These Byzantine biographies of St Daniel the Stylite, of St Theodore of Sykeon, and of St John the Almsgiver help us to enter into the Byzantine ascetic thought world, with its miracles, its feeling of the nearness of saints and demons, its contempt for the body, its longing for the peace of the soul. They also give us a vivid picture of life in Asia Minor before the Arab invasions, and are in many ways documents concerning the social history of Byzantium.