A Re-Evaluation of Early Christian Pilgramage The Letters of Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, and Egeria

Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Marks, Susan

Keywords

Pilgramage, Christianity, Late Antiquity

Area of Concentration

Religion

Abstract

How did the earliest Christian pilgrims conceive of their practice? This thesis analyzes the motivations and interests of three fourth-century CE Christian pilgrims through a close reading of their surviving letters. The first chapter discusses the limitations of contemporary scholarship on pilgrimage and elaborates on the difficulties in treating these early pilgrims as a cohesive group. The second and third chapters provide close readings of the letters of Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, and Egeria, illuminating the diverse and sometimes contradictory ways in which these three pilgrims conceived of their journeys.� Although each author consistently expresses a concern over personal piety, the individual experiences of these pilgrims during and after their pilgrimages led to a highly individualized conception of the pilgrimage enterprise. Acknowledging the variety of opinions presented in these letters allows us to gain a much richer understanding of this initial phase of Christian pilgrimage.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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