In contrast to this life was that of the hermits who dwelt in huts and rock shelters within call of one another, removed from the claims of the tax-gatherer, and emulating Moses and Elijah in their fasting and humility, some cultivating corn for bread, while others lived on vegetables and green meat, coming together once a week on a Sunday. Nilus was among them, having come down from the holy mountain with his son on a visit to the hermits who dwelt near the Bush. They happened to be in church, when a barbarian horde swept down on them like a whirlwind, seized the food which they had stored in their cells against the winter, and then called to the hermits to come out of church, to strip and to stand according to age. They cut down the priest Theodulos, and slew the fathers Paulus and John, and then seized the young men, bidding the older ones be gone. Many rushed up the mountain, “which they generally avoid since God stood upon it and conferred with the people” (p. 631). Nilus stood irresolute, when his son Theodulos, whom the barbarians had seized, signed to him to be gone. “O why,” he exclaimed, “did not the ground open and swallow them like the sons of Korah? Why had the miracles of Sinai ceased, and no thunder rolled, no lightning flashed to scare them in their wickedness?”
When the barbarians had gone, Nilus helped to bury the dead, and was presently joined by one of the youths who had been carried off but escaped. He described how the barbarians erected an altar, collected wood as a preparation for sacrificing to Lucifer. This he was told by a fellow captive who understood their language. The youths lay bound ready for sacrifice, but he escaped by wriggling away on the ground like a snake. His account filled Nilus with apprehension as to the fate of his son, but in his misery he was upheld by the courage of a woman of Pharan, whose son had actually been murdered.
As there had been other outrages, it was decided in the council (βουλή) at Pharan to lodge a complaint with the phylarch or king of the barbarians (p. 663). His relation to the Roman empire was apparently that he must keep the peace and safeguard those who passed through his territory, in return for which he received a grant (annonæ). On much the same basis, the sheykhs of Sinai under British rule, are responsible for keeping the peace, in return for which they receive a grant in money which they must call for in person at Suez.
Envoys were therefore despatched to the phylarch. They carried bows and arrows, and a stone for striking fire, which would enable them to live by killing and roasting game, “for there is wood in abundance that serves as firewood, since no one fells trees in the desert” (p. 663). During their absence Nilus and others went the round of the neighbouring settlements, where the hermits had been attacked. At Bethrambe (or Thrambe) they buried Proclus; at Salael[166] they buried Hypatius; Macarius and Marcus they found dead in the desert; Benjamin had been slain at Elim; Eusebius was still alive at Tholas; in Adze they found Elias dead (p. 663).
The envoys on their return brought word that King Ammanus was anxious to maintain his relations with the empire, and was prepared to make good the losses which had been incurred. He bade those who had claims to appear before him. Nilus and others accordingly sallied forth. On the eighth day Nilus, who was looking for water, actually caught sight of the encamped Saracens; on the twelfth day of journeying they reached the end of their journey, (which may have been Petra). Here Nilus heard that his son was alive and had been sold into slavery at Elusa. On the way thither, he met a man who had actually seen him, and on going into the church at Elusa, he found his son Theodulos, who had been made doorkeeper of the church by the bishop of the place. Theodulos told his father how he and others lay bound on the ground all night near the altar with a sword, a bason, a phial and incense beside them. But the barbarians drank heavily at night and overslept themselves, and the sun stood above the horizon when they awoke, so the occasion for the sacrifice was forfeited. They therefore moved on to Souka (perhaps a village, perhaps market, Arabic suk), from where they sold Theodulos into slavery. Nilus and his son now decided to settle permanently among the hermits looking forward to a pleasant life. After being ordained by the bishop of Elusa they returned to Sinai where they apparently ended their days. Their memory there continues to be kept to this day. Their bodies were raised together with those of others in the reign of the emperor Justinus Junior (565-578), and were translated to the Church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople.[167]
In the course of the fifth century the dispute regarding the dual nature of Christ entered a further stage when Nestorius, who had been under the influence of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and was promoted to the see of Constantinople, raised objection to the term God-bearer, Θεοτόκος, as applied to the Virgin. By doing so he raised a storm of dissent, the veneration of the Virgin being widespread and deep-seated, partly owing to having been engrafted on an earlier mother-cult.
Pope Celestinus (422-432) called upon Nestorius to recant, but he refused, and a Church Council therefore met at Ephesus in 431 to discuss the matter. Among the two hundred bishops who declared against Nestorius were Hermogenes of Rhinocorura, Abraham of Ostracine, and Lampetius of Casium.[168] The outcome of the dispute was that Nestorius, in the year 435, went into perpetual banishment. Hermogenes of Rhinocorura was praised as a man of moderation and humility, by Isidorus († 449), a monk and prolific letter-writer of Pelusium.[169]
After the Council at Ephesus, Hermogenes went on a mission to Rome with Lampetius of Casium, and was succeeded in his bishopric by Zeno, who was succeeded by Alphius.[170] It was, perhaps, this Alphius who sided with Lampetius (possibly the bishop of Casium) in the difficulty regarding the vagrant ascetics called Massaliani or Euchites, men and women, who gave themselves to prayer and lived by begging, refusing to work. They were censured at the synod of Ephesus,[171] and their condemnation henceforth acted as a deterrent to the wanderings of hermits generally. In consequence of his course of action Alphius was obliged to resign his see. He was succeeded by Ptolemæus of Rhinocorura, who acted in concert with Timothy, patriarch of Alexandria.
A further difficulty was created when the Church Council met at Chalcedon under the auspices of the empress Pulcheria and her husband Marcian, and in 451 laid down articles as to the nature of Christ which remain to this day the standard of the Catholic faith. Of the bishops of the sees in Sinai only Beryllus, bishop of Aila, set his signature to the declaration.[172] And when Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem (451-458), returned to his see and declared his intention of abiding by the decision, the fanatical monks seized the city, turned him out and set the Egyptian monk Theodosius in his place. It was in vain that Juvenal sought to settle the matter by leniency. Theodosius ruled in Jerusalem during twenty months. When he was finally expelled he fled to Sinai. The emperor Marcian hereupon addressed a letter to Bishop Macarius and the monks of Sinai, warning them against Theodosius, who “went from place to place spreading heresy, and who is now in Mount Sinai (ἐν τῷ Σινᾷ ὄρει) where there are monasteries which are dear to you and which have our respect, in which he is working against the true belief.”[173] The emperor also wrote to Juvenal saying that he had written about Theodosius and his adherents to “the most worthy bishop Macarius, to the archimandrite and to the monks,” warning them of his false arguments, and asking them to eject him and hand him over with his satellites to the prefect of the province.[174] It is unknown what became of it.
Other writings of the hermits give an insight into the speculative zeal and boundless credulity of these devotees to a simple life, to whom everything surprising appeared in the light of a miracle. Collections of Sayings of the Fathers (Verba Seniorum), and incidents in their lives, were a favourite branch of literature at the time. Anastasius (c. 561-614), a monk of Sinai, John Climacus († 609), who dwelt at Tholas, and then at the convent, and John Moschus († 619), who habitually dwelt in Jerusalem, but went about visiting, were among those who collected anecdotes and sayings regarding Sinai.