The now-sainted Symeon was ailing at this time, and on the point of death. Gregory, when I made this known, sped to him, hoping to embrace him at the very end, but did not make it soon enough.
There were none to overshadow Symeon's greatness in his day. From the time he was a boy of tender nails, he pursued a life of hard extremity at the top of a pillar. His baby teeth had not yet fallen out when he took his stand there. The circumstances of his ascent to the pillar were these:
He was just a little kid, wandering boyishly in the foothills, when he came upon a wild leopard. Throwing his belt around its neck, he used the strap to lead around the beast, now forgetful of its wildness, and walked it back to his schoolhouse. Beholding this from the top of his own pillar, the schoolmaster asked: τί ἂν εἴη τοῦτο? "It's a cat," the boy said.
This proved the lad's future greatness, as far as the old man was concerned, and he conducted him up the pillar, where Symenon lived out sixty-eight years—first on that one, and then atop another in the highest fastness of the mountain. For expelling demons and healing every malady, every grace was due him, and for seeing into future things to come. To Gregory, he foretold that Gregory would not be present at his death. As to what might happen after that, he said, he had no knowledge.
From the Ecclesiastical History (VI.23) of Evagrius Scholasticus
