The other kind of columnist

 I was taken by the headline, “The Columnist.”

As a former newspaperman who was once a columnist, I was curious about what could go under that heading in a collection of ancient writings about Diogenes and other Cynic philosophers.

“The Columnist” is Symeon Stylites, of course. You know, the ancient Christian ascetic who lived atop a 50-foot column just outside of Aleppo. (The Greek stulos can mean column, pillar or post.) 

The saint’s life was written by Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, near Antioch.

The ancient Cynics took philosophy to the streets. They were performance artists. Diogenes of Sinope went about Athens, carrying a lantern in broad daylight, in search of a wise man. People talked about him and his beliefs.

Theodoret mentions that ability to spark interest, to draw a crowd. He says Persians, Armenians, Ishmaelites, Iberians and Homerites came to see Symeon. Even people from the barely imaginable west — Spaniards and Britons and the Gauls in between — came to see the guy who lived on top of the column.

And of course that celebrity allowed Symeon to preach, to get the message out.

I’m not much interested in Symeon. But reading about him was instructive.

Sometimes, I’m tempted to think that the cult of celebrity was invented by the stars of reality TV and social media. Symeon begs to differ.

• Sources: How to Say No: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Cynicism, sayings and writings of Diogenes and other Cynics selected, translated and introduced by M.D. Usher; Princeton University Press, 2022. I picked up Usher’s book to see his translation of part of Diogenes Laërtius’s Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. For more on that, see “Collecting chreiai,” Jan. 3, 2023.