In 578 AD a monk named John Moschos travelled throughout the Byzantine Empire to determine the health of the Christian faith. His travelogue was called The Spiritual Meadow.
In 1994, some fourteen centuries after John Moschos began his journey, Scottish travel writer William Dalrymple set out on a similar trip. Following in the monk’s footsteps as closely as possible, Dalrymple spent several months travelling through the Mediterranean and the Middle East. His journey – which began in a monastery in Greece – took him through Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt.
The crumbling Byzantine Empire of 6th century bore witness to brutal violence, marauding armies and epidemic heresy. Together with Sophronius the Sophist (who would later be the patriarch of Jerusalem), John Moschos set out to “collect the wisdom of the desert fathers, the sages and mystics of the Byzantine East, before their fragile world… finally shattered and disappeared”.
By the middle of the 7th century, Jerusalem had succumbed to Muslim conquest. The age of Christian rule in the Middle East was over. However the Christian presence continued for many centuries. According to Dalrymple, Christians in the East enjoyed years of peaceful co-existence with their Muslim neighbours.
It has only been in relatively recent history – the last hundred or so years – that relations between Christianity and Islam have been at breaking point. Dalrymple began his journey assuming that the cause of mass Christian migration from the East was rising Islamic fundamentalism. What he discovered was quite different.
Islam is certainly a factor in every country he visited, however the issues are complex. It was really only in Egypt that Islamic fundamentalism was the primary political cause of the erosion of Christianity.
But of course the term Christian is a slippery one. It covers a spectrum from those who confess Christ as Lord to those whose religion is a matter of birth and culture. Somewhere in the middle are the devout worshippers of Christ and a litany of saints and martyrs. If there has been any consistency in the centuries between Moschos and Dalrymple it is the survival and spread of syncretism and heresy.
From the Holy Mountain is an eloquent and astonishing book. It deftly dovetails history and modernity within the frame of a rousing travelogue.
It recaptures the tragedy of recent and ancient conflict with great sympathy, yet it is not a depressing read. Alongside the gravity of warring faction is wit and humour at the less serious foibles of humanity.
An eye-opening experience, From the Holy Mountain takes the reader on two journeys through the world of the Middle East. Simply stunning.
