ON ST. MARTHA, ALSO CALLED MATHANA, MOTHER OF ST. SIMEON STYLITES THE ELDER, IN THE DISTRICT OF ANTIOCH IN SYRIA, IN THE DISTRICT OF ANTIOCH IN SYRIA.
About the year 428.
CommentaryMartha or Mathana, in the district of Antioch in Syria. (S.)
Written by J. P.
The great printed Menæa of the Greeks treat on this day of St. Simeon Stylites, to whom they then subjoin this announcement: This Saint, who is venerated among the Greeks, is the mother On the same day, of St. Martha, mother of St. Simeon; and they honour her with the following verses, which I shall render from the Greek into Latin:
Ἐν γῇ ξενίζει Μάρθα τὸν Χριστὸν πάλαι, Σέ δε ξενίζει, Μάρθα, Χριστὸς ἐν πόλῳ.
Martha of old received Christ in her house; But thee, O Martha, Christ has received in heaven.
The allusion is clear in the name of today's Martha, and of her namesake, the sister of Mary and hostess of Christ, of whom we have written on the day 29 July. The Menology of the Greeks, translated into Latin by Cardinal Sirleto, reports her thus: On the same day (1 September), the commemoration of holy Martha, mother of blessed Simeon Stylites. But of which Simeon Stylites was she the mother? At the day 5 January, page 261, we exhibited three of that name from the ecclesiastical Calendars: namely the elder, and the first father of that kind of institute of life, venerated by the Greeks on the day 1 September, but by the Latins on 5 January. Another is there named by us Simeon Stylites on the Wonderful Mountain, whom the Roman Martyrology reports on the day 3 September, with the surname of the younger added, and who is venerated among the Greeks on 24 May, on which day his Acts, as also those of Martha his mother, have been illustrated by us. A third finally is celebrated by the same Greeks on the day 26 July under the name of presbyter and archimandrite, of whom we have said more at that day. To the question therefore now proposed, of which Simeon our Saint was the mother, who under the name of Martha is announced on this day in the said Menæa and Menology, I answer that the mother of St. Simeon Stylites the elder is indicated.
[2] of St. Simeon Stylites the elder: the name of this Saint, For since the Greeks treat of that Saint on this day, 1 September, and the aforesaid Menæa with the Menology place immediately after his brief elogium the announcement of St. Martha, mother of St. Simeon, it does not seem doubtful to me that it must be referred to the same Simeon Stylites who had immediately preceded, namely the elder. But whether she was truly called Martha, or whether the name of her who was the mother of the younger Simeon, and whose Life with the Life of her son we illustrated on 24 May, was fitted to today's Martha, whose name, as also the day of her death, perhaps lay hidden from posterity, I do not determine. At the day 5 January, in the first Life of St. Simeon Stylites among us, whose author, as the title bears, was Antony his disciple, page 264, mention is made of that Saint's father; there also the parents occur; but in both places without a proper name. Nay rather, this Saint wished to conceal the name of his parents: for, being asked by the archimandrite, he said, But my parents… do not ask, my lord, as may be seen in the place already cited, where presently they again appear nameless. The mother also occurs there without a proper name, page 266. The Life of the same St. Simeon which we give in the second place, page 269, calls the father Hesychius, but the mother Mathana: whether these names are true, and whence drawn, I have not ascertained. But about her cult I add a few things.
[3] The Slavo-Russian Menology of Sparwenfeld calls her Martha with the Menæa on this day, and a confirmation of her public cult. and mentions her thus after her son: Of our holy father Simeon Stolpnik (that is, Stylites) and of his mother Martha. To which are there subjoined the following words: In memory of both, a feast and permission to use burnt wine and oil: and this permission, which I read noted elsewhere too in the said Menology, signifies a certain greater solemnity of the Saints in whose memory these or like privileges are there granted, than of others to whom none are added. The Ruthenian Synaxary peculiar to the diocese of Kiev, which we have in manuscript, translated by the Reverend Father Georg David, missionary of the Society of Jesus, residing at Moscow in the year 1688, reports on this day these things to our purpose: The memory of our venerable Father and confessor Simeon Stylites, first archimandrite of Antioch, and of his mother Martha.
[4] Concerning St. Simeon's mother especially, the Life of the same Saint cited above, page 264, reports this: Martha, desirous of seeing her son, seeks his enclosure, But his parents did not cease for two years to bewail and to seek him, namely after he had fled secretly from his parents to the monastic life. But after twenty-seven years he was at last found by his mother alone, as is there related on page 266: His mother at last, in the twenty-seventh year, when she had learned in what part of the world he lived, coming, desired to see him; and when she wept abundantly in the porch of his enclosure, it was not granted her to behold him; but with ladders set against the wall of the enclosure she fell to the ground; and blessed Simeon signified to her: Pardon me for the present, mother; and, if we shall be worthy, in that world we shall see one another. When his mother heard this, she was the more inflamed with the desire of seeing him. But the Saint signified to her, saying: Sit down a little while and rest; and presently I shall see thee. And she sat down in the porch of the enclosure, and straightway gave up her spirit to the Lord. And he ordered her to be brought in.
[5] And they placed her before the column. He, looking upon her, but not being admitted, dies in a wondrous manner. began to speak thus: Lord God of hosts, leader of the wandering, ruler of the Cherubim, who didst lead Joseph like a sheep; who didst increase with famous power the prophet David; who didst raise Lazarus after four days: receive in peace the soul of thy Handmaid. When he had so prayed, his mother's body was moved, and she smiled with her countenance; and all standing by saw it, and praised God. For the rest, her obsequies being performed, they buried her before the column, paying her due rites there. About the word mandra, which occurred above, the reader will find more at the day 24 May in St. Simeon Stylites the younger, page 298, whence I cull this: MANDRA, in its first and original meaning, is a place fenced round with a stone wall, such as the shepherds were wont to make for themselves in the plains of Syria, and within it to gather their flocks by night, where they might be safe from wolves and thieves. Such, and no other, was the enclosure which first gave Simeon his name; since he, except for one Antony who ministered to him, is known to have had no disciples, and only for this end drew a wall round the place which his column occupied, lest a promiscuous access should be given to him even by women; and to this was joined another enclosure, within which pilgrims and guests received themselves, until they were admitted to the Saint. But because little by little the usage prevailed that the monasteries of monks were called MANDRÆ, and their superiors ARCHIMANDRITÆ, hence it came about that the elder Simeon, who was already everywhere surnamed Simeon in the mandra, is in the printed Rituals of the Greeks called ARCHIMANDRITE, against the credit of the whole history.
[6] From the chronology of St. Simeon Stylites the elder The age of St. Martha must be arranged from the chronology of St. Simeon her son. And he in the thirteenth year of his age is said to have been made a monk, in the second Life cited above, in which the following is read of him: When he was thirteen years old, after the likeness of blessed David, he fed his father's sheep. But on a certain day, seeing a church of the faithful, he left his flocks and ran to it. And then, having inquired the way of salvation, he is reported to have sought the monastery of St. Timothy. In another Ms., for thirteen years there is read twenty-seven, as is observed there in the Annotations. But on the contrary in the first Life he is said not yet to have had eighteen years, when he suffered himself with difficulty to be stripped of the garment cleaving to his flesh, saying thus: Let me be, brethren, let me die thus, a foul dog… For I am a sea of sins… And the archimandrite said to him: Thou art not yet eighteen years old, and what sins hast thou at last? Yet I do not see for what cause we should depart from the common reading of thirteen years. To these add the twenty-seven years of which it has already been said at number 4. The same number of years the third Life also counts, published by us under the name of Simeon Metaphrastes, which on page 278 thus records: Twenty-seven years had now passed since this man, loftier than the world, had renounced the laws of nature and the things that are in the world, when behold, his mother … went to her son … desiring to look upon her son and to enjoy his conversation, of which for so long a time she had been deprived. But she, not being admitted to the sight of her son, is there indicated to have died piously.
[7] the year of St. Martha's death is arranged, Her death therefore fell in the fortieth year of St. Simeon's age, according to what has just been said; to which year, if there be added the time of the same mother during which she lived before bearing her son, she might at least have reached about the sixtieth year of her age, if she did not pass beyond this, and did not survive many years, which nevertheless is uncertain to us. Tillemont in volume 15 of the Ecclesiastical Monuments collected very many things about St. Simeon the elder, weaving in chronological calculations. In article 3 he cites from our first volume of January, at the day 5, page 263, for that Saint's birth about the year 391; but he indicates that the year 388 pleases him better. Let him then have been born in the year 388: to which if you add the age of thirteen years, at which, leaving his father's flock, he began the rudiments of the solitary life, from what has been said above at number 6, you will already come to the year 401; and to this if you reckon the twenty-seven years of his monastic life, when his Mother came to him, and, being forbidden to see him, departed this life, as was said at number 4, the death of that mother may be attached to about the year 428.
[8] confounded by Baronius with another. And let this chronological computation suffice for our purpose. Baronius in his notes on the Roman Martyrology at the day 3 September confounds Simeon Stylites the elder and his mother with the holy younger man of the same name and his mother: The Greeks, he says, in the Menology (which, namely, Cardinal Sirleto translated from the Greek) treat of the same and of his mother Martha on the Kalends of September. The same confusion occurs in the said notes at 5 January. The death of the Younger is fixed by us at the day 24 May, page 298, in the year 596; but that of Martha his mother, in the same place, page 402, in the year 551. Receive now certain other things pertaining to today's Saint.
[9] First, it seems likely that she was ascribed by the Greeks to the Calendars of the Saints on account of so unusual a kind of death, Certain notes about her cult, dwelling such conspicuous signs after death, and so excellent an opinion of her held by her son Simeon, which he not obscurely manifested when he willed her to be committed to the earth in his own enclosure, as was indicated above. 20. The place from which she set out for that enclosure to visit her son seems to be the village of Sesan, in which Symeon was born, and in which she had a settled dwelling, as may be gathered from Theodoret bishop of Cyrus, in Rosweyde's Lives of the Fathers, book 9, chapter 26, where these things are related of the saint: There is a certain village situated on the border of our region and that of the Cilicians; and they call it Sesa. Sprung from this place, he was first taught by his parents to feed sheep, so that in this he may be compared with great men — Jacob the patriarch, Joseph the temperate, Moses the lawgiver, David the king and prophet, Micah the prophet, and the divine men who were like to them.
[10] In the Excerpts from the book of the Ecclesiastical History of Theodore Lector, published in the version of Valesius, page 553, that village is called Σισὰν, Sisan. The Menology of Sirletus, cited above, calls it a fortress. and concerning the place of her death. The further situation of the place is exhibited after Rosweyde's Prolegomena to the Lives of the Fathers, in the general Chorography of the eremitical stations and expeditions, in which Sisan is placed at a distance of about twenty miles, each of one hour, from Antioch of Syria; but in another map there, of a particular Chorography, the column of St. Simeon is exhibited in the district of the city of Antioch. The author of the Ecclesiastical Monuments, in note 6 on St. Symeon Stylites, disputes whether his column was fifteen leagues distant from Antioch; and in the seventh note he treats of his several columns, and also of the time in which he lived on each. The first Life alleged above, page 266, relates these things: Afterwards they made his column higher: they raised it, indeed, to about forty cubits. Whence it seems possible to gather that he had one and the same column, but one raised more and more at intervals of time. But since St. Martha died before his enclosure, in which the column stood, as has been said above, I have placed the place of her death in the Antiochene district of Syria, which is about two leagues, and not fifteen, distant from that city, according to Rosweyde's map.