Simeon

CONCERNING ST. SIMEON, BISHOP OF JERUSALEM AND MARTYR

A.D. 107

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Simeon, Bishop of Jerusalem, Martyr (St.)

By J. B.

Section I. The feast day, ordination, martyrdom, and genealogy of St. Simeon.

[1] The second Bishop of Jerusalem after St. James the Apostle, son of Alphaeus, commonly called the Less, was St. Simeon, also called Simon by many. St. Simeon is venerated on February 18. The Roman Church honors him on the eighteenth day of February with an office of three Lessons. His name is inscribed on this day in nearly all the Martyrologies. The old Roman Martyrology published by Rosweyde, and the manuscript of St. Mary ad Gradus at Cologne, have the following: At Jerusalem, of Simeon, Bishop and Martyr. The manuscript of the Monastery of St. Martin at Trier reads: At Jerusalem, of Simeon, Bishop, son of Cleophas. This Bishop of Jerusalem was put to death by crucifixion during the persecution of Trajan. Ado of Vienne and the manuscript of the Church of St. Lambert at Liege state: At Jerusalem, of Blessed Simeon, Bishop and Martyr, who is reported to have been a kinsman of the Savior according to the flesh. Bede and Notker add: It is established, however, that Cleophas, whose son he was, was the brother of Joseph. Another very ancient manuscript of ours agrees: The feast of Blessed Simeon, Bishop and Martyr, who is known to have been a kinsman of the Savior according to the flesh, and the son of Cleophas, who was the brother of Joseph. The manuscript of the Monastery of Centula, bearing the name of Bede, reads:

At Jerusalem, of Blessed Simeon, next Bishop after James the Apostle, who is reported to have been a kinsman of the Savior, and who at the age of one hundred and twenty years endured the martyrdom of the cross. More fully than the rest, Usuard writes: The feast of Blessed Simeon, Bishop and Martyr, who is known to have been a kinsman of the Savior according to the flesh, and the son of Cleophas, who was the brother of Joseph. He was ordained Bishop of Jerusalem after James, the brother of the Lord, and during the persecution of Trajan, having been subjected to many tortures, he was consummated in martyrdom, while all who were present, including the judge himself, marveled that a man of one hundred and twenty years should have endured the punishment of the cross. So read all the manuscripts, both handwritten and printed, except that some call him Simeon and others Simon. The same account appears in the Roman Martyrology, with a few words altered. He is also commemorated by Maurolycus, Galesinius, Canisius, Felicius, and Ghinius.

[2] The Greeks venerate him on the twenty-seventh of April. On that day the Menologion published by Henry Canisius reads: By the Greeks on April 27: At Jerusalem, of the holy Martyr Simeon, Bishop of Jerusalem, kinsman of our Lord Jesus Christ. After many tortures, he was nailed to the cross and obtained the crown of martyrdom. A more elaborate eulogy is found in the Menaea, the Anthologion of Arcudius, and Cytheraeus. It seems fitting to publish it here, although we do not approve of what it contains regarding St. Simeon being made the stepson of the Mother of God, the son of St. Joseph, whom the most weighty Fathers report to have preserved his virginity throughout his entire life, as we shall say elsewhere. The cited codices therefore read as follows:

[3] He was the son of Joseph, the spouse of the Mother of God, and brother of James. Christ our God took him up, called him brother, and consecrated him a priest, that he might proclaim His glorious presence, or coming. Whence, wearied by countless labors and toils, not as a hireling but as a faithful shepherd, he adorned the throne of Jerusalem, and himself becoming a temple of the Holy Spirit, he labored greatly for the conversion of unbelievers: he overthrew the temples of idols, and led mortals entangled in errors to the light. And at last, having endured many grievous torments for the sake of piety, he was put upon the cross at the age of one hundred and twenty years, and from there he returned to his most beloved Savior Christ. This blessed man obtained a twofold name, for he was called both Simon and Simeon, and was the brother of both James and Christ himself. The same Menaea then celebrate him with many praises in various canticles and odes.

[4] Far more consonant with the truth are the things which Eusebius recorded concerning Simeon in his Ecclesiastical History, using to confirm them the testimony of Hegesippus, a most ancient and most weighty writer, whose works are nevertheless considered to have entirely perished. Thus Eusebius writes in Book 3, Chapter 10: After the martyrdom of James, and shortly after the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, it is reported that the Apostles and Disciples of Christ who were still alive at that time he is made Bishop of Jerusalem assembled from all places into one, and together with those who were related to the Lord according to the flesh (for many of them still survived) held a common council as to who should be judged most worthy to be appointed in James's place. There by unanimous consent they determined that Simeon, son of Cleophas (who is mentioned in the Gospel), was a suitable person to take the See of that Church. They say that he was a cousin of the Savior, son of Cleophas, brother of St. Joseph, for Cleophas was the brother of Joseph, as Hegesippus writes. Thus Eusebius.

[5] But Nicephorus Callistus, Book 3, Chapter 16, writes that Simeon was born of Cleophas, the uncle of Jesus, and of Mary his wife, whom they say was the sister of the Mother of God, that is, her sister-in-law (because she had married her husband's brother), indeed her daughter, not from Anna and Joachim, but not by blood: but from Salome and Joseph. We know that many Greeks believed that St. Joseph, before he espoused the Virgin Mother of God, had children from some earlier wife, which we shall refute elsewhere. For our present purpose it suffices that St. Simeon was the son of St. Cleophas.

[6] St. Simeon administered the Church of Jerusalem for a long time, and finally in the year 107 of the common era, the tenth year of Trajan, in the consulship of C. Sosius Senecio for the fourth time and L. Licinius Sura for the third time, he completed his martyrdom. For that year Eusebius writes in his Chronicle: he undergoes martyrdom in the year 107 When Trajan stirred up a persecution against the Christians, Simon, the son of Cleophas, who held the episcopate in Jerusalem, was crucified, and Justus succeeded him.

[7] The occasion and manner of the martyrdom the same Eusebius describes as follows, in Book 3 of the Ecclesiastical History, Chapter 26: After Nero and Domitian, under Trajan, whose times we are now investigating, a persecution is recorded to have occurred in various cities, stirred up by sedition of the populace against us. In that persecution we have learned that Simeon, son of Cleophas, whom we showed above to have been made the second Bishop of the Church of Jerusalem, ended his life by martyrdom. The witness of this is that same Hegesippus whose testimony we have frequently used in various places above. he is accused by heretics He, after treating of certain heretics, adds that Simeon was at that time maliciously accused by them on the ground that he was a Christian, was beaten with many blows over many days, because he was a Christian, so that the judge himself and those who were in the council were vehemently astonished at his endurance; and that at last he met an end not unlike the Passion of Christ.

[8] But it will be more convenient to hear the writer himself explaining these same matters in his own words. Certain men, he says, from those heretical sects accuse Simeon, son of Cleophas, on the ground that he was descended from David and was a Christian. and of the stock of David: And so he accomplished his martyrdom at the age of one hundred and twenty years, under the Emperor Trajan and the Consular Atticus. The same author adds that when inquiry was being made into those who were descended from the royal stock of the Jews, the very accusers of Simeon were themselves informed against, arrested, and taken into custody because they too were descended from that stock. That this same Simeon was one of those who had seen Christ and heard His words, one might conclude by sure reasoning, he had been a hearer of Christ: both from the evidence of the very long life which he lived, and from the fact that the book of the Gospels names Mary of Cleophas, whose son Cleophas he was, as already stated above.

[9] The same author reports that others, descended from the family of one of those who are regarded as brothers of the Savior, whose name was Judas, survived until the reign of Trajan, after the testimony which they gave for the faith of Christ under Domitian. He writes as follows: They come and preside over the Churches as Martyrs and as men descended from the family of Christ the Savior, and after a deep peace in the Church had been established, they survived until the reign of Trajan. Until that time also, as we mentioned before, he steadfastly endures his torments. Simeon, son of Cleophas, born of the uncle of the Savior, remained. He was fraudulently accused by heretics before the Consular Atticus on that very account. And when for many days he had endured cruel blows, he bore such witness to the faith of Christ that all, together with the Consular, marveled that a man of one hundred and twenty years should so bravely endure his torments. At last he was ordered to be crucified.

[10] What Hegesippus says here, that certain men descended from Judas, the brother of the Lord, were still alive at that time, At that time the grandsons of Judas, the brother of the Lord, were still alive, who had given testimony for the faith under Domitian, this is more fully recounted in the same Eusebius, Book 3, Chapters 15, which Rufinus rendered somewhat more briefly in Book 3, Chapters 18 and 19, in these words: Under the same Domitian, when he had ordered all to be destroyed who were descended from the family and royal stock of David, an ancient tradition holds that certain men were informed against as being of the posterity of Judas, whom they report to have been the brother of the Savior according to the flesh; and they were pressed by a twofold jealousy, both as being descended from the family of David and from the kinship of Christ himself. Hegesippus reports these things in order in these words: There were still living certain men of the carnal family of our Lord, grandsons of Judas, who was called the brother of the Lord according to the flesh. who in the year 96 openly confessed the faith, Certain men informed against them as being descended from the stock of David. One Revocatus, who had been sent for this purpose, brought them before Domitian Caesar. And a little further on: At these things Domitian, finding no crime in them, and despising their lowly condition, yet they had been released. ordered them to go free.

[11] Joseph Scaliger, in his Observations on the Chronicle of Eusebius, Joseph Scaliger's frivolous criticism, where at the sixteenth year of Domitian the text reads, "Domitian ordered those who were of the family of David to be killed, so that no one of the Jewish royal line should remain," annotates: From Hegesippus: those who were of the family of the Lord, grandsons of that Judas who was called his brother according to the flesh. And shortly afterwards he more correctly observes from the same Eusebius and Hegesippus that two of those descendants of Judas, the brother of the Lord, survived at that time. And then he exclaims: "It is remarkable indeed that the Evangelists nowhere mention this Judas, the brother of the Lord. But what surpasses all wonder is that the posterity of David should at that time have been reduced to only two, and, what conflicts with all history, that there should have been no posterity of David under Domitian except those who were descended from Judas, the brother of the Lord, if indeed there was any such person." that this Judas is not named in the Gospel; So he writes, whether from his habitual eagerness to bark at others, or from a careless examination of the passages of the authors. Let us grant indeed what St. Jerome seems to hold, that the Judas the Apostle is meant who is named in Mark 6:3, where the Jews speak thus: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon?" But could Scaliger clearly prove that those whom Hegesippus mentions were not his grandsons? Could there not have been another Judas, whose name was not recorded by the Evangelists, just as in Acts there is a Judas who was also called Barsabbas? If that Judas and the other brothers of the Lord listed in Mark 6 were Apostles, it is certain that there were also other brothers of the Lord who were not Apostles. For in John 7:5 there were certain brothers of the Lord who did not yet believe in him, whereas the Apostles did believe. Nor is there any reason why the names of all the brothers of the Lord must necessarily have been expressed in the Gospel, any more than those of Sts. Joachim and Anna, the parents of the Mother of God. Nor do I think that this would seem remarkable to anyone of sound mind. The other point (to speak in Scaliger's own sense) arouses the greatest wonder in me, and false, as if only two of David's stock then survived. namely that he should think Hegesippus and Eusebius assert that only those two survived from the stock of David, when besides them they say that Simeon, descended from the same stock, lived until the times of Trajan, and that his very accusers were arrested because they belonged to the same family. I omit what Scaliger adds about the Jewish Exilarchs, or leaders of those once taken captive in war, created from the age of Shealtiel until the year of Christ 1700 at Babylon from the stock of David, and thereafter in our own age in the city of Baghdad. Those things are drawn from the most vain fictions of the Jews.

[12] Nicephorus Callistus, Book 3, Chapter 16, narrates the martyrdom of St. Simeon in nearly the same manner as Eusebius, likewise citing Hegesippus; but he was greatly mistaken when he wrote that Judas himself survived to those same times, whereas Hegesippus reported this of his grandsons. Concerning their confession under Domitian he writes: "after the testimony already narrated by him on behalf of the faith in Christ under Domitian." It was not Judas himself who lived until the times of Trajan, but his grandsons. After that which he had previously set forth, a certain martyrdom accomplished under Domitian for the faith in Christ. Hegesippus writes, and Eusebius from him, that the grandsons of Judas, the brother of the Lord, survived until the times of Trajan, who having nobly confessed the faith before Domitian himself, had been released by him as free men, as was said above.

Section II. The relics of St. Simeon, Bishop and Martyr, at Brussels and elsewhere.

[13] Let this suffice concerning the lineage, ordination, martyrdom, and feast day of St. Simeon, Bishop and Martyr. A few things must be added concerning his relics. The relics of St. Simeon at Brindisi, In the catalogue of relics of the Church of Brindisi, printed in the year 1683 together with the Offices of the Patrons of the same Church approved at Rome, there are also named Relics of St. Simeon, Bishop and Martyr. The relics, whose list is there drawn up, are said to be covered partly in silver, partly in ancient ivory, and in glass ampullae, adorned: and placed in a fitting oratory.

[14] some at Bologna: Masinus testifies that at Bologna, in the church of St. James the Greater and in that of St. Francis, some relics of the same St. Simeon exist.

[15] At Brussels also, that magnificent city of Belgium, in the church of the Society of Jesus, the skull of St. Simeon, Bishop and Martyr, or a notable part of it, is preserved and religiously venerated on this day. How it came to be there, notable ones at Brussels, I shall explain partly from the acts legitimately drawn up in the year 1603 concerning this matter, and partly from the certain testimonies of most weighty men.

[16] There is a monastery of the Benedictine Order at Lisborn in Westphalia, distant one league, as they say, from the city of Lippstadt, in the diocese of Munster, very ancient, from the Abbot of Lisborn and once rich in a sacred treasury of relics. In the year 1598 the army of the Catholic King under Francisco Mendoza, Admiral of Aragon, wintered in Westphalia, the March of Cleves, and the surrounding region. The cavalry was commanded by Don Juan Contreras de Gamarra, father of the Most Excellent Don Esteban de Gamarra y Contreras, who was recently General Commander of the army, and is now Ambassador of the Catholic King to the United States of Belgium. He was then Commissary of the cavalry, a duty which two men customarily hold in the royal army, and they govern a part of the cavalry, namely twenty or thirty squadrons under the Master of Horse and his Lieutenant, or in the absence of both, the entire cavalry. This office has now been abolished, the cavalry being distributed into legions, each led by individual tribunes. Furthermore, Don Juan de Gamarra was afterwards Governor of the city of Cremona in the Duchy of Milan, where he also died on November 16, 1616.

[17] To this man, then, Johannes, Abbot of Lisborn, in the year 1599 gave various relics of Saints, Martyrs, Confessors, and Virgins, given by Don Juan Contreras de Gamarra, a Spanish Commander and among them the Head and part of the body of St. Simeon, Bishop and Martyr. There exist documents drawn up concerning this donation, to which the same Abbot and the principal monks subscribed. In these they first call him a generous, noble, and valiant man, and honor him with other honorific titles; then they freely declare that he had by no means exacted any money from the monastery. Would that such restraint liberally, and reverence for sacred places always flourished among Catholic commanders and soldiers! They testify furthermore that, out of piety and a grateful spirit, in return for a spiritual gift, from the heart, sincerely and freely, with humble and due reverence, they had offered and given him the aforesaid relics; wishing him from the heart all prosperity, and that he might not only win a complete victory in this world over his enemies, for the honor of God and the profit and increase of His holy Catholic Church; with auspicious prayers: but that, trusting in Christ through the sacred relics of those Saints and the heavenly Court hereafter, having obtained the desired rest after his manifold labors and being crowned with the crown of eternal blessedness, he might deserve to be joined to them. Amen. Done in the year of salvation one thousand five hundred and ninety-nine, the eighth day of April.

[18] The same Abbot and monks attest that those relics had been given to their Church at the time of the original foundation of the said monastery by the Most Serene Charlemagne, Emperor of the Christians, and had been faithfully preserved, previously venerated there for a long time: and moreover held in due worship and honor by the faithful of the same monastery and parish up to the present day.

[19] The relics obtained in this manner, the same Don Juan Contreras afterwards sent to Spain, to the town called Torrelaguna, situated not many miles north of Madrid, the royal city: some sent to Torrelaguna in Spain: a part given to others: for he himself was a native of Torrelaguna, where a numerous nobility has its residence. These relics are preserved there in the church of St. Mary Magdalene. Some, however, he gave to the Duke of Lerma.

[20] But a part of the relic of St. Simeon he gave to Don Juan Mancicidor, who was a councillor and secretary to the Catholic King; and a part he left to his wife, Dona Adriana de la Torre. She gave a part of the skull and certain small bones, and also a bone of one of the Holy Innocents, to the pious and honored Virgin Anna Thomsia, and she in turn gave them to the church of the Society of Jesus at Brussels. a part to the Society of Jesus at Brussels, This Dona Adriana and Anna attested in a public document on January 12, 1603. Juan de Zeelandre, a priest of the Society of Jesus, in the same year 1603, caused this last donation to be entered in the public acts, and the testimonies of the Abbot of Lisborn, and of Adriana and Anna, to be included therein, as can be seen in the archive of the Brussels college.