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Curiosities of Olden Times "What is the use of consulting this Gnostic?" said one of the Fathers; "he knows nothing but how to crunch pulse."

"What is the matter with the pulse?" asked Symeon, starting up and boxing the hermit on the ears, so that his face bore the mark for three days. "The pulse has been soaking for forty days, and is soft enough, I warrant ye! As for your Origen, he can't eat pulse, for he is at the bottom of the sea. And now take this for your pains!" and he flung the scalding pulse in their faces. His reason, Leontius tells us, was to prevent them from telling all men how he had read their purpose before they had spoken about Origen.

One Lord's Day, Symeon was given a chain of sausages. He hung it over his shoulders like a stole, and filled his left hand with mustard. He ate all day at the sausages, flavouring them with the mustard, and smearing his face with it. This highly amused a rustic, who mocked him. Symeon rushed at him, and threw the mustard in his eyes. The man cried with pain, and Symeon bade him wash the mustard out of his eyes with vinegar. Now it happened that this man was suffering from ophthalmia, and the mustard and vinegar applied to his eyes loosened the white film that was forming over them, and it peeled off, and thus the man was cured.

Symeon had long ago left the service of the 182