In this book, I utilize a variety of sources, including ancient literary works, archaeological remains, papyri, and inscriptions. Each of these types of sources provides a different opportunity for analysis, yet all have pitfalls that can lead the unwary scholar astray. In general, the literary sources that describe the Near East during late antiquity are problematic for historians. In contrast to the sources for classical Greek and Roman history, scholars are confronted with an almost complete lack of secular writings. Of the extant sources for late antiquity, only the fourth-century Ammianus Marcellinus and the sixth-century Procopius attempted to follow the standards of historical analysis developed by Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Livy, and Tacitus. In fact, the composition of history devoid of supernatural forces almost disappeared.1 Religion became one of the driving forces of historical inquiry and clearly influenced the development and narratives of these texts. Religious identity predominates throughout these texts; it is only through close scrutiny that the traces of individual lives and competing identities can be discovered, not all of them revolving around religious belief.2
I use six major primary-source texts: Eusebius’s Onomasticon, the Sinai Martyr Narratives by Ammonius and Pseudo-Nilus, the pilgrimage accounts written by Egeria and the Piacenza pilgrim (sometimes referred to by the name Antoninus Placentinus), and Cosmas Indicopleustes’ Christian Topography. The relevant sections of all but Eusebius’s Onomasticon are translated and introduced in detail in Daniel Caner’s remarkably useful History and Hagiography from the Late Antique Sinai.3
Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260–ca. 340 C.E.) was a prolific writer.4 His output, spanning the late third and early fourth centuries, surpassed that of any other author, pagan or Christian, of his age. He established himself as one of the preeminent Christian writers in creating a new type of literature—ecclesiastical history—but only his Onomasticon concerns me here. The Greek text of the Onomasticon is preserved in only one manuscript, currently in the Vatican, which was discovered in the library at Saint Catherine’s.5 In the late fourth century, Jerome translated the Onomasticon into Latin, and the Latin text became widely disseminated.6
The Onomasticon was the fourth in a series of biblical studies by Eusebius, although only the Onomasticon has survived.7 It lists toponyms organized by the biblical book and Greek alphabetical order. Most important, each entry contains a brief description of the site during Eusebius’s time, including the contemporary place name, the location of Roman garrisons, and a discussion of the inhabitants of the site. Although the date of the Onomasticon is debated, it seems to be a product of the 320s C.E.8
Ammonius’s Relatio claims to be a firsthand account of a pilgrimage to the Sinai in 375–78, during the reign of Valens.9 Several scholars have suggested that the Relatio was written not by a pilgrim to the Sinai in the fourth century but rather by Christian monks at Mount Sinai or Rhaithou in the sixth or seventh century.10
The Relatio contains two separate reports of Christian martyrdom. In the first, Ammonius describes how he witnessed the martyrdom of forty monks at Mount Sinai at the hands of Saracens, narrating the atrocities in the first person. The second report is told in the third person, through the testimony of an “Ishmaelite” who fled to Mount Sinai from an attack of nomadic Blemmyes at Rhaithou in which forty monks were killed.11 The first report, concerning the Saracen attack on Mount Sinai, seems more likely to be authentic because the it is written in the first person and is largely unembellished as compared with the second report.12 The second report is more influenced by hagiographic topoi and much more elaborate in its descriptions of martyrdom. Since the two reports are so different in their content, it seems likely that they were originally written by two different authors and later combined into a single text.
All scholars agree that the Relatio was written by someone (perhaps two people) familiar with the Sinai, regardless of whether it was written by Ammonius or anonymous monks at Rhaithou or Mount Sinai. Through Ammonius’s Relatio, we are able to see how the inhabitants of the Sinai thought about themselves, the nomadic populations, and the geography of the Sinai. Although the events themselves may be fiction, the text reflects a deeper cultural knowledge than could have been invented. However, because the image created by the Relatio presents an entirely antagonistic relationship between the Saracens and the monks, one cannot use that text to understand other possible forms of interaction between the two groups.
The Relatio is extant in several traditions: two Greek lines, Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA), Syriac, Arabic, and Georgian.13 The Greek and CPA texts claim that Ammonius originally composed the work in Coptic, but no Coptic version of this text has been discovered.14 A Greek text is clearly the basis of the CPA text, but the surviving Greek version seems to be from a separate tradition than the CPA, and the Greek version(edited by Demetrios Tsames) that I have used may reflect a later tradition as compared with the CPA version.15 The surviving Greek versions differ in merely minor ways, which may represent later alterations of the text.16
As with Ammonius’s Relatio, the authenticity of Pseudo-Nilus’s Narrationes has been questioned by many scholars. By the tenth century, the Narrationes had become associated with Nilus of Ancyra, largely because the Narrationes were believed to contain philosophical and narrative similarities to Nilus of Ancyra’s (d. ca. 430) letters. It is now generally accepted that Nilus of Ancyra did not compose the text.17 For this reason, the author is commonly referred to as Pseudo-Nilus.18
The Narrationes concerns the trials and tribulations of the Sinai monk Nilus and his son Theodulus. The Narrationes is written in the first person, purportedly by the protagonist Nilus, and begins in medias res.19 The first narratio begins with Nilus arriving at Pharan after fleeing a Saracen attack at Mount Sinai. Although Nilus begins to despair, the people of Pharan embolden him with praise of the monastic life. In the second narratio, Nilus begins to tell his life story. When he starts questioning God’s will, the people of Pharan urge him to accept his fate and put his trust in God. Nilus continues his story in narratio three. This section contains an ethnographic comparison of the behaviors and customs of the Saracens and the Sinai monks. Narratio four describes the Saracen attack and how Nilus’s son was captured. In the fifth narratio, another survivor arrives at Pharan and tells how he and Theodulus survived a Saracen attempt at human sacrifice. The narratio dwells on the cruelty and barbaric nature of the Saracens and, in addition to the human sacrifice, describes a vicious attack on a number of ascetics. The sixth narratio describes a journey across the Sinai desert to seek recompense for the Saracen attacks from the chief, Ammanes. Nilus participates in the journey to find his son, but when the emissaries reach Ammanes, they learn that Theodulus has been sold as a slave and is living in Elusa in the nearby Negev. Nilus then travels to Elusa and finds his son serving in a church. In the final narratio, Theodulus describes his adventures and concludes that he survived by placing his trust in God’s Providence.
Most scholars believe that the text is a fabrication of some sort and does not describe the actual experience of a monk known as Nilus.20 Many have pointed out the linkages between the Narrationes and earlier Greco-Roman novels, such as Achilles Tatius’s Leucippe and Clitophon, from which entire sentence constructions are copied.21 This has suggested to several scholars the claim that the work is pure literary fantasy.22 Other scholars have argued that the text possesses greater historical value. Vassilios Christides, for example, thinks that the ethnographic accounts of the Saracens are valuable even if the rest of the text is suspect.23Philip Mayerson, although conceding that Nilus and his son Theodulus are probably fictional characters, believes that the text itself provides many credible details. He argues that the Narrationes is based on a plausible event, a Bedouin raid on the unprotected monks, even though the discussion of the event is highly literary. The date of production is also debated, with some scholars preferring late-fourth-century, fifth-century, or even sixth-century dates.24 The Narrationes can be read as a late-antique romance that reveals much about the constructions of identities and the self.25 Thus, it is not the overt moral of the tale that concerns me but how the underlying assumptions and implications demonstrate the creation of identity and images of the Other.
The Itinerarium Egeriae (Itinerary of Egeria) is preserved in only one manuscript, dated to the eleventh century, which was discovered in 1884 in Spain.26 Egeria describes the Christian holy places that she visited and the liturgy of Jerusalem that she witnessed during a three-year (381–84) pilgrimage to the Near East.27 Egeria possibly originated in Spain or Gaul and may have been writing to inform an aristocratic circle or possibly a group of ascetic women.28 Because readers had never seen the regions that she mentions, she tries to impart her impressions, feelings, and visual sensations to her readers; the Itinerarium Egeriae is an excellent source on the geography of the late-fourth-century Near East and the development of Christian holy places.
The text of the Itinerarium Egeriae begins and ends in midsentence, and it is possible that only about one-third of the original text is extant.29 The surviving text begins as Egeria’s party approaches Mount Sinai and therefore does not include her journey to the Sinai Peninsula or the sites visited en route to Mount Sinai. Some of this missing information has been preserved in the twelfth-century Liber de Locis Sanctis written by Peter the Deacon.30
The Itinerarium Antonini Placentini describes a pilgrimage from Placentina (Piacenza) in Italy to the Holy Land. The author, commonly referred to as the Piacenza pilgrim, traveled throughout the Near East, visiting Cyprus, Jerusalem and Palestine, Egypt, the Sinai, Syria, and the upper Euphrates River in either the 560s or the 570s.31
This account provides invaluable descriptions of the Near East in the late sixth century. Although often not so descriptive about his feelings and impressions as Egeria, the Piacenza pilgrim does not focus exclusively on sites of religious significance and often provides descriptions of secular locations. In addition, unlike Egeria, he actually describes the appearance of buildings and sites, whereas Egeria had simply mentioned what she saw without description.32 He seems to have recorded what he found interesting rather than just those items that elucidated Scripture. The Piacenza pilgrim describes not only places that he saw firsthand but also others that he did not visit. This suggests that he received information from guides, traveling companions, or a guidebook.33 Most scholars implicitly assume that the details provided by the Itinerarium Antonini Placentini are generally sound, but one may be more skeptical about the places he knew only via hearsay.34
Finally, Cosmas Indicopleustes’ Christian Topography contains a wealth of geographic knowledge; but it should be read as a theological rather than a geographic text. In it, Cosmas attempted to describe the nature and structure of the universe as revealed in the Christian Scriptures rather than through physical observations. According to Cosmas, the universe is divided into two parts, reflecting the two natures of mankind—one impure, facing pain, death, and immorality, and another pure, representing immortality and holiness. These were separated by a firmament that prevented the imperfect humans, who lived in the lower section, from reaching the upper section reserved for the holy. Everything was enclosed inside a cube represented by the Tabernacle as presented to Moses in Exodus.35 Although Cosmas completely rejects pagan models of the circular universe, his work shows that he was aware of previous pagan scholarship, and he debated the attempt by his contemporary Philoponus to Christianize these pagan theories.36
The Christian Topography has been dated to 547–49 because two eclipses occurred in the year 547 while Cosmas was completing the text.37 The author of the Christian Topography provides many details of his life in the text, but he never mentions his own name, possibly because his ideas would have been deemed heretical at the time. The name Cosmas Monachos appeared in the ninth century, and the term Indicopleustes (The Sailor to India) was added in the tenth or eleventh century, but it is doubtful that he ever visited India.38 Cosmas tells us that he was a merchant who traveled extensively in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.39 He visited Ethiopia between 522 and 525.40 He sailed into the Persian Gulf and landed on the island of Socotora, which lies at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula and was the last harbor on the naval route to India.41 He also sailed as far as the modern Cape Guardafui in Somalia.42
Cosmas visited the Sinai during his travels and stayed at the monastery of Rhaithou.43 He includes an in-depth discussion of the Sinai as a result of his stay there, in which he demonstrates the importance of the Exodus account for understanding the nature of the universe. Because the work is more about theology than geography, the descriptions of the Sinai in the Christian Topography cannot be taken at face value and must be evaluated to determine their theological implications. This complicates the use of the Christian Topography, but its testimony cannot be ignored. The survival of his manuscript in the Sinai demonstrates the importance of the text to the Sinai monks.
Other sources. Archaeological excavations have added to our knowledge in the region; however, interpretation of archaeological materials is often more difficult than dealing with literary sources. Many of these excavations have been published only in preliminary form, limiting the amount of material for analysis. Most important is the invaluable survey of monastic structures and work at Saint Catherine’s Monastery largely conducted in the 1970s.44 More recently, excavations have been conducted at Pharan and Ras Raya (Rhaithou), although the publications remain preliminary.45
Papyri provide a snapshot of life in the region but are limited to the sites of Nessana in the Negev and Petra, capital of Third Palestine. The Nessana Papyri (cited as P.Ness.) were discovered in the 1930s and published in 1958.46 They were discovered in the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus and the Church of Mary Theotokos. There are in total five archives: a soldier’s archive of seventeen papyri dated to 505–96, the papers of Patrick son of Sergius, who died in 628, the archive of George son of Patrick from the late sixth century, a post–Islamic Conquest archive, and a literary archive. These five archives provide a wealth of knowledge about Nessana in the sixth and seventh centuries, but none of them explicitly mentions larger historical events such as the Persian or the Islamic Conquest. The Petra Papyri (cited as P.Petra) were discovered inside Room I of the Petra Church in a series of rooms that were added to the ecclesiastical complex.47 The documents date between 537 and 593 and chiefly concern the family of a certain Theodorus. They are still in the process of decipherment and publication: four volumes have appeared as of the completion of this book.48
Inscriptions make up one final source of information about the region. Among the most curious features of the Sinai are the almost innumerable inscriptions left by Nabataean travelers and traders in the second and third centuries C.E. The writings are mostly made up of names and greetings, and there is not a single monumental inscription in the entire Sinai written in Nabataean.49 The largest concentration of these inscriptions was found in the Wadi Haggag.50 A systematic search of the Sinai found more than 3,850 inscriptions.51 Although the dated Nabataean inscriptions were written prior to the chronological period covered in this book, one of the latest inscriptions may be Christian.52 These Nabataean inscriptions were noted by Cosmas Indicopleustes, who believed that they were carvings of the ancient Israelites.53 In addition, a number of Armenian inscriptions have been discovered in the Sinai, indicating pilgrimage prior to and after the Islamic Conquest.54
Two longer inscriptions, one from the Sinai and one from Beersheva in the Negev, play prominent roles in the later portions of the book. The inscription from the Sinai is of an unknown late-antique date. It currently lies in a chapel dedicated to the “Holy Fathers slaughtered at Sinai and Rhaithou” and honors Sinai Martyrs.55 Its exact translation is debated. The meaning of the other inscription, the Beersheva Edict, also remains in doubt.56 Fragments of this inscription were sold by antiquities dealers in Beersheva in the early twentieth century, and a recent discovery has added substantially to our knowledge of the inscription. The inscription may have sought to end overzealous tax collection by establishing fixed payment amounts for various governmental positions in the region.57
For the sake of clarity and simplicity, and in order to preclude any confusion, all diacritical marks have been omitted throughout the book with Arabic personal names and toponyms appearing in transliteration in the roman typeface.
1. See the essays in Croke and Emmett 1983; Rohrbacher 2002.
2. Roggema 2009, 1–2.
3. Caner 2010.
4. For an introduction to the life of Eusebius, see the entry s.v., ODB 751–52.
5. Codex Vaticanus graecus 1456. This manuscript was apparently created in the eleventh or twelfth century (Wolf 1964, 80).
6. Klostermann 1904; some scholars have questioned his practice of restoring the Greek text based on eighth-century and ninth-century Latin manuscripts (Bury 1905; Wolf 1964, 81).
7. The best discussion of the content of the Onomasticon appears in Wolf 1964, 73–80. Also see Barnes 1981, 106–11.
8. Louth 1990, 118–20; Carriker 2003, 39; Taylor 2003, 3–4; Grafton and Williams 2006, 221; Ward 2012.
9. Ammonius Monachus, Relatio (Greek, ed. Tsames) 1. Ammonius states that the journey began while Peter was patriarch of Alexandria. There are two patriarchs by that name attested, one during the reign of Diocletian and the other during the reign of Valens. Although the synaxarion for 14 January puts Peter in the reign of Diocletian, the Relatio must refer to the Peter of Valens's reign, not Diocletian's (Tsames 2003, 280–81, 284).
10. Tillemont 1706, 7.574; Devreesse 1940; Mayerson 1980a; Solzbacher 1989, 231–35, 242; Gatier 1989, 514–17; Grossman 2001a, 178–81. The debate is summarized by Caner 2010, 143–49.
11. Ammonius Monachus, Relatio (Greek, ed. Tsames) 8.
12. Gatier 1989, 510–17.
13. Caner 2010, 141. I have used only the Greek (ed. Tsames) and CPA (ed. Müller-Kessler and Sokoloff) editions.
14. Ammonius Monachus, Relatio (Greek, ed. Tsames) 42: “Ταῦτα εὑρὼν ἐγὼ Ἰωάννης πρεσβύτερος . . . γεγραμμένα γράμμασιν αἰγυπτιακοῖς, ἅτινα καὶ μετέβαλον δι’ ἑλληνικῶν.”
15. Caner 2010, 141–43.
16. One of the Greek texts states that the martyrs were killed on 14 January. This date may have been influenced by a similar statement in the Narrationes (Mayerson 1980a, 142 n. 50). The CPA text says that the martyrs died on 28 December (Ammonius Monachus, Relatio [CPA, ed. Müller-Kessler and Sokoloff] fol. 61). Although this different date may suggest an interpolation of the sixth century into the text, it does not disprove a fourth-century date for the entire work.
17. Mayerson 1975, 107–8; Nilus Ancyranus, Epistula 4.6, mentions two Galatian monks at Mount Sinai. The son was kidnapped by a band of nomads but later escaped. Despite the current consensus, Caner (2010, 75) suggests that Nilus of Ancyra could have been the author.
18. See Devreesse 1940, 220–22; Gatier 1989, 518; Caner 1994; Link 2005.
19. The first line reads, “Ἀλώμενος ἐγὼ μετὰ τὴν ἔφοδον τῶν βαρβάρων ἦλθον εἰς τὴν Φαράν” (Pseudo-Nilus 1.1).
20. Heussi 1921, 6–10; Devreesse 1940, 220–22; Henninger 1955; Ševčenko 1966, 256. Pseudo-Nilus is well informed about the topography of the region, leading most to assume that the text was written by someone in the Sinai or a nearby region such as the Negev (Caner 2004, 138, and 2010, 76–77); Solzbacher (1989, 228) instead thinks that the source was a map.
21. Caner 1994; Link 2005.
22. Heussi 1921, 6–10; Gatier 1989, 517–19.
23. Christides 1973.
24. Heussi 1917, 154; Mayerson 1963, 160–61; Devreesse 1940, 220–22; Gatier 1989, 520–21; Shahid 1989, 134–39; Grossman 1999, 461, and 2001a, 182; Caner 2010, 75–76.
25. See Whitmarsh 2011 on identity and the Greek novels.
26. Gamurrini 1884. Codex Arretinus 6.3. The critical edition is Maraval 1982. I have also consulted the text by Franceschini and Weber 1965 and the text and commentary by C. Weber 1994.
27. Davies 1954, 95–100; Devos 1967.
28. On Egeria's origins and audience, see Valerius, Epistle 5.7–8; Maraval 1982, 21; Hunt 1982, 163–64; Sivan 1988, 528–30, 533–34; Díaz y Díaz 1982, 326 n. 8; C. Weber 1989, 450–56,
29. Wilkinson 1981, 3.
30. Peter the Deacon apparently used the Itinerarium at Monte Cassino (Gingras 1970, 16–17), copying Egeria's descriptions of sites almost verbatim but leaving out any details about Egeria herself or the people she encountered (Caner 2010, 211–12).
31. On the name, see Milani 1977, 34–36. On the date, ibid. 36–38. Milani prefers 560. Wilkinson 2002, 12, prefers 570.
32. Leyerle 1996, 136–37.
33. Wilkinson 2002, 13.
34. See, for example, Devreesse 1940; Mayerson 1963; Gatier 1989.
35. Wolska-Conus 1962, 37–61.
36. Ibid. 147–244.
37. Wolska-Conus 1968, 16; Cosmas Indicopleustes 6.3. It is preserved in three manuscripts: Vaticanus graecus 699, dating to the ninth century, and two eleventh-century manuscripts, Sinaïticus graecus 1186, dating to the eleventh century from the Sinai, and Laurentianus pluteus 9.28. Wolska-Conus's edition is based on Vaticanus graecus 699. When one of the eleventh-century manuscripts agreed with Vaticanus graecus 699, she adopted that reading but did not include the variant text. Although this process has been criticized, the Wolska-Conus edition remains the most widely used. See Alexander 1972 for criticisms.
38. Wolska-Conus 1968, 1.1–2, 61; Frézouls 1989, 442–43.
39. Cosmas Indicopleustes 2.54, 56.
40. Wolska-Conus 1968, 16; Cosmas Indicopleustes 2.56.
41. Ibid. 2.29, 3.65. See the first-century Periplus Maris Erythraei.
42. Cosmas Indicopleustes 2.30; Kirwan 1972, 169–70.
43. Cosmas Indicopleustes 5.8, 14, 51–52.
44. Grossman 1988; Dahari 2000. Also see Weitzmann 1973; Weitzmann and Galey 1976; Weitzmann and Galavaris 1991.
45. Grossman 1984, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2001b; Kawatoko and Bunka 1995; Kawatoko, Senta, and Chosa 1996; Kawatoko, Chosa, and Bunka 1998; Kawatoko and Shindo 2009.
46. Literary papyri: Casson and Hettich 1950. Nonliterary papyri: Kraemer 1958. The nonliterary papyri are occasionally cited by other authors as P.Colt.
47. On the discovery of the scrolls and their archaeological context, see Fiema et al. 2001, 139–50; Frösén, Arjava, and Lehtinen 2002, 5–8.
48. Frösén, Arjava, and Lehtinen 2002; Arjava, Buchholz, and Gagos 2007; Arjava et al. 2011, Koenen et al. 2013.
49. M. MacDonald 2003, 47–48.
50. Negev 1977a.
51. M. E. Stone 1992–94.
52. Schmitt-Korte 1990. This four-letter Nabataean inscription is flanked by two Christograms. If the Christograms were carved by the author (Maslam) of this Nabataean inscription, then the Christograms may suggest that the inscription was carved in the middle of the fourth century, extending the known range of dated Nabataean inscriptions in the Sinai by one hundred years. This is the only Nabataean inscription that may be Christian.
53. Cosmas Indicopleustes 5.53–54.
54. Mayerson 1982; M. E. Stone 1982 and 1986.
55. See Caner 2010, 51–63.
56. Basic bibliography on the text includes Macalister 1902, 236; Clermont-Ganneau 1906; Robinson 1908; Abel 1909 and 1920; Hartmann 1913; Burkitt 1920, 19, 20; Alt 1923, 52–55; Van Berchem 1952, 33–36; Kraemer 1958, 119–25; Mayerson 1986a; Isaac 1990, 287–88, and 1995, 138–39; Di Segni 2004. The standard text is Alt 1923, 52–55, but Di Segni 2004 should be preferred. Di Segni 2004, 142–46, provides an excellent analysis of previous scholarship on the edict.
57. Di Segni 2004, 136, lines 1–5.