104 Chapter 2 This passage provides Elias’ motivation to make the pilgrimages just described by the hagiographer. In addition, this passage may be read as a general (‘theological’) defence of pilgrimage. In this apology, the author addresses potential scepticism towards pilgrimage and responds with a justification. Elias is not motivated to go on pilgrimage because he believed that divine presence is limited to certain places (οὐχ ὡς ἐν τόπῳ περίγραπτον τὸ Θεῖον οἰόμενος), the hagiographer stresses. With this comment the hagiographer might address reservations on pilgrimage by the audience. The idea that God is not circumscribed in any one place had been an argument used against pilgrimage in late antiquity, when various bishops and Christian intellectuals were debating the desirability of pilgrimage.335 That is, if God is not more accessible in any one place more than others, this would make pilgrimage futile. This argument was used by, for example, Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, Augustine and Evagrius. Instead of going on pilgrimage, these authors expressed, one should reach God by means of living a virtuous life and by inner spiritual progress.336 Perhaps, this debate had flared up again in the early tenth-century southern Italy, the context in which the author was writing. Whether this was a continued discourse from late antiquity onwards on the desirability of pilgrimage, a revival of such discourse by church fathers like Gregory of Nyssa, or a contemporary reaction to actual pilgrimage in southern Italy has not been studied so far. Thus, these options remain to be proven, but all are possible. Because some aspects of the historical context of pilgrimage in southern Italy are known, the expectations that the author could have had from the audience can be made more explicit. As for a contemporary reaction to pilgrimage, it may be noted at least that pilgrimage did take place in and through southern Italy. Many inhabitants of the region may have had first-hand experience with the phenomenon, as southern Italy itself boasted a popular and 335 See Bitton-Ashkelony (2005). 336 Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, Augustine and Evagrius all varied in their precise attitudes towards pilgrimage, but all expressed (variations) on the idea that God is not circumscribed in any one place. Gregory of Nyssa’s letter 2 argues that it is not desirable (for monks, and particularly nuns) to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem: ‘For the changing of one‘s place does not bring about any greater nearness to God’. Gregory of Nyssa, Letters 2.16, as translated in Silvas (2006), p. 121. According to Gregory, pilgrimage to Jerusalem is undesirable because of the (moral) dangers on the road, God is not more present there than in their own region (Cappadocia), there is much vice in Jerusalem which proves, according to Gregory, that there is not more divine grace to be found there than in other places and one’s faith is not made stronger by seeing the places connected to the life of Christ. Gregory of Nyssa, Letters 2.5-10; 2.15, in Silvas (2006), pp.118-121. Gregory does not completely separate place from divine presence, as he puts forward instead that the region of Cappadocia is much holier than the places in Jerusalem (Gregory of Nyssa, Letters 2.9; 15, in Silvas (2006), p. 119; p. 121). Jerome: ‘It is just as easy to reach the portals of Heaven from Britain as from Jerusalem’. Jerome, Letters 58, cited from Silvas (2016), p. 116. Augustine: ‘It is not by journeying but by loving that we draw near to God. We approach Him who is everywhere present and present wholly, not by our feet but by our hearts’ Augustine, Letters 155.672, cited from Silvas (2006), p.116; Evagrius: ‘You wrote [to me] that you dwell in the place that receives God […] You should realize that he stands in your midst […] and expects you to become Bethlehem through your deeds, and to become the Anastasis through the spiritual vision of the purity of the nature of your own created being, […]’. Evagrius, Letters 25.582, as translated in Bitton-Ashkelony (2005), pp. 171–172. For an overview and more detailed exploration of the ideas concerning pilgrimage, sacred space and inner spiritual progress by these authors, see Bitton-Ashkelony (2005).
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