A History of Sinai

by Lina Eckenstein

THE BUILDING OF THE CONVENT

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.

The care which was bestowed on the convent itself may have been due to the favour which the monophysite form of belief found for a time with Justinian, and more especially with his wife, the empress Theodora († 548). It was owing to her influence that Anthimus I was raised to the see of Constantinople, but a synod convened in the year 536 deposed him. At this synod there were present Paulus II, bishop of Aila,[187] and Theonas, who described himself as “presbyter of Holy Mount Syna, and legate of the church of Pharan and the hermitage of Raithou.”[188] Theonas apparently acted as legate owing to the age and infirmity of Photius, bishop of Pharan. His appointment shows the close connection that existed at the time between the three chief hermit settlements in Sinai proper. The presence of Theonas at Constantinople no doubt furthered, if it did not originate, the idea of fortifying the convents of Sinai.

The building activity of Justinian began about the year 535. Procopius, his secretary, wrote an account of his relations with Sinai and described the life of the monks as “a careful study of death.” They therefore sought the solitude that was dear to them. The emperor, he says, built a church for them which was dedicated to the Theotokos, so that they might spend their life in continual prayer in the service of God, not on the summit of the mountain, but below it, for on the summit thunder and other heavenly phenomena were heard at night, which made it impossible to spend the night there. Here it was that Moses is said to have received the Laws of God and proclaimed them. At the foot of the mountain Justinian built a military station, so that the Saracens might not unawares attack Palestine.[189]

A later age produced a decree of Justinian dated to 551, which declared the independence of the foundation. The decree is no doubt a forgery, but the independent standing of the convent was generally accepted. The terms of the alliance which secured the safety of the settlement were first set forth by Said ibn Batrick, otherwise Eutychius, patriarch of Alexandria (933-40), to whom we owe a full account of the building of the convent.

“The monks of Sinai,” he wrote, “hearing of the piety of Justinian, and the delight that he took in building churches and monasteries, went to him and described how the Ishmaelite Arabs harmed them by plundering their food stores, invading and emptying their cells, and entering their churches where they devoured the eucharist. 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. The emperor despatched with them a legate with full authority to the prefect of Egypt, asking that he should be supplied with building materials, with men and provisions in Egypt. He was charged to build a monastery at Kelzem (Clysma), and a monastery at Raya (Raithou), and one on Mount Sinai, this to be so fortified that no better could be found.” After building the church of St. Athanasius at Clysma, and the monastery at Raithou, the legate came into Sinai, where he found the Bush in a narrow valley with the tower near it, also bubbling springs and the monks scattered along the valleys. He intended building the monastery on the summit of the mountain, leaving the Bush and the tower below, but he altered his plan because of the lack of water on the mountain, and built the monastery near the Bush enclosing the tower, and a church on the summit of the mountain where Moses accepted the Law. The name of the superior was Doulas. But the change of plan so annoyed the emperor that it cost the legate his life.

Fig. 16.—View of the Convent. (Petrie: Researches in Sinai.)

In order to safeguard the building, Roman slaves were brought from the Black Sea (traditionally from Wallachia), a hundred in number, and transferred to Sinai with their wives and children, together with a hundred men with their wives and children from Egypt. Dwellings were erected for them in Mount Sinai so that they might safeguard the monastery and the monks; they received their supplies from Egypt. Their settlement was known as the Deir Abid (i.e. monastery of slaves), and their descendants continued there till the spread of the Moslim faith. Moreover the Benu Saleh were appointed to act as ghafirs or protectors to the monks, that is, they were responsible for those moving to and fro across the desert, in return for which they received largess in the form of food.[190] The same terms were mentioned by Makrizi († 1441) in his History of the Copts,[191] and by the Perigraphe in its Arabic translation of the year 1710.[192] According to this the Benu Saleh, the Saidi and the Halig (Aleyat) were attached to the service of the convent which, in return, supplied them with food.

The importance which the agreement attached to the Benu Saleh, was in keeping with the ancient establishment of this tribe in the peninsula, and their association with rites of religious importance in close vicinity to Gebel Musa and on Gebel Musa itself. The tomb of Nebi Saleh lies in the Wadi Sheykh at a distance of a few miles from the convent. It is the scene of an annual tribal festival which concludes with a pilgrimage half-way up the Gebel Musa, where a sheep is sacrificed over a natural hole in the rock. This is looked upon as a footprint of the holy camel, no doubt originally of the Naga, which was the creation of Nebi Saleh.