DANIELE, Saint
Stylite of the 5th century. We are well informed about the life of this anchorite, the first to introduce in Byzantium the use of penitential columns, from a contemporary Life, which, despite its thaumaturgic and legendary character, common to Eastern hagiography, agrees excellently with the dates and historical facts of the time. D. was born at Meratha (Samosata in Syria) in 409, and at the age of 12 embraced the monastic life. He knew the first stylite, St. Simeon, and was his admirer; he arrived in Constantinople and at first dwelt as a solitary in an ancient pagan temple, then mounted his first column (he had three) in the year 460, and in this manner of life, admired by the people, the bishops and the emperors, persevered until his death in 493.
Among the events in the Life of D., the most interesting for the ecclesiastical usages of that period is his priestly ordination at a distance, and even against the humble reluctance of the Saint, carried out by Bishop Gennadius at the will of Emperor Leo I.
Emanuele Candal
DANIELE
Abbot in Scete, who lived in the 6th century and died after Justinian (565). In the texts that remain to us about the life of D., it is difficult to distinguish historical facts from legendary ones. The following may seem historical. While still young he became a monk in Scete (Wadi en-Natrun). He was enslaved by nomads, but later was able to return to Scete. Having acquired great fame, he left Scete and took up residence in the Delta near the village of Zambok (cf. E. Amelineau, La géographie d'Egypte à l'époque copte, Paris 1893, p. 476), where he built a small monastery; there he died and was buried. He is greatly venerated by the Copts and the Abyssinians (Arabic Synaxarium, 8th of the month of Basans, and Ethiopian Synaxarium, 8th of the month of Genbot).
The texts that remain to us about D. are the following: the original Greek text, edited by L. Clugnet, Vie et récits de l'abbé Daniel (in Revue de l'Orient chrétien, 5 [1900], pp. 50, 254-370); the Syriac text edited by F. Nau (ibid., p. 391); the Coptic text by I. Guidi (ibid., p. 553 and 6 [1901], p. 51); the Arabic text, still unpublished (cf. G. Graf, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur, Vatican City 1944, p. 403); the Ethiopian text edited by L. Goldschmidt and E. Pereira (Vita do Abba Daniel, Lisbon 1897) and corrected by I. Guidi, Vie de l'abbé Daniel (in Revue de l'Orient chrétien, 6 [1901], p. 54).
Saverio Pericoli Ridolfini