this day, namely the twenty-fourth of the month of Artemisius, after the evening hymns and the customary praises, and having, according to his custom, prayed for peace for the brothers, he sweetly surrendered his spirit into the hands of God; as if taken up by Him or lovingly summoned to possess those things which he had always desired and which had long ago been prepared for him; things which are not even obscured by any shadowy representation of worldly objects. And now he is indeed there, offering up intercessions for us, all the more powerfully as he does so with greater confidence and closeness: but his sacred body has been left among us as a treasury of miracles, from which one is always drawing, yet it is never found empty; indeed, the more it is taken from, the more it is filled; and grace, healing not only to bodies but also to souls, abounds bountifully: in Christ Jesus our Lord, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always, and for ages of ages. Amen.
(67) Artemisius corresponds to our month of May: the 24th day, in a leap year having the dominical letters A G, was a Thursday; so that the tenth day before, when the angel brought him notice of his coming death, was a Sunday, when he was accustomed to take the refreshment brought by the angel.
THE EPISTLE OF SAINT SYMEON TO JUSTIN THE YOUNGER
(Labbe, *Concilia*, vol. VII, p. 350.)Saint Symeon the Stylite, who was on the Miraculous Mountain, his fifth epistle to the Emperor Justin the Younger.
Who will give to my eyes fountains of tears for mourning and lamenting bitterly and intolerably during all the days of my miserable life (Jer. 9:1)? Because, under the divine zeal of your God-crowned and most Christian empire, such things, exceeding all reason of impiety, are presumed to be done by those who are without God—the Samaritans, that is, who remain defiled and detestable beyond all uncleanness—who dwell in what are called the Castra near the city of Porphyreon, in the venerable house which your God-pleasing authority ordered to be built there. Your divinely-preserved tranquility will know in detail what has happened through those things which were signified to our humility by Paul, the most holy bishop of that same Porphyreon, and were sent to us by the most blessed patriarch of the East, who himself also grieved intensely over this; how much more, then, would the gentlest of princes grieve? Especially since such impieties were enough to make even lifeless stones cry out, which the aforementioned most holy pontiff saw in his presence. For it has been reckoned by our humility as worse than death and destruction that such an impiety—one that exceeds [all others]—should in any way come to our ears, a deed dared against Him who for our sake—
A became man, the Word of God, and against the all-holy and glorious Mother of God, and against the all-venerable and precious Cross, and against His saints.
Wherefore, as we bring this to your notice, we submit to your divine ears this: if your most pious laws, which bring you constant victory, command that those who dare to attempt insults against the image of the emperor be delivered to extreme and total destruction, how much more, do you suppose, are they worthy of condemnation to ruin who have dared such things against the image of the Son of God and of the all-holy, glorious Mother of God with such inexpressible shamelessness and impiety—and because of this excessive evil I cannot find words [to describe it]—with no mercy shown to them? Hence, we entreat your victory-bearing majesty not to grant mercy to those who have dared to do this, nor to spare them, nor to accept any petition or excuse on their behalf, lest they be turned to something else, as I had previously foreseen, having already declared it to the August, most holy and God-honored patriarch, indicating to him B that it should be kept for the time being. For God has not hidden their designs from us. Whence I am persuaded, most pious emperors, that your God-established heart, illumined by His majesty, will not endure to bear such great and unheard-of insolence, of which we have never heard until now, and perhaps no other Christian has either.
I adjure you, therefore, master, by Emmanuel, the Most High God, not to wait even for a short time for the fitting vengeance to be wrought; but command that those things also which were done in the pit through their excessive and most wicked malice be investigated, according to the tenor of the letter which was transmitted to our mediocrity; and do not let your most gentle lordship be swayed if some perchance should think to sow untimely words, as if these matters concerned the power of the Lady, since the God who gave you your empire has been C thus insulted by them above all impiety; so that the rest of them may have fear all the days of their cursed and excommunicated life, those whom their kindred darkness will receive into the condemnation of the worm that is destined to devour them, and of the fire that will not shine, and the all-holy and almighty Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who proceeds from the Father, will curse them into the depths of the abyss, for the purpose of destroying them in infinite perdition. For by showing this zeal fervently, you who are kept by God and are bearers of victory, demonstrating to Him who reigns with your piety, the Only-begotten God, [a zeal] greater than the sacrifice of Abraham, you will be received by His all-seeing divinity; and your Christ-loving empire D shall be more blessed and magnified by the power of His might than all the empires before it.