170 Chapter 3 Divine revelations legitimise the other main types of travel that occur in the narrative: pilgrimage, educational and professional mobility.569 These journeys are thus presented to be part of God’s will, and therefore beyond criticism. Moreover, Elias’ own intentions are represented as corresponding to God’s will, which make these beyond criticism as well. That is, in several places Elias is described to have an internal desire to go particular places, and only afterwards he received a divine revelation that serves to approve and thus legitimate his original intent. The emphasis on these divine revelations in the narrative, the emphasis that Elias’ own motives correspond to God’s will, and the general justifications of travel found in the narrative together might suggest that the hagiographer consciously put effort into legitimising Elias’ exceptional degree of mobility, which may point towards an anticipation of a more critical audience. To conclude, the way in which the hagiographers represented travel motivation is complex and the result of multiple perspectives. Despite these complexities, we could establish two main findings. First, the representation of travel motivation is used as a tool in the hagiographer’s toolbox to stress the monks’ sainthood. Second, examining the representation of travel motivation allowed us to conjecture two diverse normative standpoints regarding monastic mobility from the expected audiences of the hagiographical texts. 569 That is, journeys to visit pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 10), to become a monk (journeys 3, 8), and a journey to found a monastery (journeys 11, 16). Other categories include mobility due to loyalty of family connections (two of the three journeys overlap with involuntary mobility and the divine revelation to found a monastery, journeys 1 and 11), visiting sick people (journey 34) and diplomacy (25, 36). The journeys for which no motivation is provided could either be interpreted as stops in between (e.g., journey 12, 14, 15), or as local travel in the region of the monastery of Salinas (journeys 18 and 22). Journey 17 describes habitual travel. This passage was elaborately discussed in chapter 2, see section 2.4. See appendix 8.
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