ABSTRACT
In the spring of the year 587 AD, had you been sitting on a bluff of rock overlooking Bethlehem, you would have been able to see two figures setting off, staff in hand, from the gates of the great desert monastery of St Theodosius. The two figures – an old grey-bearded monk accompanied by a tall, upright perhaps slightly stern younger companion – would have headed south-east through the wastes of Judea, towards the then fabulously rich port-metropolis of Gaza.
