Feast of St. Daniel the Stylite, December 11

The things you learn... First of all, I never heard of St. Daniel the Stylite. He was a monk in the 5th century. He was a stylite, which I found out means "a type of Christian ascetic who in the early days of the Byzantine Empire stood on pillars preaching, fasting and praying. They believed that the mortification of their bodies would help ensure the salvation of their souls." then I found out that Daniel climbed up on his pillar and only came down once in 33 years - "to turn Emperor Baliscus away from backing the heresy of Monophysitism." Monophysitista believed that the Incarnate Christ "had only a single "nature" which was either divine or a synthesis of divine and human. Monophysitism is contrasted to dyophysitism (or dia-, dio-, or duophysitism) which maintains that Christ maintained two natures, one divine and one human, after the Incarnation."