September: Day 1: Teaching 1:
Venerable Symeon the Stylite
(Without Effort You Can't Achieve Anything)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
I. The Venerable Symeon, who is commemorated on this day, is called a Stylite, because in the last forty years of his life he labored on a pillar. On what pillar, you ask, and what kind of asceticism is this – a stylite? This is an amazing kind of asceticism, my brethren; even the great ascetics of the Syrian and Egyptian deserts, contemporaries of the Venerable Symeon, were greatly amazed at this kind of asceticism; some of them came from afar to the pillar of Symeon, which is near Syrian Antioch, to look at such a wonderful man of God and to hear at least one word from him. Almost daily crowds of people from different countries, sometimes from very distant ones, came to the place of the exploits of the Stylite Symeon – they came from Georgia, and from Armenia, and from Persia, and from Arabia, and even from Spain, from Italy and Britain – priests and saints came, kings and queens came – and all left the newly-appeared Stylite with great spiritual benefit for themselves and with unspeakable amazement. What did they see there? Imagine a tower built of simple undressed stones, forty cubits high (i.e. about 20 arshins), and so thick that it looked more like a tower than a pillar. On this tower there was a platform, two arshins high, so that two people could barely stand and sit on it. This platform was surrounded by thin walls an arshin high. Rarely was it covered with anything like a roof, and for the most part it was completely open to the cold, and to the heat, and to the snow, and to the rain, and to the winds and to all kinds of bad weather. Here you had the dwelling of the man of God Symeon. Here he spent his days and nights in unceasing feats of fasting, prayer and contemplation of God, here he lived such a holy life, so aflame with heartfelt love for the Lord, that he was, one might say, a brightly burning candle before God in the heavens.
How holy, wonderful and instructive was his life, this can be seen in part already from the fact that whole regiments of Ishmaelite pagans, two hundred, three hundred, and sometimes a thousand people, who came to the pillar of Symeon, with a cry renounced their own pagan errors and those of their fathers, trampled underfoot the idols that they had previously worshiped, smashed them, and with great joy of heart accepted the teaching that the Venerable Symeon offered them from his pillar in honeyed words warmed by the spirit of Christian love. And how many miraculous healings were performed there, how many grace-filled consolations and wise instructions were given! Like a deep river, they flowed from the great grace-filled soul of the Venerable Stylite. “A new and wondrous mystery was accomplished in our days,” wrote one of the many disciples of the Venerable Symeon the Stylite. “I myself, Anthony the sinner and the last of his disciples, saw what was conveyed in letters.” “Although I can testify to the deeds of the Venerable Symeon the Stylite by almost everyone,” says Blessed Theodoret of Cyrus, the writer of his life, “I am afraid to begin the narrative, lest they seem fabulous and unreliable to posterity, since they exceed human nature.”
And how do you think, brethren, that the Venerable Symeon attained such great holiness? “By great labor,” he answers for himself. When he was only thirteen years old, and was still a simple, illiterate shepherd of sheep, after one enlightening incident in the temple of God, Symeon went to a deserted place and there, with tears, prayed to the Lord, that the Lord would reveal to him the path to salvation; he prayed and fell asleep. And so, he saw the following dream: he seemed to be starting to dig a ditch, as if for the foundation of some building. “Dig deeper!” he hears a voice from somewhere. He obeys and digs. Tired of labor, he stops working, thinking that he has already dug enough. But again he hears a voice from there: “Dig even deeper!” He again continues to dig. And for the third time the same voice calls to him, stimulating him to work. Finally, a mysterious voice stops him and says: “Enough already! And now if you want to build, build by working diligently: for without labor you will succeed in nothing." And after this the servant of God Symeon began to work on the salvation of his soul, and he worked as few of the greatest ascetics have worked. Constantly working in spirit, tirelessly watching the inner thoughts of his soul, Symeon also worked hard on bridling his body: sometimes he tied himself with heavy chains, from which terrible wounds appeared, and his body rotted; sometimes he humbled his flesh with seven-day, and sometimes forty-day fasts; sometimes he practiced the feat of silent standing in prayer for whole weeks; then he lived in seclusion for years, etc. And when he labored on the pillar, how much he suffered there for Christ's sake, from insects, and from the daytime summer heat, and from the nighttime winter cold, and from storms, and from various other adversities! Among other things, Blessed Theodoret tells the following about his exploits on the pillar: “It happened once that a large part of the wall that surrounded the upper platform of the pillar fell away, and a door in one of these walls opened. The saint could be clearly seen at that time: and many saw how the saint stood there motionless for a long time, his eyes fixed on heaven, and how many bows he made during prayer. One of those surrounding the pillar wanted to count how many bows he made at one time, and he counted one thousand two hundred and forty-four, and then stopped counting, tired of looking at the height. But the saint was not exhausted from making prostrations and more: his body was so light and spiritual that prayerful prostrations did not present any difficulty for him, or rather, were a common thing for him."
II. But we seem to think that we can save our souls, make them good and holy, without any effort, without any special care... It is a strange thing. In many other matters: whether in arranging a household, cultivating a field, growing a vegetable garden, doing some kind of craft, raising children, etc., etc., we consider work a necessary condition for success in a matter and say: without effort there can be no success in anything. But when it comes to educating our souls, improving them, perfecting them, saving them, we think that this will happen by itself. Live as you live, and that's it; to think about saving the soul, about this most important matter of our life, or better yet, to reflect on one's soul, to work on it, to work with constancy, with patience, seems to be an unnecessary and inappropriate matter. To pray longer with bows at home, to go to the temple of God more often, to stand in it longer and more attentively, to pray there with bows, to fast more strictly for the glory of God on the days appointed by the Church, to watch over our bad habits and fight with them, crucifying our flesh with its passions and lusts, etc., etc., we consider for ourselves an almost unbearable labor... From this it follows that our soul remains an uncultivated and unsown field, like a field of a lazy owner, or like a vegetable garden of a careless housewife, and therefore barren.
III. Let us firmly remember, brethren, the holy rule which taught the Venerable Symeon the Stylite for his whole life, that without labor you will not succeed in anything, and you will not succeed in saving your soul. And what is more precious to us than our soul? What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul (makes it empty), or what will a man give in exchange for his soul, that is, how will a man compensate for the loss of his soul? The Lord reminds each of us, thereby urging us to labor with all our might for the salvation of our souls. Let us also recall another saying of the Savior: The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and only those who use force attain it (Matt. 11:12). Amen.
Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
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