ON ST. SIMEON, BISHOP OF METZ IN GAUL.
SECOND CENTURY.
Commentary
Simeon, Bishop of Metz in Gaul (St.)
I. B.
[1] St. Simeon is recorded by Paulus Diaconus as the seventh Bishop of the Church of Metz in Gallia Belgica. He is venerated on the sixteenth of February, on which day the following is read in the Martyrology of Metz, as Meurissius attests in the History of Metz: "At Metz, the deposition of St. Simeon, Bishop." Very many manuscripts bearing the name of Usuard, but augmented for the use of various Belgian Churches, likewise the Carthusian Greven, Molanus, Canisius, and others record: "In the city of Metz, the birthday of St. Simeon, Bishop and Confessor." Galesinius, Ferrarius, and at greater length Saussaius, who also places him again on the twenty-sixth of February, likewise record him on this day.
[2] Nothing concerning his deeds has been committed to writing, so far as we have seen. Meurissius extracted from the records of the Church of Metz only the following:
"The seventh, Simeon, was sprung from Hebrew blood."
He is said to have died in the Florarium of the Saints in the year of salvation 194, according to Meurissius in 183, having occupied his See for about thirty years. His body was interred in the celebrated crypt of St. Clement, the first Bishop of that city.
[3] This same body was transferred in the time of Charlemagne to the monastery of Senones, in the diocese of Toul, by Angilram, Bishop of Metz, upon whom Charles had conferred the governance of the monastery in such a way that the care of protecting it, or the right of Advocacy, should also rest with his successors, namely the Bishops of Metz. The monks, however, resisted, saying that they needed no protector other than Charles himself and the Roman Pontiff, fearing lest the Bishops might gradually abuse the pretext of guardianship to invade the possessions of the monastery. But Angilram's intention was different. At last, in order to win the monks over to his view, he resolved to honor their church with the body of St. Simeon. But they did not permit it to be brought into the church or the precincts of the monastery, lest (as they said) the Bishop might in any way seek to confirm his claim of arrogated jurisdiction. The most wise Bishop therefore yielded to their fear — or rather their obstinacy, as Johannes Ruerius puts it in his Antiquities of the Vosges, part 3, book 1, chapter 5. Near the monastery to the south there is a hill, on whose slope he built a small chapel and placed the sacred treasure there.
[4] Neither did divine favor fail the Bishop's pious plans nor the honors due to the Saint: for by the invocation of his aid and by the relics either brought forth or devoutly venerated, thunderstorms and tempests were dispelled, gentle rains were obtained during the most severe droughts, fevers were calmed, plague was driven away, and other benefits were obtained from heaven. At last, when Angilram was overburdened both with the care of his Bishopric and with his palatine duties, he appointed Horgantus, a monk of the same institute, as Abbot over the Senones community, retaining for himself and his successors only the supreme guardianship. Horgantus, moved by the splendor of the miracles that were wrought in that chapel through the merits of St. Simeon, after taking counsel with the monks, resolved to transfer the sacred body from there to the church of the monastery, dedicated to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul. This was accomplished with notable pomp and a very great concourse of people. The approximate time of this translation can be gathered from the fact that the Annals of the Franks establish that Angilram died in the year 791.
[5] The body of St. Simeon is now preserved in the monastery of Senones, enclosed in a silver casket skillfully made and adorned with elegant decorations, bearing this inscribed epigraph:
"In this casket rests Simeon our Patriarch. If you read his Life, his lineage proves him an Israelite. At Metz as Bishop he governed the seventh see."
The head is enclosed in another silver reliquary fashioned in the shape of a human head. An arm is in another reliquary fashioned in the shape of an arm, likewise of silver. The anniversary of his translation on the twenty-fifth of October is honorably celebrated in that monastery, while the people of Metz, as we have said, celebrate his birthday on the sixteenth of February. These details are largely from Meurissius, drawing on Ruerius.
[6] Ruerius adds that certain persons who had drowned were restored to life through the merits of St. Simeon; that lamps hanging before his body, having fallen to the pavement, were neither broken nor overturned, nor was any oil spilled at all; and that not only rain, but also fair weather when the rains are excessive or too prolonged, is obtained through him, and a remedy for all manner of other calamities.