Simeon Stylites
Life and witness
Simeon Stylites or Symeon the Stylite (Greek: Συμεών ό Στυλίτης; Syriac: ܫܡܥܘܢ ܕܐܣܛܘܢܐ, romanized: Šimʕun dʼAstˁonā; Arabic: سمعان العمودي, romanized: Simʿān al-ʿAmūdī c. 390 – 2 September 459) was a Syrian Christian ascetic who achieved notability by living 36 years on top of a pillar near Aleppo (in modern Syria). Several other stylites later followed his model (the Greek word style means "pillar"). Simeon is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. He is known formally as Simeon Stylites the Elder to distinguish him from Simeon Stylites the Younger, Simeon Stylites III and Symeon Stylites of Lesbos.
Biographical overview
Simeon Stylites or Symeon the Stylite (Greek: Συμεών ό Στυλίτης; Syriac: ܫܡܥܘܢ ܕܐܣܛܘܢܐ, romanized: Šimʕun dʼAstˁonā; Arabic: سمعان العمودي, romanized: Simʿān al-ʿAmūdī c. 390 – 2 September 459) was a Syrian Christian ascetic who achieved notability by living 36 years on top of a pillar near Aleppo (in modern Syria). Several other stylites later followed his model (the Greek word style means "pillar"). Simeon is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. He is known formally as Simeon Stylites the Elder to distinguish him from Simeon Stylites the Younger, Simeon Stylites III and Symeon Stylites of Lesbos.
Butler Jan Mar · ST. SIMEON STYLITES, C.
From the account given of him by Theodoret, one of the most judicious and most learned prelates of the church, who lived in the same country, and often visited him; this account was written sixteen years before the saint's death. Also from St. Simeon's life written by Antony, his disciple, published genuine in Bollandus, and the same in Chaldaic by Cosmas, a priest; all three contemporaries and eye-witnesses. This work of Cosmas has been lately published by Monsignor Stephen Assemani,[1] from a Chaldaic MS, which he proves to have been written in the year 474, fifteen years only after the death of St. Simeon. Also from the ancient lives of SS. Euthyinius, Theodosius, Auxentius, and Daniel Stylites. Evagrius, Theodorus Lector, and other most faithful writers of that and the following age, mention the most wonderful actions of this saint. The severest critics do not object to this history, in which so many contemporary writers, several of them eye-witnesses, agree; persons of undoubted veracity, virtue, and sagacity, who could not have conspired in a falsehood, nor could have imposed upon the world facts, which were of their own nature public and notorious. See Tillemont, T. 14.