Stylites

Stylites, SIMEON (circa 390-460), the first "pillar-saint" (Greek, stylites), was born near Antioch. After spending some twelve years in monasteries he withdrew to a lonely Syrian mountain, and there devised the system of penance from which he took his name, living for thirty or forty years on the top of a pillar, the height of which was gradually increased to about 70 feet.