William Dalrymple's "from The Holy Mountain"

[DanM]

William Dalrymple retraces the journey of a 6th century author named John Moschos who wrote a book titled "The Spiritual Meadow of John Moschos". The original book was about John's travels through the late Roman empire shortly before the Islamic conquest. As such, it describes a Roman. Christian world shortly before the Islamic movement took hold in the Middle East.

 

While I did not read the original book of John Moschos, Dalrymple refers back to it often as he gives his own accounts during his trip. As he retraces John Moschos' original jounrey, he begins in Greece, travels to Istanbul and then through Asia Minor, Eastern Turkey, Syria, Lebannon, Palestine and finally Egypt. Along the way, Dalrymple comments on how things were in the 6th century when John Moschos made his journey and then talks about how the same places are approximately 1,500 years later.

 

I could go on about any of the specific details of the book if you want, but for now I will just say that Dalrymple's writing style is very enjoyable. Its one of those books where the pages almost turn themselves. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wanted to gain a better understanding of the eastern church from a ground view up.

[Primus Pilus]

Sounds interesting to me. Though I'm a sucker for anything Roman, of course. Feel free to expound further on it

[DanM]

I will try to focus my comments a bit for the sake of brevity and just hit some high points.

 

To me it was an interesting fact to note that one of the largest and most prestigous universities for the study of law in the latter Roman Empire was established in Lebannon. I think it was Byblos, but don't hold me to it.

 

He was also big into ancient religous music and I think I remember him talking about some church in Syria that he believes still uses an early form of hymns that led to gregorian chants.

 

Also he talked a lot about the explosion of monastaries in the deserts of Egypt and Palistine. There were hundreds of monastaries in those deserts each of which might contain several hundred monks or nuns.

 

While he did not talk abot the staggering impact this must have had on late Roman finances and birth rates, it certainly inspired a line of thought along those lines for me. Imagine the finances that were diverted to build all of those monastaries instead of building infrastruture, paying armies and growing the economy. Think about those thousands upon thousands of men and women in the monastaries and the strongly ascetic flavor of the early Christian church. Those things must have done a lot to lower birth rates. Think about the massive amounts of wealth the could no longer be taxed as huge estates came into the hands of the church.

 

Anyway, back to the book. I suppose the best feature of the author is his ability to humanize events and people. He really made me feel like I was reading about people instead of dry historical facts and in that way he sort of made the whole subject come to life.

 

If you want to get a feel for the Christian church in the late Roman Middle East, then this book is a good start.

[Primus Pilus]

Let me ask this... is the book a recreation of John's journey from a mystical/religious standpoint, or a re-telling of the events from a human perspective? What I mean is, while the subject matter is Christian in nature, is it written as pro-church propoganda or simply a history of the time, including that of the eastern church?

[DanM]

Ahhh. I would not call it pro-Christian propaganda. Its a story about his modern travels with a constant comparison back to the accounts of John Moschos in his 1,500 year old book. Where possible, he would visit the same places. He would talk about the place as John Moschos described it and then talk about the place as he described it in 1992. For example, he might talk about how some historic monastary once had 900 people and now it had to 70+ year old monks.

 

There was also a lot of commentary about the monastic movement as part of the culture of pre-islamic middle eastern christianity.

 

Nothing was evangelical in nature. He certainly was not trying to convert anyone. It was just a historically based comparison of the world described in this 1,500 year old book as compared to the world as seen by this author in 1992.

 

He talked about the raw deal the Christians had gotten in Turkey (genocides, forced migrations, etc for millions within the past 100 years) and the raw deal the Coptic Christains were getting in Egypt, but he also talked about the bad things done by Lebanese Christians during their civil war. He also talked about the story of a woman who was a Palistinian refugee and Christian who said she was treated better by Palistinian Muslims than by her Lebanese Christian relatives. To me, he seemed to be connected to both Christian and Muslim people he met along the way but he did not close his eyes to the bad acts of any group. If there is any bigotry or bias in the man, I certainly did not see it when I read his book.

[Primus Pilus]

That's the answer I was looking for. Seems an interesting read regardless of the reader's perspective then.

[DanM]

Most definitely and its an easy book to find. I bought my copy on Amazon.