Baring-Gould’s sources: Modern Roman Martyrology. By the Greeks on Nov. 28. Authority: — An encomium on Simeon Metaphrastes by Michael Psellus (flor. 1100), published by Leo Allatius, Paris, 1664. See also Bolland. Simeon Metaphrastes was bom at Constantinople of an illustrious family, and was educated with great care. He Simeon Metaphrastes. 575 advanced to offices of trust in the court, and was logothete, or high treasurer. While still young he went to the island of Crete with Hermerius, grand captain of Leo the Philosopher, about a.d. 900. On this voyage he heard the particulars of the life of S. Theoctiste of Lesbos, a counterpart of S. Mary of Egypt,1 which he heard from a monk named Simon, who enjoined him to write the Life. And this was the beginning of his great hagiographical collection. After this he undertook to collect as many as he could, at the request of the emperor himself, apparently Constantine Porphyrogenitus. As Simeon was wealthy, he was able to procure the manuscripts he required, and all the libraries of the monasteries in Constantinople were open to him. Unfortunately, Metaphrastes, instead of compiling the ancient acts of the martyrs and lives of the eremites in their original form, re-wrote and polished them up, and, apparently, added marvels and horrors either out of his own imagination, or from idle traditions, to suit a depraved popular taste for the horrible and the marvellous. The difference may be seen between the version of Metaphrastes and the original in the acts of the martyrs Tharacus, Probus, Andronicus, which have been preserved. If we compare the life of S. Demetrius of Thessalonica as written by Metaphrastes, with that by Anastasius the librarian, and that by Photius, written in the preceding century, we see what strides that imagination had made in playing with facts; if we compare the simple narrative of the passion of S. Procopius in Eusebius, with the romance of Procopius the duke, in Metaphrastes, we see facts distorted beyond recognition by the same faculty. S. Simeon was given the name Metaphrastes, or Translator, on account of this work. He is also thought to have written a chronographia or history compiled out of ten earlier historians. But great uncertainty reigns as to whether the 1 See Surius, Nov. 10.

…author of this chronographia was the same as the author of Simeon Logotheta be the same as Simeon Metaphrastes. Michael Psellus gives us little detail and much pompous declamation.

6, Catherine, bee jj. MU.; ALTAR OF GOLD, IN THE CLUNY MUSEUM. Fresented to the ancient Cathedral of Basle by the Frnpercr Henry II. 6’. Sosthenes.