ST SIMEON, BISHOP OF JERUSALEM, MARTYR - 18 FEBRUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

 Saints celebrated on the 18th of February

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

ST SIMEON, BISHOP OF JERUSALEM, MARTYR 

(A.D. 116.) St Simeon was the son of Cleophas, otherwise called Alpheus, brother to St Joseph, and of Mary, sister of the Blessed Virgin. He was therefore nephew both to St Joseph and to the Blessed Virgin, and cousin-german to Christ. 

HE WAS CLOSELY RELATED TO OUR LORD

Simeon and Simon are the same name, and this saint is, according to the best interpreters of the holy scripture, the Simon mentioned, who was brother to St James the Lesser, and St Jude, apostles, and to Joseph of José. He was eight or nine years older than our Saviour. 

AN EARLY FOLLOWER OF CHRIST

We cannot doubt but he was an early follower of Christ, as his father and mother and three brothers were, and an exception to that of St John, that our Lord’s relations did not believe in him. Nor does St Luke leave us any room to doubt but that he received the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost with the Blessed Virgin and the apostles; for he mentions present St James and St Jude, and the brothers of our Lord. 

HE REPROACHED THEM FOR THEIR ATROCIOUS CRUELTY

St Epiphanius relates, that when the Jews massacred St James the Lesser, his brother Simeon reproached them for their atrocious cruelty. St James, bishop of Jerusalem, being put to death in the year 62, twenty-nine years after our Saviour’s resurrection, the apostles and disciples met at Jerusalem to appoint him a successor. They unanimously chose St Simeon, who had probably before assisted his brother in the government of that church.   

THE YEAR A.D. 66

In the year 66, in which SS. Peter and Paul suffered martyrdom at Rome, the civil war began in Judea, by the seditions of the Jews against the Romans. The Christians in Jerusalem were warned by God of the impending destruction of that city, and by a divine revelation commanded to leave it, as Lot was rescued out of Sodom. They therefore departed out of it the same year, before Vespasian, Nero’s general, and afterwards emperor, entered Judaea, and retired beyond the Jordan to a small city called Pella; having St Simeon at their head. 

THEY RETURNED TO JERUSALEM

After the taking and burning of Jerusalem, they returned thither again, and settled themselves amidst its ruins, till Adrian afterwards entirely razed it. St Epiphanius and Eusebius assure us, that the church here flourished extremely, and that multitudes of Jews were converted by the great number of prodigies and miracles wrought in it.   

THE TWO MAJOR HERESIES

St Simeon, amidst the consolations of the Holy Ghost and the great progress of the church, had the affliction to see two heresies arise within its bosom, namely, those of the Nazareans and the Ebionites; the first seeds of which, according to St Epiphanius, appeared at Pella. 

The Nazareans were a sect of men between Jews and Christians, but abhorred by both. They allowed Christ to be the greatest of the prophets, but said he was a mere man, whose natural parents were Joseph and Mary: they joined all the ceremonies of the old law with the new, and observed both the Jewish Sabbath and the Sunday. 

Ebion added other errors to these, which Cerenthus had also espoused, and taught many superstitions, permitted divorces, and allowed of the most infamous abominations. 

HE BEGAN TO PREACH AT COCABE

He began to preach at Cocabe, a village beyond the Jordan, where he dwelt; but he afterwards travelled into Asia, and thence to Rome. The authority of St Simeon kept the heretics in some awe during his life, which was the longest upon earth of any of our Lord’s disciples. But, as Eusebius says, he was no sooner dead than a deluge of execrable heresies broke out of hell upon the church, which durst not openly appear during his life.   

VESPASIAN AND DOMITIAN HAD COMMANDED ALL TO BE PUT TO DEATH WHO WERE OF THE RACE OF DAVID

Vespasian and Domitian had commanded all to be put to death who were of the race of David. St Simeon had escaped their searches; but Trajan having given the same order, certain heretics and Jews accused him, as being both of the race of David and a Christian, to Atticus, the Roman governor in Palestine. 

HE WAS CONDEMNED TO DEATH BY CRUCIFIXION

The holy bishop was condemned by him to be crucified: who, after having undergone the usual tortures during several days, which, though one hundred and twenty years old, he suffered with so much patience that he drew on him a universal admiration, and that of Atticus in particular, he died in 107, according to Eusebius in his chronicle, but in 116, according to Dodwell, bishop Loyde, and F. Pagi. He must have governed the church of Jerusalem about forty-three years.   

THEY WERE ENTIRELY ANIMATED BY OUR LORD'S SPIRIT

The eminent saints among the early disciples of Jesus Christ, were entirely animated by his spirit, and being dead to the world and themselves, they appeared like angels among men. Free from the secret mixture of the sinister views of all passions, to a degree which was a miracle of grace, they had in all things only God, his will and honour before their eyes, equally aspiring to him through honour and infamy. In the midst of human applause they remained perfectly humbled in the centre of their own nothingness: when loaded with reproaches and contempt, and persecuted with all the rage that malice could inspire, they were raised above all these things so as to stand fearless amidst racks and executioners, inflexibly constant in their fidelity to God, before tyrants, invincible under torments, and superior to them almost as if they had been impassible. Their resolution never failed them, their fervour seemed never slackened. 

A SOLID FOUNDATION OF TRUE VIRTUE

Such wonderful men wrought continual miracles in converting souls to God. We bear the name of Christians, and wear the habit of saints; but are full of the spirit of worldlings, and our actions are infected with its poison. We secretly seek ourselves, even when we flatter ourselves that God is our only aim, and whilst we undertake to convert the world, we suffer it to pervert us. When shall we begin to study to crucify our passions and die to ourselves, that we may lay a solid foundation of true virtue and establish its reign in our hearts?

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)