Jews and Others
cen’’ people to Christianity was taking place. This was the un-named group,
temporarily led—after the death of her husband—by a queen called Mavia.^66
They seem to have lived in the Sinai Peninsula, to have had a treaty relation-
ship with Rome and to have rebelled in the spring of , spreading their
ravages over the neighbouring provinces. When peace was made, it was on
condition that this people should convert to Christianity, while they in their
turn stipulated that a hermit from Sinai named Moses should be consecrated
as their bishop. He was brought to Alexandria for this purpose.
To Rufinus (HE, ) the people concerned were ‘‘a nation of Saracens’’;
to Theodoret (HE, ) ‘‘tribes of Ismaēlitai’’; to Socrates (HE, ) again
‘‘Sarakēnoi.’’ But it is Sozomenus, writing in the s, who attaches to this
episode comments and explanations of his own, which are of the utmost
importance in religious history and deserve to be set out in full:
This is the tribe which took its origin and has its name from Ishmael,
the son of Abraham; and the ancients called them Ishmaelites after their
progenitor. As their mother Hagar was a slave, they afterwards, to con-
ceal the opprobrium of their origin, assumed the name of Saracens, as
if they were descended from Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Such being
their origin, they practice circumcision like the Jews, refrain from the
use of pork, and observe many other Jewish rites and customs. If, in-
deed, they deviate in any respect from the observances of that nation,
it must be ascribed to the lapse of time, and their intercourse with the
neighbouring nations. Moses, who lived many centuries after Abra-
ham, only legislated for those whom he led out of Egypt. The in-
habitants of the neighbouring countries, being strongly addicted to
superstition, probably soon corrupted the laws imposed upon them by
their forefather Ishmael. The ancient Hebrews had their community
life under this law only, using therefore unwritten customs, before the
Mosaic legislation. These people certainly served the same gods as the
neighbouring nations, honouring and naming them similarly, so that
by this likeness with their forefathers in religion, there is evidenced
their departure from the laws of their forefathers. As is usual, in the
lapse of time, their ancient customs fell into oblivion, and other prac-
tices gradually got the precedence among them. Some of their tribe,. For the best account, see G. W. Bowersock, ‘‘Mavia, Queen of the Saracens,’’ in
W. Eck, H. Galsterer, and H. Wolff, eds.,Studien zu anticken Sozialgeschichte: Festschrift F.
Vittinghoff(), . For Sinai, rather than the Hauran, as the primary location of this
unnamed people, see Z. Rubin, ‘‘Sinai in the Itinerarium Egeriae,’’Atti del Convegno Inter-
nazionale sulla Peregrinatio Egeriae (): .