St Simon the Stylite

From Maronite History

St Symeon the Stylite (389 – 459) another monk in Theodoret’s book was a contemporary to St Maroun and St Abraham and lived for almost 40 years in the open air on a stone pillar (eventually 18m high) on a hill top in northern Syria. The fame of his sanctity and miracles caused pilgrims to visit him from all over Asia, Europe, Britain and the Middle East. His name derived from the Greek for pillar, “stylos”. An enormous church was built around the famous pillar and completed in 490AD and at that time was the largest church in the world and still remains relatively intact today. A Syriac manuscript (MS 160) written about 473 AD and held in the Vatican has recently been translated directly from the Syriac into English in 1992 in the book “The lives of Simeon Stylites” by Robert Doran. One passage gives an account of St Simon telling “a great crowd” from the mountains of Lebanon to convert to Christianity and place crosses around their villages to protect them against wild beasts which were eating people and children even inside their homes. Upon doing so, the beasts stopped attacking them. This manuscript was translated from Syriac into Latin in 1719 by the Maronite scholar Simon Assemani. In his book “Bibliotheca Orientalis” also written in Latin, Assemani recalls during his time that the Maronites of Jibbet were still spreading the news of this miracle and pointed him to the rocks where the crosses were carved in the towns of Hasroun, Bsharri, Ehden and Aitou. Several churches exist in the mountain towns of North Lebanon in honour of St Simon. It is possible that Christians were already living in Mount Lebanon prior to St Simon’s time. St Simon in addressing the Lebanese says: “Go and set up four stones on all borders of the villages. If any priests are there, summon them, and make on the stone three crosses.” The reference to priests might imply that Christians were already in the area even in a small number.

If so, possibly these priests were there only from several decades prior as a result of recent conversion by St Abraham which may have spread in the region rather than conversion from earlier times. Again, no firm conclusion can be reached about Christian conversion in Mount Lebanon prior to the 4th/5th century. We can only say it is possible.

Sources:

Marounia, The Maronite Heritage Centre.