The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus - Coptic ...

34
EVAGRIUS
13 In these times too there £ourished and was prominent [21] Symeon,
the man of holy and universally celebrated memory, the ¢rst man to practise
the station on a column, an abode that was scarcely two cubits in
circumference, during the time that Domnus was the Antiochene
bishop. 120 When this man came to him, he was astounded by the stance
and lifestyle and yearned for what was more mystical. And so the two
came together and after consecrating the unbroken body they gave a
share of the life-giving communion to each other. 121 This man, who
while in the £esh imitated the existence of the heavenly powers,
removed himself from the a¡airs of the earth; and by constraining the
nature which for the time being weighed him down, he pursued higher
things. And being betwixt heaven and those on earth he conversed with
God and together with the angels gave glory, from earth presenting to
God requests on behalf of humans, while from heaven achieving for
humans the bene¢cence from on high. 122 One of those indeed who were
these complications by reverting to the antecedents of Second Ephesus and focusing on
Theodosius’ condemnation of Nestorius. By contrast, Nestorius criticized the impiety of
the emperor and recorded the problems that it brought to the empire (Bazaar 362^9),
while the staunchly Chalcedonian writers Theodore Lector and Liberatus criticized him respectively
for his malleability (Theodore 346, 350) and his poor response to representations
from Pope Leo (Lib. 12).
120 Symeon the Elder lived c. 390^459. As a youth his extreme asceticism had caused
trouble in the monasteries to which he was attached, with the result that he eventually established
himself on an isolated mountain. His growing fame brought crowds of pilgrims, and it
was to escape these that he mounted a column which was progressively raised in height.
Domnus, Bishop of Antioch 441^9.
121 The Syriac Life of Symeon 54 (Doran) records that Domnus gave the sacramental
host to Symeon; Evagrius’ version, that Symeon also reciprocated, presupposes that
Symeon had been ordained a priest, for which there is no con¢rmation (though the Life of
Symeon Stylites the Younger, 132^5, narrates at great length how he received his ordination;
granted the importance of the elder Symeon in de¢ning the construction of the younger’s
career, this might indicate that there were also stories about the elder Stylite’s
ordination). In the Life of Daniel, 43, the stylite exchanged communion with the patriarch
Gennadius after being miraculously ordained; cf. Pratum Spirituale 36 for a Monophysite
stylite near Hierapolis receiving communion from Patriarch Ephrem of Antioch, after the
latter had miraculously demonstrated the superiority of the Chalcedonian position. Receiving
or exchanging communion showed that the stylite had proper relations with the established
church; cf. Lane-Fox, ‘Daniel’ 210.
122 Not surprisingly, the notion of the stylite as an angel among men, occupying a
station between earth and heaven, is found in the Lives of Symeon, e.g. Syriac Life 52
(Doran).