John Diakrinomenos in his Ecclesiastical History mentions stories from the life *Symeon (the Stylite, S00343), including a visit to him by the emperor Marcian, disguised as a commoner. Written in Greek in Constantinople, c. 513/515.
E07731
Literary - Other narrative texts (including Histories)
John Diakrinomenos, Ecclesiastical History, excerpts from Book 4
Οἱ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ μοναχοὶ περὶ τοῦ ἁγίου Συμεῶνος μαθόντες ὅτι ἐπὶ κίονος ἵσταται, μεμψάμενοι τῷ ξένῳ τοῦ πράγματος (πρῶτος γὰρ αὐτὸς τοῦτο ἐπενόησεν) ἀκοινωνησίαν αὐτῷ ἔπεμψαν. εἶτα ἐγνωκότες τὸν βίον τοῦ ἀνδρὸς καὶ τὸ ἄτυφον πάλιν αὐτῷ ἐκοινώνησαν.
Μαρκιανὸς ὁ βασιλεὺς ἐν σχήματι ἰδιώτου πρὸς τὸν ὅσιον Συμεῶνα ἀφανῶς παρεγένετο.
'When the monks of Egypt heard that saint Symeon was standing on a column, they accused him for this unfamiliar practice (he was the first to devise it) and notified him that they broke communion with him. Later, they were informed about the lifestyle of the man and his lack of arrogance, and returned into communion with him.
The emperor Marcian visited the holy Symeon disguised as a commoner.'
Text: Hansen 1995, 154.
Translation: Efthymios Rizos
Uncertainty/scepticism/rejection of a saint
Non Liturgical ActivityTransmission, copying and reading saint-related texts
Visiting/veneration of living saint
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits
Monarchs and their family
Source
John Diacrinomenus (Ioannes Diakrinomenos) was the author of an ecclesiastical history, which covered the period between the First Council of Ephesus (431) and c. 512. He wrote under the emperor Anastasius (491-518), and is known to have been a moderate Monophysite (hence his epithet Diakrinomenos, ‘the Hesitant’). However, only brief excerpts of the ten books of his history survive. In the 9th century, Photius had access to Books 1 to 5 (Bibliotheca cod. 42). Most of the fragments survive through their inclusion in an epitome of ecclesiastical history produced by an unknown author in the early 7th century (the same work through which most of the fragments of Theodore Lector survive): on the epitome and its transmission, see Hansen 1995, xxiv-xxxix.Bibliography
Text:Hansen, G.C., Theodoros Anagnostes. Kirchengeschichte. 2nd ed. (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte NF 3; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995).
Further reading:
Treadgold, W., The Early Byzantine Historians (Basingstoke, 2006), 168-169.
Efthymios Rizos
20/08/2019
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00343 | Symeon the Elder, stylite of Qal‘at Sim‘ān, ob. 459 | Συμεὼν | Certain |
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