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Weaving the Crown of Pilgrimage: The Spiritual and Polemical Dimensions of Pilgrimage and the Holy Places from an Anti‐Chalcedonian Perspective

Cornelia B. Horn

in Asceticism and Christological Controversy in Fifth-Century Palestine: The Career of Peter the Iberian

This chapter examines the role of the Holy Land as a singular setting for the Christological controversies in the 5th century. In the context of pilgrimage to the numerous holy places, Peter’s own ... More

This chapter examines the role of the Holy Land as a singular setting for the Christological controversies in the 5th century. In the context of pilgrimage to the numerous holy places, Peter’s own role as a pilgrim to the Holy Land comes into focus. The spiritual and political implications of his personal pilgrimage as well as the sensitivities of anti-Chalcedonians concerning the fact that the holy places were in the hands of ‘heretical’ Chalcedonians are crucial to understand both Peter’s role as well as the model held out for future generations by Rufus.Less

Replacing Sacred Space

Gordon Graham

in The Re-enchantment of the World: Art versus Religion

This chapter draws a distinction between holy places and sacred spaces, and examines the ability of architecture as an art to create a secular equivalent of the latter — ‘enchanted space’ as an ... More

This chapter draws a distinction between holy places and sacred spaces, and examines the ability of architecture as an art to create a secular equivalent of the latter — ‘enchanted space’ as an alternative to sacred space. It gives special attention to the idea that the fittingness of a building is related to its appropriation for a specific use.Less

The Keys

Raymond Cohen

in Saving the Holy Sepulchre: How Rival Christians Came Together to Rescue Their Holiest Shrine

This chapter examines the impact of the Six-Day War on the restoration work at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The announcement that the war had started came in the morning of June 5, 1967 and the ... More

This chapter examines the impact of the Six-Day War on the restoration work at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The announcement that the war had started came in the morning of June 5, 1967 and the workers at the Holy Sepulchre decided to place important materials and equipment in a safer place. When paratroopers entered the Old City in June 7, the church was spared from any harm. Jerusalem was later captured and Pope Paul VI proposed that Jerusalem be declared an open city and a refuge for the defenseless and the wounded. On June 26, he proposed that the city have its own internationally guaranteed statute and on July 1, the United Nations (UN) observer called for an international regime for the protection of Jerusalem and its holy places.Less

Paris Before Genovefa: The Landscape Enters History

Lisa M. Bitel

in Landscape with Two Saints: How Genovefa of Paris and Brigit of Kildare Built Christianity in Barbarian Europe

This chapter sets up the book’s main argument by explaining how people in ancient Europe interpreted their landscapes and holy places. Fifth-century Parisians understood their city in several ... More

This chapter sets up the book’s main argument by explaining how people in ancient Europe interpreted their landscapes and holy places. Fifth-century Parisians understood their city in several different ways: as a moderately important military and imperial administrative center, as one point in a larger economic network, and as a collection of sacral sites. These three ways of looking at Paris would become important to the story of Gauls’ christianization and Saint Genovefa’s part in it.Less

Pilgrims and the Eye of Faith

Georgia Frank

in The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity

This chapter focuses on pilgrims to the holy places and how they construed their sensory engagement with the holy sites. Significant here is their understanding of the “eye of faith,” an expression ... More

This chapter focuses on pilgrims to the holy places and how they construed their sensory engagement with the holy sites. Significant here is their understanding of the “eye of faith,” an expression that stood for a broad range of visual and visionary experiences, including instances of conjuring and participating in events from the biblical past. Beyond demonstrating the primacy of sight at the holy places, the chapter also asks what qualities of seeing constitute the “eye of faith.” Why fourth-century pilgrims associated their most transformative moments with vision becomes a more complex problem when one considers the increasing use of touch in accounts from later centuries. What at first appears as a rupture or shift in the use of the senses at the holy places turns out to be a radical realization of cultural assumptions about the materiality of vision in late antiquity, a notion with profound implications for pilgrims' relation to the past.Less

1 Loca sacra: Religion and the Landscape before the Reformation

Alexandra Walsham

in The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland

This chapter examines the relationship between religion and the landscape of the British Isles from the prehistoric era to the eve of the Reformation. It explores the sacred geography of ancient ... More

This chapter examines the relationship between religion and the landscape of the British Isles from the prehistoric era to the eve of the Reformation. It explores the sacred geography of ancient paganism and analyses how this was simultaneously repudiated and appropriated by missionaries and church authorities in the era of Christianization. The process by which the landscape was overlaid with legends about the Christian faith and the cult of saints is traced, alongside the ways in which it became a focus for pilgrimage, devotion, and the pursuit of miracles. The chapter also assesses the enduring current of anxiety about ‘superstitious’ belief and practice linked with holy places and shows how this culminated in humanist and lollard critique. It suggests that a focus on the landscape emphasizes both the vibrancy of late medieval piety and highlights some significant frictions and tensions within it.Less

Pilgrims to the Living in Context

Georgia Frank

in The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity

This chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to explore the religious sensibilities of pilgrims who journeyed to visit living saints. Two works are central to this investigation: The ... More

This chapter sets out the purpose of the book, which is to explore the religious sensibilities of pilgrims who journeyed to visit living saints. Two works are central to this investigation: The History of the Monks in Egypt, an anonymous description by a Jerusalem monk written in the final years of the fourth century, and the Lausiac History (ca. 420) by Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis. These travelogues provide the most extensive firsthand accounts we have of pilgrims' journeys. The discussion then covers tales of the monks, pilgrimages to the biblical holy places, pilgrims and sensory piety, and the culture of visibility. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less

Holiness

Menachem Kellner

in Maimonides' Confrontation with Mysticism

This chapter addresses the question of what holiness is. This question has very rarely been asked of Jewish texts, perhaps because the notion of holiness is so pervasive in Judaism that asking Jewish ... More

This chapter addresses the question of what holiness is. This question has very rarely been asked of Jewish texts, perhaps because the notion of holiness is so pervasive in Judaism that asking Jewish texts about the nature of holiness is like asking fish about the nature of water. Maimonides held a different view of holiness. Holiness is the name given to a certain class of people, objects, times, and places which the Torah marks off. According to this view, holiness is a status, not a quality of existence. This sort of holiness does not reflect objective reality; it helps constitute social reality. Holy places, persons, times, and objects are indubitably holy, and must be treated with all due respect, but they are, in and of themselves, like all other places, persons, times, and objects. What is different about them is the way in which the Torah commands that they be treated. Their sanctity derives from the uses to which they are put; in that sense, it is teleological.Less

The Yādavas’ God

Ramchandra Chintaman Dhere

in Rise of a Folk God: Vitthal of Pandharpur

This chapter describes the living forms of the pastoralist cults that lie behind the cult of Viṭṭhal. The chapter discusses the predominance of pastoralists in the population, ecology, and cultural ... More

This chapter describes the living forms of the pastoralist cults that lie behind the cult of Viṭṭhal. The chapter discusses the predominance of pastoralists in the population, ecology, and cultural traditions of Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, and the large number of kings and dynasties called “Yādavas” who contributed to the rise to prominence of the cult of Viṭṭhal. Most of these dynasties arose from pastoralist groups and took the name Yādava in order to raise their status by connecting themselves with Kṛṣṇa's clan. Finally, the chapter presents narratives, rituals, and holy places connected with the pastoralists' Viṭṭhal, who is paired with his brother Birappā. Dhere uses the fact that the Dhangar's Viṭṭhal-Birappā coexists with the Viṭṭhal of the Marathi poet-saints to illustrate how Hindu traditions are able to develop and change, while at the same time preserving intact each stage along the course of their development.Less

Introduction

Catharine Cookson

in Regulating Religion: The Courts and the Free Exercise Clause

Often, competing worldviews or “frameworks” (as described by political philosopher Charles Taylor) are at the heart of free exercise conflicts. This chapter uses the trope or myth of “wilderness” as ... More

Often, competing worldviews or “frameworks” (as described by political philosopher Charles Taylor) are at the heart of free exercise conflicts. This chapter uses the trope or myth of “wilderness” as a tool for understanding how the same concept can be interpreted in contrary ways: wilderness as a holy place of purification, as an empty place to cultivate and make bloom, or as a dangerous, licentious, uncontrolled place where anarchy rules. The myth enables us to understand how people can approach the same activity/phenomenon with such drastically different unexamined assumptions, and how there may be different ramifications, meanings, and consequences depending upon the framework in which the religious behavior is initially and intuitively viewed.Less

Final Comments: Spacial and Temporal Sanctity

Daniella Talmon-Heller

in Sacred Place and Sacred Time in the Medieval Islamic Middle East: An Historical Perspective

This chapter shifts from the 'microscopic' to the 'macroscopic' perspective, to make several observations on medieval Islamic constructions of the 'sacred'. It demonstrates similarities between the ... More

This chapter shifts from the 'microscopic' to the 'macroscopic' perspective, to make several observations on medieval Islamic constructions of the 'sacred'. It demonstrates similarities between the understanding of sacred place and time, points out the common vocabulary describing them, and lists the shared set of rites performed in them. Recurrent themes - such as references to the benevolent presence of angels, events of sacred history, the apparition of holy men, the remittance of sins, God's excessive mercy and baraka - are noted here. The chapter also summarizes the opinions of the Hanbali-Sunni Ibn Taymiyya and the Shiʿi Ibn Tawus on these beliefs and practices. Notwithstanding pious devotions, festivities associated with sacred times and places served also political ends, communal purposes, and the formation of identities.Less

Journeying to the Centre of the World

in The Holy Land Reborn: Pilgrimage and the Tibetan Reinvention of Buddhist India

The Tibetan emperors of the late eighth and early ninth centuries astutely followed the example set by many of their immediate neighbors and adopted Buddhism as a religion of court and state. This ... More

The Tibetan emperors of the late eighth and early ninth centuries astutely followed the example set by many of their immediate neighbors and adopted Buddhism as a religion of court and state. This chapter looks at the origins of pilgrimage as a type of post-imperial Tibetan ritual. It shows how the actual practice of pilgrimage to India, together with an ongoing influx of new Buddhist ideas from India into Tibet, allowed for unprecedented Tibetan ways of understanding and representing India as a “holy land,” as an esteemed place of cultural origins, and even as the center of the Tibetan universe. It also examines the now common assumption about the importance of the “eight great holy places” as a living pilgrimage tradition practiced by real Buddhists in an Indian past. Accounts of Tibetan pilgrims going to India are most often found in the genre of religious biography or hagiography known as namthar (rnam thar) in Tibetan, which frequently offer full-length portrayals of the lives of Buddhist monks, lamas, or even laypersons.Less

14. The Vatican and Israel

Cardinal Achille Silvestrini

in The Catholic Church and the Jewish People: Recent Reflections from Rome

This chapter examines the diplomatic relations between Israel and the Vatican. In this relationship, we are talking of the Holy See, which is the expression of the highest authority of the Catholic ... More

This chapter examines the diplomatic relations between Israel and the Vatican. In this relationship, we are talking of the Holy See, which is the expression of the highest authority of the Catholic Church (a religious reality). We are also talking of the State of Israel, a state that at the international level is a state like any other, but which at the same time has a special characteristic to the extent that its birth was connected with the return of the Jewish people to their ancestral land (another religious reality). Just on the basis of the uniqueness of the two parties, one may intuit the complexity of their relationship, of which the diplomatic relationship is the formal, conclusive act, but an act that was preceded by a long history. In this history, three aspects are decisive: the relationship between the Church and the Jews; the attention, the solicitude, on the part of the Holy See for the holy places in Jerusalem; and the wars and the prospects for peace in the region.Less

The Sinai as Christian Space

Walter D. Ward

in Mirage of the Saracen

The monks who settled the Sinai did so because of the region’s connections to the Exodus, and this chapter examines how these monks created a Christian Sinai by identifying contemporary locations ... More

The monks who settled the Sinai did so because of the region’s connections to the Exodus, and this chapter examines how these monks created a Christian Sinai by identifying contemporary locations with sites mentioned in the Exodus account. Three major sites were identified: Elim, Raphidim, and Mount Sinai. Biblical readings were employed to locate these sites, and local topographic features were believed to prove the historicity of the Biblical account. Elim is particularly instructive because several authors place it at different locations in the Sinai, at first in the northwest of the peninsula and later at the monastic community at Rhaithou. By labelling Sinai locations with Christian names, the monks replaced the nomadic understanding of the Sinai with a Christian topography and created a Christian holy place.Less

Two More Maps of Israel’s Land

Rachel Havrelock

in River Jordan: The Mythology of a Dividing Line

This chapter discusses the Rabbinic period and how its literature contends that the Jordan is a frontier. In the Babylonian context, the land is not the “real” space of Israel's requisite ... More

This chapter discusses the Rabbinic period and how its literature contends that the Jordan is a frontier. In the Babylonian context, the land is not the “real” space of Israel's requisite inhabitance, but rather an imagined holy place that bears traces of the collective Israel. This chapter analyzes two mappings that cite the Jordan as a border, both of which are parallel navigations of the land of Israel's waterways that arise in different contexts and arrive at different endpoints. The first mapping appears in the Babylonian Talmud Tractate Bekhoroth 55a, where a discussion elaborates upon the principles of animal tithing recorded in the Mishnah. The second mapping transpires amidst the tall tales of the Babylonian Talmud Tractate Baba Bathra 74b, in which the world's waters appear as a liminal space where features of creation and the eschaton become visible.Less

Demons and Witches

Marek Tuszewicki

in A Frog Under the Tongue: Jewish Folk Medicine in Eastern Europe

This chapter talks about demons and witches. People believed that an illness or other health issue could be the work of supernatural beings such as demons, devils, or witches. These creatures were ... More

This chapter talks about demons and witches. People believed that an illness or other health issue could be the work of supernatural beings such as demons, devils, or witches. These creatures were thought to do their mischief not by directly entering the victim's body, but usually by using magic. In the popular imagination, humans were constantly surrounded by demons and the like, though not all of these creatures drew satisfaction from making mischief. Ghosts and demons were thought to inhabit specific places, or to be in the habit of behaving in particular ways, and, left in peace, they would not interfere in human affairs. In the folk consciousness, any interference in a sphere perceived to be the domain of unclean forces was bound to render the meddler vulnerable to a more or less violent reaction on the part of those forces. The practical ramifications of this belief were visible in superstitions surrounding matters such as building and moving into a house. Places considered holy and which were reserved for the enactment of rites and rituals were by no means out of bounds to incorporeal beings. There is also a belief there were demons who, at the request of the rebbe, would protect the Jewish community from the local squire's insatiable greed. Almost every type of demon could be persuaded to help humans, and whether or not one was successful in this mission depended chiefly on one's cunning. Nonetheless, the dominant trope in folk tales is of demons harming or causing damage to humans, and even bringing death on them.Less

Ancestors and Agriculture: A Spiritual Self

E. Fuller Torrey

in Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods: Early Humans and the Origins of Religion

This chapter describes what has been called “the first human-built holy place”, probably used for ancestor worship. At the same time modern Homo sapiens began domesticating plants and animals and ... More

This chapter describes what has been called “the first human-built holy place”, probably used for ancestor worship. At the same time modern Homo sapiens began domesticating plants and animals and coming together to form villages and towns. As ancestor worship became more formalized “skull cults” emerged. As population increased, the ancestors were assigned places in a hierarchy with the highest eventually emerging as the first gods.Less

Pilgrims and Shrines in the Colonial Age

Ian Talbot and Tahir Kamran

in Colonial Lahore: A History of the City and Beyond

The chapter discusses the ways in which colonial rule transformed the circumstances of pilgrimage for Lahore’s residents both as a result of improvements in communication and the perceived health and ... More

The chapter discusses the ways in which colonial rule transformed the circumstances of pilgrimage for Lahore’s residents both as a result of improvements in communication and the perceived health and security threats from a British perspective. There is examination of pilgrimage within the Punjab, pilgrimage to the Holy Places of Islam and the increased pilgrimage to the leading Sufi Shrine within the city of Hazrat Data Ganj Bakhsh. The chapter makes use of Hajj travelogues of Lahori residents such as Maulvi Feroze ud-Din who travelled to Mecca and Medina. It also uncovers the role of Thomas Cook and the Pilgrimage to Mecca during 1886-93 and how the Company’s withdrawal from the Indian pilgrim traffic opened the way for rival specialist shipping companies.Less