and a _church_ was certainly distinguished there; thus the present of Abocharagos, whom Justinian himself made phylarch of the Palestinian Saracens, is more easily comprehensible. Without doubt the founding of the fort in the higher mountains, for the guard against these Saracens, stood in connection with this. Next to Procopius, Cosmas Indicopleustes is by far the most trustworthy source for that time. He was not only a contemporary of Justinian, but describes (about 540) what he had himself _seen_ in the peninsula.[160] This work is the only larger geography preserved from that age, and his unpretending narrative everywhere bears the character of uncoloured truthfulness. It is more remarkable, that he neither mentions a convent, nor indeed the localities round Gebel Mûsa, but only Pharan, although he had the route of the Israelites particularly in view. That Antoninus Placentinus, who is considered by others to be St. Anthony martyr, in his _Itinerarum_ (_Ada Sanctor_, May, vol. ii. p. x-xviii.), which is referred by Ritter to about six hundred, again speaks of a convent at the Thornbush (Procopius does not mention the Thornbush), between Horeb and Sinai; therefore, as the place of the present convent seems to lead us back to the opinion so decidedly expressed by the learned Papebrook, who first published the Itinerary, that this so learnedly defended, yet very doubtful, history belongs first to the eleventh or twelfth century. In any circumstances it would be desirable to submit the writings of Ammonius, Nilus, Antoninus, and some other of the productions of the first centuries of Christianity, to a more searching and connected criticism than has yet been done. The earliest bishop of Mount Sinai referable to is found in the eleventh century; this is Bishop Jorius, who died in 1033 (_Le Quien_, vol. iii. p. 754). The _Phronimus episc. Synnaii_ (_Acta Concil. ed. Harduin_, vol. iii. p. 53), or (_Synai tunorum_, p. 206), signed at the second Constantinopolitan Council (_a._ 553), and the _Constantinus ep. Synai_ (_Harduin_, vol. v. p. 927), named at the fourth council (_a._ 870), have been referred hither incorrectly (Ritter, _Abhand. der Berl. Akad_, 1824, p. 216, _Peninsula of Sinai_, p. 26), as they belong to Synaus or Synnaus in Phrygia. NOTE F. (Letter XXXIII. p. 370.)