THE LATER HISTORY OF THE CONVENT
THE size of the caravans that plied between Sinai and Egypt were a
source of wonder to the mediæval pilgrim. This development of trade
received a check in the sixteenth century, through the discovery of
the sea-route to India by the Portuguese. Prince Henry of Portugal (†
1460) brought the west coast of Africa within reach of his country.
In the year 1487 Bartholomew Diaz sailed from Portugal to the Cape of
Good Hope, which Vasco da Gama doubled ten years later, sailing on to
Calicut. Every year a fleet now left Lisbon for India, where spicery
was shipped direct for Portugal.
This trade detracted from the resources of the Sultan, and spelt ruin
to the seaports of Italy. In 1503 the Sultan addressed a letter to the
Pope in which he threatened destruction to the Holy Places, including
the Holy Sepulchre and the convent of Sinai, if the Portuguese were
not interfered with. But King Manuel of Portugal induced the Pope to
ignore the letter, and, on his side, offered spicery free of duty to
the Venetians, if they fetched it at Lisbon, instead of Alexandria.
But the Venetians, averse to the change, persuaded the Sultan to
set up a direct communication by boat between Suez and India, and a
tower was accordingly built to fortify Suez. Tur was passed over; its
days as a port on the way to India were drawing to a close, for the
Portuguese were determined to monopolise the trade with India. They
seized a boat coming from Egypt with the 24,000 ducats it contained.
They fitted out a war fleet (1504) which enforced their superior claims
in India, and attacked all other shipping. In 1509 they entered the
Red Sea with their war fleet, and interfered with the pilgrims to
Mecca. It was in vain that the Venetians, whose annual turn-over at
Alexandria fell from 600,000 to 100,000 ducats in 1511, pleaded with
the Sultan to diminish the tax on Eastern goods, so as to enable them
to compete with the Portuguese. The Sultanate was at the mercy of
short-sighted and intriguing emirs, and was weakening. The conquering
Ottoman Turk was steadily gaining ground. There had been rejoicing at
Cairo when Constantinople, in 1453, fell to the power of Islam, but
the struggle for supremacy soon afterwards began between the Egyptian
and the Ottoman Sultanate. In 1516 the Ottoman Sultan Selim († 1520)
occupied Damascus, and in the following year he advanced along the road
of El Arish with wheeled transport. After defeating the Mameluks at
Radunieh in 1517, he led his disciplined janissaries into Cairo, where
he appropriated the sacred banner of Islam and the relics, which he
removed to Constantinople.
In the meantime the shipping languished even at Suez. Odoardo Barbosa,
who was sent to Egypt to report on matters of navigation to the
merchants of Italy in 1516, mentioned Suez as the station for spicery,
but added that the traffic had almost ceased.[283] Certainly the
Ottoman Sultan, roused to the needs of the hour, made the attempt
to facilitate the transit of Eastern goods by cutting through the
isthmus of Suez. He also built a castle at Suez in order to defend
himself against the Portuguese. But the centre of the Ottoman rule was
no longer Cairo, but Constantinople, to which the wealthy more and
more migrated. Egypt was placed under a pasha, who was appointed at
Constantinople, and who was frequently changed so as to anticipate any
scheme on his part of making himself into an independent ruler. Cairo
retained its university and remained a centre of learning; its halcyon
days as a centre of art and luxury were at an end.
The Suez canal was still in course of construction in 1529, but
was never finished,[284] and no term was set on the advance of the
Portuguese. In 1541 Dom John (João) de Castro, who bore the proud title
of viceroy of India, sailed up the Red Sea with a fleet, intending to
attack Suez, but when he espied the fort and the ships at anchor there,
he turned back. In sailing up the Gulf of Suez, and again in sailing
down, Dom John stopped at Tur, where he communed with a monk of Sinai,
who told him that the convent was occupied by monks of the order of
Montserrat (_sic_), and that the body of St. Katherine had been removed
to Cairo. Another informant denied all knowledge of this fact. Dom John
was a man of some pretensions, who identified Suez as Heroöpolis, and
Tur as Aelana of classic times. His observations were laid down in a
_Description of the Lands bordering on the Red Sea_, which Sir Walter
Raleigh considered of such importance, that he had it translated into
English.[285]
Throughout this period we hear little of pilgrims and of the convent.
The spirit of the Reformation was abroad, and the thought of St.
Katherine was losing its hold on the imagination of Europe. Gregor,
prior of the Carthusian house at Gaming, who came to the convent in
1507 together with Martin Baumgarten, stated that the monks were
miserable owing to the clamorous Arabs, who occupied the mosque and
kept their festival on the Mount of the Law as already related. In
the estimation of Gregor, the monks of Sinai professed the order of
St. Basil, but, he declared, they would be glad to be taken under the
protection of Rome (p. 498). About the year 1546 the learned Belon
of Mans, who travelled in the interest of science and archæology,
visited Sinai, which he mentioned in his _Observations de certaines
singularités_, etc., a work that reflects the spirit of the new age.
Belon remarked on the Franciscan settlement at Gaza, the arsenal at
Suez, and the canal of thirty miles’ length. In the convent he found
about sixty monks.[286]
Of the bishops at this period we know very little. There was an
interregnum of about thirty years before 1540, which may be connected
with the rule of Sultan Selim. According to information preserved at
the convent, he abstracted the original _firmân_ which was supposed
to have been given to the convent by Mohammad. Sultan Selim was
responsible for the fortified stations along the route for pilgrims
from Egypt to Mecca, of which one was built at Ajrud near Suez, the
second at Nakhl, on the high desert, and the third at Akaba, which was
situated east of the ancient Aila. These stations were reckoned about
three days’ journey from one another, and the road continued in use
till recent times. But whatever the reason, the bishop of Sinai at this
time incurred the displeasure of the surrounding prelates. Marcus, the
Cyprian, who was appointed in 1540, perhaps owing to some fault of his
own (Nectarius called him κάκος),[287] was deposed by a synod held in
Egypt under the auspices of the patriarchs of Alexandria, of Cairo, and
of Jerusalem, and the bishopric of Sinai was declared abrogated.[288]
But a new protector to the monks now arose in the Tsar of Muscovy,
who, when Constantinople fell to the Turks, took it upon himself to
protect the orthodox. In the year 1547 Gregorius, a monk of Sinai,
visited Moscow, where he complained of the tax which the Turk levied
on the convent. The Tsar at the time was Ivan the Terrible (1533-84),
who forthwith arranged that Gennadius, archdeacon of St. Sophia, at
Novgorod, together with the merchant Posniakow and another should visit
the patriarch of Alexandria and the archbishop (_sic_) of Sinai, and
present them with 1000 ducats each. At the convent, after praying at
the shrine of St. Katherine, they spread over it a covering of gold
brocade, a gift of the Tsar. Posniakow, to whom we owe an account of
the embassy, looked upon the monks as connected with St. Basil, and
described the mosque inside the convent as originally a church of St.
Basil.[289]
The Muscovite further arranged that a caravan bearing food should be
annually despatched from Cairo to the convent, at his expense, as we
learn from the account of the German pilgrim Wormbser, who went from
Egypt to the convent in the year 1561 (_Reissbuch_, 1609, p. 396 ff.).
His companion, Count Loewenstein, on his return to Alexandria, there
asked for an official attestation of having been the Long Pilgrimage,
which he included in the account of his journey (_Ibid._, p. 393).
These travellers in 1561 found between thirty and forty monks at the
convent, but were told that these sometimes left the place altogether
because of the clamorous Arabs (Loewenstein, p. 369). It had recently
stood empty four or five years (_Ibid._, p. 369). Another party of
Germans, who reached the convent in 1565, actually found it empty and
its gates walled up. They were met outside by a monk who, apprized of
their coming, hurried over from Tur to act as their guide. From the
height of the Mount of the Law they looked down on the empty convent
with its deserted garden (_Ibid._, Helfferich, p. 726).
Owing to Muscovite influence a change was effected. A letter is
extant drafted by Jeremiah II, patriarch of Constantinople (1572-78),
which bears the signature of the patriarch of Antioch, the patriarch
of Jerusalem, and others by which the bishopric of Sinai was
restored.[290] The decision was based on the decree of Justinian which
is dated to the year 551 and is preserved at the convent, but which
is looked upon as a forgery. Anyhow, a prelate was reinstated in the
person of Eugenius (1565-83), who, in the capacity of “bishop of Sinai
and Raithou,” wrote to Emperor Maximilian II (1564-76), declaring that
the monks were called upon to pay 5000 ducats to the Turkish Sultan,
which were they unable to raise. The outcome of the appeal is not
recorded. They probably made an appeal also to King Henri III of France
(1574-89).[291] In the year 1579 Eugenius of Sinai was in Jerusalem,
where the patriarch Germanus abdicated because of old age.[292]
Direct intercourse with Russia continued. We hear of one Korobeïnikoff
who was in Sinai in 1583, and again in 1593. It was, perhaps, with the
help of the Muscovite that Bishop Anastasius I (1583-92) laid down the
mosaic pavement in the convent church, which had been destroyed by Arab
treasure-seekers. Anastasius was succeeded by Laurentius (1592-1617),
but Melitos, patriarch of Alexandria, objected to his appointment,
whereupon he appealed to Sophronios VI, patriarch of Jerusalem
(1579-1606), who ratified his appointment.[293] Perhaps the gates of
the convent were walled up in connection with these difficulties,
and anyone wishing to enter was now hauled up by means of a rope and
a pulley. Henri Castale who visited Sinai in 1600, was the first to
describe the arrangement, which continued till the British occupation
of Egypt. Castale, in the account of his journey, enlarged on the
starving men and women in the desert. He found one starving monk in the
convent.[294]
But things now improved under Bishop Joasaph, who ruled from 1617 to
1658, and travellers gave a better account of the convent.
The thought of the “inscriptions of the children of Israel” brought
Neitzschitz into the desert about the year 1639. He was a Lutheran
to whom “many of the stories were fables.” He was received by the
“archbishop Joasaph” and found twenty-three monks at the convent, who
distributed food daily to between fifty and a hundred Arabs.[295] The
thought of the inscription was prominent also in the mind of Balthazar
de Monconys, who, in 1647, visited the convent. Here he remarked on
the tunic of gold brocade embroidered with pearls and on the splendid
tiaras, presents of the Muscovite, that were worn by Joasaph.[296]
Again, Thévenot came to the convent in 1658, and saw a silver chest,
a gift from the empress Anna of Russia, in which the relics of St.
Katherine were now enshrined. Thévenot related that on some days as
many as 150 Arabs, on others as many as 400, clamouring for food,
assembled outside the convent. He also related that the Turks had
destroyed the church which the monks owned at Tur (perhaps that of St.
John the Baptist), in order to make room for a fort where an _aga_ was
stationed, who had the command of cannon.[297]
A papal bull, apparently the last, was granted to the convent by
Pope Urban VIII (1623-37). It confirmed the monks in their various
possessions, and has the additional interest that it enumerated the
popes who previously granted bulls to the monks. They were Honorius
III (1216-27), Gregory IX (1227-41), Paul II (1458-64), Innocent
VIII (1484-92), Julius II (1503-13), Leo IX (1513-19), and Paul III
(1534-50).
During the rule of Joasaph, Nectarius, a Cretan by birth and a man of
considerable ability, came to the convent, the interests of which he
furthered in various ways. The Vaivode Basil (1634-61), of Moldavia,
was encouraging the establishment of Greek schools in his dominion.
Nectarius visited Athens, Bukarest, and Jassy, where the monks of
Sinai now built priories and secured a lasting foothold. It was
probably Nectarius who definitely secured the title and standing of an
archbishop to the ruler of Sinai. The title had been applied to Simeon
as early as 1211 by the doge of Venice in connection with the property
which the convent held in Crete, but the rulers continued to style
themselves bishop. However, the title once claimed was retrospectively
applied. Nectarius, after his return to the convent, compiled an
_Epitome of history from the earliest times_, with special chapters
on the convent and a list of its rulers. They are all designated as
archbishops. It was probably due to Nectarius, also, that many MSS.
were brought from Crete and elsewhere and added to the convent library.
At the convent itself literary activity was resumed, and we hear of a
gift of paper to the monks that was conveyed there on camel-back.[298]
At the death of Joasaph, Nectarius was chosen as his successor. He
was in Gaza on his way to Jerusalem to seek confirmation of his
appointment at the hands of the patriarch Païsios, when he was met
by delegates from Jerusalem, bearing the news that Païsios was dead,
and that Nectarius was chosen patriarch. As Joasaph died in 1658, and
the meeting happened in April 1660, the intercourse between the sees
seems to have been attended with difficulty. The rule at the convent
therefore devolved on Ananias (1658-68), who was followed by Joannicus
(1668-1703).
According to Lacroix, the Muscovite fell out with the patriarch of
Constantinople in 1671, and summoned to Moscow several prelates, among
them “Antoninus, bishop of Sinai.” He dared not refuse, and was kept in
Moscow for over a year.[299] But no prelate of this name appears in the
list of the bishops.
About this time the Papacy made renewed efforts at propaganda, with
the help of the Franciscans. Pope Innocent XI (1675-89) entered into
correspondence with the patriarch of Cairo with a view to winning over
the Copts of Egypt to the Roman Catholic faith, and Francesco Maria of
Salerno spent several years in Cairo where he established a school. He
also visited Sinai, but the Copts found it impossible to accept the
declaration of faith that was submitted to them, and nothing came of
it.[300]
Joannicus, in 1672, was in Bethlehem where he subscribed to a
declaration against Calvin, in which the Maronites, the Copts and the
Armenian Christians joined. In 1675 he went on an embassy to Turkey.
He also engaged in correspondence with Ignatius, archbishop of Ochrida
in Serbia, on the _firmân_ which had been granted to the monks of
Sinai by the emperor Justinian. A visit to Moldavia resulted in the
gift of the property called Rimineke to the monks of Sinai by Vaivode
Brancovan († 1719). The traveller Poncet, who visited the convent about
the year 1699, coming from Sherm, was received by Joannicus, who was
in his ninety-third year and paralytic. Like other travellers Poncet
was hauled into the convent by means of the seat attached to a rope. He
was treated to some of the liqueur called _arac_, which was made by the
monks out of the fermented juice of the date.[301]
The prelate in succession to Joannicus was Cosmas I of Chalcedon, who
became patriarch of Constantinople within a year of his election, but
he soon abdicated and returned to the convent where he spent the rest
of his days under Athanasius II of Bari (1706-18). The next prelate
was Joannicus II of Mytilene (1718-22), during the term of whose rule
Jeremiah, patriarch of Constantinople, was deposed by the vizier and
exiled to Sinai. He was staying there at the time of Bishop Pococke’s
visit (i. 150).
It was probably Athanasius of Bari who received the Franciscan prefect
Claude Sicard of the mission _De Propaganda Fide_, wearing an exquisite
crown. The Franciscan prefect wrote a short account of his visit which
attracted the attention of Bishop Pococke and was translated into
English by Bishop Clayton in 1753. This translation was addressed to
the Society of Antiquaries in London, and Bishop Clayton offered the
sum of £500, spread over five years, to assist in an exploration of
Mount Sinai. But no definite step was taken in the matter, its chief
result being to add to the Biblical explorers of the peninsula.
Chief among these was Bishop Pococke, whose _Description of the East_,
first published in 1743, attained considerable celebrity. Several
chapters were devoted to an account of Sinai and the progress of the
Israelites. It contains a careful description of the monastic buildings
with several plans. Bishop Pococke, like other travellers before and
since, accepted the sites pointed out by the monks as the actual spots
mentioned in the Biblical narrative, regardless of the impossibilities
implied. He only questioned the spot where Dathan and Abiram were
swallowed, remarking that when this happened they had left the desert
of Sinai (i. 145).
Owing to the difficulties of dealing with the claims of the Bedawyn,
the prelates of Sinai now found it preferable to take up their
residence in one of the dependencies of the convent.
Nicephorus Mortales, surnamed Glaukos (1729-49), was from Crete, to
which he returned and where he died. His body was conveyed to the
convent for interment. The next prelate was Constantius (1749-59), who
resided for the most part in Moldavia under Vaivode Michael, paying an
occasional visit to Sinai. On one occasion he was accompanied by Khalil
Sabag, who wrote an account of his visit. The next prelate Cyrillus II
(1759-90) dwelt in Smyrna, Jerusalem and Moldavia. He was in contact
with Carsten Niebuhr, who visited Sinai in 1762, where he was the first
European to visit and describe the great ravines at Serabit. Cyrillus
was in relation also with the traveller Volney, who visited the convent
in 1783, where he found fifty monks.
It was owing to the efforts of Cyrillus II that the standing of the
convent of Sinai as an independent centre was definitely established.
A synod met in Constantinople in 1782, which declared in favour of its
autonomy. The archbishop is elected by a council of the monks, who
manage the affairs of the convent in Sinai and its branch establishment
in Cairo. The archbishop is always selected from the priests of the
monastery. He is consecrated as bishop by the patriarch of Jerusalem
in consequence of the ancient connection, and he becomes one of the
four independent archbishops of the Greek Church, the others being at
Cyprus, Moscow and Ochrida.[302]
Cyrillus II was the last prelate who paid a visit to the convent for
over a hundred years. The reason was that large sums and gifts had to
be presented to the Arabs by the new prelate on his installation. These
were so considerable that the monks, in their impoverished state, were
unable to raise them. Perhaps owing to this difficulty, there was an
interregnum of four years, between the death of Cyrillus in 1790 and
the establishment as prelate of Dorotheus of Byzantium (1794-96), after
whose death there was again an interregnum of eight years.