Some Crazy Saints
he forthwith peeled off his clothes, wrapped them in a bundle, and set them on his head.
"My brother!" exclaimed the Deacon, "put on your clothes again. I cannot walk with you in the public street in this condition."
"Very well, friend, then I will walk first, and you can follow." And stark naked, bearing his bundle "like a faggot" on his head, he stalked down the crowded thoroughfare.
The baths were divided into two parts, one for women, the other for men. Symeon ran towards the women's entrance.
"Not that way!" shouted the Deacon in alarm; "the other side is for men."
"Hot water here, hot water there," answered Symeon; "one is as good as the other"; and throwing down his bundle, he bounded into the ladies' compartment, and splashed in amongst the female bathers.
The women screamed, flew on him, beat, scratched, pushed him, and drove him ignominiously forth.
The biographer gravely informs us that on another occasion an unbelieving Jew saw Symeon privately bathing with two "angels," and would have told what he had seen had not Salos silenced him. It was only after the death of the saint that the Jew related the circumstance. The Christians concluded that the two lovely forms with whom Symeon was enjoying a dip were angels. "To such a pass of purity and impassibility had the
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