At least through the end of the eighth century, the Syriac churches still had stylites, solitaries dwelling high on pillars. And the old ways continued deep into the high Middle Ages. About 1270, for instance, we hear of Bar Sauma, a Nestorian monk in China who set apart a cell for himself and he shut himself up therein seven years; and after that [period] he decided to remove himself from the children of men, and to practice himself in the ascetic life in the mountain, in a place which was wholly isolated, so that he might rest there [undisturbed] in his life as a recluse.3
