ST

SIMEON STYLITES (390-459)  , the first and most famous of the Pillar-hermits (Gr . Qraos, pillar), was born in N . Syria . After having been expelled from a monastery for his excessive austerities, at thirty years of age he built a pillar six feet high on which he took up his abode . He made new pillars higher and higher, till after ten years he reached the height of sixty feet . On this pillar he lived for thirty years without ever descending . A railing ran round the capital of the pillar, and a ladder enabled his disciples to take him the necessaries of life . From his pillar he preached and exercised a great influence, converting numbers of heathen and taking part in ecclesiastical politics . The facts would seem incredible were they not vouched for by Theodoret, who knew him personally (Historia religiosa, c . 26) . Moreover, Simeon had many imitators, well authenticated Pillar-hermits being met with till the 16th century . The standard work on the subject is Les Stylites (1895), by H .

Delehaye, the Bollandist; for a

summary see the article " Saulenheiligge," in Herzog's Realencyklopadie (ed . 3) . On Simeon see Th . Noldeke's Sketches from Eastern History (1892), p . 210, and the Dictionary of Christian Biography . (E . C .