He was born circa 390. Simeon was the son of a shepherd. He was born in Sis, now the Turkish town of Kozan in Adana Province. Sis was in the Roman province of Cilicia. After the division of the Roman Empire in 395 CE, it became part of the Eastern Roman Empire. Christianity developed quickly there.
After having been expelled from a monastery for his excessive austerities, at thirty years of age he built a pillar six feet high on which he took up his abode. He made new pillars higher and higher, till after ten years he reached the height of sixty feet. On this pillar he lived for thirty years without ever descending. A railing ran round the capital of the pillar, and a ladder enabled his disciples to take him the necessaries of life. From his pillar he preached and exercised a great influence, converting numbers of heathen and taking part in ecclesiastical politics. The facts would seem incredible were they not vouched for by Theodoret, who knew him personally (Historia religiosa, c. 26). Moreover, Simeon had many imitators, well authenticated Pillar-hermits being met with till the 6th century.
He is commemorated as a saint in the Coptic Orthodox Church, where his feast is on 29 Pashons. He is commemorated 1 September by the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, and 5 January in the Roman Catholic Church.
Alfred Tennyson's poem St. Simeon Stylites (1842) dramatizes the story of Saint Simeon.
Luis Buñuel's film Simón del desierto (1965) is loosely based on the story of Saint Simeon.
In the Herman Melville novel Moby-Dick, the main character likens Saint Stylites to sailors who stand atop the mast-heads as lookout. He noted that the saint had died at his post, unmoved by the elements.
The 1998 film At Sachem Farm features a character played by Nigel Hawthorne who emulates St. Simeon by living on top of a fiberglass pillar.
William A. Caldwell wrote a daily newspaper column called Simeon Stylites for The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey, then known as the Bergen Evening Record, from 1931 until 1972. Each column was exactly 85 lines long. Caldwell's column was awarded the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.
Hans Zender's twelve-tone opera, Stephen Climax, includes St Simeon as a character.
