ON ST. SIMEON STYLITES THE THIRD
Sixth Century.
CommentarySimeon Stylites the Third, among the Greeks (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
Besides the two most celebrated Simeons, surnamed Stylites, namely the elder, of whom on the 5th of January, and the other younger, of whom there was treatment on the 24th of May, the printed Menaea of the Greeks consign on this 26th of July the memory of our holy father Simeon Stylites, presbyter and archimandrite, This third Stylite Simeon, honored by the Greeks in these words: Μνήμη τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις πατρὸς ἡμῶν Συμεῶν τοῦ Στυλίτου πρεσβυτέρου καὶ ἀρχιμανδρίτου γενομένου, That is: The memory of our father among the saints Simeon the Stylite, who was presbyter and archimandrite; and he is reported in exactly a similar manner in the Turin manuscript, so that more need not therefore be investigated. The same, but on the following day, both Kalendars of the Copts announce, which was in use among the Egyptian Christians, of which one at least Selden judges was written more than four hundred years ago, in book 3 on the Sanhedrins of the ancient Hebrews, and the Syriac or Chaldaic one printed at Rome in the year 1624: and likewise the Dijon manuscript of our Peter Francis Chifflet places the memory of our holy father Simeon the archimandrite, to whom is added, ridiculously and without anyone's assent, "in the Mandra," concerning which the preliminary Commentary to the Acts of the younger Stylite Simeon on the 24th of May, §1, is to be seen.
[2] How certainly it is established, from what was there disputed, uncertain whether he is distinguished from the Thunderstruck one, that this third Stylite Simeon ought to be reckoned different from those two more illustrious ones, so uncertain is it whether he is the same or not with him whom some make the fourth Simeon Stylites, and whom John Moschus, in his most well-known Spiritual Meadow, records to have perished struck by a thunderbolt. However that be, since no fuller information of that third Simeon is found anywhere, I judge it will not be unwelcome to those desiring to obtain a somewhat more expressive knowledge of the Stylite Simeons, if we here subjoin the things which are read concerning that Thunderstruck one. And lest, frightened by the word "Thunderstruck," you should rashly judge him perhaps unworthy of the sacred Fasti, permit me here to transcribe what our Matthew Rader, in his Viridarium, part 3, chapter 4, §7, on occasion of this Stylite, who, equally with the younger, was at the same time an archimandrite, most rightly observes.
[3] The just man, he says, by whatever death he be forestalled, concerning whom a few things from Rader will be in refreshment. This is no note of impiety or crime, when holy men are taken from the midst by an unexpected kind of death; whether they be struck with apoplexy, or laid low by a thunderbolt, or dashed by falling ruins, or extinguished by pestilence, hunger, thirst, sword, fire, water. This is the chief point, that death catch thee not unprepared. I am not ignorant that the thunderbolt was ominous to the pagans, and was thought to be in place of an avenging punishment, as it is in the prince of poets, 6th Aeneid:
This ancient race of earth, the Titanian offspring, Cast down by the thunderbolt, are rolled in the deepest bottom.
Thus Aesopus, Salmoneus, Ajax son of Oileus, Phaethon, Aesculapius, and others are read to have been struck from heaven. But not therefore is the guilt to be derived from one or another punished to all. The heavenly vengeance goes to avenge mortals by pestilence sent upon them, and yet not all who are seized by that plague are impious: which very thing to affirm would be most impious … Therefore restrain thy judgment when this man, that man, and whosoever else is said to have been taken away by an atrocious kind of death. Death makes no one impious; but those caught in an impious way it leads to death by an unusual way; nor that always: often the wicked die peacefully, the innocent with great torment. So he.
[4] and by John Moschus are set forth, Receive now the things which above, where we noted the dots …, somewhat truncated and altered by Rader, were passed over by us; from the very Spiritual Meadow of John Moschus, chapter 57, here to be exhibited word for word. Thus he there speaks: About forty miles from the city Aegae of Cilicia there was a Stylite, by name Simeon. He, struck by lightning, perished. The abbot Julian, a Stylite presbyter, therefore, contrary to his custom, at an unwonted time said to his disciples: Put incense into the censer. Who said to him: Tell us the cause, Father; and they prayed him to tell them. But the old man said: Because just now my brother Simeon, cast down by lightning, has perished, and behold his soul passes with dancing and exultation. But they were distant from one another about twenty-four miles. This the praised Moschus: nor is anything more found anywhere concerning the deeds, virtues, or age of that Thunderstruck Stylite. Do thou, concerning the use of incense, see Rosweyde's Observation on this passage and his onomasticon.
[5] things paving the way to explore Moreover Aegae, by others Aegas and Aegaea, from which the distance of the dwelling of that Stylite is here insinuated by Moschus, is an episcopal city of Cilicia on the Issic gulf under the metropolitan of Anazarbus, whence at least concerning the region we are certainly instructed in which that Thunderstruck Simeon lived; who, whether with another, known to the classic Latin Martyrologies almost by name alone, at least by the simple title of monk, can be aptly enough confused, we shall presently try to investigate. Concerning him also Baronius observed some things in the notes to the Roman Martyrology, on occasion of Simeon Stylites the elder, and rightly admonished that he must, from the kind of death, be plainly distinguished both from that elder and also from the younger, which you will find noted by other Legendists too. But who that Julian, likewise a Stylite, is, and whether he can be numbered among the Saints, is hitherto hidden from us, finding no memory of him except in the said Moschus in this and the following chapter; so that we are altogether destitute of the due monuments for determining anything. Now concerning our Thunderstruck one let us be permitted to conjecture a few things.
[6] It ought especially to be asked whether that Simeon, a monk and confessor in Sicily, whether the monk Simeon of the 27th of July who was noted by the author of the Little Roman, Ado, Usuard, Notker, and indeed in nearly all the Hieronymian ones, cannot be judged the same with the aforesaid Stylite and Thunderstruck one, although in the aforesaid Martyrologies he is noted on the following day, the 27th of July, as we have seen him also placed in some of the said Greek Fasti and others. In the Observation on Usuard we candidly confessed that we could not yet attain why the aforesaid Simeon, so expressly and by Bellini noted, was altogether passed over by the revisers of the Roman Martyrology, which neither do we now sufficiently understand, unless perhaps, after diligent inquiry, they found that no monk Simeon at all is found in the Sicilian tables, who is honored on that day among the Sicilians. Nor indeed could our Cajetan find him or any Life or memory of him in Sicily: and while in his Martyrology he recounts him, he adduces no other authors besides Bede, Usuard, Ado, and Notker, so that you may easily perceive that this Saint, with respect to the Sicilians, is plainly accessory; say boldly, altogether unknown to them.
[7] That you may fit a wedge to this knot, which Florentini sought in vain, some crack seems to be opened by the most ancient Hieronymian codex of Epternach, noted in the classic Latin Martyrologies which reads most expressly not "in Sicily" but "in Syria," as also the more contracted ones, the Reichenau and St. Cyriacus; nay, also in the Usuardine Vatican codex it is thus read: In Syria, of Simeon the monk, who stood on a column. In the appendices of Bede Syria too is noted. Whether rightly enough; that this can be certainly concluded from these things, I indeed confess I cannot: but lest the Saint remain doubtful, nay plainly passed over with the Roman one; what if between those two positions a somewhat more suitable one be chosen, and it be supposed that an easily admissible error crept into most of the Martyrologies, and so it should be written Cilicia for Sicily or Syria; thus that Simeon the Stylite or Thunderstruck one will find among the Latin Saints too a deserved place, nor will he be excluded who in the whole progeny of the Little Roman is so expressly consigned, most probably one and the same monk and Stylite. Certainly that Simeon, most expressly expressed in so many sacred Fasti, neither ought nor could be here passed over, however much, for the rest, to distinguish him certainly among various synonyms be not so very obvious. Whether therefore he be called Simeon the Thunderstruck, or another, he is set in his due place.
[8] is not the same with him. Concerning the day on which he is to be honored, this or tomorrow, no one, I think, will make trouble; I have followed the Greeks, ready to choose either, provided only no one call the substance of the matter into doubt, or demand a clearer knowledge of him, concerning which, to establish the cult, you would dispute in vain. Nor concerning the age of the Saint himself is it permitted to adduce much surer things. That John Moschus flourished in the sixth century in Egypt, and died in the seventh, and that his body was carried to the monastery of St. Theodosius, this we know; to define the certain time in which either Julian or our Simeon lived, this is the task, this the labor: that both were not much older than Moschus, this altogether seems to persuade, that he seems to commemorate only things seen by himself, or lately heard, and done a little before the times of the emperor Heraclius, so that I think I have safely placed the sixth century, under that caution with which the bibliographers Bellarmine, Labbe, and others propose John Moschus to be read, as one who sometimes inserts things which have but little safe credit, nay even things related by persons not worthy of credit, and sometimes besprinkled with falsehoods.
But that these things are absent from today's Simeon, one may safely judge.