Elim, again, was mentioned as a monkish settlement by Ammonius (_c._ 372), and his description leaves no doubt that Raithou near the present Tur on the coast, two days’ journey from the Bush, is meant. This settlement retained its name, Elim, till recent times. Some of the mediæval pilgrims looked upon it as the actual Elim of the Bible. Thus the Ritter von Harff, who visited it in 1497, held that the Israelites here left the Red Sea, and asserted that bones that lay on the shore were those of the pursuing Egyptians. But Etheria and Cosmas (_c._ 550) with a better appreciation of possibilities, located the passage of the Israelites near Clysma (near the present Suez), and sought Elim of the Bible, not at Raithou, but at Arandara, the present Wadi Gharandel. CHAPTER XII THE BUILDING OF THE CONVENT FROM the reign of the emperor Justinian (527-563) dates the fortification of the hermit settlement known as the Bush, which was thereby transformed into a convent, and as such, braved the vicissitudes of many centuries. The fortification was apparently part of a wider scheme by which the emperor used the peninsula of Sinai as a bulwark against the invasion from the east. Movements among the Eastern people were threatening the frontier line of the Roman empire at the time, and its internal organisation was by no means secure. The care which was bestowed on the convent itself may have been due to the favour which the monophysite form of belief found for a time with Justinian, and more especially with his wife, the empress Theodora († 548). It was owing to her influence that Anthimus I was raised to the see of Constantinople, but a synod convened in the year 536 deposed him. At this synod there were present Paulus II, bishop of Aila,[187] and Theonas, who described himself as “presbyter of Holy Mount Syna, and legate of the church of Pharan and the hermitage of Raithou.”[188] Theonas apparently acted as legate owing to the age and infirmity of Photius, bishop of Pharan. His appointment shows the close connection that existed at the time between the three chief hermit settlements in Sinai proper. The presence of Theonas at Constantinople no doubt furthered, if it did not originate, the idea of fortifying the convents of Sinai.