"He [St. Simeon Stylites] had been passionately loved by his parents, and, if we may believe his eulogist and biographer, he began his saintly career by breaking the heart of his father, who died of grief at his flight. His mother, however, lingered on. Twenty-seven years after his disappearance, at a period when his austerities had made him famous, she heard for the first time where he was and 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. Her entreaties and tears were mingled with words of bitter and eloquent reproach. 'My son,' she is represented as having said, 'why have you done this? I bore you in my womb, and you have wrung my soul with grief. I gave you milk from my breast, you have filled my eyes with tears. For the kisses I gave you, you have given me the anguish of a broken heart; for all that I have done and suffered for you, you have repaid me by the most cruel wrongs.' At last the saint sent a message to her to tell her that she would soon see him. Three days and three nights she had wept and entreated in vain, and now, exhausted with grief and age and privation, she sank feebly to the ground and breathed her last sigh before that inhospitable 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" (Ibid, 130). 567 Did he not indulge in vituperation and abuse? "Ye fools and blind" (Matthew xxiii, 17). "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites" (14). "All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers" (John x, 8). "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" (Matthew xxiii, 33.) Regarding these abusive epithets of Christ, Prof. Newman says: "The Jewish nation may well complain that they have been cruelly slandered by the gospels. The invectives have been burnt into the heart of Christendom, so that the innocent Jews, children of the dispersion, have felt in millennial misery--yes, and to this day feel--the deadly sting of these fierce and haughty utterances" (Jesus Christ, p. 25). 568 Relate his treatment of the Pharisee who invited him to dine with him. Luke: "And as he spake, a certain Pharisee besought him to dine with him; and he went in, and sat down to meat. And when the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that he had not first washed before dinner. And the Lord said unto him, now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. Ye fools ... hypocrites!" (xi, 37-44.)