The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY: BOOK VI 315
23 During this time Symeon, who is among the saints, fell mortally ill
and, after I had passed on the news of this, [239] Gregory rushed to
salute him for the last time; but he did not succeed. 85 Of all men in his
time Symeon was the most exceptional for virtue, since from his
tenderest youth he had pursued the life on a column, so that he had even
acquired his second teeth on his station on the column.
He was elevated onto the column in the following way. While he
was still extremely young in age, he was wandering around the
peaks of the mountains, roaming about and playing like a child.
And on encountering a wild leopard he put his belt around its neck,
and with this bridle he led it, forgetful of its real nature, and
brought it to his own monastery. When his teacher, who was
himself standing on a column, saw this, he enquired what this was,
and he said it was a feline which is customarily called a cat. Inferring
from this how great his virtue would be, he brought him up onto the
column. 86 On this column, and on another one on the very topmost
summit of the mountain, he spent 68 years, being deemed worthy of
every grace in respect of the expulsion of demons, and curing every
disease and every sickness, and foreseeing the future just like the
present. 87 He actually predicted to Gregory that he would not see
his death, but that he was ignorant of matters after that.
He saw my thoughts about the loss of my children, and that I was
perplexed as to why this had never happened to pagans with many children;
even though I had never expressed any of this to anyone, he wrote
that I should distance myself from these thoughts, as it was displeasing
85 Symeon Stylites the Younger died on 24 May 592.
86 The Life of Symeon the Younger has a rather di¡erent account (chs. 7^15). When
Symeon was aged ¢ve, his father perished in the Antioch earthquake of 526; thereafter he
was led by the vision of a man in white towards Seleucia and, on a mountain, he found a
small monastery under the leadership of a stylite named John; Symeon’s austerity and the
signs of his wisdom impressed John, and at the age of six Symeon performed his ¢rst
miracle; at the age of seven, i.e. in 528, Symeon mounted a column placed next to that of
John. For full discussion of his life, and the evidence for it, see Van den Ven, Syme¤on.For
the physical remains on the Miraculous Mountain, see Djobadze, Antioch ch. 2. For
another feline miracle, see n. 90 below.
87 Symeon spent six years on his ¢rst column, then a further eight years on a much taller
column at the same monastery. At the age of 20, i.e. in 541, he decided to move to the top of
the Miraculous Mountain, where a major monastic complex grew up around his column. If
the evidence of the Life is right, that he ¢rst ascended a column about two years after the
earthquake of 526, then he only spent 64 years on a column.