3. Symeon and Late Antique Hagiography

Late Antique hagiography often uses narrative to teach moral lessons. The hagiographer communicates his message to an audience by relating the activities of a holy person. Generally the life narrated is an exemplary life: the saint described serves as a model for others to follow.^[1] Athanasius, for instance, presents the Life of Antony as an “ideal pattern of the ascetical life.”^[2] The call to imitate the saint is not, however, universal. In his account of the deeds of Syrian ascetics, including Symeon the Stylite, who spent most of his adulthood atop successively taller pillars in the Syrian desert, Theodoret of Cyrrhus deliberately presents the behavior of some of his heroes as inimitable. He carefully avoids presenting extreme challenges to the body as patterns to be copied. Yet Theodoret takes it for granted that such behavior is glorious and exemplary of Christian virtues.

The case for Symeon the Fool, on the other hand, is far from clear. To be sure, Late Antique saints are reported to have done many strange things: standing on pillars, cross-dressing, donning chains and other iron devices. Nevertheless, it is difficult to see how the Life of Symeon might fit established patterns for the representation of holiness or how its hero could be called saintly. After all, Symeon does such things as defecate in public, associate freely with prostitutes, and eat gluttonously, especially on fast days. Even when we acknowledge that all saintly behavior deviates from society’s norms, Symeon’s unsaintly qualities make him stand out among holy men. This chapter explores how Symeon’s apparently unsaintly behavior is central to Leontius’s construction of the character of Symeon and a key to understanding what Leontius intends when he refers to Symeon as a “Fool for Christ’s sake.” Closer examination will reveal that much of the Life adheres to the patterns which governed the composition of lives of holy people in early Byzantine culture, while other elements of the Life are specifically designed to play off such expectations. Our task will then be to recover the resonance and moral value which Symeon’s shamelessness had for its Late Antique audience in order to situate the Life of Symeon and the peculiar behavior described in it within the traditions of Late Antique Christian hagiography.

Common Hagiographical Patterns in the Life of Symeon

By understanding how the Life of Symeon conforms to Late Antique canons for sanctity we will be better able to understand the significance of its deviations. Although behavior quite like Symeon’s is previously unattested, many aspects of the Life of Symeon adhere to conventions known from hagiographical literature.

In its broadest outlines, the Life of Symeon is typical of many saints’ lives which survive from Late Antiquity.^[3] Symeon’s relatively high social origins, his “break with the past”^[4] and withdrawal from society, his symbolic death in the desert through ascetic practice, his miracles, and his physical death are stock elements of the hagiographical genre.^[5] Each of these conventions is already found in Athanasius’s Life of Antony, composed in 357, which was one of the earliest, most widely disseminated, and arguably the most influential Late Antique saint’s life. Within the next generation these narrative building blocks had become what one might call a hagiographical koinē. The conformity of the Life of Symeon to patterns established in classic hagiographical texts is striking, particularly in the first half of the Life, in which Symeon makes his preparations for his eventual folly. In the second half of the Life, Leontius also speaks this hagiographical language even as he inflects it.

Separation from the world is a dominant theme in Late Antique hagiography. In the Life of Symeon, Symeon and John withdraw from society in two stages, first by joining the monastery of Abba Gerasimos and later by abandoning the monastery to live as hermits in the desert. Athanasius’s Antony makes his withdrawal from the company of others in stages, fleeing first across the Nile to a deserted fortress and later to the more remote “inner mountain” of the desert. This theme of physical withdrawal figures prominently in other popular writings such as the anonymous History of the Monks of Egypt (composed c. 395) and various collections of sayings attributed to Egyptian monks known as the Apophthegmata Patrum. This trope posits what one scholar has recently called “a dichotomy that separates the complexities of city life from the simplicity of the pastoral setting” and is dependent on the assumption that urban society is generally evil.^[6] By fleeing the city, the saint, no longer encumbered by societal obligations, is free to pursue a life of virtue in relative solitude.

Quite often this separation from society demands a severing of family ties. Antony’s parents had died shortly before he began to pursue the ascetic life, and he committed his sister to a nunnery before leaving town.^[7] In a mid-fifth-century Syriac text, the anonymous “Man of God” escapes his family and his bride, leaving Rome on his wedding day to live as a beggar in Edessa.^[8] Yet another Symeon, the Syrian Symeon the Younger Stylite, when baptized at the age of two, began repeating, “I have a father and I have not a father; I have a mother and I have not a mother.”^[9] The early-seventh-century Life of Theodore of Sykeon relates that at a young age, following Jesus’ command, the saint “fled from his parents and ran to God.”^[10] Theodore’s mother continued to bring him food, but he threw it to the birds and beasts as soon as his mother had gone away. Symeon the Fool’s separation from his aged mother is a somewhat more difficult task which causes him much grief. Leontius narrates Symeon’s attempts to come to terms with this separation at great length (pp. 130–31, 136–42). Only after God had taken his mother from him was Symeon able to arrive at his “high level [μέτρα μεγάλα]” of virtue (p. 142).

Cultivating this “high level” of virtue involved controlling the body. As part of his strict ascetic regimen, Symeon fasted, abstained from meat and wine, and abstained from sex. Athanasius’s Antony fasted continuously and “never bathed his body in water to remove filth.”^[11] In reward for their endurance and faithfulness, some ascetics of the History of the Monks of Egypt are fed heavenly food by the angels.^[12] Many ascetics are reported to have cultivated small gardens and eaten only raw vegetables. In a variation on this concept, while in the desert, and before his life of folly, Symeon and John live by “grazing” (p. 133).

Later, in the second half of the Life, Leontius deliberately plays with this convention to show how Symeon adheres to it, despite the Emesans’ suspicions. Although to the residents of Emesa Symeon appears to have sexual desires (e.g., p. 148) and his appetite appears voracious, even carnivorous (pp. 148, 153), Symeon is “above the burning which is from the Devil,” that is, sexual urges (p. 148, cf. p. 155), and secretly keeps a strict ascetic regimen. He eats nothing from the beginning of Lent until Holy Thursday (pp. 156–57). Symeon’s diet impresses John the deacon who “felt pity and amazement” at its “indescribable austerity” (p. 148).

Like earlier ascetic types, Symeon has little need for shelter or clothing. Leontius does not specify what sort of dwelling Symeon and John inhabit in the desert (p. 137), although they spend much of their time praying out of doors. They practice their asceticism “in cold and in heat” (p. 142), a feat of endurance which recalls the harsh austerities of the Syrian ascetics portrayed by Theodoret, many of whom spend their life out of doors. Consider this description of Eusebius of Teleda: “during frost he sits in the shade, in flaming heat he takes the sun and welcomes its flames as if it were a westerly breeze.”^[13] In Emesa, Symeon lives in a hut (καλύβιον) which contains only a bundle of twigs (p. 166) and wears only an old cloak (παλλίον, cf. Latin pallium; p. 147) and a tunic (p. 156). (On the other hand, Symeon’s decision to walk naked on the way to the baths [pp. 148–49] and his dancing naked in the streets with prostitutes [p. 156] should probably not be taken to signal the saint’s lack of need for clothing.) Symeon can endure the elements; he suffers neither from cold, hunger, nor heat, in Leontius’s words, “nearly exceed[ing] the limit of human nature” (p. 142). He is even able to hold live coals in his hands (p. 146).

The discipline of the body allows the ascetic to engage in what may have been his primary activity, the life of prayer. In the desert, Symeon and John pray “unceasingly” (p. 139). While in Emesa he “often passed the night without sleeping, praying until morning, drenching the ground with his tears” (p. 166). Similarly Antony prays constantly in silence, following the teachings of the New Testament (1 Thes 5:17, Mt 6:6, Lk 18:1).^[14] Constant prayer figures prominently throughout the lives of hermits and especially in the lives of stylites. The anonymous “Man of God” prays through the night on the steps of the church.^[15]

These markers of the holy life find their origin and justification in the biographies and in the teachings of Jesus. Jesus resisted temptation in the desert. Similarly, Jesus commanded a life separated from one’s earthly family and taught his followers to pray. I take up the question of the fashioning of the Life of Symeon on the life of Jesus in chapter 7, but it is worth noting here the degree to which the lives of the saints are imitations of the lives of the Christ. This is nowhere more evident than in the sort of miracles performed in Late Antique saints’ lives.

The extraordinary powers of typical early Byzantine holy men are divine gifts, signs of individual sanctity which mediate God’s grace to others.^[16] The Life of Symeon makes use of motifs and miracle types commonplace in Late Antique literature.^[17] After a few years of strenuous ascetic practice in the desert, Leontius relates that Symeon and John “were judged worthy of divine visions, and God’s assurances, and miracles” (p. 139). Like so many of the desert ascetics described in the History of the Monks of Egypt, and in Theodoret’s Religious History, Symeon has the gifts of prophecy and clairvoyance.^[18] While working as a water carrier in a tavern in Emesa, Symeon is able to discern which wine jar has been poisoned by the Devil (p. 147). He predicts an earthquake (p. 150) and knows in advance which children will die of the plague (p. 151). He knows by clairvoyance whether his friends, the reforming prostitutes, have fornicated while absent from him (p. 156).

More complicated is the question of Symeon’s ability to heal, since Symeon seems to afflict people with physical problems as often as he cures them. Miraculous healings, of course, are ubiquitous in hagiography and are perhaps the most important point of contact between holy people and the laity. In addition to the narratives of desert ascetics, miracle stories fill the pages of longer vitae. With a repertoire of magical phrases, holy oil, and the sign of the cross, Theodore of Sykeon heals the mute, the lame, the paralyzed, the feverish, and those with dislocated limbs and issues of blood.^[19] The sixth-century Life of Nicholas of Sion relates how, among other things, the saint cured blindness and constipation.^[20] Most of these miracles have antecedents in the gospels. As for Symeon the Fool, after causing a group of girls who make fun of him to become cross-eyed, he heals some of them, but leaves the others cross-eyed, thus preventing the permanently cross-eyed ones from “exceed[ing] all the women of Syria in debauchery” (p. 158), a cure of sorts. In the process of curing a man with leucoma, Symeon nearly burns the man’s eyes in his first attempt, but he does eventually cure him (p. 161). Leontius’s narration of Symeon’s miracles depends on a reader’s expectation of how saints are supposed to perform miracles. Symeon’s miracles function not only to show that Symeon is holy, but also to challenge more conventional notions of sanctity. Symeon’s deviations and his destructive power are part of Leontius’s commentary on the ambiguity of holiness itself.

Closely related to the miracles of healing are tales of exorcism. Much of Athanasius’s Life of Antony describes his battles with demons; a quarter of this text is devoted to a discourse on the work of the Devil which Antony delivers to his disciples. Casting out demons by methods culled from the gospels or by making the sign of the cross plays a major role in lives of holy men living near small towns, such as Nicholas of Sion and Theodore of Sykeon.^[21] Perhaps because of the close association between madness and demon possession, Symeon battles the demonic particularly deftly. Symeon and John overcome demons in the desert (p. 138), “enduring many and unutterable temptations from the Devil and conquering them” (p. 142). And Symeon does battle with demons while in Emesa: he casts out the demon possessing an adulterous youth (pp. 149–50); he chases an unclean spirit (in the form of an Ethiopian) from the phouska-seller’s shop (pp. 153–54); and he prevents a demon from attacking townspeople in the agora (p. 157). Symeon is said to have “extraordinary compassion for those possessed by demons” (p. 162).

Another Christ-like miracle of Late Antique saints is the ability to feed the multitudes. Miraculous feedings figure in the descriptions of a number of Egyptian monks, such as Abba Apollo, whose prayers result in lavish Easter banquets of exotic foods and who also multiplies loaves during a famine.^[22] Gregory of Nyssa tells of his sister Macrina’s “farming miracle” in which “the grain was distributed according to need and showed no sign of diminishing.”^[23] Symeon the Fool provides banquets miraculously on two occasions (pp. 159, 164). He also gives food away free in the marketplace (p. 146) to feed the poor and hungry.

Miracles can exact justice. Occasionally holy men use their powers to punish wrongdoers and nonbelievers. When a group of pagan girls stares shamelessly at Theodoret’s James of Nisibis, he changes their hair to gray. When villagers concoct a ruse that one of them is dead and request that James resurrect him, the saint says a prayer for the man, during which he actually dies. Later James resurrects the dead man. Julian Saba causes the death of a heretic.^[24] Symeon prolongs the labor of a pregnant slave-girl who has accused the fool falsely of paternity (pp. 151–52).^[25] Symeon strikes mute the Jewish artisan, who “blasphemed Christ all the time,” after the Jew sees Symeon conversing with two angels at the baths (p. 154). Symeon also silences a local village headman who understands that Symeon is holy (p. 156). These ostensibly punitive actions underscore Symeon’s hidden sanctity, silencing those who understand his powers and might reveal them.

As this survey makes clear, to a great extent Leontius portrays Symeon within the model of a holy man. The first half of the Life of Symeon establishes Symeon’s freedom from ordinary needs in a fairly conventional manner. Symeon conforms to the ascetic profile of withdrawal from society in order to focus on a refashioning of the body. The second half of the Life portrays Symeon manifesting the power of a more “ordinary” holy man, performing the sorts of deeds found attributed to saints in other texts. Leontius does not challenge the conventional model of the holy man in narrating the Life of Symeon; rather he adheres to this model and is able to convey Symeon’s holiness to his audience by narrating episodes which his audience understands as signs of Symeon’s holiness. So much conforms to established patterns for narrating the life of a holy man that Symeon’s seemingly unsaintly behavior appears all the more anomalous. While the next chapter will show that there are precedents for some aspects of Symeon’s deviance, we must first consider what Leontius’s audience would have made of just that which most deviates from the holy man model, namely, Symeon’s shamelessness.

Symeon’s Behavior and Ascetic Practice

Symeon’s behavior confounds the residents of Emesa. To some, his actions appear as the deeds of a madman. The children who see him dragging a dead dog behind him call out, “Hey, a crazy abba” (p. 145). The residents of Emesa “believed that [Symeon] was just like the many who babbled and prophesied because of demons” (p. 156). When there was a new moon, “he looked at the sky and fell down and thrashed about” (p. 155), a literal lunatic.

Symeon’s relation to the Emesans is nothing less than adversarial. They respond to Symeon’s apparent madness with harsh blows. When he throws nuts at the women in church and overturns the tables of the pastry chefs on his way out, he is nearly beaten to death (p. 146). When the phouska-seller and his wife discover Symeon’s empty cash box, showing that Symeon has given their merchandise away for free, they beat him and pull his beard (p. 146). When Symeon breaks a jar of wine which he knows has been poisoned by a snake, the tavern keeper strikes him with a piece of wood (p. 147). When he enters the women’s bath, the women beat him and throw him out (p. 149). For some, Symeon’s folly is a source of amusement: The townsfolk go to the tavern where Symeon is employed as a water carrier as a diversion, presumably to be entertained by him (p. 147). In short, the residents of Emesa are unaware of Symeon’s sanctity and treat him as a madman, which to all appearances he is. The beatings and derision he receives, however, are never unprovoked. The behavior of the other characters in the narrative is always in reaction to some outlandish and often destructive thing which Symeon has done.^[26]

The inhabitants of Emesa react to Symeon with righteous indignation. Sometimes people who see him are simply described as “shocked” or “scandalized” (σκανδαλίζω). A monk from a nearby monastery is “scandalized” to see Symeon gorging himself on beans (p. 153); the headman of a nearby village is “scandalized” when he sees Symeon being carried by one prostitute while being whipped by another (p. 156); passersby are “scandalized” to see Symeon gorging himself in a cake shop on the morning of Holy Thursday, when he should be fasting (p. 156); the Deacon John, who knows of Symeon’s true nature, claims not to be “scandalized” to see Symeon eating raw meat (p. 158). In each case the shock is in response to Symeon’s violation of the norms of Christian ascetic practice and common decency.

The regulation of desires for sex and for food was a proverbial component of the lives of those regarded as holy. In the past decade, the work of Michel Foucault, Aline Rousselle, and Peter Brown has clarified the nature of the ascetic discipline which Late Antique people considered necessary to achieving control over their bodies. Ascetic concerns focused particularly on sexual desire and the consumption of food, concepts which were integrally related, since proper dietary regimen was believed to lead directly to the diminishing of sexual impulses.^[27] As Rousselle observes,

[F]rom the beginning of the fourth century, the Christian texts are full of . . . notions of physiology linked with dietetics. They appealed to the whole Graeco-Roman world. Control of sexuality through a lifestyle based on physiology and a carefully chosen diet was an everyday concern.^[28]

This was all the more true of Christian religious. In fact, achieving control over their bodies made men and women holy in the eyes of others.

The first half of the Life of Symeon presents the saint as the model desert ascetic. Leontius’s language exalts monasticism in conventional ways: The monks of the monastery of Abba Gerasimos are “angels of God” (p. 124), the road to the monastery is “the road which leads to life” (p. 125), and the life pursued there is referred to as “the virtuous life” (p. 127). When Symeon and John retire to the remote desert to live as hermits, their battles with the temptations of the Devil and devotion to unceasing prayer (p. 139) recall the accounts of the eremitic life in the Apophthegmata Patrum.

Particularly important in this model for achieving sanctity is the contrast between desert and city.^[29] Leontius articulates this well. Before Symeon leaves the desert for the city, a journey which he undertakes both to save souls and to “mock the world [ἐμπαίζω τῷ κόσμῳ]” (p. 142), John warns him of the dangers of leaving the life of the desert.

Beware, be on your guard, brother Symeon, unless as the desert gathered together, the world disperses; and as silence helped, commotion hinders; and as much as keeping watch [through the night] brought, you lose through sleep. Be on your guard, brother, lest the delusion of worldly things corrupts the prudence of the monastic life. Beware, lest the fruit from the privation of women, from whom God has saved you until today, be destroyed by spending time with them. Beware, lest the love of possessions carry off poverty, lest foods fatten the body, which fasting has melted away. Beware, brother, lest you lose your compunction through laughter and your prayer through your carelessness. Beware, please, lest when your face laughs, your mind be dissolved, lest when your hands fondle, your soul fondles as well, lest when your mouth eats, your heart eats as well, lest when your feet walk, your inner silence dances along recklessly, and to speak concisely, lest as much as the body does outwardly, the soul does inwardly. (p. 143)

In addition to listing the components of ascetic practice and its goals (all of which Symeon has achieved), John’s speech portrays the city as a place where the practice of asceticism is difficult. While in Emesa, Symeon will necessarily come into contact with food, sexual temptations, and levity, since these are basic elements of lay urban life. By appearances, Symeon’s activity in Emesa is the complete antithesis of asceticism, since he appears to engage in sexual activity and to eat large quantities, including proscribed foods.

In many episodes, Symeon appears to the residents of Emesa to have strong sexual desires. He appears to attempt to rape the tavern keeper’s wife (p. 148); Symeon plays along with a female slave’s claim that he raped and impregnated her (p. 151). Some examples of Symeon’s scandalousness are less obvious to the modern reader. When Symeon predicts which schoolboys will die of plague, he kisses each of them saying, “Farewell, my dear [καλέ μου]” (p. 151). If left alone, these farewell kisses would be innocent. But Leontius prefaces the story with the remark that Symeon lived in a manner which appeared “irredeemable [ἀσωτεύεσθαι]” (pp. 150–51), thereby sexually charging the episode. John the deacon invites Symeon to come with him to the baths. Symeon receives this invitation enthusiastically, whereupon he strips off his clothing and wraps it around his head like a turban (p. 148). Thus, with his genitals exposed and his sexuality starkly apparent, he walks past the men’s bath and “rushes willingly” into the women’s. Symeon skips through the street with “dancing-girls” and “disreputable women” (θυμεκιλή and άσεμνα γύναια, pp. 154–55) and is seen regularly with prostitutes (ἑταίρες, p. 155) to whom Leontius refers as Symeon’s girlfriends (φίλη, pp. 155–56). He counts among his girlfriends an amulet maker (p. 162). Young girls whom he has caused to be cross-eyed run after Symeon in the streets demanding to be kissed (p. 158).

Similarly, in public, Symeon’s eating habits are flagrant violations of ascetic and common social norms. He eats a whole pot of lupines while working in a food stall in the market (p. 146). Later, in a tavern, a monk is scandalized by Symeon’s gluttony when he sees Symeon “eating beans like a bear” (p. 153). The tavern keeper exclaims that Symeon “eats meat as if he’s godless,” for as Leontius explains, “without tasting bread all week, the righteous one often ate meat” (p. 148). Symeon is seen devouring pastries in a cake shop on Holy Thursday (pp. 156–57). On Sundays, when he can be seen eating a string of sausages with mustard, his bingeing lasts from morning on (pp. 160–61). Raw meat is also standard fare (p. 158). Moreover, the consequences of such consumption are equally public. Symeon defecates unabashedly in the marketplace, graphic proof that he has not been fasting.^[30]

Given Symeon’s tendency to transgress against the conventions established for the behavior of monks and, in many cases, for the laity, it is not difficult to see why Leontius portrays the population of Emesa reacting with horror to Symeon’s antics. In his introduction to the Life, Leontius writes: “[T]o those more impassioned and more fleshly he seemed to be a defilement, a sort of poison, and an impediment to the virtuous life on account of [his] appearance” (p. 122). Leontius himself understands Symeon’s public behavior to be potentially transgressive and incapable of being reconciled with traditional conceptions of sanctity. If it were not for the rigorous ascetic practices which Symeon conducts in private, he would be the crazy man he appears to be. How then does Leontius justify Symeon’s behavior?

Symeon’s Shamelessness and Leontius’s Apologetics

Leontius devotes a good deal of the Life of Symeon to Symeon’s defense. He offers apologetic statements throughout the introduction (pp. 121–23) and scatters explanatory asides between the anecdotes which make up the second half of the Life. Throughout the narration of these transgressions, of course, Leontius’s audience is in on the “joke”; they know that the offended residents of Emesa are mistaken and do not perceive that Symeon is, in fact, not disgusting but holy. Most readers must have enjoyed Life of Symeon for its slapstick humor.^[31] Nevertheless, the work’s apologetic tone suggests that Leontius believed some members of his audience would indeed have found Symeon’s behavior offensive. Leontius’s apologetic statements are intended to preempt negative reactions to the episodes which he relates and may even respond to criticisms of his first version of the text. These statements reveal the sorts of criticisms which Leontius anticipated not merely from the fictionalized residents of his narrative’s Emesa, but, given the placement and frequency of these statements, from his audience as well. They also provide a clearer sense of the portrayal of Symeon which Leontius wished to impart.^[32]

Leontius contrasts the opinion of the residents of Emesa with his own understanding of Symeon. In his introduction Leontius explains that Symeon “rose to the most pure and impassible height” (p. 122) despite appearing to be a defilement. Symeon remains unpolluted by his behavior, like a “pearl which has traveled through slime unsullied” (p. 122). The slime, of course, is the city with all its trappings (cf. p. 143, quoted above). (At the end of the text Leontius compares Symeon in Emesa to Lot in Sodom [p. 169].) Symeon,

through spending time in the city, hanging around with women, and the rest of the deception of his life . . . truly sought to show a weakness in the virtuous life to the slothful and pretentious and the power granted by God to those who truly serve against the spirits of evil with all their souls. (p. 122)

Through sharing his narration with them, Leontius fashions his audience to be like “those who truly serve against the spirits of evil” and unlike the slothful and pretentious, for they are able to see in Symeon the “power granted by God.” Leontius requests that his audience “regard [his] writings with fear of the Lord” and with Christian faith, since he knows that “to the most senseless and disdainful [he seems] to be relating something incredible and worthy of laughter” (p. 122).

Symeon’s behavior and especially his deception of the residents of Emesa is justified by the fact that he was able to perform the deeds of a holy man while under cover. “There was this for the glorification and admiration of God: the gestures which caused some to believe that Symeon led an irredeemable life were often those through which he displayed his miracles” (pp. 150–51). By pretending to be crazy, Symeon converts heretics, Jews, fornicators, prostitutes, and other sinners; and by this method he is also able to keep his holiness concealed. After the incident in which Symeon enters the women’s bath, Leontius remarks, “Some of his deeds the righteous one did out of compassion for the salvation of humans, and others he did to hide his way of life” (p. 149). Symeon wishes to hide his ascetic practice and the level of impassivity which he has achieved through this practice.

With this in mind we can understand Leontius’s apologetics for Symeon’s apparent sexual and gastronomic indulgence. In an episode alluded to earlier, John the deacon invites Symeon to join him in a refreshing bath. On the way to the bathhouse, Symeon strips naked and places his garment on his head like a turban. He passes the entrance to the men’s bath and proceeds toward the women’s. In response to John’s protests, Symeon replies, “Leave me alone, you idiot, there’s hot and cold water here, and there’s hot and cold water there, and it doesn’t matter at all whether [I use] this one or that” (p. 149). Despite the segregation which is determined by convention, for Symeon there is no inherent difference between the men’s and women’s baths. Later, Symeon, no longer feigning madness, explains to John about the event, “I felt neither that I had a body nor that I had entered among bodies, but the whole of my mind was on God’s work, and I did not part from him” (p. 149). In short, Symeon was no longer affected by sexual desire. Elsewhere in the Life, Leontius writes,

The blessed one advanced to such a level of purity and impassivity [ἀπάθεια] that he often skipped and danced, holding hands with one dancing-girl on this side and another on that, and he associated with them and played with them in the middle of the whole circus, so that the disreputable women threw their hands into his lap, fondled him, poked him, and pinched him. But the monk, like pure gold, was not defiled by them at all. (pp. 154–55)

Leontius further relates that Symeon had had a vision in the desert in which the Abba Nikon appeared to him and sprinkled Symeon’s genitals with holy water while making the sign of the cross, thus purifying Symeon and making him free from the nuisance of erections and all sexual desire (p. 155). Perhaps Leontius alludes to this event in his introduction when he writes that Symeon “quenched the burning of the flesh with the dew of the Holy Spirit” (p. 123). Leontius’s defense of Symeon highlights his concealed sanctity.

As for the matter of Symeon’s public gluttony, although he eats meat in public, he abstains completely from bread (p. 148). While in Emesa, he maintained a regimen of “indescribable austerity” and “possessed the gift of abstinence [ἐγκράτεια] in a way not many of the saints do” (p. 156). He does not eat through the entirety of Lent (pp. 148, 156–57). Similarly, when the monks discover Symeon gorging himself on lupines in the tavern, Symeon remarks that they had been soaked for forty days (p. 153) during which, presumably, he had eaten nothing.

Symeon’s shamelessness is predicated on his blessedness. Immediately before the bathhouse episode, in connection with Symeon’s defecation in public, Leontius relates that Symeon was “entirely as if he had no body [ὥσπερ ἀσώματος]” (p. 148), an assertion which parallels his earlier statement that Symeon “perceived himself fearing neither suffering, nor cold, nor hunger, nor burning heat, but rather nearly [σχεδόν] exceeded the limit of human nature” (p. 142). Leontius does not claim that Symeon had achieved a state of bodilessness, merely that he approached that state.

These claims, of course, are concerned not so much with social convention as with theological self-understanding. Christian theological anthropology understood the spiritual freedom which came through strict askēsis. For many Late Ancient Christians, Leontius included, the term “bodiless” (ἀσώματος) described the angels.^[33] Ascetics, in their practice, regularly aspired to approach the state of the angels, a state which was, among other things, sexless.^[34] One finds parallels for Leontius’s claims about Symeon in a wide range of Late Antique sources, including the writings of Evagrius Ponticus. Evagrius argued,

To separate the body from the soul is the privilege only of the One who has joined them together. But to separate the soul from the body lies as well in the power of the man who pursues virtue. For our Fathers gave to the meditation of death and to the flight from the body a special name: anachoresis.^[35]

Symeon had practiced this “flight from the body” for twenty-nine years in the Judean desert and had been so successful that he was granted the ability to appear shameless while maintaining his spiritual perfection.

It is also tempting to associate the behavior of Symeon the Fool with the conception of human perfection found in the anonymous collection of late-fourth- or early-fifth-century Syriac sermons known as the Liber Graduum or Book of Degrees (Ktava demasqatha), often regarded as heterodox.^[36] According to the author of these sermons, ascetics could achieve a state of perfection, at which point they acquired tremendous license to behave as they might. Peter Brown has written, “For them there were no boundaries, no social statuses, no objects of avoidance. For them no thing was unclean. . . . Filled with the Spirit, they felt as little shame at the robust profanity of urban life as a child wandering through a brothel.”^[37] Such a theological stance might explain how a “historical” Symeon’s behavior would have appeared to an onlooker. But in his literary efforts Leontius does not go so far; he makes it plain that Symeon never rejected his extreme ascetic practice in private and that it would have been undesirable for him to do so. Furthermore, Symeon’s apparent license is never presented as a model either for Leontius’s lay audience or for other ascetics.

Leontius’s language is better understood within the common vocabulary of ascetic practice described by writers generally regarded as orthodox by the Chalcedonian hierarchy of the period. One of the Pseudo-Macarian sermons describes successful ascetics thus: “At . . . times they are like incorporeal angels [ὥσπερ άγγελοι ἀσώματοι], they are so light and transcendent, even in the body.”^[38] We find similar statements in the writings of Basil of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, Isidore of Pelusium, and Theodoret of Cyrrhus.^[39]

Concerning the mix of public indulgence and private austerity in the Life of Symeon Patlagean has suggested, “[T]he whole story is constructed on an ascetic reversal of the values of ascesis.”^[40] Ironically, to the extent that his odd behavior prevents Symeon from indulging in the acclaim of others, it is an ascetic discipline. But Leontius does not present Symeon’s apparently antiascetic behavior as an acceptable substitute for more conventional ascetic practice; for while Symeon’s actions are based on the reversal of practices associated with achieving the status of holiness in Late Antiquity, Leontius presents Symeon’s public behavior in Emesa as abominable. In presenting Symeon as profane in public, yet ultimately holy in his private practices, Leontius affirms the conventional asceticism of Late Antique Christianity, an asceticism which, as we have seen, Symeon follows diligently in the desert and does not reject when he goes to the city.

Symeon goes to Emesa in order to save souls. He asks John, “What more benefit do we derive, brother, from passing time in this desert? But if you hear me, get up, let us depart; let us save others. For as we are, we do not benefit anyone except ourselves, and we have not brought anyone else to salvation” (p. 142). Far from rejecting ascetic conventions or criticizing monasticism, Symeon’s remarks underscore the importance of proper ascetic comportment. The success of Symeon’s ascetic practice is firmly attested and is a precondition for his ability to assist others in their salvation, a point to which we shall return.

Leontius’s defense of Symeon, of course, is not limited to his explicit apologies for Symeon’s behavior. In addition to his antiascetic behavior, Symeon engages in activities which were conventional for Late Antique holy men. Through the miracles he performs and the conversions he effects, Symeon’s status as holy is guaranteed. For Leontius, the difference between Symeon’s profane appearance and the reality of his sanctity provide an occasion to conclude his narrative with a moral lesson. “Truly no one knows a person’s deeds without knowing the person’s spirit. Truly we must not judge someone before the time, O friends of Christ, before the Lord comes and illuminates everything” (p. 169). To understand that Symeon was holy is to be party to a revealed truth hidden from the ordinary Christian. Symeon’s deception becomes another manifestation of his sacred power. Although Symeon deviates from the conventional patterns of the holy man, Leontius conveys to his audience that Symeon is a holy man nonetheless.

Symeon’s Shamelessness in Byzantine Tradition

The ways in which Leontius intended his readers to interpret Symeon’s behavior and the way in which actual readers did interpret it may have diverged. Evidence suggests that some found it too racy. A more complete picture develops when examining how later Byzantine readers treated Symeon the Fool, in particular paraphrasers (μεταφραστéς), liturgists, and hagiographers.

A paraphrase of the Life of Symeon is included in an anonymous collection of lives, or menologium, compiled late in the tenth century for use in churches.^[41] The paraphraser provides shortened versions of most of the episodes in Leontius’s Life of Symeon, reducing the length of the entire account to about one-sixth of Leontius’s Life. The paraphraser updates Leontius’s vocabulary, particularly words with colloquial usage or obscure meaning.^[42] Most of the menologium text is devoted to a précis of the second half of the Life of Symeon, and the text leaves the impression of being a listing of Symeon’s miracles.^[43]

The omissions are instructive. The paraphraser reduces Symeon’s activity to his miracles, excising all explanations of Symeon’s behavior. The condensed version leaves out Symeon’s defecation in public (p. 148), the episode where Symeon attends the theater and throws stones at the juggler (p. 150), and condenses a series of episodes dealing with Symeon’s lack of sexual desire and his encounter with prostitutes (pp. 154.28– 156.22) into a short notice explaining that Symeon reformed prostitutes. An even briefer Armenian epitome of the Life of Symeon includes an account of Symeon’s gorging himself on Holy Thursday and his visit to the baths naked, but omits stories about prostitutes or defecating in public.^[44]

To the paraphrasers, it seems, attempts to theologize and thereby defend Symeon’s shamelessness only aggravated the anomaly of Symeon’s behavior. In abandoning explanations, these new versions avoided calling special attention to the potentially troubling implications of Symeon’s actions. The metaphrastic project of the tenth century was, above all, concerned to provide the Church with versions of the lives of the saints acceptable for use during worship services. In order to achieve this goal, the metaphrasts sought to bring the accounts of the saints into conformity with each other. It is precisely what was distinctive about the Life of Symeon which would have to be toned down or excised in order to present a Symeon worthy of inclusion in a calendar of saints. It is no surprise, therefore, that Symeon’s behavior, an apparent rejection of asceticism, was toned down, ignored, or, when presented, dealt with as if it were not problematic.

Another tenth-century liturgical text passed by Symeon’s outrageousness in silence. The Synaxarium of Constantinople summarizes Symeon’s public activity as follows:^[45]

He went to the city of Emesa. He played the part of madness and performed many miracles under this pretense, which not even the most clever people recognized at first, but which they discerned after his death. And when others narrated these things, everyone believed. And everything was set forth toward a common benefit and teaching.^[46]

The blandness of this précis’s treatment of Symeon’s activity in Emesa is underwhelming. The liturgist has chosen not to relate any anecdotes about Symeon’s antic behavior but, ironically, has retained the apologetic tone of Leontius’s account, preempting any possible criticism of Symeon’s activities by asserting his worthy goals.^[47]

It is difficult to say with confidence whether the liturgists of the middle Byzantine period made a concerted effort to excise Symeon’s shamelessness from liturgical celebrations, or whether Symeon’s story suffered through the same process of truncation which all the saints’ lives experienced in the preparation of these liturgical books. In any case, the Symeon of the liturgy seems to have lost his shamelessness and his ability to shock.

Another strategy for reinterpreting Symeon’s behavior is found in the Life of Andrew the Fool written in the middle of the tenth century.^[48] The author of the Life of Andrew was familiar with the Life of Symeon. He makes reference to Symeon, echoes Leontius’s language, and borrows episodes from the Life of Symeon in the construction of his own narrative.^[49] Like Symeon, Andrew defecates in public,^[50] he gorges himself in the market,^[51] and associates freely with women.^[52] For the author of the Life of Andrew such accounts have become the elements of narrating the life of a holy fool. What is of greatest interest for our purposes is that this author does not avoid such material, as did the liturgists, but rather is willing to borrow these themes from Leontius. We must conclude that the author of the Life of Andrew did not consider this material to be too shocking to relate to his audience. On the other hand, although the behavior itself did not seem to bother Andrew’s hagiographer, the status of the perpetrator did. The author of the Life of Andrew changed a significant element of the fool’s tale: Andrew is not a monk. Unlike Symeon, Andrew has not made vows which would raise an audience’s expectations about his commitment to avoid the pleasures of the body, both sexual and dietary.^[53]

The legacy of Symeon in the middle Byzantine period confirms some of Leontius’s own intuitions about his narrative. Later liturgists’ whitewashing of Symeon’s shamelessness might lead us to conclude that middle Byzantines were significantly more prudish than early Byzantines. Yet we cannot escape the fact that Leontius himself felt compelled to defend Symeon’s behavior in order to mollify an audience’s reaction to his off-color tale. We must conclude that without some theological justification for Symeon’s antics, Leontius’s seventh-century Cypriot parishioners would have been shocked. Thus Symeon’s lengthy preparations in the desert, the claim that he had nearly achieved the angelic state of bodilessness, and the assertion, constant throughout the text, that his shamelessness was a ruse all contribute to the construction of “holy folly” by undergirding his holiness. Leontius guarantees his audience that, for the most part, Symeon was like any other holy man—especially in private. Symeon is a saint, then, not because of his shamelessness, but rather in spite of it. Ironically, rather than challenging a Late Antique definition of holiness, Leontius affirms it, and then uses it as a precondition for his fool’s salvific agenda as well as his own. How are we to understand the place of Symeon’s folly in this agenda? What system of values was the bishop of Neapolis trying to communicate by combining traditional markers of sanctity with such acts of transgression in a single tale? Why is Symeon’s holiness veiled behind his folly? In pursuit of these questions we turn next to the theme of concealed sanctity in Late Ancient Christian literature.

Notes