world,* and compares him to a candle on a candlestick, and to the sun itself, which sheds its rays on every side. He asks the objector to this mode of life to consider that God often uses very striking means to arouse the negligent, as the history of the prophets shows ; ' and con- cludes his narrative with the remark : " Should the saint live longer, he may do yet greater wonders, for he is a universal ornament and honor of religion." He died in 459, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, of a long- concealed and loathsome ulcer on his leg ; and his body was brought in solemn procession to the metropolitan church of Antioch. ' Th niya ^avfxa Trjs olKov^iPT)i. Hist. Relig. c. 26, at the beginning. " Referring to Isa, xs. 2; Jer. i. 1*7; xxviii. 12; Hos. i. 2; iii. 1; Ezek. iv. 4 ; xii. 6. § 38. PACHOMIUS AND TUE CLOISTER LITE. 195 Even before his death, Symeon enjoyed the unbounded ad- miration of Christians and heathens, of the common people, of the kings of Persia, and of the emperors Theodosius II., Leo, and Marcian, who begged his blessing and his counsel. No wonder, that, with all his renowned humility, he had to strug- gle .with the temptations of spiritual pride. Once an angel appeared to him in a vision, with a chariot of fire, to convey him, like Elijah, to heaven, because the blessed spirits longed for him. He was already stepping into the chariot with his right foot, which on this occasion he sprained (as Jacob his thigh), when the phantom of Satan was chased away by the sign of the cross. Perhaps this incident, which the Acta Sanc- torum gives, was afterward invented, to account for his sore, and to illustrate the danger of self-conceit. Hence also the pious monk Nilus, with good reason, reminded the ostentatious pillar saints of the proverb : " He that exalteth himself shall be abased." ' Of the later stylites the most distinguished were Daniel (f 490), in the vicinity of Constantinople, and Symeon the younger (f 592), in Syria. The latter is said to have spent sixty-eight years on a pillar. In the East this form of sanctity perpetuated itself, though only in exceptional cases, down to the twelfth century. The West, so far as we know, affords but one example of a stylite, who, according to Gregory of Tours, lived a long time on a pillar near Treves, but came down at the command of the bishop, and entered a neighboring cloister. § 38. PacJiomius and the Cloister Life. On St. Pachomius we liave a biography composed soon after his death by a monk of Tabennte, and scattered accounts in Palladius, Jerome (Eegula Pachomii, Latine reddita, 0pp. Hieron. ed. Vallarsi, torn. ii. p. 50 sqq.), Rufinus, Sozomex, &c. Comp. Tillemoxt, torn. vii. p. 167-235, and the YU. Sanct. sub Maj. 14. Though the strictly solitary life long continued in