In:
Studies in Church History. Subsidia, Cambridge University Press (CUP), Vol. 10 ( 1994), p. 169-182
Abstract:
Although Jesus wept while mourning the inevitable destruction of the city (Luke 19. 41), and St Paul taught the Christians of Galaria to look for it not on earth, but in heaven (cf. Gal. 4.25-6), the Christian imagination has always been haunted by the city of Jerusalem. As early as the second century Melito of Sardis travelled to Jerusalem to see for himself ‘the place where these things were preached and done’. And as soon as Christianity became a licensed religion under the protection of the Emperor, Christians from all parts of the Empire began to flock to Jerusalem to see for themselves the holy sites ubi steterunt pedes eius , where once his feet stood (Ps. 132. 7) Churches were built to mark all the places mentioned in the Gospels, monasteries were founded to receive the pilgrims, and stories began to circulate about the spectacular conversions which happened to pilgrims while visiting the Holy Places, such as that of St Mary of Egypt who turned from a nymphomaniac into a desert mother on the very doorstep of the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Quite soon earnest Church Fathers like St Jerome and St Gregory of Nyssa, both of them pilgrims to Jerusalem, had to issue dire warnings that true Christianity was a matter of the heart and not of geography, and that a trip to Palestine might perhaps be helpful but certainly not necessary in order to find Christ.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0143-0459
,
2632-9913
DOI:
10.1017/S014304590000020X
Language:
English
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Publication Date:
1994
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