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Handout #60 |
A pilgrimage to the Holy Land at the end of the fourth century |
| The identity of
Egeria (or Etheria) is uncertain. In all probability she was a well-to-do
Spanish lady (from Galicia) who lived at the end of the fourth century.
She was perhaps a religious, or at least a virgin in the world, who
undertook a pilgrimages to holy places and gave an account of her journey
to her sisters. Her text gives us valuable information about the Christian
Middle East at the end of antiquity and on the liturgy of Jerusalem.
Moreover, Egeria shows us how credulity and piety give rise to the
identification of geographical locations for and souvenirs of events in
the Old and New Testament. Guides are always ready to satisfy the
curiosity of pilgrims.
It was about four o'clock by the time we had come right down the Mount and reached the Bush. This, as I have already said, is the Burning Bush out of which the Lord spoke to Moses, and it is the head of the valley with the church and all the cells. The Bush itself is in front of the church in a very pretty garden which has plenty of excellent water. Near by you are also shown the place where holy Moses was standing when God said to him, 'Undo the fastening of your shoes, and so on. Since it was already four in the afternoon by the time we got there, it was too late for us to be able to make the offering, but we had a prayer in the church and also in the garden by the Bush, and as usual the appropriate passage was read from the book of Moses. Then, because it was late, we had our meal with the holy men in the garden near the Bush, and stayed there for the night. .. (4.7f) (From Mount Nebo) we saw the whole country of the Sodomites ... We were also shown the place where Lot's wife had her memorial, as you read in the Bible. But what we saw, reverend ladies, was not the actual pillar, but only the place where it had once been. The pillar itself they say, has been submerged in the Dead Sea -at any rate we did not see it, and I cannot pretend we did, in fact it was the bishop there, the Bishop of Zoar who told us that it was now a good many years since the pillar had been visible ...(12. 6f). Then I remembered that according to the Bible it was near Salim that holy John baptized at Aenon (John 3.23). So I asked if it was far away. 'There it is, said the holy presbyter, 'two hundred yards away. If you like we can walk over there. It is from that spring that the village has this excellent supply of clean water you see.' Thanking him I asked him to take us, and we set off. He led us along a well-kept valley to a very neat apple-orchard, and there in the middle of it he showed us a good clean spring of which flowed in a single stream. There was a kind of pool in front of the spring at which it appears holy John Baptist administered baptism(15. 1f)Texts taken from Egeria's Travels ed. John Wilkinson, SPCK 1971. |
