Symeon Stylites the Younger and Late Antique Antioch: From Hagiography to History

Parker, Lucy

Abstract

Symeon Stylites the Younger and Late Antique Antioch explores the authority of a holy man and its limitations in times of crisis, with a particular focus on the little-studied Antiochene stylite Symeon the Younger. Symeon the Younger (c.521–92) lived through a period of repeated disasters in the region of Antioch, including earthquakes, plagues, and Persian invasions. The book explores how Symeon and his supporters reacted to these crises, which posed a powerful challenge to the claims of holy men to be able to protect their supplicants. It argues that crisis laid bare theological and emotional tensions that had always existed around the role of a holy man as intercessor between God and his supplicants. It considers various texts associated with the stylite, including his sermon collection, his hagiographic Life, and the Life of his mother, Martha, setting these in the broader context of society and culture in the late Roman empire and of developments in hagiography over time. The sermon collection and the Life of Symeon show that the stylite was a divisive figure who played on social tensions and scapegoated the wealthy notables of Antioch for disaster. The Life of Martha reflects a reorientation of priorities for the cult, offering an original vision of holiness based on participation in liturgy and the sacraments. The tensions evinced in these texts are reflected in other hagiographies from the period, offering a new perspective on the state of the Roman empire in the sixth and seventh centuries.

• Book Type: Authored Book
• Online Publication Date: Aug 18, 2022
• Publication Date: Jul 7, 2022
• Deposit Date: Jan 17, 2024
• Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
• Series Title: Oxford Studies in Byzantium
• ISBN: 019286517X; 9780192865175
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192865175.001.0001
• Keywords: hagiography, holy man, stylite, Antioch, Syria, sermon, earthquake, Byzantium, plague, late antiquity
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/29835092
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/book/43852?login=false