Pilgrimage, the Past, and the Holy: the Writings of John Moschos and the Piacenza Pilgrim

PILGRIMAGE, THE PAST, AND THE HOLY: THE WRITINGS OF JOHN MOSCHOS AND THE PIACENZA PILGRIM

AUSTIN MCCRAY

A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2015

To Tierra and my parents

3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank my advisor Andrea Sterk for her continued advice and revisions. I would also like to thank Bonnie Effros and Florin Curta for their own suggestions and improvements. Finally, I would like to thank Tierra for reading through multiple drafts and, more importantly, her continued patience and loving support.

4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... 4

ABSTRACT ...... 6

CHAPTER

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 7

Two Sixth-Century Pilgrims and Their World ...... 11 Pilgrimage: A Concept and a Genre ...... 20

2 PILGRIMAGE IN LATE ANTIQUITY ...... 24

Debating Theology and Sacred Space ...... 27 Travel Along the Edge: The Roman-Persian Frontier ...... 29 Types of Pilgrimage ...... 32 Xeniteia and Pilgrimage ...... 36

3 THE PIACENZA PILGRIM ...... 38

The Piacenza Pilgrim and the Biblical Past ...... 38 Maintenance of the Present ...... 40 Compression of Sacred Time in the Present ...... 43 The Piacenza Pilgrim and the Holy ...... 46

4 JOHN MOSCHOS ...... 53

John Moschos and the Christian Past...... 53 John Moschos and the Holy ...... 58 Moschos and Miracles ...... 61 Moschos, Sacred Space, and Chalcedonian Orthodoxy ...... 66

5 CONCLUSION ...... 68

LIST OF REFERENCES ...... 70

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 74

Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts

PILGRIMAGE, THE PAST, AND THE HOLY: THE WRITINGS OF JOHN MOSCHOS AND THE PIACENZA PILGRIM

Austin McCray

August 2015

Chair: Andrea Sterk Major: History

This thesis examines both the relationship between and changing conceptions of pilgrimage, the Christian past, and the Christian holy throughout the later sixth-century

CE. The Piacenza Pilgrim and John Moschos will be introduced as central sources.

Pilgrimage as a concept and its particular qualities in late antiquity will then be outlined.

The final two chapters will individually focus on the pilgrimages of the Piacenza Pilgrim and John Moschos, discussing their understandings of how the Christian past connected with their present and how holiness manifested itself within the physical world. A comparison of these two accounts reveal both the expanded understanding of the Christian holy in contrast to the fourth century as well as the Eastern and Western divergence of the holy present in the later sixth-century.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

Having reached Jerusalem around 570 CE, the Piacenza Pilgrim arrived at the

Basilica of Holy Sion. Recounting his pilgrimage upon his return to Northern Italy, he did not describe the basilica itself or the events that took place around the area. Instead,

The Piacenza Pilgrim extols the pillar on which Jesus was scourged, the crown of thorns, the spear that pierced his side, even the stones used to kill Stephen the

Protomartyr. These relics, among others, were what drew the Piacenza Pilgrim to the holy city of Jerusalem.1 They were what the Piacenza Pilgrim sought out during his pilgrimage. These relics and the network of other similar sites that he visited throughout the Holy Land illuminate the Piacenza Pilgrim’s understanding of pilgrimage, the

Christian past, and the holy.

Pilgrimage accounts have been used in many ways to interpret the act and experience of pilgrimage itself, as well as the society and culture in which a pilgrim lived and traveled.2 They can tell us about the connectivity of various regions and the mechanisms of travel.3 Due to the personal nature of pilgrimage, such narratives can also express an individual’s understanding of his or her religion. The personal

1 Piacenza Pilgrim, The, “Antonini Placentini Itinerarium,” in Itineraria et alia geographica, CCSL 175, edited by P. Geyer, (Turnhout: Brepols, 1965), 22. This account will be discussed in greater detail below.

2 For broad studies of pilgrimage see Victor Turner, “The Center out There: Pilgrim’s Goal,” History of Religions 12 (3)(1973): 191-230 and Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Simon Coleman and John Elsner, Pilgrimage: Past and Present in the World Religions, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995); Erik Cohen, “A Phenomenology of Tourist Experiences.” Sociology 13 (2) (1979).

3 For the connection between pilgrimage accounts and travel writing see Cohen, “A Phenomenology of Tourist Experiences”; Carl Thompson, Travel Writing (New York: Routledge, 2011), 26.

dimension of religious faith is central to this thesis on the accounts of two late antique pilgrims, the Piacenza Pilgrim and John Moschos. In particular I focus on how they understood their connection with the Christian past and what objects they viewed as exempla of the Christian holy through their travels in the later sixth and early seventh centuries.

In comparison to fourth-century narratives, the pilgrimage accounts of the sixth century have remained peripheral in scholarly discussion. The higher profile fourth- century writings of Egeria, Paula, and the Bordeaux Pilgrim, along with monastic accounts that feature pilgrimage and travel such as the History of the Monks of Egypt, have been at the center of scholarly studies on pilgrimage.4 In addition, scholars have analyzed the theological works on pilgrimage and sacred space from fourth-century authors such as Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa in the West or Jerome and

Augustine in the West.5 Although some of the same scholars have discussed the

Piacenza Pilgrim’s Itinerarium and Theodosius the Archdeacon’s De Situ Terrae

Sanctae, the sixth-century accounts have rarely been the focus of the scholarship.6

4 For Egeria see Maribel Dietz, Wandering Monks, Virgins, and Pilgrims: Ascetic Travel in the Mediterranean World, A.D. 300-800 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005), 43-54; Blake Leyerle, “Landscape as Cartography in Early Christian Pilgrimage Narratives.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64 (1) (1996): 119–43; Hagith Sivan, “Holy Land Pilgrimage and Western Audiences: Some Reflections on Egeria and Her Circle,” Classical Quarterly 38 (1988): 528–535. For the Bordeaux Pilgrim see Jaś Elsner, “The Itinerarium Burdigalense: Politics and Salvation in the Geography of Constantine’s Empire.” The Journal of Roman Studies 90 (January: 2000): 181–95.

5 For Jerome and Gregory of Nyssa see Bruria Bitton-Ashkelony, Encountering the Sacred: the Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005):65-105.

6 Dietz, Wandering Monks, 144-151; Blake Leyerle has the most extensive discussion of Piacenza. See Leyerle “Landscape as Cartography,” 132-137; Gary Vikan, Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Art, Revised Edition (Washington, D.C: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and

Moschos’s work has received somewhat more attention, as several recent works have used his Meadow to discuss late antique society and the changes that occurred during the later sixth and early seventh centuries.7 However, there has yet to be a substantial study devoted to Moschos himself as a traveler and pilgrim.

Not only have the Piacenza Pilgrim and John Moschos never been compared, but Moschos’ Spiritual Meadow itself has never been treated as a pilgrimage account.

Moschos’ text is a collection of 219 hagiographical tales, similar in style to Palladius’

Lausiac History, The History of the Monks of Egypt, or Cyril of Scythopolis’ The Lives of the Monks of Palestine. Moschos organized the tales within the Meadow topically with tales on similar topics placed sequentially rather than organized chronologically based on his travels. However, Moschos frames each tale within accounts of his own travels or with a brief introduction for the individual telling the tale.8 Like many hagiographical authors before and after him, Moschos could have compiled his tales and composed his text without stressing travel. Yet physical movement is an integral aspect of the

Meadow. At the core of his narrative of diverse holy men and pilgrims, is the tale of

Moschos and Sophronios themselves journeying for their own spiritual edification.9 This

Collection, 2011), 14; See Yoram Tsafrir, “The Maps used by Theodosius: On the Pilgrim maps of the Holy Land and Jerusalem in the Sixth Century C.E,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 40 (1986.) for Theodosius.

7 See Brenda Ihssen, John Moschos’ Spiritual Meadow: Authority and Autonomy at the End of the Antique World, (Burlington: Ashgate Pub Co., 2014) and Phil Booth, Crisis of Empire: Doctrine and Dissent at the End of Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 2014). Ihssen also features an excellent discussion of the historiography of Moschos. See Ihssen, Moschos, 12-13.

8 Booth, Crisis of Empire, 4.

9 Henry Chadwick, “John Moschos and His Friend Sophronius the Sophist,” Journal of Theological Studies 25 (1974): 41.

motivation at its core is pilgrimage. They traveled throughout the Eastern

Mediterranean, the areas to which so many traveled in order to experience the biblical past, to gain a greater connection with the power of God and better to lead a life devoted to him. Moschos’ travels were a form of pilgrimage, with the goal of personally encountering the holy individuals of the Eastern Mediterranean.

In this thesis I will argue that the pilgrimage accounts of John Moschos and the

Piacenza Pilgrim in the Holy Land reveal an expanded scope of the holy in comparison with the narratives of their fourth-century counterparts. By the sixth-century, the number of holy sites, the breadth of individuals deemed holy, and the geographic boundaries in which the pilgrims journeyed had expanded. The distinct variations in these two pilgrimage accounts also highlights divergent Eastern and Western conceptions of the

Christian holy that had developed by the later sixth century. While the desire for firsthand experience of the holy was widespread throughout the late antique

Mediterranean, through the pilgrimages of John Moschos and the Piacenza Pilgrim we can witness eastern and western Christians’ different views on how the spiritual manifested itself within the physical world.

After briefly introducing these two pilgrims and the notion of pilgrimage itself as both a concept and a genre, the first chapter of this thesis will examine the notion and practice of pilgrimage in late antiquity.10 This chapter will enable us to better contextualize the accounts of the Piacenza Pilgrim and John Moschos within the late antique period. Building on this foundation, in chapters 2 and 3 I will analyze both

10 This thesis is mainly concerned with the fourth through the first two decades of the seventh century and it is this general period in consideration when the term “late antiquity” is used throughout the text.

pilgrims’ understanding of their connection with the Christian past along with their conceptions of the Christian holy. A close reading of these two texts will provide a more nuanced understanding of practices of pilgrimage, views of the Christian past, and notions of the holy in late antiquity.

Two Sixth-Century Pilgrims and Their World

Given the limited number of pilgrimage accounts available during the late antique period, I will be drawing upon both fourth and sixth century sources to gain a more nuanced understanding of the concept. However, the major differences between

Egeria’s fourth-century world and the Piacenza Pilgrim’s sixth-century context must also be recognized. In particular, the increasingly Christian world through which our two sixth-century pilgrims journeyed certainly affected their conceptions of their pilgrimages.

11 As the Mediterranean world had become virtually synonymous with Christianity, the scope of sacred sites and the holy expanded as well. The theological debates associated with sacred space in the fourth-century were resolved and by the later sixth- century a greater number of established sacred sites, each boasting their own relics and miracles, attracted pilgrims to the Holy Land.12 Eastern monasticism featured a similar expansion. Egypt was far from the only hotbed of asceticism or the only area in which

11 R.A. Markus, Gregory the Great and His World, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 40-41.

12 The theological debates with be discussed below. A similar expansion of the holy can be witnessed through the increased number of saint festivals in the sixth-century. See R.A. Markus,The End of Ancient Christianity, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 99.

exemplary monastic figures could be found. The sixth-century world was imbued with increased conduits of spiritual power, especially within the East where our focus lies.13

The Latin Piacenza Pilgrim departed for his pilgrimage to the Holy Land from his home in Northern Italy around 570 CE and wrote about his journey in his Itinerarium upon his return. The Piacenza Pilgrim gives little insight into his own life in his

Itinerarium. Other than the fact that he was from Piacenza and that he traveled with a certain John, married to a woman named Thecla from the same city, we know very little about his background or situation in life. It is unclear whether he was a monk or a layman.14 The only other bit of information that relates to his life in Piacenza is that he brought back a date for a “Lord Paterius.”15 His introductory and concluding remarks are brief and provide few details about his situation, his motivations, or goals, revealing not much more than his starting location at Piacenza.16 He fails to give much information about the first leg of his journey, saying only that he left Piacenza; the text then jumps to his arrival in Constantinople. Similarly, the Piacenza Pilgrim ends with his visitation to

Sura on the Euphrates.

13 Peter Brown, “Eastern and Western Christendom in Late Antiquity: A Parting of Ways,” In Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity, ed. Peter Brown, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 179.

14 It is interesting to wonder whether the Piacenza Pilgrim was a monk. He seems rather uninterested in eastern monasticism and unfamiliar with the contemporary theological issues, especially in comparison with John Moschos. Some of his comments also make one wonder on his identity. Particularly his description and wonder at the miraculous “Saracen” festival. See Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, 38.

15 Piacenza, Itinerarium, XIV. Ibi nascitur dactalum de libra, de quibus mecum adduxi in provinciam, ex quibus unum domino Paterio Patricio dedi.

16 Piacenza, Itinerarium, I.

While we do not know much more about the man, we have more information about the world in which he lived. Justinian’s prolonged conquest followed by Gothic resistance and finally the Lombard invasion made Northern Italy in the mid to late sixth- century decidedly unstable.17 The Piacenza Pilgrim’s departure from Northern Italy either precedes or directly follows the Lombard invasion of the same territory in 568 CE, depending on the exact date of his pilgrimage.18 Unfortunately, the lack of information on the first part of the Piacenza Pilgrim’s journey makes it unclear whether the

Lombards had any impact on his ability to travel or on his decision to leave the area on pilgrimage in the first place. However, it is hard to imagine that the problems plaguing

Italy at the time did not have some affect on the Piacenza Pilgrim’s decision to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

It appears that The Piacenza Pilgrim wrote his text following his return to

Piacenza after his pilgrimage.19 He organized the text itself topographically, divided into chapters based on his movement throughout the holy land to various significant sites. In terms of length, it falls into a moderate range, longer and more detailed than the

Itinerarium Burdigalense or Jerome’s description of Paula’s pilgrimage but not as long or personal as Egeria’s account of her travels.

While the Piacenza Pilgrim’s own understanding of Christianity and the world around him significantly influenced his writing, his intended audiences also played a

17 Markus, Gregory the Great and his World, 3-4.

18 John Moorhead, “Western Approaches (500-600),” In The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c. 500-1492, edited by Jonathan Shepard, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 215-216.

19 I base this assumption, at least in part, on the wrong order in which he records his visit to the cities as well as the additional relics at the Basilica of Sion that he had simply forgotten. See Piacenza, Itinerarium, XXII, XLIII, and XLVI.

role.20 As pilgrims’ goals and motivations for traveling varied greatly, so too did their audiences. Unfortunately, the Piacenza Pilgrim does not discuss his motivation for writing. In addition, as has been emphasized, we know very little about the man himself so that it is difficult to determine for whom he might have been writing.21 That said, based on internal features of the text we can make several observations about the

Piacenza Pilgrim’s intended audience. Similar to many pilgrimage accounts, his text could be taken both to encourage readers to make the same physical journey while also providing information for “armchair pilgrims” to envision and meditate upon the holy sites described in the narrative. the Piacenza Pilgrim does provide a description of the route that he took, though a lack of mileage and specific directions suggests that he did not expect others to follow his specific itinerary.22 Instead, he offered a detailed description of which relics and sites were available at various locations. Relics and healing sites are the focus of much of the text, presenting objects as tangible

20 Thompson Travel Writing, 27.

21 It is possible to identify loosely the type of pilgrimage literature in which Piacenza’s account fits. Though examining high medieval pilgrimage literature, J.G Davies provides a beneficial breakdown of pilgrimage literature types and motivations at the core of each, which can be useful for this discussion. Loosely considered, the Piacenza Pilgrim’s text fits best within Davies “Travel Account” type, which he defines as pilgrimage accounts written by pilgrims after they had returned and wanted to commit the journey to writing. It is clear that the Piacenza Pilgrim wrote after he had returned, especially due to missing sites or information that would be significant. Davies further subdivides this travel account type based upon the author’s motivation for writing. Though Davies recognizes that authors had multiple motivations, the use of such divisions breaks down, as the Piacenza does not express a single motivation for writing within his account. See J.G. Davies, “Pilgrimage and Crusade Literature.” In Journeys Toward God: Pilgrimage and Crusade, ed. Barbara N. Sargent-Baur, (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2002): 9.

22 In contrast to the detailed itineraries of the Bordeaux Pilgrim or Theodosius the Archdeacons’ De Situ Terrae Sanctae.

connections to important events for the reader to imagine.23 Though the Piacenza

Pilgrim on occasion mentions monasteries, monks themselves were not a central element in his text, suggesting that they were less important for both him and his audience in comparison with relics.24

John Moschos was a Greek-speaking monk from the Monastery of Saint

Theodosios just west of Bethlehem. Along with his friend and pupil, Sophronios, he traveled throughout the eastern Mediterranean in the late sixth and early seventh centuries, starting in the late 570s or early 580s.25 The Eastern Mediterranean world that Moschos inhabited was experiencing its own political and religious difficulties. The increased hostilities between Byzantium and the Sasanians starting in the 530s, particularly the sack of Antioch in 540, played a central role in the history of the sixth- century East. Of more significance for Moschos and the Meadow are the Christological controversies that continued to plague the East following the 553 CE Council of

Constantinople.26

Moschos was a firm supporter of Chalcedonian Christology, a theological position that appears in a number of tales within the Meadow.27 He staunchly contrasted the beliefs of the Chalcedonian Christian with those of the Severan sect (most often referred to in the secondary literature as Monophysites). Moschos used sacred sites to

23 Leyrle, “Landscape as Cartography,” 133-38; Vikan, Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Art, 14. For examples of cures see For example: The Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, IV, VI, VII, X.

24 This will be developed in Chapter 3 below.

25 Chadwick, “John Moschos,” 56.

26 Averil Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity AD 395-600, (New York: Routledge, 1993), 65-67.

27 Specific examples will be discussed below in Chapter 4.

emphasize Chalcedonian orthodoxy and the need to believe in that form of Christianity in order truly to experience the holy in the site itself.28

Although the exact dates of his travels are difficult to ascertain, we are able to reconstruct his multi-stage pilgrimage through his collection of hagiographical tales known as the Pratum Spirituale, written in Rome some time after the fall of Jerusalem to the Sasanian Persians in 614 CE. John Moschos started his monastic career at the

Judean coenobium of St Theodosios located east of Bethlehem. At some point

Moschos left St Theodosios, and although it is not clear how much he traveled, he tells us he spent a decade at the Judean Lavra of Pharôn, possibly between 568 CE and

578 CE.29 It was then at the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius (578-82 CE) that Moschos states he traveled to Egypt with his companion Sophronios.30 He appears to have traveled throughout the region, with a number of tales originating from his time in Alexandria.31 He next traveled to and through the Sinai region, staying at the Lavra of the Ailiotes for another decade.32 Henry Chadwick has suggested that this period falls around 580-590 CE based on his encounter with Zosimus, the former Bishop of

Babylon, and the fact that he was present when the Patriarch John of Jerusalem (575-

28 Lorenzo Perrone, “Christian Holy Places and Pilgrimage in an Age of Dogmatic Conflicts: Popular Religion and Confessional Affiliation in Byzantine Palestine (5th-7th Centuries)” Proche- Orient Chrétien 48 (1998): 29-30.

29 John Moschos, “Pratum Spirituale,” In Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca. Vol. 87, Edited by Jacques Paul Migne, (1865), Ch. 40. Chadwick, “John Moschos,” 55-56. Wortley, The Spiritual Meadow, XVIII.

30 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 112. Chadwick, “John Moschos,” 56. Wortley, The Spiritual Meadow, XVIII. Έν ταῖς ἀρχαῖς Τιβεριου τοῦ Βασιλέως και πιστοτάτου Καίσαρος.

31 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 60, 105, 106, 171, 172. Wortley, The Spiritual Meadow, XVIII.

32 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 67.

593 CE) was building a reservoir at Sinai.33 Moschos was in Jerusalem for the consecration of Amos as the Patriarch (594-601 CE) and appears to have spent time during this period traveling through the region.34 Then, sometime during the first decade of the seventh century he left Palestine and traveled throughout Syria, including a visit to Antioch.35 He then returned to Alexandria while Eulogios (580-607) was still the

Patriarch, and he was here when the news spread that Jerusalem had fallen to the

Sasanian forces in 614 CE .36 Moschos and Sophronius then left the East for Rome where Moschos finished the Meadow and died most likely in 619 CE, at which point

Sophronios brought his remains back to St Theodosius.37

The audience for John Moschos’ Spiritual Meadow is certainly distinct from that of the Piacenza Pilgirm’s text. While travel and pilgrimage were an integral aspect of

Moschos’ account, the Spiritual Meadow falls within the hagiographical genre and thus his intended audience is different from that of a traditional pilgrimage text.38 Moschos is transparent about his motivation for writing the Meadow and provides insight into his intended audience. In the introduction of his text, he tells his pupil and friend Sophronios that he has filled this text with distinguished holy men, marked by various virtues and beloved by God.39 Moschos continues that he believes that in order to live a pious and a

33 Chadwick, “John Moschos,” 57.

34 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 149. Chadwick, “John Moschos,” 57.

35 Wortley, The Spiritual Meadow, XIX.

36 Wortley, The Spiritual Meadow, XIX. See Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 195.

37 Wortley, The Spiritual Meadow, XIX.

38 Booth, Crisis of Empire, 4.

39 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Intro.

virtuous life one must read of others’ ways of life.40 Moschos felt that the tales he had collected were important for those who desired to pursue a virtuous monastic life. Thus, he intended his text to be read primarily by monks, particularly Chalcedonian monks, or those desiring to undertake an ascetic life.41 However, before Moschos ever sat down to write, he felt the need to travel throughout the Eastern Mediterranean for his own spiritual edification. While Moschos certainly included specific details of his text with a monastic audience in view, at the core of his work is his own personal journey tailored by his own conception of Christianity.

The only other sixth-century text that falls within the pilgrimage genre is

Theodosius the Archdeacon’s De Situ Terrae Sanctae. Written in Latin, the text has been dated to the early sixth-century, with dates ranging from 518-530 CE.42 Even less is known about Theodosius than the Piacenza Pilgrim, with the moniker “Theodosius the Archdeacon,” only present in a single manuscript, and a complete lack of place of origin.43 It appears that Theodosius’ text is a compilation of information on Holy Land pilgrimage rather than a personal narrative. Wilkinson has suggested, based on the inconsistencies of style, that Theodosius had gathered multiple sources of information— at least five—within the text.44 While Theodosius’ text still sheds light on sixth century pilgrimage and still requires a more detailed analysis, the lack of an identifiable

40 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, intro.

41 Chadwick, “John Moschos,” 64.

42 The date range is surmised based on Theodosius mentioning the emperor Anastasius (491-518) but making no mention of Justinian and his building projects. Wilkinson suggests a date closer to 518 because Theodosius also makes no mention of Justin I. See Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims, 185; Tsafrir, “The Maps used by Theodosius,” 129.

43 Tsafrir, “The Maps used by Theodosius,” 129.

44 Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims, 184.

authoritative voice, and any sort of personal information, means that the text is not the best choice for the present inquires. Moreover, while the dates of writing are not too far apart between Theodosius and the Piacenza Pilgrim—roughly the same amount that lies between the Bordeaux Pilgrim and Egeria—Theodosius wrote before Justinian’s reconquest, before the renewed Christological controversies, and before increased tensions with the Persians while the Piacenza Pilgrim and John Moschos journeyed and wrote following them. The Mediterranean world in which Theodosius wrote was to be significantly altered by the time Piacenza Pilgrim and John Moschos would write. The closer dates of the Piacenza Pilgrim and John Moschos allows for a comparison of two pilgrims writing in the same world.

The narratives of the Piacenza Pilgrim and John Moschos provide an intriguing number of similarities as well as differences that make an analysis of the two together particularly valuable. Both texts were highly influenced by the individual journeys that each author undertook, and thus the authoritative voice of each pilgrim presents itself in their accounts. Similarly, these two men traveled throughout the Holy Land— geographically stretching from Antioch to Alexandria—within roughly a decade of one another. Juxtaposing their narratives provides a unique opportunity to examine the varied understanding of pilgrimage, the past, and the holy that existed in the later sixth- century. The differences between the two are just as important for our analysis. The

Eastern and Western origins of Moschos and the Piacenza Pilgrim—and the Greek and

Latin languages in which they respectively wrote their accounts—makes a comparison of their accounts an ideal lens through which to analyze divergent understandings of the

Christian past and the holy toward the end of late antiquity.

Pilgrimage: A Concept and a Genre

All too often scholars have used the term pilgrimage without defining it. The assumption of a single unequivocal definition is problematic as pilgrimage is in fact a broad multivalent concept. What pilgrimage was and what it meant to be a pilgrim was constantly in flux because pilgrimage is, at its core, a personal journey. In order to interpret this phenomenon in the context of the late antique Mediterranean world, I will first discuss some broad commonalities of the pilgrimage experience and explain how I will use the terms pilgrim and pilgrimage in this thesis.

Pilgrimage is a kind of travel, travel through space and in certain situations through time.45 It is also an external as well as an internal journey, an examination of both physical surroundings and the inner self. The physical distance one travelled was reflective of, and intimately connected with, the spiritual journey.46 That said, a religious individual traveling does not necessarily make a pilgrim. Pilgrimage also requires a particular mindset in which an individual seeks—or is presented with—a spiritual connection emanating from a specific source. Such spiritual connection, the goal of pilgrimage, enabled an individual to become enveloped in his or her perceived holy

45 Time is always a relevant aspect of pilgrimage. However, not all pilgrims conceive of themselves as traveling through times as they travel to holy sites. Some pilgrims simply stand on the edge and peer into the past while others are transported into the past. John Moschos, as will be discussed below, is an excellent example of this.

46 Georgia Frank, The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 68. In “Center out there” Turner notes that within Mexican pilgrimage, those that lived near a shrine would still travel to a distant one, though they would still participate in the festivities of the local. See Turner, “Center out there,” 211.

space, not only to see, but also to touch, smell, hear, and in some cases taste what before they could only read or think about.47

In this thesis, I will employ a broad definition of pilgrimage. Specifically, I understand pilgrimage to be the act of traveling to a perceived holy person, place, or thing for the sake of spiritual edification.48 This definition allows for, and recognizes, the tremendous variety of motivations for pilgrims and the varied forms that pilgrimage took.

It includes those who wandered across the known world to see the land of the Bible and those who trekked to a regional saint’s tomb; those who traveled to gain spiritual understanding alongside those who sought a cure for an earthly malady. All these people were pilgrims in their own right. Such a definition also acknowledges the reality that the only true way to differentiate between the pilgrim and the traveler is within the mind of the person on the journey. Even iconic pilgrims can, under scrutiny, fit within non-pilgrimage modes of travel.49 Rather than build impregnable walls between pilgrims, travelers, and ascetic wanderers, I prefer to accentuate the fluidity that existed and continues to exist between various forms of travel. People could and did transition from travelers into pilgrims, from pilgrims to ascetic wanders, and back to pilgrims again. The situation in which travelers found themselves and the state of mind that a locality created facilitated these continuous transitions.

Pilgrimage texts, like pilgrimage itself, can be difficult to define or discuss as a coherent genre. This is particularly true because of the wide breadth of motivations,

47 Frank, The Memory of the Eyes, 105, 133.

48 In particular, I am drawing from Georgia Frank’s understanding of pilgrimage. See Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 39-40.

49 For example, Dietz argues that Egeria’s travels represent a form of monastic wandering more than a pilgrimage. See Dietz, Wandering Monks, 51-2.

intended audiences, and types of pilgrimage that occur in the literature. Carl

Thompson’s “constellation” conception of travel writing is perhaps the best modus operandi for analyzing both travel writing and pilgrimage accounts.50 This approach recognizes the common strands that connect various forms of travel and pilgrimage writing—and thus pilgrimage and travel—but also acknowledges the considerable variation that exists between them. This allows for the discussion of various pilgrimage and travel texts in relation to one another while still emphasizing the unique aspects of each text and the distinctive features of each pilgrim.

This constellation approach also recognizes the true connectivity between pilgrimage and travel. Rather than a strict boundary existing between pilgrims and travelers, there is instead a fluid spectrum. This concept is in line with Eric Cohen’s spectrum of traveler motivations.51 At the ends of Cohen’s spectrum lay the pure tourist traveling for pleasure and the pure pilgrim.52 The line between pilgrim and tourist is at once both blurred and widened. The true difference between pilgrim and tourist lies less in their activities than in their motivation and intent.53 People are not singularly motivated, however; given the right circumstances, pilgrims can shift towards “touristic” motives and vice versa.54 The Piacenza Pilgrim on occasion shifts toward the touristic,

50 See Thompson, Travel Writing, 26.

51 Cohen, “A Phenomenology of Tourist Experiences.”

52 Cohen, “A Phenomenology of Tourist Experiences,” 183.

53 Frank, The Memory of the Eyes, 108.

54 Katharina Schramm, “Coming Home to the Motherland: Pilgrimage Tourism in Ghana,” In Reframing Pilgrimage: Cultures in Motion, eds. Simon Coleman and John Eade (New York: Routledge, 2004) does an excellent job of expressing such transition between pilgrim and tourist.

such as when he remarks on the various animals that grazed on Mount Sinai or the large number of crocodiles in the marsh near Alexandria.55 Whether we consider the pilgrim who takes interest in the natural geography and physical buildings, or the religious tourist confronted with a sacred space, pilgrims and tourists, and thus pilgrimage and travel literature, are fully interconnected and borrow from one another.56

55 Piacenza, Itinerarium, XXXIX, XLV. Leyerle, “Landscape as Cartography, 136. Bernard the Monk who wrote about the pilgrimage he and his companions took around 870 CE provides a fascinating later example of this. As a monk visiting Christian holy places within the Levant, Egypt, Italy, and France he most certainly thought of himself as on a spiritual journey. Yet he still expressed a strong interest in the natural geography, architecture and political situation of the places through which he traveled. See Bernard the Monk, “Itinerarium Bernardi Monachi Franci,” In Itinera hierosolymitana et descriptiones Terrae Sanctae bellis sacris anteriora & latina lingua exarata sumptibus Societatis illustrandis Orientis latini monumentis, edited by Titus Tobler, et al, 309-320, (Genevae: J.-G. Fick, 1879).

56 See Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 5-6; Thompson, Travel Writing, 26-28.

CHAPTER 2 PILGRIMAGE IN LATE ANTIQUITY

The society and culture in which a pilgrimage occurred is crucial for any analysis of pilgrimage, for the contemporary understanding of sacred space, miracles, and sacred time all affected a pilgrim’s understanding of his or her journey.1 There was no term that marked someone as a pilgrim or on a pilgrimage in Late Antiquity.2 The Latin peregrinus or peregrinatio could and did mean foreigner or traveling abroad as much as it meant pilgrim or pilgrimage.3 The same is true for the Greek term ξενιτεία, which could mean not only pilgrimage, but also attained the ascetic ideal of a monk living in a state of alienation, as a continual stranger in the world.4

Much of the debate on late antique pilgrimage has centered on the origins of the notion of a Christian holy place and, as a consequence, the origins of Christian pilgrimage. The debate has fallen into two camps, on the one hand those that have argued for the Jewish and Roman origins of Christian conception of holy place and on the other hand those that have argued for an internal, Christian, creation of holy place.

Robert Wilken’s The Land Called Holy remains the best piece of scholarship arguing for the Jewish origins of Christian sacred space. For Wilken, the concept of the holy land,

1 Turner, “Center out there,” 222

2 Bitton-Ashkelony, Encountering the Sacred, 17-18.

3 Mark Handley, Dying on Foreign Shores: Travel and Mobility in the Late-Antique West, JRA Supplementary Series 86, (Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2011), 55; Bitton- Ashkelony, Encountering, 111

4 Vikan, Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Art, 3; Bitton-Ashkelony, Encountering, 148.

was an intrinsic part of Christianity from its conception because of its Jewish roots.5 By the time the Bordeaux Pilgrim, the earliest pilgrimage account we posses, traveled throughout the holy land in 333 CE Christianity had appropriated Jewish history and with it the increased sacredness of the holy land.6 R. A Markus’ “How on earth could places become holy? Origins of the Christian idea of holy places” presents an excellent case in opposition. Markus argues that no sites were venerated as holy prior to the fourth century and that it was only with the development of saints’ cults that sites became viewed as holy.7 While I side with Wilken and the Jewish connections and origins of the Christian idea of sacred space, the concept of holy space and pilgrimage certainly witnessed significant alterations, both conceptually and theologically, within late antiquity particularly in the fourth century. It is during this significant century that the development and expansion of Christian holy place can be witnessed due both to the increased importance of saints’ cults as well to imperial building programs. However, we should understand the fourth century as a period of development of, rather than the origins of, Christian holy space.

Of fundamental importance for the development of ideas about sacred space and the biblical or Christian past in late antiquity were the pilgrims who traveled to holy places and the locals who hosted and guided them during their visits.8 This is especially

5 Robert L. Wilken, 1994, The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought, (New Haven: Yale University Press), XIV, 58, 71-2, 105-6, 254.

6 Wilken, Land Called Holy, 177-78, 214.

7 R. A. Markus, 1994, “How on Earth Could Places Become Holy?” Journal of Early Christian Studies 2 (3): 257, 260, 262.

8 I am drawing from Mary Louise Pratt, 2007, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. 2nd edition, (London : New York: Routledge), 224-226. Pratt calls them “travlees” which she

true when sites lack significant markers or if divergent opinions of the site’s location existed.9 Local tradition as well as monastic interpretation of the Bible influenced the designation of where biblical events occurred, especially those associated with the Old

Testament.10 Monks, acting as hosts, remained promoters of nearby sites relevant to their own interpretations, particularly those in fourth century Palestine as Hagith Sivan has discussed.11 Egeria’s account provides an excellent example. She tells us that on

Mount Nebo the local priests and monks offered to show her the places nearby that were associated with the book of Moses.12 Similarly, she asked and relied upon monks to show her Aenon where John the Baptist preformed baptisms.13 The Bishop of Edessa also served as a host, showing Egeria the Christian sites of the city and retelling the story of King Abgar ad locum.14 Which sites Egeria was shown and the exact locations of those sites depended upon personal knowledge as well as her guides. She was the one to ask the monks if they could show her Aenon, but what exactly they showed her depended on the individual guide. The dependence of pilgrims on the interpretation of

defines as the receptor of a traveler, whether consenting to such reception or not. The information a traveler gains, the sites they see, the cultural elements they experience are all affected by the travelee’s own conception of the world.

9 John Wilkinson, “Jewish Holy Places and the Origins of Christian Pilgrimage.” In The Blessings of Pilgrimage, edited by Robert Ousterhout, (Urbana, 1990): 46-48; Sivan, “Emergence of Christian Palestine,” 60-62.

10 Sivan, “pilgrimage, monasticism,” 56-58.

11 Sivan, Pilgrimage, Monasticism, and the emergence of Christian Palestine in 4th century,” 57- 8.

12 Egeria, Itinerarium, In Itineraria et alia geographica, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 175, edited by P. Geyer and O. Cuntz, (1965): 22.

13 Egeria, Itinerarium, 27.

14 Egeria, Itinerarium, 33-35.

individual hosts and guides inevitably led to various configurations of sacred spaces.

The communities that a pilgrim visited would have altered the specific sites to which they would be exposed. However, the information that travelers include in or exclude from their text is still the result of their context, desires, and understanding of the past and the nature of the holy. That is to say that the information is still filtered through the traveler’s contextual lens. Late antique travelers, hosts, and theologians, just like modern scholars who write about pilgrimage, might have different interpretations of the sites and their meaning.

Debating Theology and Sacred Space

Contradictory opinions on sacred space and pilgrimage existed already in Late

Antiquity. During the same period that Egeria visited the holy sites in the Holy Land in the late fourth century, other ecclesiastical and monastic figures were arguing against the need to travel to those same sites. Even in the writings of a single author, divergent opinions are expressed. Gregory of Nyssa (bishop 372-376 & 378-395 CE), one of the

Cappadocian Fathers and a major fourth-century theologian, remained a fervent opponent of the superiority of Jerusalem as a holy place. For him, going to or living in

Jerusalem would not stop a sinner from being condemned.15 It is significant to note that

Gregory of Nyssa did not condemn the concept of sacred space in itself, but instead argued against the primacy of Jerusalem and the surrounding territory as sacred space.

Although he disputed the claim of his contemporary Cyril, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, that seeing the physical evidence for the life of Christ could be beneficial for a believer

15 Bitton-Ashkleony, Encountering, 54. See Gregory of Nyssa, “Letter 2”, In Grégoire de Nysse, Lettres, Sources Chrétiennes 363, edited and translated by P. Maraval (Paris, 1990).

or convert a non-believer, he did not condemn the concept of Christian sacred space.16

Similarly, Jerome in some letters denied the preeminence of Jerusalem or any one place over another as a holy space.17 However, based on his actions and other letters, clearly he did not deny the concept of Christian sacred space.

These late antique figures could be understood as opponents of holy space and pilgrimage based upon their writing mentioned above. However, both Jerome and

Gregory of Nyssa traveled to the Holy Land at various points in their lives and remarked on the significance or personal impact of their respective journeys. Though both men stated that Jerusalem—or any specific place—held no more significance than anywhere else in the world, both felt the need to visit and experience this holy place. Roughly three years prior to Jerome’s letter affirming that God is omnipotent and not limited or condensed at one particular spot,18 he wrote that as a Christian it was one’s duty to worship where Christ once stood.19 It must also be remembered that personal developments could and did influence their writings and opinions. For example, during the late fourth century in which Jerome expressed a negative opinion of Jerusalem and the surrounding territory, famously urging Paulinus of Nola not to come on a pilgrimage, he was in a dispute with the Church of Jerusalem.20 Similarly, Gregory of Nyssa, while

16 Bitton-Ashkelony, Encountering, 60-1.

17 Jerome, Epistulae, edited by I. Hilberg, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum [CSEL] 54, (1910), 46, 58.

18 Jerome, Epistulae, 58.

19 Jerome, Epistulae, 47.

20In Jerome’s letter 58. See Bitton-Ashkelony, Encountering, 89-90, 96. From 394-397 CE Jerome was involved in a heated dispute with John II, the Bishop of Jerusalem, over the Origenist controversy. It was during this time that Jerome, among others, were in effect

downplaying the need to go to Jerusalem, was himself a big supporter of the local saints’ cults in his home region of Cappadocia.21 By the mid to late fourth century there does not appear to be a direct denial of Christian sacred place, no matter when the origins of such thinking emerged.22 Instead, the debate centered on the hierarchy of sacred space and the relation of sites associated with biblical people or events in contest with post-biblical saints’ shrines and living ascetics. Although late antique

Christians recognized that there was not a hierarchy of sacred space, that traveling to the Holy Sepulcher should not grant anything more than traveling to the local saint’s shrine, they still made that journey. Fourth- through sixth-century pilgrims thought of the

Holy Land, the geographical area in which the events of the Bible took place, as possessing some quality greater than other localities. Thus, they felt that experiencing the sites, relics, and people associated with the land of the Bible offered them something greater than the saints and relics in other localities.

Travel Along the Edge: The Roman-Persian Frontier

Since Moschos and The Piacenza Pilgrim traveled throughout Syria and even into Mesopotamia during a period of increased hostilities between Byzantium and

Persia, one would expect some mention of the effects of conflict in these territories. Yet this is not the case. Both Moschos and the Piacenza Pilgrim mention the damage that cities had experienced due to earthquakes; the Piacenza Pilgrim mentions the excommunicated from the Church of Jerusalem. For a summary see Bitton-Ashkelony, Encountering, 88-90.

21 Bitton-Ashkelony, Encountering, 54-56. Bitton argues that Gregory is not presenting a theological polemic against holy spaces but against the hierarchy of holy spaces in which Jerusalem reigns over others.

22. See Sivan, “Pilgrimage, Monasticism, and the Emergence of Christian Palestine in the Fourth Century,” for the importance of monks for the identification of additional biblical sites.

earthquake during the reign of Justinian that destroyed Tripolis (Tripoli) and Byblus

(Beirut)23, while Moschos mentions Ephraim rebuilding Antioch following an earthquake prior to him becoming the Patriarch of the city in 527 CE.24 However, neither mentions any effects they saw related to the Persian incursion into the eastern provinces or the capture of Antioch in 540 CE although both visited the city during their travels.25 Even as the Piacenza Pilgrim traveled along the Roman-Persian frontier at the end of his pilgrimage, his text lacks any reference to difficulties. Following his visit to Antioch, he traveled to Chalcis (Qinnasrin)26 and then to Carrhae (Haran).27 Finally, he traveled along the Euphrates following the vita of SS Sergius and Bacchus to one city he called

Barbarissus (most likely Barbalissus) and another called Sura.28 The Piacenza Pilgrim’s lack of difficulty could be due to the timing of his travels, depending on the exact dates of his pilgrimage. Although 570 CE has generally been accepted as the date of his pilgrimage, the lack of dateable chronological information means it is possible he

23 Piacenza, Itinerarium, I. Venimus in partes Syriae in insulam Antaradum et inde venimus in Tripolis Syriae, in qua sanctus Leontius requiescit; quae civitas tempore Iustiniani imperatoris subversa est a terrae motu cum aliis civitatibus. Venimus exinde Byblum, quaeio et ipsa subversa est cum hominibus.

24 Moschos, “Pratum Spirituale,” Ch. 37. Ephraim at the time was serving as the Count of the East (Κώμης τῆς Ανατολῆς).

25 Geoffrey Greatrex, “Byzantium and the East in the Sixth Century.” in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, edited by Michael Maas, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 489.

26 Southwest of Aleppo.

27 Southeast of Edessa.

28 Piacenza, Itinerarium, XLVII. Piacenza’s place names seem misinformed in this chapter, although it is clear that both lay on the Euphrates. Exinde venimus in Carran, ubi natus est Abraham, et descendentes venimus in civitatem Barbarissum, ubi requiescit sanctus Bacchus, frater sanctii Sergii. Exinde venimus in civitatem Suram, per quam civitatem mediam descendit fluvius Euphrates, qui in ipso loco per pontem transitur.

traveled slightly earlier in the 560s. It is also not clear how long his journey took, and thus precisely when he traveled along the Euphrates is left open. Most likely the

Piacenza Pilgrim was in the region during the Roman-Persian truce of 545-572 CE and it was for this reason that he makes no mention of hindrances as he visited these frontier cities.29

John Moschos also does not directly mention the effects of Persian invasions as he traveled throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Even as he traveled into Syria and visited Antioch in the early seventh century Moschos does not discuss or mention any serious effects of Khusro II’s invasion of the Byzantine Empire in 602 CE or any hindrances to his travels.30 However, it could have been because of the Sasanian’s continued push into the region that Moschos decided to return to Alexandria prior to 607

CE.31

While Moschos does not directly mention the fall of Jerusalem to the Sasanian

Persians in 614 CE, the fall is an integral motivation for Moschos writing this text and his conception of the past.32 As Phil Booth has argued, the goal of Moschos’ Spiritual

Meadow was to memorialize the people and communities of the Eastern desert of the

29 Greatrex, “Byzantium and the East in the Sixth Century,” 489.

30 Peter Brown, The World of Late Antiquity, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1971), 169; Greatrex, “Byzantium and the East in the Sixth Century,” 490; Moschos mentions visiting Antioch in Ch. 39.The chronology of Moschos’ travels will be discussed in more detail in his own chapter.

31 John Wortley, The Spiritual Meadow, (Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1992), XIX. Eulogios (580- 607) was still the Patriarch of Alexandria when he returned to the city. This will be discussed in Moschos’ chapter below.

32 Booth, Crisis of Empire, 116.

previous generation.33 The need to maintain a split between the previous and current generation of monks pushed Moschos to develop a chronological understanding of the

Christian past. Moschos understood that the events of the past featured an arrangement loosely based on their time of occurrence.34 Moschos repeatedly represented the previous generation of monks as exempla of ascetic perfection while the present generation had degenerated.35 The current generation of monks had neglected the highest ideals and aspirations of the ascetic life and their moral and spiritual decline manifested itself through natural disasters and the paramount disaster, the loss of Jerusalem. This ultimate disaster confirmed the disconnect between the past and the present generation.36 Due to this catastrophic event, which Moschos interpreted as evidence of spiritual malaise, he stressed a need to return to the past, to reconnect with the previous figures who had personified the ascetic ideal, to reconnect Christianity past and present.

Types of Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage to both people and objects remained significant and pious acts for the traveler throughout Late Antiquity.37 While certain pilgrims focused on a particular type of destination, such as the Piacenza Pilgrim seeking relics and shrines or Moschos

33 Ibid. Henry Chadwick made a similar statement about Moschos’ desire for the Meadow. See Chadwick, “John Moschos,” 64.

34 This will be expanded upon in the “Chronological Maintenance of the Past” subsection of chapter 3 below.

35 This will be discussed below.

36 Phil Booth suggests this, arguing that Moschos stresses the need for a greater connection of Christians through the emphasis on the eucharist as well as extending ascetic virtue to of multiple vocations rather than just monks following the Persian conquest. See Booth, Crisis of Empire, 4, 5, 90, 93, 117.

37 Frank, The Memory of the Eyes, 6-7.

seeking people, others such as Egeria visited both sacred sites and holy people.38

Similarly, Jerome described Paula as visiting monks as well as sacred sites.39 For

Egeria and Paula, personal interaction with monks retained the same significance as visiting the sites associated with the sacred past. Just as there was no word that singularly meant to go on a spiritual journey, there was no single conception of what a spiritual journey entailed, especially during the fourth through sixth centuries. That said, all pilgrims still traveled toward their perceived holy for spiritual edification; they all desired to experience the sacred and feel a closer connection with the spiritual world.40

From the late antique period through at least the early medieval period, pilgrims tended to seek out multiple sites.41 Especially in the case of long distance pilgrimages with which this thesis is concerned, pilgrims did not travel with a single site in mind but instead hoped to experience multiple places or people on their journey. One site was not marked as sacred, nor do Late Antique pilgrims express a hierarchy of place, but the entire Eastern Mediterranean from Anatolia to Egypt, was a holy land for these pilgrims to explore.42 The emphasis on sites related to people and events of the Old

Testament through the post-biblical period gave these travelers an extended region to explore. Rather than a gradual rise toward sacredness as these Late Antique pilgrims got closer to Jerusalem, or to any one city, the entire region they traveled through was

38 For a few examples of people see Egeria, Itinerarium, 21, 30, 40. For several examples of sites see Egeria, Itinerarium, 32, 42, 43, 44.

39 For examples of people see Jerome, Epistulae, CSEL 55, 108.7, 108.14. For a few examples of sites see Jerome Epistulae, 108.9, 108.10, 108.13.

40 Bitton-Ashkelony, Encountering, 6.

41 Bernd the Monk, traveling around 870 CE still expressed equal interest in a plethora of sacred sites located in France, Italy, Egypt, and Palestine.

42 Wilken, Land Called Holy, 110.

sacred. Thus, the Piacenza Pilgrim expresses his entrance into the holy land at Cyprus, and Sura on the Euphrates was the final site that he mentioned.43 We can, however, witness a rise in a sense of holiness as pilgrims drew nearer to the region. The

Itinerarium Burdigalense for example featured descriptions that are more detailed and a rise in sacredness as he or she entered into their Holy Land in 333 CE.44 Once within the region, however, Late Antique pilgrims preferred to focus on multiple sites, endowing the entire region rather than a specific locality with sacredness.

The distance traveled by a pilgrim also led to various types of pilgrimage, specifically, long distance versus local pilgrimages. Turner described pilgrimage as traveling from the familiar to the unfamiliar periphery, and many of the classic Late

Antique pilgrims such the Bordeaux Pilgrim, Egeria, Paula, as well as the Piacenza

Pilgrim present their journeys in precisely these terms.45 These pilgrims traveled an undeniably long distance, outside of any territory that could be considered “familiar”.

Yet, none of the Late Antique pilgrimage accounts and itineraries we possess emphasize the distance pilgrims traveled to reach their destinations. The Piacenza

Pilgrim did not feel the need to describe his journey from Italy to Cyprus, the entry point of his travels in the Holy Land, or back again. The distance between his home and his goals was not important; instead, it was simply a necessity to reach the sites he wished to experience. Even in the itineraries that provide mileage, specifically the Itinerarium

Burdigalense and Theodosius the Archdeacon’s De Situ Terrae Sanctae, the distance traveled is only stated to emphasize movement and or directions to a given location

43 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, I, XLVII.

44 Elsner, “Itinerarium Burdigalense,” 189-90.

45 Turner, “Center out there,” 211-213.

rather than as a significant aspect of the journey. Those who traveled long distances did so in order to reach their desired goals and did not consider the long journey either burdensome or worthy of comment.

While travel is most certainly an integral aspect of pilgrimage, the physical distance one traveled did not play as significant a role as it would in the medieval period. The distance a pilgrim traveled and the tribulations of that journey arise with the introduction of penitential pilgrimages.46 When the distance is a requirement for remission of sin it suddenly has much more significance that it had when distance was merely what separated the pilgrim from his or her goals.47 The distance traveled mattered much less than whether the pilgrims felt that they had benefitted spiritually from their journey. The difference between local or long-distance pilgrimage, whether going to a local saint’s shrine or to the city of Jerusalem, was minimal. Both travelers were in all meanings of the word, pilgrims. The difference between the two categories of pilgrims lies in the desires and financial resources of the traveler.

46 Loosely defined, penitential pilgrimage is the use of pilgrimage as a required action for remission of sin. For more on this topic see Diana Webb, Medieval European Pilgrimage, C. 700-1500 (Basingstroke: Palgrave, 2002); Rob Meens, Penance in Medieval Europe, 600-1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Turner, “The Center out There.”

47 It should also be remembered that distance is relative. This has become exceedingly clear in the context of modern pilgrimage and travel. Take for example modern pilgrims along the string of Bhuddist shrines on the Japanese island of Shikoku. There are examples of pilgrims that attempt to walk the entire route as well as those who take a bus or train to each site. The time and strain greatly vary between the two types of travel. However, both parties still feel that they have accomplished their pilgrimage goal and have spiritually benefited from such a journey. Do modern pilgrims “accomplish” less when they use modern transportation when they reach their goal? If they feel they have accomplished and benefited from their journey the miles traveled do not seem to have a significant impact on the actual pilgrimage. The example of Shikoku is drawn from the interviews carried out in Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler, Blu-Ray, Directed by Leo Eaton (PBS, 2015).

Xeniteia and Pilgrimage

Pilgrims traveled with a purpose, moving toward a specific goal or goals. In contrast, monastic wanderers traveled to remain disconnected from worldly society.48

That said, if a tourist when confronted with a spiritual place, object, or person can become a pilgrim, if tourism and pilgrimage lie at separate ends of the same spectrum,49 it would be a mistake to think that a monk already traveling for spiritual reasons could not also enter into a pilgrimage mode of travel. They both lie within the realm of spiritual travel.50 This does not mean that all ascetics who wandered should be considered pilgrims or vice versa. However, there certainly is a connection between xeniteia

(ξενιτεία),51 the desire to be a stranger in the earthly world, and the extended journeys of many of late antique pilgrims.52 Pilgrimage allowed travelers, many of them known or believed to be monks, to entrench themselves within a spiritual world, disconnected from the secular world. Whether they experienced the kind of spiritual communitas that

Turner describes seems to depend on the individual pilgrim.53 In either case, pilgrimage

48 Bitton-Ashkelony, Encountering, 148.

49 See Cohen, “Phenomenology”

50 Dietz, Wandering Monks, 24.

51 A number of variances existed on the meaning of xeniteia and how it could be achieved within the late antique period between region to region and monk to monk. In this instance, I am using the term to refer to those whom physically traveled in order to remain physically and spiritually unconnected from the world and contemporary society.

52 Bitton-Ashkelony has an excellent discussion of the connection between the two. See Bitton- Ashkelony, Encountering, 148-160.

53 Egeria seems to express such a connection with the monks that she talked and traveled with throughout her journeys. Piacenza in contrast rarely mentions contemporary people through his travels. We know he had a partner who traveled with him from Piacenza until he died. However, it is difficult to gage if Piacenza experienced something close to communitas with others throughout his pilgrimage since within his text he remains fixed in the biblical past. Due to Jerome narrating Paula’s travels, and only a portion of that, it is difficult to know for her.

certainly allowed them to experience an alternative spiritual world, many times unconnected from the contemporary world, as they traveled through space and in certain instances time.

It is also the case that whether a wanderer or a pilgrim, many Christian authors, both monastic leaders and theologians of the fourth through sixth centuries, looked down upon these traveling monks. Whether it be the sarabaites of John Cassian (360-

465 CE), the hypocrites in the garb of monks described by Augustine in the early fifth century, the gyrovagi described in the early sixth-century Rule of the Master or in the rule of St Benedict, late antique Christian texts continued to express disapproval of the mobile monk, disengaged from a monastic hierarchy and manual labor.54 On the other hand, the number of late antique monastic travel accounts and texts that praise those who wandered—Moschos’ Meadow being a prominent example—highlights the diversity of opinions that coexisted in this era.

54 For a discussion of this topic see the excellent introduction in Daniel Caner, Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 1-18. See also Dietz, Wandering Monks, 38, 189, 213.

CHAPTER 3 THE PIACENZA PILGRIM

The Piacenza Pilgrim and the Biblical Past

Rather than seek out local saints’ tombs as he traveled in the later sixth century,

The Piacenza Pilgrim instead sought out the holy sites and objects associated with biblical and apostolic events. Both the Old Testament—which he clearly understood wholly as Christian history—and the New Testament were the central focus of his pilgrimage. He felt that a connection with the Holy Land offered something more than the local saint cults present in the West. While he did mention post-biblical saints1 and on occasion the presence of monks,2 they were of marginal importance for his text.

They certainly were not worthy of the same levels of praise as biblical saints, and most were not presented as performing miracles.3 As the Piacenza Pilgrim traveled in the later sixth century, he was not interested in exploring a connection with the Christian martyrs. He preferred to present himself as a successor to the heroes of the biblical past rather than as an heir to the martyrs.4

When the Piacenza Pilgrim visited the Basilica of Holy Sion outside of Jerusalem, we see a focus upon the biblical past. He first mentioned a stone that he identified as the stone that the builders rejected, mentioned in the Psalms.5 He then explained that

1 Piacenza, I, XXXIII, XLV, XLVI, XLVII

2 Piacenza, Itinerarium, X, XII, XVI, XXIX, XXXVII,

3 St Menas is the only post-biblical saint whose tomb worked miracles within Piacenza’s text. See Piacenza, Itinerarium, XLV.

4 Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity, 99

5 Piacenza, Itinerarium, XXII.

that same stone had been physically put into the corner of Holy Sion by Jesus as the church used to be the house of James.6 This same stone was then a relic, present for the Piacenza Pilgrim to pick up and examine. Through its perceived physical connection with the past, this single object was able to recreate multiple events in the Bible for the

Piacenza Pilgrim. Its existence allowed sacred time to be made present. In this instance, the relic was capable of an even greater connection with the past by producing the “voices of many men” when he put his ear to the stone.7 The Piacenza

Pilgrim was able to hear the biblical past in his present because of the continued existence of the stone. For the Piacenza Pilgrim, relics were a prime facilitator of the process of bringing sacred time into the present. At Diocaesarea the chair in which Mary sat when the angel came to her as well as her pail and basket facilitated the Piacenza

Pilgrim’s recreation of and experience with the biblical scene.8 The holiness of relics and the miracles attached to them were significant because of the events and people with which they were connected. The physical cornerstone the Piacenza Pilgrim saw was only significant to him as an expression of God, specifically because of the coalescence of the biblical past within it.

In Jerusalem, the stone on which Jesus stood as he was tried by Pilate was preserved and moved from the praetorium into the church near the porch of Solomon.

Miraculously Jesus’ footprints were still visible to those visiting once again allowing the

6 Piacenza, Itinerarium, XXII.

7 Piacenza, Itinerarium, XXII. Quem tenes et levas in manibus tuis et ponis aurem in ipso angulo et sonat in auribus tuis, quasi multorum hominum murmurantium.

8 Piacenza, Itinerarium, IV.

Piacenza Pilgrim to recreate the scene in his mind (and for his audience).9 To facilitate this recreation there was also a painted portrait of Jesus, said to have been created while he was still alive.10 He goes on to describe the physical characteristics of the man in the painting: common height (staturam commune), a beautiful face (faciem pulchram), and handsome hands with long fingers (manum formosam, digita longa).11

The Piacenza Pilgrim fashioned Jesus in his text just as he recreated him as he gazed upon Jesus’ footprints preserved in stone. Similarly, the continued existence of Jacob’s well at Neapolis allowed the Piacenza Pilgrim to recreate the scene of Jesus asking the

Samarian woman for water.12 His subsequent description of the city simply detailed the existence of a church built over the well along with the healing water jug from which

Jesus had drunk.13 The belief in the continued existence of the well from Jesus’ interaction with it until the Piacenza Pilgrim’s own visit allowed the past to be regenerated in the present. It allowed him to experience the biblical past.

Maintenance of the Present

While bringing biblical events into the present, relics simultaneously anchored the

Piacenza Pilgrim within the present. In particular, the curing ability of many of the relics

The Piacenza Pilgrim encountered had this anchoring effect. Returning to the stone that preserved Jesus’ footprints described above, the Piacenza Pilgrim describes the typical

9 Piacenza, Itinerarium, XXIII.

10 Ibid. imago designat, quae illo uiuente picta est et posita est in ipso praeturio.

11 Piacenza, Itinerarium, XXIII. Pedem pulchrum, modicum, subtilem, nam et staturam commune, faciem pulchram, capillos subanellatos, manum formosam, digita longa.

12 Piaceanza, Itinerarium, VI.

13 Discussed above.

tourist scene in which visitors measured their own foot against that of Jesus, though in this case doing so might also result in a miraculous cure.14 While the footprints and the portrait allowed the Piacenza Pilgrim to recreate and experience Jesus’ trial, his text then returns us to the present through his interaction with the relic. In similar fashion the water jug at Neapolis, although it enabled the Piacenza Pilgrim to experience the biblical events, also kept him along with the reader within the present through its ability to cure those who sought it out in the present. the Piacenza Pilgrim’s emphasis on relics and their curative properties in his contemporary setting enabled him to construct a pilgrimage and create a text that did not travel through the biblical past as it was but instead through the contemporary world in which the biblical past could be made present and experienced.

Although relics were the focus of the Piacenza Pilgrim’s religious experience and the best example of his conception of the holy, the land of the Eastern Mediterranean itself was also imbued with a sense of holiness. Salamaida is described as the location where the children of Israel stayed before crossing the Jordan as well as the site of the healing baths of Moses.15 Even without a physical relic related to sacred events, biblical events interrupted the Piacenza Pilgrim’s movement through physical space. These events serve as markers of the holy, and in fact, the events of the Christian past are far more important in many cases than the physical site.16 The Piacenza Pilgrim does not

14 Piacenza, Itinerarium, XXIII.

15 Piacenza, Itinerarium, X.

16 MacCannell, The Tourist, 110-116; Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 82-85; Leyerle, “Landscape as Cartography,” 128.

mention any physical structures at the place of Jesus’ baptism along the Jordan.17 Yet this one specific site, which must have been pointed out by a local, holds so much significance, so much power, entirely because of the Christian past made present there.

Even descriptions of cities that the Piacenza Pilgrim simply mentioned in passing are connected with the relevant biblical events. Capharnaum was the place of Peter’s house, then used as a church.18 The Piacenza Pilgrim describes Scythopolis as on the site of a mountain where John preformed miracles.19 The presence of the biblical past within the Piacenza Pilgrim’s present was not a phenomenon that arose only when he encountered certain relics or sites. Instead, the Piacenza Pilgrim presented himself as continually engaged with the biblical past as he traveled throughout the Holy Land. Sites through which he traveled or quickly described within his text are still presented as engulfed in the sacred past.

As a consequence of the recreation of sacred time within the present, the

Piacenza Pilgrim described the geography of many of the areas through which he travelled based on the biblical events connected with each area. In a majority of the cities he visited, the physical localities are mentioned and described in relation to relics and events present. Rather than a network of current cities and their physical descriptors, the Piacenza Pilgrim provided a map of the biblical past, recreated within his own period. At Memphis for example the Piacenza Pilgrim described only a temple turned church which featured a door that would not open because it closed before

17 Piacenza, Itinerarium, IX.

18 Piacenza, Itinerarium, VII.

19 Piacenza, Itinerarium, VIII.

Jesus when he was there and a linen cloth with the face of Jesus imprinted upon it.20

Jericho is composed of the house of Rahab, a church that housed the stones the children of Israel took from the Jordan, and the holy field of the Lord.21 The descriptions of contemporary Jericho that appear within the Piacenza Pilgrim’s text are related to these sacred events. A chapel of Mary was present within the room that Raab hid the spies. The stones that the Children of Israel collected were held within a church located

“not far from the city.”22 Finally, the field of the Lord was still in use, with the wheat collected earlier than in other fields so that it could be used to make bread for Easter.23

How the Piacenza Pilgrim understood the connection between the present and biblical past, how sacred time was made present, altered how he represented the geography of the Holy Land.

Compression of Sacred Time in the Present

The Piacenza Pilgrim’s recreation of the biblical past within his present world also had an impact on how he understood the chronology of these past events. The creation of events spanning across the sacred past within the present in fact demolished a chronological understanding of these biblical events.24 The events presented by the

Piacenza Pilgrim lacked any sort of chronological sequence. This lack of chronology allowed for the creation of focal points of holiness through the continued build up of

20 Piacenza, Itinerarium, XLIV.

21 Piacenza, Itinerarium, XIII.

22 Piacenza, Itinerarium, XIII. Positi sunt non longe a ciuitate Hiericho in basilica post altarium magni ualde.

23 Piacenza, Itinerarium, Colligitur autem mense Februario et exinde in pascha communicator.

24 Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World, 1st edition, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 39.

events throughout sacred time. All of these sacred events were simultaneously present for the Piacenza Pilgrim to experience, and thus the chronological sequencing of events is absent from his account. At one specific spot near the Jordan the Piacenza Pilgrim tells it was there that Jesus was baptized.25 He tells his audience that in this same spot the sons of Israel crossed over the Jordan; and the sons of the prophets lost their axe, and the same place was where Elijah was taken up.26 Events from the New and Old

Testament were present concurrently, not described as a sequence of historical events, but instead spread out horizontally for the Piacenza Pilgrim to examine and experience together. The lack of chronological sequencing of the sacred past allowed for the creation of additional sites teeming with multiple points of holiness. The Piacenza

Pilgrim also introduced multiple layers of the holy in his description of Golgotha. In addition to the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, still physically marked with his blood, Golgotha was also the site of Abraham and Melchizedek’s sacrifices.27 When these events occurred in the Christian past mattered significantly less than the fact that they did occur. Rather than The Piacenza Pilgrim understanding the Christian past as a sequence of holy events and people, it was instead a singular conglomeration of multivalent layers of holiness. Three miles from Jerusalem along the road to Bethlehem the Piacenza Pilgrim described the burial place of Rachel, close to Rama.28 At that

25 Piacenza, Itinerarium, IX.

26 Piacenza, Itinerarium, Ex hoc venimus in locum, ubi baptizatus est dominus noster. In ipso loco transierunt filii Israel; ibi et filiiio prophetarum perdiderunt securim et ex ipso loco assumptus est Elias.

27 Piacenza, Itinerarium, XIX. Nam et locus, ubi crucifixus fuit, paret et cruor sanguinis paret in ipsa petra.

28 Piacenza, XXVIII. Via, quae ducit Bethlem, ad tertirum miliarium de Hierosolima iacet Rachel in corpora, in finis loci, qui uocatur Rama.

same place, he also described a miraculous water-giving rock from which all could drink without depleting it. The Piacenza Pilgrim was also told that the source of the miracle: it was upon that rock that Mary sat as she fled into Egypt and desired water.29 The

Piacenza Pilgrim’s Holy Land was alive with the biblical past, with events marked not by when they occurred but by the holiness of the individuals involved and the importance placed on these events by him and his guides.

Within the Basilica of Holy Sion were many wonders of the sacred past.30 Along with the cornerstone was the pillar where Jesus was scourged, and upon the pillar was the horn that anointed David.31 The crown of thorns, the spear which pierced the side of

Jesus, the stones used to martyr Stephen, the cross on which Peter was crucified in

Rome, the chalice which the Apostles used to celebrate mass, and many other miraculous relics the Piacenza Pilgrim could not recall were all located in this same holy site.32 Indeed collected within this single basilica was the fullness of the Christian past, within touch of all who could visit. The Piacenza Pilgrim was unconcerned about when and where these actual events took place but rather emphasized that these objects had contact with important—yet dead and distant—people and events.33 When and where the events related to these relics occurred is insignificant. Instead, it is the fact that these events did occur, the truth of the events exemplified by their miraculous nature, which truly mattered. The Holy Land for the Piacenza Pilgrim was devoid of chronology.

29 Piacenza, XXVIII.

30 Piacenza XXII. Deinde venimus in basilicam sanctam Sion, ubi sunt multa miracula.

31 Piacenza, XXII. In ipsa columna est illud cornu, de quo reges unguebantur et David. 32 Piacenza, XXII. et multa alia miracula quae non recolo.

33 Egeria expressed a similar conception of the Christian past. See Maribel Dietz, Wandering Monks, 50.

All events which occurred within this area, no matter when, added to the sacred nature of the physical landscape. What mattered was that the individuals were long dead, insuring their holiness, which was reinforced by the miraculous objects with which they were associated and which the Piacenza Pilgrim sought to experience.

The Piacenza Pilgrim and the Holy

The Piacenza Pilgrim represents a continuation of the uniquely western genre of pilgrimage travel writing which took shape in the fourth century. As a sixth-century development of this genre, the Piacenza Pilgrim’s narrative highlights the western crystallization of the holy defined as the relics of the holy dead. The Piacenza Pilgrim expresses a physical understanding of, and a tactile connection with, the holy throughout his travels in the Holy Land.34 A majority of the sites and relics the Piacenza

Pilgrim described are physical buildings and objects, and the miracles that authorize their holiness take physical form as well through cures of bodily ailments.35 The Holy

Land itself, a land separated from the Piacenza Pilgrim’s own geographical context, is endowed with an increased sense of holiness. By entering into this distant land, the

Piacenza Pilgrim enters into the biblical past; thus, the entire geographical region and the objects in it are endowed with a greater sense of spirituality and holiness.36 The

Piacenza Pilgrim demonstrated this increased holiness through his descriptions of miraculous events, which in turn emphasized the otherness of the land in both distance and time from the lands in which he lived.37

34 Vikan, Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Art, 14.

35 Leyerle, “Landscape as Cartography,” 133-34.

36 Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 12-13.

37 Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 46-48.

The Piacenza Pilgrim’s description of his visit to the Basilica of Constantine perfectly expresses his understanding of the holy. Once inside the Basilica, the physical relics associated with the events of the crucifixion are the focus of his experience. The holy cross, of course, is the most important relic and thus takes up a majority of his description. It was not enough to witness the cross; rather the Piacenza Pilgrim had to adore and kiss it as well.38 He goes on to describe the procession involving the cross and the miracles associated with it. In particular, a star appeared in the sky over the cross and followed above the cross, and when the oil was brought out it began to bubble out of the flasks when presented in front of the cross.39 The Piacenza Pilgrim also held and kissed the sign placed above Jesus and drank water out of the sponge that was given to him. Within the Basilica, there was also a cup that Jesus blessed at the last supper along with many other relics.40 These objects, turned holy due to their physical connection with Jesus, allowed the Piacenza Pilgrim to experience the events of the crucifixion. They were his connection to the biblical past. A tactile connection with physical objects was the Piacenza Pilgrim’s means of understanding and connecting with the sacred past. The presence of these relics authenticated the events described within the Bible. For this same reason, in addition to describing the painting of Mary in the Basilica, he drew attention to her girdle and head wrap.41 The physical evidence of

Jesus’ or Mary’s life and death reinforced the Piacenza Pilgrim’s faith and, in turn, the miracles associated with these relics proved their authenticity.

38 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, XX.

39 Ibid.

40 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, XX.

41 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, XX.

For the Piacenza Pilgrim, the sites and relics he visited were marked as significant due to the presence of people and events of the biblical past.42 The nature of the Holy Land caused him to conceive each place he visited as holy due to the many events and people concentrated in the region. Leaving Jericho for Jerusalem, the

Piacenza Pilgrim points out the tree that Zacchaeus climbed to see Jesus, the ashes of

Sodom and Gomorrah, and Lot’s wife.43 Drawing equally from the Christian past of the

Old and New Testaments, the entire region through which he traveled was holy. Thus, a bench in a synagogue in Nazareth was worthy of a visit not because of any qualities the bench itself possessed but because it was believed that Jesus as a child had sat on the bench.44 For the Piacenza Pilgrim, the people who contemporaneously lived in these locations did not add to or detract from the holiness of these sites. He maintained the truth of the bench with the belief that no Jew could move the bench, but miraculously

Christians could.45 The Piacenza Pilgrim used these local people to confirm the authenticity of the holy sites and relics. Those individuals cured by various relics throughout the Piacenza Pilgrim’s text confirmed his belief in the holiness of the entire region.

For the Piacenza Pilgrim, these curing relics represented the holy.46 Plain objects were rendered holy because of their past physical contact with significant people and

42 Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions, 38-39.

43 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, XV.

44 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, V.

45 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, V. Quae trabis a christianis agitatur et sublevatur; Iudaei vero nulla rerum ratione agitare possunt, sed nec permittit se foris tolli.

46 Leyerle, “Landscape as cartography,” 137.

events of the Christian past. The clothes of Mary, for example, kept within her house- turned-basilica in Nazareth, cured many.47 Sites associated with water were especially connected with the ability to cure, particularly lepers. Located three miles from Gadara, the Baths of Helias provided healing for lepers.48 Likewise at Salamaida, which the

Piacenza Pilgrim designated as the location where two and a half of the tribes of Israel waited before crossing the Jordan, lepers found help in the warm springs called the

Baths of Moses.49 Finally, the fountain of Siloam at Jerusalem also had baths with curing properties including the ability to heal lepers.50 Water could cure other sicknesses as well. The Piacenza Pilgrim himself bathed in the baths at Siloam for a blessing.51 At Salamaida there was also a fountain of “sweet water” (aqua dulcissima) which possessed the ability to cure many sicknesses.52 Similarly, in Neapolis a jug from which Jesus drank cured those who subsequently drank from it.53

The Piacenza Pilgrim also expresses his belief in “contact relics” and their ability to cure.54 In the Basilica of Holy Sion, mentioned above, if a pilgrim wrapped a strip of cloth around the pillar on which Jesus was scourged and then worn on the neck, the

47 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, V. Domus sanctae Mariae basilica est, et multa ibi sunt beneficia de vestimentis eius. It is not clear whether the relics required a physical interaction or simply being in the presence of the them to receive the healing properties.

48 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, VII.

49 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, X.

50 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, XXIV.

51 He also bathed for a blessing at Chana. See Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, IV.

52 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, X.

53 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, VI.

54 Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 88.

person could be healed of various diseases.55 Mere contact with the pillar endowed a modern object with the ability to cure. Holiness could be transferred into not only from an item directly related to an event or person, but also to any object that simply came in physical contact with another relic. The Piacenza Pilgrim tells of a stone upon Mount

Carmel, which when hung around the neck of a woman or, interestingly, an animal, would cause them to never miscarry.56 This is one of the odder curing relics. To begin with, the Piacenza Pilgrim does not associate any special events or people with the site.

Prior to describing the stone, he mentioned the monastery of Helisaeus located at the spot he met the woman whose dead child he raised.57 However, there is no direct connection between Elijah and the stone, and the stone was not located at the monastery. Of course, Mount Carmel retained biblical significance, yet in the cases of most other curing relics John related the relic to specific people or events. The specificity of the cure makes this curing relic even more curious. In many instances of cures, the Piacenza Pilgrim remains vague about the healing ability of a relic, simply affirming that it cured people, as he did with the jug at Neopolis mentioned above.58 The stone upon Mt. Carmel, however, acted preventatively by stopping females from miscarrying. The odd nature of this specific relic suggests that it was not a relic or site that the Piacenza Pilgrim sought to see but was rather something the locals told him about. All of these objects sought out by the Piacenza Pilgrim and many others

55 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, XXII. ita ut pro singulis languoribus mensura tollatur; exinde et circa collum habent is et sanantur.

56 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, III.

57 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, III.

58 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, VI. et multae aegritudines ibi sanantur.

expressed sacred power within the Holy Land, a connection with the biblical past. These relics were true expressions of his Holy Land and of his Christian faith.

Not only did relics have the power to cure, they could also be used to bless individuals. In a number of instances the Piacenza Pilgrim sought out relics in order to receive a blessing for himself or others. While at Cana, after witnessing water transformed into wine, the Piacenza Pilgrim bathed in a fountain for a blessing.59 At the same spot, he also reclined on a couch upon which Jesus was said to have lain and scratched the name of his parents onto the side of it.60 At the Holy Sepulcher the

Piacenza Pilgrim received a blessing from a lamp hanging above Jesus’ tomb.61 He also took a blessing of earth from the same tomb, which the he tells us is actually brought in from the outside, blessed, and taken away by visitors.62 Just as holy relics could cure maladies, they also had the ability to enhance one’s life.

By the later sixth-century when the Piacenza Pilgrim traveled on his pilgrimage, the Holy Land still had a compelling allure for Westerners; it still had something that the saints’ cults present throughout the Western provinces lacked. While the Piacenza

Pilgrim understood the Christian holy, and the associated miracles, as something that occurred following death, he sought out biblical individuals rather than martyrs of the post-biblical era. The number of sites present within the Holy Land had also developed considerably by the time the Piacenza Pilgrim journeyed through the provinces. Each

59 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, IV.

60 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, IV.

61 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, XVIII.

62 Piacenza Pilgrim, Itinerarium, XVIII.

site or city that the he visited boasted its own miraculous object which suggests a greater scope for the Christian holy toward the end of late antiquity.

CHAPTER 4 JOHN MOSCHOS

John Moschos and the Christian Past

Throughout his pilgrimages, John Moschos remained fixed within the present, peering backwards and recording what he saw. He talked to individuals about their own experiences and the tales they had previously heard from others. Moschos could have presented his tales without a mouthpiece, without emphasizing his travels. However, a connection with the holy individuals of the past remained important, thus partially explaining Moschos’ desire to travel and discuss the greatness of these saintly men and women with authoritative figures who had experience with them. However, his retelling of these tales remained rooted in his present; the past was never made present. While

Moschos sought after and gained a spiritual benefit from the tales of the past, he never relived it.

Moschos centered on the more recent Christian past of monasticism. Where there is a visible distinction between sacred time and the present within the Piacenza

Pilgrim’s text, Moschos features a thin, blurred, line. Miraculous tales of living holy men roughly dateable to the mid-sixth century appear within the Meadow, making the distinction between the sacred past and the historical present difficult to ascertain

Within the Spiritual Meadow, John Moschos maintains his place in the present throughout the text.1 This understanding of the Christian past arises, in part, due to

Moschos anchoring his tales within the contemporary world through which he traveled.

Moschos recounts that it was while he was at Alexandria when he met with Leontios of

1 Booth, Crisis of Empire, 118.

Apamea who told him a tale of Synesios, the Bishop of Cyrene.2 Similarly, Moschos reported that he was at the community of St Sabas when he visited with the higoumen

Abba Eustathios, who told him a tale about a merchant he had spoken with at Tyre.3

Unlike the Piacenza Pilgrim who experienced both the present and the past, Moschos looks back at the past to gain spiritual insight, but he never experienced it. Moschos maintains a separation between past and present by framing each tale with his own travels and discussion with contemporary figures who then relate the tales of the generation past. To frame the question of whether one should abstain from wine even when visiting with others, Moschos first gives the reader his geographical location, both the name and its relation to a major city. So for example, the lavra called Calamôn is located twenty miles from Alexandria.4 It is there that Moschos and Sophronios met with

Abba Theodore, who served as the authoritative figure to tell of the asceticism of the previous monks.5 This serves as a standard format for many of the Meadow’s tales.

Multiple tales feature Moschos and Sophornius’ own travels or at the least the individual from whom Moschos heard the tale. When Moschos arrived at Seleucia he says that he met with Abba Theodore, the Bishop of the city, who serves as the mouthpiece for the tale.6 Abba Isaac the Theban in a similar manner serves as the authoritative figure whom he met in a monastic community located six miles from Lycos. 7 The framing of

2 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 195.

3 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 186.

4 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, CH. 162.

5 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, CH. 162.

6 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 79.

7 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 161.

the tales in this way maintains Moschos’ place within the present while discussing the deeds and holy figures of the past. The tale takes the shape of a conversation between two men discussing the past rather than the recreation and reliving of the past as the

Piacenza Pilgrim presented.

Throughout the Meadow, Moschos maintains a chronological sequence of the past people and events that he discussed. At times, the chronology might not be clear to the modern reader, but Moschos goes out of his way to center the tales within a chronological framework. Thus, Moschos reported that Abba Theodore the Bishop of

Seleucia’s tale occurred during his predecessor Dionysios’ time.8 Similarly, it was during the time of Theophilos, the Pope of Alexandria (385-412 CE), that Synesios became the

Bishop of Cyrene and the tale of Leontios of Apamea took place.9 In this case not only does Moschos anchor the tale within the chronology of the local area of Cyrene in which the events took place but also within a broader chronological framework connected with the more significant figure of the Pope of Alexandria. In the case of Abba Isaac the

Theban, Moschos reported a specific number of years, fifty-two to be exact, since the tale occurred.10 At times Moschos is more general as, for example, Ianthos mentioned above was an elder simply in “former times.”11 There are also cases in which Moschos does not mention specific chronological markers, but still maintains the sequence in which the tale had been passed on to him. Abba Eustathios heard his tale from a

8 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 79.

9 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 195.

10 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 161.

11 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 99.

merchant he had talked with while he was previously at Tyre.12 Whether dealing with specifics or generalities, Moschos differentiates the chronological placement of the current holy men from the previous generations.

One method Moschos used to maintain a chronological separation of the past from the present was to extol the greatness of the previous generation or decry the degradation of the current. Moschos reports that Abba Athanasios of the lavra of St

Sabas told him that “our fathers maintained self-discipline and indifference to worldly-- goods, but we have lined well both our bellies and our purses.”13 Continuing this division, Athanasios is reported to have said that in their father’s time it was important to avoid distractions, but now monks’ cooking pots and handiworks ruled them.14 Although the divide is vague, it is a clear separation. The past, the “father’s” generation, remained separated from Moschos’ present, and unlike the Piacenza Pilgrim’s pilgrimage in which the past came into the present, the previous generation’s deeds remained within the past. Abba Alexander, reported to be speaking to his disciple Abba Vincent and other monks, expressed the same division between the past and present, the time of their fathers and their own time. The fathers sought out the “wilderness and affliction…” while they now seek “cities and comfort.”15 Alexander continues this comparison juxtaposing

12 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 186.

13 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 130. ὅτι οι πατέρες ἡμῶν τὴν ἐγκράτειαν καὶ ἀκτημοσύνην τὴν μέχρι θανάτου ἐτήρησαν, ἡμεἵς δὲ επλατύναμεν τὰς κοιλίας ἡμῶν καὶ βαλάνται.

14 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 130. . Έπί τῶν Πατέρων ἡμῶν περισπουδαἵον ἥν τὸ άπερίσπαστον, νυνὶ δὲ πράττει ἐπί ἡμῶν χύτρα καὶ χείρεργον.

15 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 168. Οι Πατέρες ἡμῶν ἐδίωκον τὰς ἐρήμους καί τὰς θλίψεις. ἡμεῖς δὲ διώκομεν τὰς πόλεις καί τὴν ἄνεσιν.

the poverty and humility of the fathers with the avarice and pride of current monks.16

The children had “eliminated the angelic way of life.”17 There was a clear separation between the time of the fathers firmly implanted in the past and the children.

Moschos glorified the previous generation of monks, portraying them as the paradigm of asceticism. It is due to their perfected ascetic nature that within Abba Theodore’s tale monks used to be able to indulge in wine on occasion and then revert to abstinence afterword. These monks are removed from the world in which Moschos was now living.

Thus, monks of Moschos’ generation must never break abstinence when visiting with others, as they would not be able to give it back up after words. Whereas the Piacenza

Pilgrim conceived of the Christian past as directly connected with the contemporary world, a direct link between the people and events of the previous generation and the current, Moschos sees a disconnect. Moschos still understands the past as a period of greater spirituality, a period to be desired, yet it has become disconnected from the present reality. Following Claudia Rapp’s suggestion that we first witness a separation from the “saints of old” during the seventh century, within Moschos’ Meadow we can see the first inkling of this break.18 In the first two decades of the seventh-century, the effects of the Sasanian invasion had already caused the separation between the generation of the monastic fathers and that of the children. Although Moschos still desired to detail their lives in hopes of emulation, they had already separated from the present.

16 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch.168.

17 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 168. Οὐαί μοι, τέκνα, πολιτείαν ὰγγελικήν ήφανίσαμεν.

18 Claudia Rapp, “Byzantine hagiographers as antiquarians: seventh to tenth centuries,” Byzantinische Forschungen, 21 (1995): 43-44.

John Moschos and the Holy

For John Moschos, the holy was expressed not through sites and objects connected with the Christian past but instead through the actual people who lived a virtuous life. The monks of the eastern desert, then, were the prime exemplars of the holy for Moschos. In contrast to earlier accounts, however, in Moschos’ Meadow it was no longer only in Egypt that holy individuals lived. Moschos traveled from Antioch to

Alexandria collecting tales of holy individuals throughout the eastern —as well as a few from the Western—Mediterranean. It was also not only monks who were worthy of praise. While monks are the focus of many of Moschos’ tales, they are not the only individuals distinguished as holy. Monks, laymen, and clergy all had the opportunity and ability to pursue an ascetic life and be worthy of Moschos’ praise.19 In contrast to earlier monastic accounts of the fourth and fifth centuries such as The History of the Monks of

Egypt or the Lausiac history, it was not only monastic individuals worthy of praise and visitation. Just as the Piacenza Pilgrim’s Holy Land included a more developed network of holy sites and objects to seek out, so too did Moschos include a larger network of individuals. These ascetics embodied living connections with the Christian past for

Moschos and his audience, and he demonstrated the authenticity of these figures through miracles.20

In the Meadow a person’s actions and way of life demonstrated his or her holiness. Moschos accentuated particular virtues that exemplified for him the Christian holy. In particular, he emphasized fasting and hard labor throughout his tales. A

19 Booth, Crisis of Empire, 117. For examples of non-monastic individuals see Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 73, 75, 76, 79, 186, 188, 189, 193, 206

20 Frank, Memory of the Eyes, 75, 77.

particular tale that highlights the holiness of action is Moschos’ description of the pilgrimage of Peter the monk of Pontus and Theodore the future Bishop of Rossos, to which we will return later.21 Peter came to Theodore, then staying at the Pyrgia Lavra near the Jordan, and asked him to join him on his journey to Mount Sinai. Having agreed and started out, Peter suggested that they should fast until they reached Sinai.22

Such an act was beyond Theodore’s physical and spiritual abilities but Peter kept his resolution. Then as they traveled from Sinai to the shrine of St. Menas in Alexandria and from St. Menas to Jerusalem, Peter continued to fast, only eating once they had reached their destination. In many ways, the pilgrimage of these men takes a back seat to the extreme fasting that Peter was able to accomplish. It was this abstemious quality that Moschos praised within the tale. What Moschos wanted the reader to take away from this talk was the fact that this monk ate only three times during the entire pilgrimage. This was why Peter was deemed holy.

Moschos also recognized physical labor as a quality of monks to be praised and emulated. Abba Strategios, the higoumen of the monastery of Theodosios, was praised for excelling above all others of his generation for three virtues: fasting, vigils, and hard labor.23 Within the Meadow, Moschos described monks who filled various labor roles in fourth- through sixth-century Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. They were agricultural workers as well as laborers on building projects. They worked on projects funded by the state

21 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 100.

22 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 100.

23 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 103.

and the Church, along with individual estate owners and monastic leaders. Ascetics used physical labor to strain their physical bodies and express their ascetic nature.24

Moschos tells of two brothers who were once monks and had promised never to leave each other. However, one brother gave into the vices of the world and would not return to the monastic life. The other brother, retaining his ascetic lifestyle but not willing to abandon his brother, remained by his side within a city where they both worked as laborers.25 Eventually both were hired by Abba Abraham, the future Archbishop of

Ephesus, to build his monastery, later to be known as the Monastery of the

Byzantines.26 The brother who retained his ascetic lifestyle was able to express this continued lifestyle not only by performing the physical labor required of him, but also by fasting and keeping silent while doing so.27 Within this brother, we see all three of the virtues for which Abba Strategios was praised. His virtues were further emphasized by his ability to practice them at the same time. The brother’s ability to continue to fast and keep silent, habits that he had maintained prior to becoming a laborer, was all the greater because he continued them with the added strain of physical exertion. It was for this reason that his fellow workers recognized his asceticism and why he was praised by Abba Abraham and Moschos as an example of holiness.28

24 For additional examples of people identified as holy due to physical labor see Moschos Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 134, 154, 183.

25 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 97.

26 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 97.

27 Fasting and silence were both emphasized aspects of the monastic life for Moschos. See Moschos Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 9, 10, 13, 17 22, 23, 24, 37, 41, 42, 51, 56, 59, 67, 73, 84, 86, 100, 103*, 105, 171, 184, 193.

28 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 97.

Moschos also tells of a bishop who, having left his diocese, made his way to

Theoupolis (Antioch). He found work there as a laborer reconstructing buildings that had been destroyed in an earthquake, funded by Ephraim, the Count of the East. The

Bishop felt that in order to live a proper ascetic life he could not stay in his bishopric, but instead had to seek out a rigorous and harsh physical existence as a laborer. It was not enough for the bishop to continue to live the assumed holy life that he had up to that point. He felt that in order to live a truly holy life he had to leave his diocese and go not to a monastery or a cave, but to seek out a meager life as a laborer. This was worthy of more praise than his previous way of life as a Bishop. It was due to his choice of hard labor that Moschos included his tale and marked this bishop as holy.

Moschos and Miracles

The miracles within the Meadow occur as manifestations of the ascetic lifestyle that Moschos focused on.29 Rather than curing ailments, the central miracles in

Moschos’ text highlight an individual’s virtuous nature. A common miracle that follows this pattern is that the hermits’ cells feature fire glowing above them at night.30 Moschos recounts a tale he heard from two secular elders on an estate near Rossos; these people saw fire at night in the wilderness multiple times but could never find the source.31 Finally, after traveling up the mountain from which the light was emanating, they found a cave with a dead anchorite inside.32 Although no one knew the anchorite, all aspects of his person—his hair shirt, his bible, the fact that he had died many years

29 Chadwick, “John Moschos,” 67.

30 Other examples of this include Moschos Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 51, 69.

31 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 87.

32 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 87. κάι εὶσελθόντες εὑρίσκομίν τὸν άνάχωρητήν νεκρόν.

earlier yet his body had been preserved, as well as the holy fire above his cell—all point to the holy and ascetic nature of the Anchorite John. We, as the readers, are never told about John’s life, about what he did or how he lived, but we are made to believe in his holiness as a result of these miracles we learn of after his mortal life. Moschos also provided miracles to authenticate the holiness of ascetics while they were living. The best example of this is the multiple instances of monks befriending lions. The subservience of lions revealed the virtuous nature of these holy men during their life just as the holy fire highlighted their virtues in death. These men stop the lions from attacking men and have them eat bread and vegetables, sleep with them for warmth, heal them, and the lions move out of the monks’ way.33 These miracles, in contrast to those that appear in the Piacenza Pilgrim’s account, do not affect others around them but simply point out the holiness of these men.

Another of the miraculous motifs that occur in the Meadow is that of hostile groups attempting to kill a monk. Most of these tales feature a monk in the wilderness34 who runs into a hostile group. A person in the group notices the monk and then tries to kill him, at which point the miracle of the tale occurs to save the monk. While traveling,

Abba Conon came upon a group of Hebrews. They wanted to kill the elder so they grabbed their swords and moved towards him. After they raised their swords to strike

Conon, their hands remained fixed in the air. Conon then prayed for them, they were

33 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 107, 163, 181, 167, 84.

34 With the exception of Adolas. Ianthos and the tale by Gerontios both specifically mention the wilderness (έρημον and εις τὀς ὄρος respectively). It is assumed for Conon since he was traveling and for the tale by the Saracen since he was hunting.

released, and they went on their way praising God.35 Next, Moschos told about the monk Adolas from Mesopotamia, who came to Thessalonica and lived in a hallowed tree. After the barbarians descended upon the area, one of them noticed Adolas and moved to strike him with his sword. When he did so, he remained immobilized in place with his hand in the air. Adolas prayed over and healed him, and then sent the barbarian on his way.36 Interestingly Moschos reports that the Saracen himself to whom the miracle happened told him the next tale. While this Saracen was hunting, he came upon a monk and approached him, intending to rob and possibly kill him. When the monk saw this he told the Saracen to stay and he was then unable to move for two days. The Saracen then begged the monk in the name of his God to release him, at which point the monk allowed him to go.37

These individuals are deemed holy due to the lives that they lived rather than any specific actions they undertook or events of which they were a part. The miraculous saving of these men by God and then the reversal of the miracle at the intercession of the monks, presents them as exempla of the Christian ascetic life, figures to be admired and lives to emulate. It is interesting, then, that Moschos tells us very little about the actual lives of these monks. The only information given about the monks’ lives before or after the events of the tales is that Abba Conon was the higoumen of the Penthoucla monastery38 and Adolas lived as a recluse in a hallowed tree.39 These tales emphasize

35 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 15.

36 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 70.

37 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 133.

38 Moschos Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 15.

39 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 70

the holiness of the monastic life, not specific acts or a specific type of asceticism, but asceticism as a life choice. While other tales within the Meadow encourage certain actions or choices,40 these specific tales act as encouragement. If the reader chose the monastic life and strove to maintain such a lifestyle, he too could be employed as a vessel through which God expressed his power.

The tale told by Abba Gerontios features several minor alterations from the common mould that the other accounts feature. Abba Gerontios tells Moschos that while he was living on the other side of the Dead Sea near Βησιμοῦντα, he and his fellow grazers (βοσκοἰ) saw another grazer walking near the shore.41 While walking, this other grazer met Saracens and as they passed him, one of the Saracens turned around and cut the head off the grazer. A bird then descended upon the Saracen, carrying him into the air then the bird dropped and dismembered the man.42 The setup is similar to the previously mentioned tale: a monk met a hostile group who wanted to harm him physically. However, there are two distinctions worth discussing. First, the monk is actually killed. In the other tales, the miracle saves the monk’s life by freezing the attacking person. In this instance, the group killed the monk and the miracle takes the form of retribution. Overall, however, the tale serves the same purpose. It highlights the holiness of the monk through the miracle that God preformed on his behalf. Suffering and even death due to the choice of the ascetic life was by no means rare, and pushing one’s physical body to its limits in order to benefit the spiritual is a strong theme

40 To name a few; for the holiness of the monk due to almsgiving see Moschos Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 9, 59; for fasting see 22, 23, 42, 84, 100; for humility see 41

41 Ibid, πέραν της Νεκρἅς θαλάσσης, ως έπἰ Βησιμοῦντα.

42 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 21.

throughout the Meadow. We are told about a monk who, having gotten something imbedded in his foot, refused to remove it, saying instead that the more his physical being suffers, the more his spiritual being flourishes.43 A monk’s physical body is temporary, a momentary blink standing in the way of spiritual eternity. While the act of killing the monk deserves retribution, the actual death of the monk is not presented as negative.

The second variation worth discussing is the death of the attacking Saracens in the tales of Gerontios and the fifth tale of this type by Ianthos. While Elder Ianthos was in the wilderness, Saracens came into the area. When they saw the elder, one of the group came towards him to kill him. The elder saw them and prayed, at which point the earth opened up and swallowed up the Saracen.44 Rather than simply immobilizing the attacking group, the miracles within these tales take a lethal route. As mentioned above, the miracle in Gerontios’ tale takes the form of retribution. God sends a bird to punish the Saracen for killing the monk in front of the rest of his group. In comparison, God, in response to Ianthos’ prayer, opens up the earth to swallow the threatening Saracen.

The differences between the hostile groups---whether Saracens, Jews, or barbarians--- did not matter for the benefit of the tale itself. Similarly, whether the miracle simply immobilized or swallowed the attacker in the earth does not affect the beneficial nature of the tale within the Meadow. In both instances, the miraculous event highlighted the ascetic life of each of the monks. These tales all encouraged the reader to pursue an ascetic life by attaching miracles to those who lived them. It is these lives that Moschos

43 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 10. ὅτι ὅσον ἕξω πάσχει ἄνθρωπος, τοσοῦτον ό ἕξω θάλλει.

44 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 99.

understood as the true expression of Christian holiness that for this reason deserved a place within his meadow.

Moschos, Sacred Space, and Chalcedonian Orthodoxy

When Moschos does mention physical sites, he is generally using them to emphasize Chalcedonian orthodoxy and the need to believe in that form of Christianity in order to experience the site itself.45 For this reason he explains that when Cosmiana, the wife of Germanos the Patrician, went to worship at the holy sepulcher, Mary met her in physical form and barred her from entering.46 Moschos tells us that Cosmiana was a member of the Severan sect and that she realized it was because of her adherence to this heresy that Mary barred her from entering.47 Thus, she saw the error of her ways, partook of the Eucharist, and thereafter could enter and worship. In a similar tale, after becoming the dux of Palestine, Gébemer tried to worship at the Holy Church of the

Resurrection of Christ. Similar to Cosmiana, when he approached the church to worship a phantasmal ram stopped him from entering.48 Again, he finally realized it was because he was a member of the Severan sect; he then took the Eucharist, and could enter. In both instances, according to Moschos, God restricted access to these sites of worship for the Monophysites to show them the error of their theological views.49

45 Lorenzo Perrone, “Christian Holy Places and Pilgrimage in an Age of Dogmatic Conflicts: Popular Religion and Confessional Affiliation in Byzantine Palestine (5th-7th Centuries)” Proche- Orient Chrétien 48 (1998): 29-30.

46 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 48.

47 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 48. ἥν γὰρ της αίρέσεως Σίυήρου του Ακέφάλου. διά τὸ εἶναι αὐτὴν αίρετικἠν, κωλύεται εισελθεἴν, καί ὅτι ει μή προσέλθη τᾕ ἁγία καθολικᾕ καί αποστολικᾕ Ἐκκλησία Χριστοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν.

48 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 49.

49 Chadwick, “John Moschos,” 70.

Moschos did acknowledge the complexity of the theological situation in the sixth- century and the difficulty of recognizing the orthodox faith. Abba Theodoulos, whom

Moschos had met with at Alexandria, related that he had once met a Syrian monk at a hostel who seemed to be living an ascetic life by possessing only a hair shirt and a cloak as well as spending all of his time reciting verses.50 After Theodoulos spoke with this monk, however, he learned that he was actually a Severan, which caused a spiritual crisis for Theodoulos due to the seeming holy life that the heretic was leading. It was only after three days of prostration and prayer that Theodoulos was granted a miracle, in the form of a dove blackened with soot above the Syrian’s head, which reaffirmed his own theological stance as orthodox and the Syrian monk as a heretic.51 Although

Moschos presents a clear division between the Chalcedonian interpretation of Christ as the true orthodox faith and the non-Chalcedonian view as heresy, he still recognized the fact that “heretics” might also follow an ascetic lifestyle and the difference between a heretic and an orthodox Christian was not always instantly noticeable. The continued occurrences of these miracles served, for Moschos, to confirm the Chalcedonian beliefs and convert those who had strayed from what he understood as the right path.52

50 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 106.

51 Mochos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 106.

52 Moschos, Pratum Spirituale, Ch. 213.

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION

In the accounts of both the Piacenza Pilgrim and John Moschos we have seen the desire to travel connected to the desire for a sensory experience of the past and the holy. Interacting with objects and people, rather than reading about them, provided a greater spiritual connection for both pilgrims. However, their accounts also offer insight into two divergent Late Antique conceptions of pilgrimage, the Christian past, and the

Christian holy as expressed through the varied sites, objects, and people they focused on in their individual works. Throughout his travels, the Piacenza Pilgrim focused on physical relics connected to the people and events of the biblical past, authenticated by miraculous cures, as the true expression of the Holy Land. For Moschos, however, monks and pious laymen of the past rather than physical sites are the truest expression of the holy. The ascetic lives of the previous generation, demonstrated through miracles in the present, rendered the eastern Mediterranean a unique locus of the holy. Although they focused on the same geographical region, the network of holiness that each pilgrim created looked distinct. How the Piacenza Pilgrim, John Moschos, and other pilgrims of the period understood Christianity as well as how the spiritual world manifested itself within the physical, led them to create diverse and equally valid representations of the

Holy Land in their narratives. They were all seeking conduits of God’s power in order to gain a deeper understanding and experience of their religion.

While scholars have been explored the early developments of holy men and holy space through fourth-century pilgrimage texts, by the sixth century we can witness an increased scope for both. A greater number of holy sites had been established in the

time between the pilgrimages of Egeria and the Piacenza Pilgrim, with each boasting an increased number holy of attractions to draw pilgrims. In Moschos’ text, we find an expansion in both geography and the scope of the individuals deemed holy. In contrast to earlier monastic accounts of the fourth and fifth centuries which focused on Egypt such as The History of the Monks of Egypt or The Lasucia History, Moschos traveled throughout the eastern Mediterranean and even included tales from the West. In addition, it is not only monks within the Meadow who embody holiness. While monks are central in the text, even clergy and devout lay people are presented as equally holy and worthy of admiration. The ascetic lifestyle that Moschos praised could be found not only in the desert but throughout the oikoumene. By the later sixth century, as the ancient world stood on the brink of another great religious transformation, the number of ways in which the Christian holy manifested itself in the physical world had greatly expanded.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Austin’s major was history with a focus on Late Antiquity. He graduated from the

University of Florida in the summer 2015 with a Master of Arts degree.