Ascetic (409–493)
One of the more unusual forms of ascetic witness in the fifth century was that of the stylites, or pillar-saints, of the Syrian wilderness. Like other Desert Fathers, they devoted themselves to prayer and self-denial. But they offered this witness while perched atop pillars of considerable height. St. Daniel was one of these. As a young monk, he accompanied his abbot on a journey that took them by the pillar of St. Simeon, the most famous of the stylites. “When they arrived at that place, and saw the wildness of the spot and the height of the pillar . . . and the Saint’s endurance and his welcome to strangers and further, too, the love he showed toward them, they were amazed.” Daniel was captivated. Many years later, having come to inherit St. Simeon’s actual cloak, he decided to adopt this way of life.
Daniel’s original pillar was the height of “two men.” But eventually he attracted the patronage of the emperor Leo, who built him a series of pillars of increasing height. There he would stand all day and night, exposed to the elements— freezing rain, scorching sun, winds strong enough to strip his garments. Pilgrims would gather to stare up at him in wonder, to join him in prayer, and listen to his discourses on the Gospel. The patriarch of Constantinople impelled him to accept ordination, which he conferred by climbing up a ladder and laying hands on the weathered hermit.
Despite the difficulties of his life, Daniel lived to the age of eighty-four.
He spoke about “the love of God and the care of the poor and almsgiving and brother love . . .”
—From The Life of St. Daniel the Stylite
