he eat a few lentils. In order to keep awake in
his devotional exercises, he supported himself on a round piece of wood,
from which he slipped as soon as he became drowsy; this was a kind of
prologue to his subsequent performances. He girt himself round his naked
waist with a rough cord of palm bast, which wore into his flesh. After
ten days this came to be known, and his brethren, who already had marked
with growing disapproval that instead of confining himself to their
rules he went far beyond them, succeeded in inducing their superior to
expel their eccentric companion. Simeon hid himself in an empty cistern,
full of poisonous snakes, scorpions, and other repulsive creatures, as
later writers add. Five days afterwards his superior regretted what he
had done, and caused Simeon to be sought for and brought back. Soon
afterwards, however, he left Tel’edá finally; he was not adapted for any
society. He now betook himself to the village of Telnishé (somewhat
nearer to Aleppo than to Antioch) to the monastery of Maris, whose sole
occupants were an old man and a boy. Here he caused himself to be walled
in for the great Lenten fast. Bassus of Edessa, who held the spiritual
office of a periodeutes or visiter, and who happened to be present, at
his urgent request closed up the entrance, after setting down some bread
and water for his use. When, at the end of the fast, the door was
opened, it was found that both were untouched. This is related by two
contemporaries. The belief that during the great fast Simeon never ate
anything was certainly general; but whether the thing be perfectly true
may be doubted even after the performances of modern fasting men, for,
according to the story, we must suppose that the feat was repeated
thirty times, year after year. During the fast he, at any rate, ate less
than ever; at the beginning of it he stood, then he sat down as his
strength waned, reclining more and more as he sat, until at last he sank
half-dead upon the ground. On the heights of Telnishé he caused a mandra
or “enclosure” to be built for his permanent residence; the ground for
it was given him by a priest named Daniel. Here he riveted his right leg
to a large stone with an iron chain twenty cubits long. When he at last
took off this chain, at the request of the patriarch Meletius of
Antioch, there were found in the piece of leather which had protected
his skin from the iron more than twenty fat bugs, which he had left
quite undisturbed,[93] never stretching out a finger against them,—so
Meletius himself informed his biographer Theodoret. The exact zoological
designation of the creatures need not be discussed; what is certain is,
that for the glory of God the saint allowed himself to swarm with
vermin.
In the time during which Simeon sat here in a lonely corner on the
ground, he is said to have wrought various miracles, mostly healings,
such as befit the regular saint. They were wrought sometimes directly,
but sometimes through the agency of objects which he sent,—such as
water, or even what was called hnáná, or “grace” meaning thereby a mass
of dust or filth of the saint kneaded up with oil,—an instrumentality
much used in those times in the regions of Syria. Simeon had many
visions also, which were guarantees of his high standing. “Out of
modesty” he related these only to his most trusted disciples, who were
not to speak about them during his lifetime; but, as was to be expected,
many of these fine things about him spread far and wide. The
consciousness which he enjoyed of his acceptance with God, and the
veneration which men accorded to him, compensated for all the pain which
he inflicted on himself.
Simeon’s pride finds its most marked expression in the choice of a
pillar as his abode. Long before this, at the great sanctuary of the
Syrian goddess Attar’athé (or Atargatis), in Hierapolis (Mabbog, Arabic
Membij), some ninety English miles distant, there had been a colossal
pillar, to the top of which a man twice every year ascended for seven
days’ converse with the gods;[94] but this practice must have died out
long before Simeon’s time, and it is highly improbable that such an
uninformed person as he should have ever heard anything about it.
Moreover, Theodoret, himself a Syrian, and a man of many-sided culture,
as well as the other contemporaries of Simeon, all regard this
pillar-life as something quite new. We can therefore, at most, attribute
both phenomena to similar religious motives; so that Burckhardt—who, so
far as I know, has been the first to bring the two facts together—is,
to a certain extent, justified in regarding the use of Hierapolis as
“the prototype of the later pillar-saints;” but, historically, they are
hardly connected.
Simeon began with standing for three months continuously upon the sill
of the hole in the wall, through which the sacrament was handed in to
him in his enclosure, because during the great fast he had seen, for
three whole nights, an angel performing ritual prayer upon this stone,
with bowings and prostrations. Next he caused a pillar to be raised for
him to stand on; it was only six cubits high, so that he could still,
without difficulty, converse with the people below. The top, a cubit or
so square, had probably some kind of balustrade for him to lean on, but
had no covering; and was completely exposed to the broiling rays of the
Syrian sun, as well as to the rains and snows of the winter, which in
Northern Syria, in such an exposed situation, is often bitterly cold. To
live upon a pillar was a grave addition to his self-mortification, but
at the same time it served to raise him above the world and above men.
Many, it is true, even then asked what good purpose was gained, and
others openly scoffed at his folly; all that his defenders could say in
reply was, that he had done so because God had commanded him—in other
words, as we would translate the expression, because he had taken it
into his head to do so. But on the majority the very singularity of his
position made a great impression. Had he kept to the level ground he
would never have become nearly so famous. With admiring astonishment his
biographers go on to relate how, in the course of seven years, Simeon
thrice caused pillars to be set up of increasing height, until at last a
maximum was reached of thirty-six or forty cubits, at which elevation he
remained for fully thirty years. Of this last pillar the following is
related:—When he was standing upon his pillar of twenty-two cubits, he
at the beginning of the great fast (during which he always withdrew
entirely from mankind) gave instructions to prepare, against the end of
the forty days, another of thirty cubits, to consist of two parts. The
workpeople set themselves to the task, but somehow it always failed;
four weeks had passed, and nothing had been accomplished. His most
intimate disciple ventured one night to shout up to the saint tidings of
their ill success. Simeon ordered him to come back the following night,
when he told him that, by a revelation he had received, the pillar must
be forty cubits high and made in three parts, corresponding to the
persons in the Trinity. This high pillar was quickly gone on with, so
that it was ready by the end of the fast to be brought within the
enclosure for the saint to take his stand on it.
On the top of his pillar Simeon prayed continually, with strict regard
to external forms. Once an admirer counted that he had prostrated
himself one thousand two hundred and forty-four times in succession in
prayer; he then stopped counting, but the saint still went on with his
devotional exercise. With a very limited intelligence Simeon must have
combined an uncommonly healthy and vigorous constitution to be able to
carry on such a life for so long. Even the strength of lung which made
it possible for him to speak from that height to the people below
deserves our respect. He suffered indeed severely in one of his legs
from festering sores with maggots; but latterly this malady seems to
have abated somewhat,—the pure, dry air doubtless being favourable to a
cure. His biographers revel in descriptions of these bodily troubles. In
their pages the maggots become at last huge worms, which his favourite
disciple must always replace if they slip away. On one occasion, it is
related, one of these fell from the top of the pillar to the ground; an
Arab chieftain, a believer, took it up, and, full of fervour, laid it to
his eyes and to his heart, whereupon it was turned into a precious
pearl. During the night and the greater part of the day Simeon occupied
himself in prayer and meditation, except, of course, in the hours of
sleep; but his afternoons he gave to mankind, and spent in addressing
the multitude below,—instructing, consoling, rebuking, admonishing, and
settling disputes. We need not doubt that he often espoused the cause of
the oppressed with success. In the Roman empire there were then only too
many occasions for such intervention. The man who had no one to fear
could dare to make his voice heard; and in presence of the great
authority which he enjoyed far and wide, many an official must certainly
have been compelled to yield, however unwillingly. We still possess the
text of a letter in which a priest named Cosmas, and all the clergy and
notables of his village, pledged themselves to a moral and pious life,
and, in particular, never to take a higher rate of interest than
one-half per cent. per month—that is to say, the half of the then usual
interest of twelve per cent. per annum. That he insisted upon this lower
rate of interest never being exceeded appears also from other testimony.
But in this connection, where the covetousness of the individual is so
powerfully supported by the general conditions of trade and commerce,
his influence cannot have extended far. On the other side of the
account, there was no proper guarantee against abuse of the power which
the saint had over the multitude; nor were instances of this wanting.
Perhaps the following case comes under the category:—Notoriously one of
the worst defects in the constitution of the Roman empire was that the
higher municipal officials were weighted with heavy expenses, which
often ruined their fortunes; every one therefore, who could, evaded the
burden of such charges. It happened on one occasion that the governor of
the province wished to bring two young citizens into the Council of the
city of Antioch. They betook themselves to Simeon, and represented the
conduct of the governor as a piece of vindictiveness. Simeon interfered
on their behalf, but without success; the governor immediately
afterwards, we are told, was deposed with contumely, summoned to
Constantinople, and relegated to exile. This was a divine punishment.
According to the Syriac biography, the powerful minister Asclepiodotus
published an ordinance of the emperor Theodosius II., commanding the
restoration to the Jews of all the synagogues which had been forcibly
taken from them by the Christians. All good Christians were indignant at
the idea that buildings where Christian worship had been held should
again fall into the hands of “the crucifiers.” Several bishops,
accordingly, turned with this complaint to Simeon, who wrote a blunt
letter to the emperor. Theodosius promptly recalled the edict, sent to
the saint a humble letter of apology, and deposed Asclepiodotus, the
friend of Jews and heathen, the enemy of Christians.—The affair cannot,
however, have happened exactly in the manner related. We still possess
the text of the imperial mandate to the chancellor (_præfectus
prætorio_) Asclepiodotus, in which it is forbidden henceforward to take
their synagogues from the Jews, and order is made to pay them reasonable
compensation for such as had already been used for Christian worship,
and so could not be restored. We can scarcely suppose this order to have
cancelled another more favourable to the Jews, and, in any case, Simeon
can hardly have had a great share in procuring it, for it was issued as
early as 423, when he can have been but little known. The story is
nevertheless instructive, as illustrating how unfair men can become
through fanaticism; for here a simple claim of justice is represented as
a shocking crime. It shows, at the same time, how great was the
authority attributed to Simeon.
Once and again, on other occasions, Simeon condescended to hold
correspondence with the great ones of the earth. Thus, in the closing
period of his life (457-459 A.D.), he gave the emperor Leo a written
opinion in favour of the Council of Chalcedon (451), which had defined
the dogma of the two natures of Christ. In the same sense he wrote also,
about the same time, to the patriarch Basil of Antioch. Whether the
saint understood—so far as they are at all intelligible—the dogmatic
niceties which were dealt with at Chalcedon, may be left an open
question. The Monophysites of Syria, who were opposed to the Council of
Chalcedon, and who were a majority in that country, afterwards ignored
this action of Simeon and reckoned him among their saints; as was also
occasionally done by the Nestorians, although their doctrine—which
refused to call Mary the “mother of God,” and which had been condemned
as early as 431 by the Council of Ephesus—was held in detestation by
Simeon, and had been expressly repudiated in a letter of his to a former
patriarch of Antioch. Simeon, it may be conjectured, dictated his
letters to one of his disciples, who stood at the top of the ladder by
which his confidants climbed up. Whether he himself could read and write
is uncertain.
The actions of this eccentric saint and the anecdotes told about him
made, as already hinted, a particular impression on the uneducated. All
our informants dwell on the admiration he excited in the wild Arabs. It
is credible enough that many Bedouins were induced by him to receive
baptism, though hardly in such numbers as is asserted. In doing so they
vowed to abstain from the flesh of the wild ass and of the camel. This
vow can have been kept only by tribes possessing sheep or goats: with
most Arabs camel’s flesh is the only available meat, apart from game,
which is not plentiful. When Theodoret once, at Simeon’s instance,
bestowed his blessing on some newly-converted Arabs, these believers so
crowded and jostled to touch his limbs and his garments (to secure the
blessing properly) that he feared for his life. And once, in true Arab
style, the representatives of two different tribes had a free fight at
the foot of Simeon’s pillar, because each demanded that the saint should
send his blessing to its own chief, and not to that of the other.
Simeon, with invectives and threats, had the utmost difficulty in
separating the combatants. This improvised Christianity did not strike
deep root among these Arabs. In some tribes baptism had certainly
already disappeared before the rise of Islam, and the Arabs of the then
Roman dominion who had continued to profess Christianity, with few
exceptions, soon went over to the new religion. His influence on the
inhabitants of Lebanon, who at that time were still mostly pagans,
appears to have been more permanent; for it is probable that the
Maronites are the descendants of the converts who accepted baptism after
Simeon’s intercession, as they believed, had freed them from the ravages
of wild beasts. These beasts are represented as having been a kind of
spectres who appeared in shifting forms; but as it is said that the
skins of two of them were hung up beside Simeon’s pillar, even the pious
editor of the Syriac biography cannot quite free himself of the
rationalistic idea that there must have been great exaggeration in this,
and that the creatures were actually hyænas.
It is not inconceivable how the fame of the saint, growing ever from
mouth to mouth, should have reached Persia also, and even the Persian
court: superstition does not always pay heed to differences of religion.
Theodoret says only that the king of Persia is reported to have begged
consecrated oil of him, but less cautious writers positively assert both
this and more.
I spare my readers most of Simeon’s miracles, which are mainly of the
conventional type. Most of what is related by Theodoret in this
connection may be historical; all that is required is to allow for some
involuntary corrections of the facts, and to bear in mind the weight of
the principle—_post hoc, ergo propter hoc_. Thus, Simeon is said to
have predicted on one occasion the coming of a swarm of locusts as a
punishment, but that through the divine mercy it would not cause great
harm; and this actually came to pass. The story may be essentially true.
In these regions locusts are a frequent plague, and so an obvious
element in all preaching of sin and its punishment; such preaching must
also include some reference to the divine compassion in case of
repentance, and thus an announcement of the kind is always justified by
the event, whether that be the punishment of sin or the compassion that
follows repentance. Nor have we any reason to doubt that the wife of an
Arab prince had a son after Simeon had prayed for her; it is only a
somewhat late biography that connects with this fact an incredible
miracle of healing. The appearance or disappearance of local calamities
was certainly often ascribed to his curse or blessing. His miraculous
cures are covered by the general remarks made above (p. 208).
Superstition, however, did not content itself with such miracles as were
wrought by every petty saint, but went on to attribute to Simeon magical
powers. Thus it is related that creatures so fleet and so shy as the
ibex or the stag could be so charmed by means of his name as to become
easy captures; this, however, was regarded as a culpable abuse. On the
other hand, it was naturally viewed as very praiseworthy when a cleric,
by the same means, took away all power of motion from a great snake
which was about to devour a child; in this state it continued for three
days, when it was released by Simeon with the command to do harm no
more. It is even said that a male snake once came to Simeon to beg
healing for his female, which was ill; the application was of course
successful; the patient attended outside the enclosure, for Simeon (as
we know in other connections) strictly prohibited any female to enter
that sacred plot of ground.
But the most wonderful miracle of all is as follows. A ship was
labouring in the high seas in a heavy storm. At the mast-head there
appeared a black man in token that the vessel was doomed. But it so
happened that there was on board a man of the region of Amid (Diárbekr,
in Mesopotamia), who had with him some of Simeon’s holy dust;[95] with
this he made a cross upon the mast, scattering the rest over the ship,
whereupon all with one voice called upon Simeon to procure their
deliverance from God. Instantaneously, Simeon himself appeared,
vigorously chastising the black man with a scourge, and driving him
away. As he fled, the evil one complained of the saint for persecuting
him, not by land only, but also by water. The sea forthwith became calm.
Let it be observed, that this miracle is effected by Simeon while he is
still alive and standing on his pillar. An old popular superstition
about the demon of the storm and the heavenly deliverer[96] is here
crassly transferred to Simeon, even in his lifetime. According to a
shorter version of this story, Simeon once stood long inattentive to the
assembled multitude beneath who were imploring his blessing; at last he
began to speak, and informed them that in the interval he had in person
been saving a ship with 300 souls. That is to say, his spirit had been
absent, and unable to pay attention to the people below. He had become a
supernatural being, and could be in two places at once.
After fifty-six years of severest asceticism (thirty-seven of them upon
his pillars) Simeon died, upwards of seventy years of age, on Wednesday,
2nd September 459. His death was at first kept as secret as possible,
that no one might carry off the corpse, so full of blessing. The
preparations for his burial were prolonged, and probably the body was
embalmed. On 21st September began a funeral procession of unprecedented
solemnity, which arrived with the body of the saint at Antioch on the
25th. Bishops and clergy of every grade, officials, and innumerable
people accompanied it, as well as the generalissimo of the forces in the
eastern provinces, Ardaburius, son of Aspar, with some thousands of
Gothic soldiers, who indeed, like their commander, were heretical
Arians, but doubtless shared the superstitious veneration of the
Syrians. For the first hour the coffin was carried by bishops and
priests; it was then transferred to a car. The burial took place in the
great church of Constantine at Antioch. The emperor Leo wished to
transport the body to Constantinople, but abandoned the idea on the
earnest entreaty of the Antiochenes. It may be conjectured that the
function was the more frequented because men’s minds were still agitated
on account of the two earthquakes (of September 457 and June 459) which
had caused dreadful havoc in Antioch. In the body of the saint the
Antiochenes hoped to possess a charm against the recurrence of such
manifestations of the “wrath of God”—a hope which proved vain.
Evagrius, the Church historian, saw the body of Simeon when the
Commander of the Forces in the East, Philippicus, son-in-law of the
emperor Maurice, caused it to be exhibited (probably in 588). At that
time it was still well preserved, though it had lost some teeth, to
which believers had helped themselves as salutary relics. I have not
found any later writer who notices, at first hand, the grave and relics
of Simeon.
A large building was soon erected on the spot where Simeon had lived.
The name of this despiser of all earthly things, whose whole life was a
scornful protest against all concern for the beautiful, was commemorated
in a masterpiece of architecture, the only fine art which then
flourished vigorously, connecting mediæval and modern art with pagan
antiquity by great and original works. On the heights of Telnishé arose
a splendid church, described by Evagrius, the ruins of which still leave
an impression of grandeur on the traveller. The main building forms a
cross, the arms of which, at the point of intersection, enclose an open
space. In the centre of this still stands the base of Simeon’s pillar.
In the time of the historian a great shining star was often seen above,
in a gallery of the inner space. Evagrius, a native of Syria, regarded
this phenomenon, which he himself had witnessed, as supernatural, just
as his pagan countrymen had formerly believed in the divine origin of
the light which from time to time was seen above the sacred lake of
Aphrodite in Lebanon, or as the Russian pilgrims of the present day
still ascribe to a supernatural source the light in the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, at which they kindled their Easter tapers.
Simeon has had several successors in Syrian lands. Some at least of
these must, however, have greatly modified the penance of standing on
the pillar, for several authors are included in their number, and one at
least, Joshua Stylites, was a very sober-minded and sensible person.
An enthusiastic deacon named Vulfilaicus, somewhere about the middle of
the sixth century, set up for himself in the neighbourhood of Treves a
similar pillar. But the bishops ordered him down, as he could not
possibly vie with the holy Simeon; and his own bishop, when his back was
turned, caused the pillar to be broken to fragments. If not so learned
as the Syrians, the Frankish bishops had more common sense. Such
ridiculous asceticism did not suit the West, where, on the other hand,
the early mediæval Church rose to the task of educating the rude peoples
in a way that has no parallel in the East.[97]
The famous ecclesiastical writer Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, in
Northern Syria, has given us a sketch of Simeon Stylites, with whom he
was acquainted, and by whom indeed he was survived. In spite of its
somewhat ornate style, this is, on the whole, the most trustworthy
biography; the author was a man of education.
Much fuller is the account which was written not long after Simeon’s
death by two honest, but rather uneducated Syrians (probably in
472),[98] and which has incorrectly been ascribed by the learned
Maronites to the Cosmas mentioned above (p. 217). It gives very useful
additions to Theodoret’s picture, with a good deal of the legendary
exaggeration which already had begun to gather round the figure of the
saint. It is, however, highly characteristic for the ideas and manner of
expression that prevailed in the circles where it was written. It became
very popular, and the MSS. present considerable variations of text, as
is usual in such popular books.[99] Evagrius used it. Quite inferior to
both these is the Greek biography which is said to have been written by
Antony, a disciple of Simeon. It contains so many extravagances that it
can hardly be so old as it professes to be.
Our later authorities about Simeon have no independent value. There are
some Syriac letters of Simeon in the British Museum which might be worth
publishing, but the editor would have to be on his guard against
spurious or interpolated pieces.
John, Monophysite bishop of Asia (the province so called), or Ephesus, a
Syrian of Amid (Diárbekr), but who spent great part of his life in
Constantinople and elsewhere in the West, composed in his mother-tongue
a Church history, of which considerable portions have reached us
directly or through other writers, and also a book containing sketches
of pious men or saints whom he had met in the course of his long life.
John was learned, and, as it seems, a man of some activity, but of
little enlightenment. Naturally of a mild disposition, he was
nevertheless a zealous Monophysite, and hated the Council of Chalcedon
with all his heart. All his pious characters accordingly are strict
Monophysites. The world brought before us in these sketches is dismal
enough, but if we arm ourselves with the needful impartiality, we can
learn from them a great deal about the period to which they relate. In
presenting a few of these figures to my readers I do not select the most
important, but such as exhibit most clearly some of the characteristics
of the Syrians of that age.