ABSTRACT
Although Christianity was a religion originally grounded in a sense of time rather than place (Markus 1990: 139-42), it is understandable that some Christians should have developed an interest in visiting the locations where the Bible narratives were set. From the third century, there are the examples of Pionius (2.12 (4.18-20)) and Alexander of Cappadocia who went to Palestine ‘for the purpose of prayer and investigation of the [holy] places’ (Eusebius Church History 6.11.2), among others (Hunt 1982a: 3-4). During the fourth century, such journeys became more common. Following Constantine’s acquisition of the east in 324, it became much safer for Christians to travel to Palestine; Constantine himself took an interest in the region through his funding of church construction at various sites of Biblical significance, and his mother Helena popularised the idea through her pilgrimage there in the late 320s (Hunt 1982a: chs 1-2). The first surviving detailed first-hand account of a pilgrimage followed soon after (16.1). From the 360s or early 370s, there is evidence for a group of young women making the journey (16.2), while from the 380s there is the detailed record of the travels of a woman from the west (16.3). The particular part of her travels illustrated here was in the Sinai Peninsula, and there is documentary evidence for this remaining a focus for pilgrimage in the late sixth century (16.4). Enthusiasm for and approval of pilgrimage was not, however, shared by all, and in the late fourth century, an eminent bishop wrote an articulate critique of the practice (16.5).
