Saint Symeōn the Younger Stylite
The twenty-fourth of May in the Orthodox Church is the feast-day of Saint Symeōn Stylitēs the Younger, a wonderworking pillar-dweller of Antioch in the sixth century. The pillar-dwellers were some of the more idiosyncratic ascetics in the Syriac tradition. As with many of the Fathers of the Syrian Desert, they subjected their bodies to extreme hunger through constant fasting, and their dwellings were designed to provide conditions of exposure. As their name suggests, the stylites lived atop literal pillars, dependent on food that was brought to them from below, subject to wind and heat under the open sky. They were literally at the mercy of God. Symeōn earned his soubriquet ‘the Younger’ on account of the fact that seventy years prior to his birth there had been a saintly stylite named Symeōn who lived atop a pillar on Jabal Sim‘ân 20 kilometres northwest of Aleppo.
Saint Symeōn the Younger [L. Simeon Stylites iunior, Gk. Συμεών ὀ νέος Στυλίτης, Ar. Sim‘ân al-‘Amûdî al-’Aṣġar سمعان العمودي الأصغر] was born in the year 521 in Antioch. His parents were mercantile-class Syriacs. His father Yaḥyâ was the son of a chemist from Edessa, and his mother Marṯâ – who became a saint in her own right – was a devout young woman of Antioch who had thoughts to take the veil in her youth. His parents had an arranged marriage which was, at first, not entirely to Saint Marṯâ’s liking. However, after a series of visions of Saint John the Forerunner, who appeared to Marṯâ as she prayed, the girl became reconciled to the marriage, and soon bore a son to Yaḥyâ: this was Sim‘ân – that is, Symeōn.
Symeōn was a studious and serious youth, who from a young age refused to eat meat and ate bread and honey for his meals. When he was five, he was caught in one of the earthquakes that plagued Antioch in those years. This earthquake killed his father Yaḥyâ, and would have killed him as well had he been at home. His mother, in fact, went out looking for him, frantic with worry. However, Symeōn had been praying in the church when the earthquake struck, and he was rescued by a kindly neighbour who took him into her house. He stayed there for a week, and refused all solid food until his mother Marṯâ came to claim him. After this, Symeōn was visited by a vision of Christ and His saints, of heaven and hell, and the Holy Spirit came to urge him to lead a life of holiness.
The following year, Symeōn was visited by a man in a white robe, who led him out into the wilderness alone, and then up a mountain which turned out to be a monastery, about fifteen miles southwest of Antioch. There he met an ascetic, a pillar-dweller, whose name was also John. This Abba John was one of the followers of Saint Symeōn Stylitēs the Elder, and he had had several visions of the younger Symeōn’s arrival. Thus when the six-year-old Symeōn appeared on the Hill, John was full of joy when he greeted him. Symeōn joined the community, and at once took on ascetic severities in excess of what John would allow. John rebuked him multiple times for not eating enough, for not sleeping enough, for saying Psalms when the other monks were asleep: Abba John told him wisely that even an ascetic must take care of his body, for the body is not evil. During this time, Christ appears in visions to Symeōn and speaks to him. At this time Symeōn too begins living upon a pillar near to John’s.
A Patriarch (probably Saint Ephraim of Amida) came to visit Abba John’s monastery, and anointed Symeōn with oil. This was considered the beginning of his ascetic life. His baby teeth fell out, and when he showed them to Abba John and the monks they gave glory to God. One jealous monk tried to kill Symeōn, but the right hand with which he’d try to strike Symeōn dead shrivelled, and the monk fell into a deathly illness. On the brink of dying, the monk confessed to Symeōn his sin against him, and Symeōn forgave him and prayed for him, and the monk was cured. In these early years, Symeōn worked many miracles. A man with hepatitis came to the monastery and asked Symeōn to cure him. Though he was initially unwilling, Abba John convinced the child to touch the man and make the sign of the Cross over him, and he was healed.
The devil attacked the young child several times, trying to tempt him or to scare him into coming down from his pillar, and yet was unable to prevail against him. Abba John rebuked the other monks for refusing, in their jealousy of him, to help Symeōn. Symeōn delivered a sermon from the pillar on the topic of using reason to master the passions, and Abba John said that it was not Symeōn speaking of his own, but the Holy Ghost speaking through him. Patriarch Ephraim came again to visit Symeōn, and told many of the people of Antioch about his great virtue, such that many came to see him. In order to put off visitors, Symeōn bound himself with a rope until he bled and his wounds began to stink. He repeatedly gave whatever clothes he had to homeless people, even in winter. His legs were wounded and inflamed from his ascetic exercises, putting him at grave risk of his life, but he refused treatment from a doctor even when Abba John commanded it, and God healed him. Symeōn asked questions about many deep and mysterious things, and was moved by the Holy Ghost to give advice and comfort to the people who visited him on his pillar – sometimes writing it on scraps of paper or cloth. Unlike other pillar-dwellers, Symeōn changed pillars several times. He moved to a forty-foot pillar first, where he stayed for eight years, though while he was moving some clergymen arrested him and ordained him a deacon, at first against his will. He was tempted by sexual fantasies, but through prayer and the Eucharist he was delivered from them.
Saint Symeōn predicted the death of Abba John, even though John was in excellent health. Abba John praised the boy to everyone, and then died. After this, Saint Symeōn became free to practise upon himself the sorts of ascetic severities that his master had rebuked him for – and in his asceticism he began to see visions. (After thirty days’ vigil, one of his angelic visitors told him to get some sleep.) The Devil appeared to him many times, and Symeōn drove him off each time. Christ also at one point gave him a rod with which to chastise the Evil One and his dæmons. During this time, Saint Symeōn heals many people, and the angels record his cures in a book with white pages, until God tells them to stop, saying that Saint Symeōn’s power for healing has become greater. He heals many of the sick, several dæmoniacs both male and female, two men with a stomach ailments, one young woman with a painful swelling of the foot, and one child who had passed away whose body was brought to him by his father.
Healings from the younger stylite became so heavily demanded that Symeōn took to blessing branches, which Antiochians would take home with them and touch upon sick people and they would be made well. Each branch would only work three times before it would have to be brought back to Saint Symeōn to be re-blessed – his hagiography states that God arranged this so that the monks would not become too puffed up with pride. Saint Symeōn also protected travellers from wild beasts when they called upon his name. Antiochians began to leave gifts for Saint Symeōn, but he refused them. The monks, however, did not. When Symeōn found out that they have been taking gifts from the people for his healings, he chastised them and threatened them.
God warned Saint Symeōn that He would allow the the Šâh of Persia Khosrow I to conquer Antioch because of the idolatries of its people. Saint Symeōn therefore prayed with his whole heart for his city, even while the Persians attacked, his monks fled and the soldiers were captured. Symeōn healed the leg of one who was wounded. The Persians attacked the monastery but as Symeōn prayed a great cloud arose so that none of them could see. Saint Symeōn apparently was trusted enough by Emperor Justinian that he was allowed to negotiate for the release of several Antiochians whom the Persians were holding as prisoners of war. However, Symeōn’s sympathies lay with the poor and dispossessed of Antioch, and he showed this by healing a blind beggar whom the Persians had struck down.
After this the Antiochians would not leave Symeōn alone. He began to yearn for an unbroken solitude, and at God’s prompting he moved onto the Hill of Wonders, which was then a deserted mountain which was inhabited by many wild beasts. He appointed an abbot of the monastery, then set out on horseback for the Hill of Wonders, healing a lame man along the way. At the foot of the Hill, he was greeted by an army of angels, and he climbed upon a pillar which God had shown him. Those who came to him on the Hill of Wonders were attacked by a hungry lion, whom Symeōn sent a disciple to dismiss. Upon hearing Saint Symeōn’s name, the lion withdrew.
Symeōn healed many Antiochians who called upon God, from a plague which struck the city. He correctly foretold Patriarch Ephraim’s death in 545. Saint Ephraim was succeeded by a haughty man named Domnos III, who drove out the paupers from Antioch’s gates and sent them fleeing to Symeōn for aid. Saint Symeōn told them they would not be moved; not long after that, Domnus III was crippled and rendered unable to walk. Saint Symeōn worked several more wonders at this time, healing male and female dæmoniacs, a lame man, a man attacked by wild beasts, a mute girl, two paralytics and a leper. He did not ask any charge for his healings, and he harshly rebuked one of his servants who wanted to take money from the healed people. He predicted disasters and saved people from a great earthquake. He gave his only possession – a hair shirt – to a naked beggar, and spent the next eight months atop his pillar clad only in a loincloth.
As the Hill of Wonders was far too perilous for most ordinary folk to brave, God commanded Saint Symeōn to build a monastery upon the Hill, with a road such that the people of Antioch could travel there. Men and women from Isaura whom Symeōn healed helped him to haul in stone and mortar and began building the monastery under his direction. Saint Symeōn’s disciples complained about a lack of water; when Symeōn prayed the rains came. At once the monks found ancient cisterns and aqueducts on the Hill of Wonders in which to store and direct the water. Symeōn directed for another cistern to be built. His disciples wanted to lock it behind a gate to keep the common folk from drawing water from it, but Symeōn forbade them from doing so. Thus the monks and the common folk both used the water from the cistern – with the common folk using the water from Saint Symeōn’s holy well as an effective cure and protection from disease – and it never ran dry.
The work on the monastery was directed by Symeōn, and various signs and wonders accompanied its construction. A dæmoniac who came for healing gave Symeōn a mechanical part that was needed for the construction of a column. A man with a crippled foot came bearing a wedge. The monks managed to complete the column with these materials provided by the people Symeōn heals. God consecrated the column and allowed Symeōn to ascend. From there, he was able to heal crowds, including a dæmoniac, a jealous priest named Paradeisos, a blind boy, a hæmorrhaging woman and a toothless old man. A dæmoniac named Theotekna was cast out of her house by her husband because she couldn’t conceive; she came to him and was exorcised. She went back to her husband, became pregnant and had a baby. She put up an icon of Saint Symeōn in her house, which worked wonders for women suffering from reproductive ailments.
The monks complained to Saint Symeōn that there was not enough food, and asked him to let them take gifts from those whom he healed. He sternly rebuked them for their lack of faith, and when he prayed the monastic granary became full, and the supply wondrously lasted for three years. In his new monastery, Saint Symeōn and his monks were afflicted by the Devil in a manner similar to Job and his family, from which book Symeōn read to them as they underwent their trials. The Devil hurled himself upon Saint Symeōn’s column, to no avail. The Evil One caused his beard to fall out, though God made it regrow. The Devil stirred up dissension among the brothers, including through an Isaurian named Angoulas. Growing angrier and angrier, the Devil afflicted the surrounding villages, and then struck Antioch itself – causing Symeōn’s mother Martha to fear for the people there. Saint Symeōn prayed and delivered some in the southwest part of the city.
A priest from Iberia (that is to say, modern Spain), came to take some of Saint Symeōn’s hair as a talisman. Symeōn gave it to him, and he went back to Iberia and cured many people with it. Jealous priests then pronounced him a sorcerer and told the bishop, who had him punished. The priest prayed to Saint Symeōn for help, and the bishop fell ill with an illness that could only be healed by Saint Symeōn’s hair. The bishop asked the priest for forgiveness and was healed.
Saint Symeōn’s friends and disciples wanted to make him a priest, but he refused, until he had a vision from God telling him that he must accept it, and he was ordained by Bishop Dionysios of Seleukia. After his ordination, he again began working wonders for people – including an Iberian who swallowed a snake while drunk, a deaf-mute girl and her blind father, and a number of women with infertility, difficult pregnancies or troubled breastfeeding. He converted a number of people from paganism through his wondrous cures. A number of other miraculous healings took place, including a lame girl, a mute paralytic, an ill boy who died while his parents sought from Symeōn the cure, but whom he resurrected at the monastery gate through his prayers.
Saint Symeōn drew the jealousy and the quarrels of astrologers, believers in ‘automatism’ and Manichæans. They sought to confound the saint with argument, but his gentle graced left them shamed into silence. They withdrew and sought to plot against him, and they tried to persuade the soldiery to tear down an icon which someone made of him and put up in a public place – however, a prostitute who was moved by the Holy Ghost to speak denounced them and made them stop. Saint Symeōn then had a vision in which he saw a fearful governor come to Antioch. Not long after, a man named Amantios arrived. Amantios ruled Antioch sternly, and found many of the leading men in Antioch to be guilty of Hellenism, of Manichæism, of astrology and other hæresies – and he threw them into prison, burned their books and imposed heavy fines upon them. Saint Symeōn told the monks that God was refuting the pagans through Amantios. Amantios held a massive trial in which some of the pagans were put to death, though most were released. One man, however, who had been the cause of much dissension, was held in prison. Three of his friends came to Saint Symeōn and told him of the good deeds this man had done. Symeōn prayed for him, and convinced Amantios to free him.
During Lent, Saint Symeōn delivered a homily on the visions he’d received as a child on the need to fast. A hermit from Laodicæa went to Saint Symeōn in despair, and Symeōn told him not to leave his cell. However, the devil tempted him to leave, and he had intercourse with a woman. After this he went to the saint and repented of leaving his cell, but did not confess his sexual sin. Saint Symeōn discerned it, however, and rebuked the anchorite, who thereupon confessed and repented truly. Saint Symeōn and his monks weathered a particularly harsh winter, and Symeōn delivered a homily about how this represented the present age. He promised them a sign to make them believe that their hardships would pass, and on one day the sun shone in the winter, so brightly that it felt to the monks like a summer day.
Saint Symeōn worked several wonders for the workmen and monks at the monastery, preserving them from thirst, from storms, from a shortage of charcoal, and from attacks by wild animals such as bears, boars, lions and leopards. Several monks and laypeople tried to cheat him, whether for gain or to test him, but Saint Symeōn always saw through their deceptions and scolded them. A man with one blind eye asked Saint Symeōn to help him find twelve gold coins he’d lost, but Symeōn healed his eye instead, telling him that his eye is more valuable than any gold. But then the man also wondrously found his lost gold.
Saint Symeōn also interceded with his prayers in the battles of Emperor Justinian against the Lakhmid king Al-Munḏir ibn an-Nu‘mân, who tried to conquer Antioch. In his vision, Saint Symeōn was transported to the battlefield. As he prayed, the Holy Ghost threw fire from heaven and knocked Al-Munḏir down. The Christian Arabs defeated the Lakhmids, and several of them returned to Antioch to give thanks to Saint Symeōn, saying that they had been saved by asking for his intercession.
A young man came to Saint Symeōn for advice, and the stylite told him that he would become the Patriarch of Constantinople. The young man, somewhat sceptically, then asked the stylite who would be the Emperor after Justinian. Saint Symeōn told him that it would be Justin – but that he should keep this a secret. This young man, a scholastikios named Ioannēs, at once went and told Justin about this prophecy, and the two of them became close friends. Justinian appointed Ioannēs to the position of Patriarch of Constantinople after Eutychios was overthrown.
Saint Symeōn also told his monks to pray for the Church of Antioch, for he told them that a great man from Palestine would become Bishop in Antioch after Domnos III’s death. Indeed, he was succeeded in 559 by the Palestinian Saint Anastasios I Sinaïtēs.
Saint Symeōn’s prediction about Justin becoming emperor was borne out, and Justin was of course quite attached to Symeōn, on whose advice he often relied. The saint cured his sick daughter. Justin fell ill himself, and Saint Symeōn warned him not to rely on wicked healers; however his wife Sophia brought in a Jewish sorcerer named Timothy. Patriarch Ioannēs and Saint Symeōn both tried to warn Justin against Timothy but to no avail: Justin was driven mad after using Timothy’s quack remedies, and as he neared death he made a speech promoting Tiberius to replace him as Emperor.
Saint Symeōn continued to work wonders for people until the end of his life. He healed a young child with a crippled foot. When his father expressed scepticism, his own foot became crippled until he repented. Symeōn cured a woman of blindness, and her daughter of a genital condition. Their neighbour, an abusive scoffer, hurled abuse against Symeōn’s cures, and was possessed by a dæmon until he went to see Symeōn. His right hand was afflicted with an infection as well, which lasted until he repented. Saint Symeōn delivered Antioch from a drought, when those who came to pray at his column went home to find their rain-barrels full of water. When sceptics began to wag their tongues at Symeōn’s inability to bring rain, Symeōn lifted up a prayer to God and God delivered a heavy rain upon Antioch. He also healed an elderly widow at her son’s insistence, and a soldier who was afflicted with leprosy after having mocked an unfortunate leper himself.
One of the noblemen of Antioch was a secret worshipper of dæmons, and Saint Symeōn exposed him and made him repent after he skipped the line to receive the Eucharist. Another nobleman from Epiphania came to burn aloe wood at Symeōn’s column, but it let off a ghastly stench which would not cease until he confessed his sins to Symeōn and repented. In a similar way Saint Symeōn exposed several other idolaters and worshippers of dæmons. A Goth, named Vicentius, suffered from a tooth ailment. He went to Symeōn’s pillar and witnessed his wondrous cures, and was converted from Arianism to Orthodoxy. He asks Saint Symeōn how to be saved, and Symeōn tells him to hate the enemies of God, by which he meant the dæmons. However, Vicentius thought he meant the Jews, and so he went and attacked the Jews. When Symeōn heard of this, he told Vicentius not to attack any person, but to wage the spiritual war in his own heart, and to reserve his hate for the Evil One.
Symeōn cured two Isaurians, a lame man named Konōn and a thief named Thōmas. The saint also healed a dæmoniac whose wife had left him, by driving the dæmon into the man’s wife so that she would learn pity. Then he healed the wife and the two were reconciled. He turned the cheap wine of poor merchants into good wine, but the rich men who mocked him lost all their wealth. In a similar way, Saint Symeōn helped eight Armenian workers recover the wages they had lost in the river. From atop his pillar, he continued working great cures particularly for the poor, needy, outcast and sick throughout Antioch and beyond. He lived as a stylite for over 67 years, and was given to know in a vision what day he would die. Knowing his end was nearing he gathered the brothers of the monastery around him and lay out the rule of life they were to follow, and fell asleep in the Lord in peace. This was in the year 596. However, the wondrous cures he worked in life continued from his pillar long after his earthly repose, as much as when he was alive. Holy stylite Symeōn, in your elevated solitude enlightening the world by your peace, pray unto God for us sinners that our souls may be saved!
Apolytikion for Saint Symeōn Stylitēs the Younger, Tone 1:
Dweller of the desert and angel in the body,
you were shown to be a wonder-worker, our God-bearing Father Symeōn.
You received heavenly gifts through fasting, vigil, and prayer:
healing the sick and the souls of those drawn to you by faith.
Glory to Him who gave you strength!
Glory to Him who granted you a crown!
Glory to Him who through you grants healing to all!
Monastery of Saint Symeōn Stylitēs, Antakya
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