That, indeed, an uninterrupted and certain tradition, concerning the position of Sinai in the peninsula, has been preserved to Christian times, must be most decidedly questioned. The name Choreb, or Sinai, seems to have been taken, at a very early period, for the whole of the mountain region of the peninsula, which was generally considered one mountain at a distance. No one took any interest in fixing the name to any geographical idea, until the time of the Christian hermits there. We only read of Elias, that he fled to the “Mountain of God, Choreb,” and there went into that cave (1 Kings, xiii. 9), (for it is taken for granted as known) in which the Lord had already (Exod. xxiii. 22) appeared unto Moses. The native races of Arabs gradually moved, so that of the Biblical names none remained in its place. The Greeks and Romans knew only _one place_ in the whole peninsula, the _palm-grove of Pharan_, just because this place and its port were alone of any importance, since the mines of the wilderness had been deserted. Also, for the Christian hermits--for which that mountain wild, even without reference to the sacred reminiscences of the place--must have seemed the most fitted of any region, as it provided them with the more necessary sustenance with the greatest solitude. Firan must have been the earliest centre-point; therefore, we also find here the oldest church of the peninsula. When they gradually commenced to seek more definitely for Scripture localities, they had no further materials for its discovery than we possess, with far less power to use these materials properly, as every sharp criticism to examine the passages of Scripture then lay very far off. The name Sinai was indefinitely taken for the whole mountain; if one looked round for any particular peak, that of _Serbâl_ would instantly present itself. To that, everything which we read in the first centuries about it in trustworthy writings points, to which, however, the treatise of the monk Ammonius certainly does not belong, in the estimation of any one who examines it more narrowly, and the excellent Romany, of Nilus, is very doubtful. What Josephus (Aut. iii. 5) says of Sinai (τὸ Σιναῖον), agrees very well with Serbâl, but not at all with Gebel Mûsa, as Hogg has already shown. According to Eusebius, Choreb and Raphidîm lay _near Pharan_ (ἐγγὺς Φαράν), and Sinai beside Choreb (παράκειται τῷ ὄρει Σινᾶ.) Jerome (s. v. _Choreb_) considers both mountains to be one, which he also places _by Pharan_, and, therefore, recognises in _Serbâl_. Also, the narrative of Nilus, concerning the Saracen attack at Sinai, either does not belong to the time in which it is dated (c. 400), or refers to Serbâl; for often (pp. 38-46) a _church_ (ἐκκλησία) is mentioned, which did not then exist on Gebel Mûsa, and Nilus goes down, in the same night in which the murdered people were buried, _to Pharan_, which could not have been done from Gebel Mûsa.