Today is the feast of St Simeon the Stylite (above right). Stylites were Christian hermits who lived on top of pillars, to literally get away from the world. Simeon, a Syrian monk who lived in the 4th century, achieved quite terrifying heights of holiness by perching on an 18 metre (60 foot) pillar for 36 years, praying, preaching and offering counsel to the crowds who came to see him. He was the first person ‘to achieve solitary confinement in public,’ according to the author Edith Simon.
Patient on this tall pillar I have borne
Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow;
And I had hoped that ere this period closed
Thou wouldst have caught me up into thy rest.
Alfred Tennyson, ‘St. Simeon Stylites’
Jack and Warnie Lewis (aka CS Lewis and his brother) went by bus in Oxford to see the 2 o’clock screening of King Kong today in 1933. ‘There were some astounding representations of the various prehistoric monsters… As good a film as I have ever seen’ was Warnie’s verdict. It was one of CS’s rare outings to the movies. Six years later, the two brothers went to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
Reinhard Heydrich, Minister of the Interior in Nazi Germany, commanded all Jews in the German Reich over the age of six to wear a yellow Star of David to identify themselves, on this day in 1941. For added clarity, the word Jude (‘Jew’) was printed inside the star in mock Hebrew lettering. Jews who failed to wear the badge could be fined, imprisoned, or shot. Forcing Jewish people to wear yellow badges or hats has a long and disgraceful history, and came to prominence in Christian and Muslim countries during the 12th and 13th centuries.
The Orthodox Church year begins today, which is held to be the anniversary of Jesus announcing his manifesto of the kingdom in the synagogue of Nazareth.
The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.
Jesus, Luke 4
Today in 1499, Diego de Deza became leader of the Spanish Inquisition. He brought to the job a keen interest in whether the Jews and Muslims who claimed they had converted to Christianity – so they could avoid persecution – were fake or not. It is said that while he was Inquisitor General, over 1,600 people were burned to death for heresy, while 52,000 others were punished or sentenced to do penance. His cruelty and corruption were too much even for the medieval Church, and he had to be reined in by the Pope.
It is also the feast of St Fiacre, the Irish hermit of the 7th century, who as a patron saint has a mixed portfolio, looking after the needs of gardeners and cab drivers, as well as the delicate issue of haemorrhoids. Not a great fan of women even when he was alive, Fiacre was renowned for punishing from beyond the grave any woman who came into his men-only hermitage. Misogyny is stronger than death.
Image: Simon Jenkins