St. Simon Stylites

From Theodoret in his Philotheus, chap. 26, and Antonius, Disciple of tho Saint, in his Life

Although there were, during the life-time of St. Si mon Stylites, almost as many eye-witnesses of his extraordinary course of life, and of the innumerable pro digios which God wrought by him, &s there were men in all the eastern regions, not to say in the then known world, yet the great Theodoret, who undertook, whilst the Saint was yet living, to transmit, by writing, to posterity a faithful account of this wonder of the world, was afraid lest he should seem to succeeding acjes to have delivered to them a fabulous rather than a true history. But the divine providence which raised up this Saint in so extraordinary a manner, in order to show forth the power of his grace to the whole world, and to rouse up by so great an example the drooping spirits of lukewarm Christians, as well as to enlighten the eyes and touch the hearts of thousands of infidels and sinners, was pleased that the wonderful life of Simon should not only be perfectly well known at the time he lived through the whole extent of the Roman empire, and all the eastern nations bordering thereon, but that for the edification of posterity it should also be written by cotemporary authors, and in so public a manner, that we may safely aver, there is no fact in history better authenticated.

Our Saint was born towards the latter end of the fourth century, at a place called Sisan, upon the con fines of Syria and Cilicia. In his tender years he was employed by his parents in feeding their sheep in the country, so that he seems to have had but little opportunity of frequenting the church or hearing the word of God. But a great snow happening to fali one day, obliged him to leave the sheep under shelter at home, which afforded him leisure to go to church. No sooner had he entered the church than he became so extremely affected, and penetrated with the fear of God, as to give the utmost attention to the divine les~ sons that were read out of the Epistles of St. Paul and the gospel; and after deeply reflecting on those words of the sermon upon the mount, blessed are thei/ thai mourn: and blessed are the clean of heart, &c. he addressed himself to an old man, who was one of the congregation, desiring to be further informed what he should do, and what course of life he should follow, that he might live up to these heavenly lessons and save his soul? The good old man recommended a retired and solitary life as the most proper to establish solid virtue in his soul; and spoke to him in so moving and affecting a manner, that the holy seed immediately sunk so deep into his heart as to already begin to produce its fruit. The first thing he afterwards did, was to retire to a solitary place, where there was a church of the martyrs, and there, prostrate upon the ground with the utmost fervor of soul, he besought him who desires that all men should be saved, to vouchsafe to direct him in the way of perfect piety, in order to secure his eternal salvation. Having continued a long time in prayer, he fell into a profound sleo.p, in which he had the following vision. He seem ed to himself, as he related to Theodoret, to be dig* ging the ground, in order to lay the foundation of a building, and that he heard a voice which bid him dig still deeper. He did so, and then would have rested himself, but the voice a second time bid him yo deeper stilL And the same thing having been repeated four times, one after another, at length it was said to him that is dee}} enough, and that he had now nothing more to do but to build.

Arising from the ground, he went directly to a neighboring monastery, which was governed by a holy abbot named Timothy. Here he prostrated him self before the gate, employing three whole days and nights in fasting and prayer, without ever being taken notice of. At length the abbot coming out, he cast himself at his feet, and besought him with many tears to take pity on a poor soul in danger of perishing, who was desirous to learn how to serve God. The abbot taking him by the hand, encouraged him, led him into the monastery, and recommended to the brethren to teach him the rule of the house, which he, being then only thirteen years old, quickly learnt, and practised with such perfection as to surpass all the rest in humility, as well as in the exercises of fasting and penance. Here also, in four months, he learnt the whole psalter by heart, and took great delight in meditating on, and feeding his soul with these heavenfy hymns. In this monastery he remained two years, exhibiting a perfect pattern of a consummate virtue and piety in so tender an age. In the mean time his parents sought after him, and bewailed him as lost, whilst he, with greater reason, rejoiced at having now happily found both himself and his God.

For his greater improvement in the silence of the saints he went from this religious house to another monastery, founded at a place called Teleda, near Antioch, by the disciples of the Saints Ammian and Eusebius, and governed at this time by the abbot Heliodorus, where he remained for about nine or ten years. There were in this monastery about eighty monks, but Simon excelled them all in the exercises of a relio--

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\ous life; for, whereas all the rest were accustomed to eat once a day, or at least once in two days, he fasted the whole week with such rigor as to eat nothing, except only one meal on the Lord's day. Here, having procured a rope or cord, made of the leaves of palm-trees, so hard and rough that it could scarcely be even handled, he privately girt himself with it beneath his habit, next to his skin, so tightly, that it forced its way into the flesh, till it was almost covered, and the flesh itself became perfectly corrupted with it. He concealed what he suffered on this occasion with as much care as possible, till the religious at length found out how the case stood with him, and the abbot insisted upon his parting with the cord, which was with much:lifticulty, and not without putting him to great tos» tures, disengaged from the flesh.

After the wound occasioned by the cord was snred, the abbot dismissed him from the monastery, fearing lest any of the other religious might suffer prejudice-, by aiming at an imitation of his extraordinary auster ities. Simon, on this occasion, retiring into a mom remote and lonesome part of the mountain, found there a dry well, into which he went down and there sung the praises of God. Here he remained for severaJ days without either eating or drinking, till Heliodorws, repenting that he sent the Saint away in that manner,, desired two of the brethren to seek after him, and! bring him back again. These by the direction of some shepherds, who had heard him singing, found him out in his well, and with the help of a rope brought him up, and conducted him back to the monastery, where he continued for a short time, and then betook himself to an abandoned hut near a village •called Telanissus, situated at the foot of that mountain on the top of which he afterwards finished his course.

In this hut he lived shut up during three years: and here our Lord first inspired him with a desire of fasting the forty days of Lent, without taking any manner of corporal nourishment during the whole time. Upon this he desired Bassus, who was the ecclesiastical superior in that district, to wall up the dooi of his cell for that Lent, and leave him quite to him self without any thing for his food. Bassus remon

ST. SIMON STY1ITES. 2(33

•stratod to him, that this would be an undertaking be yond the strength of man, and that to destroy himself 'which would be the inevitable consequence of such a •fast, could be no act of virtue, but, on the contrary, a grievous crime. Leave with me then, father, said the Saint, ten loaves of bread and a pitcher of water, thai I may ma£e use of them in ease I find it necessary. Bassus accordingly furnished the Ibaves avid the water.;and then stopping up the door, departed, and did not return till the forty days were ended. As soon as Easter was come he hastened to visit the servant of 3od, carrying with him the blessed sacrament; but behold, after he had removed the stones and opened the door, he found the Saint lying extended on the floor like one dead, without speech or motion, with the ten loaves and the water quite untouched.. How ever, as he found life still remaining in him, he dipped,a sponge in the water with which he moistened his mouth, and then gave him the holy communion. With this heavenly food he was again raised up, and further enabled to recover his strength, by taking in a little nourishment from the juice of herbs and pulse. This fast of forty days during Lent, without either eat-- ing or drinking any thing whatever, from this time 'brward, he constantly observed every year through out the remainder of his life, which time and custom had at length made easy to him. For at the begin ning, after passing the first part of Lent, standing and praising God, lie was obliged, as he grew weaker, to sit down, and in this posture to perform the divine office, till towards the latter end his weakness forced him to lie down stretched out at full length, as one half dead, and on this account, during the first yean of his living and standing upon the pillar, he was obliged, for the latter part of his forty days fast, to support himself by the help of a post fastened to his pillar for this purpose, to which he caused himself to be tied as he became weaker. But for many years be fore his death God had strengthened him so far as not to stand in need of any help, but pass the whole time of Lent with all the cheerfulness imaginable, without any nourishment or human support whatsoever.

From his hut near Telanissus, the Saint went up to the top of the neighboring mountain, and there made for himself an inclosure of stones, without any covering, in which he remained for some years, taking no other nourishment but boiled lentiles and water, and by the means of a chain, one end of which he fastened to his right leg, and the other to a great stone, he confined himself to such narrow limits as not to be able to go beyond the length of his chain. But if he was chained in body, his soul remained at liberty, and was continually flying up towards God, hy mental prayer and contemplation. This chain, upon the rern^nstrances of Melecius, a Chorepiscopus under the patriarch of Antioch, he suffered to be taken away. At which time, as Theodoret learnt from Melecius himself, after the smith had. filed off the iron, when they came ta Uke away the leather which the Saint had put next to his skin, to hinder the chain from entering into hia flesh, as the cord had done before, they found in \i about twenty large puneezes, jr bugs, which this prelate thought worthy of particular notice, to show the wonderful patience of the Saint, who had quietly suf fered for so long a time the troublesome bites of these insects, when he might with so much ease have rid himself of them at once by destroying them.

And now the reputation of Simon's sanctity being spread far and near, great multitudes began to resort to him on account of the many miraculous graces of every kind that were obtained through the efficacy of his prayers and benedictions, struggling with each other who should first come near him and touch lik garments, believing that those coarse skins wherewith he was clad, would impart to them a blessing This became so troublesome and insupportable to tb.e Saint, as to first suggest to him the thought of living upon a pillar, in order to be out of the reach of the crowd; to which he was no doubt instigated by a particular inspiration from God, who designed, by the means of this extraordinary manner of living, to draw great numbers of infidels to the faith,;ind of Chris tians to a virt \tous and penitential life.

He began this new way of life, which was never bo as fore attempted by any other, about the year of Christ 526, and continued it till his death, which happened about seven and thirty years afterwards. The pillar which he caused to be made at first was but six cubits, that is three yards high, which he afterwards exchanged for one of twelve cubits, and again, for one of twenty-two cubits; but that on which he finished his course was thirty-six cubits, that is eighteen yards in height. Its diameter, as we learn from Evagrius, was at the most but two cubits, or one yard; so that he could not, if he would, lie down upon it at his length. In the mean time he had no covering or shelter to defend himself either from the rigor of the winter, the heats of the summer, the violence of the rain or wind, or from other injuries of the air. His ordinary posture was standing night and day, without any other support but the strength of faith and divine grace. In his prayer he very frequently bowed himself down to adore God, and that in so profound a manner as to bring his forehead almost to his toes. His rigorous fasts, for he never eat but once a week, and thai next to nothing, reduced his body to so low a condition as to make it easy to him. These adorations he repeated so frequently, that we learn from Theoderet, that whilst this holy prelate was himself present, one of his attendants counted them to the number of 1244. He often remained for a considerable space of.time in prayer, bowed down in this manner with his forehead upon the pillar and this, it is probable, might also bo the posture in which he slept; for certain it is, that he sometimes slept, though fame had published tint he lived without either sleeping or eating. Be this as it may, he certainly slept but very little; for, as ha generally passed the greatest part of the night in prayer, so he did the best part of the day, even till the ninth hour, viz. three in the afternoon, when he made his exhortations to the people. But on the eves, or vigils of the festivals, he not only passed the whole night in prayer, but stood all the time on his feet, with his hands stretched forth and extended towards heaven.

The other holy inhabitants of the oriental deserts hearing of the new and extraordinary manner of life which the Saint had undertaken, having consulted to gether, sent a deputation to him, as we learn from the historian Evagrius, lib. 1, chap. 13, to ask him the rea son of his leading so unheard of a course of life, or of leaving the common road which had been beaten by all the Saints and the holy fathers who were gone before him; and to order him to come down immediately from his pillar: giving, nevertheless, instructions to their deputy, that if Simon should show him-E.cif ready to obey, he should suffer him -to remain thereon, and encourage him to proceed in his under-laking, as showing by his readv obedience that what he did was not from caprice, but by divine inspiration* but that if he refused to obey, he should oblige him to come down by force. The deputy had no sooner delivered his commission, than the Saint, without making the least reply or demur, presently disposed himself to obey, and to come down. Whereupon the deputy told him to continue where he WJM, for his undertaking was from God.

This the Almighty himself sufficiently manifested by the many miraculous gifts and graces he bestowed upon him, of which there were in his life-time millions of witnesses, as there was an incredible multitude from all parts of the world continually assembled to behold this wonder of the world, to hear his divine instructions, and seek remedies through him for all their evils. " For you shall not only see there," says Theodorct, "the inhabitants of our province, Syria, but also the Ishmaelites, Saracens of Arabia, Persians, Armenians, Iberians," Ethiopians, and other nations which are still more remote. There came also people to him from the farthest part of the west, viz. from Spain, Britain, Gaul, and other neighboring provinces; and as to Italy, it is needless to say any thing, since we are assured that his name is so illustrous in Rome, that they even set up little pictures of him in their shops and porches for a protection and defence." Sc far Theodoret writlig, whilst the Saint was yet living, the things of which he himself had been witness. He also gives several instances of the spirit of prophecy

ST. SIMON STYLITES. iI69 which lie had experienced in this Saint, and of great and evident miracles wrought before his own eyes, and adds, that great numbers of infidels, by occasion cf this Saint, were daily brought over to the faith of Christ. " One," says he, " may see the Iberians, Ar menians, and Persians coining to receive baptism. And as to the Saracens, they come to him in large companies of two or three hundreds, or even of a thousand at a time, abjuring, with a loud voice, their false religion, treading their idols under their feet, in the presence of this bright light of Christianity, em bracing the divine mysteries of our holy faith, and re ceiving from the sacred mouth of this man of God the rules of life which they were to follow for the time to come. " I myself," says Theodoret, " have been witness of all this."

As to the rest, the same learned and holy prelate gives an ample testimony to the unparalleled modesty and humility of this great servant of God, and of his wonderful meekness and affability to persons of all conditions, how poor or mean soever they were according to the world. But nothing was so admirable in him as that invincible patience, constancy, courage, and alacrity wherewith he underwent, for so long a series of years, the voluntary austerities of so severe and rigid a course of penance, which for a great part of the time was rendered still more difficult and in supportable by a dreadful- ulcer in his left foot, which he had contracted by his continual standing, and which sent forth corrupted blood and vermin. Nevertheless, with all his fasting, watching, prayer, and other austerities, he ceased not to labor daily for the ialvation of the souls of his neighbors, by delivering to them from his pillar twice a day excellent exhortations to take off their hearts from this wretched earth — to set always before their eyes that everlasting king dom which we hope for hereafter — to tremble at the threats of eternal torments — to despise all that passes with time, and ever to aspire after the good things of the Lord, in the land of the living. He was also eve? ready to give ghostly counsel to all who came; to hearken to their demands, cure their diseases, accommodate their differences, &c.; and not only to attend to the private necessities of particulars, but much more to every occasion by which he might promote the common good of the church; dictating some times letters, to this end, to prelates, to governors, and even to the emperor himself. Thus he usually employed his time from the third hour after mid-day till the sunset, and then he gave his benediction to the people, which they received with great reverence, and thus bid adieu to men to converse with his Go*1 alone.

At length the time being come in which God had decreed to crown the patience and labors of his servant with eternal glory, upon a Friday, anno Chrisli, 496, having bowed down, according to his custom in prayer, he gave up bis happy soul into the bands of him whom he had so constantly and so faithfully served. His body, after bis death, remained in the same posture from Friday till Sunday in the afternoon, no one in the mean time knowing that he was dead; because it was no unusual thing for the Saint to pass whole days in prayer, so as to omit his ordinary times of speaking to the people. But on Sunday in the afternoon, his disciple Antonius going up the pillar by a ladder, found that he was dead, and immediately gave private notice of it to the patriarch of Antioch, and to the governor of the province, in order to prevent any tumult that might be raised by the people contending about his body. The patriarch Martyrius, accompanied with six other bishops, and escorted by the governor with 6000 soldiers, came without delay, and taking the body of the Saint down from the pillar, carried it away with great solemnity to Antioch, where it was interred. God was pleased to work many great miracles by his intercession, as well at his monument in that city, as at his pillar where he lived and died. His name is recorded in the Roman Martyrology on the third of September.

There were divers other saints of the name of Simon, i»bo are also celebrated in church history. Amongst the rest St. Simon the ancient, whose life is also given oy Theodoret in his Philotheus, of whom he relates that he had the very lions of the desert tt his bock, St. Simon Stylites the younger, who also passed his life upon a pillar, and is recorded in the Roman Martyrology, September the third; St. Simon, surnamed Salus, whose name is registered in the same Mrtyrology, July the first, with the following eulogium: " At Emcsa, St. Simon, confessor, surnamed Salus, who became a fool for Christ; but his profound wisdom God declared by great miracles"