Note 130 — LETTER XXXIII.

Of the older authors there is yet Cosmas Indicopleustes (A.D. 535) to be particularly mentioned, (Topogr. Christ, Lib V. in the Coll. Nov. Patr. ed. Montfaucon, tom. II. fol. 195,) Ἔιτα πάλιν παρενέ βαλον εἰς Ῥαφιδὶν εἰς τὴν νῦν λεγομένην Φαράν also Antoninus Placentinus, who is placed about 600, while the learned Papebroch, who has edited his Itinerarium in the Acta S.S., May, vol. ii. p. 10-18, places him in the eleventh or twelfth century, came, as he says, in civitatem (which can only be Pharan) in qua pugnavit Moyses cum Amalech: ubi est altare positum super lapides illos quos posuerunt Moyse orante.” The city is surrounded with a brick wall, and “valde, sterilis” for which Tuch (Sinait. Incr. p. 38) proposes to read “fertilis.” When Pharan is called an Amalekite city by Macrizi, (History of the Kopts, translated by Wüstenfeld, p. 116), this can only point to the same conclusion that Moses was attacked near Pharan by the Amalekites, to whom the territory belonged. Ritter is particularly to be mentioned among the new school.