A History of Sinai

by Lina Eckenstein

There was also the monk Sisoeis, who dwelt in the hermitage of St. 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. The account of Etheria calls for a few words of comment.

The MS. of her journey was discovered in the library of Arezzo by Gamurrini in 1883. It was incomplete and its author was not named. Gamurrini provisionally claimed it for St. Silvia of Aquitaine, and dated the journey between 378 and 383. But the abbé Férotin[180] has since pointed out that Valerius (c. 650), abbot of a monastery near Astorga in Spain, wrote a letter “In praise of the blessed Etheria,” in which he described how this nun “with a bold heart undertook a journey across the world.” He mentioned details of her journey which establish beyond a doubt that the writer of the Arezzo account was meant.[181] A German writer, Karl Meister, on the internal evidence of the account, hereupon dated the journey between 534 and 539. But he overlooked the fact that Etheria, in connection with her visit to Seleucia, mentioned by name her dear friend, the diaconissa Martbana, who is named also as one of the distinguished women of the place by Basileus, bishop of Seleucia who died in the year 456.[182] There were convents in the south of France before the close of the fifth century, as we know from the rules drafted by Cæsarius, bishop of Arles (501-573); the date of Etheria may be about 460.

The MS. account discovered at Arezzo was incomplete. But the account, in its complete form, was apparently in the hands of Peter the Deacon when he compiled his little book On the Holy Places, about the year 1157, for Guidobaldo, abbot of Monte Cassino. In this book Peter cited passages found in the account that was discovered at Arezzo together with others which seem to be taken from the part of the work which is wanting. In the account which follows, the initial passages are quoted from the book of Peter on the assumption that they were taken from the account of Etheria.

Etheria and her party entered and left Sinai from Egypt.

“Before you reach the holy Mount Syna, stands the fort Clesma on the Red Sea which the Israelites passed dryshod. The marks (vestigia) of the chariot of the Pharaoh are visible in the ground to this day. But the wheels are farther apart than those of the chariots (currus) of our days as they are seen in the Roman empire, for between wheel and wheel is a space of twenty-four feet or more, and the wheelruts (orbitæ) are two feet wide. These marks of the Pharaoh’s chariot lead down to the shore where he entered the sea when he wanted to seize the Israelites. On the spot where the Pharaoh’s wheelruts are visible, two signs are set up, one on the right, and one on the left, like little columns (columella).[183]

Orosius (c. 400) in his History of the Universe, also mentioned the marks of the chariot wheels of the Pharaoh, which were still visible.[184] Cosmas Indicopleustes about the year 550 referred to them as “a sign to unbelievers.”[185] The consensus of opinion of these writers suggests the existence of some feature that attracted attention. The word Clysma itself signified beach or jetty. Perhaps the ruts were the marks made by the keels of the boats that were hauled in, in which case the little columns were perhaps the bollards on which the ropes were worked.

“Beyond the place of crossing lay the desert Shur and Mara with its two wells that were sweetened by Moses (probably the Ayun Musa). Three days’ journey lay Arandara, the place called Helim, where the river, in places, disappeared in the ground and where there was much herbage and many palm trees. From the crossing of the Red Sea near Sur there was no pleasanter place.” The description and the name Arandara point to the present Wadi Gharandel.

Etheria was bent on seeing all the sites, including the place where it rained manna, the cells with Hebrew writing, the desert of Pharan “where there were neither fields nor vineyards but water and palm trees,” the place Faran, where Amalek opposed the Israelites, the place where the Israelites called for water, and the place where Jethro met Moses, his son-in-law, “the spot where Moses prayed while Joshua fought Amalek, is a high, steep mountain above Pharan, and where Moses prayed there is now a church” (Petrus, ed. Geyer, p. 118). This was probably the church mentioned above which was founded by Julian Sabbas.