I shall not take the liberty of quoting more: but shall advise all
who read these pages to study seriously Mr. Tennyson's poem if they
wish to understand that darker side of the hermit life which became
at last, in the East, the only side of it. For in the East the
hermits seem to have degenerated, by the time of the Mahomedan
conquest, into mere self-torturing fakeers, like those who may be
seen to this day in Hindostan. The salt lost its savour, and in due
tune it was trampled under foot; and the armies of the Moslem swept
out of the East a superstition which had ended by enervating instead
of ennobling humanity.

But in justice, not only to myself, but to Mr. Tennyson (whose
details of Simeon's asceticism may seem to some exaggerated and
impossible), I have thought fit to give his life at length, omitting
only many of his miracles, and certain stories of his penances,
which can only excite horror and disgust, without edifying the
reader.

There were, then, three hermits of this name, often confounded; and
all alike famous (as were Julian, Daniel, and other Stylites) for
standing for many years on pillars. One of the Simeons is said by
Moschus to have been struck by lightning, and his death to have been
miraculously revealed to Julian the Stylite, who lived twenty-four
miles off. More than one Stylite, belonging to the Monophysite
heresy of Severus Acephalus, was to be found, according to Moschus,
in the East at the beginning of the seventh century. This biography
is that of the elder Simeon, who died (according to Cedrenus) about
460, after passing some forty or fifty years upon pillars of
different heights. There is much discrepancy in the accounts, both