118
area naked for 47 years, between the towering headwalls of Wady Hamr and the
most desolate of stretches near Wady Amârah. A paradise of revelatory masochisms
for the monk, Agathonicus, who kept warm in snowy winters living and sleeping in
the thickness of a herd of desert gazelles amid the tamarisk (Tarfah) grove at Wadi
Feiran or Wady Es Sheikh. And for his colleague who is rumored to have lived years
upon a ledge somewhere near the turquoise mines of Maghârah, a ledge so insecure
and upon so sheer a cliff as to prevent him from ever sleeping.
In their various humilities and abnegations, they were seeking union with God,
willing happily to die for that Supreme Being who bid them come to the wilderness
of jackals, the Schokari sand racer snake, of locusts and Red-Dwarf honey bees, of
Northern Wheatears and White storks; to that simmering topography of granite outcrops including the clustered three peaks comprising Jebel Zebir, Jebel Abu, and
Jebel (Mount) Katarína, the site of the Monastery of Saint Catherine’s, 8625′, and
the (historically debated) Mount Sinai, 7497′—a reiteration of that calling which so
intoxicated Moses, Christ, Mohammed, St. John the Baptist, and countless others.
10
13.2 The World of Saint John Climacus
But for those fragments known as the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in the Caves of
Qumran during the period 1946–1956, the amulets of Ketef Hinnom and the En
Gedi Scroll, the Codex Sinaiticus remains the oldest known collection of materials
bound together from the primeval Hebrew Bible. Written down sometime between
AD 326 and 360,
11
it was eventually secured within the fortress which Justinian had
built to protect the monks in 527 AD beneath Mount Sinai, where earlier had stood
a church commissioned by the Empress Helena. And while the monastery’s doctrinal
orientation spearheaded Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the Roman Catholic world
maintained extraordinarily romantic and formal ties to it. Indeed, Pope Gregory the
Great (ca. AD 540–604) wrote a letter to the Abbot of St. Catherine’s, the famed
ascetic, St. John Climacus, dated September 1, 600, in which he likened all of
humanity to castaways, save for those monks nestled safely at St. Catherine’s
Monastery, who lived in harmony upon the shore, in Paradise.
12
The Pope lamented
the fact that his duties in Rome would not permit him to join Climacus and his fraternity there in Sinai.
13
10 See the Project Noah, https://www.projectnoah.org/missions/11481015, Accessed March 9,
2019; See also, The Natural History of the Bible – An Environmental Exploration Of The Hebrew
Scriptures, by Daniel Hillel, Columbia University Press, New York, 2006, particularly Chapter
Six, “The Desert Domain – Wanderings in Sinai and the Negev,” pp. 118–139.
11 See http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/codex/history.aspx, Accessed March 13, 2019.
12 op.cit., Tobias, A Vision of Nature, p. 22.
13 See The letters of Gregory the Great, translated, with introduction and notes, by John R.C. Martyn,
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, 2004, Hathi Trust Digital Library, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/004917310, Accessed March 8, 2019.
13 Codex Sinaiticus
area naked for 47 years, between the towering headwalls of Wady Hamr and the
most desolate of stretches near Wady Amârah. A paradise of revelatory masochisms
for the monk, Agathonicus, who kept warm in snowy winters living and sleeping in
the thickness of a herd of desert gazelles amid the tamarisk (Tarfah) grove at Wadi
Feiran or Wady Es Sheikh. And for his colleague who is rumored to have lived years
upon a ledge somewhere near the turquoise mines of Maghârah, a ledge so insecure
and upon so sheer a cliff as to prevent him from ever sleeping.
In their various humilities and abnegations, they were seeking union with God,
willing happily to die for that Supreme Being who bid them come to the wilderness
of jackals, the Schokari sand racer snake, of locusts and Red-Dwarf honey bees, of
Northern Wheatears and White storks; to that simmering topography of granite outcrops including the clustered three peaks comprising Jebel Zebir, Jebel Abu, and
Jebel (Mount) Katarína, the site of the Monastery of Saint Catherine’s, 8625′, and
the (historically debated) Mount Sinai, 7497′—a reiteration of that calling which so
intoxicated Moses, Christ, Mohammed, St. John the Baptist, and countless others.
10
13.2 The World of Saint John Climacus
But for those fragments known as the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in the Caves of
Qumran during the period 1946–1956, the amulets of Ketef Hinnom and the En
Gedi Scroll, the Codex Sinaiticus remains the oldest known collection of materials
bound together from the primeval Hebrew Bible. Written down sometime between
AD 326 and 360,
11
it was eventually secured within the fortress which Justinian had
built to protect the monks in 527 AD beneath Mount Sinai, where earlier had stood
a church commissioned by the Empress Helena. And while the monastery’s doctrinal
orientation spearheaded Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the Roman Catholic world
maintained extraordinarily romantic and formal ties to it. Indeed, Pope Gregory the
Great (ca. AD 540–604) wrote a letter to the Abbot of St. Catherine’s, the famed
ascetic, St. John Climacus, dated September 1, 600, in which he likened all of
humanity to castaways, save for those monks nestled safely at St. Catherine’s
Monastery, who lived in harmony upon the shore, in Paradise.
12
The Pope lamented
the fact that his duties in Rome would not permit him to join Climacus and his fraternity there in Sinai.
13
10 See the Project Noah, https://www.projectnoah.org/missions/11481015, Accessed March 9,
2019; See also, The Natural History of the Bible – An Environmental Exploration Of The Hebrew
Scriptures, by Daniel Hillel, Columbia University Press, New York, 2006, particularly Chapter
Six, “The Desert Domain – Wanderings in Sinai and the Negev,” pp. 118–139.
11 See http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/codex/history.aspx, Accessed March 13, 2019.
12 op.cit., Tobias, A Vision of Nature, p. 22.
13 See The letters of Gregory the Great, translated, with introduction and notes, by John R.C. Martyn,
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, 2004, Hathi Trust Digital Library, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/004917310, Accessed March 8, 2019.
13 Codex Sinaiticus