Lina Eckenstein

“ CHAPTER X THE HERMITS IN SINAI
A NEW era in the history of Sinai began with the advent of the Christian hermit. The desert has ever been the home of liberty. The desire to follow the New Way, coupled with the need of escaping the Roman governor, drove many Christians into the wilderness, where, remote from the claims and the unrest of citizen life, they embraced life in a form which meant reducing physical needs to a minimum. ”

“ CHAPTER XVI THE PILGRIMS OF THE MIDDLE AGES II.
THE war of retaliation, which the Sultan waged against the king of Cyprus, interrupted the flow of pilgrims to the East in the first half of the fifteenth century. Moreover, the sultans, more especially Bursbai (1423-38) , began to squeeze the Christian merchants. Their grievances raised the ire of Emmanuel Piloti, a native of Crete, who spent twenty-five years in Egypt and Syria, and acquired considerable insight into affairs generally. ”

“ I saw the Red Sea and I climbed the height of Mount Sinai (jugum Sina Montis) , the summit of which almost touches heaven and cannot be reached by human effort. A hermit was said to live somewhere in its recesses, and I sought long and much to see him, but was unable to do so. ”

“ A certain brother once came to Sinai where he found the brethren hard at work and he said to them, Labour not for the meat that perishes. Silvanus, who overheard the remark, directed his disciple Zacharias to give him a book and lead him to an empty cell. When the ninth hour came, the brother looked towards the entrance expecting to be called to a meal, but no one came, so he went to Silvanus and said, Father, do not the brethren eat to-day? Silvanus replied, Oh yes, they have eaten. Then why was I not called? Because, said Silvanus, thou art a spiritual man who needs no such food. ”

“ Sinai is famous for the part which it has played in the religious history of mankind. It was at one time a centre of moon-cult, before it became the seat of the promulgation of the Law to the Jews at the time of Moses. In Christian times it was one of the chief homes of the hermits, and the possession of the relics of St. Katherine in the great convent of the south, caused Sinai to be included in the Long Pilgrimage throughout the Middle Ages. ”

“ According to Arab tradition the land along the shores of the Mediterranean was of great fruitfulness before it was invaded by sand drifts. It was the same with the numerous fruit and vegetable gardens which were once cultivated by the monks and the hermits. With the exception of the garden belonging to the convent, they have passed away. Journeying across the wide stretches of the country which were formerly a wilderness and are now a desert, one wonders if a wise government could not impose restrictions which would stop the destruction of the undergrowth and regulate the water-supply. ”

“ There is always a difficulty in reading aright the names of precious stones. Mafkat was often rendered as malachite, and it needed the turning over of the rubbish heaps at Serabit and the discovery of turquoise, in order fully to establish the nature of the stone that was the product of the area appropriated to “Hathor of Mafkat.”
The close of the Sixth Dynasty brought a break in the relations between Egypt and Sinai, which is attributable, no doubt, to changes in Egypt itself, of which we know little at this period. Perhaps there were movements among the people of the east. ”

“ Anthony between the Red Sea and Egypt, where he was visited by a monk of Pharan who told him that it was ten months since he had seen a human being. To which Sisoeis replied that it was eleven months since he had seen one himself.
The hermit life in Sinai was at its height when the lady Etheria visited the peninsula, intent on identifying the sites of which she had read in the Bible. Her eagerness seems to have stirred the imagination of the monks, and led to decisions as to localities which were accepted as authentic for centuries to come. ”

“ VARIOUS circumstances combined to raise the convent of Sinai to great prosperity during the early Middle Ages. On the one side it received regular contributions in money from Europe; on the other it attracted the attention of the pilgrims owing to the increasing fame of St. Katherine. Further it secured the direct protection of the Moslim rulers of Egypt owing to a development in trade.
When the Arabs conquered Egypt, the desire arose for a direct communication by water to Arabia, and the fresh-water canal which connected the Nile with the Red Sea was cleared. ”

“ AFTER the close of the Twelfth Dynasty, the Egyptians ceased for centuries to come to Sinai. The reason was that foreigners, for over a hundred years, ruled in the Nile valley whom the Alexandrian writers called Arabians or Phœnicians. The Egyptians themselves called them Hyksos. To this period probably belong the inscriptions in Semitic script that were set up in some mines in the Wadi Dhabah near Serabit, and the offerings of a squat figure and of a sphinx inscribed in the same Semitic script which were presented before the shrine of the goddess. ”

“ Thus, the writer Antoninus Martyr, who, about the year 530, entered Sinai from Gaza, journeyed by way of Elath (Elusa) , “at the beginning of the desert that goes to Sinai,” and mentioned a festival that was about to take place. The people who entered the greater desert were in number twelve thousand (c. 36) . On the eighth day after leaving Gaza, he reached the place where Moses brought forth water from the rock, and came to Horeb, which, in his estimation, was distinct from Sinai. ”

“ THE ancient peoples and place names of Sinai claim separate attention.
The earliest Egyptian rock inscription at Maghara represents the Pharaoh as a smiter, and describes him as such with the signs of a hand, an eagle, and the determinative of hills. The term is held to apply to no people in particular, and is therefore rendered as “barbarians.”
King Khufu (IV 2) , in addition, is described as a smiter of the Anu; the word is written with the pillar sign. The word Anu was applied in Egypt to cave-dwellers generally, more especially to those of Nubia. ”

“ FROM the reign of the emperor Justinian (527-563) dates the fortification of the hermit settlement known as the Bush, which was thereby transformed into a convent, and as such, braved the vicissitudes of many centuries. The fortification was apparently part of a wider scheme by which the emperor used the peninsula of Sinai as a bulwark against the invasion from the east. Movements among the Eastern people were threatening the frontier line of the Roman empire at the time, and its internal organisation was by no means secure. ”

“ A history of Sinai deals with the people who visited the peninsula at different times, rather than with its permanent inhabitants, who, in the course of centuries, seem to have undergone little change. They still live the life of the huntsman and the herdsman as in the days of Ishmael, sleeping in the open, and adding to their meagre resources by carrying dates and charcoal to the nearest centres of intercourse, in return for which they receive corn. ”

“ The first of these cities on the road from Syria was El Arish, situated near the Wadi el Arish, the river or “stream of Egypt” of the Bible (Isa. xxvii. 12) . El Arish was accounted a very ancient city by the Arabs. Its land was cultivated soon after the Deluge and was called the Gate to Paradise. Abraham passed here. Makrizi († 1441) relates a tradition regarding the building of reed huts there, which recalls an incident preserved by Diodorus Siculus (c. b.c. 20) , the origin of which may be sought in the wish to explain the later name of the city which was Rhinocorura or Rhinocolura. ”

“ The military highway from Egypt to Syria from ancient times followed the coast line of the Mediterranean, the settlements along which were modified on one side by the encroachment of the sea, on the other by the invasion of sand.
Adjoining this zone of drift sand, the land extends south with increased elevation to the centre of the peninsula, where it reaches a height of about 4000 ft., and abruptly breaks off in a series of lofty and inaccessible cliffs, the upper white limestone of which contrasts brilliantly in some places with the lower red sandstone. ”

“ The earliest tablets in the Wadi Maghara represented the Pharaoh under three aspects: as king of Upper Egypt, as king of Lower Egypt, and as smiter of the enemy who crouches before him. There is, at first, little wording beside the names and the titles of the king. As a smiter the king holds a mace in one hand and a staff in the other, and the enemy has a bold cast of countenance, abundant hair, a peaked beard, and wears a loin-cloth. The Pharaoh holds him by the top-knot, together with a carved object which he seems to have taken from him. ”

“ When work was resumed in Sinai in the Eleventh Dynasty, the attitude of the Egyptians towards Serabit had undergone a marked change. In early days they had approached the sanctuary as quasi-worshippers, presenting offerings such as the baboon and the hawk. Now the sanctuary itself was drawn within the sphere of their influence, and they erected uprights or mazzeboth on the approach to the cave on which they recorded their mining expeditions.
Uprights of this kind are entirely unknown in Egypt. ”

“ When the emperor enquired into their wishes, they said: We beg for a monastery in which we shall be safe. For at that time there was no convent building in which the monks could congregate. They dwelt scattered in the mountains and along the valleys near the Bush from which the Lord spoke to Moses, having only a large tower above the Bush which is standing to this day, and a church dedicated to the Virgin, where they sought protection when those approached whom they dreaded. ”

“ Besides these huts, rectangular huts were noticed in the Wadi Aleyat, the Wadi Nasb, and elsewhere. These also cannot, at present, be claimed for any age.
The introduction of the camel to the wadis of Sinai dealt one more blow at the vegetation of the peninsula. For the camel is to all purposes a huge goat, and, like the goat, is a most destructive animal. His introduction was necessarily followed by the loss of verdure which resulted in loosening of the soil and spread of the desert. In Egypt the introduction of the camel during Roman times depleted the flora and altered the fauna. ”

“ Early writers agree that no hermit or monk ever spent a night on the summit of the mountain. Nilus (c. 400) remarked that the height was generally avoided “since God conferred there with the people,” while Etheria and Antoninus Martyr simply noted that no hermit spent the night there. This fact Procopius (c. 550) connected with “heavenly phenomena.” At a later date the hermit Simeon, for a time, dwelt “on the summit of Mount Sinai, where the Law was given, a place deserted because of the restless Arabs.” ”