3. A priest, son of .Joiarib (i. e. .lehoiarib), father of John and grandfather of Mattatliias the father of the Maccabee brothers (1 Mace, ii, 1).
4. The son of .Judah and father of Levi in the ma- ternal genealogy of our Lord (Luke iii, 30). B.C. cir. 886. lie seems to have been the same with Maaseiah the son of Adaiah (2 Chron. xxiii, 1).
5. A devout Jew, inspired by the Holy Ghost, who met the parents of our Lord in the Temple, took him in his arms, and gave tlianks for what he saw, and knew of Jesus (Luke ii, 2.5-35). B.C. ti. The circum- stance is interesting as evincing the expectations which were then eiUertained of the speedy advent of the Mes- siah ; and important from the attestation which it con- veyed in favor of Jesus from one who was known to have received the divine promise that he should "not taste of death till he had seen the Lord's Christ."
In ttie Apocryphal gosjiel of Nicodemus, Simeon is called a higli- priest, and the narrative of our Lord's descent into hell is put into the mouths of Charinus and Lenthiiis, wlio are descril)ed as two sons of Simeon, who rose from the grave after Christ's resurrection (Matt, xxvii, 53) and related their story to Annas, Cai- ajihas, Nicodemus, .Joseph, and (Jamaliel.
llaliban Simon, whosc' grandniothir was of the fam- ily of David, succeeded his father Ilillel as president of the Sanhedrim about A.D. 13 (Otho, Lexicon Rubb. p. 6!)7), and his son (Jamaliel was the I'harisee at whose feet I'aul was brought up (Acts xxii, 3). A Jewish writer specially notes that no record of tliis Simeon is preserved in the Mishna (Lightfoot, ll<ir<B flcb. Luke ii, 25 j. It has lieen conjectured tliat he (rrideanx, Conneclioii, ainio 37, Michaclis ) or his grandson (Sch<jtt- gen, //oni: ll<b. Luke ii, 25) of the same name may be the Simeon of LuUe. In favor of the identity it is al- leged tliat the name, residence, time of life, and gener- al character are the same in both cases, that tiie re- markable silence of tlie Mishna and llie counsel given by (iamaliel (Acts v, 38) couutciiauce a suspicion of an inclination on tlie part of the family of tin- ral)ban to- wards Cliristianity. On the other hand, it is argued that these facts fall far short of liistorical proof, and that Simeon was a very common natne among the Jews; that Luke would never have introduceti so celebrated a character as the president of tlie Sanhedrim merely as "a man in Jerusalem;" and tliat his son f Jamaliel, after all, was educated as a I'harisee. The question is
discussed in W'itsius, Miscellanea Sacra, i, 21, 14-16. See also A\'olf, Ciirw PMlolof/ic(e at Luke ii, 25; and Bibl. Ihbr. ii, 682. See Simon bks-Hili.kl.
6. A form (Acts xv, 14; also 2 Pet. i, 2 in some :MSS.) of the name of Simon Peter (q. v.).
7. The jiroper name (Acts xiii, 1) of Niger (q. v.), an eminent Cliristian at Antioch.
Simeon <>f Diusham, an English chronicler, taught mathematics at Oxford, and afterwards was prcecentor in the cathedral at Durham. "We owe to him a IJisto- ria de Gestis lief/um Atif/lorum, from 6 Hi to 1129, con- tinued down to 1156 by John of Hexham, and inserted in the A nrjlica7i(e Historiee Scripto?-es X of Twysden (Lond. 1652, fob). It is mostly a literal reproduction of the Chronicles of Florence of Worcester, who died in 1118. Simeon is likewise the author of a letter De A 1-chiepiscopis Eboraci ; and he has given under his own name, without any addition to the work, another production, Ilisioria de Dunelmensi Ecclesia, jjrinted in Twysden's edition, but which altogether belongs, as Sel- den has shoVvn, to Turgot, prior of Durham, who died in 1115. Simeon died after 1130. See Wright, i^io^rr. Brit ami. Liter aria, vol. i. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Gene- rale, 8. V.
Simeon of Polotzk, a Russian monk, poet, and ecclesiastical historian, was born at Polotzk in 1628, and was brought up bj* strangers ; but after the capture of Smolensk he was called bj' the czar Alexis to educate his oldest son, and thus introduced a literary taste at the Kremlin. He composed dramas wiiich were ap- preciated chiefly by Sophia, the intelligent sister of Peter I. When the emperor Theodore ascended the throne (1676), his preceptor obtained permission to es- tablish a press in connection with the palace. He con- ceived the design of reforming the Church. Being suspected, not without reason, of Koman Catholic ten- dencies, he was protected by his pupil from the ani- madversion of the Muscovite patriarch. We owe to Simeon several religious and poetical treatises, but the greater part of his works remain buried in the libraries of Moscow and Novgorod. He died at Moscow, Aug. 25, 1680. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, s. v.
Simeon, St., sumamed Stylites (from (ttvXoq, a pillar), an early anchoret, was born about 390 at Sisan, on the confines of Cilicia and Syria. He was the sou of a shepherd, and followed the same vocation himself till his thirteenth year, when he entered a monastery where several brethren consecrated themselves entirely to a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. Living among austere devotees, he surpassed them all in the rigor of his mortifications, so that the superior, fearful of his example, at last dismissed him. After spending three years in solitude on Mt. Selenisissa, where he is said to have passed forty days without eating, a feat which he re-enacted for many years afterwards, he betook him- self to the top of a mountain in Syria, and there made for himself a sort of shelter with stones piled on each other. In order to withdraw himself from the impor- tunities of the crowds who came to him for the cure fif their maladies, he contrived, about the year 423, to estaliHsh his residence on the top of a column, which he raised first from six to twelve, and at length to twenty-eight and thirty-six feet in height. Its sum- mit was three feet in diameter and was surrounded with a lialustrade of sufiicient height. It was impossi- ble to lie down upon it, and Simeon there maintained his aliode day and night. A mode of life so extraor- dinary was, in general, regarded as a piece of extrava- gance and vanity, but by many as a mark of unusual holiness. From his aerial retreat the ascetic gave his instructions to the people who resorted thither, and held piililic consultations. Three Christian emperors — The- odosius the Younger, Marcion, and Leo — came to see him. His life was compared to that of angels — offer- ing up [irayers for men from his elevation and bringing down graces on them. His neck was loaded with an