the genuine Cross by the instrumentality of a miracle,
in addition to discovering the nails of the Crucifixion (Rufin.
i. 7, Socr i. 17, Sozomen. ii. 1; Theod. i. 17). It is impossible
to fix the date at which the supposititious relics were introduced
into the church of the Sepulchre: it is certain, however, that
in the 5th century the Cross was there preserved with scrupulous
reverence, and accounted the highest treasure of the
sanctuary.
After the 4th century, monks and nuns begin to form no inconsiderable part of the pilgrimages—a fact which is especially manifest from the numerous notices to be found in Jerome, and the narratives of Theodoret in the Historia religiosa. In fact, many were inclined to regard a journey to Jerusalem as the bounden duty of every monk-an exaggerated view which led to energetic protests, especially from Gregory of Nyssa, who composed a monograph on the pilgrimages (De iis qui adeunt Hierosol.). Jerome, like Gregory, insists on the point that residence in Jerusalem has in itself no religious value: it is not locality, but character, that avails, and the gates of Heaven are as open in Britain as in Jerusalem (Ep. 58, 3). These utterances, however, must not be misinterpreted. They are not directed against the pilgrimage in itself, nor even against the belief that prayer possesses special efficacy on sacred ground, but solely against the exaggerated developments of the system.
The theologians of the 4th and 5th centuries were at one with the masses in recognizing the religious uses of the pilgrimages Jerome in particular considered it an act of faith for a man to offer his prayers where the feet of the Lord had stood, and the traces of the Birth, of the Cross, and of the Passion were still to be seen (Ep. 47, 2).
We may gain some impression of the mood in which the pilgrims completed their journey, when we read how Paula, the friend of Jerome, expresses herself on her visit to the church of the Sepulchre: “ As oft as we enter its precincts we see the Saviour laid in the shroud, and the angel seated at the feet of the dead!” (Hieron. Ep. 46, 2). She assured Jerome that, in the church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, she beheld, with the eye of faith, the Christ-child wrapped in swaddling clothes (Ep 108, 10). But with these thoughts, others of an entirely different stamp were frequently blended. Pilgrimages were conceived as means to ensure an answer to particular prayers. So, for example, Eudocia, the wife of Theodosius II., vowed to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, if she should see her daughter married. (Socr. Hist. eccl. vii. 47). And, closely as this approaches to pagan ideas, the distinction between paganism and Christianity is completely obliterated when we find the hermit Julian and his companions travelling to Sinai in order to worship the Deity there resident (Theod. Hist. rel 2).
With the number of the pilgrims the number of pilgrim-resorts also increased Of Jerusalem alone Jerome relates that the places of prayer were so numerous that it was impossible to visit them all in one day (Ep. 46, 9). In the Holy Land the list was still longer: the natives were ready to show everything for which the foreigners inquired, and the pilgrim was eager to credit everything In her expedition to the East, the Paula mentioned above visited, among other places, Sarepta and Caesarea. In the first-named place she was shown the tower of Elijah, in the second, the house of Cornelius, that of Philip, and finally the grave of the four virgins. At Bethlehem she saw, in addition to the church of the Nativity, the grave of Rachel; at Hebron the hut of Sarah, in which the swaddling clothes of Isaac and the remains of Abraham's oak were on view (Hieron Ep. IO8). A similar picture is given in the Travels of the so-called Silvia Aquitana, who seems, in reality, to have been a Spanish nun, named Etheria or Eucheria. She went as a pilgrim to Jerusalem (c. 380), and from there traversed the whole of Palestine, in order to visit every site which was consecrated by memories of the Lord's earthly life. Nor did she neglect the scenes of patriarchal history. Of greater antiquity is the concise account of his travels by an anonymous pilgrim, who, in A.D. 333, undertook the journey from Bordeaux to Palestine. The Itinerary of the African Theodosius who visited the East between A.D. 520 and A.D. 530 is of later date (P. Geyer, Itin. hicrosol. saec. iv–viii.).
While pilgrim-resorts were thus filling the East, their counterparts began to emerge in the West. And here the starting point is to be found in the veneration of martyrs Care for the tombs of martyrs was sanctioned by immemorial custom of the Church, but, in this case also, a later age failed to preserve the primitive conception in its purity; and Augustine himself was obliged to defend the usage of the Church from the imputation that it implied a transference of heathen ceremonial to the sphere of Christianity (Contr. Faust. xx. 21). The martyrs were the local heroes of particular communities; but there were men whose life and death were of significance for the whole of Christendom-the apostles. Of these Peter and Paul had suffered martyrdom in Rome, and it was inevitable, from the nature of the case, that their graves should soon become a resort, not only of Romans born, but of strangers also. True, the presbyter Caius (c. 200) who first mentions the situation of the apostolic tombs on the Vatican and the road to Ostia, and refers to the memorials there erected, has nothing to say of foreign Christians journeying to Rome in order to visit them. And though Origen travelled to Rome, it was not to view the graves of dead men, but to establish relations with the living flock (Euseb. Hist. eccl. 25, 7; vi. 14, IO); still, it is certain that the Roman cemeteries were visited by numerous pilgrims even in the 3rd century: for the earliest graffiti in the papal crypt of the Coemeterium Callisti must date from this period (De Rossi, Roma soiter. i. 253 sqq; Kraus, Rom. Sott. 148 sqq). And if the tombs of the popes were thus visited, so much more must this hold of the tombs of the apostles. After these, the most frequented resort at Rome in the 4th century was the grave of Hippolytus. The poet Prudentius describes how, on the day of the martyr's death, an innumerable multitude of pilgrims flocked round the site. Even on ordinary days arrivals and departures were almost incessant—foreigners being everywhere seen mingled with the native Latins. They poured balsam on the sepulchre of the saint, washed it with their tears, and covered it with their kisses, in the belief that they were thus assuring themselves of his intercession or testifying their gratitude for his assistance. Prudentius says of himself, that whenever he was sick in soul or body, and prayed there, he found help and returned in cheerfulness: for God had vouchsafed His saint the power to answer all entreaties (Perist. xi. 175 sqq). Paulinus of Nola (d. 431) concurs—his custom being to visit Ostia each year, and Rome on the apostolic anniversaries (Ep. 20, 2; 45, 1). Next to Rome the most popular religious resort was the tomb of Felix of Nola (August. Ep 78, 3), while in Gaul the grave of St Martin at Tours drew pilgrims from all quarters (Paul. Nol. Ep. 17, 4). Africa possessed no sanctuary to compete with these; but we learn from Sulpicius Severus (c. 400) that the tomb of Cyprian seems to have been visited even by a Gaul (Dial. i. 3).
The motive that drew the pilgrims to the graves of the saints is to be found in the conviction, expressed by Prudentius, that there divine succour was certain; and hence came the belief in a never-ending series of miracles there performed (cf., cg. Ennod. Ticin. Lib. pro syn. p. 315). Doubt was unknown. St Augustine observes that, though Africa was full of martyrs tombs, no miracle had been wrought at them so far as his knowledge extended. This, however, did not lead him to doubt the truth of those reported by others—a fact that is somewhat surprising when we reflect that the phenomenon caused him much disquiet and perplexity. Who, he asks, can fathom the design of God in ordaining that this should happen at one place and not at another? And eventually he acquiesces in the conclusion that God, who gives every man his individual gift at pleasure, has not willed that the same powers should have efficacy at every sepulchre of the saints (Ep. 78, 3).
IV. The Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages.—The medieval Church
