saint Simeon, down to the Saracen and Turkish
empires. The inclemency of the air makes that manner of life
impracticable to the West. However, St. Gregory of Tours mentions
one (l. 8. c. 15) V{}filaick, a Lombard, and disciple of the abbot
St. Yrier, who leaving Limousin went to Triers, and lived some time
on a pillar in that neighborhood. He engaged the people of the
villages to renounce the worship of idols, and to hew down the great
statue of Diana at Ardens, that had been famous from the time of
Domitian. The bishop ordered him to quit a manner of life too severe
for the cold climate. He instantly obeyed, and lived afterwards in a
neighboring monastery. He seems to have been the only _Stylite_ of
the West. See Fleury, l. 35, T. 8, p. 54.

ST. TELESPHORUS, P.M.

HE was a Grecian by birth, and the seventh bishop of Rome. Towards the
end of the year 128, he succeeded Saint Sixtus I., sat eleven years, and
saw the havoc which the persecution of Adrian made in the church. "He
ended his life by an illustrious martyrdom," says Eusebius;[1] which is
also confirmed by St. Irenaeus.[2]

Footnotes:
1. Hist. l. 4, c. 10.
2. L. 3, c. 3.

ST. SYNCLETICA, V.

SHE was born at Alexandria in Egypt, of wealthy Macedonian parents. From
her infancy she had imbibed the love of virtue, and in her tender years
she consecrated her virginity to God. Her great fortune and beauty
induced many young noblemen to become her suitors for marriage, but she
had already bestowed her heart on her heavenly spouse. Flight was her
refuge against exterior assaults, and, regarding herself as her own most
dangerous enemy, she began early to subdue her flesh by austere fasts
and other mortifications. She never seemed to suffer more than when
obliged to eat oftener than she desired. Her parents, at their death,
left her heiress to their opulent estate; for the two brothers she had
died before them; and her sister being blind, was committed entirely to
her guardianship. Syncletica, having soon distributed her fortune among
the poor, retired with her sister into a lonesome monument, on a
relation's estate; where, having sent for a priest, she cut off her hair
in his presence, as a sign whereby she renounced the world, and renewed
the consecration of herself to God. Mortification and prayer were from
that time her principal employment; but her close solitude, by
concealing her pious exercises from the eyes of