WEAVING THE PILGRIM'S CROWN

WEAVING THE PILGRIM'S CROWN: 'S VIEW OF 'S JOURNEYS IN LATE ANTIQUE PALESTINE1

CORNELIA B. HORN

Martyrdom and pilgrimage were central experiences in the lives of early Christians. Those two elements seem closely interwoven in the career of Pe- ter the Iberian, the influential fifth-century anti-Chalcedonian monk and bishop of Maiuma, Gaza. Their connectedness in Peter's life is an important key for understanding how anti-Chalcedonians interpreted their experiences of being a repressed minority in Palestine in the fifth and early sixth centu- ries A.D.

PETER'S JOURNEYS

Peter the Iberian was born in A.D. 412 or 417 in Georgia as son of the royal couple Bosmarios and Bakurduktia.2 He died on December 1, 491 A.D., on an estate of the late Empress Eudocia in the vicinity of Jamnia in South- Western Palestine.3 Jamnia was about a day and a night's journey north of Maiuma, the port-city of Gaza,4 where Peter had been both the anti-

1 I am grateful to Janet A. Timbie, Jason Zaborowski, Sidney H. Griffith, Susan Ash- brook Harvey, and especially Philip Rousseau for constructive criticism and useful sugges- tions on earlier drafts of this paper. 2 Vita Petri Iberi 5. Reference will be made throughout to the pages of the critical edition of the Syriac text of Peter's biography. It is published, accompanied by a German transla- tion, in Richard Raabe, Petrus der Iberer: ein Charakterbild zur Kirchen- und Sitten- geschichte des 5. Jahrhunderts; syrische Übersetzung einer um das Jahr 500 verfassten griechi- schen Biographie (Leipzig, 1895); abbreviated as Vita Petri Iberi. 3 For a discussion of the chronology of Peter's life see Paul Devos, ‘Quand Pierre l'Ibère vint-il à Jérusalem?’, Analecta Bollandiana, 86 (1968), pp. 337-350. For an account of his stay on Eudocia's property in Jamnia see Vita Petri Iberi 123 and 126. 4 Cf. Vita Petri Iberi 138 and 141, from where it becomes clear that Peter's disciples went on their way with the dead body of the saint after the early morning service. They arrived in Maiuma shortly before daybreak on the following day. 172 CORNELIA B. HORN

Chalcedonian bishop and the head of a monastic community of anti- Chalcedonians.5 One of the striking characteristics of Peter's life is the fact that he was a constant traveler, often covering great distances over long periods of time. Already when the young prince was only twelve years old, conflicts between the Eastern Roman Empire, Georgia, and Persia were such that Theodosius II demanded that Peter be sent as hostage to the imperial court in Constan- tinople in order to ensure Georgian allegiance to Byzantium.6 Thus Peter went on his first long journey from Georgia to , accompa- nied by an entourage of confidants and servants, well befitting a prince.7 Having grown up to young adulthood at the imperial court and showing early signs of a commitment to the ascetic life,8 Peter also conceived a burn- ing desire to embark on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a second journey. The pilgrimage to and the Holy Places supplied him with the model for understanding the rest of his life as that of a pilgrim. In the Holy Land, he became an influential member of the monastic community, en- dowed with authority both through his ascetic achievements and through his imperial connections.9 For a while, Peter dwelt in Jerusalem's monastic quarters on the Mount of Olives and south of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. In a third journey, he moved from the busy, pilgrim-centered life

5 For a preliminary study of Peter's monastic settlements in the Gaza area, see Cornelia Horn, ‘Peter the Iberian and anti-Chalcedonian Monasticism in Gaza in the Light of Old and New Sources’, unpublished manuscript of a paper presented at the Mid-Atlantic Re- gional Meeting of the American Academy of Religion / Society of Biblical Literature, Glen Mills, PA (March, 2000). 6 For a detailed discussion of Theodosius II's demand, the difficulties King Bosmarios faced, and Peter's role as a hostage at the imperial palace in Constantinople see Cornelia Horn, ‘Befriending the Christian Romans or the impious Persians? – The Vita Petri Iberi on Byzantine-Georgian Relations in the Fifth Century AD,’ unpublished manuscript of a paper presented at the Byzantine Studies Conference, University of Maryland (November, 1999). 7 Vita Petri Iberi 16, where Rufus describes Peter as traveling ‘with a great train and honor.’ 8 Vita Petri Iberi 16-19. 9 For the importance of Peter's connections to the imperial court in Constantinople, see, e.g., Plerophoriae 56. Reference is made to the section numbers in the critical edition of the Syriac text of the Plerophoriae. F. Nau published it together with a French translation by M. Brière and supplementary sections of related Greek materials in Jean Rufus, Évêque de Maïouma, Plérophories, c.-à-d. témoignages et révélations, PO, 8/1 (Paris, 1911). It is abbreviated in the following as Plerophoriae. WEAVING THE PILGRIM'S CROWN 173

of the Holy City to the quieter area of Maiuma, where again he lived in a monastery. In the aftermath of the Council of and the revolt of the Palestinian monks against Bishop Juvenal of Jerusalem, Peter became the anti-Chalcedonian bishop of Maiuma. Juvenal's return to the see of Jerusa- lem and the subsequent expulsion from Palestine of anti-Chalcedonian monks and bishops also urged Peter to take off to Egypt and Alexandria in a fourth significant journey.10 While living in Egypt for more than two dec- ades, he made a fifth set of journeys between Alexandria and Oxyrhyn- chus,11 visited ‘places in the Thebaid’,12 and went to ‘many other cities and villages of Egypt’.13 He assisted in the teaching and proclamation of the anti-Chalcedonian faith wherever he went. In a sixth journey, which took place before A.D. 475, Peter returned to the greater Gaza area, where he be- came instrumental in turning that southern region of Palestine into a center of anti-Chalcedonianism.14 For the sake of convenience, one may summa- rize the final one and a half decades of his life under the heading ‘missionary travels’. These travels constitute a remarkable seventh period of journeying in the eastern parts of Palaestina Prima, including the greater Jerusalem area, in Arabia, and in Phoenicia. Throughout that last period of traveling, Peter brought about the conversion of non-Christians and Chalcedonian Chris-

10 On the basis of Zachariah the Rhetor, Chronicle III.5 and III.7, one could be led to think that Peter was never physically forced to leave Palestine, but rather was granted ex- plicit permission to stay if he wished to do so. For an English translation of the Chronicle, see Zachariah of Mitylene, The Syriac Chronicle, Known as That of Zachariah of Mitylene, translated by F. J. Hamilton and E. W. Brooks (London, 1899), here pp. 52 and 54. Note also the useful German translation, published by K. Ahrens and G. Kruger as Zachariah Rhetor under the title Die sogenannte Kirchengeschichte des Zacharias Rhetor in deutscher Übersetzung (Leipzig, 1899). Rufus's text at Vita Petri Iberi 57-58 merely says that in con- formity with Bishop Theodosius's advice Peter ‘was departing to Egypt’. It seems reason- able to assume that even if Peter was granted an exception to the rule and not expelled together with the rest of the anti-Chalcedonian bishops, the psychological pressure urging him to follow his fellow believers out of solidarity may have been the decisive element which prompted him to leave. In the end, also Zachariah states that Peter ‘joined those who were expelled, and departed with them’. See The Syriac Chronicle, p. 54. 11 For an account of Peter's stay in Egypt, see Vita Petri Iberi 58-77. Rufus seems to think of Alexandria as a part of Egypt when, e.g., at Vita Petri Iberi 77, he says, ‘[w]hen he had thus passed a considerable time in Alexandria and in the rest of Egypt’. 12 Vita Petri Iberi 60. 13 Vita Petri Iberi 71. 14 Vita Petri Iberi 77 and 79. Peter was back in Palestine before Timothy Aelurus's return from exile in A.D. 475. 174 CORNELIA B. HORN tians to the anti-Chalcedonian faith. On his return journey from Phoenicia, while lodging in Ashdod late in the summer of A.D. 491, Peter clearly ex- pressed his wish not to return to his home monastery, but to ‘be perfected in a foreign country and weave also in the end the crown of a good pil- grimage’.15 This very brief overview of Peter's many journeys shows already that in part, his travels were forced upon him and in part he sought them out by himself. The motives for his travels varied: political considerations, the de- sire to be a pilgrim, the pressure of persecutions, which anti-Chalcedonians experienced in Palestine, and missionary endeavors in an effort to spread the anti-Chalcedonian faith and strengthen existing anti-Chalcedonian commu- nities. Most fundamental among the motivations was Peter's desire for pil- grimage, which framed his whole life. However, before turning to an investi- gation of what being a pilgrim and desiring to gain ‘the crown of a good pilgrimage’ meant for Peter, one should first take a look at the main sources of information about him.

JOHN RUFUS: TRAVEL COMPANION AND BIOGRAPHER

When Peter died in A.D. 491, John Rufus became his successor as bishop of Maiuma. Rufus had been recruited to Peter's ascetic community after legal studies in Beirut and subsequent service in the Church of under .16 A first encounter with Peter the Iberian in Maiuma quickly turned into a deep friendship between the two men. In the course of about ten years of common ascetic life and travels, Rufus gained Peter's full trust and confidence.17

15 Vita Petri Iberi 122. 16 Vita Petri Iberi 81. Still the most authoritative study of the ancient law school in Beirut is Paul Collinet, Histoire de l'École de Droit de Beyrouth (Paris, 1925). 17 E. Schwartz, ‘Johannes Rufus, ein monophysitischer Schriftsteller’, Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Jahrgang 1912, 16. Abteilung (1912), pp. 1-28, laid the ground for studying the person and work of John Rufus. For a more recent discussion of Rufus's authorship of the Vita Petri Iberi see Cornelia Horn, Beyond Theology – The Career of Peter the Iberian in the Christological Controversies of Fifth Century Palestine, unpublished manuscript of Ph. D. dissertation, The Catholic University of America, chapter 1, in progress. Rufus's Plerophoriae has been at the center of attention in Jan-Eric Steppa, Plerophories – The WEAVING THE PILGRIM'S CROWN 175

Rufus is the most important ancient writer on Palestinian anti-Chalce- donian monasticism in the late fifth and early sixth centuries. Apparently he was active as writer concurrently with his service as bishop of Maiuma and his involvement in the governing of Peter's monastery there. While little of what he wrote survives in the original Greek, three of his works are pre- served in Syriac translation. As far as their chronological order can be deter- mined, these works can be listed as the Vita Petri Iberi, the biography of Pe- ter the Iberian;18 the De obitu Theodosii, an account of important events in the lives of the anti-Chalcedonian monks Theodosius and Romanus;19 and the Plerophoriae, a collection of 89 short chapters of testimonies to events mostly in the lives of anti-Chalcedonian ascetics, which polemically prove the evil of the .20 In the Vita Petri Iberi Rufus sets forth Peter's life and career in an attempt to present his anti-Chalcedonian hero to the monks as a model for their lives. His immediate intention seems to have been to establish a text that could be used at the three-day long annual commemoration of that found- ing figure of Palestinian anti-Chalcedonianism celebrated from November 30 to December 2.21 Preserving Peter's last will, the Vita Petri Iberi also con- tains the fundamental ‘rules’ upon which Palestinian anti-Chalcedonianism was built.22 Besides references to Peter in passing in a few other sources,23 Zachariah is the only other historian who seems to have written about him to any great

World-Vision of Anti-Chalcedonian Culture, unpublished manuscript of Licentiate The- sis, University of Lund, Sweden (1998). For a study of Rufus's personal background and his connections to Arabia, see Cornelia Horn, ‘A Chapter in the Pre-History of the Christological Controversies in Arabic: Readings from the Works of John Rufus’, pa- per presented at the VI International Conference on Christian Arabic Studies, The Uni- versity of Sydney, Australia (July 2-5, 2000), forthcoming in the proceedings of that con- ference. 18 See above, n. 2. 19 For a critical edition of the Syriac text with translation see E.W. Brooks, Narratio de obitu Theodosii Hierosolymorum et Romani Monachi auctore anonymo, in Vitae virorum apud Monophysitas celeberrimorum, CSCO Scriptores Syri, vol. 7 (textus) pp. 21-27, vol. 8 (versio) pp. 15-19. 20 See above, n. 9. 21 Vita Petri Iberi 146. 22 See specifically Vita Petri Iberi 134-135. 23 They are gathered conveniently in Horn, Beyond Theology. 176 CORNELIA B. HORN extent.24 From Zachariah's perspective as presented in his Chronicle,25 pil- grimage and martyrdom do not seem to have played an important role in Peter’s life, since Zachariah does not give them any prominent place in the sections of the Chronicle in which he deals with Peter's activities.26 Thus when considering the two themes of pilgrimage and martyrdom as well as the connection established between them in Rufus's writings, one has in hand an interpretive key revealing Rufus's specific understanding of Peter, which possibly was motivated by a shared experience.27

THE IMPORTANCE OF OF

Rufus describes Peter’s journeys, both at the beginning of his career and in the final section of his life, explicitly as pilgrimages. On both occasions Peter had companions for his travels, and very interesting ones at that: first John the Eunuch, later on Rufus, and on his first pilgrimage even relics of Persian martyrs. While this paper cannot discuss the particular functions of John the Eunuch and Rufus as Peter’s travel companions, it will focus on the role of the relics of martyrs in Peter’s life as an anti-Chalcedonian pilgrim. The availability of relics, especially in times of need, plays an important role in the Vita Petri Iberi. According to Rufus, Peter's relatives in Georgia received help in an earthquake through relics. A building threatened to col- lapse due to the earthquake. The relics of the holy woman Osduktia were placed under it, and they prevented the building from collapsing.28 Osduktia was not just any holy woman, but Peter’s paternal grandmother.29

24 Whether a biography of Peter from Zachariah's pen has survived in altered form in the Georgian Vita is debated. For editions of the text of the Georgian Vita of Peter the Iberian see M. N. Marr, ‘Ckhovreba Petre Iverisa,’ Pravoslavnyi Palestinskii Sbornik, 47,16,2 (St. Petersburg, 1896) [with Russian translation]; and Ieane Lolashvilma, Areopagetuli krebuli: dionise areopageli da Petre Iberieli dzvelkartul mcarlobali: gamosatcemat (Tbilisi, 1983), pp. 117-158. For a discussion of the authorship of the Georgian Vita see David Marshall Lang, ‘Peter the Iberian and His Biographers’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 2 (1951), pp. 158-168. 25 See above, n. 10. 26 For the sections dealing with Peter explicitly, see Zachariah of Mitylene, The Syriac Chronicle, pp. 51-52, 54, 58, 64-66, 111, 125, and 134. 27 For a more detailed discussion of Rufus as Peter's travel companion to the provinces of eastern Palaestina Prima and Arabia, see Horn, ‘A Chapter in the Pre-History of the Christological Controversies in Arabic’ (see above, n. 17). 28 Vita Petri Iberi 11. 29 Cf. Vita Petri Iberi 5. Osduktia was Peter's grandmother on his father's side. WEAVING THE PILGRIM'S CROWN 177

Rufus used the incident to show that already in his early years the young prince was familiar with the belief that relics of holy people could protect from harm. While nothing indicates that Osduktia died as a , martyr- dom as well as the veneration of relics of martyrs was part of the experience of early Christians in Georgia. It is well attested that Georgian Christians suffered martyrdom before and during the fifth century.30 When Peter was sent as hostage from Georgia to Theodosius II's court in Constantinople around or before A.D. 429, he brought along with him ‘bones of holy martyrs, who were Persian by race’.31 The Vita Petri Iberi sim- ply speaks of the relics as those of ‘Persian martyrs’ without specifying the names of those martyrs or providing any further identification. Given that Peter came from Georgia at the latest in A.D. 429, one has to search for the martyrs among the ones killed under Shapur II (307-378), Jesdegerd I (378- 420), and possibly also Bahram V (420-438). Striving to narrow the circle

30 It may suffice to refer to the martyrdom of Princess Shushanik and that of the nine Children of Kola. Both are well known from literary sources. An English translation of the martyrdom of the nine Children of Kola is available in David Marshall Lang, Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, 2nd rev. ed. (Crestwood, NY, 1976), pp. 40-43. In the same work, Lang has provided also an English translation of the passio of St. Shushanik on pp. 45-56. The Children of Kola were martyred probably in the late fourth century. Lang, Lives and Legends, p. 40, states that ‘The touching story of the nine infant martyrs of Kola … probably goes back to a period not far removed from the time of St. Nino’. Princess Shushanik must have died in or before A.D. 476. According to Lang, Lives and Legends, p. 44, Jacob of Tsurtav, the confessor of St. Shushanik, composed the passio of the princess between A.D. 476 and 483. 31 Vita Petri Iberi 17. By the time of Peter in the fifth century, Christians had experienced persecution in the Persian Empire in the 270s under Vahran II / Bahrâm II and a more widespread persecution between 340 and 372 under the Sassanid king Sapor II / Shapur II (cf. Susan Ashbrook Harvey, ‘Persia’, Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, vol. 2, 2nd edi- tion [1997], pp. 900-901). The ‘great massacre’ under Shapur II was directed ‘against those considered “allies of the Caesars”’; cf. F. Rilliet, ‘Persia’, Encyclopedia of the Early Church, vol. 2, (New York, 1992), pp. 674-675, here p. 674. See also S. P. Brock, ‘A Mar- tyr at the Sasanid Court Under Vahran II: Candida’, Analecta Bollandiana, 96 (1978), pp. 167-181; idem, ‘Christians in the Sasanian Empire: A Case of Divided Loyalties,’ Religion and National Identity, SCH, 18, ed. S. Mews (Oxford, 1982), pp. 1-19; J. Labourt, Le Christianisme dans l'empire Perse sous le dynastie sassanide (224-632), 2nd ed. (Paris, 1904); W. A. Wigram, An Introduction to the History of the Assyrian Church 100-640 AD (Lon- don, 1910); T. D. Barnes, ‘Constantine and the Christians of Persia,’ Journal of Roman Studies, 75 (1985), pp. 126-136; M.-L. Chaumont, La Christianisation de l'empire iranien, des origines aux grandes persécutions du IVe siècle, CSCO, 499, Subs. 80 (Louvain, 1988); F. Decret, ‘Les conséquences sur le christianisme en Perse de l'affrontement des empire 178 CORNELIA B. HORN of possible candidates,32 one may think of the martyrs of Karka d-Beth Slok.33 A first group of them, martyred under Shapur II,34 would fit very well both with the chronological time frame and the consideration that one should be looking for a group of martyrs and not only a single person, given that the Vita Petri Iberi refers to them in the plural. While one may no longer be able to identify the relics of Peter's Persian martyrs more precisely, Rufus and his fellow ascetics, however, knew their names. In the Vita Petri Iberi Rufus indicates that the martyrs’ memory was kept alive in Peter's monastic community in Palestine and that accounts of their martyrdom were read on the occasion of their commemoration.35 That Peter possessed relics of Persian martyrs was for Rufus a sign of God's grace dwelling within Peter. In his account of Peter's life at the court in Constantinople, Rufus portrays him as practicing the ascetic life with in- creasing intensity and thus as being able to work many healings, signs, and deeds of power. In his bed-chamber in the palace in Constantinople Peter had set up a special shrine for the deposition of the relics, because he wished to treat them ‘with honor’.36 One year at the feast of Epiphany, Peter ran out of oil for the lamps he used to burn in front of that shrine. When his store-keeper denied him any further supply of oil,37 Peter felt forced to take to extraordi- nary measures, as Rufus explains, because the refusal was to be understood as an attack from the devil. Peter trusted in the intercessory power of the

romain et sassanide de Shâpûr 1er à Yazdgard 1er’, Recherches Augustiniennes, 14 (1979), pp. 91-152. 32 On Persian martyrs, see Rubens Duval, La littérature Syriaque (originally published in Paris, 1907; re-edition Amsterdam, 1970), pp. 119-135; Georg Hoffmann, Auszüge aus syrischen Akten persischer Märtyrer, Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 7.3 (Leipzig, 1880); Gernot Wiessner, ‘Zur Märtyrerüberlieferung aus der Christenverfolgung Shapurs II, Untersuchungen zur Syrischen Literaturgeschichte, I', Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, philosophisch-historische Klasse, 3, 67 (Göt- tingen, 1967). 33 As Sidney H. Griffith suggested in an oral communication. 34 See Ortiz de Urbina, Patrologia Syriaca (Rome, 1965), pp. 194-196. See references to editions of the texts of their martyrdom there. 35 Cf. Vita Petri Iberi 17. 36 Vita Petri Iberi 17. 37 For a discussion of the steward's motives in the context of the larger issue of why Peter was sent to Constantinople in the first place, see Horn, ‘Befriending the Christian Ro- mans’ (see above n. 6). WEAVING THE PILGRIM'S CROWN 179 martyrs' relics, prayed, filled the oil-lamps with water, and lit them. To eve- ryone's amazement the lamps burned with water for seven days and seven nights.38 Peter showed his reverence for the Persian martyrs by ‘sleeping in front of them upon the earth, … performing the divine services with lights, in- censes, hymns, and intercessions [in front of their shrine]’.39 The martyrs in turn were pleased and showed themselves to him ‘openly many times, while they were singing with him and keeping vigil with him and praying with him’.40 Rufus suggests that the bond of friendship between them was so close that Peter preferred their company over that of royalty and nobility at the court.41 With such stories Rufus may have been encouraging his anti- Chalcedonian flock to place suffering and dying for their anti-Chalcedonian faith higher than any association with the rich and powerful. The Persian martyrs also assisted Peter when he had to overcome the obstacles, which his Georgian servants42 and particularly Emperor Theodo- sius II,43 or, in the words of Rufus, ‘demons and men, their helpers’,44 raised against him. When Peter and his friend John the Eunuch had set their minds on leaving Constantinople and going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, God ‘set up for [Peter] the holy martyrs, those who were properly pleased by him’, and assigned them the roles of ‘helpers of his flight, guides, watchmen, and escorts’.45 The relics of the martyrs offered the two perfect protection when they were preparing for the flight and likewise in the night of the

38 Vita Petri Iberi 19. Raabe, Petrus der Iberer, German translation, p. 26, n. 1 indicated that Eusebius's account of a related miracle of oil-lamps burning with water could have served Rufus as a literary model. Cf. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History VI.9. 39 Vita Petri Iberi 17. 40 Vita Petri Iberi 18. 41 At Vita Petri Iberi 18 Rufus says about Peter's attitude that ‘[o]nce now, when the holy feast of Epiphany arrived, at which custom required all the senators both to visit the king and to visit one another, he shut himself up in the bed-chamber of the martyrs’. 42 Vita Petri Iberi 18-19 and 20. 43 Vita Petri Iberi 20. 44 Vita Petri Iberi 21. 45 Vita Petri Iberi 21. In order to ensure the assistance of the martyrs, Peter ‘took John to that shrine, where the bones of the holy martyrs were deposited. And while both of them put their heads over those bones and there talked with one another, they thus agreed re- garding the time and the manner of the flight. And from that time no one knew [it] and made it known, neither demons nor men, until the intention came to [its] fulfillment’ (Vita Petri Iberi 22). 180 CORNELIA B. HORN flight itself. Peter and John could pass between the guards without being noticed. Later Peter often told his friends that he and John had been able to see the martyrs guiding them through the darkness ‘as a cloud or a pillar of fire’.46 The parallel of this detail to the Exodus experience of the Israelites, when the Lord preceded them ‘in the daytime by means of a column of cloud to show them the way, and at night by means of a column of fire to give them light’ (Ex 13,21), is not to be overlooked. As Rufus's account continues, the parallel between Peter's pilgrimage journey to Jerusalem and the Exodus event of the people of Israel is spelled out in greater detail. When the whole of Peter's flight from Constantinople is compared to the Exodus of the Isra- elites, the Persian martyrs accompanying Peter take over the roles of Moses and Aaron. In other places the roles are distributed differently. In order to be able to carry the relics of the Persian martyrs conveniently with them on their journey, Peter and John placed the ‘venerable bones in a little reliquary [made] of gold, like the great Moses the ark of God with the Cherubim’.47 Rufus compares Peter and John to ‘the great Moses’, the relics of the martyrs represent the stone tablets, on which God had inscribed his covenant with his people, and the little golden reliquary corresponds to the ark of the covenant. By employing Exodus imagery, Rufus may have wanted to suggest at least two thoughts to his audience. Firstly, that in the same way in which God entered into a covenant with his people Israel, so through the relics of the Persian martyrs God expressed his close relationship with Peter and John, a relationship, which was founded on, and which would necessarily embrace, suffering and martyrdom. Secondly, that Peter and John were as protected and guided by the Lord as the Israelites of old, and that by implication the same held true for all those, who either joined Peter's monastic community or were more loosely affiliated with the anti-Chalcedonian movement. The power of a of the Holy Cross supplemented the martyrs' power on the two friends' journey to Jerusalem. Rufus explains that along with the golden reliquary ‘[t]hey were only carrying … the little book of John the evangelist, in which was fastened a part of the wood of the holy, venerable, and saving Cross, through which they were being preserved’.48 A relic of the

46 Vita Petri Iberi 22. 47 Vita Petri Iberi 23. 48 Vita Petri Iberi 23. WEAVING THE PILGRIM'S CROWN 181

Cross of Christ is different on an important level from relics of martyrs, es- pecially from bones of martyrs. There can never be a relic of Christ's body, since the Christian faith holds that Christ truly rose from the dead. Never- theless, leaving aside the question of authenticity of any of the relics con- nected with Christ's dying on the Cross,49 a piece of the Cross of Christ is a relic of higher significance: it is a piece of matter, which once was in direct physical contact with Christ's body at the moment of his greatest suffering for the salvation of mankind. While the relics of martyrs were visible and touchable signs of the martyr's death in witness for Christ, relics of the Cross were testimonies to Christ's own death for the redemption of all men and women. Talking about the relic of the Cross, Rufus adds that the two pilgrims ‘went out to carry’ the Cross and that ‘they would adhere to the crucified God cheerfully’.50 Not only did Peter and John carry the Cross in the form of a relic, but they were ready to follow Christ, even if that meant that they had to suffer for him. Rufus states that God ‘placed … a gentle energy for their confirmation and their consolation’51 into that relic of the Cross, so that for a week the Cross-fragment exuded oil, which the two ‘would receive … with their hands’ and use to ‘anoint their faces and their bodies’.52 For Rufus's early Christian audience this kind of language easily evoked images of fighters preparing for combat in the arena by anointing their bodies.53 On their pilgrimage journey to Jerusalem, therefore, Peter and John not only carried relics of martyrs for their own protection and

49 Early Christians considered as venerable relics not only the wood of the Cross, but, e.g., also the instruments used for Christ's scourging or the nails with which Christ was fastened to the Cross. 50 Vita Petri Iberi 24. 51 Vita Petri Iberi 23. 52 Vita Petri Iberi 24. 53 Such imagery was not foreign to early Christian martyrdom literature either. See, e.g., what Perpetua saw ‘in a vision’ on ‘the day before the battle in the arena’. She reports, ‘Coming towards me was some type of Egyptian, horrible to look at, accompanied by fighters who were to help defeat me. Some handsome young men came forward to help and encourage me. I was stripped of my clothing, and suddenly I was a man. My assist- ants began to rub me with oil as was the custom before a contest, while the Egyptian was on the opposite side rolling in the sand’. Passio Sanctae Perpetuae et Felicitatis 10. English translation quoted from Rosemary Rader, ‘The Martyrdom of Perpetua: A Protest Ac- count of Third-Century Christianity’, in A Lost Tradition – Women Writers of the Early Church, ed. Patricia Wilson-Kastner (Washington, 1981), pp. 1-32, here p. 24. 182 CORNELIA B. HORN guidance, but through their close connection to the Cross of Christ they prepared themselves for martyrdom.54

MARTYRS' RELICS AND THEIR DEPOSITION IN JERUSALEM, THE DESTINATION OF PETER'S PILGRIMAGE

A line of tradition supported by architectural, archaeological, liturgical, and toponymical evidence connects the names of Peter the Iberian and his mon- astery in the center of Jerusalem with the relics of St. James the Cut-Up, a third-century Persian martyr.55 The relics of James may have been part of the collection of relics of Persian martyrs, which Peter carried along with him from Georgia to Constantinople and finally to Jerusalem. According to a tradition preserved in an appendix to the Bohairic text of the Passio Iacobi Intercissi, Peter was involved in the translatio of the saint's relics from Jerusa- lem to Paim near Oxyrhynchus.56 Yet the Vita Petri Iberi as such does not

54 For a more detailed study of the importance of the Cross in Palestinian anti- Chalcedonian ascetic spirituality, see Horn, Beyond Theology, chapter 4. 55 Ortiz de Urbina, Patrologia Syriaca, p. 197, places the martyrdom of James the Cut-Up under the reign of Bahram V (420-438). Certain Syriac and Copto-Arabic Jacobite menologia mention both the name of Peter the Iberian and that of the martyr James the Cut-Up under November 27. See F. Nau, Quatre Ménologes Jacobite, PO, 10, pp. 31-56, here p. 48; idem, Sept Ménologes Jacobites, PO, 10, pp. 93-133, here p. 108; idem, Les Ménologes des Évangéliaires Coptes-Arabes, PO, 10, fasc. 2, p. 194 [reading of MS E]; see also Hugues Vincent and F.-M. Abel, Jérusalem Nouvelle, II.3 (Paris, 1922), p. 518. Ac- cording to records from AD 1493, a Crusader Church, which was located in the vicinity of the place, from which formerly Peter's Jerusalem monastery arose, was turned into a mosque and renamed Zawiyyat ash-Sheikh Ya‘qubi al-‘Ajami. The Arabic name remem- bers the tradition that at one time relics of James the Cut-Up were preserved in this place. For a good summary and detailed references to the scholarship concerning the archaeo- logical and architectural remains of the monastery one may consult Klaus Bieberstein and Hanswulf Bloedhorn, Jerusalem – Grundzüge der Baugeschichte vom Chalkolithikum bis zur Frühgeschichte der osmanischen Herrschaft, Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Ori- ents, Reihe B (Geisteswissenschaften), 100/2 (Wiesbaden, 1994), pp. 170-171. 56 Tito Orlandi, ‘James Intercisus, Saint’, in The Coptic Encyclopedia, 4 (1991), p. 1321, noted that an appendix to the complete text of the Bohairic Passio Iacobi Intercissi speaks of Peter the Iberian as involved in the translatio of the relics of James the Cut-Up from Jerusalem to Paim near Oxyrhynchus, where the relics were deposited in a shrine built for the occasion. The Bohairic Passio is to be found in Vatican Library, Coptic 59f. 1-29, edited by I. Balestri and H. Hyvernat, Acta Martyrum, CSCO, 86 (textus) (Paris, 1924), pp. 24-61; CSCO, 125 (versio) (Louvain, 1950), pp. 17-42. Contrary to Orlandi, Peter the Iberian figures from p. 52 (end), translation p. 37, onwards. WEAVING THE PILGRIM'S CROWN 183

provide information in support of that. Rather, one learns from it that the relics of the Persian martyrs were deposited in a martyrion on the Mount of Olives built by Melania the Younger for the relics of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste.57 That marytrion seems to have been part of or at least close to Melania's monastery for men.58 One could assume, of course, that not all of the relics of the Persian martyrs found their final resting-place on the Mount of Olives. It is also possible that somehow Peter came into possession of rel- ics of James the Cut-Up later on. What one can observe clearly in the Vita Petri Iberi is that Rufus com- posed an elaborate account of how Bishop Cyril of Alexandria came to Jeru- salem upon the invitation of Empress Eudocia, consecrated the Church of St. Stephen, sponsored by Eudocia,59 and deposited the precious relics of the protomartyr Stephen in that sanctuary on May 15, A.D. 438.60 On the fol- lowing day, upon Melania's invitation, Cyril conducted the deposition of the relics of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste in the Mount of Olives martyrion. At that time also Peter's relics of the Persian martyrs finally were laid to rest.61

57 These martyrs were soldiers, who suffered martyrdom under Constantine's co-emperor Licinius either in or in Sebaste, Armenia. For their passio see Oskar von Gebhardt, Acta Martyrum Selecta (, 1902), pp. 166-18. Peter was familiar with the celebration of the feast of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste from his years in Constantinople under Bishop Nestorius. See Plerophoriae 1. 58 Vita Petri Iberi 32-33; Vita Melaniae 49, in Denys Gorce, Vie de Sainte Mélanie, Sources Chrétiennes, 90 (Paris, 1962), pp. 220-222. The site of this monastery for men is to be found today within the confines of the Pater Noster Church and Carmelite Monas- tery on the Mount of Olives. 59 Bieberstein / Bloedhorn, Jerusalem, vol. 2, pp. 227-237, is an excellent starting point for studying the archaeological discoveries connected to the history of the Church of St. Stephen. 60 Vita Petri Iberi 33. A.D. 415 marks the year of the discovery of the relics of St. Stephen in Kefar Gamala. Temporarily the relics were housed in the Church of Holy Zion, until they were transferred to the Church of St. Stephen in A.D. 438. At Vita Petri Iberi 123 Rufus once more portrays Eudocia as a woman who held relics of martyrs, particularly those of St. Stephen, in highest esteem by building a church in Jamnia, in which she de- posited ‘[the relics] of Stephen, the head of the martyrs, of the Apostle Thomas, and of many holy martyrs’. 61 Vita Petri Iberi 33. For relevant information concerning the dating of Cyril of Alexan- dria's visit in Jerusalem to A.D. 438, see F. M. Abel, ‘Saint Cyrille d'Alexandrie dans ses rapports avec la Palestine’, in Kyrilliana – Spicilegia edita Sancti Cyrilli Alexandrini, XV recurrente saeculo 444-1944 (Cairo, 1944), pp. 205-230, here p. 207 and pp. 220-226. Abel's article is a useful exposition and discussion of Cyril's connections to Palestine. 184 CORNELIA B. HORN

Rufus used the opportunity provided by Cyril's visit to Jerusalem to con- nect Peter with the bishop, whose theology was the corner-stone of the anti- Chalcedonian faith. The historicity of Cyril's visit to Jerusalem is attested in his letter 70.62 Other important elements in this picture are Empress Eudo- cia, the powerful and wealthy patron of Palestinian anti-Chalcedonians,63 and, of course, the relics of many martyrs: those of St. Stephen, the first and therefore exemplary Christian martyr, those of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, and those of Peter's Persian martyrs. While one can join without doubt Elizabeth Clark in noticing a certain rivalry between authors and audiences in the differing accounts about which one of the noble ladies participating in the events had a closer affiliation with Cyril and the relics of St. Stephen,64 it is worthy noting that Peter's relics of the Persian martyrs are woven into the web of important relics of early martyrs. An anti- Chalcedonian, reading or listening to the Vita Petri Iberi, cannot miss the centrality of relics of martyrs and their veneration for Peter.

VENERATION OF RELICS OF MARTYRS VS. TRAVELS OF A PILGRIM

After the relics of the Persian martyrs were deposited on the Mount of Ol- ives, relics featured less prominently in the Vita Petri Iberi for a while. In the later part of the Vita Petri Iberi, however, they emerge once more when Rufus again brings up the theme of Peter as a life-long wanderer and pil- grim. During the last years of his life, Peter was traveling from north to south along the eastern Mediterranean coast.65 For a while he found a resting- 62 Cyril of Alexandria, Epistulae, PG, 77, here col. 341. The very incipit of this letter pro- vides the relevant information, stating, ‘While I stayed in Aelia…’. 63 For a study of Empress Eudocia's patronage for the Palestinian anti-Chalcedonians see most recently Cornelia Horn, ‘Empress Eudocia and the Monk Peter the Iberian: Patron- age, Pilgrimage, and the Love of a Foster-Mother in Fifth-Century Palestine’, unpublished manuscript of a paper presented at the North American Patristics Society Meeting, Chi- cago (May 2000). 64 Cf. Elizabeth A. Clark, ‘Claims on the Bones of Saint Stephen: The Partisans of Melania and Eudocia’, Church History, 51 (1982), pp. 141-156. 65 Before settling in Orthosias, Peter spent some time in the near-by city of Arca. Cf. Vita Petri Iberi 104-105. His visit to Arca had been announced by the apostle Andrew, who praised him as a foremost witness to the faith. Rufus states that the apostle Andrew was buried in the area and was highly venerated by the local population. Despite the lack of reference in Rufus, common knowledge concerning the apostle Andrew would have in- WEAVING THE PILGRIM'S CROWN 185

place in a salt depot in the vicinity of Orthosias, Phoenicia,66 where the rev- elation of the relics of the martyrs Lucas, Phocas, Romanus, and their com- panions took place.67 Rufus specifically mentions a garden as the location of the events.68 The martyrs themselves had announced their presence as guardians of the property and of its inhabitants to the gardener, ‘a gentle man, very simple, religious, and not married’.69 The martyrs instructed the gardener to obtain the help and prayers of Bishop Peter for their revelatio. The gardener should dig a hole, unearth their bones, and then hand over their relics to Peter.70 According to Rufus, the martyrs explicitly called Peter ‘Abba Peter, the Bishop, that one who is here on travels (b-akseniutha)’.71 Using the word akseniutha, the martyrs pointedly describe Peter’s wander- ings as a state of being away from home, a situation typical of a pilgrim. Rufus also speaks of him as ‘the blessed Peter, who loves the martyrs’.72 Em- phasizing Peter's saintly character, Rufus portrays him as motivated by a humble reluctance to take active part in helping with the revelation of the martyrs.73 When Peter learned that it was the martyrs' explicit wish that their relics should be handed over to him,

cluded an awareness of him having died a martyr's death, and particularly a martyrdom very similar to that of the apostle Peter, since both died by crucifixion. On Andrew see H. Schauerte, ‘Andreas, Apostel’, LThK, 1 (1957), cols. 511-513; B. Zimmerman, ‘André’, DAC, 1.2 (1924), cols. 2031-2034; on Arca see R. Janin, ‘2. Arca ou Arce’, DHGE, 3 (1924), cols. 1482-1483. 66 Vita Petri Iberi 106. Orthosias was located a few miles north of Tripolis, not in Sidon, as Clark seems to think, when she says that the ‘Vita Petri Iberi 106-109 … mentions the relics of Phocas as associated with the Sidon area’. Cf. Clark, ‘Claims on the Bones’, p. 149, n. 66. 67 It is difficult to find independent information on the martyrs Lucas and Romanus. Perhaps Phocas was the leader of the group. Of interest on Phocas are: Severus of An- tioch, Homily 72 ‘On the deposition of the sacred bodies of the holy martyrs and Phocas in the Church, called “Of Michae”’ (PO, 12, 71-89); the panegyric of Asterius of Amasea (PG 40.300-313); C. Van de Vorst and P. Peeters, ‘Saint Phocas’, AB, 30 (1911), pp. 252-295; and B. Kotter, ‘Phokas’, LThK, 8 (1963), col. 481, with further bibliographical information. 68 Vita Petri Iberi 106-107. One wonders if the passio of Phocas the gardener may have been Rufus's literary source or model for his composition of the respective section in the Vita Petri Iberi. The suspicion merits further investigation, which I will conduct in a sepa- rate study. 69 Vita Petri Iberi 107. 70 Vita Petri Iberi 107-108. 71 Vita Petri Iberi 107. 72 Vita Petri Iberi 107. 73 Vita Petri Iberi 107. 186 CORNELIA B. HORN

‘he began to weep, to cry out with groaning, and to say, “Who am I, one who is unworthy and the first of the sinners, that the saints are showing me such love? Or how can I receive them and take them around with me, since I am a stranger and a foreigner and I also do not have a single place, in which I would lay them and would honor them as they deserve?”’.74

At that stage of his life, Peter found it inappropriate to carry relics of mar- tyrs along on his travels. Given his by then permanent state of being a pil- grim and traveler, he could not possibly venerate the relics of the martyrs in a fixed locale. It was the heart of his concern. Increasingly, anti-Chalce- donians found themselves in the dilemma of not being able to stay at a given geographical location, including many of the Holy Places in the Holy Land, which were in the possession of Chalcedonians. They also could not provide the proper liturgical veneration demanded for relics of the martyrs– liturgy being of prime importance for anti-Chalcedonians,75 – because they were forced to be on the move and in hiding most of the time. Rufus engages the problem of not having a central locale. He points out that the local bishop of Orthosias was an honorable man, even if he was not an anti-Chalcedonian.76 Thus with assurance from God,77 Peter was in- spired to arrange for the following: He himself as a stranger and one who was moving from place to place ‘[could] not carry [the relics] and take them around to the saints’. The bishop of Orthosias, however, ‘[knew] how to honor them as they deserve and [how to] arrange for their deposition’.78 That was sufficient for Peter to entrust the relics to the Chalcedonian bishop.79 For the rest of his life, Peter cultivated and demonstrated his ‘faith and full conviction’ in the martyrs, here in particular the group found in

74 Vita Petri Iberi 108. 75 A claim, which I will have to study in another paper. 76 Vita Petri Iberi 106. 77 One may find it interesting that the Syriac here uses ‘plerophortna’, while in Rufus's later work, the Plerophoriae, these assurances from God never work in any way in favor of Chalcedonians. 78 Vita Petri Iberi 108. 79 The fact that Peter shows no scruples entrusting a Chalcedonian bishop with the care of the relics shows that the disputes between Chalcedonians and anti-Chalcedonians at that point did not necessarily affect the veneration of relics and saints. It seems that at least on a practical and devotional level the rift between the groups could still be bridged. WEAVING THE PILGRIM'S CROWN 187

Orthosias, when ‘he continuously made mention of them in the celebration of the holy mysteries and in his prayers’.80 The martyrs on their part, and here not only those of Orthosias, recognized him as one of their own, as will be shown in the following.

PETER ON A PAR WITH THE MARTYRS

When Peter and his companions stayed in the neighborhood of Tripolis, the martyr Leontius, whose martyrion was located in the port area of the city,81 one day appeared to him, addressed him as his ‘companion in [the] traveling’, and invited him to pray for the healing of a particular youth.82 Conscious of his unworthiness and sinfulness and in an expression of hu- mility, Peter returned the request for prayer to the martyr Leontius.83 In the end, the youth was healed. For Rufus that event indicated that Peter was to be considered as companion of the martyrs through his suffering and through the power of his prayer for healing.84 At the beginning of the Vita Petri Iberi, Rufus cast Peter already in the role of a confessor and martyr by talking about him as ‘a holy bishop and a confessor of the fear of God, and a multiple martyr’.85 At several instances throughout the Vita Petri Iberi Rufus inserted passing remarks that built up the image of Peter as a martyr. Peter was ordained a priest ‘on the memorial day of Victor, a martyr of fair victory’.86 When Bishop Theodosius of Jerusa- lem ordained him as bishop of Maiuma, he called out over all the ones who

80 Vita Petri Iberi 109. 81 Leontius, a military officer from Greece, is said to have suffered martyrdom in Tripolis (Phoenicia) under Vespasian, or perhaps later under Diocletian and Licinius. On Leontius, see Vita Petri Iberi 110-111; , Homily 27 (delivered on June 18, 513) [PO, 36, pp. 558-573], Homily 50, and a homily preserved in Coptic. , Vita Euthymii 68.25 [Price, Lives of the Monks of Palestine, p. 65] mentions the shrine of the martyr Leontius. See further F. Nau, ‘Les martyres de s. Léonce de Tripoli et de s. Pierre d'Alexandrie d'après les sources syriaques’, AB, 19 (1900), pp. 9-13; O. Volk, ‘Leontios, in Tripolis’, LThK, 6 (1961), col. 969 [further bibliography]; and G. Garitte, ‘Textes hagiographiques relatifs à S. Léonce de Tripoli’, Le Muséon, 78 (1965), pp. 313-348; 79 (1966), pp. 335-386; and 81 (1968), pp. 415-440. 82 Vita Petri Iberi 110. 83 Vita Petri Iberi 110. 84 Vita Petri Iberi 111. 85 Vita Petri Iberi 3. 86 Vita Petri Iberi 51. 188 CORNELIA B. HORN were to be ordained that he, Theodosius, was ordaining them ‘as martyrs and heralds of the orthodox faith’.87 In Rufus's account of how he made his first personal acquaintance with Peter, Rufus spoke of him as ‘the great Pe- ter, the living martyr’.88 Rufus's highest praise of Peter as a martyr occurs at the end of the Vita Petri Iberi. At that point both fellow anti-Chalcedonians as well as saints and martyrs in heaven recognized Peter as a martyr. Rufus explains that throughout his life Peter had had ‘great affection, faith, and love of the arch- priest and martyr’ Peter of Alexandria.89 At the annual commemoration of Peter of Alexandria, Peter the Iberian ‘was reciting in person the account of his martyrdom’,90 while during the holy sacrifice he would see Peter of Alex- andria ‘standing and serving as a priest together with him’.91 According to Rufus, it was God's custom that at the death of a saint the one among the saints in heaven, who was ‘equal … in manner and in zeal’ to the one who was dying, was sent to take the dying person up to heaven.92 At the time of Peter's death, the archbishop and martyr Peter of Alexandria came to take him away to heaven.93 Peter died on the third day of the com- memoration of Bishop Peter of Alexandria.94

WEAVING THE CROWN: PILGRIMAGE AND MARTYRDOM

At the very end of his life, Peter the Iberian stated that he wanted to ‘be perfected in a foreign country and weave also in the end the crown of a good pilgrimage’.95 The expression ‘weaving a crown’ is well known from

87 Vita Petri Iberi 53. 88 Vita Petri Iberi 82. 89 Vita Petri Iberi 131-132. 90 Vita Petri Iberi 132. 91 Vita Petri Iberi 132. Peter the Iberian would also follow very specific liturgical customs in regard to the adornment of the altar on that feast day. 92 Vita Petri Iberi 131. 93 Vita Petri Iberi 131 and 137. Athanasius, an Egyptian priest who had joined Peter the Iberian's community, even saw a vision in which Bishop Peter of Alexandria ‘standing on the tall judgment-seat, wearing … some white and splendidly shining stole’ delivered ‘in a loud voice … a homily of eulogies about the blessed Peter [the Iberian]’ while the dead saint's body was laid out on a bier in the center of the Church. Cf. Vita Petri Iberi 135- 136. 94 Vita Petri Iberi 136. 95 Vita Petri Iberi 122. WEAVING THE PILGRIM'S CROWN 189 early Christian martyrdom literature. By their struggles, sufferings, and death, confessors and martyrs were seen as weaving for themselves a crown of glory. Rufus himself attests to the usage of the terminology, when he states that Bakurios, Peter’s maternal grandfather, ‘once also wove the crown of confession, or rather according to his wish, even of martyrdom’.96 Suffer- ing numerous inconveniences and disadvantages on his constant travels, which were both chosen and forced upon him, Peter saw it as a way of be- coming like a confessor or even a martyr, i.e., like one who witnesses to Christ through giving his life, even more so, as a way of imitating Christ.97 In the Vita Petri Iberi Rufus portrays Peter in great detail as an ideal anti- Chalcedonian uniting in himself the experiences of pilgrimage and martyr- dom. Yet Peter was not the only anti-Chalcedonian, who had to undergo suffering and persecution. Throughout the Vita Petri Iberi, Rufus uses the vocabulary of martyrdom in reference to several other anti-Chalcedonians, almost in an attempt to provide the anti-Chalcedonian community with its own set of martyr heros, including Gerontius,98 Theodosius of Jerusalem,99 and Timothy Aelurus.100 Rufus even speaks of the people of Alexandria as being ‘inflamed by the zeal of a martyr’ when they engaged in battle and bloodshed with the imperial soldiers and murdered the Chalcedonian Bishop Proterius of Alexandria.101 In the case of some anti-Chalcedonians Rufus could point to an explict connection between martyrdom and pilgrimage. A young Jewish virgin from

96 Vita Petri Iberi 8. 97 Vita Petri Iberi 122. 98 Rufus speaks of Abba Gerontius as one who ‘showed … martyr-like zeal up to bonds and prisons and standing in front of judges’ and one who ‘was weaving the crown of confessorship’. See Vita Petri Iberi 32. 99 Rufus says about Bishop Theodosius of Jerusalem that he was ‘made perfect through confession and martyrdom in [Constantinople] in the times of the God-hating Emperor ’. See Vita Petri Iberi 62. 100 Vita Petri Iberi 65. Timothy Aelurus, in whose episcopal ordination Peter played a decisive role, is presented as ‘the holy Timothy, that famous confessor and true martyr’. Acknowledging that it is ‘God, who determines the contest for the saints and [who is] the just giver of the crown of martyrdom to those who are fighing on account of his name’, Rufus says that Timothy ‘had finished his course, had fought the good fight, and had guarded the apostolic faith up to the end without transgression, in great endurance, in calamities, in persecutions, in needs, in exiles, while he endured with constancy until death’. See Vita Petri Iberi 80. 101 Vita Petri Iberi 68. 190 CORNELIA B. HORN

Tyre, who became one of Peter's disciples and later on abbess of a large anti- Chalcedonian monastery for women, in baptism received the name Eugenia, ‘[b]ecause both in [her] way of life, in zeal and in self-denial at the same time, and in [her] travels (b-akseniutha) she was moved and was led [by] the fair victory of the martyr Eugenia’.102 In his later work, the Plerophoriae, Rufus says that after the expulsion of Bishop Theodosius of Je- rusalem, individual anti-Chalcedonians living in the neighborhood of Holy Places, which were under the control of Chalcedonians, found themselves in a dilemma. How could they stay on and worship at those Holy Places with- out compromising their anti-Chalcedonian convictions? Many of them felt they had to leave and engage in a life of constant traveling from place to place. Rufus presents the case of Constantine, sacristan of the Church of John the Baptist in Sebaste, Palestine.103 Once John the Baptist ensured him that he would be with him wherever he would have to go, Constantine de- cided not to compromise his faith. He left Sebaste and ‘kept himself with- out fault on the pilgrimage in a holy life and in the orthodox faith until the end, while he fought the good fight and wove the crown of confessor- ship’.104 Rufus seemed to have intended to use Constantine's case as well as earlier on the case of Peter the Iberian as examples to be imitated by fellow anti-Chalcedonians. Employing his literary talent, Rufus ably identified the reward, which the pilgrim gained for undertaking the labors of a pilgrimage, with the crown, which martyrs wove by dying for their faith. Joining these motives together, Rufus produced an exquisite and intriguing illustration of how in the anti- Chalcedonian perception different forms of journeying could be interpreted as martyrdom, and thus as immediately expressive of the anti-Chalcedonian experience of persecution at the hands of Chalcedonians.

102 Vita Petri Iberi 116. The martyr Eugenia seems to have suffered under Emperor Valerian in A.D. 258. According to Avitus of Vienne, Eugenia was a famous saint in the fifth century. I plan to discuss the role of the anti-Chalcedonian nun Eugenia among Peter's followers in a separate study. 103 For possible excavations of this church consult J. W. Crowfoot, ‘Churches at Bosra and Samaria-Sebaste’, British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, Supplementary Paper 4 (1937). I wish to thank Dr. Hanswulf Bloedhorn for supplying the reference. 104 Plerophoriae 29.