Homo Sum

Homo Sum, Complete, by Georg
Ebers

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Homo Sum, Complete, by Georg
Ebers This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Homo Sum, Complete
Author: Georg Ebers
Release Date: October 17, 2006 [EBook #5499]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOMO
SUM, COMPLETE ***

Produced by David Widger

HOMO SUM, Complete
By Georg Ebers
Volume 1.

Translated by Clara Bell

PREFACE.
In the course of my labors preparatory to writing a history of the
Sinaitic peninsula, the study of the first centuries of Christianity for a
long time claimed my attention; and in the mass of martyrology, of
ascetic writings, and of histories of saints and monks, which it was
necessary to work through and sift for my strictly limited object, I came
upon a narrative (in Cotelerius Ecclesiae Grecae Monumenta) which
seemed to me peculiar and touching notwithstanding its improbability.
Sinai and the oasis of Pharan which lies at its foot were the scene of
action.
When, in my journey through Arabia Petraea, I saw the caves of the
anchorites of Sinai with my own eyes and trod their soil with my own
feet, that story recurred to my mind and did not cease to haunt me
while I travelled on farther in the desert.
A soul's problem of the most exceptional type seemed to me to be
offered by the simple course of this little history.
An anchorite, falsely accused instead of another, takes his punishment
of expulsion on himself without exculpating himself, and his innocence
becomes known only through the confession of the real culprit.
There was a peculiar fascination in imagining what the emotions of a
soul might be which could lead to such apathy, to such an annihilation
of all sensibility; and while the very deeds and thoughts of the strange
cave-dweller grew more and more vivid in my mind the figure of
Paulus took form, as it were as an example, and soon a crowd of ideas
gathered round it, growing at last to a distinct entity, which excited and
urged me on till I ventured to give it artistic expression in the form of a
narrative. I was prompted to elaborate this subject--which had long
been shaping itself to perfect conception in my mind as ripe material
for a romance--by my readings in Coptic monkish annals, to which I

was led by Abel's Coptic studies; and I afterwards received a further
stimulus from the small but weighty essay by H. Weingarten on the
origin of monasticism, in which I still study the early centuries of
Christianity, especially in Egypt.
This is not the place in which to indicate the points on which I feel
myself obliged to differ from Weingarten. My acute fellow-laborer at
Breslau clears away much which does not deserve to remain, but in
many parts of his book he seems to me to sweep with too hard a broom.
Easy as it would have been to lay the date of my story in the beginning
of the fortieth year of the fourth century instead of the thirtieth, I have
forborne from doing so because I feel able to prove with certainty that
at the time which I have chosen there were not only heathen recluses in
the temples of Serapis but also Christian anchorites; I fully agree with
him that the beginnings of organized Christian monasticism can in no
case be dated earlier than the year 350.
The Paulus of my story must not be confounded with the "first hermit,"
Paulus of Thebes, whom Weingarten has with good reason struck out
of the category of historical personages. He, with all the figures in this
narrative is a purely fictitious person, the vehicle for an idea, neither
more nor less. I selected no particular model for my hero, and I claim
for him no attribute but that of his having been possible at the period;
least of all did I think of Saint Anthony, who is now deprived even of
his distinguished biographer Athanasius, and who is represented as a
man of very sound judgment but of so scant an education that he was
master only of Egyptian.
The dogmatic controversies which were already kindled at the time of
my story I have, on careful consideration, avoided mentioning. The
dwellers on Sinai and in the oasis took an eager part in them at a later
date.
That Mount Sinai to which I desire to transport the reader must not be
confounded with the mountain which lies at a long day's journey