Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity

Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity
Author: Jas' Elsner
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 533
Release: 2007-12-20
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0191566756

This book presents a range of case-studies of pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman antiquity, drawing on a wide variety of evidence. It rejects the usual reluctance to accept the category of pilgrimage in pagan polytheism and affirms the significance of sacred mobility not only as an important factor in understanding ancient religion and its topographies but also as vitally ancestral to later Christian practice.

Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman & Early Christian Antiquity

Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman & Early Christian Antiquity
Author: Jaś Elsner
Publisher:
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2005
Genre: Christian pilgrims and pilgrimages
ISBN: 9780191716713

From healing to oracles, from collective civic delegations to individual pilgrims seeking salvation, from localized sacred topographies to empire-wide travel, this title shows the importance of pilgrimage in pagan antiquity and its ancestry to later Christian practice.

Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt

Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt
Author: David Frankfurter
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 550
Release: 2015-08-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004298061

This volume deals with the origins and rise of Christian pilgrimage cults in late antique Egypt. Part One covers the major theoretical issues in the study of Coptic pilgrimage, such as sacred landscape and shrines' catchment areas, while Part Two examines native Egyptian and Egyptian Jewish pilgrimage practices. Part Three investigates six major shrines, from Philae's diverse non-Christian devotees to the great pilgrim center of Abu Mina and a Thecla shrine on its route. Part Four looks at such diverse pilgrims' rites as oracles, chant, and stational liturgy, while Part Five brings in Athanasius's and an anonymous hagiographer's perspectives on pilgrimage in Egypt. The volume includes illustrations of the Abu Mina site, pilgrims' ampules from the Thecla shrine, as well as several maps.

Encountering the Sacred

Encountering the Sacred
Author: Bruria Bitton-Ashkelony
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2005-12-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520241916

Annotation A study of the response (political and theological) of early Christian intellectuals to the widespread practice of pilgrimage to holy places in Palestine.

Pilgrimage and Economy in the Ancient Mediterranean

Pilgrimage and Economy in the Ancient Mediterranean
Author: Anna Collar
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2020-07-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004428690

Pilgrimage and Economy in the Ancient Mediterranean brings together diverse scholarship to explore the socioeconomic dynamics of ancient Mediterranean pilgrimage from archaic Greece to Late Antiquity, the Greek mainland to Egypt and the Near East.

The Memory of the Eyes

The Memory of the Eyes
Author: Georgia Frank
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 10
Release: 2000-05-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780520222052

Taking a new approach to these texts, Frank finds in them a record of the writers' and readers' spiritual expectations and uses insights to add to our understanding of the purposes and practices of pilgrimage.".

Plutarch on Literature, Graeco-Roman Religion, Jews and Christians

Plutarch on Literature, Graeco-Roman Religion, Jews and Christians
Author: Frederick E. Brenk
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2023-05-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9004532471

The present book includes sixteen studies by Professor Frederick E. Brenk on Plutarch on Literature, Graeco-Roman Religion, Jews and Christians. Of them, thirteen were published earlier in different venues and three appear here for the first time. Written between 2009 and 2022, these studies not only provide an excellent example of Professor Brenk’s incisiveness and deep knowledge of Plutarch; they also provide an excellent overview of Plutarchan studies of the last years on a variety of themes. Indeed, one of the most salient characteristics of Brenk’s scholarship is his constant interaction and conversation with the most recent scholarly literature.

Recognizing Miracles in Antiquity and Beyond

Recognizing Miracles in Antiquity and Beyond
Author: Maria Gerolemou
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 483
Release: 2018-04-23
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3110562618

In recent years, scholars have extensively explored the function of the miraculous and wondrous in ancient narratives, mostly pondering on how ancient authors view wondrous accounts, i.e. the treatment of the descriptions of wondrous occurrences as true events or their use. More precisely, these narratives investigate whether the wondrous pursues a display of erudition or merely provides stylistic variety; sometimes, such narratives even represent the wish of the author to grant a “rational explanation” to extraordinary actions. At present, however, two aspects of the topic have not been fully examined: a) the ability of the wondrous/miraculous to set cognitive mechanisms in motion and b) the power of the wondrous/miraculous to contribute to the construction of an authorial identity (that of kings, gods, or narrators). To this extent, the volume approaches miracles and wonders as counter intuitive phenomena, beyond cognitive grasp, which challenge the authenticity of human experience and knowledge and push forward the frontiers of intellectual and aesthetic experience. Some of the articles of the volume examine miracles on the basis of bewilderment that could lead to new factual knowledge; the supernatural is here registered as something natural (although strange); the rest of the articles treat miracles as an endpoint, where human knowledge stops and the unknown divine begins (here the supernatural is confirmed). Thence, questions like whether the experience of a miracle or wonder as a counter intuitive phenomenon could be part of long-term memory, i.e. if miracles could be transformed into solid knowledge and what mental functions are encompassed in this process, are central in the discussion.

Encountering the Sacred

Encountering the Sacred
Author: Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2005-12-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0520931122

This innovative study sheds new light on one of the most spectacular changes to occur in late antiquity—the rise of pilgrimage all over the Christian world—by setting the phenomenon against the wide background of the political and theological debates of the time. Asking how the emerging notion of a sacred geography challenged the leading intellectuals and ecclesiastical authorities, Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony deftly reshapes our understanding of early Christian mentalities by unraveling the process by which a territory of grace became a territory of power. Examining ancient writers' responses to the rising practice of pilgrimage, Bitton-Ashkelony offers a nuanced reading of their thinking on the merits and the demerits of pilgrimage, revealing theological and ecclesiastical motivations that have been overlooked, and questioning the long-held assumption of scholars that pilgrimage was only a popular, not an elite, religious practice. In addition to Greek and Latin sources, she includes Syriac material, which allows her to build a rich picture of the emerging theology of landscape that took shape over the fourth to sixth centuries.

Jewish Travel in Antiquity

Jewish Travel in Antiquity
Author: Catherine Hezser
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Total Pages: 552
Release: 2011
Genre: Eretz Israel
ISBN: 9783161508899

This book provides the first comprehensive study of Jewish travel and mobility in Hellenistic and Roman times, based on a critical analysis of Jewish, Graeco-Roman, and early Christian literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources and a social-historical evaluation of the material. Catherine Hezser shows that certain segments of ancient Jewish society were quite mobile. Mobility seems to have increased in the later Roman period, when an extensive road system facilitated travel within the province of Syria-Palestine and the neighbouring Middle Eastern regions. Second Temple Judaism was centralized, with Jerusalem as its central space and seat of priestly authority. In post-70 rabbinic Judaism, on the other hand, connections between rabbis could be established through mutual visits and second- and third-degree contacts only. Mobility formed the basis of the establishment of a decentralized rabbinic network in Palestine and Babylonia in late antiquity. Numerous narrative and halakhic traditions indicate the importance of mobility for communication and the exchange of knowledge amongst rabbis. It is argued that the rabbis who were most mobile sat at the nodal points of the rabbinic network and elicited the largest amount of influence. They would have combined business travel with scholarly exchange. Scholars' journeys between Palestine and Babylonia are viewed within the wider context of Rome and Persia's economic and cultural exchange in which Jews, just like Christians, may have played the role of intermediaries.