The Columnist and the Dog: a tale of two ascetics
Symeon the Stylite has been compared to Diogenes of Sinope. Yet the two provide very different lessons on the nature of virtue.
On 27 February 380 CE Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. This was the doing of the Emperor Theodosius I, who decreed Nicene Christianity to be the only acceptable belief. Anyone following alternative versions of the religion was thereby labeled a heretic and a “foolish madman,” and authorities where given free reign to punish heresy in whatever guise it may manifest itself.
Despite concerted attempts to distance itself from paganism, the new religion on the block owed a lot to the philosophical schools of Greece and Rome that preceded it, especially Platonism, Stoicism, and Cynicism, and later on Aristotelianism.
Wait, did I say Cynicism? What could there possibly be in common between Cynics like Diogenes of Sinope, who ate, had sex, and defecated in the streets, and where therefore nicknamed “dog-like,” and the pious and proper Christians? A lot, as it turned out. At least when it came to one particular practice that Cynicism shared with Christianity: asceticism.
In his book, How to Say No, translator Mark D. Usher has collected a number of ancient sources on Cynicism, but has also dedicated a chapter to a Christian ascetic: Symeon the Stylite (390-459 CE). In so doing, Usher has made astoundingly clear just how different the two philosophies were, despite the superficial similarity in their practices.
We actually have an eye-witness account of the life of “the Columnist,” as Symeon was called (we shall see why in a moment), a book entitled simply Life of Symeon Stylites, by Theodoret of Cyrus, a theologian of the School of Antioch. And we have plenty of contemporary or near contemporary accounts of Diogenes, so we are in relatively good shape, as far as this sort of things is concerned.
Symeon one day asked a member of his congregation what he should do in order to achieve a state of beatitude, and he was told to embrace the ascetic life. Early on in his quest he ended up in a wrestling school for ascetics, an interesting concept in and of itself. Thinking this wasn’t ascetic enough, Symeon embarked on a fast for forty days, in the manner of Moses. He barely survived the ordeal, and was rescued by “the amazing Bassus, a person of God.”
Nevertheless, Symeon persisted at the fasting thing for twenty-eight more years, evidently without serious permanent damage. Still, Theodoret tells us that “as his strength was gradually being spent and extinguished, he was forced to lie down half-dead” every time he fasted.
Symeon, however, was still not satisfied. He came up with the idea of shackling himself with a chain nailed to a huge rock so that he couldn’t move far from his chosen spot. “He spent his days within this area dreaming of heaven.”
All that dreaming did not get in the way of Symeon realizing that the chain was eating into his leg, so he had a piece of leather fitted to the leg for protection. That didn’t really help, since witnesses said that enormous bugs lurked underneath the contraption, presumably feating on Symeon’s tortured flesh.
Due to reports of these and similar feats, Symeon’s fame began to spread and people started coming to see him and seek counsel from him. He was annoyed by all this attention, so decided to move on top of a column—hence his nickname—and just stand there, “for he longs to fly to heaven and be delivered from this earthly life.”
The column turned out to be just as problematic, health-wise, as the chain, “because of his standing a sore in need of attention has developed on his left foot and a great deal of puss oozes out of it continually.” I swear, I’m not making this up!
Symeon managed, in his spare time, to work miracles, advice people to look to heaven and despise earthly things, and inspire his biographer, Theodoret, to conduct a life “set aright according to the Gospel’s rules for living.”
What about Diogenes? He probably started his adult life as a banker, like his father. Hardly a promising beginning for someone who will become one of the most notorious philosophers of all times! He became embroiled in a scandal concerning the debasement of currency in his native Sinope, though apparently the motivation was political, not financial. The city at the time was disputed between pro-Greek and pro-Persian factions, and defacing coins to make them useless was likely an act of protest. Be that as it may, Diogenes was exiled and lost all his possessions.
In the aftermath, he moved to Athens with the intention of doing political activism of a different sort, nudging people toward a virtuous behavior, pointedly reminding them that they could become better human beings. He immediately developed an admiration for the ascetic lifestyle of Antisthenes, a student of Socrates and the founder of the Cynic sect.
Diogenes eventually surpassed his teacher in asceticism and reputation, adopting an austere life style because of his disgust for the vanity, artificiality, and self-deception of much normal human life. He famously adopted a clay wine jar as his abode, going around in full daylight holding a lamp, explaining that he was looking for a man, meaning a rational being, of which he apparently didn’t see many in Athens.
His lived his philosophy every day, bent on showing to people—not necessarily in the gentlest manner possible—that they were mistaken about what is truly important in life. Broadly speaking, of course, that would be virtue, but more specifically the Cynics valued freedoms, three kinds of it: liberty from society-imposed restrictions (eleutheria), self-sufficiency (autarkeia), and freedom of speech (parrhesia).
Diogenes saw himself as the true heir of Socrates and disdained the theoretical philosophy of Plato. When Plato at one point during a lecture gave a definition of man as a “featherless biped” Diogenes showed up at the Academy with a plucked chicken, announcing “Behold! I’ve brought you a man.” Plato, for his part, referred to Diogenes as “Socrates gone mad.”
At some point Diogenes was on a voyage to the Saronic Island of Aegina and was captured by pirates, who sold him as a slave in Corinth. He was bought by Xeniades, a skeptical philosopher, to tutor his two sons. Diogenes apparently remained in Corinth for the rest of his life.
It was there that he allegedly met Alexander the Great, who stopped by to visit the famous Cynic. When Alexander pompously asked Diogenes whether he could do something for him, the Dog responded: “Yes, stand out of my sunlight.” At that, Alexander replied: “If I were not Alexander, then I should wish to be Diogenes.” To which Diogenes said, “If I were not Diogenes, I would still wish to be Diogenes.” (Plutarch, Alexander, 14) You get the idea of the character!
It isn’t clear how Diogenes died, as we have three accounts of it. In one he committed suicide when he was 81 or 89, by holding his breadth. In a second one he died from an illness contracted by eating row octopus. And in a third one, ironically, from an infection caused by a dog bite.
No matter how it happened, he left instructions that his body be thrown outside the city walls, with no burial or other treatment. His friends pointed out that his body would then be eaten by dogs and other animals, wouldn’t he mind that? “Not at all, as long as you provide me with a stick to chase the creatures away!” The bewildered friends asked how he could possibly use the stick, since he would be dead and therefore lack awareness, to which Diogenes obviously replied: “If I lack awareness, then why should I care what happens to me when I am dead?”
So there you have them, the two ascetics, the Christian Columnist and the Cynic Dog. Which one would you follow, and why?
To answer your question, I would go with Diogenes! I would subscribe to Cynicism as described by Epictetus and his emphasis on cleanliness.
When I read much of what is attributed to Diogenes, I’m reminded of the late Yogi Berra/-“ I never said half the things I said.”…