Anne McGowan and Paul F. Bradshaw
Liturgical Press Academic, 2018.
This book is a record of a pilgrim to the Holy Land in the 4th Century, and is a source of historical information on the worship of the Early Church.
I had visions of being able to take the book with me on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to use it to compare the sites I was visiting today to how they were described in the 4th Century. Sadly, this is not that sort of book, there are few maps and no references to the sites today. Egeria wasn’t writing a travel guide anyway. There is an Appendix of seven pages on the journal of a Pilgrim from Bordeaux in the year 333 which is better at describing the location of various sites, though again, no maps are provided and there are no references of whether any of what was described in the 4th Century is still visible today.
The book is heavy going. It has a 101 page introduction, including a long, rather unnecessary, discussion of whether Egaria’s trip meets the technical definition of “pilgrimage”. Then in the 94 pages of the journal itself, the technical footnotes often take up more space than the journal itself.
Egeria’s journal is probably only really of interest to specialist historians – and that isn’t me – but what I did find impressive was Egeria’s total faith and devotion. When she visits a holy site she is absolutely convinced that what is described in the Bible is literally what happened – perhaps that was easier for her as she closer to the time of the events themselves – and she always offers prayers at every place.
In terms of issues that might have a contemporary interest a couple of things I picked up on were:
Some people say that there used to be women priests in the Early Church and this was later suppressed. But there is no indication of that in Egeria’s journal. She records a system of male bishops, priests and deacons; and female deaconesses (which is a role of oversight and ministry but not a bishop). e.g.:
“I arrived at a city that is called Seleucia in Isauria. When I arrived there, I went to the bishop, truly holy from the time when he was a monk; […] I found […] a holy deaconess by the name of Marthana, whom I had known at Jerusalem, where she had gone up for the sake of prayer; she was governing cells of apotactitae or virgins.” (page 147).
Some ‘high’ Anglican churches today have ‘veneration of the cross’ where the congregation come and kiss the cross at Easter. Most Anglican churches don’t do this perhaps because it might feels a bit like worshipping an idol, rather than a physical acknowledgment of Christ’s sacrifice for us. But the practice does have Early Church support:
“the wood of the cross and the inscription are placed on the table […] the bishop grasps the ends of the holy wood with his hands, and the deacons who stand around it guard it […] all the people coming one by one, both the faithful and the catechumens, bowing at the table, kiss the holy wood and pass through.” (p.176.)
Adrian Vincent. November 2020.