SIMEON METAPHRASTES

born c. 900, , probably Constantinople died after 984 Byzantine hagiographer whose Menologion, a 10-volume collection of the lives of early Eastern saints, arranged according to their feast days, achieved wide popularity. Most of these texts had existed earlier, but they were not well written. Simeon gave them a stylistic revision (metaphrasis), and his version became so popular that the older collections ceased to be copied; hence many lives of saints were lost. Of Simeon's life it is known only that he held an administrative post in the Byzantine civil service and that toward the end of his life he became a monk. Several commentaries on Eastern theologians and other works attributed to Simeon are probably not genuine.