§ 89. PK0CESSI0N8 AND PILGRIMAGES. 467
Jews went up annually to Jerusalem at their high festivals as afterward the Mohammedans went to Mecca. The heatheii also built altars over the graves of their heroes and made pil grimages thither.' To the Christians those places were most interesting and holy of all, where the Eedeemer was born, Buffered, died, and rose again for the salvation of the world.
Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land appear in isolated cases even in the second century, and received a mighty impulse from the example of the superstitiously pious empress Helena, the mother of Constantino the Great. In 326, at the a^e of eeventy-nine, she made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, was baptized in the Jordan, discovered the holy cross, removed the pagan abominations and built Christian churches on Calvary and Olivet, and at Bethany.^ In this she was liberally supported by her son, in whose arms she died at Nicomedia in 32Y. The influence of these famous pilgrims' churches extended through the whole middle age, to the crusades, and reaches even to most recent times,'
The example of Helena was followed by innumerable pilgrims who thought that by such journeys they made the salvation of their souls more sure. They brought back with them splinters from the pretended holy cross, waters from the Jordan, earth from Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and other genuine and spurious relics, to which miraculous virtue was ascribed."
Several of the most enlightened church fathers, who approved pilgrimages in themselves, felt it necessary to oppose a superstitious estimate of them, and to remind the people that religion might be practised in any place. Gregory of ISTyssa shows that pilgTimages are nowhere enjoined in the Scriptures, and are especially unsuitable and dangerous for women, and draws a very unfavorable picture of the immorality prevailing at places of such resort. " Change of place," says he, " brings
* " Religiosa cupiditas est," says Paulinus of Nola, Ep. 36, " loca videre, in quibus Christus ingressus et passus est et resurrexit et unde ascendit."
' Euseb., Vita Const, iii. 41 sq., and De locis Ebr. s. v. Bethabara.
* Recall the Crimean war of 1854-'56.
* Thus Augustine, De civit. Dei, xxii. 8, is already found citing examples of Iht Bupematural virtue of the terra sancia of Jerusalem.
i68 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
God no Dearer. Where thou art, God will come to thee, if tlie dwelling of thy soul is prepared for him." ' Jerome describes with great admiration the devout pilgrimage of his friend Paula to the East, and says that he himself, in his Bethlehem, had adored the manger and birthplace of the Kedeemer ; ' but he also very justly declares that Britain is as near heaven aa Jerusalem, and that not a journey to Jerusalem, but a holy living there, is the laudable thing.'
jSJext to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and other localities of the Holy Land, Rome was a preeminent place of resort for pilgrims from the West and East, who longed to tread the threshold of the princes of the apostles i^iimina aj^ostolorum). Chrysostom regretted that want of time and health prevented him from kissing the chains of Peter and Paul, which made devils tremble and angels rejoice.
In Africa, Hippo became a place of pilgrimage on account of the bones of St. Stephen ; in Campania, the grave of St. Felix, at Nola ; in Gaul, the grave of St. Martin of Tours (+397). The last was especially renowned, and was the scene of innu merable miracles.* Even the memory of Job drew many ])ilgrims to Arabia to see the ash heaji, and to kiss the earth, where the man of God endured so much.'*
In the Roman and Greek churches the practice of pilgrimage to holy places has maintained itself to the present day. Protestantism has divested the visiting of remarkable places, con-
' Epist. ad Ambrosium et Basilissam.
' Adv. Ruffinura uliuna Responsio, c. 22 (0pp. ed. Vail. torn. ii. p. 551), where he boastfully recounts his literary journeys, and says: "Protinus concito gradu Bethlehem meam reversus sum, ubi adoravi praesepe et incunabula Salvatoris." Comp. his Vita Paulae, for her daughter Eustochium, where he describes the pilgrimstations then in use.
° Epist. Iviii. ad Paulinum (0pp. cd. Vallarsi, torn. i. p. 318; in the Bened. ed. it is Ep. 49; in the older editions, Ep. 13): "Non Jenisolymis fuisse, sed Jerusolymis bene vixisse, laudandum est." In the same epistle, p. 310, he commends iha blessed monk llilarion, that, though a Palestinian, he had been only a day in Jerusalem, " ut nee contemnere loca sancta propter viciniam, nee rursus Dominum loco claudere vldcretur."
* The Huguenots in the sixteenth century burnt the bones of St. Martin, as objects of idolatry, and scattered their ashes to the winds.
• So Chrysostom relates, Horn. v. de ftatiis, § 1, torn. iL f. 69 : Iva tJjv Kopxiat iKfiynv 'Sucn koI dtaaai^ivoi KaTa<pi\r)<rw(n rrji' yvv.