418 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[21'! S. V. 125., May 22. '58. 



283 ; soft metal, 50. " The expence of cutting 

 the dye" was 88Z. 16.9.; the amount was "paid 

 by the hands of Mr. Stephen Dillon," but the ac- 

 counts do not state to whom the money was paid. 

 There are several bills paid to Mr. Pingo, and 

 upon some he is expressly called Thomas Pingo ; 

 and the money is stated to have been paid for 

 "striking medals" at ninepence each. By him, 

 therefore, the medals were certainly struck ; and 

 it is probable that they would be executed by the 

 same person who struck them, and this was Tho. 

 Pingo, at that time an artist of good repute, and 

 his contemporary medals go very far to confirm 

 this conjecture. 



No. 4., it will be seen, is an exact copy of the 

 type of Nos. 1. and 2.; but the workmanship is 

 inferior. The legends are very remarkable : they 

 call upon the people to rejoice at the arrival, on 

 Sept. 23, 1752, of a ship long expected, and which 

 restores to Britain her presiding Genius. To what 

 event this refers, I do not know ; it is certainly 

 very remarkable that the medal should so pre- 

 cisely express a date of a circumstance about 

 which nobody seems to know anything. 



No. 5. is not a medal, but a small medallic por- 

 trait of the prince, which was evidently intended 

 to be inserted in a ring or locket, and to be worn 

 probably secreted about the person. 



Ebw. Hawkins. 



SIMEON STTLITES. 



(2"'i S. V. 335.) 

 Statius inquires on what is grounded the as- 

 sertion that this saint lived on the summits of 

 pillars. It is grounded on history perfectly au- 

 thentic ; on the testimony of the historian Theo- 

 doret, an eye-witness, and frequent visitor of the 

 saint ; the life of the saint written by his disciple 

 Anthony, which is also referred to by St. Jerom ; 

 another life in Chaldaic, written only fifteen years 

 after the saint's death ; Evagrius, Theodorus 

 Lector, and other ancient authors. In fact, hardly 

 any history is better attested and accredited. As 

 to the expressions in old legendary books, they 

 refer to stone cells in which the saint lived before 

 he dwelt on pillars, or they mean that the top of 

 the pillar was to him as a cell. But that he ac- 

 tually lived on pillars for thirty-seven years, and 

 died on one built for him by the people, of the 

 height of forty cubits, cannot be doubted, unless 

 we question the best authenticated facts of history. 

 Neither is this saint the only one who lived in 

 this extraordinary way. Another St. Simeon 

 Stylites, called the Younger, lived on pillars sixty- 

 eight years ; and a third, St. Daniel Stylites, 

 lived on pillars upwards of thirty years, and died 

 on a pillar about the year 494. If Statius will 

 read the lives of these holy servants of God in 

 BoUandus, Tillemont, Fleury, or our own Alban 



Butler, he will no longer doubt the truth of the 

 pillars. F. C. H. 



Statius has asked, What is the foundation of 

 the assertion that Simeon Stylites lived for years 

 on pillars, and not rather in " celles " or "cloystres 

 of stones," as stated in our " black-letter tomes ? " 

 Not knowing the precise date of his " black-letter 

 tomes," I cannot say with certainty whether Sta- 

 tius may go back to authorities exactly a thousand 

 years older than they ; but Evagrius Scholasti- 

 cus wrote the first book of his Ecclesiastical His- 

 tory very nearly nine hundred years before any 

 black-letter book was printed ; and he cites a still 

 earlier writer, Theodoret, at the close of the chapter 

 in which he has given the history of this Simeon's 

 living on shorter pillars for seven years, and on 

 one forty cubits high, with a circumference of 

 scarcely two cubits, for the last thirty years of his 

 life (Evagr. Hist. Eccles. lib. i. cap. 13.). I have 

 before me a black-letter copy of the Catalogus 

 Sanctorum of Petr. de Natalibus, Bishop of Aqui- 

 leia, printed at Strasburgh in 1513, which, though 

 more brief than Evagrius, adds some miracles, 

 as might be expected ; affirming that when one 

 thigh had rotted away, he lived for a whole year 

 motionless on one foot. As this collection of 

 legendary tales was once held in great esteem by 

 devout members of the church of Rome, it may 

 have been " the original basis of the assertion " 

 that Stylites " lived in a celle foure cubytes of 

 heyghte," "and at last in another of fourty cu- 

 bytes;" for it begins with saying, " xl. annis apud 

 Antiochiam in columna quadam concava stetit in- 

 clusus." But Evagrius has divided the periods, 

 and distinguished the modes of this singular asce- 

 tic's course; making the whole of it to extend over 

 fifty-six years. "In the first (^poj/tio-ttj/iico " (place 

 for reflection, and hence a monastery), " where he 

 was instructed in divine things, he passed nine 

 years ; then forty-seven years in what is called a 

 mandra." On this Valois observes that the name 

 originally meant a sheep-fold and afterwards a mo- 

 nastery. There Evagrius says he passed the first 

 ten years, iv nvi aTeuioir^; which Petrus de Nata- 

 libus translated or changed into " In puteo sicco 

 pluribus annis miram pcenitentiam egit." Then, 

 if Se Kioai ^paxvT€pois eirrd, Kai inl reaaapaKovra irrt- 

 Xvy «T7j rpiaKovTa. Here we have en-i, which cannot 

 mean in; and the language of Evagrius' narrative 

 makes repeated references to the height at which 

 he stood. Thus he tells how the Emperor Theo- 

 dosius requested the " All-holy and Aerial Mar- 

 tyr " to pray for him. Upon which Valois 

 remarks that the Emperor addressed him as a 

 martyr, because of the torments he inflicted on his 

 own body, " aerium vero, quod sublimis staret in 

 columna." Evagrius describes the man's supposed 

 motive in the following terms : — ■ 



" Being in the flesh, yet emulating the po^itipn of the 



