The inhabitants of the peninsula at this period were called Ishmaelites or Saracens. The origin of the word Saracen has been much discussed. Ptolemy, the geographer, located Sarakene on the borders of Egypt, and the Sarakeni east of the Gulf of Akaba.[138] According to Eucherius († c. 449), the Arabs and the Agarenes in his time were called Saracens.[139] But the historian Sozomenus († 443) held that the Ishmaelites deliberately called themselves Saracens in allusion to Sarah, because they resented the association with Hagar.[140] Sprenger connected the word with saraka, Arabic for robber; the present view is that it signifies easterner.
The Saracens are mentioned in a letter which Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, wrote about the year 250, in which he mentioned that the Christians fled to the desert to escape persecution. “Many were seized in the Arabian mountains by the heathen Saracens and carried off into captivity.”[141] By the Arabian mountain he probably meant the hills between the Nile valley and the Red Sea, but he may be referring to Sinai.
An early hermit of Sinai was St. Onophrius, whom Nectarius, in his Epitome of Holy History, numbered among the founders of ascetic life.[142] Onophrius dwelt in a grotto in the Wadi Leyan, south of the Gebel Musa, which was visited during the Middle Ages by pilgrims and is still pointed out to travellers.[143]
Paphnutius († c. 390), a monk of Egypt, came across Onophrius on his wanderings and wrote a life of him. Onophrius told him that he had been in the desert seventy years. Originally he dwelt in the Thebaid with about a hundred monks, but hearing of Elijah and John the Baptist, he decided that it was more meritorious to dwell alone in the desert, so he wandered away, led by an angel, and met a hermit who urged him to go five days further where he reached “Calidiomea” (perhaps a corruption of calybem, a hut), near which stood a palm tree where he remained. He suffered from hunger and thirst, from cold and heat, and lived on dates, his clothes gradually dropping from him. He took Paphnutius into his hut, and they were conversing together when a sudden pallor overspread his countenance, and he intimated that Paphnutius would bury him. He died there and then, and Paphnutius tore a piece off his own cloak, in which he wrapped him and laid him in a crevice in the rock.[144]
Onophrius was perhaps the unnamed hermit who was visited by a monk of Raithou, “where stood seventy palm trees in the place which Moses reached with the people when he came out of Egypt.” This monk described how, on his wanderings, he came to a cell in which he found a dead monk whose body dropped to dust when he touched it. In another place he came upon a hermit who had lived in an ascetic community at Heroöpolis, but he associated with a professed nun, and yielded to temptation, whereupon he fled into the distant desert where, as time went on, his hair grew and his clothes dropped from him.[145]
Of similar appearance was the hermit whom Postumianus was bent on seeing when he went from Italy into Sinai some time before 400. In the Dialogues of Severus the words are put into his lips: “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. He had been removed from human fellowship for nearly fifty years and wore no clothes, but was covered with bristles growing on his body, but of divine gift he knew not of his nakedness.”[146]
Another hermit who was drawn to Sinai was Silvanus, a native of Palestine, “to whom on account of his great virtue, an angel was wont to minister. He lived in Sinai and afterwards founded, at Gerari (? Gerra), in the wadi, a very extensive and noted cœnobium for many good men, over which the excellent Zacharias, afterwards presided.”[147] Like other hermits, Silvanus shared his cell with a youthful disciple, and cultivated a garden that was surrounded by a wall and served by a water conduit. Various anecdotes told of him bear witness to his good sense and humility.
“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. We others, being carnal, must eat, and therefore we work. Thou hast in truth chosen the better part, and art able to study all day requiring nothing. On hearing this, the brother saw that he was at fault, and said, Father, forgive me. Silvanus replied, Surely Martha is necessary to Mary, it was due to her that Mary was able to pray. Silvanus himself worked with his hands, chiefly at basket-making, so as to earn his living and not depend on alms.”
The baskets, we gather from other remarks, were used to pack dates for export. Like other hermits, Silvanus had visions. One day he sat for a long time without speaking and then burst into tears. It was, he said, because he saw men of his own kind going to hell, while many secular persons went to heaven. Among the sayings attributed to him was this one, “Woe unto him who has more renown than merit.”[148]
Other early hermits were Galac̭tion and his wife Episteme, whose experiences were noted in the Menology of Basileus,[149] and were worked up into a longer account by Simeon Metaphrastes. They were from Emesa and took ten days to reach the height called Pouplios (? Rubus, the Bush), near Mount Sinai (τὸ Σινᾶ ὄρος), where they found ten hermits who were joined by Galac̭tion. Episteme dwelt at some distance with four virgins. But the Roman governor (Ursus) sent for Galac̭tion. Episteme, apprised by a dream, came forward to die for him. Both endured the penalty of death, and Eutolmios, at one time their slave, recovered and brought back their bodies.[150]