THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
calls the Gulf of Suez the " Arabian Gulf," though he employs also the term " Red Sea." What now goes by that name, the waters from the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, northward to the peninsula of Sinai, has existed since the chalk age, though its area is growing less through the elevation of the land about its shores.
Upon the events related in Ex. xhi.-xv., dealing with the passage of the sea by the Hebrews who had sojourned in Egypt, some light has been thrown by the excavations carried on under the Egypt Exploration Fund (q.v.), especially the investigations in the Wadi Tumilat under E. Naville in 1883. It has been shown that a " treasure city " (Ex. i. 11) existed there of which the name was probably Pithom (" sanctuary of the god Turn "). A stone was found by Naville bearing the inscription Ero Castra, showing the location there of the Greek city Heroopolis, the Roman Ero Castra, which the Coptic version of Gen. xlvi. 28-29 brings into connection with Goshen in the land of Rameses and with Pithom (cf. Ex. i. 11). The Coptic translator seems to have known that Heroopolis was the site of the earlier Pithom. From Greek and Roman writers of the period 300 B.c-150 a.d. it is known that the Red Sea reached as far as this place and was navigable. Geological evidence fully corroborates this testimony, and the recession of the waters has taken place in the present geological era. The reports of canal-building in this region by Necho II. and Darius refer doubtless to the dredging of an old channel. The stations of the Hebrews as given in the two narrations of J and P do not accord, as is shown by a parallel presentation.
J. P.
Gen. xlv. 10 and Ex. viii. 22, "land of Goshen."
Gen. xlvii. 11, "land of
Rameses"; Ex. xii. 13, "land of Egypt"; Ex.
xii. 37, " Rameses to
Succoth."
Ex. xiii. 20, " Etham, in' the edge of the wilderness "; Ex. xiv. 2, 9, circuit to Pi-hahiroth between Migdol and the sea, before Baalzephon.
Ex. xvi. 1, " Elim."
Ex. xiii. 17-18, " not the way of the land of the Philistines, but
the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea."
Ex. xv. 22, 23, 27, " wilderness of Shur," " Marah," " Elim."
The data given by J is intelligible in the light of present knowledge. The " way of the land of the Philistines " is the old caravan route which passes by the southeast corner of the Mediterranean. The " way of the wilderness of the Red Sea " led through the Wadi Tumilat past Pithom to the region of the Bitter Lakes and the wilderness of Shur, which, according to Gen. xxv. 18, was " before Egypt," i.e., on its eastern border. Since the Hebrews were hemmed in by the border fortresses, there was no alternative but to ford the sea at a shallow spot. It would appear that the combination of a strong east wind and an ebb tide, producing a complete drying-up of the waters, was not an uncommon phenomenon. In the opportune happening of this phe-
nomenon Moses would see the favoring hand of his God, and he led his people across during the night. The earlier construction of the passage led Moses and the Hebrews southward toward Suez ; the discovery of Naville has made this hypothesis untenable. The account of P is less intelligible. For the " land of Rameses " see Goshen. Succoth is equated with the frequently recurring Egyptian term Thuku or Thuket, the name of a district in the region of Pithom. Etham may be the Hebrew rendering of the Egyptian hetem, " fortress," several of which guarded the eastern boundary of Egypt against the nomads. Ex. xiv. 2 by the use of " turn " creates a puzzle as to the location of the camp. A Migdol is known to have existed twelve Roman miles from Pelusium, somewhere near Tell al-Her, but to pass this would lead the Israelites by " the way of the Philistines," which was forbidden (J). Pihahiroth is not yet definitely made out. Present knowledge does not permit more exact following-out of the narrative of P (H. Guthe.)
Bibliography: C. E. Ehrenberg, in Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie, physikalische Klasse, 1832, 1, pp. 164 sqq. (on the corals); F. Fresnel, in J A, 6 ser., xi (1848), 274 sqq.; C. Hitter, Comparative Geography of Palestine, i. 56-60, 162-166, Edinburgh, 1866; G. Ebers, Durch Gosen zum Sinai, 91 sqq., 532 sqq., Leipsic, 1881; A. W. Thayer, The Hebrews and the Red Sea, Andover, 1883; W. M. Miiller, Asien und Europa, Leipsic, 1893; E. C. A. Riehm, Handworterbuch des biblischen Altertums, iii. 986-987, ib. 1894; DB, iv. 210; EB, iv. 4022-24. On the Exodus, E. Naville, The Store City of Pithom and the Route of the Exodus, London, 1885 (an epoch-making Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund) ; H. Brugsch, Steininschrift und Bibelwort, pp. 117 sqq., 226 sqq., Berlin, 1891; J. G. Duncan, The Exploration of Egypt and the O. T., London, 1908; R. Weill, Le Sejour des israelites au disert et le Sinai dans la relation primitive, Paris, 1910.
REDEEMER, ORDER OF THE (Ordo S. Salvatoris or S. Redemptoris) : A popular designation of several Roman Catholic orders. It is incorrectly given to the Brigittines (see Bridget, Saint, of Sweden), and to the Ordo de redemptione captivorum, founded by St. Peter Nolasco (see Nolasco). With more propriety it is applied to the Redemptorists (Societas sanctissimi nostri Redemptoris) of Alfonso Maria da Liguori (q.v.), though its use here can easily lead to misunderstanding. The same is true of the name as designation for a knightly order (De sanctissimo sanguine S. Redemptoris) founded by Vincent I. of Mantua in 1608; it was confirmed by Pope Paul V., but never attained to much importance. The Greek Order of the Redeemer, founded by King Otto I. in 1833 to commemorate the liberation from the Turkish yoke, is a purely secular order of merit. Lastly, a priest of the diocese of Freiburg, J. B. Jordan by name (later called Father Francis of the Cross), founded at Rome in 1881 a Societas divini Salvatoris, devoted to the work of missions. In 1889 it was given the apostolic prefecture of Assam in the East Indies as its field of labor, and in 1895 it also undertook missionary work in South Africa.