7/29/2019 Victory to the Contestants http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/victory-to-the-contestants 1/23 1 Death reaches the living in fits of great urgency, in a dense and mysterious transition to stasis for the one who has just died. Even in those cases where a stasis conveyed by the living closely resembles death. When initially peeking into the fifth century, we encounter few deaths more spectacular and eulogized than the death of Simeon Stylites the Elder (c.390-469 C.E.), the end to a forty year slow-motion climb to heaven atop an enclosure in the mountains of Syria. A maverick practitioner of sustained martyrdom atop a column 1 . Robin Fox Lane has remarked that “…the image of the solitary anchorite, dying in private, remained powerful in Christian writings…[yet] the first stylites, high above the crowds, brought a new drama and publicity to the occasion...” 2 In the first three parts of this essay, I would like to explore the principal texts from the hagiographic sources detailing Simeon Stylite‟s life and death, and in the final section delve into the role of one party conspicuous to these depictions- Arab Christian competitors for the “venerable corpse” 3 . Are these simply fabrications of a distressed adherent, or a rich item of consideration among the other „twenty -four hour coverage‟ that resulted at Simeon‟s death? Do the surface inconsistencies in recalling this episode in each of the three vitae available to us suggest the tensions of 1 For a critical look at the history of stylitism see David T.M. Frankfurter, “Stylites and Phallobates: Pillar Religions in Late Antique Syria, Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Jun., 1990), pp. 168-198 2 Robin Lane Fox, “The Life of Daniel ”, in Portraits: Biograhpical Representation in the Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire, ed. M.J. Edwards and Simon Swain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pg 179 3 We find these only in the Life of Antonius
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Christological and ethnic divisions during a period renown for dramatic changes along
this part of the Eastern Roman Empire?4
Theodoret of Cyrrus‟ Religious History, also known as A History of the Monks of
Syria written midway into the fifth century5, documents a tradition of Syrian monastic
life stretching across two centuries, for which Simeon Stylites Life provides a rousing
dénouement . As the twenty-sixth chapter of thirty, this Vita connects a vibrant Syrian
Christian past- albeit one with distinctively solitary and severe tendencies- to a
superlative figure whom Theodoret could claim “I myself was an eye-witness…”6. Susan
Ashbrook Harvey, has noted that “[Theodoret] …treated it with marked difference to the
others in his collection: he is here at his most hagiographical.”7It is with measured
words that this Bishop of Cyrrhus addresses what he fears some readers will perceive as a
“…myth wholly devoid of truth”8; to instead supply current proof of miracles for “those
uninitiated in divine things”. In his analysis of this chapter from the Historia Religiosa,
Robert Doran detects that Theodoret “…does appear ambiguous on the subject of his
[Simeon‟s] standing on the pillar”9, particularly with regards to the manner and quality of
conversion Simeon‟s renown inspired. We shall return to the topic of evangelism among
the Arab denizens of the Syrian „desert‟, and Theodoret‟s efforts to proj ect orthodoxy
around this significant group of clients.
4 see Peter Brown, “The Rise and the Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity”,The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 61 (1971), pp. 80-1015 nearly all scholarship agrees on 444 C.E.6 Theodoret of Cyrrhus, History of the Monks of Syria 26.14, trans. and ed. R.M. Price
(Kalamzoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1985), pg 167.7 Susan Ashbrook Harvey, “The Sense of a Stylite: Perspectives on Simeon the Elder”,Vigiliae Christianae, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Dec ., 1988), pg, 3788 Theodoret, History of the Monks of Syria, 26.01, Price pg. 1609 The Lives of Simeon Stylites, With a new introduction by Robert Doran, ed. and
trans. Robert Doran (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1992).
Just as his theological works such as The Cure of Hellenic Maladies vindicate
Christianity in the aegis of Biblical exegesis, Theodoret unites Simeon‟s astonishing
austerities with marvels of the Old Testament. Isiah was tasked by God to “…walk
naked and without shoes…”, Ezekiel commanded to “…lie down on his right side for
forty days and one hundred and fifty on his left…”10, and so Simeon likewise obediently
carried out a divine dispensation intended by “extraordinary novelty to draw everyone by
its strangeness to the spectacle and make the proffered counsel persuasive to those who
come.”11 Derek Kruger has argued that Theodoret‟s hagiography takes on a strongly
devotional purpose
12
, a view not entirely incompatible with Harvey‟s own analysis of theemphasis given to reconfiguring classical Hellenic philosophical concepts and heroes in a
new Christian guise.13
These literary traits fused with Theodoret‟s polished Greek suggest
an intended audience among the Hellenized urban elites and fellow ecclesiastic
authorities concerned of heretical or confused neo-pagan origins14
in this “pillar saint”.
In the introduction to his translation of the Lives of St. Simeon, Robert Doran emphasizes
the importance of “the voice of the narrator: it is a bishop conscious of his position as
10 Theodoret, History of the Monks of Syria, 26.12, Price pg. 16511 Theodoret, History of the Monks of Syria, 26.10, Price pg. 16612 Derek Kruger, “Writing as Devotion: Hagiographical Composition and the Cult of
the Saints in Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Cyril of Scythopolis, Church History , Vol. 66,
No. 4 (Dec., 1997), pg. 707 -“Social history continues to exclude theology and religious
composition from discussions of piety on the assumption that thought and action are separable.” 13 Harvey, “The Sense of a Stylite”, pg. 379 14 see again, Frankenfurter, pg. 171 “we can discern a number of
religious practices centered in Hierapolis, with their respective cultures.”, speaking
to alleged pagan origins of stylitism and a Greek ruin closely located to Simeon’s
shepherd of God‟s flock”, wherein “monks are admirable examples of piety, but they
remain subordinate to the clergy”15.
While the Religious History is indispensible for the modern historian of Early
Christianity, clearly it was lacking for the earliest copyists of the text. Being written in
Simeon Stylites‟ own lifetime, there is no account of his saintly death. Most visible
among other “problematic” aspects of the surviving manuscripts is a short interpolation
appended to the end of the life, whose unknown author hoped to “…demonstrate by
[Simeon‟s] death, to those who did not believe it, that he was human.”16This must
certainly allude to an earlier episode where Theodoret describes the arrival of a “virtuous”
yet rational deacon to Simeon‟s pillar , who poses the question “…are you a man or a
bodiless being?” (after which he was invited to ascend the column and bear witness to
Simeon‟s ulcers and other quite physical infirmities)17
. However late this interpolation
was added, it follows later patterns of a death where the saint‟s corpse retains its standing
posture (“…it remained upright in the place of his contests, like an unbeaten athlete who
strives with no part of his limbs to touch the ground.”)18. This thrifty summary of
Simeon‟s death ponders that “even today healings of all kinds of diseases, miracles…just
as when he was alive…” occur not only “…where his remains lie buried…” but
particularly “at the monument to his valor and his continual combat…the great and
famous column of the righteous and praiseworthy Simeon”19. We know that after initial
interment at a church in Antioch some of Simeon‟s remains were transported to the
15 Doran, introduction to The Lives of Simeon Stylites, pg. 4116 Theodoret, History of the Monks of Syria 26.28, Price pg. 17217 Theodoret, History of the Monks of Syria 26.23, Price pg. 17018 Theodoret, History of the Monks of Syria 26.28, Price pg. 17219 Theodoret, History of the Monks of Syria 26.28, Price pg. 172
capitol of Constantinople under the guidance of Daniel Stylites and patronage of the
Emperor Zeno20
. The sanctity of Simeon‟s unique place of residence will be recognized
by subsequent generations of imitators for whom a prior occupant‟s column represented a
priceless sacred inheritance, and very shortly following his death it formed the site of
lasting monumental architecture still renown to modern times at the site of the Qalat
Siman.21
Possessing the foresight that “…others will pr obably write much more than
this…and if he lives on, no doubt they will add greater miracles”22, Theodoret
acknowledged the fluid boundaries of the hagiographic genre. So it comes as no surprise
that while Theodoret‟s Life existed as a useful template to expand upon, a great deal of
the accreted material in both the Syriac Life and Antonius’ Life will focus on Simeon‟s
death and burial. Doran points out that the extremely broad lines of narrative similarity
between the Vitae written in response to Theodoret‟s Life only converge on four
episodes- one of which being his funeral procession to Antioch.23
The Syriac Life traces
a much more detailed narrative of Simeon from his childhood, conversion, early
experiences as a novice monk, his virtuosic career as “God‟s Athlete”, and most
importantly for our purposes, a dramatic depiction of his death scene. What we might
first ask are the possible origins of its author(s), and the audience for whom they intended
a competing account. How does this portrayal of death befit one for whom fanatic, even
20 Robin Lane Fox, “The Life of Daniel,” in Portraits: Biographical Representation inthe Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire, ed. M.J. Edwards and Simon Swain,
(Oxford: Claredon Press, 1997), pg. 22
21 Harvey, “The Sense of a Stylite”, pg. 377 22 Theodoret, History of the Monks of Syria 26.28, Price pg. 17223 Doran, introduction to The Lives of Simeon Stylites, pg. 55
benefactors of Simeon‟s jurisdiction such as the community of Panir would have held
few objections to the Syrian Life‟s prolitarean tone, quite likely forming a reservoir of
folklore or previous/alternate non-surviving written accounts from which those “who
undertook to compose this book” could utilize. Beyond the hope “that God may grant
them forgiveness of their sins forever”, the authors of the Syriac Life claim a stake for
Simeon‟s monastic community as the caretakers of his legacy, with no shortage of
instructions for future stylites.
To summarize briefly, the final sixteen chapters (of an ebullient one hundred
thirty) are devoted to describing one for whom “his Lord did not devise a simple exit”28,
an account that reflected one who would be “glorified…his heroic deeds both in life and
death more than all the people of his day and age”29. Consistent with displaying his
foreknowledge of fellow monks‟ deaths, the Syriac Life contemplates a Simeon blessed
to know the hour of his own death, granted to him only seven years after ascending his
station when “…two men appeared…dressed in glorious light…” to inform him that
“…when this number forty is filled, he has reached his end and he will be taken
away…”30 Inaugurated by “…such a sign as has not been seen in these times” prepared
by steadfastness of forty years on his aerial station, Simeon recognizes “…that sign of
anger in the city and region of Antioch...” 31which ushers forth a fifty-one day period of
foreboding where “…no one did absolutely any work at all, but everyone was
28 Syriac Life 114, Doran pg. 18329 Syriac Life 114, Doran pg. 18330 Syriac Life 114, Doran, pg. 18331 Syriac Life 114, Doran pg. 184; Fox has interpreted this “anger of Antioch” to refer
to an earthquake recorded in the sources during 458 C.E.
, paradoxically able to stand both on his column and save the
doomed passengers of a vessel caught in a whirlwind, appearing on the waves and
guiding the ship safely to harbor. This fundamental Levantine imagery of “tempests of
sins” and “storms of evil”, invites a stark contrast from the scorching yet aromatic heat of
the desert.
I have mentioned the divine status conferred on the site of Simeon‟s vigil by the
unknown annotators of the Religious History. The authors of the Syriac Life describe
that just prior to his death, Simeon was favored with “…a pledge of his achievement…”:
A cool, refreshing, and very fragrant wind blew as though a heavenly dew were falling on the saint
were sending forth a fragrant scent from him such as has not been spoken of in the world. There was not
just one smell exuding from it, but wave upon wave kept coming. There were multiple scents, each
different from the other. To those billowing fragrances none of the sweet spices or excellent and
pleasurable herbs of this world can be compared, for they were dispensed by the providence of God. Nor
did they exude their perfume in the every place, not even the whole length of the ladder but from the
middle up. Wave upon wave went out into all the enclosure35.
As Robert Doran puts it- “Simeon the Stylite rising heavenward like incense was not a
victim of ascetic zeal: he was a living icon of the transfigured Lord.”36From this point
forward the Syriac Life develops a third- person telling of Simeon‟s final three days
focusing on the devotion of his followers, a theme that Antonius’ Life will later re-
interpret while treading a roughly similar sequence of events.
An important yet unnamed witness to these proceedings was “…one who loved him
and was with him constantly day and night…” who “…never left his side at all especially
in these days when he was dying.”37 This most trusted companion is allowed to perceive
the blessed fragrance, though Simeon commands him to “Speak to no one about this
34 see Syrian Life 72, Doran pp. 152-15335 Syrian Life 116, Doran pp. 185-18636 Doran, introduction to The Lives of Simeon Stylites, pg. 5437 Syriac Life 116, Doran pg. 186
wider Christological controversies of the fifth century will linger in our comparisons of
Simeon‟s burial.
We thus arrive at The Life and Daily Mode of Living of the Blessed Simeon the
Stylite by one „Antonius‟. Though some commentators have seen “divergent”42facets in
this third account with the Syrian Life, many details (particularly those of Simeon‟s death
scene) could strike the reader as creative re-formulations of the imagery contained in
earlier versions. It might even be argued vice-versa.43
Much shorter than the Syriac Life,
the approach is both more penitential and less concerned with visions of a new Moses. As
Susan Ashbrook Harvey has pointed out: “What is most apparent in this text is the heavy
burden of sin, and the need to atone for that burden through severe, mortifying
penance.”44 Antonius’ Life presents tableaux of Simeon‟s death and burial that take a
form quite similar to the SL, which structurally forms the final third of the narrative.
Antonius is a humble narrator, a “watchman” and a “sinner”, and his role in witnessing
Simeon‟s death is a more subdued affair-no signs over Antioch among a terrified
populace figure in the days preceding Simeon‟s passing; however Antonius does witness
“…a man in a frightening raiment which I cannot describe...as big as two men…”45come
to visit Simeon eleven portentous days before his death. Antonius vaguely discerns a
meal shared and singing between this angelic figure and the holy man.
42 Harvey, “The Sense of a Stylite”, pg. 388 43 Fox, pg. 183 –Fox believes “Anthony’s touchs of realism perhaps protest too
much; is the ‘sinner least of all’ a liar and has he chosen his name to suggest the‘beloved Anthony’ of Syriac tradition?” 44 Harvey, “The Sense of a Stylite”, pg. 387 45 Antonius, Vit Sym Styl 30, Doran pg. 99
54 Just ten years later in the early 1970‟s Peter Brown may not have been willing to go
quite so far; when speaking of the anchorite Alexander the Sleepless he maintains that
townsmen barred his path “…for what they saw was the old curse of the Fertile Crescent
in a new form-a Beduinisation of the ascetic life.”55. Brown was at pains to distinguish
the rural character of the holy man‟s power in the late antique Roman Eastern Empire,
and does not always have so wide-reaching a vision of “Arabs”, who he equates
implicitly both with “The Beduin [who were]…among the first clients of many Syrian
and Palestinian holy man”56and as ambivalent symbols of the Other within early
Byzantine Rome, subjects of curiosity among the “…authors and their audience…”
57
of
the Syriac Life. Islamic sources being in acknowledged scarcity dealing with this
period58
, we are often faced with a choice of just how literally to interpret designations
lik e “Saracens”, “Ishmaelites”, “Arab”, and most elliptically “barbarians” within our
Christian sources. In taking either a guarded view or literal approach, we can recognize
the Christological significance St. Simeon‟s hagiographers associated with this nomadic
population both when describing his relations with them in life, and also during his death
and burial.
One such intriguing item for consideration involves a contingent of Arabs described
in the Life of Antonius who appear in the aftermath of Simeon‟s death “…armed and on
54 Alexander A. Vasiliev, “Notes on Some Episodes concerning the Relations betweenthe Arabs and the Byzantine Empire from the Fourth the Sixth Century”, Dumbarton
Oaks Papers, Vol. 9/10 (1956), pp. 30655 Brown, “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity”, pg. 87 56 Brown, “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity”, pg. 83 57 Brown, “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity”, pg. 90 58 Vasilev, “Notes on Some Episodes..”, pg. 309
Elder‟s efficacy in converting a pagan, polytheistic element64:
The Ismaelites, arriving in companies, two or three hundred at the same time, sometimes even a
thousand, disown with shouts their ancestral imposture; and smashing in front of this great luminary the
idols they had venerated and renouncing the orgies of Aphrodite-it was this demon whose worship they had
adopted originally-they receive the benefit of the divine mysteries, accepting laws from this sacred tongue
and bidding farewell to their ancestral customs, as the disown the eating of wild assess and camels.65
It is indeed difficult to assess the long-term success of such conversions, but the
importance of trading and benefits of Christian identity towards economic advantage has
been recognized.66
Probing into economic interaction among a vague borderland that
could encompass both “…semi-nomads and pastoral agriculturalists…” Trimingham has
argued that “…the borderland populations of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia were
largely Arab, ethnically speaking, even though they had changed over to the dominant
language, Aramaic.”67In Mesopotamia he distinguishes the way Byzantine authority
viewed a Syriac-speaking peasant farmer, and Arabs: “…The term Arab tended to
designate the intermediate category of pastoralist cultivators; they were semi-sedentary
and important for the economy of the settled areas”.68Whatever deeper religious
motivations inspired “Arab” conversion, we can associate the earlier mentioned emphasis
of the Syriac Life in expressing Simeon‟s ascetic endeavor using the idioms of merchants,
trading, and the rural economy.
Analysis of Theodoret‟s Life of Simeon has proven interesting in recognizing that
the hagiographer focuses almost exclusively on miraculous acts directed toward
64 see Jonathan P. Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near
East, 600-1800, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003) pg. 4465 Theodoret, A History of the Monks of Syria, Price pp. 166-16766 Trimingham, pg. 12267 Trimingham, pg. 14568 Trimingham, pg. 146
contain the rabid neophyte faith of quarreling Arabs who “…would not have acted like
fools against one another if they had not believed that the blessing of the inspired man
had immense power”. Though written prior to Chalcedon, the Theodoret‟s Life of
Simeon is a window into the underlying tensions between ecclesiastic authorities and a
Syria that Peter Brown calls “…the Wild and Wooly West of ascetic heresy”.73
The earlier speculations of Robin Lane Fox toward the flashes of realism in the Life
of Antonius that tip the author‟s hand may very well serve our needs to support a view of
authentic Arab competition for the body of Simeon Stylites. The “watchman” Antonius
relays his knowledge of Simeon‟s death through discreet and direct channels to theauthorities at Antioch. Would it be so inconceivable that a member of Simeon‟s
enclosure attempt to communicate the news of his death first to a Bedoin faction within
comparable proximity? None of the sources can give indisputable proof, yet we see a
few interesting threads: in none of the hagiographies under consideration does Simeon
provide explicit instructions to his followers as to how or where his corpse must be
buried. This seeming indifference is at odds with the examples of Syrian asceticism
described earlier in History of the Monks of Syria, where obscurity of a burial site (in the
case of James of Cyrrhestica) or oaths sworn during heated competition among local
settlements (in the Life of Apcepsimas) prefigure deliberated plans. Perhaps in
submission to his immense fame, or possibly concealed by his pious biographers, Simeon
does not designate a burial strategy as he nears death.
Did semi-nomadic Arabs, distinct from the foederati74
within the Eastern Empire,
73 Brown, “Rise and Function of the Holy Man”, pg. 84 74 Shahid, pg. 164
simply appear at Simeon‟s “funeral”75with a traditional military decorum to honor a
cherished builder of tribal and economic unity? It seems doubtful, yet none of the vitae
speak of any actual skirmish or battle fought among Arabs and a “numberless host of
soliders”76 among the “..twenty-one prefects and many tribunes” steered by Abadur 77
and
the Antiochene episcopate. The fragmentary sources outside the immediate vicinity of
Syria in the late fifth century simply don‟t illuminate further into the symbolic or literal
function of “Ishmaelite Queens” and “Himyanite” sheiks and a nascent client-
catchecumen relationship with Simeon. A more nuanced understanding of Monophysite
sympathies assigned to Arab-Christians in the secondary literature
78
could yield further
traction to the “touch of realism” within the Life of Antonius. Like a fifth-century
Rashomon, our view of the events in Simeon‟s passing corroborate the facts that he
climbed the pillar and died atop it, projecting bright and colorful episodes of fragrant
triumph and several dark frames as to the true cast of extras in this peagentry. Simeon‟s
great power over death and power across the lines of Eastern Roman Empire and beyond
demanded a propriety in communicating his death. These were lines that an ecclesiastic
and imperial authority were attempting to splice uneasily at Chalcedon just eight years
before.
75 An undescribed event mentioned in the Syriac Life but omitted by Antonius’ Life,
one that also paints Arbadur, general of Antioch’s appearance at Telneshe to be one
of duty and piety, first and foremost to attend the funeral.76 Syriac Life 125, Doran pg. 19277 Syriac Life 125, Doran, pg. 19278 Trimingham, pg. 159: “…The f ifth-century controversies concerning the nature of
Christ mark, though they do not explain, the division of Syrian Christians into
opposing communions, of which the most defined were the Melkite (Chalcedonian),
the West Syrian (Monophysite), and the East Syrian (Nestorian). In consequence of
these divisions, those northern Arab Christians, nomadic and sedentary alike, who
fell within the spheres of Byzantium and Persia also became distinguished
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