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Digging Holes and Building Pillars: Simeon Stylites and the “Geometry” of Ascetic Practice*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2010

Charles M. Stang
Charles M. Stang*
Affiliation:
Harvard Divinity School
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Extract

In Constantine P. Cavafy's 1917 poem, “Simeon,” a young cultured aesthete (probably from Antioch), writes his friend Mebis about a recent chance encounter with the famous stylite that left him “shattered, unnerved, and aghast,” and entirely unfit to resume his sophistic career in belles lettres:

Ah, don—t smile; for thirty-five years, think of it—

winter, summer, daytime, night, for thirty-five

years he's been living, martyring himself, atop a pillar.

Before we were born—I—m twenty-nine years old,

you are, I think, younger than I am—

before we were born, imagine it,

Simeon climbed up that pillar.

And since that time he has stayed there facing God.1

Type
ARTICLES
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 103 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 447 - 470
Copyright
President and Fellows of Harvard College 2010

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References

1 Before Time Could Change Them: The Complete Poems of Constantine P. Cavafy (trans. Theoharis, Theoharis C.; New York: Harcourt, 2001) 270Google Scholar.

2 Theodoret of Cyrrhus, A History of the Monks of Syria (trans. Price, Richard M.; Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian, 1985)Google Scholar, hereafter HR; de Cyr, Théodoret, Histoire des Moines de Syrie, Histoire Philothée (ed. Canivet, Pierre and Leroy-Molinghen, Alice; 2 vols.; SC 234, 257; Paris: Cerf, 1977–1979)Google Scholar.

3 Marion (HR 15.1), Eusebius (HR 18.1), James (HR 21.3), Limnaios (HR 22.2) John (HR 23.1), Moses, Antiochus, and Antonius (HR 23.3).

4 HR 4.6.

5 HR 3.5, 27.2.

6 There are three lives of Simeon: 1) the Greek vita by Theodoret of Cyrrhus, ch. 26 of his Historia Religiosa; 2) the Greek vita by Antonius; 3) the anonymous Syriac vita. All three of the vitae are translated by Robert Doran in The Lives of Simeon Stylites (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian, 1992). All English quotations from the vitae are from this edition. In what follows, I refer to each vita by abbreviation (following Doran: HR, Ant., Syriac) and chapter number. For the Greek text of the Historia Religiosa, see Canivet and Leroy-Molinghen. For the Greek text of Antonius, see Lietzmann, Hans, Das Leben des heiligen Symeon Stylites (Texte under Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 32.4; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1908) 20–78Google Scholar. For the Syriac text of the anonymous vita, see Assemani, Stephano Evodio, Acta sanctorum martyrum Orientalium et Occidentalium in duas partes distributa (Adcedunt Acta S. Simeonis Stylitae; Rome: Collini, 1748) 2:268–398Google Scholar.

7 Lucian of Samosata, On the Syrian Goddess (ed. and trans. Lightfoot, Jane L.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

8 Eliade, Mircea, Symbolism, the Sacred and the Arts (New York: Crossroad, 1990) 105Google Scholar.

9 Doran, 36. For a detailed discussion of the sources for the three vitae, see Festugière, Andre J., Antioche païenne et chrétienne. Libanius, Chrysostome et les moines de Syrie (Paris: Boccard, 1959) 347–87Google Scholar.

10 See especially Wright, G. R. H., “The Heritage of the Stylites,” AJBA 1 (1970) 82–107Google Scholar; idem., “Simeon's Ancestors,” AJBA 1 (1968) 41–49Google Scholar; Frankfurter, David, “Stylites and Phallobates: Pillar Religions in Late Antique Syria,” VC 44 (1990) 168–98Google Scholar.

11 See Lent, Frederick, “The Life of St. Simeon Stylites: A Translation of the Syriac Text in Bedjan's Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum IV,” JAOS 35 (1915) 103–98Google Scholar, esp. 104; Delehaye, Hippolyte, Les saints stylites (Subsidia Hagiographica 14; Brussels: Société des bollandistes, 1923)Google Scholar esp. clxxvii, clxxx, clxxxi; Drijvers, Han J. W., “Spätantike Parallelen zur altchristlichen Heiligenverehrung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des syrischen Stylitenkultus,” Aspekte frühchristlicher Heiligenverehrung (Oikonomia: Quellen und Studien zur orthodoxen Theologie 6; Erlangen: Universität Erlangen, 1977) 54–76Google Scholar; Brock, Sebastian, “Early Syrian Asceticism,” Numen 20 (1970) 1–19, esp. 17 n. 53aCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harvey, Susan Ashbrook, “The Sense of a Stylite,” VC 42 (1988) 376–94Google Scholar; eadem, “The Stylite's Liturgy,” JECS 6 (1998) 523–39Google Scholar.

12 Frankfurter, “Stylites,” 174.

13 Toutain argued that stylitism was “a survival of an ancient pagan practice.” RHR 65 (1912) 171–77Google Scholar. Delehaye characterizes Toutain's conclusion as “an interesting example of those methodological aberrations which seek to find, under whatever Christian institution, the vestiges of some pagan practice” and insisted that “we do not dream of giving [Simeon] credit for having sanctified a practice inherited by idolaters.” Hippolyte Delehaye, Les saints stylites (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1923) clxxvii, clxxxi; cited in Frankfurter, “Stylites,” 172.

14 Wright, “Simeon's Ancestors”; idem, “The Heritage of the Stylites.”

15 Ibid., 84.

16 Ibid., 87, 103 n. 22.

17 Ibid., 86.

18 Ibid., 87.

19 Lucien of Samosata, On the Syrian Goddess, 266–69.

20 Burkhardt, Jacob, The Age of Constantine (New York: Pantheon, 1949) 132Google Scholar; cited in Wright, “The Heritage of the Stylites,” 94–95.

21 Brown hints at a similar point: “Symeon Stylites had guarded his brother's herds on the mountains around Sis (near Nicopolis): Deeply under-Christianized, his early piety was moved by ancient memories of sacrifice and prophecy on the high places.” Brown, Peter, “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,” JRS 61 (1971) 83Google Scholar.

22 See Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses V: “[The Lord] by his obedience on the tree renewed what was done by disobedience in [connection with] a tree.” Cyril C. Richardson, Early Church Fathers (New York: Touchstone, 1996) 389; see also Gospel of Truth 1.18: “[Jesus, the Christ] was nailed to a tree (and) he became a fruit of the knowledge of the Father”; 1.20: “For this reason Jesus appeared; he put on that book; he was nailed to a tree; he published the edict of the Father on the cross.” The Nag Hammadi Library (ed. Robinson, James M.; trans. Attridge, Harold W. and MacRae, George W.; 3d ed.; New York: HarperCollins, 1990) 41, 42Google Scholar.

23 See Sebastian Brock, The Luminous Eye (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian, 1985) 80–81, 96, 100. For Ephrem, the image that connects the Tree of Life and the Cross is the sword or lance: the lance that pierces Christ's side on the Cross removes the sword that guards Paradise.

24 Thomas James Lamy, Sancti Ephraem Syri hymni et sermones (Mechelen: H. Dessain, Summi Pontificis, S. Congregationis de Propaganda Fide et Archiepiscopatus Mechliniensis Typographus, 1882–1902) col. 769.2; cited in Wright, “The Heritage of the Stylites,” 96–97.

25 Drijvers, “Spätantike Parallelen,” 54–76.

26 Harvey, “Sense,” 388.

27 Ibid., 536. In fact, it is only in the vita of Simeon's seventh century successor, Simeon the Younger, that we have the first explicit identification of the stylite as a living crucifix.

28 For a treatment of the difficulties involved in using hagiographies as sources for historical reconstruction, see the debate among David Frankfurter, Jacques van der Vliet, and Peter van Minnen about the use of Coptic hagiographic documents for the history of the Christianization of Egypt in The Encroaching Desert: Egyptian Hagiography and the Medieval West (ed. Dijkstra, Jitse H. F. and van Dijk, Mathilde; Leiden: Brill, 2006) 13–91Google Scholar. I owe this reference to one of the anonymous HTR reviewers.

29 See Ackermann, Robert, The Myth and Ritual School: J.G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists (New York: Garland, 1991)Google Scholar; and Segal, Robert A.; ed., The Myth and Ritual Theory: An Anthology (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1998)Google Scholar.

30 Frankfurter, “Stylites,” 173. See also Calder, William M., III, ed., The Cambridge Ritualists Reconsidered (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars, 1991)Google Scholar.

31 Frankfurter, “Stylites,” 173.

32 Lucian of Samosata, On the Syrian Goddess, 267.

33 Frankfurter, “Stylites,” 171.

34 Ibid., 176.

35 Ibid., 181.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid., 185–88.

39 Ibid., 179.

40 HR 26.2.

41 HR 26.3.

42 Ibid.; the corresponding vision in the Syriac vita (3–5) is much more elaborate but does not include the injunction to dig—only to build.

43 HR 26.6.

44 Ibid.

45 HR 26.7.

46 Ibid., 26.10.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid., 26.12.

49 If a cubit is only about eighteen inches, then Simeon's first pillar only put him nine feet above the crowds.

50 HR, 26.12.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid.

55 Ant., 9.

56 Ibid.

57 Ibid., 11.

58 Robert Doran, The Lives of Simeon Stylites, 43.

59 Ant., 12.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid., 17.

63 Ibid., 27.

64 Ibid., 13.

65 Ibid., 12, 13.

66 Ibid., 11.

67 Ibid., 17.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid., 29.

70 “Homily on Simeon the Stylite,” 26, in Ascetic Behavior in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook (ed. Wimbush, Vincent L.; trans. Harvey, Susan Ashbrook; Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 1990) 15–28Google Scholar. See also Susan Ashbrook Harvey, “The Memory and Meaning of a Saint: Two Homilies on Simeon Stylites,” in Aram: A Festschrift for Dr. Sebastian Brock (1993) 219–41.

71 Syriac, 3.

72 Ibid.

73 Syriac, 16.

74 Ibid., 18.

75 Ibid., 23.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid., 24.

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid.

80 Ibid., 25 [emphasis added].

81 Syriac, 28, 44.

82 Ibid., 111.

83 Ibid.

84 See Harvey, Susan Ashbrook, “Olfactory Knowing: Signs of Smell in the vitae of Simeon Stylites,” in After Bardaisan: Studies on Continuity and Change in Syriac Christianity in Honour of Professor Han J. W. Drijvers (ed. Reinink, G. J. and Klugkist, A.C.; Leuven: Peeters, 1999) 23–34Google Scholar; see also her more recent comprehensive study, Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California, 2006)Google Scholar.

85 Syriac, 112.

86 Ibid., 113.

87 Syriac, 105 [emphasis added].

88 “[T]he peasants of the neighborhood would dance round the pillar and compass it about with their beasts of burden to ensure good luck” (Ecclesiastical History 14); cited in Wright, “Heritage of the Stylites,” 99.

89 HR 26.7.

90 Ibid., 26.10.

91 Doran sees two relevant lineages for the stationary saints such as Simeon: 1) the “sons and daughters of the covenant” (bnay/bnat qyâmâ), a form of asceticism peculiar to early Syriac Christianity, whose name derives from the root qwm meaning “to stand” (Doran, Lives of Simeon Stylite, 34–35). See Griffith, Sidney H., “Asceticism in the Church of Syria: the Hermeneutics of Early Syrian Monasticism,” in Asceticism (ed. Wimbush, Vincent L. and Valantasis, Richard; New York: Oxford University Press, 1995) 220–245Google Scholar; 2) the “Gnostic” self-designation “the immoveable race,” which suggests that “immovability is achieved by means of a visionary ascent in which one ‘stands— in the transcendent realm” (Doran, , Lives of Simeon Stylite, 34–35)Google Scholar. See Williams, Michael, The Immoveable Race: A Gnostic Designation and the Theme of Stability in Late Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 1985)Google Scholar.

92 Doran, Lives of Simeon Stylites, 34. See Eliade, Mircea, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964)Google Scholar.

93 Frankfurter, “Stylites,” 195–96 n. 56. See Eliade, Mircea, “Ropes and Puppets,” in The Two and the One (trans. Cohen, J. M.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965) 160–88Google Scholar.

94 Frankfurter, “Stylites,” 196 n. 57.

95 Jonathan Z. Smith, “Acknowledgements: Morphology and History in Mircea Eliade's Patterns in Comparative Religion (1949–1999), Part I: The Work and Its Contents, Part II: The Texture of the Work,” in idem, Relating Religion, 61–100. Smith reminds us that Eliade's phenomenological/morphological project is more complex than it is often credited with being, especially given Eliade's late efforts to address the problems of history.

96 For an attempt to apply Eliade's lens to another body of ancient literature in light of recent scholarly criticism, see Moshe Idel, Ascension on High in Jewish Mysticism: Pillars, Lines, Ladders (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2005).

97 Eliade, Symbolism, the Sacred and the Arts, 105.

98 Eliade, , Sacred and the Profane (New York: Harcourt, 1957)Google Scholar esp. 1–65.

99 Eliade, Sacred and the Profane, 37. In a series of articles over the course of several decades, Jonathan Z. Smith has questioned whether Eliade's focus on the organization of space around the “center” leads him to neglect the “periphery.” This is an especially acute oversight, Smith contends, in the Hellenistic and late antique periods, which witness something of a sea change from classical antiquity: the “central-locative” (also termed “centripetal” and “native”) stance, in which place is the ultimate arbiter of meaning, gives some ground to the “peripheral-utopic” (also termed “centrifugal” and “diasporic”) stance, in which only the escape from place is meaningful. One stance does not replace the other, for both are “coeval existential possibilities.” See especially “The Wobbling Pivot,” “The Temple and the Magician” and “The Influence of Symbols upon Social Change”—all in Smith's Map is Not Territory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978) 88–103. Also relevant is his more recent essay, “Here, There, and Anywhere,” in idem, Relating Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004) 323–39.

100 HR 26.11.

101 Syriac, 3.

102 HR 26.20, 26.27.

103 See Fowden, Garth, Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993)Google Scholar for a short but perspicacious treatment of the geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean from the Achaemenid Empire to the ‘Abbasid Caliphate.

104 Eliade, Symbolism, the Sacred and the Arts, 105.

105 “In Theodoret's account, the Syrian countryside is shown dotted with figures of supernatural δυ/ναμἰ quite as palpable, as localized and as authenticated by popular acclamation, as were the garrison posts and the large farmhouses…. In Byzantium there was a proliferation of little centers of power that competed with the vested hierarchy of Church and State” (Brown, “Rise and Function of the Holy Man,” 87, 95).

106 Eliade, Shamanism, 32.

107 The notion of moving centers calls to mind Eliade's now infamous discussion of the Tjilpa myth in which the tribe carries a “sacred pole” with them on their wanderings, thereby organizing space on the move (Eliade, Sacred and the Profane, 32–33). Smith, Jonathan Z., “In Search of Place,” in idem, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) 1–23Google Scholar. Smith has demonstrated how far afield Eliade's reading of this myth was and the consequences for his claims for the universal scope of his theories.

108 Eliade, Sacred and the Profane, 12.

109 HR 26.1.

110 Ibid., 26.23.

111 Ant., 7.

112 Ibid., 32.

113 Ant., 13.