Download PDF | (Italica Press historical travel series) Saint Jerome_ Mukaddasi of Jerusalem_ Nâsir-i-Khusrau - The Holy Land in the Middle Ages_ six travelers' accounts-Italica Press (2017).
410 Pages
Preface
In a region often caricatured by the images and rhetoric of crusade and jihad, it is important to realize that through most of its medieval history the Holy Land was host to countless curious and devout travelers of all three faiths. They sailed to the same ports, walked and rode the same roads, lodged in the same cities and towns and visited and revered the same secular and sacred sites.
To recall this fact and to celebrate the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new exhibition, “Jerusalem, 1000–1400: Every People under Heaven,” we have reissued The Holy Land in the Middle Ages in a new print edition. The following book offers important texts documenting these centuries of peaceful co-existence written by medieval Christian, Muslim and Jewish travelers to the Holy Land. There has been a revival of “crusade studies” in recent years, sometimes marked by contentious claims of “clash of civilizations,” the deeply violent nature of the religions of the book and the ineluctable structures of colonialism and militarism.
But the following accounts offer a different narrative: of devotion that goes beyond religious labels, of a mixture of peoples and faiths that left room for curiosity and for a practical tolerance of the other. As the following pages reveal, the narrators of these works were less interested in issues of religious contention, territorial domination or cultural hegemony and more in the history, legends, art and architecture, the sounds, smells and tastes, the peoples, products and goods, and in the topography and sacred geography of the Holy Land. These texts include:
• St. Jerome, The Pilgrimage of Holy Paula, c.382 CE
• Paula & Eustochium, Letter to Marcella on the Holy Places, 386
• Mukaddasi of Jerusalem, Description of Palestine, 985
• Nâsir-i-Khusrau, Diary of a Journey through Syria and Palestine, 1047
• Theoderich of Würzburg, Guide to the Holy Land, c.1172
• Benjamin of Tudela, Description of the Holy Land, from his Itinerary, c.1173.
Along with these texts we also present visual evidence: nearly one hundred black & white and color photos, historical drawings and prints, seven building plans, a gallery of nine city views of Jerusalem from the sixth to the sixteenth century, and a gallery of eight maps of the Holy Land from c.1200 to 1630. We have also included a concise, updated bibliography, offering reference works, primary sources and important secondary works. A lengthy and comprehensive index offers details of places, people and activities, with variant readings from the different editions and cross- and parallel-references.
Although there have been countless recent studies on every aspect of the medieval Holy Land, ranging from the crusade and jihad, to colonialism and trade, to art, architecture, music, food, daily life, material culture and religious belief and life, few new editions of the basic sources have appeared over the past thirty years since Italica Press began publishing its series on pilgrimage and medieval travel. The texts presented here — largely from the Palestine Pilgrims Text Society — remain the best available English translations of these works. We have therefore reissued them with their original prefaces and introductions.
In only one case, Theoderich’s Guide to the Holy Land, have we updated notes and bibliography to Ronald G. Musto’s original general introduction, first published in 1986. We hope that this collection will serve its readers well to both sample the variety and types of accounts available in the Middle Ages and to illustrate the cultural, mental and geographical worlds in which they were written. New York City November 2016
The Pilgrimage of the Holy Paula and the Letter of Paula and Eustochium
Introduction
The asceticism advocated with so much eloquence, by Ambrose at Milan and Jerome at Rome during the last quarter of the fourth century captivated the minds of Christians of all ranks. In Rome itself, where society was at the time under the influence of strong religious excitement, the opinions of Jerome were adopted with enthusiasm. Partly from love of novelty, partly from the striking contrast between the austere life of an ascetic and the dissolute manners of the age, asceticism became the fashion.
Many ladies of noble birth, renouncing the pleasures of society, devoted their lives to religious observances and their wealth to good works; while others wandered off to lead a life of seclusion in lands that had once been hallowed by the presence of Christ or performed long weary pilgrimages to places that had been the scene of some memorable event in sacred history. Among those who had been deeply moved by the preaching of Jerome were two ladies who afterwards became his most fervent disciples: Paula, a Roman matron of ancient lineage, great wealth, and high social rank; and Eustochium, her daughter, who, if we may believe her spiritual guide, was the first Roman maiden to take upon herself vows of virginity.
During the synod held at Rome, under Pope Damasus, Paula entertained as her guest Epiphanius, the venerable bishop of Salamis, in Cyprus, and frequently received at her house Paulinus, bishop of Antioch. The presence of these holy men appears to have turned Paula’s thoughts towards the East; at any rate, it was during their visit that she, a weak, fragile woman, who had hitherto lived a life of luxurious ease and been daintily borne from house to house by her eunuchs, determined to face the dangers and hardships of a journey to St. Paul and Anthony in the desert. When spring arrived, and the bishops returned to their churches, Paula distributed her wealth to her family,1 and, taking with her only Eustochium, accompanied them on their voyage.
Why she changed her mind and finally settled at Bethlehem, we are not told; but the change was perhaps not unconnected with the return of Jerome to Palestine on the death of Damasus. Paula, after living twenty years in Bethlehem, died there, at the age of fifty-six, in 404 ce, and as she left Rome in the spring of 382 ce, her pilgrimage must have lasted about two years.2 It seems probable from the frequent use of the first person that Paula was accompanied by Jerome during a certain portion of her pilgrimage3 ; and we may perhaps infer, from its first occurrence in connection with Joppa, that she met him at that place, or possibly at Caesarea Palaestina, on his return to Palestine.
The geographical value of the work is slight, but it supplies us with many interesting particulars of the places that a pilgrim of high social rank considered necessary to visit in the last quarter of the fourth century. Perhaps the most important notice is that of the tomb of Helena, queen of the Adiabeni, which is now the “Tombs of the Kings,” to the north of Jerusalem. From Rome Paula went down to the harbor, possibly Ostia, and thence, after bidding farewell to her children and relations, sailed for Cyprus. She stopped at Pontia (Ponza), Methone (Modon), Rhodes, and perhaps at Patara, in Lycia; and after reaching Cyprus, passed some time in visiting the numerous monasteries on the island. From Cyprus she crossed to Seleucia, near the mouth of the Orontes, and then proceeded to Antioch, whence, after a short stay, she traveled, in the depth of winter, through Coele Syria to Berytus, and onwards by the usual coast road to Ptolemais.
Here Paula appears to have left the coast, and to have followed the road across the plain of Esdraelon, “the plains of Megiddo” to Legio (Lejjûn), and thence to have crossed the hills to Caesarea Palaestina. She next visited Antipatris; Lydda, near which were Arimathea (Rantieh) and Nob (Beit Nûba); and Joppa. From this last place she returned to Emmaus — Nicopolis; and thence traveled by the Roman road through the Upper and Nether Bethorons to Gabaa (Gibeah of Benjamin); here she rested a short time before continuing her journey to Jerusalem by the great north road, which passes close to the tomb of Helena (Tombs of the Kings) and enters the city by the Damascus Gate.
At Jerusalem the proconsul, who was a friend of Paula’s family, ordered the Praetorium to be prepared for her reception: but, in true pilgrim spirit, she declined the proffered hospitality and preferred to live in a “lowly cell” during her stay in the Holy City. The only holy places and relics mentioned in the narrative are the Cross, the Tomb, the stone that was rolled away from the mouth of the Sepulcher, the church on Mount Sion, the column of the flagellation in the portico of the church, and the place where the Holy Ghost descended on the disciples. It may perhaps be inferred, from the allusion to the gates “fallen into cinders and ashes,” that, at the time of Paula’s visit, the old wall on Sion was still a heap of ruins and had not been rebuilt.
From Jerusalem Paula proceeded, by Rachel’s tomb, to Bethlehem, where she visited the “Grotto of the Savior” and was shown the inn, the stable, and the manger; she then went to the spot where the shepherds were keeping watch by night and afterwards passed by Philip’s fountain at Beit Sûr; Escol, and the oak of Abraham, to Hebron. On her return journey to Jerusalem she visited Caphar Barucha, whence she saw in the distance the country of Sodom and Gomorrah, Zoar, and Engaddi, and Thecua (Tekoa). Paula next traveled by Bethany and Adomim to Jericho, whence, after visiting Galgala and the fountain of Elisha, she went to the Jordan, to the spot where our Lord was baptized.
From the Jordan she ascended to Bethel, and then passing through Shiloh, Shechem, and Samaria, came to Nazareth, whence she made an excursion to Cana and Capharnaum. On her return she climbed Mount Tabor, and here there is a break in the narrative of the journey, which is taken up again at Sochot (Shuweikeh). Paula probably returned to Jerusalem by the north road, and thence proceeded to Sochot by the Gaza road; and Jerome, possibly, did not think it necessary to describe a second time well-known towns, such as Samaria, Shechem, Bethel, and Bethlehem, which he had already noticed.
From Sochot Paula went to Samson’s fountain, near Eleutheropolis, and the tomb of Micah at Morasthim; and then traveled by Maresa, Lachis, and the desert, to the Pelusiac branch of the Nile; she next passed through the land of Gessen (Goshen), and over the plains of Tanis on her way to Alexandria, whence she visited Nitria. After a short stay with the monks and ascetics of Nitria, she was seized with a longing to return to the holy places in Palestine, and taking ship at Pelusium, crossed the sea to Majuma, probably the Majuma of Gaza. From this port she went to Bethlehem, and there, for the next three years, she was busily occupied in building cells, monasteries, and inns for pilgrims.
Paula’s tact and patience, and her great capacity for management, are praised by St. Jerome, who also states that she was a good linguist, and had learned Hebrew that she might sing the Psalms in the original. During her residence at Bethlehem she spent all her fortune in charity and in the erection of buildings for charitable purposes; and before her death she became involved in debt. When she died, the whole Church gathered together to bear her to her last resting-place in the “Grotto of the Nativity.” The letter of Paula and Eustochium to Marcella appears to have been written during the first six years of the residence at Bethlehem.
It invites Marcella in glowing terms to join them in the Holy Land; contrasts the quiet seclusion of Bethlehem with the bustle and crowd of Jerusalem; and brings vividly before us the “enthusiastic delight with which these Roman ladies regarded every place and association in the Holy Land.” The letter indicates what route was considered desirable for pilgrims to follow and the holy places that they should see at the close of the fourth century.
The tour from Jerusalem over Olivet to the Jordan, and thence to Bethlehem and Hebron, is usual at the present day. From the south the pilgrim is apparently taken over the maritime plain to Samaria, and thence, after visiting Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee, is brought back by Shiloh and Bethel to Bethlehem. The notice of the Holy Places is not quite so full as that in the Pilgrimage of St. Paula; but allusion is made to the “Tomb of David,” which, though noticed by the Bordeaux Pilgrim, is not mentioned in the description of Paula’s Journey. Marcella, to whom the letter is addressed, was a wealthy Roman lady of illustrious family.
She had been much impressed by the teaching of Athanasius, when he was an exile in Rome, and in ce 374 had been confirmed in her ascetic tendencies by the Egyptian monk Peter. She is said to have been the first lady in Rome to make the monastic profession; and after the arrival of Jerome her palace became “a kind of convent, dedicated to the study of the Scriptures, and to psalmody and prayer.” Daily meetings were held, at which Jerome expounded the Scriptures to a circle of noble ladies, amongst whom Paula and Eustochium were prominent for their zeal and desire for knowledge.
Marcella4 resisted the efforts of her friends to draw her away from her charitable labors amongst the poor at Rome; and after a long life, devoted to good works, she died from the effect of injuries received during the sack of Rome by Alaric. The known MSS of the Perigrinatio Sanctae Paulae belong to the eleventh century; and a list of these, as well as of the principal printed editions, is given in the preface to the Itinera Hierosolymitana et Descriptiones Terrae Sanctae, vol. i., p. xvi., published by the Société de Orient Latin. C.W. Wilson
Link
Press Here
0 التعليقات :
إرسال تعليق