The face of the cliff was pitted with caves, and I wondered whether any contained a spring that might have allowed monks to live there. It was certainly the sort of remote, suggestively apocalyptic location which would have appealed to the imaginations of the Coptic monks. It made me think of a gruesome story told by the hermit Paphnutius:
I thought one day that I would go into the inner desert to see whether there were any monks beyond me. So I walked on for four days and four nights, and did not eat bread or drink water. On the last day I came to a cave, and when I reached it, I knocked on the door for about half the day. No one answered me, so I imagined that there was no one there. I looked inside and I saw a brother sitting down, silent. So, I grasped his arm and his arm came away in my hands and was like this earthly dust. I touched his whole body and found that he was dead, and indeed had been dead for many years. And I looked and saw a sleeveless tunic hanging up, and when I touched this, it too fell apart and turned to dust. And I stood and prayed and I took off my cloak, and I wrapped him up. I dug with my hands in the sand and buried him, and I came away from that place ... [That evening I was still walking when] the sun was beginning to set. I looked up and saw a herd of antelope coming from a distance, and in their midst was a monk. And when he approached me he was unclothed, and his hair concealed his nether parts, serving for clothing around him. And when he reached me he was very afraid, thinking I was a spirit, for many spirits had tried him...
After winding our way down the face of the cliff, nothing else broke the relentless white emptiness of the desert until, in the middle of the afternoon, we saw the first hint of green on the horizon. We were held up for a quarter of an hour at an army checkpoint, and shortly afterwards entered the date palm plantations that today, as in Byzantine times, mark the edge of the Great Oasis.
Kharga still feels like the end of the earth. In the 1950s Nasser attempted to move some of the population of the Nile valley to this place, and for ten years much energy was expended in trying to make Kharga into a prosperous and innovative new town. It came to nothing. The city was too isolated and too remote. Since the Second World War it has rained only once in Kharga, for ten minutes, in the winter of 1959. The population, lured there by the promise of grants and tax breaks, slowly drifted back to their homes by the Nile. After Nasser's death the political urge vanished too, the tax breaks dried up and Kharga was left a bleak, empty monument to the clumsiness of central planning, a maze of silent roundabouts, derelict factories and empty apartment blocks.
The vast 1950s Kharga Oasis Hotel is a witness both to Nasser's hopes and, in its terrible emptiness, to their spectacular disappointment. After we had checked in, Mahmoud and I went to eat lunch in the dining hall. There we sat next to the only other guests staying in the hotel. They were engineers refurbishing the huge Kharga prison which, they whispered, was Egypt's principal depository for political prisoners. As in Byzantine times, the Oasis had proved to have only one real use: hermetically sealed by the wastes surrounding it on every side, its isolation and bleakness still made it an ideal place to hide the embarrassing and banish the unwanted. Only the cast has changed, with communists and militant Islamists now filling the cells once occupied by Nestorian heretics.
After lunch, I gave Mahmoud the slip and walked out alone to the place where I wanted to end my pilgrimage, alone. Two miles outside the town, amid the date palms on the edge of desert, there stood the ruins of an ancient Pharaonic temple to the god Amun. In Byzantine times the old Pharaonic priests had been expelled and the site taken over by monks. They erased some of the more erotic of the Pharaonic sculptures and erected in their place a series of pious Greek inscriptions, punctuated here and there with crosses. These were intended to keep away the families of demons the monks believed to have inhabited the temple under its previous management. The ruined temple is almost certainly the site of the Lavra of the Great Oasis which Moschos mentions as having been sacked in a nomad raid immediately before his visit:
When the Mazices came and overran all that region, they came to the Great Oasis and slew many monks, while many others were taken prisoner. Among those taken captive at the Lavra of the Great Oasis were Abba John, formerly lector at the Great Church of Constantinople, Abba Eustathios the Roman and Abba Theodore, all of whom were sick. When they had been captured, Abba John said to the barbarians: 'Take me to the city and I will have the Bishop give you twenty-four pieces of gold.' So one of the barbarians led him off and brought him near to the city. Abba John went to the Bishop and began to implore him to give the barbarian the twenty-four pieces of gold, but the Bishop could only find eight. He gave these to Abba John, but the barbarian would not accept them. The men of the fortress had no choice but to hand over Abba John, who wept and groaned as he was carried off to the barbarians' tents.
Abba Leo [an old friend of Moschos] happened to be in the [oasis's] fortress at that time. Three days later, he took the eight pieces of gold and went out to the barbarians. He pleaded with them in these words: 'Take me and these eight pieces of gold, and let those three monks go. They are sick and cannot work for you so you will have to kill them. But I am in good health and I can work for you.' So the barbarians took both him and the eight pieces of gold, letting the other monks go free. Abba Leo was carried off by the barbarians and when he was exhausted and could go no further, they beheaded him. Thus did Abba Leo fulfil the scripture: Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his friends.
Overlooking the monastery ruins, on top of a low hill a short distance out into the desert, lay the Coptic necropolis of Bagawat. I walked over there in the bright red evening sun. The necropolis was like a Byzantine village sitting amid the dunes: long streets of simple cafe-au-lait mud-brick tomb-houses and chapels: some flat-topped, others with domes, a few decorated with blind arcad-ing or naive frescoes, many severely plain. Some of the tombs had clearly held the bodies of saints or holy men, for their walls were marked with pious Byzantine graffiti: 'Pray for the soul of Zoe',
'Blessings on Theophilus', 'Remember Menas'. But the tombs had decayed in the winds of 1,500 winters, so that the brick was cracked and britde, and many of the buildings were left like skeletons, without a roof or a back wall. Many had been attacked by tomb-robbers, and deep pits had been dug to reveal the hidden burial chambers. Others had collapsed altogether. The whole complex was windswept and eerie, and a gathering breeze wailed through the broken doorways.
These tombs, I realised, must have been the last thing that John Moschos saw before he left the Great Oasis on the Alexandria road, en route to his final exile in Constantinople. Sitting there, looking out over the temple-monastery where his friend Abba Leo had lived before being carried off into slavery, Moschos must have known that his whole world was crumbling. But I wondered whether even he realised the extent to which he was witnessing the last days of the golden age of the Christian Middle East.
Soon after his return to Alexandria, the city was to fall to the Persians. Briefly recovered by the Byzantines, it fell again in 641 a.d., this time to the Muslims. Islam has held it - and most of the rest of the Middle East - ever since. The Christian population that Moschos knew and wrote about - the monks and the stylites, the merchants and the soldiers, the prostitutes and the robber chiefs - all the strange and eccentric characters who wander in and out of the pages of The Spiritual Meadow, were conquered and subjugated, their numbers gradually whittled down by emigration, intermarriage and mass apostasy. With occasional intervals of stasis, such as the early Ottoman period, that process has persisted ever since, greatly accelerating in this century. It is a historical continuum that began during the journeys of Moschos and the final chapter of which I have been witnessing on my own travels some fourteen hundred years later. Christianity is an Eastern religion which grew firmly rooted in the intellectual ferment of the Middle East. John Moschos saw that plant begin to wither in the hot winds of change that scoured the Levant of his day. On my journey in his footsteps I have seen the very last stalks
in the process of being uprooted. It has been a continuous process, lasting nearly one and a half millennia. Moschos saw its beginnings. I have seen the beginning of its end.
So, as the sun sank down behind the date palms of the oasis, I thought of Moschos standing on this hillside amid these tombs at the end of the world, fretting about the heretics and brigands on the road ahead, checking in his bag to make sure his roll of notes and jottings was safe, then turning his back on this last crumbling outpost of the Christian Empire, and tramping on over the dunes to catch up with the tall, ascetic figure of Sophronius.
I left them there, and wandered back down the hill alone. As I walked, I realised I had now been on the road for more than five months. I had left Scotland in midsummer. Next week would be Christmas. On the front of my diary was a damp-ring left by a glass of ouzo I drank on the Holy Mountain. Inside were stains from a glass of tea knocked over in Istanbul. Some sugar grains from the restaurant in the Baron Hotel have stuck to the pages on which are scribbled my notes from Aleppo. Around these marks, this book is filled with a series of names, places and conversations, some of which even now seem strangely odd and distant.
As I was standing there a flight of brilliant white ibises passed overhead, circling down to roost at the pool beside the old temple. I pulled up the collar of my jacket and headed back out of the desert into the oasis, ready now for the journey home. Darkness was drawing in, and behind me at the top of the hill a chill wind was howling through the tombs.
GLOSSARY
LIST OF BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES
GLOSSARY
Agah: Kurdish chieftain or commander. A term of respect. (Pronounced Aah)
Amir: (lit. 'rich') Muslim nobleman or commander. Apophthegmata: (or Apophthegmata Patrum), a collection of sayings of the desert fathers.
Archimandrite: Abbot of an Orthodox monastery or the superior of a group of monasteries.
Arianism: An early Christian heresy, named after Arius of Alexandria (c. 250-336 a.d.), which denied the true divinity of Christ. Arianism became popular in parts of the early medieval West, notably in Visigothic Spain. When Islam first erupted from Arabia, many early Byzantine theologians, including St John of Damascus, believed that the new faith was merely an exotic strain of Arianism.
Assyrian Christians: Name given to members of the East Syrian or Nestorian Church (q.v.). The name derives from the mistaken belief of early Anglican missionaries that the Nestorians were descendants of the ancient Assyrians, azan: The Muslim call to prayer.
Ba'ath Party: Arab nationalist party, founded by the Michel Aflaq, a Syrian Christian. Different (and mutually hostile) incarnations of the Ba'ath Party are currently in power in both Syria and Iraq, bema: The elevated platform at the front of a synagogue; also the sanctuary of an Eastern Christian church.
burka: Muslim women's body covering. Generally refers to something
more substantial and voluminous than a simple headscarf.
chador: (lit. 'sheet') Muslim women's veil. Can involve anything from
a headscarf to a fully-fledged tent. Similar to hijab (q.v.) and burka
(q.v.).
chi-rho: The monogram of Christ, made up of the two Greek letters chi and rho. Probably introduced by Constantine the Great after his vision before the battle of the Milvian Bridge (312 a.d.). chrysobul: An Imperial Byzantine letter or diploma granting privileges.
Named after the golden seal of the Emperor with which such an ordinance was impressed.
coenobitic: The centralised form of Byzantine monasticism, involving a communal life for the monks under the rule of an Abbot, as opposed to the decentralised, idiorrhythmic system, where a group of hermits would live largely independent lives, subject only to the vague strictures of a committee (the epitropeia), and meeting only once a week for the Divine Liturgy on Sundays. While a form of idiorrhythmic monasticism was the norm among Celtic monks, it was the coenobitic model that really took off in the West, and almost all modern Western monasteries are coenobitic.
Copt: A native Egyptian Christian. The Coptic Church broke off from the Orthodox mainstream after rejecting the theological decisions of the Council of Chalcedon (451 a.d.). Its Orthodox enemies accused it of indulging in the Monophysite heresy (q.v.), something modern Copts deny.
diamonitirion: The monastic passport necessary to enter and stay upon Mount Athos.
djinn: According to Islamic tradition, a djinn is an invisible spirit, composed of flame, often (though not necessarily always) mischievous,
dormition: In Eastern Christian Churches, the Falling Asleep (dormitio) of the Blessed Virgin. Corresponds to the Assumption in the West,
dunum: Traditional Palestinian unit of land measurement. One dunum = 919 square metres, 1/11 of a hectare or 0.23 acres, exo-narthex: The outer narthex or porch of an Orthodox church, fellahin: Egyptian peasant farmers. Plural of fellah.
flabella: Ceremonial liturgical fan. Now usually a stave topped with a metal disk decorated with images of angels. In some cases small bells can be attached to the disk, in which case the flabella is shaken during the most solemn parts of the liturgy to symbolise the participation of the angels. Flabellae were common in Anglo-Saxon England and Celtic Ireland, but died out in the West before the Norman Conquest. Their use has continued only in the Eastern Churches,
gavour: Infidel.
gelabiya: Long Arab gown. Alternative rendering of jellaba (q.v.). Gema'a al-Islamiyya: (lit. 'The Islamic Party' in Arabic) Fundamentalist Muslim guerrilla organisation fighting to turn Egypt into an Islamic Republic. Operates mainly in Upper Egypt and the poorer Cairo suburbs.
Gnostics: Late antique heretics claiming knowledge of hidden spiritual
mysteries. Christian gnosticism had its roots in trends of thought already present in esoteric pagan religious circles. Gnosticism took many different forms, but the most popular Gnostic sects were those that followed the teachings of Valentius, Bardaisan and Marcion.
grimoire: A book of spells.
Haganah: (lit. 'defence' in Hebrew) Left-wing Jewish paramilitary organisation operating illegally in British Mandate Palestine from 1920 onwards. Came out into the open in 1948 as the principal Zionist army fighting for the creation of Israel. As well as winning a remarkable victory against the different Arab armies which invaded Palestine on the British departure, the Haganah was responsible for formulating and carrying out 'Plan Dalet', which led to the expulsion of most of the Palestinian population from their ancestral homes and villages.
Haredim: Ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Hegumenos: Archimandrite (q.v.) or Abbot of a coenobitic (q.v.) Orthodox monastery.
Hezbollah: (lit. 'The Party of God') Militant Islamist organisation. Most notorious as the Iranian-backed terrorist outfit responsible for kidnapping the Western hostages and masterminding the hit-and-run guerrilla operations against the Israeli occupation forces in the south of Lebanon. But it is also now a registered democratic party representing the Shia community in the Lebanese parliament, and runs widespread humanitarian and educational projects alongside its paramilitary activities,
hijab: Muslim women's veil or body covering. Same as chador (q.v.).
hypocaust: Roman (and Byzantine) under-floor heating system, iconoclasm: The period of Byzantine history, from 725 to 842 a.d., when the veneration of icons was outlawed and all sacred images were ordered to be destroyed.
iconoclast: One who destroys images and icons. An opponent of icono-dules (q.v.).
iconodule: Worshipper of images. An opponent of iconoclasts (q.v.). iconostasis: The screen separating the chancel from the main area of a Byzantine church. Corresponds to the English rood-screen, except that the Byzantine version is almost always decorated with a number of icons,
inshallah: God willing (in Arabic).
intifada: The popular Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
irhebi: Terrorist (in Arabic).
jellaba: Long Arab gown. Alternative rendering of gelab
iya (q.v.).
katholikon: The principal church of an Orthodox monastery, keffiyeh: Checkered Arab headscarf. Particularly associated with the Palestinians.
khatchkar: An intricately carved Armenian cross-slab,
kibbutz: An Israeli collective, usually (though now not always) agriculturally based.
Kyrie: (lit. 'Lord' in Greek) The petition ('Lord have mercy') at the beginning of the Divine Liturgy in the Eastern and Roman Churches,
lavra: (sometimes also spelled laura) Today lavra is a title that can be given to any large Orthodox monastery, but originally it referred specifically to those organised on the idiorrhythmic method: a collection of detached monks' cells clustered around a monastic church. The monks would generally meet only once a week when they would celebrate the Sunday liturgy together; otherwise they lived as semi-independent hermits.
limitanei: Byzantine border troops.
loukoumi: A sticky rosewater confection beloved of Orthodox monks. The Greek version of Turkish Delight.
Magister Militum: Byzantine provincial military governor. Malfono: Teacher (in Turoyo).
Maronite: An Eastern Christian Church, originally based in Syria, though for many centuries located mainly in Lebanon. The Maronites look to an obscure fourth-century Syrian hermit, St Maron, as their founder. Although it seems certain that the Maronites once subscribed the Monothelite heresy (q.v.), they have been in full communion with Rome since the Crusader period, and today their Patriarch has the rank of Cardinal; but they still use the ancient Antiochene rites,
From The Holy Mountain Page 50