4th–5th century
An ascetic of Raithu near Sinai who reposed before the slaughter of the desert fathers.
Our Venerable Father Joseph Analytinus, the Ascetic of Raithu
Joseph Analytinus was an ascetic of the Raithu desert near Sinai, active in the 4th and 5th centuries. By tradition he attained a high degree of spiritual perfection: a light is said to have shone upon him while he prayed, a sign of his ascetic attainment.
He is remembered as having foretold the time of his own death to his disciple Gelasius, dying in peace shortly before the slaughter of the monastic communities at Mount Sinai and Raithu. For this reason he is commemorated on January 14 alongside the Holy Fathers slain at Sinai and Raithu, though he is distinguished from those martyrs by having reposed peacefully rather than by violence.
By a flood of tears you made the desert fertile,
and your longing for God brought forth fruits in abundance.
By the radiance of miracles you illumined the whole universe!
O our holy father Joseph, pray to Christ our God to save our souls!
Text used with permission of the Orthodox Church in America (oca.org).
Joseph was a strict ascetic of the Raithu desert, the monastic region on the western shore of the Sinai peninsula. Orthodox tradition relates that he attained such a high degree of perfection in the spiritual life that a light shone upon him while he prayed.
The synaxarion relates that he foretold the time of his death to his disciple Gelasius and then died in peace. His repose is recorded as having preceded the massacre of the Sinai Fathers.
Joseph is commemorated on January 14 together with the Holy Fathers slain at Mount Sinai and at Raithu. At Mount Sinai, thirty-eight monks were killed by the Saracens for the faith of Christ; at Raithu, forty-three monks were put to death by the Blemmyes (rendered in the Orthodox sources as 'Blemmians'). Named among those slain at Raithu are the hieromartyrs Isaiah, Sabbas, Moses, Jeremiah, Paul, Adam, Sergius, Domnus, Proclus, Hypatius, Isaac, Macarius, Mark, Benjamin, and Eusebius.
Joseph Analytinus is distinguished from these martyrs: he reposed peacefully before the slaughter rather than being killed in it. His commemoration on the same day attaches his memory to the community whose end he is said to have foreseen.
Raithu — also spelled Raitha or Raithou — was an ancient monastic site in the Sinai peninsula, in the region surrounding what is now El Tor, Egypt, situated between Saint Catherine and the Red Sea on the western shore near the Gulf of Suez. It lay distinct from Mount Sinai itself.
The monks of Raithu lived as anchorites, early Christian hermits. The desert fathers there were vulnerable to raids from neighboring desert peoples; the Blemmyes, an Eastern Desert people generally identified with the modern Beja, inhabited Lower Nubia and the Eastern Desert of Egypt, and their territory bordered the Red Sea coast, making raids on the monastic communities of the region historically plausible. A monastery was later established at the site, commissioned in the 6th century by the Byzantine emperor Justinian.
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