Saint Simeon Stylites

"St. Simeon Stylites, who had been passionately loved by his parents, began his saintly career by breaking the heart of his father, who died of grief at his flight to the desert. His mother, twenty-seven years after, when she heard, for the first time, where he was, hastened to visit him. But all her labor was in vain: no woman was admitted within the precincts of his dwelling; and he refused to permit her even to look upon his face."

"Three days and three nights she wept and entreated in vain; and exhausted with grief, age, and privation, she sank feebly to the ground, and breathed her last before his door. Then, for the first time, the saint, accompanied by his followers, came out. He shed some pious tears over the corpse of his murdered mother, and offered up a prayer, consigning her soul to heaven. Then, amid the admiring murmurs of his disciples, the saintly matricide returned to his devotions."

"He had bound a rope around him, so that it had become embedded in his flesh, which putrified around it. A horrible stench exhaled from his body, and worms dropped from him whenever he moved. He built successively three pillars, the last being sixty feet high, and scarcely three feet in circumference; and on this pillar he lived during thirty years, exposed to every change of climate, ceaselessly and rapidly bending his body in prayer almost to the level of his feet. For one year, he stood upon one leg, the other covered with hideous ulcers; while his biographer was commissioned to stand by his side, and pick up the worms that fell from his body, and replace them in the sores, the saint saying to the worm, 'Eat what God has given you.'"

"History of European Morals, from Augustus to Charlemagne. By W. E. H. Lecky, M.A." 1869
- the evil influences of Gnosticism and Platonism upon mediaeval Christianity and the European marriage-system, that I quote the following from his 4th and 5th chapters, vol. ii. pp. 108, 119, 138, 340, 363, &c.: -