Encountering the Sacred The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity [Hardcover]

This innovative study sheds new light on one of the most spectacular changes to occur in late antiquitythe rise of pilgrimage all over the Christian worldby setting the phenomenon against the wide background of the political and theological debates of the time. Asking how the emerging notion of a sacred geography challenged the leading intellectuals and ecclesiastical authorities, Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony deftly reshapes our understanding of early Christian mentalities by unraveling the process by which a territory of grace became a territory of power.

Examining ancient writers' responses to the rising practice of pilgrimage, Bitton-Ashkelony offers a nuanced reading of their thinking on the merits and the demerits of pilgrimage, revealing theological and ecclesiastical motivations that have been overlooked, and questioning the long-held assumption of scholars that pilgrimage was only a popular, not an elite, religious practice. In addition to Greek and Latin sources, she includes Syriac material, which allows her to build a rich picture of the emerging theology of landscape that took shape over the fourth to sixth centuries.

Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony,Senior Lecturer in Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is coeditor ofChristian Gaza in Late Antiquity(2004).

Preface
Abbreviations

Introduction: Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity
1. Basil of Caesareas and Gregory of Nyssas Attitudes toward Pilgrimage
2. Jeromes Position on Pilgrimage: Vacillating between Support and Reservations
3. Augustine on Holy Space
4. Pilgrimage in Monastic Culture
5. Local Versus Central Pilgrimage
Conclusion

Bibliography
Primary Sources
Secondary Sources
Index

This book is certainly the most important study of early Christian pilgrimage in decades. Lucidly written, far-reaching, and theoretically informed. David Frankfurter, author ofRel&