A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

11. HIEROSOLYMITANUS (2). Toward the close of the eleventh century, the patriarchate of Jerusalem was held by Symeon or Simon II. In the Latin catalogues of the bishops of Jerusalem he is called Simon; but the Latin historians of the crusades generally write his name Symeon or Simeon. He succeeded Euthymius, but in what year is not known : he was already patriarch in A. D. 1094, when he had many conversations with Peter the Hermit, then on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, on the deplorable state of the Christians in the East; and these conversations were among the means of exciting the compassion and zeal of Peter, and eventually of producing the crusades. On the arrival of the crusaders in Syria, and the formation of the siege of Antioch by them, in A. D. 1098, Symeon, terrified by the threats of the Turks of Jerusalem, fled to the island of Cyprus. From this island he maintained a friendly intercourse with the leaders of the crusaders, sending them presents of fruits, wine, poultry, and such things as he could. He died just about the time of the capture of Jerusalem, and the vacancy caused by his death being filled up by the crusaders with a patriarch of the Latin Church, and by the native Christians with one of the Greek Church, gave occasion to a long continued schism and a succession of rival claimants of the two Churches. An extant treatise De Azymis adversus Latinos, from which Allatius (De Symeon. Scriptis, p. 180) gives a passage, is ascribed, and apparently with good reason, to our Symeon. Le Quien, indeed, doubts whether

it is correctly ascribed to him, because the author appears " not to have been hostile to the Latins ;" but the very courtesy of tone which occasioned Le Quien's doubts, while sufficiently at variance with the usual style of mediaeval polemics, is just such as a man in Symeon's circumstances would be likely to use. (Willermus s. Guillelmus Tyrensis, lib. 1. c.11; Albertus Aquensis, Historia Hieros. lib. 6. c.39; Le Quien, Oriens Christianus, vol. iii. col. 498; Allatius, l.c. ; Montfaucon, Biblioth. Coislin. p. 105; Cave, Hist. Litt. ad ann. 190, vol. ii. p. 159.)