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DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
169
earningthe title of Holy Man and fame as a healer, intercessor,magician, and resolverof disputes for an entire region.6
It was becausehe was engulfedin a veritablesea of pilgrimsand suppliants from throughout the Near East that Theodoret explains
Symeon'sretreatupwards,into the sky.' At first Symeonclimbedonto
a short pillar(hardly,one might say, a means of avoidingpeople);but
in the courseof the next forty or so yearsSymeon'sgraduallyincreased
perchattaineda height of over thirty feet. His fame spreadeven wider
as he stood upon the pillar, a livingstatuevisiblefor milesaround.And
thus his death in about 459 not only inspiredbattles over Symeon's
relics,8but soon thereaftera sizeable basilica was erectedaround the
pillar, the Churchof St. Symeon the Stylite. The solitarypillar, now
coveredunderan enormousdome, from which extendedfour galleries
spaciousenoughfor entiredeserttribes,becamethe core of a pilgrimage
site of internationalrenown.Certainlythe continuedmagnetismof the
pillar alone contributedto the institutionof "stylitism" as an ascetic
practicethat hundredsmore would imitate in the ensuingcenturies.
Lucian's Report of the Phallobates
170
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
seven days. This reason is given for the ascent. The populace believes that
he communes with the gods on high and asks for blessings on all Syria, and
the gods hear the prayers from nearby. Others think that this, too, is done
because of Deucalion, as a memorial of that disaster when men went to the
mountains and the highest of the trees out of terror at the flood. Now,
these explanations seem unbelievable to me. I think that they do this as well
for Dionysus. I make the conjecture for these reasons: Whoever erects
phalli to Dionysus sets on them wooden men - for what reason I will not
say. At any rate, it seems to me that the man climbs up in imitation of this
wooden man.
The ascent is like this: The man ties a short cord around himself and the
phallus; then he goes up on pieces of wood attached to the phallus, large
enough for his toes. As he ascends, he throws the cord up on both sides
as though he were handling reins. If someone has not seen this but has seen
those who climb the date palms either in Arabia or in Egypt or in some
other place, then he knows what I mean.
When he reaches the end of his climb, he lets down another cord which
he has. This is a long one, and with it he hauls up what he wants, wood
and clothes and utensils, from which he puts together a dwelling like a nest,
settles there and remains for the number of days I mentioned. Many come
and deposit gold and silver, others deposit bronze, which they use as coin,
into a large jar which sits in front and each person says his name. Someone
else stands by and calls up the name. The climber receives it and makes a
prayer for each person. As he prays, he shakes a bronze device which
sounds loud and sharp when it is moved. He never sleeps. If sleep ever does
overtake him, a scorpion climbs up, wakes him, and treats him
unpleasantly. This is the penalty imposed on him for sleeping. They tell
holy and pious stories about the scorpion. Whether they are accurate, I am
unable to say. It seems to me that one thing that contributes greatly to
wakefulness is the fear of falling. This is enough said about the Phallusclimbers [phallobates].'?
Crucial for the understanding of this strange practice is the recognition of Lucian's own style and motives in presenting it. For example,
his use of the word phallos for the pillars appears to be ironic, an
outgrowth of the interpretatio Graeca which he brings to local cults and
his fascination with Dionysus worship. Lucian himself admits that their
sexual connotations are debatable. He is quite explicit in dismissing the
local understandings of the practice, introducing instead an association
(connected with his interest in the Dionysus cult) with the virility
figurines placed on much smaller phalloi inside temples in Greece:
Greeks erect phalli to Dionysus on which they have something of this sort:
small wooden men with large genitals. These are called puppets
[neurospasta]. This, too, is in the sanctuary. In the right part of the temple
sits a small man of bronze with a large penis."
171
172
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
173
174
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
175
176
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
hoi polloi-their prayers, folklore, and general well-being-in contradistinction to the "high pagan" theology of Hierapolis religion, reinforces the impression that the pillar-cult of Lucian's Hierapolis was a
separate, more popular, and perhaps more traditional (older) religious
practice than the Hellenized cult of Hierapolis.24aI therefore offer the
idea that a more basic "pillar symbolism" occupied the religious consciousness of second century Syrians in the neighborhood of Hierapolis.
Might this facilitate establishing continuity with Symeon the Stylite?
It is the location in particular of Qal'at Simcan, the site of Symeon's
pillar and church, which suggests some sort of continuity with the
phenomenon Lucian describes, for this mountain stands less than 100
kilometers from Hierapolis. Though in the Byzantinizing sphere of Antioch, Qalcat Simcan lay in the midst of an ancient culture of mountain
peasantry, crossed from earliest times by Arabs and other trading
peoples. Christianity made little impact here, and then only through the
powerful charisma of Symeon and other holy men. When evangelism
succeeded, the new ideologies invariably simmered at a low
temperature, and often blew out, as many stories of Syrian holy men,
the instruments of revival, bear witness. But even in the case of Symeon,
it appears that his devotees were more interested in the powers of the
divine Symeon than the theology of the divine Christ.
The hagiographers are explicit about Symeon's encounter with preChristian cultures, and thus are testimony to the rarity and strangeness
of Christianity in this region of northern Syria. Even to Theodoret's
later fifth century redactor the hordes and diversity of converts were
striking:
...the Iberians,the Armenians,the Persianswho arrivethereand receive
the holy baptism.As for the Ismaelites[Arabtribes]who arrivein bands,
two hundredor threehundredat a time, often even by the thousand,they
foresweartheirancestralerrorwith greatcries, smashingbeforethis great
luminarythe idols that their fathers worshipped,and, renouncingthe
orgies of Aphrodite-for they had long ago adopted the cult of this
demon-, they participatein the divinemysteries,acceptingthe laws from
this sacredmouth,biddingfarewellto the customof theirfathers,and abstaining from eating donkey and camel.25
When such a large part of both Theodoret and the Syriac life are
taken up with exaggerated descriptions of Symeon's conversions, it is
quite obvious that Christianity had taken little hold in this area by the
early fifth century. Another Symeon described by Theodoret, a hermit
177
who first achieved notoriety from his cave in the desert, encountered the
persistence of popular sacred space when he arrived on the top of
Mount Amanus (north of Antioch) to set up a new dwelling: "this
place, formerly filled with the multiple madnesses of polytheism, he
cultivated with many different kinds of miracles, and thus planted the
piety which governs there now."26
"Christianity" in Northern Syria
It is well known among scholars of Late Antiquity that pre-Christian
traditions and native religious cultures around the Mediterranean persisted well into the sixth century and later. This was particularly the case
in northern rural Syria. Walter Kaegi has found that in
Heliopolis/Baalbek (to the south of Qalcat Simcan) "Christians still remained a minority even as late as the reign of Tiberius II (572-582)"; 27
and both Kaegi and Frend have convincingly established that rural
cultures in Byzantium retained their local traditions much longer, more
prominently, and with more resistance than cultures within
cosmopolitan spheres: "paganism was strongest where it survived as a
community force, that is in remote villages."28 John of Ephesus' account of the Holy Man Symeon the Mountaineer conveys this rural
resistance to full "conversion" quite vividly. Symeon, traversing the
mountains west of the Euphrates, comes upon numerous villages whose
token monuments and memories of Christianity have fallen to the
wayside as useless:
... The shepherdswouldstateto him, "We found our fatherslivingin this
way on these mountains;and inasmuchas we were born on them, lo! we
also live on them." And again [Symeon]would ask them, "How then, as
you live on these mountains,areyou able to assemblein God's house, and
to hear his word from the holy Scriptures,or to communicatein the
mysteriesof his body and blood?" But these men, like some wild beasts,
upon these words laughed at the blessed man, and they said: "How,
blessedsir, does the oblationthat a man receivedprofit him? For what is
the oblation? 29
178
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
179
Whether or not the ritual of the phallobates was intrinsically connected to the cult of Atargatis in the temple of Hierapolis, Macrobius
implies that the temple itself was thriving in the fourth century; and
even in the sixth century Jacob of Saroug indicates the central importance of Hierapolis (and "The Goddess") for all the region's native
cults.35 It thus seems quite clear that northern Syria, particularly rural
Syria, never assimilated Christianity in such a way as to justify the notion of cultural "conversion" or its accompanying presuppositions.36
We now have two conditions which allow a relationship between Lucian's report of the Hierapolis phallobates and St. Symeon the Stylite:
a) there is no reason to presume an intrinsic relationship between the
pillar "cult" by the Hierapolis temple gates and the temple cult proper,
and so we must look elsewhere for pillar symbolism or rituals, and to
understand a diffuse, uncentralized religious tradition, not a singular,
established "pagan rite;" b) native traditions and religious cultures were
normative, rather than obsolete, in the region of Qalcat SimCan. Corollary to both of these observations is the fact that that complex of indigenous traditions, symbols, lore, and religions usually grouped under
the term "paganism" does not constitute an ideology, nor very often a
mythological canon.37 The force and meaning of local or "popular"
religions are rarely contained in anything as articulate and verbal as
"beliefs" or doctrines. Rather, the local religion is a matter of tradition,
act, and pragmatics (the "spiritual" experience of religion notwithstanding). Thus we must regard the rural Syria of Late Antiquity as containing a religious culture, a complex of traditions, not a singular and
monolithic "paganism" of which the proto-stylitism of Hierapolis was
one component rite. Through this perspective on religion I am not connecting a "pagan sex cult" in Hierapolis with Symeon's "purified
asceticism" in a simplistic and unilinear path, but rather analyzing two
analogous representations of (I suspect) a general tradition of pillar
symbolism and ritual in Greco-Roman Syria. Such a general morphology of popular devotion as pillars, unconnected to a "formal" cult
center and goddess, would escape the eyes of a hagiographer interested
more in Christ's victory over the major Greco-Roman gods. Stylitism
to the hagiographer would thus appear as a novelty, an intriguing new
form of asceticism, issuing "naturally" from the pious tendencies of the
saint.38 The precise continuity with epichoric traditions the
hagiographer would miss, as irrelevant to the aretalogia of the saint's
life.
180
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
181
182
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
1. Fragmentary relief of figure holding semeion; Palmyra, 1st century C.E. (limestone;
21 x 13x4). From: H. J. W. Drijvers, The Religion of Palmyra, Iconography of
Religions 15/15 (Leiden 1976), pl. LXXIV/1.
the sphere of intensive Hellenization should militate against an argument from silence regarding regions inside this sphere. Furthermore, if
(as seems clear) the iconography in all cases represents a divine symbol
held up on a pillar (or pole), then we must seek examples more generally
of sacred objects on pillars, poles, or monoliths in Syria. Here Lucian's
semeion provides an instructive example: the semeion holds a dove, a
symbol of Atargatis.50 But Jacob of Saroug's description of native
Syrian cults in the sixth century C.E. offers a curious combination of
a) the sacralization of high places (the common location of baetyls, but
characteristic of native religions in general51), and b) the image of the
183
2. "Stele with semeion and syriac inscription found in the Atargatis temple at DuraEuropos, now in the National Museum at Damascus." From: H. J. W. Drijvers, Cults
and Beliefs at Edessa (Leiden 1980), 202 & pl. XXIII.
The combination of these various forms of religious representation-baetyl, semeion, and crescent pillar or horned pillar-persisting
as basic to Syrian and Mesopotamian cultures well into the common era
184
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
has a double relevance for Symeon the Stylite in the fifth century. First,
it means that the pillar was a highly usual and traditionally significant
emblem on which to place a holy figure in the cultural world of Late
Antique Syria; there was no novelty to the pillar as an iconographic
statement, particularly when the pillar was placed on a highly visible
hilltop (as was the case with Symeon the Elder, Symeon the Younger,
and even Daniel the Stylite, whose perch overlooked the Bosphoros).
And second, although the figure on top could change to suit a diversity
of divinities, the sacred nature of this figure was understood within a
traditional religions matrix. As baetyls (and, presumably, the horned
pillar relief of the Sumatar cave) derive from nomadic Arab culture,53
we might suppose that the many nomad tribes who visited and paid
homage to the pillar even long after Symeon had died might well have
understood the pillar in relation to the baetyl tradition.54In like fashion,
visitors from urban Byzantium might have brought their own associations of imperial pillars and statuary to their understanding of Symeon's
sanctity.55
Finally, the evidence for a common pillar iconography in Late Antique Syria would suggest an important continuity between the
phallobates and Symeon: that in each case the stylite participated in a
more basic symbolic form for the representation of the Holy. Symeon
was neither recalling the phallobates' specific practice nor conceiving on
his own of a novel form of Christian ordeal; rather, regional
iconographic tradition-which could naturally extend to regional
"cultic" tradition-came to expression in (at least) two cases separated
by several hundred years. And there is little reason to believe that the
intervening centuries would not have had additional instances of
stylitism in the area west of the Euphrates.56
Stylitism as Continuity
The major methodological problem that arises when one generalizes
a symbol is the tendency towards archetypalism: the notion that an image or idea is so basic-psychologically or structurally-that it
transcends all particular relationship with a culture, time, or place.
Pillars and the ritual ascents of pillars easily lend themselves to this kind
of generalizing, and often quite rightly.57But archetypalism can become
deterministic, as the generalized meaning and force of a symbol begins
to govern and even obscure its more particular meanings and contexts.58
185
by John
186
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
187
188
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
the religious cultures of Syria had developed from before Late Antiquity.
Symeon and Christian Asceticism
As much as we can "disengage" the phalloi from the Hierapolis cult
sanctuary, in order to view them amidst this wider religious and
iconographic complex of pillar symbolism, we should also disengage Symeon's ascent of a pillar from an exalted and pure "Christian"
asceticism. Arthur Voobus has pointed out that
... even the Syrianfondnessfor extravagantpracticesand theirskill at inventing means of mortificationcould not hold back the admissionthat
Sem'on was unique. He had surpassedeverythingto create a form of
asceticlife whichmade him originaland took him out of the class of ordinaryathletes.Only in knowingthis does it becomeunderstandablethat
other Syrian monks who were themselvesalways ready for imaginable
forms of austerity,found in the actions of Semconreasonsfor criticism
and even for blame.70
Indeed, for neither Theodoret nor the author of the Syriac Life was
Symeon's pillar a "natural" ascetic idea. Theodoret's apology-"I ask
fault-finders [mempsimoirous] to curb their tongue and not to let it be
carried away at random, but to consider how often the Master has contrived such things for the benefit of the more easygoing"7--bears
witness to widespread disapproval and suspicion of Symeon's act; and
Theodoret follows with a list of Hebrew prophets who obeyed equally
bizarre commands from God.72 Theodoret himself believed that Symeon climbed up to flee the crowds, while the Syriac Life says merely
that "after these things he set up a stone, that he might stand upon it,
that had four bases and was two cubits high." 73That is, neither sought
to divulge Symeon's own motives. Thus each hagiographer also added
a predictive vision from God to Symeon's early life, to present the pillar
as God's own inscrutable and authoritative plan for his servant Symeon.
Moreover, Symeon in his divine appearances to others on land and sea
was said explicitly to have manifested himself on his column, just as in
the iconography of the stylites.74 It is evident that the hagiographical
literature on Symeon expressly sought to explain an epichoric style of
piety to ecclesiarchs and monks who were alien to rural Syrian
religiosity.75It is not possible to maintain that already before Theodoret
concocted the apologetic parallels with Hebrew prophets and exalted
allusions to Christ, Symeon was understood in this way.
189
190
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
191
' This
paper was originally presented in a seminar on pilgrimage shrines with Elizabeth
Sears and Patricia Brown of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. I thank Professors Brown and Sears for their comments, and also Glen Bowersock,
Peter Brown, John Gager, Martha Himmelfarb, and Susan Ashbrook Harvey for reading
and commenting on drafts of the paper.
2
Les Saints Stylites, Subsidia Hagiographica XIV (Brussels 1923) cxc.
3
Among the primary and secondary sources on Symeon's hagiography, the following
should be mentioned: Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Historia Religiosa 26 (ed. & tr. by Pierre
192
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
Canivet & Alice Leroy-Molinghen, Theodoret de Cyr: Histoire des moines de Syrie I, II,
Sources Chr6tiennes CCXXXIV, CCLVII [Paris 1977]; also tr. by R. M. Price, A History
of the Monks of Syria, Cistercian Studies LXXXVIII [Kalamazoo, MI 1985]); A.-J.
Festugiere, Antioche Pafenne et Chretienne (Paris 1959); Frederick Lent, The Life of St.
Simeon Stylites: A Translation of the Syriac Text in Bedjan's Acta Martyrum et Sanctorum IV, Journal of the American Oriental Society 35 (1915) 103-198; Hans Lietzmann,
Das Leben des Heiligen Symeon Stylites, Texte und Untersuchungen 32/4 (1908); Paul
Peeters, S. Sym6on Stylite et Ses Premiers Biographes, Analecta Bollandiana 61 (1943) 2971. On the style and orientations of the various hagiographies see Susan Ashbrook
Harvey, The Sense of a Stylite: Perspectives on Simeon the Elder, Vigiliae Christianae 42
(1988) 376-394, and Evelyne Patlagean, Ancient Byzantine hagiography and social
history, tr. by Jane Hodgkin, Saints and Their Cults, ed. by Stephen Wilson (Cambridge
1983) 101-121. Robert Doran's forthcoming Cistercian Studies edition of the lives of Symeon will contain critical translations of all the major sources.
4 For the
uniqueness of the Syrians' radical asceticism and mortification, see Arthur
Voobus, History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient II, Early Monasticism in
Mesopotamia and Syria, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium CXCVII, Subsidia XVII (Louvain 1960) 292-315.
5
For an interpretation of the symbolism of this form of asceticism see Canivet &LeroyMolinghen, Theodoret de Cyr II, 179 n. 3.
6
See Peter Brown, The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity, and
Town, Village, and Holy Man: The Case of Syria, in idem, Society and the Holy in Late
Antiquity (Berkeley 1982) 103-152, 153-165.
' Theodoret, Hist. Rel. 26, 10-12.
8
References in the Syriac life to the salvation brought to Antioch through Symeon's corpse (which, it should be noted, was confiscated from the pilgrimage town), suggest that
this hagiography had the added purpose of defending Antioch's claim to the body; see
Lent, Life of St. Simeon Stylites, 195ff.
9
Harold W. Attridge and Robert A. Oden, The Syrian Goddess (De Dea Syria) Attributed to Lucian, SBL Texts and Translations IX (Missoula 1976) 38-41; cf. Mario
Meunier, La Deesse Syrienne: Traduction Nouvelle (Paris 1980) 89-93; A. M. Harmon,
tr., Lucian IV, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge &London 1953) 378-383; Herbert
A. Strong, The Syrian Goddess (London 1913) 66-69.
De Dea Syria 28-29.
"De Dea Syria 16 Tr. by Attridge and Oden, ibid. 25.
12
The Greek interest in phallic cults is exemplified in Herodotus, Hist. 2, 47-49; the
cultic use of phallic "puppets" (neurospasta) is even alluded to in ibid., 48.
'3 On these functions as essential to the Christian holy man's charisma see Peter Brown,
Rise and Function of the Holy Man.
'4 Revue de l'Histoire des Religions 65 (1912) 171-177.
5 Lent, Life of St. Simeon
Stylites, 104.
16 Hippolyte Delehaye, Les saints stylites, clxxvii.
7 Ibid. clxxx, clxxxi.
18 Wright, Simeon's Ancestors (or The Skeleton on the Column), Australian Journal of
Biblical Archaeology 1/1 (1968) 41-49, and The Heritage of the Stylites, Australian
Journal of Biblical Archaeology 1/3 (1970) 82-107.
193
31
32
Ibid. 241-246.
Ibid. 236.
W. Liebeschuetz, Problems Arising from the Conversion of Syria, The Church in
194
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
Town and Countryside, ed. by Derek Baker, Studies in Church History XVI (Oxford
1979) 17-24; Drijvers, The Persistence of Pagan Cults and Practices in Christian Syria,
East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period (Dumbarton Oaks Symposium, 1980), ed. by Nina Garsoian, Thomas Matthews, & Robert Thompson
(Washington, D.C. 1982) 35-43. Cf. cautions in considering popular and rural religion,
Peter Brown, Holy Man, 105-108.
34 Joshua the Stylite, Chronicle 30, 31 (tr. by W. Wright, The Chronicle of Joshua the
Stylite [Cambridge 1882] 20, 22).
35
Macrobius, Saturnalia 1, 17, 66 (refers to a cult and statue of Apollo in Hierapolis);
Jacob of Saroug, On the Fall of the Idols 44 (a reference to Atargatis?), 59-62 (see Martin,
Discourse de Jacques de Saroug sur la chute des idoles, Zeitschrift der deutschen
morgenlandischen Gesellschaft 29 [1875] 132n.2, using the commentary by Assemani);
G. R. H. Wright, Heritage of the Stylites, 94, 105nn.60-61. Wright's reading of these
references and his use of them to justify a connection between Symeon and Atargatis
devotion I find less than convincing-hagiographers would have been quick to identify
and redefine any such "pagan" connections.
36 Harran, a town south-east of Edessa, appears to have maintained its native religions
well into the Islamic period. No bishop was installed there until the middle of the fourth
century, and during Julian's trip around the Near East the town welcomed him warmly.
See J. B. Segal, Pagan Syriac Monuments in the Vilayet of Urfa, Anatolian Studies 3
(1953) 108-109.
37
The legend of Symeon the Mountaineer (see above) describes a people with "no
religion" as far as John of Ephesus could imagine. This would mean that they fit neither
in a proper category of "paganism"-i.e., with names of gods and a full theogony-nor
of Christianity or Judaism. Evidently rural Syrian religion is not to be described in these
anachronistic and romantic categories.
38
See Voobus, History of Asceticism II, 217 on the hagiography of stylites (particularly
Symeon) as apology against a considerable amount of contemporaneous opposition to the
strange practice.
39
A baetyl "sanctuary," with accompanying inscriptions, was discovered at Sumatar
(about 100 kms south-east of Edessa). The inscriptions indicate both political and sacred
functions in erecting baetyls; e.g.: "(And may he give the stool [or base]) to him whom
he rears. (Then) he will get his recompense from [the god] Mar-lah6. But if he withholds
the stool and the baetyl will be ruined, may he the god know (it)" (tr. by Drijvers, Cults
and Beliefs, 126); cf. Segal, Pagan Syriac Monuments; Drijvers, Old-Syriac (Edessean) Inscriptions (Leiden 1972) 16-18.
40
Toufic Fahd, Le pantheon de l'Arabie central a la veille de l'Hegire (Paris 1968) 24-35.
41
It is presumed that this monolith was similar to that in the Syrian temple of Emesa,
where Herodian attests that "there was no actual man-made statue of the god, the sort
Greeks and Romans put up; but there was an enormous stone, rounded at the base and
coming to a point at the top, conical in shape and black. This stone is worshipped as if
it were sent from heaven..." (Herodian 5, 3, 5; tr. C. R. Whittaker, Herodian II, The
Loeb Classical Library [Cambridge & London 1970] 18ff.); on Elagabalus' removal of it,
see Herodian 5, 5, 6 and discussions in Glen W. Bowersock, Herodian and Elagabalus,
Yale Classical Studies 24 (1975) 234; and Hitti, History of Syria, 312, 344, 384f.
42 De Dea
Syria 33, tr. by Attridge &Oden, The Syrian Goddess, 45. Drijvers, Cults and
Beliefs, 80-83.
195
43
46
47
Cf. Holly Pittman and Joan Aruz, Ancient Art in Miniature: Near Eastern Seals from
the Collection of Martin and Sarah Cherkasky (New York 1987), cat. #64 (Metropolitan
Museum of Art 1985.192.15); compare # 61 (MMA 1986.311.50), 77 (MMA 1984.383-20).
Palmyrean stele: Drijvers, The Religion of Palmyra, Iconography of Religions XV/15
(Leiden 1976), pl. LXXIV/1.
48
Drijvers, Religion of Palmyra, 22.
48a See
Segal, Pagan Syriac Monuments, 22.
49
Dura: Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs, 107ff.; Sumatar: ibid. 130; cf. Segal, Pagan Syriac
Monuments, 102f.
50
Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs, 109; on the symbolic function of the semeion vis-a-vis
Atargatis and Hadad, see ibid. 95. On the widespread lore of the dove icon in Syria and
Palestine see Jarl Fossum, Samaritan Demiurgical Traditions and the Alleged Dove Cult
of the Samaritans, Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions (Fest. G. Quispel) ed.
R. van den Broek & M. J. Vermaseren (Leiden 1981) 144-50.
51
See above, n.26, and Theodoret, Hist. Rel. 28, 1: the hermit Thalelaeus "repaired to
a hill on which there was a precinct dedicated to demons and honored with many sacrifices
by the impious of old" (tr. Price, 180).
52
Jacob of Saroug, On the Fall of the Idols 100, 111, 135 (Martin, 133f. [emphasis
mine] ).
53
Drijvers, Cults and Beliefs, 137-139.
54
Theodoret, Hist. Rel. 26, 13 (above, n. 26), 16, 18, 21. The north and west apses of
Qalcat Simcan were big enough for large crowds, yet not designed for holy liturgy (which
went on in the east apse). From this fact we might presume that large groups of noninitiates (i.e., not allowed to attend the liturgy) came on pilgrimage to the church, and
these would undoubtedly have been (after Theodoret's testimony) cultural groups-tribes.
See Georges Tchalenko, Villages Antiques de la Syrie du Nord I (Paris 1953) 237ff.; Jean
Lassus, Sanctuaires Chretiennes de Syrie (Paris 1947) 129, 132. On Symeon's special
significance to Arabs, see Voobus, History of Asceticism II, 222.
5
Many medieval Byzantine stylites actually chose these imperial columns to stand on,
both replacing and continuing the old "pagan" symbolism; see Delehaye, Les saints
stylites, cxxxiii, cxlix, Ignace Pefia, Martyrs du Temps de Paix, 33f.
56
Similarly, it is not surprising to find analogous forms of "pillar religion" in other
parts of Arabia, as the peoples there travelled widely. Thus in South Arabia there still exists the following ancient practice, reported by Werner Daum, A Pre-Islamic Rite in South
Arabia, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1987), 5-14:
The central ceremony consists in the erection of two wooden poles, one longer and
one somewhat shorter ... The preparation of the poles starts in the evening after
sunset. The poles are first washed with water, and then henna is applied... The two
196
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
poles are decorated with a bundle of cloth... When the two poles are erected, boys
climb up them, usually suspended from a rope fixed on top of the pole. They then
slither down, go up again, and so on. I did not expect an answer when I asked what
the significance of this 'play' might be, but I was told it was meant to ensure abundance of children. If the children played zealously, many boys would be born in the
following year (7).
A phallic/fertility interpretation is both obvious and limited; so also is the local interpretation, legends of the saint after which one of the poles is named (the other is simply
called "female"). The ceremony seems more aptly associated with a series of Arabic
"height" rituals, including the Western Syrian stylites, their historical predecessors, and
the "rope tricks" performed in Arabic markets. See Mircea Eliade, Ropes and Puppets,
in idem, The Two and the One, tr. by J. M. Cohen (Chicago 1965) 160-188.
57 For a
very cogent analysis of the pillar as axis mundi-that is, as vertical mediator of
worlds and sustainer of cosmic stability-see Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane
(New York 1959) 32-58; idem, Patterns in Comparative Religion (New York 1958) 99-108,
379-385.
58
For this reason I find it irrelevant to compare these Northern Syrian phenomena with
the "giant Jupiter" columns of Caesar's Gaul. For a full discussion see Emile Thevenot,
Divinites et Sanctuaires de la Gaule (Paris 1968) 28-40, and Werner Muller, Die
Jupitergigantensaulen und ihre Verwandten (Meisenheim am Glan 1975). Naturally, this
subject could be extended to Celtic menhirs and Indian linga (cf. also John Irwin, The
ancient pillar-cult at Prayaga [Allahabad]: its pre-Asokan origins, Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society [1983] 253-280).
59 Daniel:
Life of Daniel the Stylite 8, 21, 23-24 (in: Elizabeth Dawes &Norman Baynes,
Three Byzantine Saints [Crestwood, NY 1977]). While the Vita of Symeon the Younger
strikingly lacks any reference to Symeon the Elder, there is general agreement that the
church and cult built around his pillar on Mt. Admirable were based completely on Qal'at
Simcan; see for example Paul van den Ven, La Vie ancienne de S. Symeon Stylite le Jeune
I (Brussels 1962) 171-178.
60
See Pascal Castellana, Les stylites autour de Qalcat Simcan, Les Stylites Syriens,
87-159.
"' John Moschos tells of a "heretical" (i.e., monophysite) stylite living "in a certain part
of Hierapolis," (Pratum Spirituale 36 [PG 87, 2883-6]). The fact that he was
Monophysite might suggest a more rural and local continuity with Symeon-who was also
supposed to have been Monophysite-than with some sort of "Stylite institution"
mediated through the ecclesiarchy.
Lives of the Eastern Saints, tr. by Brooks, 56f.
h2
63
Susan Ashbrook Harvey, personal communication, 10/5/87.
64
Lassus, Sanctuaires Chrdtiennes de Syrie, 278-9, 286, pl. XLVI, XLVII; Fernandez,
Le culte et l'iconographie des stylites, 174-203, plus Plates. For a close analysis of the
iconography of the stylite eulogia, see Gary Vikan, Byzantine Pilgrimage Art
(Washington, DC 1982) 27-40, who reconstructs their "magical" or invocational
meaning.
65
Drijvers, Spatantike Parallelen, 101-106.
6
Wright, Heritage of the Stylites, 83-90.
67
Fernandez, ibid. 202f.
197
68
Ren6 Mouterde, Nouvelles images de stylites, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 13
(1947) 248 & figs. 2-3.
69
See Castellana, Les stylites.
70
Voobus, History of Asceticism II, 216f.
1
Hist. Rel. 26, 12 (tr. by Price, 165).
72
Hist. Rel. 26, 12; cf. Canivet & Leroy-Molinghen, Theodoret de Cyr II, 185n.3:
"Theodoret's explanations and OT references undoubtedly also constitute an apology for
Symeon, destined across the skeptics to the detractors of his asceticism." In an analogous
episode of ecclesiastical disapproval of stylitism, Gregory of Tours reports a conflict occurring in sixth century rural Gaul between a certain Vulfolaic, a holy man and St. Martin
aficionado, and the bishops of the region (History of the Franks 8, 15), Vulfolaic had
erected a pillar next to a statue of the village's god (called Diana in Gregory of Tour's
reportage), and stood upon it through at least one winter. Accordingly, crowds flocked
to him, and he succeeded in exhorting them to tear down the "Diana." But in doing so
the townspeople may have exchanged a piety centered upon the statue for a parallel form
of practical religion centered on the new "statue" nearby. Accordingly, the bishops, happening by, upbraided Vulfolaic for daring to imitate the great Symeon Stylites, and
ultimately had his pillar destroyed. It is probable that these bishops, like the objects of
Theodoret's apologia, perceived in Vulfolaic's stylitism an insufficient rupture with
epichoric styles of piety. On pillar traditions in classical Gaul see above, n.58.
73
Theodoret, Hist. Rel. 26,12; Syriac Life, tr. by Lent, Life of St. Simeon Stylites, 132f.
74
Symeon's "attachment" to his pillar in iconography (see above) and epiphany continues even outside his own hagiographies. Even Daniel the Stylite (C5) sees "a huge pillar
of cloud standing opposite him and the holy and blessed Simeon standing above the head
of the column and two men of goodly appearance, clad in white, standing near him in
the heights" (Life of Daniel the Stylite 21 [tr. by Dawes &Baynes, Three Byzantine Saints
18). It is improbable that this pillar of cloud is merely a reflex of heavenly heights, since
no apocalyptic visions ever expressed vertical distance in this way; furthermore, the rest
of the chapter makes a distinction between the cloud-pillar's inaccessible height and
heaven itself.
Nevertheless, instances of heavenly pillars do occur in Late Antique literature of the
Near East. The seventh Sibylline Oracle describes how God "will hang an axis through
the middle of the sky, and set up a great terror for men to behold on high, an immense
pillar [kiona] with great fire, from which drops will destroy the evil races of men who have
done harm" (25-27; tr. John Collins, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha I [Garden City, NY
1983] 410). In Cyril of Scythopolis' Life of St. Sabas (sixth century) it is said that Sabas
found the cave "where to this day his venerable body is lying... [when he saw] a fiery column standing on the earth, its top reaching to heaven" (18 [E. Schwartz, Kyrillos von
Skythopolis, Texte und Untersuchungen 4/2 (Leipzig 1939) 101]). And a Manichaean
tradition of an eschatological "Column of Glory" (Cologne Mani Codex 34, 6) circulated
from the third century C.E.; see Gedaliahu Stroumsa, Aspects de l'eschatologie
manich6enne, RHR 198 (1981) 176f., 177n.56; and Rabbinic parallels in L. Ginzberg,
Legends of the Jews V (Philadelphia, 1968) 91n.49.
5
In an analysis of Theodoret's motivations in portraying the rise of asceticism and the
decline of "paganism," Pierre Canivet described an ideology of replacement: "The hour
was come, in effect when the temples of the pagans were disused or destroyed to cede place
198
DAVID T. M. FRANKFURTER
to the Christian cult; or, conversely, next to the forbidden sanctuary or the silenced oracle
were erected martyrs' tombs.... Theodoret had the merit to attempt justification of this
transfer or substitution by founding it on a theory to which several intellectuals could
subscribe... [that is,] in order that his reader might pass from paganism to a Christianity
where, without excluding oneself from one's regional identity, he should find a superior
religion" (Histoire d'une entreprise apologetique au V sicle [Paris 1957] 108; emphasis
mine). Thus in the case of Symeon Stylites, one of the Christian cults exhibiting most continuity with local tradition, Theodoret had to show both the intrinsic value in this continuity and the purity in its "underlying motivations."
76
Hist. Rel. 26, 12. The situation is nicely put by Brown, Holy Man, 112: "The hermit
deliberately placed himself on the mountain tops, as a usurper of the power of the
bacalim. From such tops, he could look down on prosperous villages and on the farmers
working on the slopes. He belonged to a world that was not so much antithetical to village
life as marginal."
77
Cf. Steven Fraade on the analysis of early Jewish asceticism: "scholars frequently
argue that the extent to which a particular religious practice (or complex of practices) is
considered ascetic is determined by the purpose that motivates that practice. Unfortunately, motivations for particular religious practices are frequently difficult to discern.
They are most often left unarticulated, and when articulated are either ambiguous,
manifold, fluid, or inconsistent within a particular religious system. The criterion of
motivation of purpose provides a window through which ... subjective predispositions ...
are bound to enter" (Ascetical Aspects of Ancient Judaism, Jewish Spirituality: From the
Bible through the Middle Ages, ed. by Arthur Green [New York 1986] 254).
78
Brown, The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge 1978) passim; Town, Village, and
Holy Man (loc. cit.); and Holy Man (loc. cit.).
79
The evidence for female stylites is sparse, but referred to in Voobus, History of
Asceticism II, 273 and in Delehaye, Les femmes stylites, Analecta Bollandiana 27 (1908)
391-392.
80
The general morphology of Syrian asceticism, as described by Voobus, suggests that
much of it grew out of traditional modes of behavior and expression. The self-destructive
and even masochistic practices of ascetics while in ecstatic trances-Vo6bus even finds
some evidence for self-castration (ibid. 257f.) and suicide (ibid. 28-33)-certainly recall
the extravagant (and long abhorred by such western observers as Lucian-cf. idem, De
Dea Syria 20, 51) mortifications of Atargatis and Cybele priests just a few centuries earlier
in the same region. Thus Voobus observes the "Monasticism among the Syrians is not
only autochthonous in its origin, but also is, spiritually, a definitely independent
phenomenon, framed according to its own spiritual genius.... Mortification, individualism, and the tendency towards mystical experiences marks its profile" (ibid. 315).
'8 Ecclesiastical History 1, 14 (J. Bidez & L. Parmentier, The Ecclesiastical History of
Evagrius [London 1898] 24).
82
After Helmut Koester and James Robinson, Trajectories in Early Christianity
(Philadelphia 1971).
NJ 08544-1006