Simeon the Prophet

ON ST. SIMEON THE PROPHET, AT JERUSALEM,

About the beginning of the first century.

SYLLOGE.

Simeon, prophet, at Jerusalem. (Saint)

BY J. B.

§ I. The memory of St. Simeon among the Latins and the Greeks: some ancient writers who make mention of him.

Saint Simeon, of whom Luke in the Gospel, chapter 2, makes illustrious mention, most of the sacred Fasti, both the more recent Are enumerated and the ancient, Greek as well as Latin, have vied with one another in celebrating, though on very different days. The Roman Martyrology, indeed, as enlarged and corrected by Benedict XIV, at the 8th day of October, immediately after the announcement of St. Birgitta, widow, subjoins this concerning St. Simeon: On the same day, the birthday of blessed Simeon the Old Man, who is read in the Gospel to have received the Lord Jesus into his arms. Many centuries earlier Usuard did the same, who began the present day's list of Saints with these words: The birthday of the most blessed old man Simeon, who is read in the Gospel to have received the Lord into his arms. Ado likewise, both in his Martyrology and in his Little Book on the Festivals of the Apostles, etc.; in the former place indeed writing only this: And of the most blessed Old Man Simeon: but in the Little Book just mentioned he wove for Simeon, out of the Gospel of Luke, an elogium in this manner: The birthday of the most blessed old man Simeon, of whom blessed Luke the Evangelist relates: "And behold there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was in him. And he had received an answer from the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had first seen the Christ of the Lord. And he came in the spirit into the temple. And when his parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, he also took him into his hands, and blessed God, and said: Now dost thou dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word, in peace." And so, nearly, the Vulgate has it, Luke chapter 2, verses 25, 26, 27, 28, 29.

[2] But Florus, Hrabanus and Notker inserted St. Simeon in their Martyrologies at the 5th day of January: Notker, following the example of the ancient martyrologists, various days, and relying on what Luke says of Simeon, added to him the title of Prophet. At Jerusalem, he says, the deposition of St. Simeon the Prophet, who received into his arms from the hands of his parents the Lord Jesus Christ, recognized by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, and foretold in mystical speech things to come not only concerning Him but also concerning His Mother; alluding, namely, to the words of Luke, verse 34 and following: And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold, this child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted: and thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed. But when he says deposition, he seems to indicate that St. Simeon made an end of living on that day. Hrabanus and Florus use the same word; the Martyrology of the latter, prefixed to volume 2 of March, has thus: At Jerusalem, the deposition of Simeon the Prophet: who received an answer from the Holy Spirit that he should not see death until he had seen the Christ of the Lord. Florus likewise makes mention of Simeon in his Poem on the Deeds of Christ the Lord, in Martène, volume 5 of the Anecdota, column 602; where he seems tacitly to hint that St. Simeon was a priest, or discharged the office of a priest when Christ was offered to the Lord: and since this matter must be discussed at greater length below, I transcribe here in passing the few little verses by which he seems to do so, following the example, as we shall soon see, of other martyrologists: they are these:

Most holy Simeon receives Him in joyful arms,

And while He is offered to God, while he gives pious gifts to the temple,

He declares Him to be the Lord of light, Him to be the king of salvation.

At the 5th day of January Wandelbert likewise sings thus:

But the kindly confessor Simeon possesses the Nones.

[3] in which the memory of St. Simeon But these words seem to be understood of the other Simeon, namely the Stylite, who is likewise venerated on this day. However that may be, with Florus, Hrabanus and Notker, so far as concerns the 5th day of January, on which they too mark St. Simeon, most of the Hieronymian codices agree. The Lucca codex in Fiorentini has thus — the feast of the Meeting of St. Simeon, when he received the child Lord into his arms, as Fiorentini says in his Annotations, clearly distinguishing it from his deposition: At Jerusalem, of Simeon the Prophet, when Mary and Joseph offered to him the Lord Jesus Christ, and the deposition of the same Prophet. In almost the same words the announcement of St. Simeon is framed in the Corbie codex in the same Fiorentini, in d'Achery, volume 4 of the Spicilegium, page 620, in Martène, volume 3 of the Anecdota, column 1572, as also in our Work, volume VII of June, in the shorter Corbie codex. Of the remaining old Martyrologies, indeed, printed by Martène in the same volume of the Anecdota, those of Murbach and of Auxerre — the latter compiled about a thousand years ago, as its title bears, under the name of Jerome — mark St. Simeon on the 5th day of January, but under the name of Simon, which among the Hebrews is equivalent to Simeon, as Jansenius of Ypres writes in his Commentary on Luke. Of the Hieronymian Martyrologies, indeed, printed in volume VII of June of our Work, there agree on the 5th day of January that of Rheinau, of Reichenau, the Augsburg one of the monastery of St. Ulrich, that of the Queen of Sweden, and Labbe's, which has thus: At Jerusalem, of Simeon the priest. The Echternach codex departs from those already cited, recording nothing of Simeon at the 5th day of January: but at the 2nd day of February, where in the others mention is made of the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it has thus: And at Jerusalem, of St. Simeon, followed by a small lacuna, which is perhaps to be supplied by the word Meeting or some other like it.

[4] But in this place there is indicated not so much a particular feast of St. Simeon in the Latin Martyrologies, as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin and the Offering of Christ. For Ménard, in his Annotations on the Book of Sacraments of St. Gregory the Pope, page 41, observes that the feast of the Purification is called the feast of St. Simeon in the codex of St. Remi. This is clear also from the book which is entitled the Roman Order, and is said to have been written in the time of King Pepin and Pope Stephen, from which Henschenius, volume 1 of February, page 273, number 23, extracts these words: Of this festival, that is, the ὑπαντὴ of the Lord, and of other festivals of St. Mary, it is read in the Pontifical Deeds that Pope Sergius ordered Litanies to be held on the day of the Presentation of the Lord in the temple. For thus it is written, that on the days of the Annunciation of the Lord, of the Dormition and of the Nativity of the holy Mother of God Mary, and of St. Simeon, which is called ὑπαντὴ in Greek, they should go out with Litanies from St. Hadrian, and the people should meet them at St. Mary's. The same name is given to the feast of the Purification by Anastasius the Librarian in his Sergius I, who obtained the Chair of Peter toward the end of the seventh century and left it by death at the beginning of the eighth. Finally, a feast proper to St. Simeon on the 4th day of February is marked by Galesini, by the author of the Martyrology which is called Canisius's, by Ferrari in his General Catalogue of the Saints, by Whitford in the Martyrology of the church of Salisbury, by Felicius, and by Petrus de Natalibus, book 3, chapter 80; where he narrates certain singular things concerning St. Simeon: as that when he received Christ he was in the 112th year of his age, and that, having died three days later, he was buried at Jerusalem on the 2nd day before the Nones of February: but he adds: These things are in the book on the Infancy of the Saviour, which namely was already from the year 494 placed among the apocryphal books by Pope Gelasius in the Roman Council; so that little credence is due to these things, on account of the many fictions that were invented about the infant age of Christ. But he is also commemorated at the 8th day of October in the Calendar of the proper feasts of the Church of Jerusalem in Wadding, in the Annals of the Minors, at the year 1342.

[5] Take now certain sacred Fasti of the Greeks, in which on the 3rd day of February, in the Menaea, the day after the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, or, as the Greeks say, the Hypapante, the feast of St. Simeon is inscribed. The Menaea at the said day first sing thus of St. Simeon in three little verses:

Ἤγγειλε

νεκροῖς

Πρέσβυς,

ὡς

θειὸς

λόγος,

Ἄνθρωπος

ὁφθεὶς,

μέχρι

καὶ

τούτων

φθάσει.

Τῆ

τριτάτη

δεσμοῖο

βίοιο

λύθη

Συμεώνης.

The Old Man announced to the dead that the divine Word, made man, would come even as far as them.

On the third (of February) Simeon was loosed from the bond of life.

Then they continue thus: Ὃς

ἐν

τῷ

παρόντι

βίω,

τὴν

παρατεταμένην

ζωὴν

δεξάμενος,

διὰ

τὸ

χρηματισθῆναι

ὑπὸ

Πνεύματος

τοῦ

ἁγίου,

μὴ

ἰδεῖν

θανάτον,

πρὶν

ἤ

τὸν

Χριστὸν

θεάσηται,

ἐν

ἀγκάλαις

τοῦτον

ὑποδεξάμενος,

καὶ

τὰ

περὶ

αὐτοῦ

ἐσομενα,

Πνεύματι

ἁγίω

θεοφορηθεὶς,

καὶ

προμηνύσας,

κατὰ

τὸν

αὐτοῦ

χρηματισμὸν,

τοῦ

βιοῦ

πέρας

ἐδέξατο. Who, when he had greatly prolonged his life here because of the answer given by the Holy Spirit, that he would not see death before he should see Christ, received Him into his arms, and, after he had foretold, inspired by the Holy Spirit, the things that were to befall Him, in accordance with the answer of the Holy Spirit received the end of life.

If I grasp the sense of the little verses, they signify that St. Simeon, having departed this life on the 3rd day of February, after he had received in his hands on the day before the long-awaited Messiah, carried to the Fathers placed in limbo the news of the divine Incarnation now accomplished, and foretold that the Messiah would shortly come into that very limbo, in order to free them from it.

[6] and in the Greek Menologies, On this same day (the 3rd of February) St. Simeon, together with St. Anne the prophetess, is also adorned with his elogium in the Menology of the Greeks published in Greek and Latin at Urbino in the year 1726 by Annibale Albani, Cardinal priest of the Holy Roman Church of the title of St. Clement; but in the one which Canisius published, on the first day of February; but since it is drawn almost entirely from what is read in Luke chapter 2, there is no need to transcribe it here. He is marked on the same day by Maximus Margunius, bishop of Cythera; in the canonical Hours of Grottaferrata; in the Anthology of the Greeks, in the Calendar of the Greeks of Reusner and of Génébrard. Theodore, in his Commentary on title 7 of the Nomocanon of Photius, presents the Novel of the emperor Manuel Comnenus, in which among the days on which the courts were to cease, that is, wholly feast days, is reckoned the 3rd day of February, on account of the feast of the memory of Simeon, the receiver of God. Καὶ

ἡ

γ.

διὰ

τὴν

τῆς

μνήνης, says the said emperor in the cited Novel, τοῦ

θεοδόχου

Συμέον

τελετὴν. Certain particulars concerning St. Simeon occur at the 3rd day of February in the Menology of the Greeks in Ughelli, volume X of the enlarged Italia Sacra, which, from the version of Arcudius of Corfu, has thus: On the third day before the Nones, the commemoration of the holy and just Symeon, who received the Lord into his arms, and of Anne the Prophetess. Symeon, an old man of signal justice and piety, withdrawing himself from every stain of sin, since he never departed from the temple but wearied God with assiduous prayers that, taking pity on the world, He would at last some time deliver mortals from the power of the demon, heard from an angel that he would not depart from the life of men before he should see the Christ of the Lord, Him who was to bring salvation to the whole world.

[7] and is celebrated in the Fasti of various nations; And with the same oracle Anne the Prophetess also was gifted by God. When therefore on the fortieth day from His birth the parents had brought the child Jesus into the temple according to the prescription of the law, Symeon, embracing Him in his veins (arms), said: Now dost thou dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word, in peace: because my eyes have seen thy salvation; and when he had prophesied both of the death of Christ, of the cross, and of the Mother who was to see her Son fastened to the cross, and Anne had given thanks to God, both of them completed the appointed sum of their life. But in a manuscript Supplement to the printed Menaea, which is in our possession, from an ancient parchment manuscript Synaxarion of Father Sirmond, these words are added: Τελεῖται

δὲ

ἡ

αὐτῶν

σύναξις

ἐν

τῶ

ἀποστολείω

τοῦ

ἁγίου

Ἰακόβου,

τοῦ

ἀδελφοῦ

τοῦ

κυρίου,

τῶ

ὄντι

ἐν

τῶ

σεβασμίω

τῆς

ὑπεραγίας

Θεοτόκου

τῶν

χαλκοπρατείων. But their festival is celebrated in the church of St. James, the brother of the Lord, which is in the venerable temple of the most holy Mother of God in the Chalkoprateia, namely at Constantinople. And that you may gather how widely the cult of St. Simeon spread itself through the Christian world, it will help to bring forward besides the sacred Fasti of some nations into which his memory is inserted. At the 3rd day of February he has a place in the Graeco-Muscovite Ephemerides prefixed to volume 1 of May; as also in the Slavo-Russian Menology of Sparwenfeld, which, from Sparwenfeld's version, has thus: Of the holy and just Simeon, the receiver of God: and of Anne the Prophetess, who lived 360 years. Likewise in the Calendar of the Ruthenians in Possevino, volume 2 of the Apparatus Sacer, page 366. At the 2nd day of February in the Coptic Fasti, in Selden, On the Sanhedrins of the Ancient Hebrews, page 393, it reads thus: Of Simeon the priest and of the carrying of the Lord; and the same is the entry of the Lord into the temple. On the same day he is marked in the Ethiopic Calendar in Job Ludolf, in the Ethiopic History, page 408.

[8] Some of the things which have been brought forward concerning St. Simeon from the sacred Fasti cited thus far as also some ancients, who after St. Luke come into controversy, and these will be discussed below. But assuredly beyond all exception is the signal elogium which Luke the Evangelist, at the dictation of the Holy Spirit, bestows upon St. Simeon; in which, although the Evangelist chose to pursue not all the things which Simeon nobly did, but only those which most nearly concerned the new-born Christ, he nevertheless declared in few words things than which hardly anything fuller could have been said to the praise of St. Simeon. Thus then Luke speaks of him in the Gospel, chapter 2: And behold there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was in him. And he had received an answer from the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. And he came in the spirit into the temple. And when his parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law: he also took him into his arms, and blessed God and said: Now dost thou dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace: because my eyes have seen thy salvation: which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples: a light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. And his father and Mother were wondering at those things which were spoken concerning him. And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold this child is set for the fall and for the resurrection of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be contradicted: and thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed.

[9] Imitating Luke, the ancient Fathers frequently celebrated the praises of St. Simeon in their writings: made mention of St. Simeon, Irenaeus, book 4 Against Heresies, chapter 7, says that Abraham with prophetic spirit saw that longed-for day on which the Son of God was to be man among men; and that the joy and rejoicing of the patriarch arising therefrom was fulfilled in fact by Simeon. And Abraham therefore, he says, knowing from the Word the Father who made heaven and earth, confessed Him as God: and taught by a representation that the Son of God would be man among men, through whose coming his seed would be as the stars of heaven, he desired to see that day, that he himself also might embrace Christ: and seeing it through the spirit of prophecy he exulted. For which reason Simeon too, of his seed, fulfilled in fact the rejoicing of the patriarch, and said: Now thou dost release thy servant, O Lord, in peace, etc. Ambrose comments thus on these words of Luke: And behold there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Symeon: and this man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: Not only from angels and prophets, from shepherds and parents, but also from the elders and the just does the generation of the Lord receive testimony. Every age and both sexes, and the miracles of events, build up faith. A virgin conceives, a barren woman bears, a mute man speaks, Elizabeth prophesies, the Magus adores, one shut in the womb exults, a widow confesses, a just man waits. And rightly a just man, who sought not his own grace but that of the people: desiring himself to be released from the bonds of bodily frailty, but waiting to see the One Promised; for he knew that blessed are the eyes which should see Him. Finally, that just Symeon, says St. Cyprian in his book On the Mortality, who was truly just, who with full faith kept the commandments of God, when it had been answered him from heaven that he should not die before he had seen Christ, and when Christ as an infant had come into the temple with His Mother, recognized in the spirit that Christ was now born, concerning whom it had been foretold to him before; and having seen Him, he knew that he would soon die. Glad therefore of his death now near, and secure of his approaching summons, he took the Child into his hands and, blessing the Lord, exclaimed and said: "Now dost thou dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace, since my eyes have seen thy salvation." Proving, namely, and bearing witness that then the servants of God have peace, then free, then tranquil rest, when, drawn out of these whirlwinds of the world, we make for the harbour of our eternal home and security, when, this death being discharged, we come to immortality.

[10] St. Augustine, in sermon 163, otherwise 3 On the Words of the Apostle, Latin writers volume 5, column 786 and following of the Benedictine edition, calls Simeon a holy Old Man, well deserving of God, and commends him for sincere piety. His words are: In this desire (of seeing the salvation of God, that is, Christ) was that holy old man Simeon: in this desire, I say, was that holy old man, well deserving of God, Simeon; without doubt he too used to say: "Show us, O Lord, thy mercy, and grant us thy salvation." In this desire, in such prayers, he received the answer that he should not taste death until he had seen the Christ of the Lord. Christ was born; the one was coming, the other was going: but until the one should come, the other was unwilling to go. Ripe old age was now shutting him out, but sincere piety was holding him back. But when He came, when He was born, when he saw Him carried in His Mother's hands, and pious old age recognized the divine infancy, he took Him into his hands and said: "Now dost thou dismiss, O Lord, thy servant in peace; since my eyes have seen thy salvation." Behold whence he used to say: "Show us, O Lord, thy mercy and grant us thy salvation." The desire of the Old Man was fulfilled, as the old age of the world itself was declining. He came to an old man, who found an old world. Among the Hymns composed by St. Paulinus, patriarch of Aquileia, who died about the beginning of the ninth century, and published by Madrisio at Venice in the year 1737, the one which is fourth in order, and is for the feast of the Purification, is inscribed of St. Simeon; in which, besides other things borrowed from Luke, Paulinus sings this of Simeon:

A priest of God, humble, most mild,

There was in the city a just man, a most excellent old man,

Happy, blessed Simeon, full of the heaven-flowing

And Holy Spirit, was present,

Moved by the will of God within the sacred court, etc.

[11] and the Greeks: whether in these St. Bernard, as edited and illustrated by Mabillon, Epistle 98, column 104, speaks thus of Simeon: But that Old Man too, as full of virtues as of days, with death now near, carrying Life in his hands, said: "Now dost thou dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace: because my eyes have seen thy salvation"; as if he said: I go down secure into the prison, I who feel my redemption so close at hand. And this man therefore, who dies with such secure joy and joyful security, is deservedly recorded to be celebrated with gladness in the Church. St. Ildephonsus, archbishop of Toledo, on the Purification

of Holy Mary there exists a Sermon in volume 12 of the Lyons Bibliotheca Patrum, page 588 and following, in which also some things in praise of St. Simeon are to be found. I pass over many others who, treating expressly either of the words of Luke, chapter 2, verse 22 and following, or of the Offering of the Lord, or of Simeon himself, wrote something concerning him. Of the Greek writers, Leontius, bishop of Neapolis in Cyprus, who flourished toward the end of the sixth century and the beginning of the seventh, composed an entire sermon on Simeon receiving the Lord into his arms, which Combefis published in part 1 of the Auctarium of the Greek Fathers, from column 681. Simeon is also praised, in the same Combefis, by the emperor Leo, called the Wise, in his Oration on the Presentation of the Lord; as also by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, in the Sermon on the Meeting of Christ the Lord, column 507 and following. Combefis, in his Annotations on the Works of St. Athanasius edited by himself, ascribes without hesitation the said Sermon on the Meeting of the Lord to Athanasius the Great, who flourished in the fourth century and became most celebrated for the labours and persecutions he endured for the Church. Then he raises against himself this text of Athanasius: For concerning Him (Christ) and the doctrine pertaining to Him Simon will contradict and dispute against Marcion, and Arius against Sabellius and also Eutyches against Nestorius: and both against the Church: upon which he writes thus: I see one thing which at the very first glance might seem to take it (the cited Sermon) away from the great Athanasius, namely that it mentions Eutyches and Nestorius, heretics at variance with one another and with the Church, who were plainly nearly a whole century younger than Athanasius. But the solution is easy and ready, if one attends ever so little: namely that those words were added by him who, after the Eutychian and Nestorian heresy, copied out that treatise for the use of his church, and added it to the other monuments customarily read in the Church in the manner of the Greeks.

[12] But why could not that sermon have belonged to another Athanasius or Anastasius, St. Athanasius of Alexandria bishop of Alexandria, who died in the year 614? The Benedictine editors of the Works of St. Athanasius, of the Congregation of St. Maur, in volume 2, page 415, weaken the reason of Combefis for which he supposes those words, And also Eutyches against Nestorius, to be interpolated — namely that Athanasius, having mentioned Simon and Marcion, Sabellius and Arius, presently reviews their errors, but said nothing of the errors of Eutyches and Nestorius — and they say: But we confess that it is not clear to us that the names of Nestorius and Eutyches are additions in this place: for besides that they stand in the two royal codices on whose authority this Homily was published, since this writer, after bringing in the names of six heresiarchs, mentions many heresies with the name of the heretics left unspoken, for example of the Docetae, the Apollinarists and others; he certainly seems to hint that it was by no means his purpose, after setting down the names of Simon, Marcion, Sabellius, Arius, Nestorius, Eutyches, to mention afterwards their heresies in order, but rather, having brought in the errors of the first four, to have then reviewed the remaining heresies as they presented themselves to his memory. But a fuller discussion of this matter will recur below. They add that other things also occur in that Homily which argue an age later than Nestorius, a style different from that of Athanasius, words not used by Athanasius, and other things of this kind, which may be seen in the said editors. Nor perhaps did the feast of the Meeting of the Lord have such antiquity that he could have delivered a Homily on it. This Homily, therefore, is at least of doubtful authorship. Many indeed of the Greek Fathers could be cited in this place, but it is equally doubtful whether the things cited under their name truly proceeded from them: of these we shall give the chief ones below.

§ II. Some errors concerning St. Simeon are refuted: whether he was a priest.

St. Simeon was neither Besides those things which Luke wrote of Simeon, some things are narrated of him which are either fabulous, or were written or borrowed by doubtful authors. There (in the suburb of Bethlehem), says Cedrenus, a Greek writer, Emmanuel, born of Mary, circumcised on the eighth day, after forty days was brought to Jerusalem to be presented to the Lord according to the Law: and He was received by the just Simeon. This Simeon, the receiver of God, a Jew, was one of those seventy interpreters who, for Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, had translated the Hebrew Old Testament into the Greek language before the coming of Christ, as St. Chrysostom relates in his Work on the six days. And this Simeon, when he had read the prophecy of Isaiah that a virgin would be with child and would bring forth a son named Emmanuel, utterly refused belief to the saying, because human nature by no means admits that a virgin should give birth. Thus it was revealed to him, being inspired from above, that he would live until the oracle of the prophet should be fulfilled. This the sacred Gospel also teaches us in these words: "He was endowed with the Holy Spirit, and had received from Him an oracle that he would not die before he had seen the Anointed of the Lord." Seeing therefore in the temple the little Child of forty days, he took Him into his arms, etc. Something similar had been written before him by Eutychius, patriarch of Alexandria, in the tenth century according to Selden, and he added: God therefore lengthened for him the term of his life, so that he lived three hundred and fifty years, until he saw Christ the Lord.

[14] one of the 70 interpreters; Ptolemy Philadelphus caused the divine Scriptures to be translated through 70 (or 72) interpreters from the Hebrew language into Greek, as Eusebius writes in the latter book of the Chronicles, in the 2nd year of the 124th Olympiad, that is, in the year 283 before the epoch of Christ according to the Table of the Olympiads and of the City of Rome, after the opinion of Varro, connected with the years of Christ, which Riccioli presents in book 2 of his Reformed Chronology, from page 105. These things, therefore, being so, and his death being fixed at the beginning of the epoch of Christ, he would have had to translate the Hebrew Bible into the Greek tongue at about the 67th year of his age. But so great an age of Simeon seems to have arisen from no other source than from the error by which St. Simeon is confused with another Simon, surnamed the Just, and high priest of the Jews, the father of Onias II; nor does so great an old age of his have any appearance of likelihood, and it appears to be a mere Talmudic fiction. As regards St. Chrysostom, however, cited by Cedrenus in the Work on the six days: just as that holy Father stood out most illustrious for the multitude of his writings, so very many spurious offspring were ascribed to him, from some one of which (for in his genuine works Simeon is not read to have been one of the 72 interpreters) Cedrenus excerpted this very thing.

[15] They relate besides that St. Simeon was either the son or the disciple of Hillel, nor the son of Hillel, a rabbi of great name: Génébrard, in his Chronology, page 205, at the year of the world 4020, writes thus of both. Eighty disciples of Hillel, a distinguished teacher. The more famous were Jonathan, son of Uzziel, whose Chaldee paraphrase on the Old Testament is extant in great part, and Simeon the Just, who received Christ in his arms. This is the Simeon in whom the spirit of the Great synagogue — which was less than the Prophetic, greater than the common — failed, as the Talmudic authors say "in the Tract Pirke Abhoth, sections of the Fathers." Rabbi Moses the Egyptian writes that he was not only the disciple but also the son of Hillel, and the teacher, indeed also the father, of Gamaliel (at whose feet Paul learned the Law). And a little below: Hillel, who lived 120 years, the father of Simeon the Just, Simeon of Gamaliel, Gamaliel of Simeon the Younger, were made great because they were at once most learned and most noble, of the family of David. Whence by their counsel the synagogue was administered for a hundred whole years until the Roman captivity. "R. Abraham in the historical Cabbala, Cozri." Scipio Sgambati, in book 3 of the Archives of the Old Testament, Title 1, page 417, has this concerning the same Hillel: An offspring of this Academy (the Babylonian) was Hillel; when he had learned (at Nehardea) he betook himself to Jerusalem, and snatched the literary primacy from the sons of Bathyra; and he so increased the sect of the Pharisees that he seemed to have been the first to found it. In Title 2, treating of the Academy of Jerusalem, he adds this to what has already been recited: Nehemiah is said to have raised up the Academy of Jerusalem, but Ezra to have founded and formed it, and Jedoas or Jaddus to have enlarged it, whom the Hebrews call Simeon the Just (of whom in the preceding number); but those two chiefs of the Pharisees, Hillel and Samai, are said to have brought it to the greatest throng of hearers and abundance of richer learning. And this was the custom, that one should first teach long at Babylon, so as thus at length to pave for himself the step to the chair of the Academy of Jerusalem: so Hillel did.

[16] St. Jerome mentions Hillel and Sammai on chapter 8 of Isaiah in these words: or disciple; nor the teacher of Gamaliel; The Nazaraeans (who so receive Christ that they do not give up the observances of the Old Law) interpret the two houses as two families, of Sammai and Hillel: from whom arose the Scribes and Pharisees; whose school Akiba took over. And after a few words he explains thus the age in which they flourished: Sammai therefore and Hillel arose in Judaea not much before He was born, of whom the former is interpreted "scatterer", the latter "profane": because by their traditions and δευτερώσεις they scattered and defiled the precepts of the Law. For more concerning Hillel, see Calmet in the Biblical Dictionary. But what they say of St. Simeon, namely that he was either the disciple or the son of Hillel, does not appear sufficiently probable: for if Hillel flourished a little before Christ, as Jerome relates, and came from Babylon to Jerusalem about the year 30 before Christ, as others relate; while Simeon, when Christ was born, was already an old man, and most probably of quite advanced age indeed, his old age hardly seems to allow that he should be said to have been a disciple of Hillel: to this effect also Cornelius Jansenius, bishop of Ghent, writes thus in his Commentaries on the Gospel Concord, chapter 10, page 76: Further, Galatinus thinks that this Simeon was he who is called by the Jews in the Talmud Simeon the Just, of the remnants of the great synagogue, who received from the fathers that more divine understanding of the Law which they call the Cabala, many excellent sayings of whom are contained in the Talmud, and that he was the son and disciple of Hillel, and the master of that Gamaliel (see chapter 22, verse 3 of the Acts of the Apostles) at whose feet Paul sat. But from the book Pirke Anoth, which a certain Fagius has given us translated, and from which book he nevertheless takes his opinion, what he says seems to be false. For in that book Simeon the Just is said to have long preceded Hillel, of whom no disciple named Simeon is set down, but a certain Gamaliel. Further, neither does Gamaliel, at one time Paul's teacher in the Jewish Law, seem to have been the son or disciple of our Simeon: for Simeon, if the matter had been so, would most probably have imbued him with his own religion, and taught him the coming of the true Messiah.

[17] nor the same as Simeon the High Priest, and grandson of Simeon the Just; To the Fragments of St. Hippolytus, bishop and martyr, published at Hamburg in the year 1716, there is inserted a Preface

of a certain one to the manuscript Arabic Pentateuch, which at page 35 has this: And Nathan handed it (the Mosaic Law) down to Shimeon, the elder son of Shetach. He it is who carried the Messiah in his arms. Simeon handed it down to Jehuda, etc. At the end of that Pentateuch the time at which it was written is noted; namely in the Huntingdon copy, the one thousand eight hundred and eighty-ninth year: but the Bodleian copy is said to have been written in the one thousand eight hundred and ninety-first Greek year. But since these years of the Greek epoch correspond to the sixteenth century of the Christian era, already declining, the author of the Preface prefixed to that manuscript Arabic Pentateuch claims no great credence for himself. Others, says Allatius in his Diatriba on the writings of the Simeons, page 3, confuse Simeon the Just with Simeon or Simon, high priest of the Jews, and grandson, through Onias II, of Simeon the Just, of whom above. But this Simon flourished at the same time as Ptolemy Philopator, as is clear from book 3 of the Maccabees (as they call it), chapters 1 and 2: and Eusebius in his Chronicle ties the reign of the latter to the 139th Olympiad; but the Nativity of Christ to the 194th Olympiad; and so Simon the high priest, son of Onias II, grandson of the Simon whom they call the Just, must have long since departed from the living when Christ was born. False, therefore, or at least uncertain, are the things which we have hitherto seen narrated of St. Simeon, if you except those which Scripture records of him.

[18] nor from blindness Singular, and not sufficiently firm, is what a certain Celsus — an ancient author indeed, but of an age not sufficiently ascertained — relates of the same man, while the other ancient writers are silent, in his Preface to the Altercation of Jason and Papiscus, addressed to Bishop Vigilius, which, under the title On Jewish Unbelief, is inserted in the Works of St. Cyprian published at Venice in the year 1728, among the Opuscula commonly ascribed to St. Cyprian, column CCXV and following. Celsus says in it that St. Simeon the old man had at one time been deprived of the use of his eyes, but at length, having received Christ into his arms, had miraculously recovered his sight. Simeon the Just also, he says at column CCXVII, who, being in blindness, admonished by a divine oracle, had heard that he would not die before he had seen Christ; when the Mother brought the Infant with her into the temple in the presence of all the people, and he had perceived in the spirit that Christ was born, he saw the Child when he had taken Him into his hands, and blessing God, in the sight and hearing of all, said: "Now dost thou dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace, since my eyes have seen thy salvation." Simeon announced that what he had heard when blind was accomplished with evident truth; and the truth which he had seen on receiving the light he openly proclaimed to the people by blessing God. For he had seen to this end, that he might report it, and by his revelation show that Christ was born, and instruct the first beginnings of the unbelief of the faithless people.

[19] But if this miracle had happened in Simeon, would Luke, freed by Christ. who heaps many praises, though in few words, upon him, have wrapped a thing so illustrious for the glory of Christ and of Simeon in such deep silence that he would not have chosen to express even a faint trace of Simeon's blindness and of the use of his eyes restored to him — he who nevertheless a little before declared in words plain enough that the use of speech had been restored to Zachary when John was circumcised? Would this have become known to Celsus alone, or would he alone of the ancients have committed it to writing? Assuredly I should not dare to assent without hesitation to Celsus affirming it, who perhaps drew it from apocryphal books: still less can those do so who maintain that Simeon was a priest and discharged the priestly office when, as they say, he offered Christ to God and blessed His parents: for the blind were kept away from the office of the altar, as is read in Leviticus chapter 21, verse 17 and following: Say to Aaron: Whosoever of thy seed throughout their families hath a blemish, he shall not offer bread to his God, neither shall he approach to minister to him: if he be blind, if he be lame, if he have a little, or a great, or a crooked nose, if his foot be broken, if his hand … Every one of the seed of Aaron the priest that hath a blemish shall not approach to offer sacrifices to the Lord, nor bread to his God: he shall eat nevertheless of the loaves that are offered in the sanctuary, yet so that he enter not within the veil, nor approach to the altar, because he hath a blemish, and he must not defile my sanctuary. Whether, however, Simeon was a priest or a layman, I shall now presently discuss.

[20] That Simeon was a just man, fearing God and endowed with the prophetic spirit, is agreed among all who think rightly (for I take no account of the Magdeburg Centuriators, Whether he was a priest, Brenz and Calvin, who, as Feuardent indeed notes on chapter 15 of book IV of St. Irenaeus, do not blush to make him a private manikin, a doting old man of obscure repute, distinguished by no title of dignity or office). Whether he was a priest or a layman is not agreed among the learned. Those who think he was a layman contend that Luke would no more have passed over in silence the priesthood of Simeon, from which no little weight would have accrued to his testimony concerning the coming of the Messiah upon earth, than his other praises, which he nevertheless carefully enumerates; adding also now and then that the ancient Fathers, who nowhere made mention of it, did not have the priesthood of Simeon known to them. Whether Simeon was a priest or a layman, says Benedict XIV, On the Feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the learned dispute; and since St. Luke records nothing of his priesthood, the common opinion is that he was a layman; although painters commonly paint him clothed in priestly vestments, as Ayala shows at length in the Work which he entitled "The Learned Christian Painter", published at Madrid in the year MDCCIII, book 3, chapter 4. As witnesses for the priesthood of Simeon, Athanasius, Epiphanius and Cyril are adduced; but the works from which the testimonies are drawn are apocryphal. Theophylact and Euthymius deny that Simeon was a priest. And Luke indeed records his virtues; but since he is silent on his priesthood, it becomes likely that Simeon was not endowed with that dignity. The words of Theophylact, bishop of Ochrid in Bulgaria, just cited by Benedict, a writer of the eleventh century, on chapter 2 of Luke, are these: Simeon was not a priest, but a man who loved God, and was waiting for when Christ should come to console the Hebrews, and to free them from the servitude of sin, and perhaps also from that by which they were in servitude to the Romans and to Herod. And those of Euthymius, a Greek monk who flourished in the twelfth century, are these: But he was not a priest, as it seems to me meanwhile: for otherwise the Evangelist would altogether have made this too manifest, as a great dignity of the Man. Leo Allatius, in the Diatriba on the Writings of the Simeons, page 3, also reports these words of Photius, patriarch of Constantinople in the ninth century, in the Amphilochia, chapter 156: Simeon was not a priest, but he far surpassed priests in virtues. And therefore the priest assisted them in the things which the Law prescribed to be done concerning the little Child: in which words Photius, as is understood more clearly from the Greek text, not only denies that Simeon was a priest; but also affirms that at the Offering of Christ some other than Simeon, who was in fact a priest, discharged the priestly office. For the rest, Theophylact and Euthymius have had not a few of the more recent writers following them and agreeing with their opinion of Simeon as not a priest, whom it is not necessary to review here.

[21] whether a layman, is disputed: with reasons But those who fight for the priesthood of Simeon contend that both Luke and the ancient Fathers stand on their side: Luke indeed, when he says of him: And he blessed them (Mary and Joseph) and said to Mary, etc.: since the office of blessing was proper to priests, according to that of Numbers chapter 6, verse 23 and the four following: Speak to Aaron and his sons: thus shall you bless the children of Israel, and you shall say to them: The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord show his face to thee, and have mercy on thee. The Lord turn his countenance to thee, and give thee peace. And they shall invoke my name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them. Likewise because he says of the same: And he took Him into his arms. Whence, says Beaux-amis, in volume 1 of his Gospel Harmony, on chapter 2 of Luke, page 67, we easily gather that Simeon had some right in sacred things. For whose was it, if not a priest's, to receive the offering made to God? And to perform the ministry of the temple in those things which were offered to the temple? All holy things to the holy, as the Law teaches; and great was the scrupulousness of Judaea in observing these laws, as in the rest, as Tertullian writes in the book On the Prescription against Heretics. For it was the priest's alone to receive things consecrated to God, and to speak of the same in the temple. He adds as supporting him St. Epiphanius, in the book On the Life and End of the Prophets, St. Cyril of Jerusalem in the Oration on the Meeting of the Lord, St. Augustine in Sermon 2 de tempore. But of the sayings of the holy Fathers by which they have seemed to claim the priesthood for Simeon we shall treat below: here we shall briefly discuss only those things which are adduced from the words of Luke to establish the priestly dignity for Simeon.

[22] It is indeed beyond doubt from Luke that it was granted to Simeon not sufficiently effective to take Christ into his arms; but whether this was by virtue of a priestly office which he discharged; or, on the contrary, was granted from some singular favour by which God deigned to reward the holiness of his life and his great desire of beholding the Messiah, Luke does not declare; and much less does he say that Christ was offered to God by Simeon, which would have been a priestly function. He says indeed at verse 29: And after they had performed all things according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their city Nazareth; but whether they satisfied the Law by handing Christ into Simeon's hands or not, he is silent; so that the priesthood of Simeon cannot be made out from this. Simeon, I admit, not only received Christ into his arms, but also blessed His Parents. But what do they wish to be concluded from this? For it does not suffice him, says Beaux-amis, page 68 verso, to hold the Little One and to utter the things that had been written of Him: but he also "blessed the Father and the Mother, εὐλόγησεν αὐτοὺς" — he blessed them. So that he is to be understood not so much to have praised them and extolled them on account of their offspring, but to have blessed them as one having authority. Beaux-amis, therefore, would have the priesthood of Simeon follow from the blessing imparted by Simeon to the Parents of Christ: and yet Beaux-amis himself teaches that there were various kinds of blessings, as of creation, of sanctification, of multiplication, and of praise: on what ground, then, the kind of blessing which Simeon used not being sufficiently established, does he contend that this was a solemn and priestly one? For many examples, says Benedict XIV, On the Feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary, chapter 18, are available in the sacred Pages of those who blessed and yet were not priests; for to bless is nothing other than to pray for good for someone. In book 2 of Kings, chapter 14, verse 22, Joab to David: and in book 3 of Kings, chapter 8

verse 66, the Israelites are read to have blessed Solomon when the dedication of the temple was completed; in the former place indeed in these words: "And Joab, falling on his face to the ground, worshipped and blessed the king": and in the latter in these: "And on the eighth day he sent away the people: and they, blessing the king, went to their tents rejoicing." In Tobias chapter 9, Gabelus blessed the younger Tobias in these words: "May the God of Israel bless thee, because thou art the son of a very good man and one that feareth God," etc.

[23] Nor is what has been said thus far hindered by what is adduced from the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, chapter 7, verse 7: some establish the priesthood for him; And without all contradiction, that which is less is blessed by the better. For this must not be understood of every kind of blessing: for neither was Joab better or greater than his king David, nor the Israelites than Solomon. But if, as those who defend Simeon's priesthood would have it, Simeon could bless the Parents of Christ as a priest, why, according to their adversaries, could he not bless them as a Prophet? Prophets likewise and men inspired by God, says Calmet in the Biblical Dictionary at the word Benediction, also invoked blessing upon the servants and people of God; with which invocations indeed the Psalms abound. The Patriarchs, when at the point of death, blessed their sons and their whole family; to which matter he cites Genesis chapter 27, where Isaac blesses Jacob; likewise Genesis chapter 49, where Jacob blesses his sons and foretells to them things to come; chapter 33 of Deuteronomy, where Moses, about to die, blesses the twelve tribes of Israel; and chapter 7 of Tobias, where at verse 7 Raguel blessed the younger Tobias in these words: A blessing be upon thee, my son, because thou art the son of a good and most excellent man. The Blessing, then, which Luke says Simeon imparted to Mary and Joseph does not greatly help those who contend that he shone with the priestly dignity. Indeed, there are not lacking things which, standing on Luke's words and the circumstances of the events then done, seem to urge the contrary. And first, indeed, Luke's very deep silence concerning him, of which mention was made at number 19, seems to stand against Simeon's priesthood. Nor does it help anything here if you should say that Luke, though not in words, yet in the thing itself indicated Simeon's priesthood clearly enough, by the very record of the things then done by Simeon. For although Luke was about to narrate such things of Zachary as would make it plainly appear that Zachary was a priest, yet of the same man straight from the beginning of chapter 1 he says expressly: There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zachary. Why then would Luke not have expressly named Simeon a priest too, even if we should for a moment be willing to imagine in our mind that he had recorded such things of Simeon as might allow his priesthood to be gathered?

[24] And indeed, what at length are the deeds of St. Simeon recorded by Luke which would betray his priesthood? The blessing imparted by him to Joseph and Mary? But we have already said that the matter stands otherwise. The receiving of Christ into his arms? But what if this, as was likewise said, was not the discharge of a priestly office, but the reward of the signal holiness with which Simeon was endowed, and of the vehement desire with which he awaited the Messiah? Finally, the offering of Christ, or the acceptance of two turtle-doves or pigeons, of which one, as Josephus writes in book 3 of the Antiquities, chapter 10, was consumed by fire, while the other went as food to the priests, as is prescribed in Leviticus chapter 12 in these words to a woman after childbirth: And when the days of her purification are fulfilled, for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of a year old for a holocaust and (if she be poor) a young pigeon or a turtle-dove for sin, to the door of the tabernacle of the testimony, and shall deliver them to the priest, who shall offer them before the Lord, and shall pray for her? But whether these things were done by Simeon or by another, Luke is silent, who, after he ceased to speak of Simeon and Anne, adds only this in general: And after they had performed all things according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee to their city Nazareth. These things said about Luke's silence, by which he indicates nothing from which you might gather Simeon's priesthood, although they do not altogether overthrow the opinion of those who maintain that he was a priest, nevertheless seem to weaken it not a little. Let us further weigh the words of Luke, and let us investigate, led by the zeal of digging out the truth alone, if that can be, whether anything presents itself in them which opposes Simeon's priesthood.

[25] but on the contrary two reasons, After the days of her purification (of Mary, says Luke) were accomplished according to the Law of Moses, they carried him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord… And behold there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon… And he came in the spirit into the temple. And when his parents brought in the child Jesus … he also took him into his arms, and blessed God, and said: Now dost thou dismiss, etc. There is one (Pelletier, in the Trévoux writers at the year 1705, volume 1, page 170) who interprets these words of Luke thus: that at the same time at which His parents were bringing the Messiah into the temple, Simeon, by the leading of the Holy Spirit, met them at the very entrance of the temple, and there performed the things which Luke writes were done by Simeon: and from this he tries to make out that whatever things were done by Simeon at that moment of time were those of a layman only, not of a priest. For, he says, the priests, who in their houses and through the city of Jerusalem went about clothed in lay dress, did not, when they came into the temple, perform the priestly office before they had, on entering the temple, exchanged their lay garments for priestly ones and had washed themselves, as was provided by the Law. And Flavius Josephus, in book 6, chapter 6 of the Jewish War, seems to bear witness to this at least in part, when he says: They used only common garments (the priests outside the temple): since he alone who was celebrating the sacred rites was clothed in the priestly one. Nor yet, says Pelletier, had the Blessed Virgin been purified according to the prescription of the Law, nor yet had she handed over her offering into the hands of the priest, but straight after the coming of Simeon and of Christ's parents into the temple Simeon received Christ into his arms and burst out into the praises of God: so that nothing was done by Simeon which you could rightly say was that of a priest and not of a layman. So he.

[26] But Honoratus a Sancta Maria, in the Observations on the laws of the critical art against which Pelletier, and its use, volume 2, book 3, dissertation 5, article 2, §2, admits indeed that according to Luke's words Simeon came into the temple; but he denies that it is said by Luke that Simeon came into it after Christ's parents had already come there: indeed, he contends that Simeon's coming into the temple preceded the coming of Christ's parents into it by a sufficient space of time for him to be able first to clothe himself in priestly vestments and perform the other things that were prescribed by the Law for discharging the duty of his ministry, before Christ was brought into the temple by His parents. As witness of his assertion Honoratus makes Juvencus, a Christian poet of the fourth century, who seems to sing that Simeon, having already entered the temple, perceived Christ's coming into it and at once took Him into his arms, in the following little verses of book 1 of the Gospel History:

And when he, weary with bowed body, now more heavy with years,

Enters the temple, as the Spirit, its author, had admonished,

Behold, at the same time he perceived that little Jesus in the bosom of His Mother

Had come to the temple: with trembling arms

He received the Child, and gladly utters these words:

Now, now Thy servant, etc.

Clearer are the words of Timothy, priest of Jerusalem, which Honoratus likewise adduces for his purpose, at least in part, which in volume 5 of the Lyons Bibliotheca Patrum, page 1215, read thus: When Simeon was sitting at home, and praying by himself alone that he might but come to the fulfilment of the divine answer, Joseph and the Virgin had it in mind to bring the boy Jesus into the temple, to do for Him as was customary by the Law. And at once the Holy Spirit made good the fulfilment of the oracle, that is, the Spirit roused Simeon, saying: Rise up, Old Man, why sleepest thou? The time of the answer is come. Go quickly, for He is come who will dismiss thee: shake out the sepulchres, prepare the burial, prescribe to those who are of thy house what thou wouldst have done after thy death: He is come who will dismiss thee, Emmanuel is come; pass quickly into the temple: in the sacred place are sacred things; prophesy concerning the sacred birth.

[27] But what then? Whereupon Simeon, says Timothy, with swiftest course, as on the wing of desire, that St. Simeon was not distinguished by the priesthood, and lifted up by the Spirit, came into the temple before Joseph and the Virgin. And a little later: Simeon came into the temple before Joseph and the Virgin, and when he had come first, he stood near the sanctuary and the inner places, awaiting the revelation of the Holy Spirit. These indeed are the words of Timothy; which no one would deny favour Honoratus; yet they do not persuade me that Simeon went to the temple in this manner; both because they seem to be said less accurately, and because they are of an author not sufficiently ancient: the first indeed appears to me for this reason, that the said Timothy plays the part of an orator or preacher rather than of an accurate narrator of events; for this is the title of the writing: An oration on the prophet Simeon: and it not seldom happens to orators and preachers that they adorn the principal heads of the matters they treat, in themselves certain and indubitable, with circumstances which either they feign for themselves, or imagine to themselves to have probably accompanied the thing itself. That Timothy did this in this place is urged above all by the circumstances which he narrated above of the Holy Spirit rousing the Old Prophet to go to the temple. It is urged also by what Timothy goes on to narrate of Simeon and the Blessed Virgin; which, although I would not convict as certainly false, yet because they are singular, and not recorded by other ancients so far as I know, cannot but be at least of suspect credit to me.

[28] had not been, They are these: But when Simeon was in the temple, if you listen to Timothy, he saw many mothers entering the temple with their infants, to pay the victim in the name of purification, among whom was mingled also she who was carrying the honourable and stainless Offspring. But that just Simeon, turning his eyes this way and that, when he saw many mothers endowed with the private appearance of the human condition, but the Virgin alone surrounded by abundant and divine light, running up he separated the other mothers from her, crying out and saying before all: Give me place, that I may take hold of Him whom I desire; I have seen Him by whom I was seen before: I have seen, and my spirit has revived and been restored. Why do you, with the condition of a handmaid, contend with the free woman and Lady? Why do you offer your little children at the altar? Turn your eyes hither, and offer them to this Child, who is older than Abraham. Assuredly here Timothy narrates things, of whatever sort they finally may be, which I think will be proved neither from the sacred pages nor from legitimate testimonies of the ancient Fathers. Further, as regards

Timothy himself, the editor of the Lyons Bibliotheca Patrum, in the series of Authors and Opuscula prefixed to volume 5, admits that nothing certain can be determined about his age: Coccius, as he says, put him in the 70th year of the sixth century; but he himself tied Timothy to the fourth century, because you will find (in that century) many who treated the same argument concerning Simeon meeting Christ; but that this too is not said altogether truly we shall show below. Meanwhile we think tolerable the solution which Honoratus applies to Pelletier's reasoning, standing on the words of Luke. Let us now hear the other things raised by the same Pelletier against Simeon's priesthood.

[29] he strives to show, The second reasoning by which Pelletier strives to overthrow St. Simeon's priesthood comes down roughly to this: Simeon, if he had been a priest, would not have come into the temple admonished by divine inspiration, but without it would have been found in it when Christ was to be offered: but Simeon came into the temple only when admonished by divine inspiration; nor was he found in the temple without it: therefore Simeon was not a priest. That St. Simeon came into the temple admonished by divine inspiration Luke himself testifies, saying: And he came in the spirit into the temple; to which words of the Vulgate the Greek text also answers exactly. It remains therefore that we chiefly examine the former part of the reasoning just adduced. But before we set about doing so, a few things must first be observed concerning the customs of the Israelite priests ministering to the Lord in the temple. King David, as is read in book 1 of Paralipomenon, chapter 24, divided the Israelite priests into two classes, of which one contained the sons of Eleazar, the other the sons of Ithamar: the former, moreover, as being more numerous, he distinguished into sixteen families; the latter into eight families: and although all were consecrated to the ministry of the Lord, they nevertheless performed their office only by turns and at fixed times: And David divided them, that is, Sadoc of the sons of Eleazar, and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar, according to their turns and ministry. Which division indeed, says Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, book 7, chapter XI, lasts to the present day. And that not only that division, but also the ancient custom by which the priests ministered to the Lord in the temple by turns, held until Christ, is gathered from Luke 1, where at verse 5 it is said of Zachary: There was … a certain priest named Zachary, of the course of Abia; and at verse 8: And it came to pass, when he executed the priestly function in the order of his course before God. And that the priests, when they were discharging the priestly office, had a fixed stay of at least some days in the temple, and did not return to their homes except when the ministry in the temple was completed, is likewise hinted at by what follows there of Zachary at verse 23: And it came to pass, after the days of his office were accomplished, he departed to his own house. And that the ministry of the priests in the temple lasted for eight days, or from Sabbath to Sabbath, writers commonly gather from these words of book 2 of Paralipomenon, chapter 23, verse 8: So the Levites and all Juda did according to all that Joiada the high priest had commanded: and they took every one the men that were under them, and that came by the order of the Sabbath, with them that had fulfilled the Sabbath, and were going out. For Joiada the high priest had not let the companies depart, which were wont to succeed one another every week: and Josephus affirms the same in the place just cited in these words: And he (David) ordained that one kindred should minister to God for eight days, from Sabbath to Sabbath.

[30] These things being thus established, to return to Pelletier's reasoning, appear more probable. it is necessary that, if Simeon discharged a priestly office when he received Christ into his arms, he was either of the number and division of those priests whose turn it then was to minister to God in the temple; or, on the contrary, of the number and division of those who at that time, by virtue of the ancient custom, were kept away from the ministry of the temple for the while, until their turn should come round again. But neither seems capable of being said: for if you say the first, it seems to follow that Simeon, by virtue of his office, would have been constantly present in the temple of the Lord together with the other priests of his course; whereas nevertheless, admonished by divine inspiration, he betook himself into the temple either from his house or certainly from the city, as was said above from Luke. But if you prefer to assert the second, how would it have been permitted to Simeon, either by the ancient custom or by the priests of the other family upon whom at that time the administration of sacred things was incumbent, to discharge the priestly office? But if there was no priestly function which Simeon exercised in the temple, from what head, then, will those who patronize his priesthood seek a suitable support for it? Nor further does it help here to contend with Honoratus that Simeon came into the temple before Christ was brought in there by His Parents; for whether this happened earlier, or later, or at the same moment of time, the difficulty raised here holds equally, as will be clear to one who considers it. This one reason alone makes the opinion by which Simeon is held to have been not a priest but a layman seem to me, standing on Luke's words, more probable than the contrary. That St. Simeon has customarily been painted clothed in priestly vestments I do not indeed deny; but neither do I think it necessary here to pick a quarrel with the painters: we must nevertheless hear the ancient Fathers, whether Greek or Latin, if there perhaps were any who related that St. Simeon was a priest, which will be done in the following §.

§ III. Whether the priesthood of St. Simeon is proved from certain monuments and ancient Fathers.

To Simeon's priesthood the Pseudo-Gospels of James the Less Those who do not accept St. Simeon's priesthood deny not only that it can be shown from the sacred pages, but also, as was said above, from the testimonies of the ancient Fathers: if, namely, it is a question of the testimonies of the ancient Fathers which are indeed certain and indubitable: for there are not lacking monuments, and those quite ancient, but adulterated and spurious, or at least of very doubtful authority, in which the priesthood is attributed to Simeon. And first indeed, among the Orthodoxographic Monuments of the Holy Fathers, printed at Basel about the year 1569, in volume 1, from page 71, there occurs in Greek and Latin a Proto-Gospel distinguished with the name of St. James the Less, which toward the end has this concerning Simeon: But after three days (from the slaying of Zachary, father of St. John the Baptist, killed in the temple by Herod's order, as is set out before in that place) the priests held a council as to whom they should substitute for him. And the lot came upon Simeon. For he had been assured by an oracle from the Holy Spirit that he should not see death until he saw Christ in the flesh. The last words indeed plainly indicate of what Simeon the discourse is here; but by the same token they betray how spurious they are: for since, as is there related, these things must have happened when Christ was already born, and at the time when the Innocent children were being sought out by Herod for slaughter, who would believe that the priests of the Jews substituted Simeon as high priest in place of Zachary for this reason, that he had been taught by a divine oracle that he would not see death until he had seen Christ in the flesh? The other things which that Proto-Gospel contains I do not care to touch; content to have pointed out that James the Less is reckoned among the ecclesiastical writers by Jerome: but that of his writings only this is read in Jerome: He wrote only one Epistle, which is of the seven Catholic ones, and which itself is asserted to have been published by someone else under his name: although gradually, as time went on, it obtained authority: but that this very Gospel (unworthy, however, of the name) was long ago banished among the apocryphal scriptures by Pope Gelasius in the Roman Council held, as Labbe notes, in the year 494; of which likewise Innocent, about the beginning of the fifth century, had written in this manner to Exsuperius, bishop of Toulouse: But the other things, which are either under the name of Matthias or of James the Less, or under the name of Peter and John, which were written by a certain Leucius [or under the name of Andrew, which were written by the philosophers Nexocharides and Leonidas], or under the name of Thomas, and whatever others there may be, you should know are not only to be repudiated, but also to be condemned.

[32] Of the same meal is another Pseudo-Gospel of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, and of Nicodemus are of no help, which a certain inept and barbarous fabler impudently foisted on under the name of Nicodemus, the disciple of Christ. It likewise stands among the Orthodoxographic Monuments of the Holy Fathers, volume 2, from page 643, and it is noted at the end that it was found by Theodosius the Great at Jerusalem in the praetorium of Pilate (from whose fictitious Acts addressed to Tiberius many things that are read in it seem to have been drawn) in the public records; and that it was written in Hebrew letters by Nicodemus in the 19th year of Tiberius Caesar. It attributes the priesthood to Simeon in these words at page 652: And when the great priest Simeon received Him (Christ), etc. And a little after, in it, Joseph of Arimathea thus addresses the priests of the Jews: Now hear me, because we have all known the blessed Simeon, the great priest, who received the Infant in his hands in the temple. But how much these are to be held as worth nothing is taught by the childish fables inserted in that writing: that you may judge of the rest from one, hear what immediately follows there, after the words just cited, concerning Charinus and Lenthius, sons, if you care to believe it, of Simeon himself: Joseph of Arimathea, in order to persuade Annas and Caiaphas and their followers of Christ's resurrection, brings forward various witnesses raised from the dead, and among these Charinus and Lenthius, sons of Simeon, who were living among the living at Arimathea. Charinus and Lenthius, summoned to Jerusalem, appear before Annas and Caiaphas; and, adjured to say what they had seen among those below, and who had been recalled to life, each of them separately commits to writing a quite long history of what he had seen, agreeing so closely that the one did not differ from the other by even a letter. But when they had handed their writings to the priests, they were suddenly suffused with brightness, and were seen no more. But no sensible man, I think, will use these things to prove Simeon's priesthood: let us see, therefore, whether the things which can be brought forward for Simeon's priesthood from the holy Fathers are more genuine.

[33] The most ancient of the Fathers whom they bring forward as voting, so to speak, for Simeon's priesthood, nor in the third century did St. Methodius favour it. so far as I know, is St. Methodius, whom some write to have been crowned with martyrdom in Greece under Decius and Valerian, others under Diocletian. Combefis published under his name an Oration or Homily whose title is: Of Methodius, bishop of Patara and martyr, on Symeon and Anna, on the day on which they met the Lord in the temple: and on the holy Mother of God. Further, there occurs in it at page 411 and following a certain address of the Mother of God to St. Simeon, in which, besides the many praises which she heaps upon Simeon,

of titles, she calls the same man the best of priests; and at page 424 Methodius himself calls him a man learned in the Law, honoured with the priesthood, illustrious for prophecy: so that there is no doubt that, according to the opinion of St. Methodius — if only that Oration or Homily is genuine — Simeon was a priest. Henschenius held it for genuine in volume 1 of February, in the Commentary on the Hypapante of the Lord and the Purification of the Blessed Mary: but others refuse to hold it for the offspring of St. Methodius, bishop of Patara and martyr; among whom Stilting is to be numbered, in the Sylloge on the same bishop, volume V of September, page 773: Stilting was moved both by the manner of speaking which the author of that Oration adopted, more recent than Methodius, in whose age neither the word ὁμοούσιος nor the word θεοτόκος was in use; and by the very style of the Oration, departing far from the elegance and purity of Methodius. Henschenius himself, having weighed the matter more carefully, had gone before Stilting, in volume 2 of June, at the 14th day of that month, page 973, in the Analecta on St. Methodius, patriarch of Constantinople, who flourished in the tenth century, writing thus: Nor do we doubt that various monuments of his still lie hidden in various Libraries: and that some also have come out under the name of St. Methodius, bishop and martyr in Lycia in the third century, which in reality are this Constantinopolitan's; and above all that one which I alleged on the 2nd of February from Combefis, the (supply) Oration on Simeon and Anna. In almost the same manner as Stilting, Dom Remy Ceillier speaks of that Oration in the History of sacred and ecclesiastical authors, volume 4, page 35 and following. And as to what Combefis says, that it is clear from the exordium of that Oration — in which, namely, its author mentions the Symposiaca as composed by himself (and the Symposium or Banquet of the virgins the elder Methodius beyond doubt wrote) — that the same man is author of both, see this overthrown by Stilting, just cited. There is no reason, then, why the elder Methodius should be said to have recognized and handed down the priesthood of St. Simeon; granted that this is true of the much younger Methodius, or the Constantinopolitan, a writer of the tenth century.

[34] Of the Fathers of the fourth century In the fourth century Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Amphilochius and Augustine flourished. Of these Athanasius, archbishop of Alexandria, in On the common essence of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, seems to vote for Simeon's priesthood in the following words: When our only-begotten Lord Jesus Christ was brought forth from a maiden without experience of nuptial intercourse, introducing into the world a new manner of birth and into life a new offspring, the Mother carries Him while still a little infant and offers Him to Simeon the priest. To these Cyril: Hear these things, all ye nations: hear, O Israel: the Lord thy God is here, whom I, thy priest Symeon, carrying in my arms and calling the people to witness in the temple, proclaim with a loud voice. So this one in the Homily on the Meeting of the Lord, in the Benedictine editor of the Works of St. Cyril, Antoine-Augustin Touttée, page 366: and in Combefis, Amphilochius in Oration IV on the Mother of God has thus: But you, most beloved, have done very well to come together, both to honour on this present day the mysteries of God, and to consider the things foretold by the divine Scriptures: namely, the Virgin, in a wondrously excellent and divinely fitting manner, carrying in her undefiled arms Him "who bears all things by His word": and the old man, the priest, approaching with desiring mind, to receive the expected High Priest and Lord. Augustine, in sermon 128, On the Nativity of the Lord 12, otherwise de tempore 13, in the most recent Benedictine editors of his Works, volume 5, column 231, in the Appendix, speaks thus of Simeon: He (the Lord) was presented in the temple, and was recognized by Simeon, an old man famous, full of years, approved, crowned (with a mitre, namely, as some interpret it, a priestly one). Behold the words of the Fathers named above, who flourished in the fourth century, by which they seem to favour Simeon's priesthood: the words of St. Epiphanius, because they comprise somewhat more about Simeon, I have deferred reciting for the while: behold them too.

[35] Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia or Salamis in Cyprus, to Simeon's priesthood as edited by Petau, volume 2, page 250, in the Lives of the Prophets, writes this of Simeon: Simeon, a priest of the tribe of Aaron, "received an answer from the Holy Spirit that he should not see death until he saw Christ the Lord" in the flesh. This is he who carried the Lord in his arms, and glorified God, saying: "My eyes have seen thy salvation. Now dost thou dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace." Having died at last, very old and full of days, he was buried near the priests; ἐτάφη in Greek, not, as Baronius writes at the year of Christ 1, deprived of the last honour by the priests, because he had stirred up their hatred and ill-will against himself by openly announcing the coming of Christ. Having presented the words of these Fathers, let us now inquire what can be concluded from them. And first, indeed, as regards St. Athanasius, the words recited above under his name plainly assign the priesthood to Simeon: yet nothing certain can be drawn from them in this matter: for whether the Treatise on the common essence of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is really Athanasius's, there are no light causes for doubting, as the Benedictine editors of the Athanasian Works say in the Notice prefixed to it, both because that book is nowhere known to have been ascribed to Athanasius among the ancients, and because it is lacking in the ancient manuscript Collections of Athanasius, although its style is quite akin to the Athanasian in the book on the Incarnation. Ceillier, in volume 5 of the Sacred Authors, page 273, finds lacking in that Treatise not only the Athanasian method but also the Athanasian force of speech. Tillemont, in volume 8 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, page 724, observes that Origen is ill treated in that Treatise, whom nevertheless Athanasius elsewhere mentions honourably; and he likewise cites various writers to whom that treatise is either fictitious or doubtful.

[36] Combefis, in part 1 of the Auctarium of the Greek Fathers, published under the name of the same Athanasius an Oration on the Meeting of Christ the Lord, St. Athanasius, in which, at page 511, Simeon is said to have ministered most excellently and religiously to the Law laid down in the letter, or the old Law, by which indeed his priestly ministry seems to be hinted: for in Greek it reads ἐλειτούργησας: and the word λειτουργεῖν, as Du Cange says in the Glossary to the writers of middle and late Greek, among the Greek Christians formerly signified, more generally indeed, the sacred ministers of the Church who devote their effort to ecclesiastical offices; but now more restrictedly, so that it now signifies almost only a priest. But much less than the Treatise just cited on the common essence of the three divine Persons does this Oration seem capable of being attributed to St. Athanasius, whatever Combefis may move to the contrary. Only in the fifth century did Nestorius and Eutyches vomit forth the poison of their errors; and yet express mention of these heretics is had in that Oration. Combefis contends that the names of Eutyches and Nestorius were afterwards added by a copyist; because, mention having been made of Simon and Marcion, Arius and Sabellius, to whom Eutyches and Nestorius are then added, the heresies or errors of the former are presently reviewed, but no mention is made of the errors of Eutyches and Nestorius. What the Benedictine editors of the Works of St. Athanasius think about this, as also about the reason of Combefis for which he thinks the names of Eutyches and Nestorius are additions here, I said at number 12.

[37] as Combefis would have it. Nor indeed does what Combefis says appear sufficiently certain, that nowhere in that Oration are the heresies of Eutyches and Nestorius touched upon. Behold the words of the Oration, in the Benedictine editors, about which the dispute is here, and by which this text of Luke is explained: "Behold this child is set … for a sign which shall be contradicted." For concerning Him, and concerning the doctrine pertaining to Him, Simon will contradict and dispute against Marcion, Arius against Sabellius, Eutyches against Nestorius, both against the Church; so that some attribute to Him the Deity alone, others the flesh alone: some bring Him in as created and alien to the paternal substance, others as a certain Word empty of hypostasis and substance, and differing in nothing from that which is poured out by utterance: others suggest that His coming through the flesh is a phantasm; others contend that He by no means took flesh, or took it indeed, but inanimate and ineffective, or having a soul, but destitute of mind and reason. Finally others will hesitate and contradict in another manner, each determining at his own pleasure the things that concern Him. Combefis admits that in these words are noted the errors not only of the four heresiarchs Simon, Marcion, Arius and Sabellius, but also of Apollinaris, who contended that a soul without a mind was assumed, although he is not named: but just as the errors of various men can be seen to be noted there; so in those words, so that some attribute to Him the Deity alone, others the flesh alone, the errors of Eutyches and Nestorius are perhaps noted.

[38] does not favour: For Eutyches did the first, Nestorius the second: For (as the Brief History of the Eutychianists has it, in Sirmond, volume 1 of the Various Works printed at Venice in the year 1728, column 432) Nestorius, about fifty-eight years ago, following the error of Photinus and Paul of Samosata, deserved to be relegated to exile in the Oasis, by saying, as he learned from his authors, that Christ our Lord was begotten of the Virgin Mary as a man only. Against whom Eutyches, not many years after, thinking he should dispute, not knowing how to keep the right path, stumbled, and was carried away into the madness of Apollinaris, bursting out into these Words, by which he asserted that Christ was not true man, nor were two natures to be believed in Him, but one only, of God the Word, yet incarnate. Which indeed he declared was not man's flesh, but human-like, so that the likeness of a human body rather than its very reality was urged. And in the following column this again is read: For they (the Eutychians) say most confidently — an inept thing, a thing to be execrated even by the dull — that before the union, that is, the incarnation, two natures must be spoken of; but after, only one, of God the Word, incarnate. Of both, too, Pope Leo writes thus in Epistle 12 to the empress Pulcheria, in Labbe, volume IV of the Councils, column 29: And as far as Nestorius fell away from the truth, when he asserts that Christ was born of the Virgin Mother a man only; so far also does this man (Eutyches) stray from the Catholic path, who does not believe that our substance was brought forth from the same Virgin, wishing, namely, it to be understood as of the Deity alone, so that that which bore the form of a servant, and which was like and conformed to us, was a certain image of our nature, not its reality. And so, just as the heresy of Apollinaris, though it does not name him, is touched upon in the words recited above, so the heresies of Eutyches and Nestorius could be touched upon in the same, although these too are not named.

[39] The editors of Athanasius finally add: Times later than Nestorius are also indicated not St. Cyril, by what is read at number 16 (in their edition): namely, that the Blessed Virgin is everywhere on earth (according to the Greek text, by every creature) called θεοτόκος. Which word, although it was not unknown to Athanasius, yet in his age was not published everywhere on earth, Nestorius not yet having been condemned, who held that she should be called Χριστοτόκος

Furthermore, they say, Athanasius is strong in force rather than in abundance of words: but the author of the aforesaid Oration multiplies words to the point of tiresomeness, and employs various expressions, which they enumerate, by no means familiar to Athanasius; so that even from this it may be judged supposititious. These things suffice, I think, for the testimony of St. Athanasius for St. Simeon's priesthood to be held either as fictitious or at least as doubtful and suspect. I come now to St. Cyril, archbishop of Jerusalem, under whose name likewise a certain Homily is circulated, inserted by Antoine Touttée in the Works of St. Cyril from page 362 under this title: Homily of an uncertain author under the name of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, on the Meeting of the Lord. Its words, by which the priesthood is attributed to Simeon, you have above at number 34. But does Touttée rightly deny that Homily to Cyril? Assuredly the reasons by which he is led to do so seem not to be despised. The first of them is that the author of the said Homily from time to time imitates and copies Gregory Nazianzen, who was younger than Cyril. He brings forward, moreover, not one specimen of this in his Annotations on the said Homily. Take one of these: thus the Homily ends: Let us all today, as always, cry out to Him the things which are proper to this festival. Let us lead the dance with the angels, let us be bathed in light with the shepherds, let us adore with the Magi, let us keep festal day with Bethlehem: let us go out to meet Him together with Sion. Let us be sanctified with the temple. Let us exult, magnifying, with the Virgin. Let us offer with Joseph, as two turtle-doves, body and soul. Let us embrace Christ in our arms with Symeon, and let us confess for our part with Anna, that we may be admitted to the entrance of eternal goods by the grace and mercies and kindness of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and dominion, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ages of ages. Amen.*

[40] What has Gregory Nazianzen like this? In Oration 38, bishop of Jerusalem, which is on the Nativity of Christ, he has thus: Revere the enrolment, on account of which thou thyself art enrolled in heaven, and the nativity, on account of which thou hast been loosed from the bonds of nativity: and honour that little Bethlehem, which has led thee back into paradise … Run with the star: offer gifts with the Magi, gold, frankincense and myrrh, as to a king and God, and to one who died for thy sake: celebrate God with praises with the shepherds: dance with the angels. The same again thus in Oration 39, or on the holy Lights, that is, on the Baptism of Christ: We have run with the star, we have adored with the Magi, we have been surrounded with light with the shepherds, we have proclaimed the divine glory with the angels, we have received Him in our arm with Simeon, we have confessed with Anna, that old, I say, and chaste woman. Compare these words, which no one calls in doubt as being Gregory Nazianzen's, with the words of the Homily just cited, and you will admit, I think, that Touttée not undeservedly judged that the author of that Homily borrowed these things from Gregory, adapting them to his purpose, or at least imitated him: although neither are other things lacking by which he strives to prove his opinion. They are roughly these: the confutation of the Apollinarist and Nestorian heretics which occurs in that Homily, the discrepancy of the style from Cyril's: and that the feast of the Hypapante had not yet been instituted in the fourth century; much less the carrying of candles at that solemnity, which the author of the Homily mentions as already confirmed by usage.

[41] not SS. Amphilochius, Augustine Of Amphilochius of Iconium, from whose Oration 4, which is inscribed on the Mother of God and Simeon, I gave the words at number 34, there is no need to say much: for it is clear that its author, whoever he finally was, wrote after the Nestorian heresy arose, since that author expressly confutes it: But if anyone, he says, is reckoned by name a Christian, and takes it ill, and, as if seized with giddiness, grieves at that dignity of the divine Virgin, and at the most illustrious and proper name of Mother of God (whom Nestorius deemed worthy only of the name of Mother of Christ), he who dissents from the dogma vainly flatters himself with the appellation of a false holiness, etc.: and at length, returning to the argument proposed for his discourse, he mentions Nestorius by name in these words: Again further, beloved, let us bring the discourse back upon itself; bidding farewell meanwhile to him who fights against the abominable Nestorius and those of the same ways with him. And indeed even Combefis himself suspected that the said Oration, although published by him under the name of Amphilochius of Iconium, was another's, since he added to its title in the margin: Perhaps of another. As regards St. Augustine, although the Sermon cited at number 34 is held as genuine, yet not much support for Simeon's priesthood is had from it, since the words cited from it can bear various interpretations: for there is no reason why by the word crowned he must certainly be understood as wreathed with a priestly mitre: indeed it appears to me far more likely, since St. Augustine called Simeon not only an old man crowned, but before that also full of years and approved, that his words are to be taken so that by them he meant to signify only that Simeon, already of great age, when he had long and ardently awaited the coming of the Messiah, and his faith and constancy in awaiting the Messiah had thus been proved, was at length crowned, that is, made master of his wishes when he received Him into his arms: which indeed Augustine himself seems to hint a little after in these words: It had been told him by the Lord that he should not taste death until he saw the Christ of the Lord born. Christ was born, and the desire of the Old Man was fulfilled in the old age of the world itself.

[42] or Epiphanius; nor certainly Proclus in the fifth century. I come finally to the Book on the Lives of the Prophets ascribed to St. Epiphanius: Photius, enumerating the writings of Epiphanius, was altogether silent about that book: and whoever has inspected it will doubtless find in it various Talmudic fictions, unworthy of St. Epiphanius as author; whence Petau, Sirmond, Labbe and not a few others of the more recent writers held it for a supposititious offspring: to this also Papebroch strongly inclines, in volume III of May, page 49, number 57 and following, where he thinks either that that book was not written by St. Epiphanius, or, if it was really written by him (for it has happened from time to time that even the ancient Fathers brought Talmudic fictions and Hebrew deuteroses into their writings), that Epiphanius meant to discharge merely the office of an interpreter and of one collecting other men's things, but not to add any weight of his own to these fictions. He adds that many Epiphaniuses flourished as bishops in Cyprus in the following centuries, to the principal one of whom, as usually happens, Homilies may perhaps have been ascribed which belonged either to another Epiphanius or to another writer. But if perhaps Epiphanius drew from Talmudic books the things which are read of Simeon in the cited book, even on this account little certainty accrues to Simeon's priesthood, since we have seen above that in the same books other absurd things, foreign to the truth, were written about the same Simeon. Thus far, therefore, the testimonies of the ancient Fathers adduced for Simeon's priesthood are either spurious, or at least of doubtful credit. But in the fifth century, when it had advanced to about its middle, there died Proclus, bishop of Constantinople, inserted in the Roman Martyrology at the 24th day of October, who transmitted to posterity various Homilies written by him, published by Combefis at Paris in the year 1648, of which the fourth, on the Nativity of Christ, at page 338, after he had said in general that every nature offered gifts to the new-born Christ, presently enumerating these in particular, says: The Magi offered gifts, the women Martha, the widows Anna, the barren Elizabeth, the virgins Mary, the Mother of God, the shepherds a canticle of praise, the priests Symeon: by which words he betrays not obscurely that he held Simeon to be in the number of the priests. Yet I do not know whether that Homily can certainly be called Proclus's, and in every respect genuine. For perhaps it is of some unknown author who took some shreds from various writers of Homilies and patched that Homily together from them: certainly its exordium is, both in matter and in words, as similar as possible to the exordium of the Homily of Theodotus, bishop of Ancyra, read on the day of the Nativity of Christ at the synod of Ephesus in the year 431, which see in Labbe, volume 3 of the Councils, from column 988. However that may be, the authority of Proclus alone, while it is not clear from what source he drew Simeon's priesthood, cannot make the matter certain, so many other Fathers being silent on the subject.

[43] Thus far, therefore, no one has been adduced from the ancients who expressly declared that Simeon was a priest. Sophronius favoured it in the 7th century, St. Sophronius, bishop of Jerusalem, who lived in the seventh century of Christ, seems to have done so in the Oration on the Hypapante or Meeting of the Lord, volume 1 of February, page 276, in the following words: But what did she carry in her inviolate arms, or what did Simeon receive in his, but God, made flesh and body? And the Prophet received God with religious affection, and brought Him to the Father and God. For to offer Christ to God the Father belonged to a priest alone. Sophronius spoke more clearly in the Poem in which he embraced Luke's narrative concerning Simeon: he sings thus in Leo Allatius, in his Diatriba on the writings of the Simeons, page 5 and following:

Ιερεύς

δέ

τις

κατῴκει

Ιερυσαλὴμ

ἐν

ἄστει,

Συμεὼν

μέγας

προφήτης

Φορέων

Θεοῖο

Πνεῦμα.

There dwelt in the city

Of Jerusalem a certain

Priest, a great prophet,

Simeon, and full of God.

And likewise somewhat after, of Christ given by His Parents into Simeon's arms:

Νόμον

οἱ

γονεῖς

πελοῦντες *

Ιερεῖ

βρέφος

παρέσχον,

Ὁ

δὲ

δέξατο

προθύμως

Παλάμαις

Θεὸν

δικαίαις.

The Mother and the father duly

Offered the Child to the Priest,

But he eagerly with just

Hands received God.

[44] [not, however, as it appears, Leontius: Damascene favoured it in the following century.] In the same seventh century of Christ there also flourished Leontius, bishop of Neapolis in Cyprus; and in the eighth century St. John Damascene. The former indeed delivered an Oration on Simeon, which Combefis inserted in the Auctarium of the Greek Fathers; but it has nothing from which you might gather Simeon's priesthood: indeed, in Combefis, part 1 cited, column 695, he rather hints that he was a layman, since, treating of the blessing which he imparted to Mary and Joseph, he says it was merely such as could belong to any layman. Take his words: We praise, he says, and approve, O Symeon, thy will, springing from most fervent love. Although both the Mother who had given birth and the Child were above every blessing: yet he offered it in place of praise, in the same manner, namely, as the three children in Babylon: for they exhorted not only the angelic powers and the whole race of men, but even things destitute of reason and sense to bless God, as has been said, pursuing the divine praises in words. In this manner, therefore, Symeon too on the present occasion blessed them and said to Mary His mother, etc. The latter, however, signifies that Symeon was a priest, in Michel Le Quien, volume 2, page 837, in these words with which he addresses the Blessed Virgin: Hail, because thou hast borne the Infant, whom, newly brought forth, Simeon the priest, venerable with white hair, beholding, was eager to be dismissed hence. But Touttée, cited above at number 39,

at page 361 does not hold for genuine this Homily on the Annunciation, from which the words just reported were transcribed; and it consists almost wholly of salutations of the Mother of God heaped together in this fashion. In Touttée's judgement it was not spoken in Damascene's time, and there is such similarity of style between this Oration and the Cyrillian one, of which at the same number 39, that either the same man seems to be the author of both orations, or (which he rather thinks) the one, the Pseudo-Damascene, either transcribed or imitated the other, the Pseudo-Cyril.

[45] Paulinus of Aquileia also favoured it: but these are not sufficiently ancient. The words of St. Paulinus of Aquileia, who ceased to live about the beginning of the ninth century, we gave at number 10. And the emperor Leo, called the Wise, carried off from among the living at the beginning of the tenth century, in the Oration on the Presentation of the Lord, recognizes Simeon's priesthood in these words: The Mother, indeed, having conceived and brought forth her offspring in a manner other than that of mothers, goes away to offer that first-born to God: she offers to the priest the Infant covered with mean swaddling-clothes, that He may obtain the lawful things and the legal blessing. And lest anyone should doubt of what priest he speaks, he adds somewhat after: And indeed He is bound with swaddling-bands, but He looses the priest who carries Him from the bands of the flesh, after the latter with wrinkled eyes had seen the Salvation newly shown; by which words beyond doubt Leo meant Simeon to be designated, whom a little after he also expressed by name. There is no need to add to these several more recent writers who stand for St. Simeon's priesthood, and who would indeed make the number greater, but not the matter more certain. From what has been said thus far, I think it can be gathered more than enough that few of the ancient writers and Fathers, and those not very ancient, are they who said that Simeon was a priest; and thus that, regarding the authority of the ancients, this is not given as sufficiently proved. But if certain monuments exist, apocryphal indeed, yet older than Pope Gelasius, which testify to Simeon's priesthood; these do not seem to have found credence with the more distinguished and older Fathers, as their silence on the matter seems sufficiently to declare: some of these indeed Henschenius cited in volume 1 of February, where he treated of the Hypapante of the Lord and the Purification of Mary; but not yet weighed accurately enough, as is clear from what was said of Methodius at number 33.

Read duos* (two).

* Perhaps τελοῦντες?

§ IV. The death of St. Simeon, his burial, his relics dispersed in various places.

Simeon died at Jerusalem shortly after Christ was offered, The Holy Spirit had foretold to Simeon not only that he would see Christ, but also that, having seen Him, he would shortly die, as Luke's narrative suggests. Wherefore, since he had now obtained his wish of seeing Christ, and had no reason to draw out a longer stay on earth, he presently burst out into these words: Now dost thou dismiss thy servant, O Lord, according to thy word in peace. Certainly that not much time intervened between the offering of Christ in the temple and the pious and holy death of Simeon in peace St. Cyprian, cited at number 9, clearly taught in these words: Having seen Him, he knew that he would soon die. Glad therefore of his death now near, and secure of his approaching summons, he took the Child into his hands, etc. But how great that space of time was, who could certainly declare? Nor would I determine anything certain about the place where he departed from the living, namely at Jerusalem or in its vicinity: probably indeed at Jerusalem, if Sophronius, cited at number 43, truly related that he dwelt there when he received the Lord: but that saying of Sophronius can be understood either of the city of Jerusalem itself, or also of a place near Jerusalem which Simeon perhaps then inhabited. Quaresmius, indeed, in volume 2 of the Elucidation of the Holy Land, book 6, chapter 5 of Pilgrimage 1, mentions the Tower of Simeon, in which he dwelt according to the tradition of the inhabitants of those parts. Passing by, he says, the pool of Bersabee, of which in chapter 3, and ascending the hill, the pious faithful pursue their way toward the South and Bethlehem, leaving on the left hand the mount of Evil counsel, where the first counsel was held about the death of the Lord.

[47] And here there first presents itself to them as worthy of consideration a certain tower, or near it: in what place which is called the Tower and house of St. Simeon the old man, him whose praise is in the Gospel. It is called a tower because it rises built in the manner of a tower; and a house, because the tradition of these parts is that the holy Old Man dwelt in it. It is quite ample and commodious (enlarged and adorned by the pious faithful, as he says below in the same chapter) and although it is considerably consumed and demolished by age; yet there are still in it about ten chambers and a cistern, in which rain-waters are collected. It is about two miles distant from Jerusalem (toward the Western side of the city) and one from the Bethlehem road, on its right-hand side. So he, and others, from the tradition of the inhabitants: so that Simeon probably, if not in the very city of Jerusalem, at least in its vicinity, and perhaps in the place just described, ceased to be among the living. That St. Simeon was buried beside the priests says the Pseudo-Epiphanius reported at number 35; but perhaps from that opinion that he was, as he relates, of the tribe of Aaron and a priest; nor have I found anywhere that some particular place was destined for the burial of the Jewish priests. The corpses of the dead at Jerusalem were commonly entombed in suburban places, and those of the common Jews in the Cedron, where Jerusalem faces the East; so that, whether St. Simeon was a layman or a priest, I cannot declare in what place his remains were first committed to the earth. St. Adamnan, indeed, in book 1 On the Holy Places, chapter 10, seems to indicate the place. In the same valley (of Josaphat) mentioned above, not far from the church of St. Mary, the tower of Josaphat is shown, in which the sepulchre of him (Josaphat) is seen; to which little tower, namely, on its right side there adjoins a certain stone house cut out of the rock and separated from the mount of Olivet, in which within, hollowed out with iron tools, two sepulchres are shown without any ornament, of which one is that of Simeon the just man who, embracing the infant Lord Jesus in the temple with both hands, prophesied of Him; but the other of the equally just Joseph, the spouse of Holy Mary and foster-father of the Lord Jesus.

[48] was buried, But Gregory of Tours, in book 1 On the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 27, writes thus: And he (St. James, the brother of the Lord) was buried on the mount of Olivet in a memorial which he himself had previously built for himself, and in which he had buried Zachary and Simeon. On these words of Gregory Ruinart annotates this: Zachary, the father of St. John the Baptist, many will have to have been slain by Herod's order within the enclosure of the temple itself. And Adamnan testifies that the sepulchre of Symeon the old man, who had received Christ in his arms, stood in the rock of the mount of Olivet. This man says that Simeon's sepulchre stood in the valley of Josaphat, which lies between Jerusalem and the mount of Olivet: yet because the valley of Josaphat is contiguous to the mount of Olivet and situated at its foot, both Gregory and Adamnan perhaps understood the same place: but they differ in this, that Adamnan joins Simeon, as regards the place of burial, with Joseph, the foster-father of Christ; Gregory, on the contrary, joins to Simeon James, bishop of Jerusalem, and Zachary, either the father of John the Baptist or another of the same name. Regarding Adamnan's words, it may be, whatever be the case with the burial of St. Joseph, that Simeon obtained his first burial near the tower of Josaphat: but from Gregory's words it is plain that his first burial is not in question; since it does not appear likely that James, slain in the year 60 of the Christian era, built a burial-place for himself when Simeon was dying, that is, at the beginning of the Christian era. Moreover, Gregory's statements, in which he says that the bodies of James the Less, Simeon and Zachary were buried in the same place, seem foreign to the truth; for Hegesippus relates that James was buried at the place of martyrdom, and Metaphrastes near the temple of the Lord, in Henschenius, volume 1 of May, page 27. Quaresmius indeed, cited above, in book 4, chapter XI of Pilgrimage 7, says that by the words near the temple or the like the mount of Olivet can be understood, which was opposite the temple and not far distant from it; or that he was first indeed buried near the temple, but then translated to the mount of Olivet, or the contrary. But the first is refuted by Jerome, presently to be cited: the second, if it happened, must have happened after the book On Ecclesiastical Writers written by Jerome at Bethlehem in the year 392: for there Jerome says thus of St. James the Less: Some of ours thought that he was laid in the mount of Olivet, but their opinion is false. I return to Simeon.

[49] is not sufficiently clear. Cornelis de Bruyn, in his Oriental Itinerary, page 267, says that he saw the tombs of SS. Joseph and Simeon in a certain chapel near the underground church of the sepulchre of the Blessed Virgin Mary, not far from the gate of St. Stephen. But among the Σύμμικτα of Leo Allatius, published by Nihusius, at page 84, an anonymous Greek writer places the sepulchre of St. Simeon in the church of Sion: his words, rendered there into Latin, run thus: In the said holy Sion is seen the house of the Mother of God and of St. John the Theologian … then the sepulchre of the Prophets David and Solomon, and of the elder Simeon. Indeed, that that church was also called St. Simeon's, Bernard the monk writes in the Itinerary made to the holy places in the year 870, in Saeculum 3 of the Benedictines, part 2, page 525, in these words: There is besides in the city itself another church to the South on mount Sion, which is called St. Symeon's, where the Lord washed the feet of His disciples, etc. Testimonies so discordant with one another make the true place where Simeon was buried appear to me quite doubtful, and I would not dare to pronounce anything certain about it: but whether he was buried near the tower of Josaphat, or in the sepulchre of Zachary, or on mount Sion, or finally in the chapel near the church of the sepulchre of the Blessed Virgin Mary, this at least it is somewhat safer to say, that St. Simeon was buried in some suburban place of the city of Jerusalem, since in that age mount Sion was outside the city, and the Jews were accustomed to lay in the ground the corpses of the dead carried out beyond the walls of the city.

[50] Gregory of Tours, who died toward the end of the sixth century, and Adamnan, His relics translated first to Constantinople, thence to Aachen, who died about the beginning of the eighth, mention indeed the tomb of St. Simeon; but neither writes that the body or relics of St. Simeon were preserved in it in his age; perhaps because already from the time at which Gregory was writing, and perhaps also long before, they had been translated to Constantinople, and Justin the Younger, who reigned from about the year 565 to the year 578, in, founded by himself,

church of St. James had caused them to be placed: for thus George Codinus in the Excerpts on the Antiquities or Origins of Constantinople: Near the aforesaid church the same emperor built the church of St. James, where in their own repositories are preserved the relics of the holy Innocents and of Simeon the Theodochos (that is, who received Christ in his hands) and of the Prophet Zachary and of James, the brother of Christ. From Constantinople some portions of the relics of St. Simeon were afterwards brought to the West through the piety and effort of Charlemagne, which he placed, at least in part, in the church of St. Mary at Aachen, founded by himself, in which he was also buried. So has the historical and brief Information concerning the most sacred relics customarily shown to the faithful people every seven years, of the year 1650, chapter 2, which is on the relics carried to Aachen by Charlemagne: Of these, various manuscripts which are preserved in the archive of the church of Aachen have that he received at Constantinople some of the thorny crown of Christ, some of the nail of the cross, a part of the holy Cross, the napkin of Christ with which His sacred face was covered in the sepulchre, the shift of the Blessed Virgin and the swaddling-bands in which Christ lay wrapped in the manger, and the arm of St. Simeon with which he embraced Christ. See what Einhard wrote about Charlemagne's treaties with the Constantinopolitan emperors Nicephorus, Michael and Leo, and about his singular zeal for the church of the Blessed Mary at Aachen, in volume 2 of January, at the 28th day of that month, sacred to the same Charles; nor, I think, will you pick a quarrel with the people of Aachen on this matter.

[51] From the same relics, probably, which Charlemagne had received at Constantinople, to the monasteries of Prüm and Saint-Denis; Lothair, son of Louis the Pious, grandson of Charlemagne, when, having abdicated the empire, he was now leading the monastic life among the monks of Prüm, gave to the monastery of Prüm as a gift a foot of St. Simeon, as his letters on the matter testify, which Brower recites at the year 855, in which Lothair died, number 94, in the Annals of Trier. The words in which he mentions the relics of St. Simeon given by him to the monastery of Prüm (for many relics of other Saints are recorded there) are these: A foot of St. Simeon, who received the Lord in the temple. From the same, too, Charles, surnamed the Bald, brother of the Lothair just mentioned, probably gave another part of the relics of St. Simeon to the monastery of Saint-Denis. So at least du Saussay writes in the Gallican Martyrology at the 8th day of October, whose words I recite: His arm, with which he embraced Christ, having been placed by Charlemagne at Aachen, in the basilica most beloved to that glorious king, together with many precious monuments of Christian piety and memorable pledges of the Heavenly ones which he carefully sought out from the whole world, was taken out of the sacristy of that noble church by Charles the Bald, his grandson, and with great devotion carried to the royal monastery of Saint-Denis near Paris, to be venerated with perpetual honour, and placed upon the altar which, on account of the excellence of the sacred gifts laid up there, began from then on to be commonly called "the Holy Altar". In which also was placed, by the gift of the same Charles. He then subjoins that another arm of St. Simeon had long been preserved in the abbey of Liesborn. What then? Are the people of Aachen to be said to have displayed an arm of St. Simeon to the faithful with evil deceit? By no means: for Michel Félibien writes in the Description of the church of Saint-Denis, chapter 3, that only one of the bones of the arm of St. Simeon, enclosed in gold, is preserved in that church. So that it cannot be made out from this that from the age of Charles the Bald the people of Aachen lacked relics of St. Simeon.

[52] in the eleventh century from Aachen to the Harzburg, In the eleventh century, however, they seem to have lacked them for at least some interval of time: for the emperor Henry IV ordered the relics of St. Simeon to be translated from Aachen to the Harzburg, a stronghold of the duchy of Brunswick, distant about two miles from Goslar, almost at the borders of the diocese of Hildesheim, as Lambert of Hersfeld witnesses, writing thus at the year 1072: The King, having set out for Aachen, received there St. Speus the confessor, and the arm of Simeon the Just, of whom mention is made in the Gospel, and the head of Anastasius, monk and martyr, and the relics of other Saints, and translated them into the Harzburg. But since frequent damages were inflicted from that stronghold upon the neighbouring Saxons, who were hostile to Henry, the relics of St. Simeon and of the other Saints, which Henry had ordered to be translated there, underwent shortly after almost the same destruction as the Harzburg underwent from the neighbouring Saxons. For so Lambert at the year 1074: Further, the common people of Saxony, chiefly those who inhabited the hamlets adjoining the castle of the Harzburg, had been vehemently offended that any relics were preserved in the Harzburg, and they thought nothing had been accomplished by such great labours while the castle stood unharmed, which had been the head and source of all the disasters they had received, and which had reduced the once most opulent villages of the surrounding region to a dreadful and vast solitude. The king, they said, had not deferred to divine worship, but under the pretext of religion had sought a protection for his cruelty, namely that, when the war was renewed after a little while, when this anger of the Saxons had cooled, he might have a place where he could again safely receive his soldiers for the overthrow of Saxony, and then might press upon the conquered the more hostile, the more savage he now withdrew because of the glad successes of the Saxons.

[53] By sowing these things among one another with intemperate clamours they inflamed themselves to great ferocity. and thence they were afterwards brought again to Aachen. Therefore on the third day after the king had departed, without the knowledge or counsel of the princes, forming a crowd, they rush into the Harzburg, cast down from the foundation what was left of the walls, scatter the stones far and wide, do the same to the other buildings which the indulgence of the princes had preserved; the church, which meanwhile, in eagerness to hasten the work, had been most elegantly built of wood, they set on fire, they tear the treasures apart, they break the altars. Finally, lest any occasion of restoring the castle should remain to the king, they dig up his son and his brother, whom he had buried there to make the place agreeable to the people, and they do everything they can so that the mountain, levelled, might afford no advantage for the conducting of war hereafter. The relics of the Saints, which had been dug out when the altars were broken, and the exhumed bodies of the dead, an abbot from a neighbouring monastery, coming up opportunely, snatched from the raging mob, and carried across with honour into his monastery. Of which monastery the abbot here mentioned is, indeed, hidden from me so far: but it must be that the relics of St. Simeon were afterwards brought back to Aachen; since the people of Aachen afterwards continued to expose them to the eyes and veneration of the faithful, as various catalogues of the relics customarily shown at Aachen, published later, give proof.

[54] About the same time at which Charles gave the arm, or a part of the arm, of St. Simeon to the people of Aachen, A part of the same he is said likewise to have given another arm, either entire or diminished, to the monastery of virgins founded by himself at Liesborn in Lower Saxony. The manuscript Chronicle of that place, which afterwards devolved to the Benedictines, composed by a Benedictine monk in the year 1587, reports the matter thus. Assuredly among the monasteries most gloriously founded by him (Charlemagne) he built a solemn monastery of nuns, known to not a few, on the land of Dreni in Lower Saxony (or rather, as another copy of the same Chronicle reads: on the land of a certain most excellent man, Boso, in the district of Dreni in Lower Saxony) in honour of the most blessed and perpetual Virgin Mary, and of the most blessed Prophet Symeon, and of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian, which took the name of Lieseborn from the channel of the Lyse flowing through it. In which monastery indeed he set Rostwinda, his most dear sister, a nun excelling in all holiness, as abbess and directress of the holy virgins dwelling there, and as mistress and example to whom all should look, namely in the year 799, as is added in the margin. But before we go on to hear the chronographer of Liesborn, let it be permitted here to ask in passing who that Rostwinda, sister of Charlemagne, may be, since Einhard in the Life of Charles (volume 2 of January, page 883) writes thus of him: He had one only sister, named Gisla, devoted from her girlhood to the religious life, whom he likewise cherished with great affection as he did his mother: who also died a few years before his death in the monastery in which she had lived. I should not dare, however, to convict the chronographer here of error as regards the substance of the matter, since there seem to have been several daughters of Pepin the Short, the father of Charlemagne (on whom see what was said in volume 1 of January, where of Bl. Godfrey of Cappenberg), and Einhard perhaps mentioned Gisla alone, because she alone was legitimately born to Pepin.

[55] to the monastery of Liesborn For the rest, the chronographer continues after a few words, he enriched it most abundantly with the relics of certain principal Saints: above all indeed the arm of the most blessed Prophet Symeon (whom he also constituted patron), received from the emperor Constantine as an imperial gift, he bestowed for the adornment of the aforesaid monastery and the perpetual memory of himself. And these things indeed may be regarded: but while the chronographer goes about confirming what he has said thus far, and setting out how Charles obtained those relics, he betrays himself assuredly far too credulous of the fabulous expedition of Charlemagne into the Holy Land, which he had read in the codices of his monastery. Whoever wishes to see the fable widely shaken out and trodden down, let him consult Le Cointe in the Annals of the Franks at the year of Christ 800, number 28 and following. It will suffice me to have set out the fable in the chronographer's words: For at that time, he says, at which, under the emperors Constantine of the Greeks and Charles of the Franks, the patriarch of Jerusalem (John), expelled from the city by the pagans, came to Constantinople with John, priest of Neapolis, and David, archpriest of Jerusalem, a thing was done worthy to be left to posterity. When the emperor heard that the holy city had been taken by the pagans, distrusting his own strength, he sent the aforesaid patriarch with his associates, adding also Isaac and Samuel, Hebrews, with letters written by the emperor's hand, to Charles, king of France: adding also a vision in which he saw a certain young man standing in the guise of a soldier, asserting that Charles the Great, king of Gaul, was a champion in the Lord and the most fit vanquisher of the enemies of the Christian faith.

[56] of Liesborn Charles therefore, found at Paris, having read the letters and shed tears for the sepulchre of the Lord, set forth an edict that all should take up their arms to fight with him against the pagans; the rest, that they and their sons should be servants for four coins (or debtors to the king). The pagans therefore having been put to flight and the Holy Land recovered (quickly enough, in truth), king Charles sought and received from the emperor leave to return home. But when an inestimable store of furnishings of various kinds in gold and gems had been prepared, to be given to the king on the morrow by imperial munificence, he would accept none of these, lest he should seem to receive any reward for the labour which he had undertaken for the love of God alone. Being at length pressed, lest, if he accepted nothing, he should incur the mark of discourtesy, he took counsel, and so asked that a portion of the relics of the Lord's Passion be given to him. A three days' fast having therefore been proclaimed, on the third day the sanctuary was divided by twelve Greeks chosen for this: and after many miracles which are read to have happened at that very hour, Daniel, prelate of Neapolis, with hands raised, gave the king a nail of the Lord. And there were given besides to king Charles a fragment of the Lord's Cross, the Lord's napkin, also the shift of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the band with which she girded the Lord Jesus in the cradle, and the arm

of Symeon, with which he received the child Christ according to the prophecy of the Holy Spirit: all of which he honourably laid up and cautiously guarded, intending afterwards to divide them among various places. So the chronographer of Liesborn, who would more rightly have omitted these things: for the rest, that a part of these relics of St. Simeon passed, by the gift of the abbot of Liesborn, to Albert Pius and Isabella Clara Eugenia, princes of the Belgians, in the year 1621, Miraeus is the authority, in the Belgian and Burgundian Fasti printed about the following year, when he was chaplain of Isabella's oratory, at the 8th day of October; and Willot adds, in the Compendium of the Belgian Martyrology at the same day, that they are honoured in the church of St. Gudula at Brussels.

[57] To the monastery of Centula too, in Ponthieu, distant two leagues from the town of Abbeville on the Somme, as also to that of Centula is said to have fallen. a part of the relics of St. Simeon fell, through the help of Charlemagne and the care of St. Angilbert, abbot of the same place and intimate of the same Charles. The Catalogue of the relics exposed by St. Angilbert in the monastery of Centula to the veneration of the faithful, drawn up by the same holy abbot, you have in volume III of February, page 103, where among the relics of the Apostles and Martyrs are also recorded Relics of Blessed Simeon, who received the Lord into his arms. That these were fetched from the East, say from Constantinople or Jerusalem, becomes very probable from the words which St. Angilbert sets before the enumeration of the relics there: and they are these: Wherefore with all our heart and with all the intent of our mind we strove how, through the aid of almighty God and the help of my glorious lord the Great Emperor, we might be able to lay up in this holy place, from the various parts of all Christendom, how many and of what kind, or whence brought, as appears in what follows. That is, first of all from the holy Roman Church, by the bounty of Adrian of good memory, the supreme Pontiff, and after him of the venerable Leo, the Roman Pope: from Constantinople or Jerusalem, brought all the way to us by envoys sent thither by my lord, etc. See also volume 2 of d'Achery's Spicilegium, page 304 and following, of the more recent edition; where the relics of St. Simeon are read to have been placed by St. Angilbert in the altar of St. Stephen. From these, further, it is clear that Charlemagne did not go to the East in person, as some fable, but through his envoys, and was enriched with relics of the Saints, which he himself dispersed in various places.

[58] Thus far we have followed the relics of St. Simeon either fetched by Charlemagne from the East From the same also or received from there: but since not all the Relics of the same Saint which were preserved at Constantinople migrated to the West in Charlemagne's age, let us now inquire what became of those which remained there. Andrea Dandolo, after mentioning in book 10, chapter 3, the capture of Constantinople by the Latins in the year 1203, says that various remains of the Saints came into the hands of the Venetians serving there, which they sent over to Venice: but of the relics of St. Symeon in particular he has this: Venetian commoners too, named Andrea Balduino and Angelo Drusiaco, with labour carry off from the Oratory of St. Mary adjoining the church of St. Sophia the body (understand, from what has already been said, a part of it) of St. Symeon the Prophet, which, brought to Venice, they lay up in the church built of old under the Saint's name. Dandolo indeed seems to defer the translation of St. Symeon's relics from the city of Constantinople to the city of Venice to after the year 1203, in which Constantinople was taken by the Latins: but the Venetian monuments drawn up on the matter, and presented by Flaminio Corner, Venetian senator, often cited in our Work, in volume 6 of the Venetian Church Illustrated, where he treats of the parish church of St. Symeon the Prophet, expressly tie that translation to the year 1203.

[59] the Venetians These, together with the words of Flaminio Corner, since they afford testimony to the Venetians' piety and veneration toward the holy Prophet, I transcribe here. The precious remains of the blessed Old Man, says Corner, laid in a tomb of Greek marble in the very year of the translation MCCIII, rested in the same place for fourteen years over a century, until in the year MCCCXVII, placed in more becoming manner above the table of the principal altar, they were laid up with solemn rite in a most excellent sepulchre by Jacopo Alberti, bishop of Castello, and certain other bishops of the neighbouring cities, through the zeal and at the expense of a religious man, Bartolomeo Ravachaulo, plebanus of the same church. The marble chest in which the sacred body of the divine Old Man is enclosed, and which bears his image sculptured upon it, exhibits, through the diligence of the plebanus mentioned above, the memory of both translations; for on the inner side, opposite the sculptured image, this inscription is marked.

"✠ In the name of Christ Amen. In the year of the Incarnation M.CCC.XVII, in the month of September, on the IIII day, in the first Indiction: The Translation of the body of St. Simeon the Prophet was made from a certain chest placed in this altar, in which it had stood 114 years, as in the translation made hither from Constantinople in MCCIII, as is contained in authentic writings, into this most excellent sepulchre, by the venerable father Lord Jacopo, by the grace of God bishop of Castello, with certain other neighbouring bishops, Bartolomeo Ravachulo, plebanus of the same church, procuring it with the help of God without any money of the church; on account of which the same plebanus begs the chapter of this church and the whole neighbourhood that through the mercy of Christ he may always be in their memory in their sacrifices and prayers, and that each one may willingly visit these precious bodies, because by Indulgence XL days are relaxed of enjoined penance on each day by the Lord Patriarch of Alexandria by ordinary licence.

✠ Marcus the Roman carved this notable work;

Not sparing in praises is his worthy hand."*

[60] are said to have obtained a part. To the holy body there also adheres another tablet of ancient marble, on which these words, incised in old characters, are read: "This is the body of St. Simeon the Prophet, carried away from Constantinople in MCCIII to this place." In the year MDCCXXXIII, on the XII day of December, when the chapel of the same St. Simeon was being furnished with a new pavement of cut marbles, it befell that an ancient tomb, dug out to the length of a human stature, was found there, which an Inscription, carved in ancient letters, denoted to be the very one in which the holy Prophet had lain for 114 years: "Here stood the body of Blessed Simeon the Prophet 114 years." From what has just been said about the year in which the relics of St. Symeon were brought from Constantinople to Venice, it appears clearly enough that this happened not in the year 1220, as Baillet writes in the Lives of the Saints at the 8th day of October; but in the year 1203, or at least the following year. Further, the things said thus far about the relics of St. Simeon preserved at Aachen, in the monasteries of Prüm, Saint-Denis and Liesborn, and finally in the city of Venice, can be reconciled in some fashion if you say that some portions of them fell to each: but if we turn our eyes to Dalmatia, all that has been said of them thus far will be turned upside down: for at Zara it is said that not some relics of Symeon, but his entire body, and that indeed unharmed, is preserved, not without signal veneration of it by the neighbouring peoples. Hear Jan Cotovicus, in the Itinerary to Jerusalem and Syria of the year 1598, not only describing Zara, but also speaking of the remains of St. Symeon preserved in that place.

[61] He has thus at page 13. Having passed these islands and rocks of St. Stephen, The entire body of St. Simeon, Coronata, Liguri, Solta, and others, we sailed past on that day Jadera too, and Sicum or Sebenico, cities of the Illyrian mainland, likewise obedient to the Venetian fasces. Now Jadera (the Venetians call it Zara) is a most ancient city, the metropolis of Dalmatia, situated on the shore of the sea, of oblong quadrangular form, most strongly fortified with stone walls and bastions, girt on every side by the waves of the sea, and joined to the mainland only by a pile bridge, where it faces the East, with a moat flowing beneath; populous in inhabitants, with a rich and fertile soil, and abounding above the other cities of Dalmatia in plenty of all things. A Venetian magistrate with the title of count has his seat in it, and gives judgement to the inhabitants, and administers justice by prescribed laws. It is famous above all for the relics of Blessed Simeon the Prophet, who, by the testimony of the Gospel, received Christ into his arms and blessed Him: which, honourably laid up in the cathedral church, are held in the greatest veneration by all. The body of this holy Man (as we learned from the people of Zara), by a signal favour of God, not embalmed with any drug, has remained wholly unharmed and entire to this very day. Ughelli does not altogether dissent from Cotovicus, in volume 5 of the enlarged Italia Sacra, under the metropolis of Zara, column 1419, writing thus: The church of St. Simeon, under the old title of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, is a distinguished collegiate church, where there are four mansionaries, three deacons, and as many subdeacons and acolytes with a plebanus, and in it is venerated the body of St. Simeon the Prophet, enclosed in a silver chest, and it is honoured with the highest veneration not only by the natives but also by foreigners flocking together from the whole province of Dalmatia. Prince Radziwiłł too, in Epistle 1 of the year 1583, on his Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, writes thus: On the next day, because it was the feast of St. Mark, we went into the church … we visited some churches, especially that of the Gospel Simeon who carried the child Christ in his arms: whose sacred body is religiously preserved there under the high altar, wholly entire and not putrefied; which we saw closely and handled.*

[62] That this body was brought from Judaea to Zara Corneille writes in the Geographical Dictionary, nor the people of Zara, and indeed, as Flaminio Corner cited above says at page 388, only about the year 1278; and if these things are so, the reckoning of time alone — since already from at least the age of Justin II the relics of St. Simeon had been carried to Constantinople, as we saw at number 50 — seems sufficiently to show that that incorrupt and entire body is not that of the Simeon of whom mention is made in Luke chapter 2, although for some centuries now it has seemed otherwise to the people of Zara, as is clear from the little verses which, says Giovanni Lucio, On the kingdom of Dalmatia and Croatia, book 5, chapter 1, are read inscribed on the back of the silver chest, gilded all over, which Elizabeth, wife of Louis, king of Hungary, ordered to be wrought. They run thus:

Simeon the Just, who held in his arms Christ, born of the Virgin,

Rests here in peace in this chest;

Which the powerful queen of Hungary, illustrious and high,

Elizabeth the Younger, bestowed by a kindly vow.

In the year one thousand three hundred and eighty

Franc. of Milan made this work.

[63] nor did the people of Andechs possess it. Furthermore, just as in Dalmatia the city of Zara, so also in Bavaria the monastery of Andechs of the Benedictine Order, as Bucelin writes in the Appendix to the Benedictine Menology at the 8th day of October, claims for itself the whole body of St. Simeon the Prophet. It was formerly a castle, and in the twelfth century the seat of the counts of Andechs, overthrown about the year 1209, but with the chapel of St. Nicholas preserved, in which a great quantity of sacred relics had long lain hidden, which, after in the year 1308

they were discovered, the place commonly obtained the name of the Holy Mount: and Boniface IX, as Joseph Mezger writes in book 4, chapter 35, granted that the Saints' relics, dug up, might be exposed to public veneration. St. Rasso or Ratho, count of Andechs, brought them from Jerusalem into Bavaria, and deposited them in the monastery of Wörth founded by himself; after whose death the monks of Wörth betook themselves to the mount of Andechs together with the relics. So Keferloher, dean of the monastery of Diessen, in the Life of St. Rasso, volume III of June, page 895: Furnished with these (the emperor's letters of commendation), having assumed the habit of a pilgrim (as is customary), Blessed Rasso, with Judith, wife of Henry, prince of the Bavarians and Saxons, daughter of Arnulf or Arnold the Bad, first made for Jerusalem: where, when he had abundantly satisfied his most ardent mind for venerating the sacred places, he departed thence, enriched with a great treasure of holy relics. He was presented, among other things, with the body of St. Simeon, the Prophet of Christ. And of the relics carried over from the monastery of Wörth to the mount of Andechs he speaks thus a little after: Further, not long after the holy man's death, when the Hungarians were devastating the province, the monks abandoned the place in flight; and betook themselves to the mount of Andechs with the relics brought by Blessed Rasso: and that among these were by name relics of St. Simeon, gather from the Chronicle of Andechs of Herger Berger, printed about the year 1657, where, setting about an enumeration of the relics of Andechs, he has thus of them: I. The bones of Simeon the Prophet and of Timothy, disciple of St. Paul. St. Rasso flourished in the tenth century: but if in that century anything of the relics of St. Simeon survived at Jerusalem, certainly his whole body was not there then, as is clear even from what we said above about the relics of St. Simeon translated to Constantinople long before: wherefore I altogether think either that the Benedictine monks of Andechs do not claim the whole body of St. Simeon for themselves, contrary to what Bucelin writes; or that they do so undeservedly.

[64] In the monastery of Ligueux In the province of Périgord in Gaul there is Ligueux, a monastery of nuns of the Benedictine Order, distant six miles from the city of Périgueux, in which, as Armand Gevard, canon of Sarlat, wrote to our Predecessors in the year 1664, on the 2nd day of February, a part of the arm of St. Simeon is held in signal honour and veneration. It is customarily shown to the faithful, who flock there in great number, on the Tuesday after Easter, likewise on the same weekday after Pentecost, on the 2nd day of February, and on the 8th of October; and not, at least for the most part, without prodigies. There is preserved there a codex in which are contained miracles, distinguished in a hundred articles, which happened from the year 1626 to the year 1658 at the invocation of St. Symeon. At the beginning of that codex, written through the care of the noble lady Isabelle Frontanie de Chiliaud, who at that time was secretary to the monastery of Ligueux, it is read that other codices had already earlier been written of the prodigies wrought there by St. Simeon; but that these, the nuns being absent from the monastery because of the disturbances of the wars, had fallen into the hands of the Huguenots. A second codex, written through the care of the noble lady Susanne de Saint-Michel, likewise secretary to the monastery of Ligueux, and distinguished into 29 articles, comprises miracles or benefits granted to men of various conditions at the invocation of St. Symeon from the year 1659 to the 25th day of the year 1663, subscribed by persons worthy of credit and by Berthou, priest, chaplain of the monastery, who took the testimonies of those for whom the prodigies had been wrought. Finally, a third codex contains the vows made to St. Symeon from the year 1658 up to the codex drawn up through the care of Susanne de Saint-Michel, and the annual revenues bestowed on him by various persons. So far Gevard, from those things which either he had seen himself, or had received from the abbess of the place, whom he consulted: from which it is assuredly clear that St. Simeon was illustrious there for many prodigies, which, even when he wrote to our Predecessors, were customarily wrought and committed to paper, and they declare more than enough that he was held in signal honour. But of what sort are these remains of St. Simeon? Whence, from whom, and when were they received?

[65] Gevard described them in French in this manner: When in the year MDCLXIII, in the month of December, I was staying in the city of Périgueux, a part of the arm, illustrious for prodigies, it was granted me to see the arm of St. Simeon the old man, as is believed from tradition, enclosed in a splendid silver reliquary, and furnished with a double crystal, through which the relics can be clearly seen. I observed well that it is the left arm, as far as the elbow, which the skin, veins, sinews and nails indicate to be that of some old man. And it is held for the arm of St. Symeon the Prophet not only by the Nuns of Ligueux and the common people of the neighbouring places, but also by the bishops of Périgueux themselves, in three letters, copies of which the noble lady Susanne de Saint-Aulaire, the fourth (so the writers of the Gallia Christiana, volume 2, column 1500; Gevard calls her the third) of this name and surname, abbess of the place in the year 1664, supplied to Gevard; and he transmitted them to us. The first are of Peter, bishop of Périgueux, to Pons, bishop of Saintes, in which he testifies that the abbess of Ligueux was carrying the arm of St. Symeon about for the sake of collecting alms (as was formerly not seldom done). They were given in the year 1263, on the Monday after the Sunday Invocavit me, that is, the 10th of March; and are reported among the instruments of the church of Périgueux in volume 2 by the writers of the enlarged Gallia Christiana. The rest, written on a similar subject in the year 1287, are of Raymond, bishop of Périgueux, one indeed given to the Chapter of Bordeaux; the other to Geoffrey, bishop of Saintes. Both bishops, further, speak thus in them of these relics: That the arm of St. Simeon is believed for certain to be in the abbey of Ligueux in our diocese, and that it was brought there from the city of Constantinople, as we have understood from men worthy of credit.

[66] Behold the place from which the relics of St. Simeon are reported to have been translated to Ligueux: is said to be preserved. further, according to the tradition of the place, Charlemagne did this as a monument of that abbey, founded by him about the year 769. But by what testimonies, at length, is so great an antiquity of the abbey of Ligueux proved? Gevard brought nothing for it, except that the nun virgins solemnly celebrate every year the memory of Charlemagne as founder; that Charlemagne about the same year 769 founded Brantôme, another abbey of Benedictine virgins, not far removed from that of Ligueux; finally, that an old writer of the Carmelite Order, whose work came out in print in the year 1517, handed down to the memory of posterity the things just said about the abbey of Ligueux founded by Charlemagne and the relics of St. Simeon which he deposited there on returning from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. But that writer is of little weight in this matter, because he is neither sufficiently ancient, nor does he seem to have used accurate criticism, otherwise he would not have admitted Charlemagne's pilgrimage to the Holy Land: and the rest could easily have happened even if the monastery of Ligueux had received its beginning long after the times of Charles; which indeed seemed so to Jean du Puy in the History of the church of Périgueux, page 69, to the Sainte-Marthe brothers, volume 4, page 569, and to the writers of the enlarged Gallia Christiana, volume 2, column 1497, who all (for in the Sainte-Marthes the year 1015 is wrongly noted) tie the beginning of the abbey of Ligueux only to the twelfth century. To these is added Mabillon in the Benedictine Annals at the year 1114, number 77; whose words I recite for this reason, that it is clear from them that the instrument of foundation lighted his way, when he wrote thus: Giraldus de Salis took care not only of men but also of the weaker sex, as is proved by the foundation of the Convent of Blessed Mary of Ligueux, which in the district of Périgord, not far from Salis, from which he took his surname, he is related to have built with Maximina, the first abbess of the place, with the assent of William, bishop of Périgueux, just mentioned, Helias de Bordeille and Iterius de la Tour, and others, supplying the land in the forest of Ligueux, as appears from the letters of William himself given in the following year, the 11th year of his episcopate. If, then, Ligueux preserves relics of St. Simeon the Prophet, they do not seem to have been brought there by Charlemagne; although Charles perhaps first received them from the East, from whom they then came into the hands of various persons, and were at length granted to the people of Ligueux by a donor today unknown.

[67] At Palermo likewise They penetrated also into Sicily. For at Palermo, in the monastery of St. John the Baptist called de Riglione, a large part of the arm of St. Simeon is preserved, and is honoured with a particular cult by the faithful, as will appear from what is to be said. Of this I find the following notice in our manuscripts: This distinguished relic was given to the monastery of St. John the Baptist called de Riglione by the doctor Don Carlo Valguarnera, cantor of the cathedral church of Catania, as appears from his testament in the Acts of the notary Don Baldassare Zamparione, on the XIII day of November MDCLXII. And in the year MDCCXXXIV it was placed by the virgins of the same monastery in a silver casket skilfully constructed for that purpose. It has instilled in the people of Palermo a great veneration toward St. Simeon the Prophet, who in their turn have more than once felt the same Prophet beneficent to them: hence, further, it came about that the archbishop, the senate, the canons of the metropolitan church and the parish priests of the city, together with the virgins of the aforesaid monastery, offered suppliant prayers to the Congregation of sacred rites in the year 1734, that it would approve a proper Office and Mass of St. Simeon on the 8th day of October, to be recited in the said city and diocese by the clergy both secular and regular. So Domenico Claverini, advocate of causes of the sacred Apostolic palace, in the exposition of the grounds for approving the aforesaid Office and Mass, presented to the Most Eminent Cardinal Guadagni.

[68] The sacred Congregation of rites not only approved the aforesaid Office and Mass to be recited under the double rite; a part of the arm, with signal cult but Clement XII also afterwards raised it to a higher rite; as is clear from two decrees given on the matter, one of the year 1734; the other of the year 1735. The first of these runs thus: Whereas in the monastery of St. John the Baptist, called de Riglione, of the nuns of the Order of St. Benedict at Palermo, the greatest part of the arm, as is asserted, of St. Simeon the Prophet is preserved, with which he merited to receive the infant Jesus into his arms, and the people are accustomed with great devotion on the 8th day of October, his sacred festival, to flock to it and piously venerate it; the archbishop, the senate, the canons of the metropolitan church and the parish priests of the city humbly besought the sacred Congregation of Rites that it would deign kindly to approve a proper Office and Mass of the same Saint to be recited for the said day by the secular and regular clergy of the city and diocese: and the same sacred Congregation, upon the report of the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Lord Cardinal Guadagni, considering that another Office had lately been granted for the parish church of St. Simeon of the City, granted that this Office, already approved for the said parish church, be recited under the double rite by the whole Secular and Regular clergy of the city and diocese of Palermo,*

should be extended. On the 28th day of August 1734.

A. F. Card. Zondadari, Pro-Prefect.

Place ✠ of the seal

Place of N. M. Tedeschi, Archbishop of Apamea, Secretary of the S. R. C.

The second is framed in these words: Our Most Holy Lord Clement XII, at the most humble prayers of the abbess and nuns of the monastery of St. John the Baptist, called de lo Rilione, of the Order of St. Benedict, of the city of Palermo, kindly granted and conceded that the proper Office of St. Simeon the Prophet, already approved by the sacred Congregation of Rites, and most recently extended for the 8th day of October to the city and diocese of Palermo under the double rite, should henceforth be recited under the Greater double rite in the same city and diocese, and so he commanded, and ordered it to be observed. On the 15th day of April 1735.

A. F. Card. Zondadari, Pro-Prefect.

N. M. Tedeschi, archbishop of Apamea, Secretary of the sacred Congregation of Rites.

[69] The Office runs thus: Antiphon at both Vespers: is honoured Simeon, filled with the Holy Spirit, received the Child Jesus into his arms, and blessed God for ever. Prayer: Almighty everlasting God, who didst present Thine Only-begotten to be received in Thy holy temple into the arms of blessed Simeon, we humbly beseech Thy clemency: that by his intercession we may merit to be presented in the holy temple of Thy glory. Through the same, etc. The Lessons of the first Nocturn are from the occurring Scripture; those of the second from St. Augustine, sermon 13 de Tempore: Thus it was once foretold, etc. Lesson VII begins thus: There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, etc. The rest is taken from the Homily of St. Ambrose on chapter 2 of Luke. The Mass is from the common of a Confessor not a Pontiff: Prayer: Almighty everlasting God, as above in the Office: Gospel from Luke chapter 2: At that time: There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, etc. An altogether different Mass and a different Office seem to have been first composed and offered to the sacred Congregation of Rites, as may be seen after the exposition of grounds of Signor Claverini cited above, printed in the year 1734; but since it did not obtain the approval of the same Congregation, it is not necessary to describe it at greater length. For the rest, since the Office of St. Simeon described above was extended from the Roman church of St. Simeon to the city and diocese of Palermo, as is clear from number 68, it is evident that St. Simeon does not lack a particular cult at Rome either; and Panciroli, moreover, writes in On the Churches of the City, in the Index of relics, that relics of St. Simeon are preserved in various churches there.

[70] [Finally they are said to be preserved also at Cologne and in various places of Belgium.] Before I finish, take a few more things about the relics of St. Simeon. Some of them are said to be preserved at Cologne in the churches of St. Cunibert, St. Pantaleon and St. Catherine of the military Order of the Teutonic Knights. See Gelenius, On the Greatness of Cologne, book 3, syntagma 4, page 289: likewise the twelfth and 35th of the same book, pages 372 and 442. Besides the relics of St. Simeon formerly preserved in the Oratory of the most serene Infanta Isabella, then in St. Gudula's, of which at number 56, others are preserved besides at Bruges in Flanders in the cathedral church of St. Donatian and in the monastery of Liessies in Hainaut, says Raissius in the Hierogazophylacium, whom consult at pages 200, 278 and 398. Willot, in the Belgian Martyrology at the 8th day of October, ascribes to our College at Brussels the head of St. Simeon; but he confused Simeon, bishop of Jerusalem, venerated on the 18th day of February, with Simeon the Prophet. It will perhaps raise a scruple in someone that so many parts of the arms of St. Simeon, and those not small, are preserved in such various places: in order that judgement might be passed on these, an accurate knowledge of each would assuredly be needed, which since I lack, and it cannot easily be acquired, I can declare nothing certain about them; although I hardly doubt that those above all stray from the truth who contend that they possess the whole, or almost the whole, body of St. Simeon.

Perhaps parcis*?

Read S. Simeonis*.

sacra*.