2

The Sermons of Symeon Stylites the Younger

Although holy men have been the subject of considerable historical interest since Peter Brown’s famous article of 1971, they can usually only be approached, at best, at second-hand, through the prism of hagiography.¹ As discussed in the Introduction, it has been well established that hagiographers selected and adapted their material for a variety of purposes, from cult-promotion to apologetic and polemic; to take but one example, Claudia Rapp has argued that many hagiographers focused on their saints’ miracle-working rather than their other important functions, which were less useful posthumously, in order to encourage pilgrimages to their saints’ shrines.² As a result, studies which rely on this material must necessarily be studies more of hagiographers and hagiographic ideals than of holy men themselves.³ For most holy men, we can never get beyond this hagiographic picture. Yet in a few precious instances, we also possess some of the saint’s own writings, which enable us to gain a much fuller image of the holy man—and in some cases, an image that is strikingly different from that preserved in hagiography. Thus, for example, Samuel Rubenson has argued that the letters attributed to Antony, perhaps the most famous of all holy men, show that the saint was far more philosophically and theologically sophisticated than Athanasios’s Life of Antony and the Apophthegmata Patrum acknowledge.⁴ The much more extensive (although, unfortunately, relatively inaccessible) extant corpus of the fifth-century abbot Shenoute provides far more information about his life and character than does his largely formulaic biography, which claims to have been written by his disciple Besa, but in fact probably dates from considerably later.⁵ Stephen Emmel has, for instance, managed to reconstruct, from parts of Shenoute’s Canons, the controversial series of events which led to Shenoute becoming head of the White Monastery, events which are not even mentioned in Pseudo-Besa’s Life.⁶ Heike Behlmer and David Brakke have both highlighted a tension between Shenoute’s sermons, in which he refuses to use his miraculous powers to resolve everyday difficulties amongst his congregation, and his Life, in which he frequently performs such activities.⁷ It is clear, therefore, that the writings of holy men can provide new and sometimes radically different insights into holy men from those gleaned from their hagiographies.

In view of this, it is perhaps surprising that the writings attributed to Symeon Stylites the Younger have received very little scholarly attention.⁸ These consist of a letter apparently written to the emperor Justin II on the subject of a Samaritan revolt, preserved in the acts of the Second Council of Nicaea, a monoenergist theological quotation, and, most significantly, a collection of thirty sermons.⁹ Admittedly, this collection presents various difficulties to the historian, which will be discussed below, but it at least possesses the potential to yield substantial insights into the thought and teaching of this important holy man. This chapter will, after a brief discussion of scholarship on the early Christian sermon, address the complicated evidence relating to the dating and authorship of the collection attributed to Symeon. It will then outline the themes, form, and style of the collection, arguing that although the author displays no rhetorical brilliance, he does construct his relationship with his audience in fairly sophisticated ways. It will analyse three dominant themes within the collection—monks and their relationship with demons, eschatology, and wealth—to suggest that the speaker presents himself as an experienced combatant with demons, and as a visionary prophet bringing an ominous message to the world. Different themes within the collection may have been intended for different audiences: some address monks, while others seem to target parts of society beyond the monastery. But throughout, the preacher insists upon uncompromising moral standards and on the stark divide between heaven and hell. His sometimes aggressive language and harsh message suggest that he may have played a less peaceful role within society than that which has often been associated with the holy man. In particular, many of his sermons contain very hostile attacks on the rich, phrased in a harsher fashion than most early Christian preachers; he goes so far as to associate wealth with paganism, and offers no possibility of a rich man entering heaven. The preacher thus seems to have sought to play on socio-economic and cultural tensions within Antiochene society.¹⁰

The Early Christian Homily

Part of the explanation for the relative historiographical neglect of Symeon’s sermons may lie in the generally underdeveloped and uneven state of scholarship on early Christian sermons.¹¹ It has been recognized that preaching played a crucial role in the rise of Christianity, and that sermons, particularly in view of their apparent popularity, should be fertile ground for research.¹² Nonetheless, although there are some important studies of famous preachers such as John Chrysostom, comprehensive work on sermons and preaching remains limited.¹³ This is largely due to the myriad practical difficulties involved in treating the large extant body of early Christian homilies.¹⁴ These difficulties include the sheer extent of the surviving material; some of the most renowned preachers have hundreds of sermons attributed to them in the manuscripts, making it difficult for scholars to treat their works in full. A particular problem is that it is often hard to establish the extent of an individual’s authentic corpus, as many sermons appear to be falsely ascribed to famous early preachers such as John Chrysostom and the Cappadocian Fathers. As a result of these challenges, we still lack critical editions of many important homiletic collections.

It is also unclear how, why, and when, many of these sermons were preserved, and to what extent they were edited between their delivery and their transmission in their current forms.¹⁵ No one-size-fits-all answer will serve: some sermons seem to have been recorded more or less verbatim by stenographers, others to have been extensively rewritten, either by the author himself, or by later editors.¹⁶ Philip Forness, in an important recent study of the early sixth-century homilies of the miaphysite Jacob of Serug, has argued for a more nuanced understanding of the audiences of homilies: audiences included both those physically present at the sermon’s delivery and those who later edited, read, and circulated the material in written form.¹⁷ It is not even certain whether all works written in the form of ‘sermons’ were delivered orally or whether some were only ever intended for private reading. This brings the very definition of the sermon into question; but if we wish to restrict the label to apply only to those sermons which were delivered to an audience, the problem then arises of how we determine which texts were so delivered.¹⁸ While in some cases references to specific behaviour by the audience, to particular contexts for delivery, and to the act of preaching itself strongly suggest that the sermon was delivered orally, the absence of such comments cannot always be taken to prove the opposite.¹⁹ This problem becomes particularly acute if we take into account not only the sermons attributed to ecclesiastical leaders who almost certainly did preach to their congregations, but also the various collections of discourses on monastic and ascetic themes attributed to authors such as Isaiah of Scetis and Dorotheos of Gaza.

Some periods present especial difficulties: as suggested by Pauline Allen, one reason that sixth-century material has been particularly neglected is that some of its most notable collections survive only in translation (most famously, the Cathedral Homilies of Severos of Antioch); fewer scholars are comfortable working with Syriac and Coptic material than with Greek, while the translation process makes it even harder to assess the style of the sermon as originally delivered.²⁰ All these and other difficulties have impeded the progress of scholarship on the early Christian sermon, and, in particular, have practically precluded comprehensive overviews of the evidence.²¹

The lack of such overviews makes it much harder to situate the corpus of an individual author in its wider context. As I will argue, in order to understand the sermons of Symeon the Younger, we need an appreciation of both the ecclesiastical traditions of preaching, as exemplified by figures such as John Chrysostom and Severos of Antioch, and of the monastic tradition of ascetic discourses, as typified by authors including Evagrios Pontikos and Isaiah of Scetis. Although little of what Symeon says is in itself original, the combination of themes and approaches from these two traditions is unusual and striking. But before analysing the contents of Symeon’s homilies, it is necessary first to examine in some detail the evidence relating to the authorship and transmission of his corpus.

Authorship

Did Symeon the Younger write the sermons attributed to him in the manuscript tradition? The question must be answered in several stages. It is worth stressing, first, that there is nothing inherently implausible in the idea of a holy man delivering sermons which were subsequently recorded. Early Christian hagiography makes it clear that holy men were expected to preach, mostly to their monastic disciples, but sometimes, too, to lay and clerical visitors.²² Innumerable saints’ Lives, not only of bishops, but also of monks, depict their heroes as preachers and teachers.²³ Some hagiographers even include the texts of long discourses supposedly delivered by their saints; Athanasios set the trend here, as he embedded within the Life of Antony a lengthy speech about demons and monks.²⁴ In addition, several hagiographers claim that their heroes’ teachings were written down in their lifetimes, sometimes by their disciples, sometimes by the holy men themselves.²⁵ Although it is possible that some hagiographers invented such claims in an attempt to prove that their Lives were based on good sources, the Canons of Shenoute confirm that some holy men sought to preserve and even institutionalize their own teachings: Stephen Emmel has noted that the postscript to Shenoute’s first Canon—a postscript apparently written by the holy man himself—demands that the leader of the Shenoutian monasteries should ‘rely on it [i.e. the Canon] and not forget it or neglect to read its words four times a year, as is appointed for us’.²⁶ In view of this, it is perhaps surprising that we do not possess more collections of sermons by holy men (although it is possible, if rarely provable, that some saints’ Lives preserve authentic discourses delivered by their heroes).

The Life of Symeon the Younger is one of the late antique saint’s Lives to place the most emphasis on its subject’s preaching.²⁷ It reports that Symeon began to preach, with divine inspiration, as a child: after the youth delivered a long sermon to the monks of his monastery, the hegumen John remarked ‘It is not he [i.e. Symeon] himself who says these things, but the all-holy, perfect Spirit of the Father; for it is written: “out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself.”’²⁸ The hagiographer claims, soon afterwards, that the brethren asked Symeon to speak to them about salvation, prompting a long discourse on proper monastic behaviour.²⁹ While still a child, Symeon prayed to God to send grace upon him as he had upon his apostles and disciples, ‘so that I may speak words of eternal life for the forgiveness of sins’; the purpose of preaching is thus defined as the salvation of the audience.³⁰ God, we are told, responded instantly:

While he was uttering this prayer, the Holy Spirit of God came down upon his mind like a lamp, as he had requested, and filled him with wisdom and understanding; he was judged worthy of such grace that no one could, as is written, resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke.³¹ He wrote discourses about monks and about the repentance of the laity and about the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ and about the coming judgement and hope, explaining clearly things which many fail to see.³²

This implies that Symeon not only preached directly to the brothers, but also wrote down (συνέτασσε) his discourses. The topics of the discourses as listed show some parallels to those included in the extant sermon collection, which has led Van den Ven to suggest that this passage may in fact be referring to this collection.³³ Although the hagiographer does not, perhaps, stress Symeon’s preaching to the same extent in his adulthood, he does continue to recount various shorter ethical speeches delivered by the saint throughout his lifetime;³⁴ he describes Symeon expounding the book of Job to the brethren;³⁵ and, incidentally, provides the text of several troparia the saint supposedly wrote in response to a series of earthquakes.³⁶ Symeon’s hagiographer thus presents Symeon as a potent preacher, claiming that he taught through both speech and the written word. Archaeology may provide some support for this vision of Symeon as preacher: there are two-layered benches cut into the walls at the sides of the open space surrounding Symeon’s column, which could have provided seating for the audience of his discourses (although they could also perhaps have seated pilgrims who merely wanted to look at the saint).³⁷ Given the evidence from Symeon’s Life, and from late antique hagiography more generally, that holy men could compose discourses, we should not be suspicious, a priori, of the idea that a collection of the stylite’s sermons might have survived, particularly since there does seem to have been a collection made of his letters.³⁸

This does not, of course, prove that the collection which does survive under the saint’s name is authentic. Hippolyte Delehaye, in his magisterial study of stylites, expressed serious doubts about its attribution to Symeon, noting that ‘dans ce genre de littérature rien n’est plus fréquent que les compilations faites de lambeaux de toute provenance, et placées sous le patronage de quelque nom illustre’.³⁹ He claimed both that the sermons themselves contain no indication that they were delivered by the stylite, and that the large number of monks called Symeon who wrote on spiritual themes could have caused confusion. Delehaye was writing several decades before the publication by Paul Van den Ven in 1957 of the first four sermons in the collection. In the introduction to his edition, Van den Ven proposed that the surviving sermons were based upon lost originals delivered by Symeon himself, but that they had been rewritten in a more verbose style by a later editor.⁴⁰ Almost all scholars who have subsequently dealt with Symeon’s sermons have accepted Van den Ven’s opinion of the origin of the text.⁴¹ Although in the following discussion I will challenge some aspects of his arguments, I remain indebted to his presentation and analysis of the relevant material. I will look first at the manuscript tradition and external evidence for the authorship of the sermons, before moving on to consider evidence within the sermons themselves, and, crucially, the parallels identified by Van den Ven between the sermons and the Life of Symeon the Younger.

The sermons survive in a small number of manuscripts, the earliest of which are from the eleventh and twelfth centuries.⁴² The only manuscript to preserve the collection in its entirety, Mount Athos Lavra gr.BE 71 (191), dates from the twelfth century, and contains, in addition to the sermons, the Life of Symeon the Younger, the Life of Martha, and several liturgical texts devoted to the stylite and his mother. This manuscript serves as the basis for Van den Ven’s edition of sermons 1–4. It was unknown to Angelo Mai, whose edition of sermons 5–30 is based primarily upon Vaticanus gr.2021. Vaticanus gr.2021 originally contained the full text of the sermons, but the first section, containing sermons 1–4, has been lost.⁴³ The manuscript was finished, according to its copyist Bartholomew the monk, in 1105. Mai also used another, incomplete, eleventh-/twelfth-century manuscript from the Vatican, Vaticanus gr.2089, the second fragment of which contains nine of Symeon’s sermons, as well as extracts from other religious works. The final relevant manuscript, Codex B.a.VII from the abbey of Grottaferrata, dates from the eleventh century and contains Symeon’s eleventh and twelfth sermons. The texts of the sermons given in these four manuscripts are extremely similar; all also use the same captions for the sermons (captions which identify ‘Symeon the stylite of the monastery of the Wonderful Mountain’ as the author of the texts, and which all specify the age at which the sermon was delivered, within a range of ten to twenty-four years old). The Athos manuscript and the two Vatican manuscripts ascribe the same numbers to the sermons, which is particularly noteworthy in the case of Vaticanus gr.2089 as it contains only sermons 11, 14, 16, 22, 25, 26, 28, and 29. Notes in the margins of the Athos manuscript instruct that sermons 1, 5, 8, and 22 were to be read on specific feast days; Vaticanus gr.2089 contains the same instruction that sermon 22 should be read on the first Saturday of Lent (as mentioned, this manuscript does not include sermons 1, 5, or 8, so could not repeat the instructions in those cases).⁴⁴ The uniformity of the manuscripts strongly suggests that there was already a collection of these thirty sermons in circulation, attributed to Symeon the Younger, with the numbering and captions that have survived, and, possibly, with some link to liturgical readings. The surviving text is in many places very obscure, and this obscurity may well be partly due to textual corruption in the source of all our manuscripts.

When was this collection made? It is impossible to be sure, but we do possess a crucial piece of evidence proving that at least one of Symeon’s sermons was already circulating, apparently under his name, long before the copying of the medieval manuscripts. John of Damascus, in his third discourse on images, dating from the early eighth century, quotes several lines of the eighth sermon in our collection, under the heading ‘from the great Symeon of the Wonderful Mountain about icons’.⁴⁵ As John does not refer to the number of the sermon, nor use its title, this cannot in itself be used to prove that the full collection as we have described it already existed in the eighth century. Yet Van den Ven has argued persuasively that the whole collection is stylistically and thematically homogeneous, implying that it was all the work of the same author.⁴⁶ This does, then, suggest that the collection must have been written, at the latest, in the early decades of the eighth century, and that it was already attributed at this point to Symeon of the ‘Wonderful Mountain’ (i.e. Symeon the Younger), although it is possible that the captions and liturgical links were a later development. Unfortunately, external evidence can take us no further; John of Damascus is the earliest known author to refer to the sermons.

Internal evidence from the collection itself may provide more clues. We must, however, be on our guard here to avoid reading too much into the text; some pieces of evidence that have been adduced by previous scholars to support Symeon’s authorship do not seem to me compelling. Van den Ven, for example, argues that the author must have lived near Antioch, since the sixth sermon was directed to an Antiochene landowner.⁴⁷ This reference to Antioch, however, only appears in the caption to the sermon; in the body of the text, while there are many attacks on wealth, and a rich person is addressed directly, there is no link with a particular city.⁴⁸ Given that, as mentioned, the captions all identify ‘Symeon the stylite of the monastery of the Wonderful Mountain’ as the author of the sermons, the reference to Antioch here is of little value in identifying the collection’s authenticity; if we agree that the captions are authentic, Symeon’s authorship must be accepted anyway. Although Van den Ven notes that the captions do not always fit the contents of the sermons very accurately, and suggests that they were added by the editor of the text, he nonetheless regards them as preserving some genuine information, such as the young age at which Symeon delivered the sermons.⁴⁹ This is not, however, entirely compelling: while it is true that at some points the speaker of the sermon implies that he is a young man, at other points he presents himself as elderly:

When I repent, pleasures pass me by; I have old age in mind, and death’s tomb drags me, naked of the commands and unready, to judgement…. I was revealed a flourishing tree, and marred by old age, I am cut down for burning. I am whitened grain, and I am harvested by the angels who wield scythes.⁵⁰

While this passage is doubtless largely rhetorical, it is difficult to imagine it being delivered, as the caption claims, by a 13-year-old! It is thus far from clear that the captions are genuine, and they cannot be used as strong evidence to associate the text with Symeon.

Other scraps of evidence adduced by Van den Ven are more suggestive.⁵¹ In the first sermon, unknown to Mai (and by extension Delehaye) the speaker’s name is identified as Symeon [‘I, Your servant, Symeon’].⁵² Van den Ven has argued that the allusion to the speaker’s ‘station [στάσεώς μου]’ in the same sermon is a reference to his ‘station’ as a stylite on his column. In the first sermon the speaker also claims to have been young when he first became an ascetic:

And stretching my hands towards You, my saviour, I will leap along with the joyful company of the bodiless ones and all the prophets and apostles of the ages, the martyrs, the confessors, and those of the same age as me when I began my asceticism, the children killed by Herod [emphasis mine].⁵³

This fits well with the claim in the Life of Symeon that Symeon first joined his monastery aged six, and ascended his first column at the age of six or seven.⁵⁴ On their own, these pieces of evidence are not decisive; while the picture of the speaker that emerges—of an ascetic, from a young age, with a ‘station’, called Symeon—certainly would fit Symeon the Younger well, Delehaye’s suggestion that the sermons could have been the work of another Symeon who was later confused with the more famous stylite remains possible.

Yet there is a final, crucial, piece of evidence that seems to prove that the ‘Symeon’ of the first sermon is to be identified with Symeon Stylites the Younger. Van den Ven has shown the existence of indisputable connections between several passages in the sermon collection and some episodes in the Life of Symeon the Younger.⁵⁵ In two cases, we find accounts of the same vision in the sermons and in the Life, but in the sermon collection they are recounted in the first person, as if seen by the speaker himself, while in the Life, they are reported in the third person, as visions which Symeon saw as a child. In one of these visions, recounted in the ninth sermon and in the eighteenth chapter of the Life, Symeon is said to have seen the Devil with his hordes of demons. Both versions refer to much the same details—musical instruments, the Devil’s diadem, gold and precious stones, Sin the Devil’s daughter, and the sign of the cross scattering the demons—even if in a somewhat different order. There are also clear verbal links between the two: in sermon 9, for example, the speaker reports ‘and I have seen the spirit of avarice, a plague and sordidly greedy for gain, gaping to swallow up the world’;⁵⁶ while the Life recounts ‘there he saw the spirit of fornication and forgetfulness and laziness and the spirit of avarice gaping to swallow up the world’.⁵⁷

In the second example, both texts seem to be referring to the same event—an occasion on which Symeon was tempted by lust in a dream, but was saved after swearing never to succumb and after taking the Eucharist—but, interestingly, it is recounted in almost entirely different terms. In the Life, the narrative is fairly straightforward. The hagiographer reports that Satan tried to tempt Symeon with titillating dreams, but that Symeon resisted him through the power of God; he woke up and lamented, praying to God for mercy; he then saw a ‘holy minister, a priest from the altars above’, carrying a cup of the Eucharist; the place was filled with a sweet smell; and the heavenly minister made Symeon swear that he would never succumb to lust.⁵⁸ The account in the ninth sermon is less clear: the speaker reports that he fell asleep, saw visions of pleasure, resisted them, understanding that they were the work of the Devil; that he was bound by an oath on the body of Christ that he would not succumb to lust; and that this dispelled the vision. He then reports: ‘I made pledges to Christ of virtues and of prayers, receiving with a sweet smell, in the partaking of life, His body and blood, to which I swore my oath, through a wise man. And in him I recovered from the vision of the spectacle.’⁵⁹ The two accounts are clearly closely linked: features that appear in both include temptation in a dream, an oath not to succumb to lust, the taking of the Eucharist, a sweet smell, and the involvement of a virtuous man. But the sermon is more concise, and much less clear, than the Life: most notably, whereas the Life reports that a heavenly priest appeared and brought the Eucharist, the sermon only states that the speaker took the Eucharist ‘through a wise man’.⁶⁰ Unfortunately, this cannot obviously be used to prove the direction of the relationship between the texts; while it is possible that the author of the sermons presupposed a knowledge of the account in the Life, and therefore felt able to write allusively, it is equally possible (perhaps even more likely) that the hagiographer, if he was drawing on the text of the sermon, would have felt the need to develop and clarify its words.

The third example of a relationship between the sermon collection and the Life is of a different nature. Rather than a vision recounted in the first person in the sermons, and in the third person in the Life, we find the same sermon (in different versions) delivered directly in both. In chapter 24 of the Life, the hagiographer reports that the saint delivered a speech, and proceeds to give a text which is clearly connected to the third sermon in the collection. I provide a translation of both sermons in parallel below, in order to show both the close relationship between them, and the different styles of each.⁶¹ I translate the version given in the Life in full; for reasons of space, I have omitted (but marked) a passage from the third sermon of the collection which is not paralleled in the Life. Parts of the sermon which are impossible to translate into comprehensible English are italicized. I also give a translation of select passages from the Fourth Book of Maccabees, which seems to have inspired the sermon.⁶²

Life of Symeon Stylites the Younger, ch. 24.	Sermon 3	4 Maccabees63
Pious reason is master of the emotions and is bound to the body, and just as a machine holds together the breaths which are drawn and is held together by them, so too the body and the emotions moved in the body are clearly ruled by pious reason.	Pious reason is master of the emotions; for it is bound to the body, and just as a machine holds together the [breaths] which are drawn, so it is held together by examination and condemnation of reasonings that are poured out, so that the body and the emotions moved in the body are clearly [ruled] by ruling reason.	1.1: I am about to discuss an eminently philosophical subject—whether pious reason is master of the emotions…. 1.7: On the basis of many and diverse considerations I could show you that reason is master of the emotions….
For when God created man in the beginning, He established in him a guiding mind as a charioteer, as a judge of the whole body and an examiner of the good and bad thoughts that arise in us.	For when God created man in the beginning, He put in his heart a guiding mind, like horses and charioteers of our whole body, creating the chariot with four wheels through dryness and wetness and hot and cold, from which things we reach up to the separation of the soul and the body, of the joints and the marrows, distinguishing by our governing mind the onset of what is good and what is bad, and examining what is in us, both what is good and what is bad, and controlling our thoughts like some rein on a horse we roll towards the tracks of the desires in us…[the speaker develops the metaphor of the charioteer and chariot for several further lines].	2.21–2: Now when God fashioned man, He planted in him his passions and habits, but at the same time He enthroned the mind among the senses as a sacred commander over them all.
And so no one is [so] mindless that he is ignorant of what is beneficial, but we also recognize that those who have done evil will not escape the coming judgement. For if desires for pleasures overcome us and we are captured by them instead of fighting bravely against their attacks, we are found out as transgressors of our promises and are justly condemned.	For no one is too mindless to discern what is beneficial, just as we know of what is evil that when we do it [the evil doers] are brought to judgement. And so desire is defeated and is overcome by reasonings. For whenever we desire the smoothness of pleasure, let us not fall into the destruction of transgression, if our reason does not wish it. Just as it is possible to compare a tree with offshoots [παραφυάδας], whose branches when it is neglected sink down, thus also reason, by not rousing the soft reposes of the body towards the trunk,64 dries out the offshoots [παραφυάδας] of desires, that is yearnings.	1.28–9: Just as pleasure and pain are two plants growing from the body and the soul, so there are many offshoots [παραφυάδες] of these plants. By weeding, pruning, tying up, watering and in every way irrigating each of these, reason, the master cultivator, tames the jungles of habits and passions.
For none of us is able not to desire, having been born so by nature. But not yielding to pleasure, since pious reasoning prevails, we can [achieve] easily on account of fear of judgement. And none of us can be completely delivered from evil dispositions and anger. But through the good victory of reason we can aid our anger to recoil and change. None of us again can prevent gluttony and the cravings arising from it; but we can bridle gluttonous indulgence and the desires arising from it.	For none of us is able not to desire, since this is part of our nature. But not to yield to pleasure, since pious reason and fear of judgement prevail, is of our own choosing. Likewise we can put a stop to anger through the same process of reason. Let us rein in gluttony and the cravings begotten from this through prayer and laborious fasting. Let us not only turn away from greed because it is prohibited, but also hate it.	3.2–4: None of us can eradicate such desire, but reason can provide a way for us not to be enslaved by desire. None of you can eradicate anger from the soul, but reason can help to deal with anger. None of us can eradicate malice, but reason can fight at our side so that we are not overcome by malice. For reason is not an uprooter of the emotions but their antagonist.
This is what the divine law too testifies to in advance when it says: ‘You shall not desire the wife of your neighbour, nor his field, nor his male slave, nor his female slave, nor any of his possessions’,65 teaching us through these words not to be conquered by desire for woman, nor by vainglory or empty show, nor to be controlled by anger, nor to be defeated by gluttony or avarice or other bad desires.	This is what the God-given law testifies to in advance when it reminds us, saying: ‘You shall not desire the wife of your neighbour, nor his field, nor his male slave, nor his female slave, nor any of his possessions’, through which words it revealed that we should not be conquered by desire for woman, if one of us feels desire, nor be flattered by vainglory earnt by much empty show, nor be controlled by anger, nor be possessed by gluttony and avarice. Just as desire is one, many are the many-branched thoughts of its protuberances, as for instance we desire to be gluttonous, to fornicate, to love money, to be vain, and we apply to the body the same muddiness of pleasure towards each passion of the desires.	2.5: Thus the law says, ‘You shall not desire the wife of your neighbour, nor any of his possessions.’
This is why the Lord pointed out two paths, the former, narrow one leading to salvation those who walk on it and are zealous to behave well in this life, but the other, broad one, leading to destruction those who scorn the virtues.66 Thus He proclaims: ‘What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light.’67 Now, to contemplate and do what is wrong brings an image of darkness, [an image] condemning those who have sinned; but choosing, through good behaviour, that which is good and just, leads to the eternal light to come. And so let us master pleasures with pious reason, and let us turn away from every bad and sin-loving desire, emulating the lives and toils of the saints and the glory which is prepared for them and the difficult-to-describe promise on account of which we should stay awake and always pray, being freed, brothers, by the freedom of Christ our God,68 who will guard all of us for the glory of His majesty, Amen.	This is why the Lord points out two paths to reason which masters the passions, both a narrow and a broad, the former leading towards salvation through behaving well in this life, but the other leads those who neglect the virtues towards destruction. Thus He proclaims: ‘What I say to you in darkness, tell in the light.’ For to contemplate what is wrong brings an image of the darkness which condemns those who have sinned; but choosing, through doing good, that which is good and just, is a witness of your virtue and life towards the deathless light to come. And so whenever we feel delight in this age and the world within it, strengthening pious reason let us turn away from every impassioned and sin-loving desire, emulating the toils of the saints for the sake of the glory which is prepared [for them] and indescribable promise, on account of which we should stay awake with petitions and fastings and be enslaved in righteousness69 to the way of life of greatest virtue, being freed by the freedom of Christ our God, who will guard all of us for the glory of His majesty, with whom and to the Father with the Holy Spirit glory is now and for ever and for all eternity, .

Some general observations can be made. The sermons given in the Life and the sermon collection clearly have a far closer relationship to each other than they do to 4 Maccabees; there can be no suggestion that they were drawn independently from the biblical text. I will return to the relationship between the sermons and 4 Maccabees below. Generally, the version of the sermon in the sermons collection is longer and more elaborate than that in the Life (in particular, it contains more developed similes). Neither text is decisively ‘better’ than the other: on the one hand, parts of the sermon in the collection verge on the incomprehensible (as marked by italics), but on the other, at several points this version makes better sense than the text of the Life. Thus, for example, the exhortation in the last part of the sermon that we should ‘turn away from every…desire, emulating the toils of the saints for the sake of the glory prepared [for them]’, is more coherent than the comparable passage in the Life: ‘let us turn away from every…desire, emulating the lives and toils of the saints and the glory which is prepared for them.’ It seems more comprehensible to urge the audience to emulate the toils ‘for the sake of’ the glory, rather than, like the Life, to urge them to emulate the glory itself. In any case, little can be achieved by efforts to show which text makes better sense: even if one were clearly more logical than the other, this would not prove the direction of the relationship between them. The more logical text could be the original, from which the later version has been corrupted, but it could, equally plausibly, represent a later effort to make sense of a confused and difficult original.

The question remains, therefore, of what relationship the Life and the sermon collection bear to each other. Van den Ven argued that neither text could be directly dependent upon the other, because if it were, the author would have utilized more of the material available to him (it is notable that the above three examples appear to be the only instances of the texts’ interdependence, despite both works being fairly lengthy).⁷⁰ He suggested, in consequence, that both texts drew on an earlier, no longer extant, record of Symeon’s sermons preserved at his monastery. In his view, given the verbal parallels between some of the passages just cited, both the relevant passages of the Life and the extant sermon collection must be closely based on this original collection (which I shall refer to as Ur-Sermons). He thinks, however, that Symeon’s hagiographer was more faithful to Ur-Sermons than was the redactor of the extant sermon collection. His argument is based on stylistic grounds: he contrasts ‘la simplicité spontanée, la clarté et la logique de l’exposé’ of the passages in the Life with ‘le maniérisme lourd, l’absence de cohésion et d’équilibre, la verbosité, la recherche souvent peu heureuse de l’effet, l’abus des comparaisons, la médiocrité pour tout dire, qui déparent l’autre texte [i.e. the sermon collection]’.⁷¹ The stylite, in his opinion, could not possibly have preached in such bad style; it must have been the work of a subsequent editor, who rewrote the whole collection.

Van den Ven’s arguments here are, however, problematic. First, it is not clear that his argument that neither text can be dependent on the other holds water. While it is true that it is surprising that the parallels are so few, this problem is not resolved by proposing the existence of the Ur-Sermons collection, as the same question remains: why did the two authors, although using the same source material (which Van den Ven implies would have been of roughly the same length as the extant collection), only excerpt such a small number of comparable passages? While the existence of Ur-Sermons cannot be ruled out, it does not help to resolve this difficulty, and therefore is not a necessary hypothesis. Furthermore, his argument that the version of the sermons preserved in the Life is closer to the original than that in the sermons collection is based on little more than his preference for the style of the former. We cannot assume that Symeon (or whoever wrote the original version of the sermons) would have had a simple style, particularly if, as is possible, the sermons were originally composed in written form, rather than delivered extempore (or if they were rewritten after delivery). There is thus no positive evidence that the shorter version of the sermon in the Life is primary, and that in the sermon collection secondary.

Indeed, one piece of evidence suggests that in fact the longer version of the sermon is original. To analyse this, we must return to the above table comparing the two versions of the sermon on ‘pious reason’ to selected passages from 4 Maccabees. Although Van den Ven noted that the sermon was connected to Maccabees, he did not explore the parallels in any detail. As the table shows, in most instances of parallels between Maccabees and the Symeon sermon, the parallels are found in both versions of the sermon. Yet in one case, highlighted in bold in the table, we find an apparent parallel between the biblical text and the text in the sermon collection which has no parallel in the version of the sermon in the Life. Unfortunately, one phrase in the middle of the excerpt from the sermon is impossible to translate (as marked in italics). The general sense is, however, clear: the sermon-writer uses imagery of a tree with many offshoots, and later suggests that these offshoots are desires, and that reason can, through careful cultivation, dry them out; reason is thus presented as mastering the desires, in a horticultural image. This is very similar to the sense of the imagery in 4 Maccabees 1:28, although there are differences in details (the Maccabees text, which is much clearer, describes two plants, pleasure and pain, with many offshoots, which reason ‘the master cultivator’ weeds, prunes, and irrigates, thereby taming the emotions). In common with the other parallels between Maccabees and this sermon (also shown in the table), the similarities are largely at the level of concept rather than language, but both texts do use the unusual word ‘παραφυάδες’ (offshoots). Given that the original sermon was clearly inspired by 4 Maccabees, and contains several such thematic parallels with the text, it is highly likely that this horticultural image was contained in the original version of the sermon. It does not appear at all in the shorter version of the sermon in the Life, and this absence suggests that this text is a condensed form of the original; the hagiographer omitted the imagery of the plant/tree, perhaps reflecting his preference for a simpler style. The alternative interpretation, that the author of the sermon collection, when writing up the shorter version of the sermon in the Life, decided to add his own additional allusion to (but not direct citation from) 4 Maccabees, is much less likely. One example is not conclusive, but it does provide strong support to the view that the longer version of the sermons, as preserved in the sermon collection, represents an earlier version of the text.

It seems, then, that the version of the sermons as preserved in the collection is prior to that in the Life (although it may, like many ancient works, have undergone revisions in the processes of transmission and reuse). Given that the Life is itself likely to be an early text, compiled or written at Symeon’s monastery reasonably soon after his death, this implies at the very least that the sermon collection had an early date and a strong connection with the same monastery; surely the author of the Life would not have accepted a collection written elsewhere as the authentic words of the saint.⁷² It cannot be proven that Symeon himself was the author, rather than an early disciple of his, but it should be regarded as a strong possibility. At the very least, the collection was closely associated with his cult and monastery, and is as such eminently worthy of further stylistic and thematic examination.

Genre

Symeon’s sermons are difficult to classify in terms of genre. They do not fit into some of the most prominent categories of the sermons of ecclesiastical preachers, being neither exegetical, festal, nor panegyrical.⁷³ They contain next to nothing to tie them to any particular event or occasion for preaching. In the main, they deal with moral themes, exhorting the audience to reform their behaviour in view of the coming Judgement. To show the range of topics covered, I give below a table showing the contents of the sermons, including both their titles in the manuscripts and my own brief summary of their key themes (the latter is important since the titles, as suggested above, may be later additions, and do not always reflect the contents of the sermon accurately).⁷⁴

	Title (age delivered)75	Main themes
1	About the great benefactions of God (10)	The great goods prepared for the saints in heaven; Symeon’s plea to Christ to count him among them
2	About self-control and faith and deeds (10)	Moral/spiritual themes; faith and works; faith, hope, and love
3	About emotions and thoughts (11)	Pious reason as master of the emotions
4	About asceticism, through visions of which he was deemed worthy, everything about which God laid bare and revealed to him to know in the purity of his heart (11)	The dangers demons pose to monks; monastic values
5	On the struggle of the prophets and apostles and martyrs (11)	The endurance of the prophets and martyrs
6	To a landowner of Antioch (12)	The lure of worldly pleasures and wealth; the eternal punishment for those who succumb to them
7	About repentance and compunction (12)	The power of repentance; Christ as doctor; the weight of sin
8	About those who are proud and sin fearlessly (12)	Danger of wealth and pride; need for renunciation; the errors of pagans and sins of pagan ‘gods’; defence of icons
9	A teaching to monks about the specific deceptive appearance of the demons (13)	Demonic attacks on monks; speaker’s visions of and encounters with demons
10	About the uncertainty of human life (13)	The transience of the earth; a painful death and eternal punishment for sinners; rewards for the virtuous
11	About the bad death of the sinner and the restful passing-away of the just (14)	Painful death of sinners and eternal punishment; rewards for the virtuous; call for repentance; futility of wealth and reputation
12	About the second coming of the Word God and the just retribution (14)	Last Judgement; punishment of the rich; reward of saints
13	About those who have fallen through pride away from the commands of God (14)	Punishment of the proud and greedy; importance of humility; inevitability of judgement
14	About the temporary and fanciful conceit of the rich and their condemnation at the tribunal of Christ (14)	Punishment of rich and rulers; exaltation of the poor; wicked behaviour of the rich
15	About those who deify the yoke of marriage (14)	Marriage/sex do not create children—God does; marriage is good, but virginity better
16	About those who are proud and sin fearlessly (15)	Sins of the rich; their future punishment; problems with their almsgiving; all men are brothers; harmonious vision of ideal social hierarchy
17	About the theatre of the saints in piety, from the example of worldly pleasures (15)	Comparison between actors/theatre and the pious; need for asceticism; coming judgement
18	About the army of the pious who through their better struggle please [God] (15)	Comparison between soldiers in service of mortal king and ascetics fighting for God; ascetic virtues; punishment in store for rich and worldly
19	About compunction and about virginity and divine love and error and the transience of life (16)	Transience of the world; virginity; eternal punishment for sinners
20	A teaching about divine grace, the governor of man (16)	Fragility of world; eternity of punishment; need for asceticism; divine providence; wickedness of oppressors
21	About the prepared Gehenna and about the good things which God has promised to the saints (16)	Eternal punishment for sinners; the virtue of the saints; the failings of many lazy monks; the different demons and their ways of attacking monks
22	About the soul at the exit from the body and the spirits which meet it, the powers of evil, and the praises of God and angels, and about those who are found in sins, through visions of which he was deemed worthy (17)	Pain of death; revelations about the soul’s journey after leaving the body; moral failings of present generation; the joy for virtuous souls in heaven
23	About the active way of life of the monk (17)	Goals and dangers of monasticism; need for humility; eternal judgement
24	Exhortation towards a virgin (18)	Glory of virginity; true virginity requires all virtues
25	About the virtues and firmness of monks (21)	Monks equally/more virtuous than martyrs; demonic attacks on monks and their failure in face of monks’ virtues
26	About part of the divine visions and revelations of which he was deemed worthy (23)	Futility of temporal world; eternal joy of heaven; need for continual search for God; weakness of Devil due to Christ’s sacrifice; virtues and purity; the virtues of prophets, apostles, martyrs, and ascetics
27	Exhortation towards those who rave in despair and think that life will be ended with the flesh (23)	Transience of world; salvation of just and destruction of sinners; sinfulness of the monks of the current time
28	Ascetic [homily] (24)	Rewards of former holy fathers; sinfulness in store for current monks unless they repent; danger of ignoring the signs of God’s anger
29	Exhortation towards those who say that they are ready for martyrdom but cannot tolerate a slight observation (24)	Current monks failing to live up to standards of former saints; monastic virtues; Christ’s incarnation and our salvation
30	About visions of which he was deemed worthy (24)	God exhorting his followers; the end times; speaker’s own knowledge of paradise; God the creator; saints in heaven; our current sinfulness

As the table suggests, a few of the sermons deal with particular virtues (such as sermon 24, on virginity), or particular vices (sermon 6 is one of several focused largely on love of wealth), but many lack a specific focus, either touching on a wide range of virtues and vices or simply exhorting the audience to reform in generalized terms. Recurrent themes, which will be explored in more detail below, include asceticism, demonic attacks on monks, the wickedness of wealth, and eschatology. There is next to no formal theological or doctrinal content, and certainly no explicit reference to the Christological debates of the age.⁷⁶

The sermons’ structure is often loose, and the author’s chain of thought difficult to follow. Sermon 2, for example, begins with an obscure sentence about solitary self-control, double virtue, and the triple crown; briefly refers to the image of pious reason as charioteer of the body developed at length in sermon 3; then discusses, at greater length, the need for both faith and deeds; it continues, with a rather clumsy transition, to argue that God is invisible to human eyes; and then moves on to discuss the ‘triple virtue’ of faith, hope, and love (perhaps echoing the single/double/triple language of the opening section, but in different terms); then briefly returns to the theme of faith and deeds before concluding. Some sermons are structured more clearly: sermon 5 begins with praise for the patient struggle of the prophets and martyrs; it then lists various persecuted figures from the Old and New Testaments and their afflictions; it discusses their courage in the face of hardship and persecution in more general terms, before ending by exhorting its audience to imitate their virtues. Several sermons have more distinctive structures: a few, for example, are based around extended similes (including sermons 17 and 18, which use similes of the theatre and of the army respectively, although in both cases the simile is abandoned in the final few paragraphs of the sermon).

In many respects, Symeon’s sermons are most reminiscent of the ‘ethical’ discourses of various ascetic authors.⁷⁷ There are many structural, stylistic, and thematic parallels between his works and those of famous monastic authors such as Evagrios of Pontus, Isaiah of Scetis, and Dorotheos of Gaza, including his interest in demonic attacks on monks and more generally the lack of a specific festal or exegetical focus for the works. Yet there are important differences between Symeon’s work and most of these ascetic collections. First, Symeon’s collection is unusually homogeneous, in that all of it is written in homiletic form. To my knowledge, homogeneous, purely homiletic collections by ascetic authors are rare. The so-called ‘Discourses’ of Isaiah of Scetis, for example, contain many texts in homily form, but also various other genres, including lists of precise instructions, records of ‘sayings’ by the holy man in the style of the Apophthegmata Patrum, lamentations, and letters.⁷⁸ Evagrios’s ethical corpus includes lists of proverbs/maxims, letters, and instructions, as well as many sermon-style discourses.⁷⁹ Given the difficulties of distinguishing between these genres, and of knowing how these authors’ corpora were transmitted, this point should not perhaps be pressed too far. Yet another, more important, difference between Symeon’s sermons and these ascetic collections remains. The most characteristic ascetic collections appear to be targeted exclusively at monks, and therefore deal only with topics of direct relevance to them. Some of Symeon’s sermons do likewise presuppose a monastic audience, as is made clear in sermon 28: ‘O monks, let us lament being called monks. We have not remained monks, since we have consorted with the works of the demons.’⁸⁰ Yet other passages imply that the audience for at least some of the sermons included lay people.⁸¹ In particular, the many sections containing detailed attacks on the rich and their luxurious lifestyles are far more reminiscent of the preaching of John Chrysostom to his Antiochene and Constantinopolitan congregations than of the ascetic discourses mentioned above.⁸² When monastic authors discuss the dangers of wealth, it tends to be with reference to monastic concerns: they urge monks, for example, not to insist on a high price for their handiwork, not to accumulate wealth for almsgiving, and not to worry about saving money to look after themselves when they are sick, or too old to work.⁸³ Symeon’s evocation, and condemnation, of the luxurious lives of wealthy lay people is of a very different nature. In sermon 14, for example, he reproaches a rich man:

For in luxury of foods you nourish your flesh into food for the unsleeping worm; and saluting the one above you in wealth, on account of a perishable semblance, you set at naught the pauper, who is justified in the Lord; and you besmirch your couch in bedding other men’s wives and in sleeping with transgressive men. And you look at yourself as if you possessed a deathless head, dressed in soft garments, and elevating your desires in dances of women, and in fantasies of having attendants on both sides, in sitting on horses, in overlooking the poor, and in blasphemous words and purchasing of beauty, besides the other things which you do which it is shameful even to speak of.⁸⁴

I will discuss his treatment of wealth in more detail below, but it will suffice for now to note, first, that it distinguishes his work from that of many of his ascetic predecessors, and, second, that it suggests that his audience included laymen as well as monks. This in turn may imply that the sermons were delivered orally, rather than being intended solely as reading material for the monks of his monastery, although it is likely that they also served the latter function.⁸⁵

Style

The style of the sermon collection has met with heavy criticism. As mentioned above, Van den Ven argued that their style was so poor that they could not have been written by Symeon himself. Allen has agreed with this verdict, referring to the collection’s ‘tortuous and obscure style’.⁸⁶ Because of this, and because of their belief that Symeon’s collection was heavily redacted by an anonymous editor, neither has analysed the work’s style in detail.⁸⁷ The validity of their criticisms can, at one level, hardly be denied; the sermons’ phraseology is over-elaborate and difficult at best, and sometimes entirely incomprehensible, even if some of these obscurities are products of textual corruption. Yet it is clear that their author used a variety of rhetorical techniques in his writing, including many of those identified by Cunningham as common aids to an audience’s comprehension of preaching.⁸⁸ The following analysis will, therefore, attempt to understand the sermons’ style in terms of Symeon’s rhetorical strategies, setting to one side its lack of appeal to modern ears.

Symeon uses a range of techniques to attract his audience’s attention. Several of his sermons have vivid or dramatic openings surely intended to pique the audience’s interest, such as, ‘the beauty of life is an uncertain loveliness, and the decoration of houses is a passing shadow’;⁸⁹ ‘the blood of the martyr is not more venerable than the way of life of the monk’;⁹⁰ ‘I think that the earthly world should be considered a ship carried round by waves of the sea and whirled hither and thither.’⁹¹ Throughout the collection, his use of imagery is varied and extensive, if rarely original, and again serves to add interest to his words. Some of the images appear deliberately shocking, or paradoxical, a technique which Averil Cameron has identified as characteristic of early Christian literature:⁹² thus, for example, in sermon 17 he compares both himself and his audience, and, subsequently, God, to a prostitute adorning herself for her clients.⁹³ Sometimes he presents a rapid series of diverse metaphors and similes, as in the opening of sermon 27:

Brothers, this world is a cloud of iniquity, dissolving frost, a passing dream, a sketch being wiped out, a turning point of the horse race, a slanting [?] shadow, a wind of words, a succession of mortals’ glory, an invisible corruptor of those who live in it, a cauldron or abyss, like a cauldron boiling up fire of the impious from eternity. For it appears like a pestle, to dissolve everybody in the earthly mist, and a passing dew.⁹⁴

The quick-fire sequence of images is varied and engaging. The most extended series of images comes in the middle of sermon 4, which consists of a long string of statements of bipartite structure, one half of which introduces an image, and the other half a supposedly comparable phenomenon from the life of the monk. Thus for example, ‘a sheep which sheds its wool is useless to its owner, and a monk shorn without the psalmody does not build for God’.⁹⁵ This passage contains an extremely varied range of images, including a temple, a tomb, a treasury, an altar, a good worker, a clever merchant, a trumpet, charcoal, wax and fire, thorns, a fisherman, a garden, a ship, birds, wine, olive oil, a lion, a goat, a star, a reed in the wind, a stream, a house, a missile, a sword, a shepherd, wood, a fox in the vineyard, a sparrow, a partridge, a dog, a pigeon, a metal-worker, a pot, deer, senators, a weaver, a gem-engraver, moths and a cloak, the moon, torches, a blood-stained cloak, a falcon, childbirth, mourning, beauty, an angry man, a lascivious youth, various body parts, a wolf, a river, and a vine. None of the metaphors are developed in detail; the power of the passage comes from the diversity and sometimes unexpectedness of the parallels.

In contrast, in other sermons Symeon uses long, developed similes. Sermon 18, for example, contains a lengthy elaboration upon the common comparison between the Christian and the soldier.⁹⁶ He starts the sermon by recounting the imagined words of a commander to his soldiers (thereby using another technique intended to add vividness: direct speech) and by emphasizing the soldiers’ willingness to die for honour and gifts. He then launches into a series of comparisons emphasizing that ‘we’ (himself and his audience) should be more committed to strive for Christ than the soldiers for their king. Since the soldiers are prepared to die for a mortal king, we should mortify our bodies for the immortal king; as soldiers are aggressive to their enemies, but calm to their companions, so we should attack the demons, but be kind to our fellow Christians; whereas soldiers wear ‘covetous’ outfits (cloaks, fur, necklaces), we wear ‘pious’ clothes (animal skins, hair tunics, dog-collars); just as soldiers gain promotions through their efforts, we may through virtue become rulers of the angels; whereas soldiers’ weapons are physical and destructive, ours are spiritual and life-giving (dedication, the spirit of blessedness, faith and action, prayer, the Cross, and Paul like a general urging us to fight); whereas a mortal king cannot save his soldier if he is killed, Christ can save us if we are endangered by demons; soldiers have rotten camps, but we have eternal tents; soldiers eat meat preserved in vinegar, but our food is soberness and the Eucharist. This is clearly not a simple simile, as it relies as much on the differences between the two points of comparison (for example, the mortal versus immortal king; luxurious outfits versus ascetic trappings; physical versus spiritual weapons) as on their similarities. Its purpose is didactic and exhortatory, and it conveys a similar message to many of Symeon’s other sermons; by using this extended image he can present the material in a different and perhaps more engaging fashion. While, therefore, most of the images used in the sermon collection are in themselves conventional, the variety of ways in which they are deployed is noteworthy: the author appears to possess a modicum of sophistication in his rhetorical technique.

Imagery is not the only means he uses to emphasize and dramatize his message. In several sermons he repeats key phrases, a technique intended to reinforce a point and, perhaps, to aid audience comprehension.⁹⁷ Rhetorical questions abound. Some are neutral, intended merely to advance the speaker’s argument in an engaging manner, such as, ‘and so what? After old age does God abandon man? May it not be!’⁹⁸ and ‘do you want to understand what the unquenchable fire is like for the second death?’.⁹⁹ Others, however, have an accusatory tone, as illustrated by the beginning of sermon 19: ‘why do you desire corruptible and temporal things in this unprofitable life, gathering bitterness through vanishing pleasure?’¹⁰⁰ Many of these reproachful questions occur in the context of Symeon’s addresses to, and dialogues with, probably hypothetical individuals. The apostrophe is one of his most characteristic rhetorical strategies, occurring in more than ten of the sermons.¹⁰¹ His apostrophes come in a variety of forms and lengths; sometimes Symeon abruptly breaks off from his previous discourse to address an individual; sometimes he describes a person’s thoughts in the third person before beginning to address them in the second person; and on other occasions he uses procatalepsis, imagining a question or an objection which a member of the audience might raise, and proceeding to answer or refute it. Many of these apostrophes are targeted at a wealthy person, who is often addressed in the vocative as ‘money-lover’ (φιλάργυρε) or ‘rich man’ (πλούσιε);¹⁰² some are simply directed to ‘man’ (ἄνθρωπε) or use the second-person singular form of the verb without an accompanying vocative. An apostrophe in sermon 21, uniquely, is addressed to a monk wishing to be saved.¹⁰³

As Karl-Heinz Uthemann has argued, such apostrophes can serve an important role in homiletic rhetoric, because they enable the speaker to render his sermon more conversational, giving the audience a sense of involvement in a dialogue, even though in fact the preacher is delivering a monologue.¹⁰⁴ It is notable that Symeon rarely uses the second-person plural to address his audience; he favours either the second-person singular, in these apostrophes, or the first-person plural (either in the indicative, for example, ‘we have given our way of life to darkness’, or in the hortatory subjunctive, as in ‘let us grieve, most desired ones, and let us mourn bitterly’).¹⁰⁵ The second person, singular or plural, implicitly distances the speaker from those whom he is addressing, and thus is particularly appropriate for delivering stern reproaches and commands. In contrast, the first-person plural is, even when used to highlight the same failings, less harsh, since the orator includes himself in the community who needs to reform.¹⁰⁶ His frequent use of the first-person plural thus enables Symeon to stress the need for moral reform without alienating his audience by opposing himself, as virtuous, and them, as sinners. The use of the second-person singular in the apostrophe may at one level perform a similar function: it enables the speaker to use aggressive invective, highlighting the punishments in store for unrepentant sinners, without estranging his entire audience, because this polemic is targeted at an individual (usually, as mentioned, a rich individual with whom most of the audience would not have identified).

Indeed, Symeon rhetorically breaks down the barriers between himself, as authoritative preacher, and his audience, by stressing his own sinfulness and humility. His humility is expressed, implicitly, throughout the collection. As mentioned, he frequently uses the first-person plural to include himself in the community which he is addressing, even when he is highlighting that community’s sinfulness. Thus in sermon 28, apparently addressed to monks, he laments ‘our’ wicked deeds and fall from virtue:

Having been called chaste, we have become fornicators; polluting divine freedom by our deeds, we have strengthened hate and falseness. And because of this no truth shines in us. Monks, let us lament being called monks. We have not remained monks, since we have consorted with the works of the demons. Christ called us hypocrites…our lamps are quenched, our talent is hidden, the heavenly master comes from above…how will we defend ourselves, or what will we say to him?…there is no defence in us. For despite being shaped in piety, we have renounced it…alas, that every day we behave disgracefully in the cities.¹⁰⁷

He includes himself in actions which he could not have committed, such as disgraceful behaviour in the cities. These passages serve both to emphasize the speaker’s sense of communal identification with his monks and to show his humility, since he confesses his shared sinfulness.

Symeon, however, moves beyond these communal professions of guilt. In several passages in the sermons, he uses the first-person singular, addressing his own moral state, often in negative terms. Thus in sermon 10 he moves from a discussion, in the third person, of the transience of life, to a more personal passage:

I know myself to be drying hay…. For just as in season hay, although existing today, tomorrow is thrown into an oven, thus also death drags everyone with piteous tears to their necessary end; and the delaying of repentance deceives me for a time; when I think on my sin, I fear to die. When I repent, pleasures pass me by; I have old age in mind, and death’s tomb drags me, naked of the commands and unready, to judgement. I was fashioned as a brick, and after a time I am dissolved, and I go away to the earth from which I was taken. I was revealed a flourishing tree, and marred by old age, I am cut down for burning. I am whitened grain, and am harvested by the angels who wield scythes. O my soul, be afraid of the fire-bearing servants who are coming to you at your necessary end; and acquire as friends through renunciation those who do not flatter, before the twelfth hour. Oh my soul, respect repentance in life, lest afterwards you fall to the enemy.¹⁰⁸

This passage clearly continues the sermon’s earlier theme of the ephemerality of life. But by moving to the first person, Symeon transforms the tone of his discourse. The use of the first person creates an intimate effect; it gives the impression (whether true or not) that the speaker is baring his innermost thoughts to his audience. He dwells not only on his own impermanence but also on his own sense of his sin (‘when I think on my sin, I fear to die’; ‘the tomb of death drags me naked of commands and unready…’), again suggesting his personal humility and self-abasement.

What does this humility achieve? First, humility, as manifested in particular by an awareness of one’s own sins, was considered one of the key Christian and monastic virtues.¹⁰⁹ As a result, Symeon’s emphasis on his sinfulness, far from undermining his authority as a moral teacher, in fact serves to increase it; paradoxically, for a monk to speak about his sins demonstrated that he was a paradigm of virtue.¹¹⁰ Secondly, Symeon’s first-person passages have a strongly didactic purpose. By presenting himself as sinful—even though, to much of his audience, he must have appeared as a holy man of exemplary piety—and in need of God’s mercy (many of the sermons end with Symeon’s personal appeals to God to save him, or with instructions to his own soul to repent), he implicitly invites his listeners to compare themselves to him, to acknowledge their own sins, and, like him, to ask God for forgiveness.¹¹¹ By referring to his own sinfulness in very generalized terms, he provides an opportunity for every member of his audience to reflect on his (or her?) own particular faults.¹¹² His self-criticisms therefore act as another indirect, non-aggressive way of highlighting the misdeeds of his audience.¹¹³

Symeon’s presentation of himself as a humble sinner thus serves multiple ends: it renders his preaching more intense and intimate; it subtly serves to enhance his own position of moral authority; and it provides a non-aggressive method of encouraging his audience to repent. Even if Symeon’s sermons are far from rhetorically brilliant, they are thus nonetheless quite didactically sophisticated. The speaker conveys his moral messages in ways that extend far beyond direct instruction, while his emphasis on humility serves both to break down the barrier between preacher and audience, and, at the same time, to increase his spiritual authority. Humility is only one aspect of Symeon’s self-presentation. He also, perhaps paradoxically, presents himself as the recipient of divine visions and as an experienced combatant against the demons.¹¹⁴ In order to understand this, however, we must turn to an analysis of one of the key themes of the collection: the spiritual life of the monk, and his constant war with the forces of evil.

Demons and Monks

Warnings and advice to monks are one of the dominant themes of Symeon’s sermons. This is far from surprising; as the hegumen of his monastery, the provision of spiritual guidance to his monks must have been one of his key duties, and an essential source of his authority.¹¹⁵ The advice and exhortations which the preacher gives to his monastic audience are often quite generalized, and rarely original: earlier ascetic authors such as Evagrios of Pontus and Isaiah of Scetis had treated similar monastic topics, sometimes in more sophisticated ways. But Symeon’s sermons derive power from his claims to have first-hand experiential knowledge of the subjects he discusses: he presents himself as an experienced and effective combatant with the demons. The sermons thus suggest that Symeon’s authority over his monks derived not merely from his moral guidance but from his personal status as a powerful and charismatic ascetic. This in turn implies that Symeon’s authority might become vulnerable if he failed to meet his monks’ expectations of him as a potent visionary. The sermons do contain references to monastic dissent, warning monks against the dangers of rivalry with their brothers and of vainly leaving their monasteries to found their own. The Life of Symeon may provide context for these warnings, since it confirms that Symeon faced various challenges from within his monastery. The sermon collection thus gives important insights into how Symeon constructed his authority within the monastery, but also hints at the potential vulnerabilities and frailties of his position.

It is not always possible to distinguish which sermons in Symeon’s collection were intended in particular for monks. Many address general subjects applicable to both monks and laity, and may indeed have had mixed audiences. Some, however, are explicitly addressed to monks or deal with themes of especial relevance to them, such as virginity, asceticism, and demonic attacks.¹¹⁶ Before looking at the sermons’ teaching for monks in detail, it is worth briefly considering what the collection does not include. It is notable that the advice given is almost all at a spiritual level; we do not encounter the kinds of instructions about everyday monastic life that are common in the ‘monastic rules’ found both in early ascetic literature and in some saints’ Lives, including, in fact, the Life of Symeon the Younger. Chapter 27 of Symeon’s Life contains a long sermon apparently delivered by the stylite in his youth, which gives some specific instructions on proper monastic behaviour. It repeats the phrase ‘the boast of the monk [is]’, listing many standard attributes of Syrian monasticism, such as ceaseless psalming and prayer, and weeping and striking the breast.¹¹⁷ It is clearly concerned with a coenobitic existence, providing advice, for instance, on behaviour at communal meals: listeners are told not to say ‘give me something to drink’ when thirsty, but to signal to the server with their finger, and not to spit out phlegm at the table ‘to scandalize the brothers’ but to leave and do it discreetly before returning.¹¹⁸ They are not extreme ascetic rules, but more moderate ones suitable for a community.¹¹⁹

In some respects they are very similar to other monastic instructions attributed to earlier ascetics: Isaiah of Scetis also, for instance, orders monks sitting with their brethren not to spit in their presence but to go outside.¹²⁰ But the instructions attributed to Symeon seem to reflect their Syrian context: unlike Isaiah’s text they do not contain, for example, references to manual labour, which was deemed spiritually vital in many Egyptian monasteries.¹²¹ Did these instructions really derive from the stylite? This is certainly possible, given that, as discussed above, the author of the Life does seem to have drawn on earlier records of the stylite’s sermons; these instructions could therefore be derived from a now-lost source. Whether authentic or not, it is unsurprising that they are not included in the sermon collection, which rarely addresses direct commands to its audience, and only occasionally deals with practical issues of day-to-day life. Its focus, rather, is on the spiritual battles underlying the monastic existence. It is now time to examine the collection’s spiritual teaching for monks in more depth.

Several of the sermons exalt characteristically monastic virtues, including virginity and asceticism. In sermon 15, about those who ‘deify’ marriage, Symeon insists that it is not marriage or sex that engender children, but God, and asserts that while marriage is good, virginity is better.¹²² In sermon 24, on virginity, he claims that the virgin will be a lord in heaven: ‘and if a sinning man has been appointed lord of all visible things, by how much more will the one who has perfected his controlled way of life in virginity [?], wearing a crown, lead a procession, and be lord in God’s ineffable treasuries of incorruptible things?’¹²³ He proceeds to state that chastity does not constitute true virginity unless it is adorned with other virtues: fasting, restraint from elaborate foods, mildness, walking in peace, prayer and psalmody, piety and sobriety. This reflects his general tendency to blur the lines between different virtues (and indeed different sins); this might be interpreted as indicating a lack of clarity of thought, but is perhaps better understood as reflecting an integrated, holistic approach to morality; no individual virtue can be perfect in isolation.

Asceticism was, for the preacher, another crucial virtue. While the instructions in the Life might suggest that Symeon preached a moderate message to his monks, not expecting them to emulate his own severe asceticism, several passages in the sermons suggest that he did promote a certain degree of rigour.¹²⁴ He repeatedly stresses the importance of adhering to the ‘utmost asceticism’, on one occasion stating that the monk must always think of new ways to afflict himself:¹²⁵

Such is the life of the monk; and along with these virtues to think up other afflictions for his body, like the martyrs, according to [his] ability. For just as the sea, receiving all the rivers, is never full, until the heaven and earth grow old, thus the monk ought to be insatiable in always imposing trials on himself until his exit from the body.¹²⁶

Admittedly, this exhortation includes the concessive clause, ‘according to his ability’, but it nonetheless suggests that constant asceticism was a requirement for all monks. Elsewhere he repeats this association between monks and martyrs, implying that the former had to match the physical struggles of the latter.¹²⁷ Nowhere in the sermons do we find the kinds of warnings against the dangers associated with extreme asceticism that are relatively common in monastic literature.¹²⁸ Although he was addressing coenobitic monks, he nonetheless sometimes speaks as though solitary ascetics were the ideal type of the monk:¹²⁹

The purity of the monk is a holy temple of God. For some [live] in sheep-skins and goat-skins, but others in mountains and caves, and cavities within rocks, needy, afflicted, mortified, undergoing the strain of asceticism, and putting on the power of incorruptibility like the holy angels.¹³⁰

His sermons thus present an austere picture of the ideal monk and his lifestyle.

The dominant theme of Symeon’s preaching for monks is, however, the need to be aware of the attacks of the demons and how to resist them. He describes the various ways in which the demons attack by day and by night, and the consequent need for the monk to be constantly vigilant.¹³¹ His emphasis varies: in sermon 9, discussed below, he speaks about the frightening and strange appearances of the different demons; in sermon 21, in contrast, he focuses on their association with various potential sins. This latter sermon contains his most developed discussion of the effects of the suggestions of different demons (avarice, pride, jealousy, fornication, and acedia) on monks, showing an awareness of the potential dangers of communal monastic living, reminiscent of that found in the works of Evagrios and Isaiah.¹³² In this sermon he adopts a monastic interpretation of avarice, unlike elsewhere in the collection, stating that the demon of avarice tempts the monk by making him think about the sufferings of the poor and needy, and thereby making him seek the company of the rich. He is opposed to economic activities, claiming that demons also throw the monk ‘into unprofitable complications and earthly concerns, into needless questionings which are misleading and unsuitable for monks, diverting him through supposedly good arguments for acquisition, either towards buildings, or vine-working and care for herds’.¹³³ A similar hostility to economic activities runs through much of the corpus associated with Symeon, including the hagiographic Lives of Symeon himself and of his mother Martha.¹³⁴

Sermon 21 is in many respects his most pastoral sermon, as he appears keen to discourage conflict and dissension among his brethren. He notes the danger of rivalry between monks, stating that demons cause the monk to despair because he cannot equal his neighbour in virtue, to envy ‘the one who is capable in the struggle concerning piety towards God’, and to rejoice when one of his companions is destroyed by sin.¹³⁵ He is particularly concerned to warn monks not to abandon their monasteries to found new ones: he reports that the demons suggest to a monk who has made progress in virtue that he should leave and found his own monastery, so that he can lead his own brethren and nurture the poor; then, having persuaded him to do this, when the practical concerns of founding his monastery have caused his behaviour to decline from virtue, they make him regret leaving his monastery; he then tries to return to his old monastery but they incite the brotherhood against him so that they refuse to readmit him; finally, he is completely alienated and returns to the world. This sequence of events, described in unusual detail, conveys a particularly severe warning to the audience that there may well be no return for anyone who abandons his monastery from pride and ambition; it is perhaps unsurprising that this should be regarded by the hegumen as an unforgivable sin. As we will see in the next chapter, Symeon appears to have struggled at times to retain the loyalty of his monastic disciples; his exhortations to the monks to resist the subversive suggestions of the demons may therefore have been of more than theoretical importance.¹³⁶

He emphasizes two key features of demonic attacks, irrespective of what sin they are trying to incite. First, he stresses the demons’ craftiness, repeatedly warning that monks should never become complacent, since demons often cunningly allow them to make unimpeded progress for a while before beginning or resuming their attacks. Thus he describes how demons allow novices to begin their monastic careers with such success that they are on the point of being inscribed in the Book of Life—whereupon the demons strike:

And when [a monk] begins, they allow him for a while to possess subordination, love, gentleness of temper, [the ascetic] struggle; and to be sympathetic, free, blameless, strong, obedient to commands, quiet in voice and well disposed, not swearing by anything, not loosely using distasteful words; and they allow him to store up all these achievements in heaven. And later, seeing God aroused to help him, to inscribe his name in the book of life, then suddenly, poured upon him like a flood of water, they work to destroy his efforts through desires.¹³⁷

Secondly, however, he emphasizes in several passages that it is possible for a steadfast monk to defeat demonic attacks, as the demons are fundamentally weak.¹³⁸ Thus at the beginning of sermon 9 he states that while demons terrify the soul of the monk, they do not have the power to implement their threats. Just as someone might plan in the agora to rob an inexperienced pauper, but would run away if someone brave and confident appeared, so too demonic apparitions may frighten someone inexperienced into abandoning piety, but are easily chased away by a wise monk using the sign of the cross.¹³⁹ His message is therefore simultaneously uncompromising (there is little excuse for a monk to succumb to the demons) and encouraging (anyone can resist if he is strong and follows my guidance).

Symeon does not present his teaching about demons as purely theoretical; rather, he claims that he himself had received visions about demons, and indeed had fought and defeated them. This is a particularly prominent theme in sermon 9, on demonic attacks. After the opening of the sermon, which, as just discussed, states that demons can only overcome weak monks, the preacher asserts that he has personal knowledge of this topic: ‘For I, having put it appropriately to the test, have achieved theory/vision.’¹⁴⁰ His claim to have personal experience is highlighted by the emphatic pronoun ἐγώ. Throughout the sermon, even when he is talking about demonic attacks in the abstract, he repeatedly uses first-person verbs to stress his own familiarity with the topic: ‘I know and believe that the demons are transformed into every form…. I know and believe when a monk is in self-control, a phalanx of demons besets him….’¹⁴¹ The verbs οἶδα and πέπεισμαι are positioned emphatically at the start of the sentence. In addition, in the course of the sermon he refers to numerous occasions in which he has seen different demons, claiming to recognize their various forms. He reports, for example:

I know, moreover, and I have seen, demons transformed into divine light, in order through pride to darken the monk. And I have often seen species of demons transformed into winged beings. And I have seen the spirit of avarice, a plague and sordidly greedy of gain, gaping to swallow up the world. And behold, it was poor in its own nature (hypostasis), but destructive and full of burning coal. Again I saw the spirit of folly, wandering, small-brained, jingling, laughing proudly; and its clothing was like a mat, and its height was double, its length that of a four-cubit man; and I saw it plaguing self-controlled people, and stimulating them to fornication. I again saw demons urging [monks] to look at a young woman, and promising all the wealth of the world.¹⁴²

He dramatizes his visionary experiences by claiming they surpass both speech and the ability of his audience to hear: ‘and Ι observed their city, but a narration of the vision is not [possible]’;¹⁴³ ‘I saw these things, and I recognized everything. And more things than these the Lord did not hide from me. But I have written a part [of them], passing over many things in silence, on account of the weakness of those who do not have the capacity to hear.’¹⁴⁴ He claims not only that he saw the demons, but that he was able to resist them; he reports, for instance, that demons in the forms of dragons, serpents, and piglets wrestled with him, and tried to cut his loin-cloth, but that by making the sign of the cross and thinking on God’s wisdom, he repelled them.¹⁴⁵

At one level, these claims about his personal experiences with demons serve simply to substantiate his general arguments about demonic attacks; he can back up his theoretical observations through personal anecdotes. Their importance is greater than this, however, as they also place Symeon firmly in the tradition of the great monastic heroes of the past. Since the life of Antony the Great, at least, ‘discernment of spirits’ had been regarded as one of the key traits of the advanced ascetic; monastic leaders were expected to understand the different demons and how to combat them, both to help other monks and to gain personal control over the forces of evil.¹⁴⁶ David Brakke has argued persuasively that monastic identity was conceived in large part in terms of opposition to the demons.¹⁴⁷ Symeon’s claims to have seen, and defeated, the demons thus confer spiritual authority upon him and his preaching. The Life of Symeon the Younger contains more descriptions of its hero’s visions than perhaps any other late antique saint’s Life.¹⁴⁸ At least two of these descriptions seem to derive from the sermon collection; it is thus possible that more of the Life’s accounts of visions could derive from earlier records of the saint’s words, now lost.¹⁴⁹ But whether or not this is the case, the sermon collection that does survive suggests that visions were indeed an important component of Symeon’s identity and in the construction of his spiritual authority. They displayed his special status as privileged recipient of divine illumination, reflecting a close relationship with God. What is more, demons were not the only subject about which he claimed to have seen revelations. When we turn to another key theme of the collection, eschatology, we will see that Symeon also professed to have received divine knowledge about the fate of the soul after death, the final judgement, and the end of the world.

Heaven and Hell

Throughout the collection, Symeon is preoccupied with the vivid reality of heaven and hell, as discussed by David Hester in a rare study of the stylite’s sermons.¹⁵⁰ Symeon repeatedly reminds his audience that the present world and its pleasures are temporary and will, like the human body itself, be dissolved.¹⁵¹ He is less interested than some early Christian preachers in the moment of death itself, but dwells in detail on the soul’s fate after death.¹⁵² Every soul will have to face judgement (he seems to discuss both the judgement of the soul after a human’s death, and the final judgement of all at the end of the world, without clarifying the relationship between the two).¹⁵³ He describes the joys of heaven, and the horrors of hell, in striking terms, again claiming personal knowledge, through revelation, of the afterlife.¹⁵⁴ His vision is entirely black and white: no degrees or levels of heaven or hell are envisioned. Interest in eschatology and the final judgement is ubiquitous in early Christian thought, but Symeon’s sermons may fit into a context of rising speculation about the end of the world during the sixth century. The holy man does not make any great innovations in eschatological theology. What is striking about Symeon’s sermons is simply how far they are pervaded by eschatology. His message is straightforward, vivid, and insistent: judgement is inescapable; if you are in a state of sin at death, there is no way to escape unspeakable horrors; but if you are virtuous, you will find unimaginable joys. Yet while he urges everyone to focus on the afterlife, his warnings are particularly directed at the rich; he repeatedly presents the last judgement as a time when worldly hierarchies will be overthrown.

Symeon claims to have received divinely inspired knowledge of the afterlife and of the fate of the soul after death. In sermon 30, he suggests that God has revealed the joys of paradise to him: ‘I [ἐγώ] knowing the goodness of the Son, which is the same goodness as the Father’s, have received freedom of speech to say that [in paradise] there are many cities, and there are many lands, there are many lights, and there are many glories, there is much joy.’¹⁵⁵ Later in the same sermon, he provides a vivid description of God’s elect in heaven:

Behold his saints, exalting in glory, wearing bright, eye-catching [? lit.: full of eyes] clothing, girdles and sandals of living stones, necklaces and things brighter than lightning, garments surpassing the day [in brightness], marked in the name and character of the son of God. Wherefore the seraphim worship, and the archangels tremble, the angels prostrate themselves, the light is greatly multiplied, the fire blazes high, the plants give way, the deathless horses leap and the chariots spring gracefully, the clouds bear those mounted on them on high. And while all this will be thus, others of the saints will grow wings like eagles, and some will fly like doves; and everything will flourish in joy and happiness.¹⁵⁶

The speaker’s use of the present tense for most of the passage conveys an almost ecstatic impression, as if he could see the vision before his eyes while speaking, and was trying to recreate it for his audience. It is important that Symeon does provide vivid evocations of the joys of heaven, and not only of the horrors of hell: he hopes to persuade his audience to reform not only through fear, but also through the promise that their sacrifices and sufferings will be worthwhile in the end.

Nonetheless, in other passages his emphasis is much more threatening. In sermon 22, he reports an extremely ominous revelation, as if it had been reported to him by another visionary: ‘Behold, I speak mysteries to you: for I know a man in this generation who has been informed that few now are to be found who give over their souls into the hands of the angels’; rather, ‘it is the demons who receive them’.¹⁵⁷ The subsequent few lines are perhaps corrupt, and certainly difficult to translate, but one relatively clear passage implies that this anonymous man was himself capable of saving souls from the demons: ‘and when he had rebuked them [the demons] by the power of the Holy Spirit, holding out his hand to the soul constrained in compulsion, immediately these [the demons], terrified, let it go and fled. And the soul returned to its position in the body.’¹⁵⁸

The speaker then proceeds to say that this man contemplated and bewailed the demonic treatment of souls who had sinned, whereupon, ‘having shouted, like Moses, in his mind towards God, he asked to understand something about this saying; and it was revealed to him through the Holy Spirit that from ten thousand scarcely one soul would be found in the present times advancing in the hands of the holy angels’.¹⁵⁹ This is then followed by a narrative of the fate of the soul after death, which describes the different demons examining the soul to see if they can find anything of their own sin in it, in a variant of a common account which appears in the works of many late antique authors (interestingly, several versions survive attributed to Symeon Stylites).¹⁶⁰

Although this revelation, and anti-demonic power, are not attributed to the speaker, but to an anonymous acquaintance, it is highly likely that his audience would have understood this as a modest way of referring to Symeon himself. It seems to have been widely believed that Paul’s claim in 2 Corinthians 12:1–5 to have known a man who had been taken up to heaven and seen revelations was a reference to Paul himself, and that some ascetics, imitating the apostle, reported their visions in the third person. Thus we read in the Life of Alexander Akoimetos, ‘and this [vision] he confessed to us as if it had happened to another person. Just as the blessed Apostle Paul described his own vision as if it had belonged to someone else, so too did Alexander, the Apostle’s disciple.’¹⁶¹ It is therefore likely that Symeon is implicitly suggesting that he himself had ‘shouted like Moses’ and received the ominous revelation that barely one in ten thousand men of the present generation would be saved. He thus presents himself as a prophet (as signalled by the comparison to Moses) bringing God’s warning to the world. His repeated, vivid descriptions of the Last Judgement and of the afterlife throughout the collection consolidate the impression that he spoke in the manner of an Old Testament prophet, as a mediator and messenger from God to humanity, bringing a message full of both threats and promises.

Symeon’s vision of the afterlife is characterized by its stark polarization. There was no agreed eschatological theology in the early church; instead authors displayed a diverse range of understandings of the afterlife.¹⁶² Some developed complicated images of the world to come, in which heaven had various sections or grades for people who had attained differing levels of virtue. This is even implied in some material associated with Symeon’s own shrine. Thus in the Life of Martha, Martha is shown in a vision a fine mansion in heaven for herself, then an even more splendid mansion for Symeon, as well as eastern suburbs where the ‘men and women pious in alms and god-fearing’ lived.¹⁶³ The hierarchies of heaven are expressed still more clearly in other sources: the Bohairic Life of Pachomios, for example, contains an elaborate account of the different degrees of honour accorded to deceased monks of different degrees of virtue.¹⁶⁴ There are no such variations in the vision of the afterlife expressed in Symeon’s sermons. Only two options are available: the full glory of heaven, involving lordship over the angels, fellowship with the saints and martyrs, and close proximity to God; or, in contrast, eternal fire and torment. It is important to note that Symeon’s message is not entirely negative: while he does dwell on the sufferings of the wicked, he is equally committed to describing the glories of heaven. The divide between the two is, however, absolute:

See with me the Lord saying in the gospels that He will separate the just on His right, from the sinners on His left, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.¹⁶⁵ And then He will say to the just, ‘come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’ And to the sinners He will say, ‘depart from me, accursed ones, into the outer darkness, which was prepared for the Devil and his angels’.¹⁶⁶ And there will be wailing [and gnashing] of teeth.¹⁶⁷

Again, this polarized vision is not original; as this passage shows, Symeon could draw upon the Gospels to support his position. But whereas some Christian thinkers had elaborated upon this sparse picture of the afterlife—largely in order to accommodate different degrees of piety into heaven—Symeon retains the stark duality of Matthew, offering his audience only two, diametrically opposed options: heaven and hell.

These stark and often frightening evocations of the horrors of hell may have contributed to the authority and popularity of Symeon’s sermons. James Cook, in an important recent study of John Chrysostom, has argued that fear played a significant role in Chrysostom’s preaching. Chrysostom himself saw producing fear in his audience as part of the preacher’s duties as teacher and doctor of souls. The audience too seem to have valued frightening and stern rhetoric in the context of preaching and the liturgy; Chrysostom was popular in part because of his harsh language, not in despite of it.¹⁶⁸ Symeon himself values fear of judgement as an important part of the Christian mindset, citing the biblical claim that God will perform the will of those who fear him, and explaining that this refers to the spiritual fear of those who contemplate ‘the fearful and frightening judgement which through unquenchable fire tests the whole earth’.¹⁶⁹ He also states that fear of judgement will help the Christian to resist yielding to pleasure.¹⁷⁰ His grim descriptions of the afterlife thus serve a didactic role, intending to provoke fear in the audience in order to stimulate them to greater piety.¹⁷¹

While many of Symeon’s evocations of the afterlife refer to judgement at an unspecified future time, some go further, suggesting that the final eschaton was about to take place. Thus sermon 12 begins with an evocative description of Christ’s Second Coming, appearing to imply that it was imminent:

Approaching to the blessed glory of the manifestation [ἐπιφανείας] of the great God and our saviour Jesus Christ, sons of light, think on this wisely: and remove yourselves from earthly matters and strive to acquire the one who comes on the clouds of heaven with great power. For behold, the glory of the Lord will appear, and all flesh will see the salvation of our God, when the powers of the heavens shake, and the earth turns around, the angels shudder, and the just exult in the everlasting brightness.¹⁷²

Although ‘ἐπιφάνεια’ had various different senses in early Christian writings, one of these was Christ’s Second Coming, and the description that follows makes it clear that Symeon is warning his audience to prepare for the eschaton. Elsewhere in the collection, sermon 28 suggests that the signs of the end of the world described in the Gospels (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21) have already taken place. Symeon’s description of the signs does not exactly match that found in the Gospels, but is very similar in tone, and the subsequent reference, in the present tense, to the descent of the Lord makes its eschatological significance clear:

Our eyes have seen the sun darkened, and earthquakes in cities and countryside, and burnings and fallings, and occurrence of signs, uprisings of peoples, and pourings out of blood, and gulfs threatening swallowings-up, encampings of locusts, uprisings of blood-eating wild beasts, seizings of men and children…. Our lamps are quenched, our talent is hidden, the heavenly master comes from above, rising powerfully, for Judgement.¹⁷³

His words may well be intended to remind the reader of the series of disasters which had hit Antioch in the sixth century, including earthquakes and war. The preacher combines references to various eschatological parables (‘our lamps are quenched’ is an echo of the Parable of the Ten Virgins, ‘our talent is hidden’ of that of the Talents) to emphasize the unpreparedness of his audience and himself to face the coming eschaton.

These passages suggesting that the Second Coming was imminent seem to reflect wider eschatological trends during Justinian’s reign, perhaps encouraged by the natural and military disasters of the period.¹⁷⁴ Thus for example Romanos the Melodist, in a hymn on the Ten Virgins, states explicitly that the end of the world is at hand, ‘the final day is near…the bridegroom is coming; let us not remain outside, crying, “open!”’, adducing as evidence the disasters which the current generation has witnessed:¹⁷⁵

How long, my soul, are you going to sleep this vain sleep, rest and snore? Wake up now, at what we see [happening]: grievous threats and constant earthquakes have disturbed the earth and those in it…the trumpets of the signs sound in the world, to predict to those expecting Christ that He will come…. We see these things now, [my] soul. They are not at the doors; they are the doors; they are ready and present. Nothing is missing, as Christ said, but everything will happen just as He foretold, both famines and plagues, and constant earthquakes, and race has been roused against race; the things inside are frightening, and those outside are full of war; there is nowhere to be saved, for the danger is everywhere.¹⁷⁶

Romanos, like Symeon in the passage quoted above, combines references to the parable of the Ten Virgins with descriptions of the current omens of the end time, in the form of disasters.¹⁷⁷ Aspects of Symeon’s eschatology may thus reflect wider ideological developments, at least among some groups within the empire, prompted by some of the traumatic events of the mid-sixth century, including defeats to the Persians, severe outbreaks of plague, and earthquakes in both capital and provinces. The ideological effects of these disasters will be discussed in greater depth in subsequent chapters; they posed considerable challenges to the reputations of Symeon and other holy men. Symeon’s sermons, with their lack of specificity and contextual references, provide no insights into the effects of the disasters on the saint’s career. But they do show that the holy man provided repeated, stark warnings that his generation must prepare for judgement, warnings which must have resonated all the more powerfully in the context of rising concerns about the end of the world.

Yet although the preacher urges everyone to remember the inevitability of death and judgement, his words have one particular target: the rich and powerful. He frequently claims that the rich justify their immorality by ignoring, or denying, the soul’s continued existence after death.¹⁷⁸ In one passage, he imagines a rich man claiming that no one has ever returned from Hades, thus implicitly denying Christ’s resurrection.¹⁷⁹ His message, in contrast, is that all will be called to judgement, irrespective of their rank. He frequently stresses that neither wealth, nor family connections, will help a soul when it is being judged: God is impartial and will judge based on the soul’s moral state alone.¹⁸⁰ He claims that all humans will be equal at the judgement, irrespective of their worldly rank; in fact, however, he tends to depict only the rich and powerful as facing punishment. He thus implies not merely a levelling of worldly hierarchies, but their complete reversal:

For there is no respecting-of-persons with the king of the ages, Christ, nor [is it possible] to give a golden ransom for a soul; neither the boldness of hangers-on, nor the help of relatives, nor friends, can deliver the soul; for these rather lament on their own account because the opportunity for repentance has passed. [For there are] no gifts blinding eyes towards forgiveness, nor canvassing by parents, nor support of relatives; nor will a ruler be above a poor person, nor a king above a pauper; but the rich man and the pauper will come to the same [tribunal]. Then proud kings, standing there naked with bowed heads, are sent to eternal death and bitter punishments; there the ruler, condemned, is flung to unquenchable fire and an underwater place, in a deathless worm, because he justified the impious because of bribes, and hid judgements from the poor, for doing injustice to their widows and orphans, and for living in luxury on delicious foods; there the just poor man is exalted by Christ in glory, in order to sit with the rulers of the people in eternal life, being glorified by angels.¹⁸¹

Although passages like this are clearly threatening towards the rich, they do have a more positive inverse: he reminds the less wealthy, who must have constituted the majority of his audience, that the injustices of this life are temporary, that their oppressors will be punished and the innocent poor exalted. These are not original arguments, but Symeon’s emphasis on the punishment of the rich is notable, particularly given his position as a monastic, not ecclesiastical, author. His criticisms of the rich extend far beyond these passages describing posthumous judgement: wealth and its corrupting influence is a dominant theme of the collection. Symeon’s role as prophet is not only founded on his claims to reveal God’s mysteries to his audience; he also brings a powerful message of social criticism.

Rich and Poor

Symeon’s strong concern to denounce worldly wealth distances him from most of the famous monastic authors of late antiquity. Monastic writers tended to refer to the secular rich only to warn monks to avoid them: thus Isaiah of Scetis instructs, ‘Do not seek to make friends with those who are glorified in this world, lest the glory of God becomes dimmed inside you’, while Evagrios of Pontus warns that a monk afflicted by avarice, ‘associates himself with wealthy women and indicates to them who should be treated well’.¹⁸² They are preoccupied with particularly monastic concerns, such as the desire to gain money to perform almsgiving, anxieties about supporting oneself when too old or sick to perform manual labour, and the temptation to retain excessive wealth after joining a monastery.¹⁸³ They do not launch into lengthy, vitriolic attacks on the rich, even if they occasionally include brief criticisms of them. Isaiah of Scetis adopts a spiritual definition of poverty which implicitly excludes the non-monastic poor, implying a lack of interest in societal economic divides: ‘the poor are not those who have renounced and given away this visible world alone, but those who have given up all evil and who hunger always for the remembrance of God.’¹⁸⁴ There were some important figures who broke this trend—including above all Shenoute of Atripe, discussed below—but it generally holds true of the most popular ascetic authors of the late antique east.

Attacks on the rich were, rather, a characteristic of ecclesiastical preaching. Wealth and its abuses constituted a major theme of the sermons of most famous early Christian preachers, including, in the east, John Chrysostom and the Cappadocian Fathers, and, in the west, Ambrose and Augustine.¹⁸⁵ The work of Peter Brown and others on early Christian rhetoric on wealth and poverty has revealed the complexity of its strategies and ambitions. Brown has argued that far from accurately reflecting social realities, early Christian rhetoric usually focused on social extremes, contrasting the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor while ignoring the majority of the population who fell in the middle.¹⁸⁶ He has also shown how a purely economic understanding of the poor was increasingly supplemented, and sometimes replaced, by one which conceptualized the pauper as someone who was owed justice by the powerful, in terms ultimately derived from the Hebrew Bible.¹⁸⁷ This discourse on wealth and poverty was inherently political and contributed to the growth of bishops’ power: as Brown argued with reference to Ambrose of Milan, sermons on these themes served to ‘open up for Ambrose and for similar Christian bishops a space for intervention in society’;¹⁸⁸ they enabled bishops to appear as ‘modern avatars of the prophets of ancient Israel’.¹⁸⁹

Many of these complexities are reflected in Symeon’s preaching. He provides elaborate descriptions of the luxurious lifestyles of the rich and denounces their oppressive treatment of the poor. For Symeon, unlike for many early Christian preachers, there seems to be no possibility of legitimate wealth or of living piously while retaining riches; his message is unusually harsh and uncompromising. Indeed, he goes so far as to associate the wealthy with one of the groups most despised by early Christian authors: pagans. He is less interested than some preachers in promoting almsgiving; his aggressive rhetoric thus seems to have a symbolic rather than strictly practical function. He creates a role for himself as defender of the poor and oppressed, a role which had the potential to be both powerful and deeply controversial.

Symeon gives detailed descriptions of the extravagant lives of the rich. He often imagines their thought processes, sometimes even portraying them temporarily renouncing their lifestyles before relapsing into sin. In sermon 8, for example, he imagines a rich man, having eaten too much, acknowledging the vanity of life, renouncing greediness, marriage, possessions, and injustice, and recognizing that earthly goods will lead to eternal torment. He then reports, however, that such repentance is not sincere, and that the rich man soon changes his mind:

And the rich man, raising himself [to look] through some window, and viewing the pleasures of the world and their glory…piercing himself on the thorns of earthly things, begins to say, ‘What is better than this glory? Or what is more than the love of parents? Or what is more enjoyable than the present good things?…Therefore let us be warmed by expensive wine and perfumes, with all the other foodstuffs; for our life is short and grievous, and the body will turn into ash, and the spirit will be dissolved like empty air; and so because of this we will choose, before the time of the tomb, to live in such houses, and before the time of ash, to dress our body in the diverse patterns of gold-threaded and silk garments; and before the last silence to be merry in speech and laughter and joys and complicated leaping dances. Of all things what is sweeter than a wife? With her life’s sweet repose gleams and shines; for I will go into my house and sleep beside her; for living with her brings not bitterness, but happiness and joy.’¹⁹⁰

Here, as in other comparable passages, he presents a vivid picture of the rich man, referring to luxuries which engage all five senses (the sight of fine clothes; the taste of wine and food; the scent of perfume; the sounds of laughter and conversation; the touch of his wife), and imagining his innermost thoughts.¹⁹¹ It is notable that in this passage Symeon does not depict the rich man as doing anything unusually scandalous, at least in terms of his sexual morality; he is not presented as consorting with prostitutes or committing adultery, but simply as desiring to sleep with his wife. This suggests that Symeon adopts a particularly hard-line approach to the wealthy; even the wish to continue living with his wife is presented as a sign of the rich man’s swift relapse into sin.¹⁹²

He is particularly concerned to denounce rich people’s unjust treatment of the less powerful in society (indeed, he seems more interested in those experiencing various kinds of oppression than in the simply economic poor).¹⁹³ Thus in sermon 6 he imagines a rich man saying:

I will acquire houses, I will buy fields, and I will rule over people, through slaves and slave girls; I will seize the land of this man into my farm [?], for it is very productive, and it will channel gold to me through rich harvests, and I will continue to put a heavy collar on my labourers, and I will give joy to my soul…for this is my part, and this is my lot. I will oppress the pauper, I will not spare widows, nor will I respect the grey hair of the old man; and my strength will be the law of righteousness, for weakness is exposed as useless.¹⁹⁴

Despite the reference to the pauper, the rich man’s words are focused more on injustice and oppression (‘rule over people’, ‘seize the land’, ‘put a heavy collar’, ‘oppress’), and on the conflict between strength and weakness, than on the gap between wealth and poverty.

Indeed, for Symeon, wealth is essentially synonymous with injustice; there seems no possibility of legitimate wealth. In sermon 16 he claims that the rich gain their money through accepting bribes to make false judgements, through plundering orphans and widows, through treacherous murders, through lending money and demanding interest unjustly, and through forgeries.¹⁹⁵ Many ecclesiastical preachers, despite including vituperative attacks upon the impious rich, acknowledged the possibility that a rich man could be pious if he lived moderately and gave alms generously: thus even John Chrysostom could write, ‘wealth will be good for its possessor if he does not spend it only on luxury, or on strong drink and harmful pleasures; if he enjoys luxury in moderation and distributes the rest to the stomachs of the poor, then wealth is a good thing’.¹⁹⁶

Operating in a society in which the total abolition of wealth was neither possible nor desirable, churchmen tended to soften their messages to accommodate the pious Christian rich. Thus John Chrysostom also interpreted Jesus’s words in the Gospels as proof that renunciation of riches was not necessary: ‘he did the same thing for poverty; he did not make it mandatory. He did not simply say: “Sell all that you have”, but “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your belongings.”’¹⁹⁷ Severos of Antioch, although often exhorting his audience to be generous to the poor, nonetheless at times adopts a strictly spiritual interpretation of scriptural references to the wickedness of wealth and the virtue of poverty, with the result that material wealth is not presented as a barrier to salvation: he says that it is not forbidden to become rich, but only to be enslaved by love of riches, and that it is not all the wealthy who are damned, but those who devote all their thoughts to worldly possessions.¹⁹⁸

There is little sign of such accommodation in Symeon’s sermons. He quotes the stricter parts of Jesus’s message, ‘it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 19:24) and ‘it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 19:23), with no suggestion that ‘rich’ in this context should be understood metaphorically.¹⁹⁹ Indeed, he comes close to suggesting that total renunciation and separation from the world provide the only opportunity for the rich to be saved:

Thus it is necessary also for one approaching God for the heavenly inheritance to distribute well things gathered together evilly from the injustice of Mammon to the poor…and likewise with daily tears to separate himself like a stranger and a sojourner from the world, in the hope of coming to Christ…. On account of this the Lord himself said: ‘Whoever does not leave his father or mother, or brothers, or sisters, or fields, or houses, and take up his cross and follow me, is not worthy of me.’²⁰⁰

Here Symeon combines two different gospel passages to emphasize the need for total dedication to Christ. He blends Matthew 19:29, ‘everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life’, and Matthew 10:38, ‘whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me’, to demand the complete rejection of family ties. This is quite different from the process whereby ecclesiastical preachers tried to emphasize more moderate aspects of Christ’s message. Symeon thus offers no route for a rich man to retain his wealth and status and still achieve salvation. His uncompromising language, and the stark division he draws between wealth and poverty, recall his equally black-and-white vision of the afterlife. The contrast he draws between monk and demon, between pauper and rich man, thus seems to symbolize the ultimate and eternal divide between heaven and hell.

When he explicitly discusses the social order he approaches, but falls short of, true radicalism. Like many other Christian preachers, he stresses the essential equality of mankind, reminding the rich that they are the brothers of the poor and lowly: ‘How, taking up the sin of pride, do you say to your brother, “Don’t go ahead of me, nor shall I serve you, since I am better than you?”’²⁰¹ All humans are in fact fellow slaves (of God).²⁰² The rich and the poor were formed from the same material, conceived in a similar womb, and were born and will die in the same way.²⁰³ Symeon goes further than some preachers, however, in explicitly calling into question the basis of slavery:²⁰⁴

Surely [God] did not create one Adam a slave, and another a freeman? And even if it had been thus, you as descended from the free should have observed justice, so as not to mistreat those begotten from the enslaved Adam, homebred [slaves] and labourers, sold and given and bought. But you have not acted thus….²⁰⁵

Ultimately, however, he does not call for the overthrow of the social order, instead idealizing eutaxia and mutually beneficial and respectful relationships between those of greater and lesser status.²⁰⁶ He argues that God appointed the ruler like a choice vessel to judge justly and wisely, and the labourer as a vessel for service, ‘so that we may each take care of what is just for each other’;²⁰⁷ the king takes care for his people, and his people serve him; the owner supports his slaves, and the slaves are well disposed to their lord:

so that everyone, taking care of each other, will give what is due duly to each other, and will not be destroyed by each other as if under oppressive rule, for we are all mortals from Adam, one flesh, and one blood in Christ our Life…and as we have been taught, let this be thought among us; for there is no slave nor freeman; for we are all one in Jesus Christ our Lord.²⁰⁸

There is therefore some inconsistency in his position; this passage implies his support for the social order, at least in theory, yet, as discussed, elsewhere he appears to deny the possibility of just wealth, and of the salvation of the rich. Although he does not seem to be preaching revolution, he remains profoundly sceptical of the behaviour and status of the wealthy.

Indeed, he goes so far as to associate the rich with the one of the groups most abhorrent to late antique Christian authors: pagans. The association between avarice/wealth and idolatry/paganism is not unique to Symeon: we find passing comparisons between the two in the works of both ascetic authors such as Evagrios of Pontus and ecclesiastical authors like John Chrysostom.²⁰⁹ Symeon, however, develops this point in much more depth, and suggests not only that the rich are like pagans, but that they truly are pagans. Sermon 8 begins with one of Symeon’s characteristic attacks on wealth: he discusses the inevitable punishment of the avaricious at the Last Judgement, the need for renunciation, Christ’s renewal of the world ‘through poverty…so that those depriving themselves of earthly things will be glorified with Him’, and the temporary repentance of the rich man followed by his swift relapse into sin.²¹⁰ He reports that when the rich man becomes hungry, he abandons his pious intentions, ‘and perhaps even turns to idol-worship’.²¹¹ He does not develop this theme at this point, instead returning to address the rich man and warning him that the goods promised to the saints in heaven far surpass the transitory pleasures of the world.

He then, however, breaks into an attack on pagans. There is a loose connection to the preceding theme—Symeon notes that pagans are lured by demonic counsellors to enjoy the present life, in drunkenness, food, and marriage—before the passage develops into a polemic against the Greek gods and mythological figures. The grammar of the passage (at least in Mai’s edition) temporarily breaks down, making his line of thought difficult to trace, but he attacks Herakles, ‘Anteon’, Skamander, Medea, Kronos, Semiramis, Zeus (‘Dios, who is also Pezecus, whom they name Zeus’), Hermes, Hephaestos ‘whom they call Pluto’, Ares, and Aphrodite, for a variety of immoral behaviours, including wrestling, adultery, incest, magical practices, fornication, avarice, blasphemy, and lust. He proceeds to claim that all these ‘gods’ were in fact mortal men, who took the names of the stars on themselves, who were conceived by intercourse, oppressed their fellow men, and met bitter deaths. Interestingly, his account of the gods seems to derive from the chronicle of John Malalas: he reproduces, in rather garbled form, various details of the Antiochene chronicler’s account, as well as his euhemerizing approach.²¹² Yet while Malalas discusses the gods fairly neutrally, sometimes even praising their virtues (for example, he calls Hera ‘good, just, and universally benevolent’), Symeon is entirely hostile, repeatedly referring to their corruption and deceitfulness.²¹³ He condemns the pagans who worship them as gods as ‘stupid’ (ἀνόητοι) and denounces their creation and worship of idols. It is at this point that he returns to the earlier theme of the ‘Christian’ rich man, explaining why his discussion of paganism is relevant:

Do you see this, rich man, for it is towards you that my words look keenly, [my words] about the desires which you have in this life; for in this way a deadly prospect lies in wait for pagans; for they are greedy for the pleasures of the world, urging themselves on among them, to make the idols share their pleasure in them, and to take part in injustices and luxuries and fornications and defiled sacrifices and libations for the cult of the demons; setting up a table for the soul, that is the demon, and a mixture of wine for drunkenness, in revels and drunkennesses and whorish songs and complex dances, where the whole sacrificial smoke of the idols resides…. For even if you are called a Christian, being corrupted in these regards you are distanced from God, ‘because wisdom will not enter a soul that plots evil’ [Wisdom 1:4].²¹⁴

By the end of this passage, the distinction between pagan and rich man has entirely disappeared. Symeon describes the dissolute behaviour of the pagans, including sacrifices as well as drunkenness, fornication, worldliness, and oppression, but at the end implies that the rich man himself engages in all these activities: ‘being corrupted in these regards you are distanced from God [emphasis mine].’ He explicitly states that even if the wicked man calls himself a Christian, he is entirely removed from God; he is thus, in essence, also a pagan. The relationship between pagan and rich man thus does not lie solely in their comparable idolization of material objects; rather, the entire lifestyle of the rich man and all its associated luxuries are condemned as essentially pagan, and even tainted with the association of pagan sacrificial rituals. Indeed, although nowhere else in the sermon collection does he develop the connection between pagan and rich man at such length, he repeatedly refers to the rich man eating and drinking excessively ‘as if on a day of sacrifice’.²¹⁵ Admittedly, this phrase is from the New Testament (James 5:5), so might be regarded as a commonplace. Yet Symeon always links it to a rich man drinking expensive wine or indulgent foods, an association not made explicit in James.²¹⁶ These references may therefore also echo the association Symeon draws in sermon 8 between the lifestyle of the rich and the lives of the pagans and their sacrificial practices.

Symeon emphasizes the oppressive and unjust behaviour of the pagans, in a manner very reminiscent of his attacks on the rich. The last section of sermon 8 contains a description of the effects of pagan belief:

The gods of the pagans are demons, and products of the hands of men. For this reason those who believed in them brought one another to destruction; for they poured out blood in murders, because of theft and trickery, corruption and disbelief, disturbance and perjury, disordered uproars, forgetting of favours, pollution of souls, falsified lineages [?], and disorders in marriages, adulteries and licentiousnesses; for the worship of nameless idols with the wealth of the world is the cause, beginning, and end of every evil. For either they go mad from enjoyment, or they prophesy falsehoods, or they live unjustly, or they commit perjury readily; for believing in soulless idols, swearing wickedly, they do not expect to be harmed; but from both sides justice will pursue/punish them….²¹⁷

The beginning of this passage might seem to be talking about pagans in the past, as it uses verbs in the aorist and imperfect. The scope of the discussion then expands, however, with the general proposition that idol worship in wealth is the ‘cause, beginning, and end of every evil’. From then on, Symeon switches to using the present tense, implying that he is referring to present-day idolaters. The accusations he makes against the pagans—murder, theft, corruption, perjury, adultery—are exactly the kinds of criticisms which he elsewhere makes of the rich. The link between the pagans and wealth is made explicit through the reference to ‘the worship of nameless idols with the wealth of the world’, which is presented as responsible for all evil. The boundaries between the rich and the pagans are again elided; both deny God in deeds as much as in words, living luxuriously and oppressing the weak. Symeon thus presents the rich not just as Christians who have lapsed through sin, but as outside the Christian community itself.

What motivated Symeon’s attacks on the rich? Many clergymen who preached about wealth had a practical and pastoral aim: to encourage their audience to donate more generously to charity. It is far from clear, however, that this is the primary aim of Symeon’s preaching. If we again compare his sermons to those of John Chrysostom, we see a striking difference. Chrysostom frequently exalts almsgiving as a key virtue, calling it ‘the queen of the virtues, who quickly raises human beings to the heavenly vaults’, and claiming that it can compensate for any other flaws: ‘regardless of how many other sins you have, your almsgiving counterbalances all of them.’²¹⁸ He urges not only the extremely wealthy, but also those of moderate and lesser means to make charitable donations, which suggests that his preaching has practical motivations.²¹⁹

Symeon displays far less interest in the subject of almsgiving. He does not focus on the sufferings of the economic poor; he also rarely discusses the redemptive power of almsgiving at any length. One passage in sermon 16 does suggest that charity can help redeem the rich person. Yet even here, Symeon’s focus is on stressing that almsgiving is not effective if it is undertaken for the sake of vainglory or from wealth which has been obtained unjustly (and, as we have seen, he tends to imply that all wealth is gained unjustly).²²⁰ Again, he seems to suggest that the rich man needs to renounce all his possessions in order to be saved:

And so what do you think about this, avaricious man, you who prefer to perform almsgiving from [the proceeds of] theft? So if you give alms, give your own possessions to the poor, to one a garment, to another food, and also rescue those who are being wronged, have mercy on widows, treat orphans well, tear up the unjust contract, from now on lending all your splendour of gold to God….²²¹

The sermon collection contains a few other references to the salvific power of almsgiving, but it is far from a major theme.²²² It thus does not appear that the primary motivation behind Symeon’s attacks on the rich was the desire to stimulate charitable giving.

His strident rhetoric may, therefore, serve a symbolic rather than strictly practical function. As Peter Brown argued was the case for bishops, his attacks on the rich may have served to create for himself a moral and political role as defender of the poor, speaking with the voice of an Old Testament prophet.²²³ By defining the poor not simply as the economically destitute, but as all those who are oppressed in any way (including farmers, slaves, debtors, and those treated unjustly in court) he expands the community for whom he claims to act as advocate; even members of his audience of moderate means could well have identified with the oppressed and wronged. Perhaps counter-intuitively, therefore, his message could be seen as targeted less at the rich themselves than at the ‘poor’, even though it is the former whom he addresses so frequently. Brown has argued that the rhetoric of bishops like Ambrose was populist and ran the risk of alienating some secular parts of the elite;²²⁴ nonetheless, most bishops needed to keep the civic elite on their side, and showed them ways to accommodate their wealth within the pious Christian community. Symeon, however, displays little interest in offering practical solutions to the wealthy as to how to live; his limited advice tends to involve total renunciation and the adoption of asceticism. Rather than trying to bring the Christian community together, he appears to be asserting sharp boundaries between the oppressive rich—who are also denigrated as pagans—and the oppressed poor, which could potentially include large swathes of society. As discussed in Chapter 1, the sixth century seems to have seen continued tensions between different social classes, and there is some, if limited, evidence from Antioch to support this picture.²²⁵ This must have created opportunities for a holy man to play on this friction to win support and popularity.

The image of the holy man as defender of the poor against the depredations of the rich is not unusual. Many saints’ Lives, particularly those from the fifth century, contain stories depicting their holy men reforming, or punishing, rich laypeople who acted oppressively.²²⁶ In most of these cases, however, the stories are counterbalanced by others in which pious rich people who are devoted to the saint and his cult are treated by him with respect.²²⁷ Symeon the Younger’s Life stands out, since, as we will see, it contains no episodes which portray the local nobility positively.²²⁸ Furthermore, since these other holy men are known only through their saints’ Lives, we cannot be certain how far the anti-noble stories in these texts reflect the saints’ lived experiences as well as hagiographic topoi. There is, however, one important example of a holy man who used similarly aggressive rhetoric against the rich and whose own sermons survive: Shenoute of Atripe.

Ariel López has argued persuasively that Shenoute used his claims to represent the poor to boost his own position as a local patron and to attack his rivals and enemies, in particular the nobleman Gesios, probably the subject of Shenoute’s famous sermon ‘Not because a fox barks’.²²⁹ Shenoute attacked Gesios’s (supposed) crypto-paganism, drawing a connection between rich, pagan, and oppressor similar to that found in Symeon’s sermons. Shenoute was clearly a highly controversial figure in his time and afterwards, and his sermons are full of precise references to particular incidents and individuals. They are in this sense very different from Symeon’s sermons, which are entirely shorn of specific details. Peter Brown has, however, pointed out that even a non-specific attack on a generic rich man could be interpreted, in the context of live preaching, as an attack on a known individual; Symeon’s sermons could thus have proved highly contentious.²³⁰

Unfortunately, the sermon collection provides few clues as to whether his preaching reflected genuine tensions with the local noble community, as in the case of Shenoute. There are only the faintest hints in the sermons themselves of any reference to rich men opposing Symeon and his monks: in sermon 16, when describing the indecent behaviour of the rich, he accuses them of making fun of the pious, ‘mocking the just on account of [their] chastity; for what is just and blessed has become for you a laughing stock and mockery’.²³¹ This appears to be a complaint about the rich mocking monks, but is so non-specific that it cannot be associated with any confidence with genuine historical conflict. In order to understand the context for Symeon’s preaching better, it is necessary to turn to other sources, and in particular to the Life of Symeon the Younger. Importantly, the Life, as we will see in the next chapter, appears very hostile towards Antioch’s wealthy classes, and indeed draws a very similar connection between them and paganism to that found in the sermon collection. By examining this theme in terms of the challenges that Symeon faced in his career, and in the broader context of Antiochene society in the sixth century, we may come to a better understanding of the holy man’s role in northern Syrian society. But the aggressive anti-wealth rhetoric of the sermons already warns us that he may have been far from a peaceful and generally accepted figure.

Conclusion

Symeon’s sermons combine aspects of genres often regarded as distinct: the ascetic discourses of monks such as Evagrios Pontikos and Isaiah of Scetis, and the sermons of ecclesiastical preachers such as John Chrysostom and the Cappadocians. Symeon himself therefore appears as a liminal figure, bridging the gap between the internal world of the ascetic and his monastery and the extroverted and socially engaged domain of the Church and its preachers. The impression of Symeon gained from the sermons in many respects complements that found in his Life: both Life and sermons present Symeon as the recipient of divine visions; both depict him as a wise teacher of his monastic disciples; and both are intensely hostile to the wealthy and to pagans, often blurring the boundaries between the two. Nonetheless, the sermons reveal new sides to Symeon, which are suggestive of how the holy man constructed his own authority. Whereas Symeon’s hagiographer presents his healing miracles as the basis of his popularity, the sermons reveal the power of Symeon’s own rhetoric, which is only hinted at in the Life.²³² He presents himself, implicitly, as a prophetic mediator between heaven and earth, bringing an uncompromising message. His authority is thus founded in large part on the claim to have a privileged relationship with God; we may suspect that this rendered him vulnerable to criticism if this special relationship was not visibly maintained. This vulnerability is not confirmed in the sermon collection, however, which portrays Symeon as he wished to be seen. He eschews the accommodations made by some clerical preachers, focusing on the polarized opposition of demon and monk, rich and poor, and heaven and hell. His preaching was thus in many respects aggressive and confrontational, focusing not on what united the wider Christian community, but what divided it. He thus appears, like Shenoute of Atripe, as a figure who had the potential to create conflict as much as to assuage it.

This picture is confirmed by another short text attributed to Symeon’s authorship: a letter to the emperor Justin II, preserved in the Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea.²³³ In this letter, he encourages Justin to take harsh retribution on Samaritans who had apparently attacked a church near Porphyreon. He urges Justin:

Not to have mercy on those who dared [to do] this, nor to spare them, nor to accept any kind of petition or defence concerning them, lest they should turn to another thing, as I had already seen in a vision, which I explained in the month of August to the most holy and God-honoured patriarch, telling him then to keep it to himself. For God did not hide their plans from us.²³⁴

This lends support to two aspects of the picture conveyed by Symeon’s sermons: first, his claim to be a visionary and privileged recipient of messages from God; and second, his calls for the strict and sometimes violent imposition of Christian norms. In the letter his severe evocation of the punishments in store for the Samaritans recalls his language in the sermons: he writes of ‘the sentence of the unquenchable and lightless fire which is going to devour them’ and states that the ‘all holy and all powerful spirit of Jesus Christ…will anathematize them to the underground depths of the abyss, so that they may be destroyed in endless destruction’.²³⁵ This invective is targeted not at wealthy Christians, but at anti-Christian saboteurs, but it nonetheless reveals the harshness of Symeon’s rhetoric, lending support to the idea that he was a combative and potentially divisive figure. Unfortunately, the lack of specific references within the sermons to their delivery and reception makes it impossible to gauge from the collection itself what effect Symeon’s preaching had on his audience. When, however, we turn to the next major text associated with Symeon’s shrine, the Life of Symeon the Younger, we do find evidence that Symeon, like Shenoute, was a controversial figure who struggled to win the favour of his wider community.

¹ López 2013, p. 14.

² Rapp 1999, p. 65.

³ Such studies are, of course, important and interesting in their own right.

⁴ Rubenson 1990, passim.

⁵ Shenoute’s works have yet to be edited in full, let alone translated, but editions are in progress on the back of Stephen Emmel’s vital study of his corpus (Emmel 2004). On the probable late date of Shenoute’s Life, see Lubomierski 2008 (although López has suggested that the work may ultimately derive from an encomium of Shenoute delivered by Besa soon after the saint’s death: López 2013, pp. 135–6).

⁶ Emmel 2004, II, pp. 558–64. For a detailed analysis of this episode, see Schroeder 2007, pp. 24–53.

⁷ Behlmer 1998, pp. 341–59 (Behlmer also discusses more generally the greater focus on miracles in ‘Besa’s’ Life than in Shenoute’s own writings); Brakke 2007.

⁸ Though see the recent introduction to some of these materials in Boero and Kuper 2020, pp. 374–82.

⁹ For details of the editions, see the Bibliography.

¹⁰ On which, see the previous chapter.

¹¹ As noted in Forness 2018, p. 24. Since I first completed the thesis on which this book is based, several important new studies of preaching have been published, including Forness 2018 and Cook 2019, both of which offer refreshingly new approaches to using sermons as historical evidence. For a general introduction to early Christian/Byzantine homilies, see Cunningham 2008; Mayer 2008a.

¹² On preaching and the rise of Christianity, see esp. A. M. Cameron 1991a, p. 79; cf. also Hartney 2004, pp. 5, 50, and passim; Brown 2012, p. 72; on sermons as a source for research, see Cunningham 1986, p. 29; Allen 1997, p. 4.

¹³ Recent work on John Chrysostom’s preaching includes Rylaarsdam 2014; Kalleres 2015; Finn 2018; Cook 2019.

¹⁴ See e.g. Allen and Mayer 1993, pp. 260ff.; Allen 1997, pp. 5–8; Cunningham and Allen 1998, pp. 1–20; Olivar 1998; Mayer 2008a. These articles underlie most of the following discussion on problems in studying early Christian homilies.

¹⁵ A particularly important recent discussion of transmission problems, focused on John Chrysostom’s collection, is Cook 2019, ch. 2.

¹⁶ See e.g. Rousseau 1998, p. 395; Lipatov-Chicherin 2013. For evidence of the different transmission methods within the corpus of John Chrysostom, see Goodall 1979, pp. 62–78; Mayer and Allen 2000, pp. 30–1; Cook 2019, ch. 2. Mary Cunningham has discussed issues of transmission relating to Byzantine homilies in various studies, including Cunningham 1986, 1996, and 2011.

¹⁷ Forness 2018, esp. ch. 1 and conclusion.

¹⁸ Cunningham and Allen 1998, pp. 1–2.

¹⁹ On the theme of comments about the audience, see esp. Olivar 1991, pp. 786–811.

²⁰ Allen 1998, pp. 202–6. Severos of Antioch’s homily collection has yet to receive a comprehensive study, although it is drawn upon and explored in Alpi 2009. For studies of some individual homilies and some prominent themes in the collection, see Allen 1996, 2011; Parrinello 2013; and, on his homilies extant in Coptic, Youssef 2014, esp. part II chs 3–5, part III ch. 2. One important study on another Syriac homiletic collection (albeit one composed in Syriac, not in translation from Greek) is Forness 2018. For an introduction to Coptic sermons, see Sheridan 2007 and 2011, with further references.

²¹ An important exception is Olivar 1991, a detailed survey of diverse aspects of early Christian preaching in east and west. Also of great importance is Ehrhard’s study of the evidence for the tradition and transmission of early Christian hagiography and homilies (Ehrhard 1936–52).

²² Escolan stresses the importance of preaching for monks, and especially for stylites: Escolan 1999, pp. 242–65.

²³ For bishops, see e.g. Life of Rabbula (pp. 173 (line 7)–181 (line 11)); John Rufus, Life of Peter the Iberian 105 (p. 158), 155–8 (pp. 228–34), 163 (p. 238), 179 (pp. 258–62); Life of Severos of Antioch (pp. 242–6); and Leontios of Neapolis, Life of John the Almsgiver 20–1 (pp. 368–72), 42–3 (pp. 393–7); for monks, see e.g. Athanasios, Life of Antony 16–43 (pp. 176–252), 55 (pp. 280–6), 91 (pp. 366–70); Bohairic Life of Pachomios e.g. 46 (pp. 48–9), 69 (p. 72), 86 (pp. 95–6), 105 (pp. 135–8); Kallinikos, Life of Hypatios, Prologue 8–18 (pp. 70–2), ch.13 (pp. 120–2), 24–5 (pp. 146–80), 27 (pp. 182–4), 48 (pp. 274–84); Life of Alexander Akoimetos 39 (pp. 688–9), 44 (pp. 692–3), 52 (p. 700); Cyril of Scythopolis, Life of Euthymios 9 (pp. 16–18), 29 (pp. 45–7), 39 (pp. 57–8); Theodore of Petra, Life of Theodosios (pp. 49 (line 22)–53 (line 12)); and Antony of Choziba, Life of George of Choziba 13 (pp. 111–14), 18 (pp. 116–18), 39 (pp. 137–41).

²⁴ Athanasios, Life of Antony 16–43 (pp. 176–252). For other examples, see e.g. Kallinikos, Life of Hypatios 24 (pp. 146–78); Bohairic Life of Pachomios, e.g. 105 (pp. 135–8); George of Sykeon, Life of Theodore of Sykeon 164 (pp. 150–2); Antony of Choziba, Life of George of Choziba 13 (pp. 111–14), 18 (pp. 116–18), 39 (pp. 137–41).

²⁵ See e.g. the First Greek Life of Pachomios 99 (pp. 66–7); Kallinikos, Life of Hypatios 27 (p. 184).

²⁶ Emmel 2004, II, pp. 562–3.

²⁷ See Van den Ven 1957, pp. 7–8.

²⁸ Οὐκ αὐτὸς λαλεῖ ταῦτα, ἀλλὰ τὸ πατρικὸν καὶ τελειωτικὸν πανάγιον πνεῦμα· γέγραπται γάρ· ‘Ἐκ στόματος νηπίων καὶ θηλαζόντων κατηρτίσω αἶνον’: Life of Symeon 24 (p. 21). See Matthew 21:16; Psalms 8:3(2).

²⁹ Life of Symeon 25 (pp. 23–9).

³⁰ ἵνα λαλήσω ῥήματα ζωῆς αἰωνίου εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν: ibid. 32 (p. 32).

³¹ See Acts 6:10.

³² Ταῦτα αὐτοῦ προσευχομένου, κατῆλθεν ἐξαίφνης ὥσπερ λαμπὰς τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐπὶ τὴν καρδίαν αὐτοῦ, καθάπερ ᾐτήσατο, καὶ ἐνέπλησεν αὐτὸν σοφίας καὶ συνέσεως· τοσαύτης δὲ ἠξιώθη χάριτος, ὥστε μηδένα δύνασθαι ἀντιστῆναι, κατὰ τὸ γεγραμμένον, τῇ σοφίᾳ καὶ τῷ πνεύματι ᾧ ἐλάλει. Συνέτασσε δὲ λόγους περὶ μοναχῶν καὶ περὶ μετανοίας λαϊκῶν καὶ τῆς ἐνανθρωπήσεως τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ τῆς μελλούσης κρίσεως καὶ ἐλπίδος, σαφῶς ἑρμηνεύων τὰ λανθάνοντα τοὺς πολλούς: Life of Symeon 32 (p. 32).

³³ Van den Ven 1957, 24.

³⁴ See e.g. Life of Symeon 52 (pp. 47–8), 113 (pp. 92–3), 166 (p. 148), 171 (pp. 152–3).

³⁵ Ibid. 124 (pp. 106–7).

³⁶ Ibid. 105–7 (pp. 84–7).

³⁷ Lafontaigne-Dosogne 1967, pp. 94–5; Djobadze 1986, p. 60.

³⁸ This is implied by the fact that the letter of the stylite quoted at the Second Council of Nicaea is described as his ‘fifth’ letter: Van den Ven 1962–70, I, p. 179*.

³⁹ Delehaye 1923, pp. lxxiv–lxxv.

⁴⁰ Van den Ven 1957, pp. 16–33.

⁴¹ Thus Hester 1990, pp. 332–3; Allen 1998, pp. 204–5; see also CPG III, 7367 (p. 378). An exception is Olivar who, in his brief notice on the collection, argues, recalling Delehaye, that the peculiarities of the text suggest that it was a later compilation rather than an authentic record of Symeon’s preaching. He does not support his arguments with any analysis of the text itself (Olivar 1991, pp. 179–80). Boero and Kuper have recently summarized Van den Ven’s arguments, but suggest that the topic needs further study: Boero and Kuper 2020, pp. 376–9.

⁴² My description of the manuscripts is based on that of Van den Ven 1957, pp. 8–12.

⁴³ Mai did, however, provide a text of sermon 4, derived from an edition by the Danish scholar Clausen on the basis of a lost manuscript.

⁴⁴ Van den Ven 1957, p. 13 n. 48.

⁴⁵ John of Damascus, On Images, 3.126 (p. 194). Cf. Van den Ven 1957, p. 23. The wording of the excerpt in John of Damascus is extremely similar, but not identical, to that printed by Mai. Paul Speck has cast doubts on the dating of this text, as with many other iconophile texts, arguing that it in fact was written in the ninth century. On Speck’s arguments, which have failed to win widespread acceptance, see below pp. 118–20.

⁴⁶ Van den Ven 1957, pp. 19–20.

⁴⁷ Ibid. p. 22.

⁴⁸ The caption describes the sermon as a speech πρὸς τινὰ κτήτορα Ἀντιοχείας.

⁴⁹ Van den Ven 1957, pp. 12, 32, 29.

⁵⁰ καὶ ὅταν μετανοῶ, τὰ τερπνά με διαβαίνει, καὶ τὸ γῆρας ἔχοντός μου κατὰ νοῦν, ἡ ταφή με τοῦ θανάτου γυμνὸν τῶν ἐντολῶν καὶ ἀνέτοιμον ἕλκει πρὸς τὴν κρίσιν…. φυτὸν ἀνεδείχθην εὐθαλὲς, καὶ ἐκ τῆς παλαίοτητος διαφθαρεὶς ἐκκόπτομαι πρὸς κατάκαυσιν. σῖτος εἰμὶ λευκανθεὶς, καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν δρεπανιστῶν ἀγγέλων θερίζομαι: sermon 10.2 (p. 46).

⁵¹ Van den Ven 1957, pp. 21–2.

⁵² ἐγὼ ὁ δοῦλός σου Συμεών: sermon 1 (p. 35).

⁵³ καὶ τὰς χεῖράς μου πρὸς σὲ τανύσας, τὸν σωτῆρά μου, συσκιρτήσω τῇ εὐφροσύνῃ καὶ πολιτείᾳ τῶν ἀσωμάτων καὶ πάντων τῶν ἀπ’ αἰῶνος προφητῶν καὶ ἀποστόλων, μαρτύρων, ὁμολογητῶν καὶ τῶν ἀφ’ οὗ ἠρξάμην τῆς ἀσκήσεως συνηλίκων μου τῶν ὑπὸ Ἡρῴδου ἀναιρεθέντων παιδίων: ibid.

⁵⁴ For Symeon’s youthful ascent to the column, see Life of Symeon 10–12 (pp. 10–12), 15 (pp. 13–14), 258 (p. 223); cf. Van den Ven’s discussion of the chronology of his life: Van den Ven 162–70, I, pp. 124*–30*.

⁵⁵ Van den Ven 1957, pp. 24ff.

⁵⁶ καὶ τὸ τῆς φιλαργυρίας εἶδον πνεῦμα λοιμὸν καὶ αἰσχροκερδῆ κεχῃνότα τοῦ καταπιεῖν τὸν κόσμον: sermon 9.5 (p. 41).

⁵⁷ ἐκεῖ εἶδε πνεῦμα πορνείας καὶ λήθης καὶ ῥᾳθυμίας καὶ πνεῦμα φιλαργυρίας χαίνον τοῦ καταπιεῖν τὸν κόσμον: Life of Symeon 18 (pp. 15–16).

⁵⁸ ἅγιον λειτουργὸν ἐκ τῶν ἄνωθεν θυσιαστηρίων πρεσβύτερον: ibid. 35 (p. 34).

⁵⁹ καὶ τῷ Χριστῷ συνταγὰς ἀρετῶν καὶ εὐχῶν ἐποιούμην, δεχόμενος μετ’ ὀσμῆς εὐωδίας ἐν μεταλήψει ζωῆς τὸ σῶμα καὶ τὸ αἷμα αὐτοῦ, εἰς ὃ ἐπιστωσάμην τὸν ὅρκον, δι’ ἀνδρὸς συνετοῦ. καὶ ἐν αὐτῷ τὴν ἀνάνηψιν ἔσχον ἐκ τῆς ὁράσεως τοῦ θεάματος: sermon 9.2 (p. 39).

⁶⁰ A subsequent passage in the same sermon may also refer to this incident, in equally oblique terms: it speaks of the demons of fornication and wickedness screaming at Symeon but being dismissed by a saint from heaven: sermon 9.7 (pp. 42–3).

⁶¹ I have chosen to provide translations rather than the original Greek since Van den Ven 1957, pp. 41–6, has already presented the two passages in Greek in parallel (without translation).

⁶² Van den Ven notes the connection to 4 Maccabees in a footnote (Van den Ven 1962–70, I, p. 20), but does not explore it in detail. I give the passages here as I believe that they may help to identify the relationship between the different versions of Symeon’s sermon.

⁶³ My translations here are based closely on that of the NETS by Stephen Westerholm: I have made only minor changes to highlight points of comparison with the Symeon texts.

⁶⁴ τὰς πρὸς τὸν στέλεχον μαλακὰς ἀναπαύσεις τοῦ σώματος: the image is obscure.

⁶⁵ Deuteronomy 5:21.

⁶⁶ Cf. Matthew 7:13–14.

⁶⁷ Cf. Matthew 10:27.

⁶⁸ Cf. Galatians 5:1.

⁶⁹ Cf. Romans 6:18.

⁷⁰ Van den Ven 1957, pp. 30–2.

⁷¹ Ibid. p. 31.

⁷² On the date of the Life of Symeon, see below pp. 115–21.

⁷³ Cunningham and Allen note rightly that we should not be too concerned with classifying sermons into particular genres; many fall between several (Cunningham and Allen 1998, p. 19. Cf. also Mayer and Allen 2000, p. 29). Symeon’s sermons sometimes have exegetical and panegyrical elements, but these are limited in scope and are never the main focus of any single discourse.

⁷⁴ Van den Ven provides a list of the Greek captions, with some minor variations from those printed by Mai, with a brief summary of their contents (Van den Ven 1957, pp. 13–16). I translate Van den Ven’s text.

⁷⁶ On this theme in relation to Symeon’s cult, see below pp. 126–34.

⁷⁷ Cf. Allen 1998, p. 208; Cunningham and Allen 1998, p. 7.

⁷⁸ Admittedly, there is no clear distinction between these genres; some texts seem to combine elements of several. For general discussion of the Discourses of Isaiah of Scetis (which are still in need of a detailed scholarly study) see the introductions to the French translation (the Monks of Solesmes 1970, pp. 3–41) and to the English translation (Chryssavgis and Penkett 2002, pp. 13–37). There is as yet no critical edition of Isaiah’s works, and both translators base their texts on unpublished manuscripts; I therefore cite the English translation directly.

⁷⁹ Evagrios’s works have received uneven scholarly treatment: some still lack good critical editions, while others have been much better served. Sinkewicz discusses all the works in his English translation thereof (Sinkewicz 2003). In what follows I use, for convenience, the English titles to the works provided by Sinkewicz.

⁸⁰ ὦ μοναχοὶ, κλαύσωμεν μοναχοὶ καλούμενοι∙ μοναχοὶ οὐκ ἐμείναμεν συμπολιτευσάμενοι τοῖς ἔργοις τῶν δαιμόνων: sermon 28.2 (p. 142).

⁸¹ See Van den Ven 1957, p. 18 (although he relies perhaps too much on the captions to the sermons—for the dangers of this, see above pp. 63–4).

⁸² On these passages, see below pp. 98–110.

⁸³ For not insisting on a high price for handiwork, see e.g. Isaiah of Scetis, Ascetic Discourses 4 (trans. pp. 58–9). For not accumulating wealth for almsgiving, see e.g. Evagrios of Pontus, Foundations 4 (col. 1256) (and compare also Evagrios, On Thoughts 21 (p. 226)). For not saving money for sickness/old age, see e.g. Evagrios of Pontus, Praktikos 9 (II, p. 512); compare also Isaiah of Scetis, Ascetic Discourses 17 (trans. p. 131).

⁸⁴ ἐν γὰρ σπατάλῃ βρωμάτων ἐκτρέφεις σου τὰς σάρκας εἰς βρῶμα τοῦ ἀκοιμέτου σκώληκος∙ καὶ ἀσπαζόμενος τὸν ὑπὲρ σὲ ἐν χρυσίῳ, ἕνεκεν φαντασίας φθαρτῆς, ἐξουθενεῖς πένητα δεδικαιωμένον παρὰ τῷ θεῷ∙ μιαίνεις δὲ τὴν στρωμνὴν ἐν κοίταις γυναικῶν ἀλλοτρίων καὶ συγ[κα]θευδήσει ἀνδρῶν παρανόμων. <καὶ> ἀφορᾷς εἰς ἑαυτὸν ὡς ἀθάνατον κεφαλὴν κεκτημένος, ἐν μαλακοῖς ἱματίοις ἠμφιεσμένος, καὶ μετεωρίζων ἐπιθυμίας σου ἐν ὀρχέμασι θηλύων, καὶ φαντασίᾳ ῥαβδούχων ἑκατέρωθεν, καθίσμασι ἵππων, παροράσει πτωχῶν, καὶ βλασφήμοις λόγοις, καὶ ἐξαγορασμοῖς κάλλους, παρεκτὸς τῶν λοιπῶν ὧν διαπράττεις ἅτινα αἰσχρόν ἐστι καὶ τὸ λέγειν: sermon 14.2 (p. 64), re-punctuated, and <καὶ> after παρανόμων added, by me.

⁸⁵ In general, as with many early Christian sermon collections, there is little evidence to show whether the works were actually preached; for the difficulties of distinguishing between preached homilies and ‘desk homilies’ see above pp. 57–8.

⁷⁵ I have provided only short forms of the titles since most begin with the same formula: ‘Homily of the holy abba Symeon the stylite of the monastery on the Wonderful Mountain, which God caused him to speak, like Daniel, through the Holy Spirit, about….’

⁸⁶ Allen 1998, p. 205.

⁸⁷ As discussed above, I do not deny the possibility that the sermons were edited during transmission, but I do not, like Van den Ven, regard this as a certainty.

⁸⁸ Cunningham 1995, pp. 72ff., 1997, pp. 25ff. Hartney makes a similar argument with particular reference to the sermons of John Chrysostom: Hartney 2004, p. 47.

⁸⁹ τὸ κάλλος τοῦ βίου, ὡραιότης ἄδηλος∙ καὶ ὁ τῶν οἰκιῶν κόσμος, σκιὰ παρατρέχουσα: sermon 10.1 (p. 45).

⁹⁰ μαρτυρίου αἷμα οὐ τιμιώτερον τῆς τοῦ μοναχοῦ πολιτείας: sermon 25.1 (p. 125).

⁹¹ σκάφος οἶμαι νοεῖσθαι τὸν περίγειον κόσμον περιφερόμενον ὑπὸ κυμάτων θαλάσσης καὶ τῇδε κᾀκεῖσε δονούμενον: sermon 20.1 (p. 98).

⁹² A. M. Cameron 1991a, pp. 155–88.

⁹³ Sermon 17.2–3 (pp. 82–3).

⁹⁴ ἀδελφοὶ, ὁ κόσμος οὗτος, νέφος ἀνομίας τυγχάνει, πάχνη λυομένη, ἐνύπνιον διαβαῖνον, σκιογραφία λειουμένη, ῥοπὴ ἱπποδρομίου, σκιὰ κεκλεκυῖα [?: I have translated κεκλικυῖα], ἄνεμος λόγων, διαδοχὴ δόξης ἀνθρώπων, ἄδηλος οἰκητόρων φθορεὺς, λέβης ἢ ἄβυσσος ὡς χαλκεῖον ἐξ αἰῶνος ἀναβράζων πῦρ ἀσεβῶν∙ ὅτι ὡς τριβεὺς πέφῃνε τοὺς ἅπαντας τῇ γηΐνῳ διαλύειν ὁμίχλῃ, καὶ δρόσος παροδεύουσα: sermon 27.1 (p. 137).

⁹⁵ πρόβατον ἀπόρριπτον τὰ ἔρια ἀνωφελὲς τῷ κεκτημένῳ, καὶ μοναχὸς κειράμενος ἄνευ ψαλμῳδίας οὐκ οἰκοδομεῖ εἰς Θεόν: sermon 4 (p. 51).

⁹⁶ An image ultimately derived from the New Testament, esp. Ephesians 6:13–18.

⁹⁷ Cf. Cunningham 1995, pp. 72ff., 1997, pp. 25ff. For anaphora in Symeon’s sermons, see e.g. sermon 10.3 with its series of laments beginning with the word ‘alas [οὐαί]’ (p. 47).

⁹⁸ Τί οὖν; μετὰ τὸ γήρας ἐγκαταλείπει ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον; μὴ γένοιτο: sermon 8.2 (p. 28).

⁹⁹ Θέλεις δὲ τὸ πῦρ ἄσβεστον, ὁποῖόν ἐστι πρὸς δευτέραν τελευτὴν θεωρῆσαι; sermon 21.2 (p. 104).

¹⁰⁰ Τί τὰ φθαρτὰ καὶ πρόσκαιρα ἐν τῷ ἀνωφελεῖ τούτῳ βίῳ ἐπιθυμεῖτε, διὰ τῆς ἀφανοῦς ἡδονῆς πικρασμὸν συνάγοντες; sermon 19.1 (p. 93).

¹⁰¹ Sermons 2, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21, and 29.

¹⁰² For discussion of many of these passages, see below pp. 98–110.

¹⁰³ Sermon 21.9 (pp. 110–11).

¹⁰⁴ Uthemann 1998, pp. 143ff.

¹⁰⁵ τῷ σκότει δεδώκαμεν τὴν διατριβὴν ἡμῶν: sermon 28.1 (p. 141); κλαύσωμεν ὦ ποθητοὶ καὶ πενθήσωμεν πικρῶς: sermon 28.3 (p. 142).

¹⁰⁶ On John Chrysostom’s use of the first-person plural, see Cook 2019, p. 195.

¹⁰⁷ ἁγνοὶ ἐπικληθέντες, πόρνοι καθεστήκαμεν, πράξεσι βεβηλοῦντες τὴν θείαν ἐλευθερίαν, μῖσος καὶ ψεῦδος ἐνισχύσαμεν∙ καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἐν ἡμῖν οὐδὲν λάμπει ἀληθείας∙ ὦ μοναχοὶ, κλαύσωμεν μοναχοὶ καλούμενοι∙ μοναχοὶ οὐκ ἐμείναμεν συμπολιτευσάμενοι τοῖς ἔργοις τῶν δαιμόνων∙ ἡμᾶς ὁ Χριστὸς ἔλεγεν ὑποκριτὰς…αἱ λαμπάδες ἡμῶν ἐσβέσθησαν, τὸ τάλαντον κέκρυπται, ὁ οὐράνιος δεσπότης ἄνωθεν…ἔρχεται∙ τί ἀπολογησόμεθα, ἢ τί ἐροῦμεν αὐτῷ;…ἀπολογία ἐν ἡμῖν οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδεμία∙ μορφούμενοι γὰρ ἐν θεοσεβείᾳ, ταύτην ἀπηρνησάμεθα…Οἴμοι, ὅτι καθ’ ἑκάστην ἐν ταῖς πόλεσιν ἀσχημονοῦμεν: sermon 28.2–4 (pp. 142–3).

¹⁰⁸ ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ οἶδα ἐμαυτὸν χόρτον ξηραινόμενον…. ὃν τρόπον γὰρ κατὰ καιρὸν ὁ χόρτος, σήμερον ὢν, αὔριον εἰς κλίβανον βάλλεται, οὕτως καὶ ὁ θάνατος ἐλεεινοῖς δάκρυσι πρὸς τὴν ἀνάγκην πάντας ἐφέλκεται∙ καὶ ἡ ἀναβολὴ τῆς μετανοίας πρὸς καιρὸν ἀπατᾷ με∙ ὅταν ἐννοῶ μου τὸ πταῖσμα, δειλιῶ τὸ θανεῖν∙καὶ ὅταν μετανοῶ, τὰ τερπνά με διαβαίνει, καὶ τὸ γῆρας ἔχοντός μου κατὰ νοῦν, ἡ ταφή με τοῦ θανάτου γυμνὸν τῶν ἐντολῶν καὶ ἀνέτοιμον ἕλκει πρὸς τὴν κρίσιν∙ πλίνθος ἐπλάσθην, καὶ μετὰ χρόνον λύομαι, καὶ εἰς γῆν ἐξ ἧς ἐλήφθην, ἀπέρχομαι∙ φυτὸν ἀνεδείχθην εὐθαλὲς, καὶ ἐκ τῆς παλαίοτητος διαφθαρεὶς ἐκκόπτομαι πρὸς κατάκαυσιν. σῖτος εἰμὶ λευκανθεὶς, καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν δρεπανιστῶν ἀγγέλων θερίζομαι∙ δειλίασον ὦ ψυχή μου τοὺς πυρφόρους λειτουργοὺς, τοὺς ἐν τῇ ἀνάγκῃ ἐρχομένος ἐπὶ σέ∙ καὶ τοὺς ἀκολακεύτους κτῆσαι φίλους διὰ τῆς ἀποταγῆς, πρὸ τῆς δωδεκάτης ὥρας αἰδέσθητι ὦ ψυχή μου ἐν ζωῇ μετανοεῖν, ἵνα μὴ μετέπειτα ὑποπέσῃς τῷ ἐχθρῷ: sermon 10.2 (p. 46).

¹⁰⁹ See e.g. Burton-Christie 1993, pp. 236–58.

¹¹⁰ Cf. Schroeder 2007, p. 52, who refers to ‘the common ascetic practice of status negotiation through the rhetoric of humility’.

¹¹¹ Sermons 15.8 (p. 73), 19.6 (p. 98), 20.6 (p. 102), 24.3 (p. 124), 27.4 (p. 140), 28.4 (pp. 143–4), and 29.6 (p. 148).

¹¹² There is nothing in the sermons to suggest that Symeon had a female audience in mind, but if his audience did include pilgrims to his shrine, some women would presumably have been present; his Life depicts him receiving many female supplicants in person: see e.g. Life of Symeon 48 (p. 45), 101 (pp. 78–9), 118–19 (pp. 96–9), 138–40 (pp. 129–30), 154 (p. 137), 181 (pp. 160–1), 200 (pp. 175–6), 213 (p. 182), 243 (pp. 217–18), 252 (p. 220). This contrasts with Symeon Stylites the Elder, whose enclosure women were forbidden from entering (Theodoret of Cyrrhus, History of the Monks of Syria 26.21 (II, pp. 202–4); Antonios, Life of Symeon 14, 23, 25 (pp. 36–8, 56–8, 58–60); Evagrios Scholastikos 1.14 (p. 24).

¹¹³ A rhetorical strategy described by Leontios of Neapolis in his Life of John the Almsgiver 42 (pp. 393–4).

¹¹⁴ See Brakke 2006, p. 238, on the ‘paradoxical circle of humility and achievement’ in ascetic writings.

¹¹⁵ See below pp. 138–9.

¹¹⁶ Sermons explicitly referring to monks include 4 (pp. 47–55), 9 (pp. 37–45), 21 (pp. 103–11), 23 (pp. 118–21), 25 (pp. 125–7), 28 (pp. 140–4), although many others contain themes which seem of particular relevance to monks.

¹¹⁷ καύχημα μοναχοῦ: Life of Symeon 27 (pp. 23–5). See Van den Ven 1962–70, I, p. 212*.

¹¹⁸ Δός μοι πιεῖν: Life of Symeon 27 (p. 27); σκανδαλίσαι τοὺς ἀδελφούς: ibid. 27 (p. 27).

¹¹⁹ Van den Ven 1962–70, I, p. 166*.

¹²⁰ Isaiah of Scetis, Ascetic Discourses 3 (trans. p. 48).

¹²¹ This is not to say that Symeon’s monks did not work with their hands (they did perform at least some agricultural tasks: see below, p. 144), but rather that manual labour did not usually possess the same ideological significance in Syria as it had come, in general, to possess in Egypt. For a nuanced discussion of the role of manual labour versus alternative forms of asceticism, see Caner 2002, esp. pp. 19–49.

¹²² Sermon 15, esp. 15.7 (pp. 72–3).

¹²³ καὶ εἰ ἁμαρτάνων ἄνθρωπος τῶν ὁρωμένων πάντων κύριος κατέστη, πόσῳ κρεῖττον τὸ [? ὁ] κατὰ παρθενίαν ἐγκρατεῖ [? ἐγκρατῆ] βίον τελέσας, στεφανηφορῶν πομπεύσει, καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἀρρήτοις τοῦ θεοῦ ταμιείοις τῶν ἀφθάρτων δεσπόσει: sermon 24.1 (p. 122).

¹²⁴ For his encouragement of asceticism, see e.g. sermon 7.5 (p. 27), 17.1 (p. 82), 18.2 (p. 88).

¹²⁵ ἀκροτάτῃ ἀσκήσει: sermon 17.1 (p. 82), 18.2 (p. 88).

¹²⁶ Οὕτως ἐστὶν ἡ ζωὴ τοῦ μοναχοῦ∙ καὶ τὸ μετὰ τούτων τῶν ἀρετῶν ἐπινοεῖν ἑαυτοῦ τῷ σώματι θλίψεις ἑτέρας μαρτυρικῶς κατὰ δύναμιν∙ καθάπερ γὰρ ἡ θάλαττα τοὺς ἅπαντας ποταμοὺς δεχομένη, οὐδαμῶς ἐμπίπλαται, ἕως ἂν οὐρανὸς καὶ γῆ παλαιωθῇ, οὕτως ὀφείλει τῷ μοναχῷ εἶναι ἀκόρεστον τὸ διὰ παντὸς ἀγῶνας αὐτῷ ἐπιφέρειν ἕως τῆς ἐξόδου τοῦ σώματος: sermon 25.3 (pp. 126–7).

¹²⁷ See e.g. sermons 26.8 (pp. 134–5), 29.1–5 (pp. 144–8).

¹²⁸ For examples in homiletic literature, see e.g. Evagrios Pontikos, ‘To Eulogius’ 29–31 (pp. 330–2); Evagrios Pontikos, ‘On Thoughts’ 35 (ed. pp. 272–6); Dorotheos of Gaza, ‘Instructions’, II, 32 (p. 194), XIV, 153 (p. 430); Isaiah of Scetis, Ascetic Discourses 4 (trans. pp. 57–8).

¹²⁹ If we accept Symeon’s authorship, he must have preached to his monks. As argued above, even if the sermons were not written by the saint, they are still likely to have been produced at his monastery. Irrespective of this, various passages in the sermons, such as those quoted below discussing the dangers of rivalry among monastic brethren and of leaving the monastery, suggest a coenobitic audience.

¹³⁰ Καθαρότης γὰρ μοναχοῦ, ναὸς θεοῦ ἅγιος ὑπάρχει∙ οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἐν μηλωταῖς καὶ αἰγίοις δέρμασιν∙ ἕτεροι δὲ ἐν ὄρεσι καὶ σπηλαίοις, καὶ τοῖς τῶν πετρῶν φωλεοῖς, ὑστερούμενοι, θλιβόμενοι, κακοχούμενοι, τὸν τῆς ἀσκήσεως τόνον ἐκπληροῦντες, καὶ τὴν δύναμιν τὴς ἀφθαρσίας κατὰ τοὺς ἁγίους ἀγγέλους ἐνδυόμενοι: sermon 25.1 (p. 125).

¹³¹ See e.g. sermons 4 (pp. 47–50) and 9.1–5 (pp. 37–41).

¹³² See e.g. Isaiah of Scetis, Discourses 5 (trans. pp. 69–76); Evagrios Pontikos, ‘to Eulogius’ 5 (p. 313), 17 (pp. 321–2), 24 (pp. 326–7), 26 (pp. 328–9), 31 (p. 332).

¹³³ Συμπλοκὰς ἀνοφελεῖς καὶ φροντίδας γηΐνας, εἰς περιεργείας τὲ ἀπατηλὰς καὶ μὴ πρεπούσας μοναχοῖς, ὡς ἐν χρηστολογίαις δῆθεν περιποιήσεως ἀπάγοντες, ἢ πρὸς οἰκοδομὰς, ἢ ἀμπελουργία[ι]ς καὶ κτηνῶν εὐνοίας: sermon 21.6 (pp. 107–8).

¹³⁴ See below pp. 143–4, 179.

¹³⁵ τὸν ἰσχύοντα ἐν πάλῃ περὶ τὴν εἰς θεὸν εὐσέβειαν: sermon 21.5 (p. 107).

¹³⁶ See below pp. 136–43.

¹³⁷ Καὶ ὅτ’ ἂν ἄρχηται, ἐῶσιν αὐτὸν ἐν τῷ τέως ἔχειν ὑποταγὴν, ἀγάπην, πραϋπάθειαν, ἀγῶνα∙ εἶτα τε συμπαθῆ, ἐλεύθερον, ἄμεμπτον, καρτερικὸν, ὑπήκοον περὶ τὰ κελευόμενα, τῇ φωνῇ ἥσυχον καὶ εὐδιάθετον, καὶ μὴ ὀμνύοντα ἔν τινι, μὴδὲ ἀτακτοῦντα λόγοις ἀηδέσι∙ καὶ πάντα τὰ κατορθώματα συγχωροῦσιν αὐτῷ θθησαυρίζειν ἐν οὐρανοῖς∙ καὶ λοιπὸν βλέποντες τὸν θεὸν διεγειρόμενον πρὸς βοήθειαν αὐτοῦ, τοῦ ἐγγράψαι τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐν βίβλῳ ζωῆς, τότε ἐξάπεινα ὡς βίαιον ὕδωρ περιχυθέντες αὐτῷ, κάμνουσι τὸν κόπον αὐτῷ ἀπωλέσαι διὰ τῶν ὀρέξεων: sermon 21.7 (p. 108).

¹³⁸ The weakness of the demons is a major theme in the discourse attributed to Antony by Athanasios, Life of Antony 16–43 (pp. 176–252).

¹³⁹ Sermon 9.1 (p. 37). See also sermons 10.1 (pp. 45–6) and 25.1–2 (pp. 125–6).

¹⁴⁰ Δεόντως γὰρ δοκιμάσας ἐγὼ κατέλαβον τὴν θεωρίαν: sermon 9.1 (p. 37).

¹⁴¹ Οἶδα γὰρ καὶ πέπεισμαι πρὸς ἕκαστον εἶδος μεταμορφοῦσθαι τοὺς δαίμονας…οἶδα καὶ πέπεισμαι ἐν ἐγκρατείαις ὄντος μοναχοῦ ἐπιστάσαν φάλαγγα δαιμόνων: sermon 9.4–5 (pp. 40–1).

¹⁴² Οἶδα δὲ πάλιν ἐγὼ, καὶ ὠψόμην μεταμορφουμένους δαίμονας εἰς θεῖον φῶς, ὅπως διὰ τῆς ἐπάρσεως σκοτίσωσι τὸν μοναχόν. Καὶ εἰς πετεινὰ δὲ μεταμορφουμένας φύσεις δαιμόνων πολλάκις ἐθεώρησα∙ καὶ τὸ τῆς φιλαργυρίας εἶδον πνεῦμα λοιμὸν καὶ αἰσχροκερδῆ κεχῃνότα τοῦ καταπιεῖν τὸν κόσμον∙ καὶ ἰδοὺ αὐτὸ ἦν πενόμενον κατὰ τὴν ἰδίαν ὑπόστασιν, ὀλέθριόν τε καὶ ἀνθράκων ἐμπεπλησμένον∙ ὠψόμην πάλιν πνεῦμα μωρίας, πλάνον, μικροκέφαλον, καὶ κατακώδωνον, ὑψηλὰ γελῶντα∙ καὶ ἦν ἡ ἐσθὴς αὐτοῦ ψιαθώδης, καὶ τὸ ὕψος αὐτοῦ διπλοῦν, τὸ μῆκος αὐτοῦ τετραπηχέου ἀνδρός∙ καὶ αὐτὸ λοιμαῖνον τοὺς ἐγκρατεῖς, καὶ παροξύνον εἰς πορνείαν∙ εἶδον πάλιν δαίμονας προτρεπομένους εἰς θέαμα νύμφης, καὶ τὸν ἅπαντα πλοῦτον τοῦ κόσμοῦ ἐπαγγελλομένους: sermon 9.5 (p. 41).

¹⁴³ Καὶ πόλιν δὲ αὐτῶν κατεῖδον∙ ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐξήγησις τῆς ὁράσεως: sermon 9.6 (p. 41).

¹⁴⁴ Ταῦτα εἶδον ἐγὼ, καὶ ἐπέγνων τὰ πάντα∙ καὶ πλείονα δὲ τούτων οὐκ ἔκρυψε κύριος ἀπ’ ἐμού∙ ἀλλὰ μέρος τι συνέταξα, τὰ πολλὰ σιωπήσας, διὰ τὴν ἀσθένειαν τῶν ἀκούειν μὴ χωρούντων: sermon 9.8 (p. 43).

¹⁴⁵ Sermon 9.6 (pp. 41–2).

¹⁴⁶ On the role of demons in the Life of Antony, see Schneelmelcher 1980, pp. 281–92.

¹⁴⁷ Brakke 2006.

¹⁴⁸ The ubiquity of visions in the Life is noted by Millar 2014, pp. 285, 292.

¹⁴⁹ See above pp. 64–72.

¹⁵⁰ See Hester 1990.

¹⁵¹ See e.g. sermons 10.1 (p. 45), 19.1–2, 5–6 (pp. 93–5, 96–8), 20.1 (p. 98), 26.1 (p. 137), 27.1 (p. 140).

¹⁵² We find brief references to the moment of death in e.g. sermon 22, but nothing comparable to the detailed treatments of death discussed in Muehlberger 2019, ch. 2. On death in the early Greek ascetic tradition, see also Zecher 2015.

¹⁵³ See e.g. sermons 6.2–3 (pp. 17–18), 8.2, 7 (pp. 28–9, 32–3), 10.2–4 (pp. 46–9), 11.3–4 (pp. 51–3), 12.1–3 (pp. 53–7), 13.4–5 (pp. 59–63), 14.1 (pp. 63–4), 15.7 (pp. 72–3), 16.1–5 (pp. 73–9), 17.6 (pp. 86–7), 18.6–7 (pp. 91–2), 19.1–2, 5–6 (pp. 93–5, 96–8), 20.1–6 (pp. 98–102), 21.1–2 (pp. 103–4), 22.1–9 (pp. 111–18), 23.1–3 (pp. 118–21), 26.2, 6 (pp. 129, 132–3), 27.1, 3–4 (pp. 137–40), 28.1–4 (pp. 140–4), 29.3, 5 (pp. 145–8). On inconsistencies in his eschatology, see Hester 1990, p. 341.

¹⁵⁴ Brief references to the joys of heaven abound, but for longer expositions, see e.g. sermons 1 (pp. 33–5), 9.8 (pp. 43–4), 11.2 (pp. 50–1), 22.6–7 (pp. 115–16), 26.1, 5–6, 9–10 (pp. 127–9, 132–3, 135–7), 30.1–5 (pp. 48–52). Similarly, brief references to the tortures awaiting the sinner are ubiquitous, but for fuller expositions, see e.g. sermons 6.3 (pp. 17–18), 8.2 (pp. 28–9), 11.1 (pp. 49–50), 21.1–2 (pp. 103–4).

¹⁵⁵ ἐγὼ δὲ εἰδὼς τὴν ἀγαθότητα τοῦ υἱοῦ, τῆς αὐτῆς ἀγαθότητος οὖσαν τοῦ πατρὸς, λαβὼν τὴν παρρησίαν εἰπεῖν, ὅτι πολλαὶ πόλεις εἰσὶ, καὶ χῶραι πολλαί εἰσὶ, φῶτα πολλά εἰσὶ, καὶ δόξαι πολλαί εἰσὶ, χαρὰ πολλή ἐστί: sermon 30.2 (p. 150).

¹⁵⁶ ὁρᾶτε τοὺς ἁγίους αὐτοῦ καυχωμένους ἐν δόξῃ, λαμπρὸν καὶ ὁλόφθαλμον ἔχοντας ἔνδυμα, ζώνας καὶ ὑποδήματα διὰ λίθων ζώντων, μανιάκια καὶ τὰ αὐγάζοντα ὑπὲρ ἀστραπὴν, στολὰς ὑπερνικώσας τὴν ἡμέραν, ἐν ὀνόματι καὶ χαρακτῆρι κατεστιγμένας τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ∙ διὸ καὶ τὰ σεραφεὶμ προσκυνοῦσιν, καὶ ἀρχάγγελοι τρέμουσιν, οἱ ἄγγελοι προσπίπτουσιν, τὸ φῶς ὑπερπληθύνεται, τὸ πῦρ ὑπερεκπυροῦται, τὰ φυτὰ ὑποκλίνουσιν, οἱ ἀθάνατοι ἵπποι σκιρτῶσι, καὶ τὰ ὀχήματα ἐν εὐπρεπείᾳ ἅλλονται, αἱ νεφέλαι μετεώρως φέρουσι τοὺς ἐπιβαίνοντας∙ τούτων δὲ οὕτως ἐσομένων, ἄλλοι τῶν ἁγίων πτεροφυήσουσιν ὡς ἀετοὶ, καί τινες ὡς περιστεραὶ πετασθήσονται∙ τὰ δὲ πάντα εὐφροσύνην καὶ χαρὰν ἐξανθήσουσι: sermon 30.6 (p. 153). See on this passage Hester 1990, pp. 340–1.

¹⁵⁷ ἰδοὺ δὴ μυστήρια ὑμῖν λέγω∙ οἶδα ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπον ἐν τῇ γεννεᾷ ταύτῃ πεπληροφορημένον, ὅτι νῦν ὀλίγοι εὑρίσκονται οἱ εἰς χεῖρας ἀγγέλων παραδιδόντες τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν…. δαίμονες εἰσὶν οἱ παραλαμβάνοντες αὐτάς: sermon 22.2 (p. 112). See Hester 1990, p. 337.

¹⁵⁸ Καὶ ἐμβριμησταμένος αὐτοῖς ἐν δυνάμει τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ ἁγίου, ἐκτείναντός τε τὴν χεῖρα ἐπὶ τὴν βιαζομένην ἐν ἀνάγκῃ ψυχὴν, εὐθέως ἐκεῖνοι τρομάξαντες, ἔασαν αὐτὴν καὶ ἔφυγον∙ κᾀκείνη ἐπιστρέψασα εἰς τὴν αὐτῆς τοῦ σώματος κατάστασιν ἐγένετο: ibid.

¹⁵⁹ Βοήσας ὡς Μωϋσῆς τῇ καρδίᾳ πρὸς τὸν θεὸν, ἐπηρώτα μαθεῖν τι περὶ τοῦ ῥήματος τούτου∙ καὶ ἐχρηματίσθη αὐτῷ διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ ἁγίου, ἀπὸ μυρίων μίαν μόλις εὑρίσκεσθαι ψυχὴν ἐν τοῖς ἐνεστῶσι χρόνοις, ἐν χερσὶ τῶν ἁγίων ἀγγέλων προερχομένην: ibid.

¹⁶⁰ On the development of these accounts of demons interrogating souls after death (which often use the image of aerial ‘tollgates’) from early Christianity through the Byzantine period, see e.g. Rivière 1924; Every 1976; Constas 2001, pp. 105–9; for a more general discussion of early Christian visions of the immediate afterlife, see Muehlberger 2019, ch. 4. None of these studies discuss any of the three versions of the story attributed to Symeon Stylites. One is, of course, the account in sermon 22. Another is found in Leontios of Neapolis’s Life of John the Almsgiver 43 (pp. 395–6) which refers to a revelation spoken by ‘the holy Symeon the Stylite’ about the different demons which examine the soul after its death. Leontios does not specify which Symeon Stylites he means, which might suggest he was referring to Symeon the Elder. The third account, again in the form of a sermon, is translated in Latin in the Maxima Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum (vol. 7, 1677), but unfortunately its origin is not described. Again, however, it describes the angels and demons examining the soul (although it does not, unlike the first two, name the different demons associated with particular sins). It is attributed in the Latin translation to ‘Simeonis Admirandi’, which seems more likely to refer to Symeon the Younger than Elder, since the Younger was normally known as Symeon ‘of the Wonderful Mountain’, or sometimes as ‘Symeon the Wonder-Worker [thaumatourgos]’. None of these three accounts attributed to Symeon appear to be directly related to one of the other two, however; all have more in common with various of the many other versions of the account.

¹⁶¹ Life of Alexander Akoimetos (p. 680, trans. p. 266).

¹⁶² Cf. Constas 2001, pp. 91–4 and passim; Shoemaker 2003, pp. 179–203.

¹⁶³ τῶν ἐν ἐλεημοσύναις εὐσεβῶν καὶ φοβουμένων τὸν Θεὸν ἀνδρῶν τε καὶ γυναικῶν: Life of Martha 17–18 (pp. 265–7, quote at p. 266).

¹⁶⁴ Bohairic Life of Pachomios 82 (pp. 87–91).

¹⁶⁵ Cf. Matthew 25:32–3.

¹⁶⁶ Cf. Matthew 25:41.

¹⁶⁷ ὅρα μοι ἐν εὐαγγελίοις τὸν κύριον λέγοντα, ὅτι τοὺς δικαίους ἀφοριεῖ ἐκ δεξιῶν, τοὺς δὲ ἁμαρτωλοὺς ἐξ εὐωνύμων, ὥσπερ ἀφορίζει ὁ ποιμὴν τὰ πρόβατα ἀπὸ τῶν ἐρίφων∙ καὶ τότε ἐρεῖ τοῖς δικαίοις δεῦτε οἱ εὐλογημένοι τοῦ πατρός μου, κληρονομήσατε τὴν ἡτοιμασμένην ὑμῖν βασιλείαν ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου∙ καὶ τοῖς ἁμαρτωλοῖς, πορεύεσθε οἱ κατηραμένοι εἰς τὸ σκότος τὸ ἐξώτερον, τὸ ἡτοιμασμένον τῷ διαβόλῳ καὶ τοῖς ἀγγέλοις αὐτοῦ∙ ἐκεῖ ἔσται ὁ κλαυθμὸς τῶν ὀδόντων: sermon 17.6 (p. 86).

¹⁶⁸ Cook 2019, passim.

¹⁶⁹ τὸ φοβερὸν καὶ φρικτὸν δικαστήριον τὸ διὰ πυρὸς ἀσβέστου δοκιμάζον πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν: sermon 2 (Van den Ven, ‘Trois Sermons’, p. 36); cf. Psalm 145:19 (Septuagint 144:19). Symeon quotes similar biblical passages in sermons 10.1, 10.3, 18.3.

¹⁷⁰ Sermon 3 (Van den Ven, ‘Trois Sermons’, p. 44); see also for similar sentiments sermon 9.2, 20.3, 25.2. For other Christian preachers’ arguments that remembering judgement/death would help with good behaviour, see Muehlberger 2019 esp. pp. 8–9, 99–101. On descriptions of hell as a didactic tool, see also Henning 2014.

¹⁷¹ Muehlberger 2019 (esp. ch. 2) has explored how many late antique preachers sought to inculcate greater piety in their audiences by encouraging them to imagine in detail the moment of their own death. This serves a similar purpose to Symeon’s evocations of hell, although Symeon focuses less on the moment of death itself than on the pains of the afterlife.

¹⁷² τῇ μακαρίᾳ δόξῃ τῆς ἐπιφανείας τοῦ μεγάλου θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ προσελθόντες υἱοὶ φωτὸς, νοήσατε ταύτην συνετῶς καὶ τῶν περιγείων πραγμάτων ἀπαλλαγέντες, τὸν παραγινόμενον ἐπὶ τῶν νεφελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ μετὰ δυνάμεως πολλῆς, ἀγωνίσασθε κτήσασθαι∙ ἰδοὺ γὰρ ἡ δόξα κυρίου ὀφθήσεται, καὶ ὄψεται πᾶσα σὰρξ τὸ σωτήριον τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν∙ ὅτ’ ἂν αἱ δυνάμεις τῶν οὐρανῶν σαλεύονται, καὶ ἡ γῆ περιφέρεται, ἄγγελοι φρίττουσι, καὶ δίκαιοι ἀγάλλονται ἐπὶ τῇ ἀειδίῳ λαμπρότητι: sermon 12.1 (p. 53).

¹⁷³ Εἶδον οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ ἡμῶν ἥλιον σκοτισθέντα, καὶ σεισμοὺς κατὰ πόλεις καὶ χώρας, καὶ ἐμπρήσεις καὶ πτώσεις, καὶ σημεῖα γεγονότα, ἐθνῶν ἐπαναστάσεις, καὶ αἱμάτων ἐκχύσεις, καὶ χάσματα ἀπειλοῦντα καταπόσεις, ἀκρίδων στρατοπεδεύσεις, καὶ θηρίων αἱμοβόρων ἐπαναστάσεις, ἀνθρώπων καὶ παιδίων ἁρπάγματα…αἱ λαμπάδες ἡμῶν ἐσβέσθησαν, τὸ τάλαντον κέκρυπται, ὁ οὐράνιος δεσπότης ἄνωθεν δυνατῶς εἰς κρίσιν ἀνιστάμενος ἔρχεται: sermon 28.3 (pp. 142–3).

¹⁷⁴ Magdalino 1993, esp. pp. 5–7; Meier 2003, esp. chs 1–2. Averil Cameron has recently expressed doubts about a general rise in eschatology in this period (and about links between natural disasters and apocalypticism), and called for detailed studies of the content and contexts of particular ‘eschatological’ texts: A. M. Cameron 2017.

¹⁷⁵ ἡ ἐσχάτη ἐγγὺς /…ὁ νυμφίος ἔρχεται∙ / μὴ ἀπομείνωμεν ἔξω / βοῶντες∙ ‘ἄνοιξον’: Romanos the Melodist, Kontakion 48.1–2 (p. 410).

¹⁷⁶ ὕπνωσας ὕπνον, ψυχή μου, κενόν / κεῖσαι καὶ ῥέγχεις ἕως πότε; / γρηγόρησον κἂν νῦν, πρὸς ὃ βλέπομεν. / ἀπειλαὶ ἐπαχθεῖς / καὶ σεισμοὶ συνεχεῖς / συνετάραξαν γῆν μετὰ τῶν ἐν αὐτῇ /…ἠχοῦσι κατὰ κόσμον / τῶν σημείων αἱ σάλπιγγες / προμηνύουσαι Χριστὸν τοῖς προσδοκῶσιν, / ὅτι ἐλεύσεται…// ταῦτα καὶ νῦν θεωροῦμεν, ψυχή∙ / θύραι εἰσίν, οὐκ ἐπὶ θύραις∙ / ἐπέστη γὰρ καὶ πάρεστιν ἕτοιμα. / οὐκ ἐλλείπει οὐδέν / ὥσπερ εἶπε Χριστός, / ἀλλ’ ὡς προεῖπε, πάντα γενήσεται∙ / καὶ λιμοὶ καὶ λοιμοὶ / καὶ σεισμοὶ συνεχεῖς, / καὶ ἔθνος ἐπὶ ἔθνος ἐγήγερται∙ τὰ ἔσω φοβερά, τὰ ἔξω δὲ / μάχης πεπλήρωνται. / οὐκ ἔστι ποῦ σωθῆναι∙ / πανταχοῦ γὰρ ὁ κίνδυνος: ibid. 48.3–4 (pp. 411–12). Cf. Magdalino 1993, p. 6.

¹⁷⁷ On eschatology in Romanos, see also Meier 2003, pp. 77–84.

¹⁷⁸ The fate of the soul after death was a topic of much debate in the sixth century, a debate which was closely linked to conflict about the cult of saints (Dal Santo 2012). It does not seem impossible that Symeon’s repeated references to this theme reflect this wider debate.

¹⁷⁹ Sermon 6.4 (p. 20).

¹⁸⁰ See e.g. sermon 11.1, 4 (pp. 49–50, 52–3), 14.1 (pp. 63–4), 18.6 (pp. 91–2), 19.6 (pp. 97–8).

¹⁸¹ Οὐ γάρ ἐστι παρὰ τῷ βασιλεῖ τῶν αἰώνων Χριστῷ προσωποληψία ἀνδρὸς, οὔτε χρυσίον ἀντάλλαγμα τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτοῦ δοῦναι∙ οὐ παρασίτων θράσος, καὶ οἰκείων βοήθειαι, οὐ φίλοι δυνάμενοι ἐξελέσθαι ψυχήν∙ οὕτοι γὰρ μᾶλλον καθ’ ἑαυτοὺς κόπτονται διὰ τὸν παρελθόντα τῆς μετανοίας καιρόν∙ οὐ δῶρα ἐκτυφλοῦντα ὀφθαλμοὺς πρὸς συγχώρησιν∙ οὐδὲ γονέων περιδρομὴ, ἢ συγγενῶν συμπάθεια∙ οὐκ ἔσται ἄρχων ὑπὲρ πένητα, οὐδὲ βασιλεὺς ὑπὲρ πτωχόν∙ ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ πλούσιος καὶ πένης παραστήσονται∙ τότε βασιλεῖς ἀλαζόνες, γυμνοὶ καὶ τετραχηλισμένοι παριστάμενοι, ἐκπέμπονται εἰς αἰώνιον θάνατον καὶ τιμωρίας πικράς ἐκεῖ ἄρχων κατακριθεὶς ἐκρίπτεται εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ ἄσβεστον καὶ εἰς τόπον ὑποβρύχιον, ἐν ἀθανάτῳ σκώληκι∙ διὰ τὸ δικαιοῦν τὸν ἀσεβῆ ἕνεκεν δώρων, καὶ ἀποκρύπτειν κρίματα πενήτων, εἰς τὸ ἀδικεῖν αὐτῶν χήρας καὶ ὀρφανοὺς, καὶ σπαταλᾷν ἐν ἡδύτητι βρωμάτων∙ ἐκεῖ πένης δίκαιος ἀψοῦται [? ὐψοῦται] ὑπὸ Χριστοῦ ἐν δόξῃ, τοῦ καθίσαι μετὰ ἀρχόντων λαοῦ ἐν ζωῇ ἀτελευτήτῳ ὑπὸ ἀγγέλων δοξαζόμενος: sermon 14.1 (pp. 63–4).

¹⁸² Isaiah of Scetis, Discourses 6 (trans. p. 78); Evagrios Pontikos, ‘On Thoughts’ 21 (p. 226, trans. p. 67). On Evagrios’s portrayal of monastic avarice, see Brakke 2008.

¹⁸³ See e.g. Evagrios Pontikos, ‘Eight Thoughts’ (col. 1152), trans. p. 78: ‘a monk with many possessions is like a heavily laden boat that easily sinks in a sea storm.’ (NB: This text survives in various versions under various names: see Sinkewicz 2003, p. 67.) Not all early Christian monks renounced all their wealth; see e.g. Caner 2008, pp. 222–4; Laniado 2009.

¹⁸⁴ Isaiah of Scetis, Discourses 17 (trans. pp. 133–4).

¹⁸⁵ For Chrysostom on wealth, see e.g. Leyerle 1994; Hartney 2004, pp. 133ff.; Mayer 2006; Brändle 2008; Sitzler 2009. On the Cappadocian fathers, see esp. the works of Holman, including 2001 and 2006. For attitudes to wealth and poverty in the west, see esp. Brown 2012.

¹⁸⁶ Brown 2002, pp. 6–16, 45–9, 2012, pp. 76–8; cf. also López 2013, pp. 14–15.

¹⁸⁷ Brown 2002, pp. 68–73, 2012, pp. 79–81. Cf. also Holman 2009.

¹⁸⁸ Brown 2012, pp. 143–4.

¹⁸⁹ Ibid. p. 80.

¹⁹⁰ Ὁ δὲ πλούσιος διά τινος θυρίδος ἑαυτὸν ἑωρίζων, καὶ θεωρῶν τὰς ἀπολαύσεις τοῦ κόσμου καὶ τὴν δόξαν αὐτῶν…ταῖς ἀκάνθαις τῶν γηΐνων ἑαυτὸν περιπείρων, ἄρχεται λέγειν∙ τί βέλτιον τῆς δόξης ταύτης; τί πλέον τῆς τῶν γονέων στοργῆς; ἤ ἀπολαυστικώτερον τῶν παρόντων ἀγαθῶν;…ὅθεν οἴνου πολυτελοῦς καὶ μύρων σὺν τοῖς ἄλλοις ἅπασιν ἐδωδίμοις θαλφθῶμεν∙ ὅτι ὀλίγος καὶ λυπηρός ἐστιν ὁ βίος ἡμῶν, καὶ τὸ σῶμα τέφρα ἀποβήσεται, τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα διαλυθήσεται ὡς χαυνὸς ἀήρ∙ διὰ τοῦτο οὖν αἱρησόμεθα πρὸ καιροῦ τῆς ταφῆς ἐνοικῆσαι εἰς τὰς τοιαύτας βάρεις∙ καὶ πρὸ καιροῦ τῆς τέφρας, ἐν ποικίλαις τῶν διαχρύσων καὶ σηρικῶν χιτώνων ἀμφιάζειν τὸ σῶμα∙ πρὸ δὲ τῆς ἐσχάτης σιγῆς, εὐφραίνεσθαι ῥήματι καὶ γέλωτι καὶ χαρμοναῖς καὶ πολυστρόφοις σκιρτήμασι∙ τί δὲ πάντων τῆς ὁμοζύγου ἡδύτερον; μεθ’ ἧς ἡ γλυκερὰ τοῦ βίου ἀνάπαυσις ἐπιφώσκουσα καταυγάζει∙ εἰσελθὼν γὰρ εἰς τὸν οἶκον μου προσαναπαύσομαι αὐτῇ∙ οὐ γὰρ ἔχει πικρίαν ἡ συναναστροφὴ αὐτῆς, ἀλλ’ εὐφροσύνην καὶ χαράν: sermon 8.6 (pp. 31–2).

¹⁹¹ For similar passages, see e.g. sermons 6.1–4 (pp. 17–20), 14.2–3 (pp. 64–6), 16.1–4 (pp. 73–7).

¹⁹² Elsewhere, too, he preaches an entire sermon against those who elevate marriage to the status of a god, although he does, briefly, acknowledge its legitimacy: sermon 15 (pp. 66–73).

¹⁹³ See, on this theme in the works of ecclesiastical preachers, Brown 2002, pp. 68–73, 2012, pp. 79–81; Holman 2009.

¹⁹⁴ Κτήσομαι βάρεις, ὠνήσομαι ἀγροὺς, καὶ κρατήσω λαῶν, διὰ δούλων καὶ παιδίσκων∙ ἁρπάξω τοῦδε τὴν γῆν ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ∙ ὅτι καλλίκαρπος αὔτη, ἐν εὐφορίαις χρυσὸν προσοδεύσει μοι, καὶ προσθήσω ἐπιθῆναι κλοιὸν βαρὺν ἐπὶ τοὺς γηπόνους μου∙ καὶ δώσω εὐφροσύνην τῇ ψυχῇ μου…ὅτι αὕτη μοι μερὶς, καὶ οὗτος μου κλῆρος∙ καταδυναστεύσω πένητα, οὐ φείσομαι χήρας, οὐδὲ πρεσβύτου ἐντραπήσομαι πολιάν∙ καὶ ἔσται μου ἡ ἰσχὺς νόμος τῆς δικαιοσύνης∙ τὸ γὰρ ἀσθενὲς ἄχρηστον ἐλέγχεται: sermon 6.4 (p. 20).

¹⁹⁵ Sermon 16.1 (pp. 73–4). Compare also sermon 6.1–2 (pp. 17–8), 8.3 (pp. 29–30), 12.1–2 (pp. 53–5), 16.4 (p. 77).

¹⁹⁶ John Chrysostom, ‘Against Those Who Go to the Circus Games’ 5 (col. 1052, trans. p. 137)­­­­­­­­­.

¹⁹⁷ John Chrysostom, ‘On Fasting’ 3 (col. 318, trans. p. 77). Cf. Matthew 19:21.

¹⁹⁸ Homily 113 (p. 274). This spiritual/metaphorical interpretation of biblical references to wealth and poverty had, of course, a long history in early Christianity: see e.g. de Ste. Croix 1981, esp. 434–5.

¹⁹⁹ Sermon 6.5 (pp. 20–1); sermon 8.2 (p. 29).

²⁰⁰ Οὕτω δεῖ καὶ τὸν προσερχόμενον τῷ θεῷ πρὸς τὴν κληρονομίαν τὴν οὐράνιον τὰ κακῶς ἐκ τῆς ἀδικίας τοῦ μαμωνᾶ συναχθέντα, καλῶς διοικῆσαι τοῖς πένησιν…καὶ ὁμοίως δάκρυσι καθημερινοῖς ὡς ξένον καὶ παρεπίδημον διΐστασθαι τοῦ κόσμου, ἐν τῇ ἐλπίδι τοῦ καταλαβεῖν τὸν Χριστὸν…. διὰ γὰρ τοῦτο δὲ αὐτὸς ὁ κύριος ἔλεγε∙ ὁ μὴ καταλιπὼν πατέρα ἢ μητέρα, ἢ ἀδελφοὺς, ἢ ἀδελφὰς, ἢ ἀγροὺς, ἢ οἰκίας, καὶ λαβὼν τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀκολουθῶν ὀπίσω μου, οὐκ ἔστι μου ἄξιος: sermon 8.3 (p. 29).

²⁰¹ Πῶς τὸ τῆς ὑψηλοφροσύνης πτῶμα ἀναλαβὼν λέγεις τῷ ἀδελφῷ σου οὔτε προηγήσει μου, οὔτε διακονῶ σοι, μείζων σου ὤν: sermon 13.2 (p. 58). For the view expressed by some—but not all—early Christian preachers that all men were equal and/or brothers, see Holman 2009, pp. 98–105; Brown 2012, pp. 79ff.

²⁰² Thus he repeatedly refers to the pauper as the ‘fellow slave’ and/or ‘brother’ of the rich man: see e.g. sermons 12.2 (p. 55); 12.3 (p. 55); 13.5 (p. 61); 14.2 (p. 64); 16.6 (p. 79).

²⁰³ Sermon 12.2 (pp. 54–5).

²⁰⁴ Even preachers who were particularly vehement in attacking the rich and defending the poor often glossed over slavery: Kelly 1995, pp. 99–100; Brown 2002, pp. 61–3. But for ascetic criticisms of slavery, see now Ramelli 2016.

²⁰⁵ μὴ ἕτερον ἄρα Ἀδὰμ ἔκτισε δοῦλον, καὶ ἕτερον ἐλεύθερον; καὶ εἰ οὕτως εἶχεν, ὡς ἐκ τοῦ ἐλευθέρου ὑπάρχοντά σε, φυλάττειν σε ἔδει τὰ δίκαια, τοῦ μὴ ἀδικεῖν τοὺς ἐκ τοῦ δουλωθέντος Ἀδὰμ γεγγενημένους οἰκογενεῖς καὶ γεηπόνους, πρατάς τε καὶ μεταδότας καὶ ὠνουμένους ἀλλ’ οὐχ οὕτως διεπράξω: sermon 16.6 (p. 79).

²⁰⁶ For the concept of ‘eutaxia’, defined as ‘good social order’, see Caner 2009, p. 55.

²⁰⁷ ἵνα ἕκαστος τὰ ὑπὲρ ἀλλήλων δίκαια μεριμνῶμεν: sermon 16.6 (p. 80).

²⁰⁸ ὅπως πάντες τὰ ὑπὲρ ἀλλήλων μεριμνῶντες, ἀλλήλοις τὰ ὅσια ὁσίως ἀποδώσωμεν, καὶ μὴ ὡς ἀπὸ καταδυναστείας ὑπ’ ἀλλήλων ἀναλωθείημεν∙ οἱ γὰρ πάντες ἑνὸς Ἀδὰμ ὄντες θνητοὶ, μία σὰρξ, καὶ ἓν αἷμα ἐσμὲν ἐν Χριστῷ τῇ ζωῇ ἡμῶν…καὶ ὡς ἐδιδάχθημεν τοῦτο φρονείσθω ἐν ἡμῖν∙ ὅτι οὐκ ἔνι δοῦλος οὐδὲ ἐλεύθερος πάντες γὰρ ἡμεῖς εἷς ἐσμὲν ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ κυρίῳ ἡμῶν: ibid.

²⁰⁹ Evagrios Pontikos, ‘Eight Thoughts’ (col. 1153); John Chrysostom, Seventh Homily on Colossians 5 (cols 349–50).

²¹⁰ Διὰ πενίας…ἵνα οἱ συστέλλοντες ἑαυτοὺς τῶν γηΐνων, σὺν αὐτῷ δοξασθῶσιν: sermon 8.3 (p. 30).

²¹¹ Τάχα δὲ καὶ εἰς εἰδωλομανίαν μετεστράφη: sermon 8.7 (p. 32).

²¹² Especially Malalas 1.8–2.2 (pp. 9–18; trans. pp. 6–11). For example, compare Malalas 1.14–15 (pp. 14–16) with sermon 8.7 (p. 33), lines 15–18 (Ἑρμῆς ὁ δολερὸς…ὡς πλοῦτον δωρούμενος). Compare also ibid. lines 11–15 (Διὸς…ἀβασίλευτον ὃν τότε), to Malalas 1.9–10 (pp. 10–12), 1.13 (pp. 13–14). Further points of comparison between the two accounts abound, though it should be noted that some of the people mentioned by Symeon (e.g. Anteon, Skamander) do not appear in Malalas’s account. There is nothing inherently implausible in the idea that Symeon might have known Malalas’s work, at first or second hand: it was used by several contemporary historians, including his acquaintance Evagrios Scholastikos: see Jeffreys 1990a. On the relevant passage in Malalas, see Jeffreys 1996, esp. pp. 66–70. She shows that Malalas himself was using an earlier source, which was either the Excerpta Barbari or a very similar text. Symeon’s version, however, seems to derive from that in Malalas, rather than his source, as it repeats various changes Malalas has made to the original: for example, like Malalas, Symeon describes Semiramis as Kronos’s wife, not Picus’s.

²¹³ Malalas, Chronicle 1.8 (p. 10, trans. p. 6). On Malalas’s attitude towards the pagan past, see also Liebeschuetz 2004, pp. 151–2.

²¹⁴ ὁρᾷς ταῦτα ὦ πλούσιε, εἰς σὲ γὰρ ἀφορῶσιν ὀξέως οἱ λόγοι μου, περὶ ὧν ἔχεις ἐπιθυμιῶν τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου∙ οὕτως γὰρ ἀπόκειται τοῖς ἕλλησι νεκρὰ προσδοκία∙ πλεονεκτοῦσι γὰρ πρὸς τὰς ἡδονὰς τοῦ αἰῶνος, ἑαυτοὺς ἐν αὐταῖς ἐπείγοντες, πρὸς καὶ τὰ εἴδωλα συγχαίρειν αὐτοῖς, καὶ συναιρεῖσθαι ἐν ταῖς ἀδικίαις καὶ τρυφαῖς καὶ πορνείαις καὶ μιαραῖς πρὸς τελετὴν τῶν δαιμόνων θυσίαις καὶ σπονδαῖς παρατιθοῦντες τράπεζαν τῇ ψυχῇ, τουτέστι τῷ δαίμονι, καὶ οἴνου κέρασμα πρὸς μέθην, ἐν κώμοις καὶ μέθαις καὶ ᾄσμασι πορνικοῖς καὶ πολυστρόφοις χορείαις, ἔνθα ἡ πᾶσα κνίσσα τῶν εἰδώλων αὐλίζεται…. εἰ γὰρ καὶ χριστιανὸς εἶ λεγόμενος, ἐν τούτοις ὡς διεφθαρμένος κεχώρισαι ἀπὸ θεοῦ, ὅτε εἰς κακότεχνον ψυχὴν οὐκ εἰσελεύσεται σοφία: sermon 8.10 (p. 35).

²¹⁵ ὡς ἐν ἡμέρᾳ σφαγῆς: sermons 11.3 (p. 52), 12.2 (pp. 54–5), 14.3 (p. 65), 16.1 (p. 74).

²¹⁶ The full text of James 5:5 reads: ‘You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts as if on a day of sacrifice’ (I have made small changes to the NRSV translation). There is thus a connection to luxurious living, but no specific reference to over-eating and consumption of expensive wine as we find in Symeon.

²¹⁷ Οἱ δὲ θεοὶ τῶν ἐθνῶν δαιμόνια, καὶ ἔργα χειρῶν ἀνθρώπων∙ διὰ τοῦτο καὶ οἱ πιστεύσαντες αὐτοῖς, ἕτερος τὸν ἕτερον εἰς ἀναίρεσιν ἤνεγκαν∙ ἐξέχεον γὰρ αἵματα ἐν φόνοις, διὰ κλοπὴν καὶ δόλον, φθοράν τε καὶ ἀπιστίαν, ταραχὴν καὶ ἐπιορκίαν, θορύβους ἀτάκτους, χαρίτων ἀμνηστίας, ψυχῶν μιασμὸν, γεννήσεως ἐναλλαγὰς, καὶ γάμων ἀταξίας, μοιχείας τὲ καὶ ἀσελγείας ἡ γὰρ τῶν ἀνωνύμων εἰδώλων θρησκεία ἐν τῷ πλούτῳ τοῦ αἰῶνος παντὸς κακοῦ αἰτία, ἀρχή τε καὶ πέρας ἐστίν∙ ἢ γὰρ εὐφραινόμενοι μεμῄνασιν, ἢ προφητεύουσι ψευδῆ, ἢ ζῶσιν ἀδίκως, ἢ ἐπιορκοῦσι ταχέως ἀψύχοις γὰρ εἰδώλοις πεποιθότες, κακῶς ὀμόσαντες, ἀδικηθῆναι οὐ προσδέχονται∙ ἀμφοτέροθεν δὲ αὐτοῖς μετελεύσεται τὰ δίκαια: sermon 8.11 (p. 36).

²¹⁸ John Chrysostom, ‘On Almsgiving and the Ten Virgins’ 1 (col. 293, trans. pp. 30–1).

²¹⁹ See e.g. John Chrysostom ‘On Almsgiving’ 3 (cols 265–6).

²²⁰ Sermon 16.4–5 (pp. 77–9). For this theme in the writings of other early Christian preachers, see Holman 2009, pp. 106ff.

²²¹ Τί οὖν δοκεῖ σοι πρὸς ταῦτα φιλάργυρε, ὁ μᾶλλον ἐξ ἁρπαγῆς βουλόμενος ἐλεεῖν; εἰ οὖν ἐλεεῖς, τὰ ὑπάρχοντά σου διάδως [? διάδος] τοῖς πένησιν, ᾧ μὲν ἐσθῆτα, ᾧ δὲ τροφὴν, καὶ ἀδικουμένους ῥῦσαι, χήρας οἰκτείρησον, καὶ ὀρφανοὺς εὖ ποίησον, ἄδικον συγγραφὴν διάσπα, τὸν πάντα σου κόσμον τοῦ χρυσίου δανείζων ἀπενθεῦθεν [? ἀπεντεῦθεν] θεῷ: sermon 16.5 (p. 78).

²²² See e.g. sermon 18.7 (pp. 92–3); 20.4 (p. 100).

²²³ See above p. 99. Brown notes that the same was true for holy men but does not discuss this in detail.

²²⁴ Brown 2012, esp. pp. 138–43.

²²⁵ See above pp. 33–8.

²²⁶ Thus see Kallinikos, Life of Hypatios 21 (pp. 134–40), 44.8–19 (pp. 262–4); Syriac Life of Symeon (pp. 581–3, 585–8); Life of Alexander Akoimetos 34 (pp. 684–5), 39 (pp. 688–9); Life of Marcellus Akoimetos 32 (pp. 314–16).

²²⁷ The Life of Alexander Akoimetos stands out as another Life which contains few positive stories about the rich, though it should be noted that it is much shorter and less detailed than the other Lives just cited.

²²⁸ It does present a few Constantinopolitan notables in neutral or positive terms, which may suggest that it was the particular political circumstances in Antioch which engendered Symeon / his hagiographer’s hostility towards the city’s elites: see below, p. 163.

²²⁹ López 2013, passim. See also Frankfurter 1998, pp. 77–82; Schroeder 2007, pp. 132–7.

²³⁰ Brown 2012, p. 142.

²³¹ ἐμπαίζοντες δικαίους διὰ τὴν σωφροσύνην∙ καὶ τὸ δίκαιον καὶ τὸ ὅσιον ἐγενήθη ὑμῖν εἰς γέλωτα καὶ εἰς ἐμπαιγμόν: sermon 16.3 (p. 76).

²³² As discussed above, the Life does present Symeon as a preacher and provides the text of several sermons attributed to him. Only one of these, however, contains the eschatological focus which predominates in the sermon collection itself: Life of Symeon 171 (pp. 152–4).

²³³ For a discussion of this letter, see Pummer 2002, pp. 317–25.

²³⁴ μὴ ποιῆσαι ἔλεος εἰς τοὺς τοῦτο τετολμηκότας, μήτε φείσασθαι αὐτῶν, μήτε τὴν οἱανοῦν παράκλησιν ἢ ἀπολογίαν δέξασθαι περὶ αὐτῶν, ἵνα μὴ καὶ εἰς ἄλλο τι τραπῶσι, καθὼς ἤδη θεωρίαν ἑωρακὼς ἤμην δηλώσας τῷ Αὐγούστῳ μηνὶ τῷ ἁγιωτάτῳ καὶ θεοτιμήτῳ πατριάρχῃ, σημάνας ἐν τῷ τέως παρ’ ἑαυτῷ ἔχειν. Οὐ γὰρ ἔκρυψεν ἀφ’ ἡμῶν ὁ Θεὸς τὰ διαβούλια αὐτῶν. Symeon Stylites the Younger, ‘Letter to Justin II’, col. 3217. Pummer 2002 reproduces a translation of the letter from Mendham 1849, which translates καθὼς ἤδη θεωρίαν ἑωρακώς as ‘I have discovered indications of this sort’ rather than, as I have translated it above, ‘as I had already seen in a vision’. The passage is admittedly difficult and ‘vision’ is not a typical translation of θεωρία (Lampe 1961, p. 648), but vision seems to me the best possible rendering here, especially given Symeon’s subsequent reference to God revealing the Samaritans’ plans to him.

²³⁵ τὴν καταδίκην τοῦ μέλλοντος αὐτοὺς κατεσθίειν ἀσβέστου καὶ ἀφεγγοῦς πυρός. καὶ καταθεματίσει αὐτοὺς εἰς τὰ καταχθόνια τῆς ἀβύσσου αὐτὸ τὸ πανάγιον καὶ παντοδύναμον Πνεῦμα Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ…τοῦ ἀπολέσθαι αὐτοὺς εἰς ἀπέραντον ἀπώλειαν: Symeon Stylites the Younger, ‘Letter to Justin II’, col. 3217.