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E05221: The pilgrim Egeria, in her Itinerary, tells the story of the discovery of the grave of *Job (Old Testament patriarch, S01191) at Carneas/Karnaia (Palestine), and visits the altar and church built over it. Written in Latin during Egeria's journey to the East, probably in 381-384.

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posted on 2018-03-19, 00:00 authored by robert
Egeria, Itinerary 13.1 and 16.5-7


Egeria decides to visit the grave of Job at Carneas/Karnaia, east of Lake Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee):

13.1 Item post aliquantum tempus uolui etiam ad regionem ausitidem accedere propter uisendam memoriam sancti Iob gratia orationis ... Habens ergo iter ab Ierusolima usque ad Carneas eundo per mansiones octo - Carneas autem dicitur nunc ciuitas iob, quae ante dicta est Dennaba in terra ausitidi, in finibus Idumeae et Arabiae.

'13.1 Some time later I decided to visit the land of Uz on pilgrimage to the tomb of the holy Job ... Jerusalem is eight staging-posts from Carneas, which is the present name of the city of Job, though formerly its name was Dinhaba in the land of Uz, on the borders of Idumaea and Arabia.'

After a lacuna in Egeria' s text, comes the account of the discovery of Job's body and the building of a church over it, which Egeria visited. The text that is now missing must have told of a vision to the holy monk mentioned in the passage that follows:

16.5 ... qui sanctus monachus, uir ascitis, necesse habuit post tot annos, quibus sedebat in heremum, mouere se et descendere ad ciuitatem Carneas, ut commoneret episcopum uel clericos temporis ipsius, iuxta quod ei fuerat reuelatum, ut foderent in eo loco, qui ei fuerat ostensus, sicut et factum est. (6) Qui fodientes in eo loco, qui ostensus fuerat, inuenerunt speluncam, quam sequentes fuerunt forsitan per passus centum, quo ad subito, fodientibus illis, adparuit lapis: quem lapidem cum perdiscoperuissent, inuenerunt sculptum in coperculo ipsius Iob. Cui Iob ad tunc in eo loco facta est ista ecclesia, quam uidetis, ita tamen ut lapis cum corpore non moueretur in alio loco, sed ibi, ubi inuentum fuerat, corpus positum esset, et ut corpus subter altarium iaceret. Illa autem ecclesia, quam tribunus nescio qui faciebat, sic stat inperfecta usque in hodie. (7) Ac sic ergo nos alia die mane rogauimus episcopum ut faceret oblationem, sicut et facere dignatus est, et benedicens nos episcopus profecti sumus. Communicantes ergo et ibi, gratias agentes deo semper, regressi sumus in Ierusolimam ...

'16.5 ... after so many years of living in the desert this holy man, monk and ascetic, had to set off and enter the city of Carneas. He asked the bishop of those days and the clergy to do as had been revealed to him, and to dig at the spot which he had been shown. (6) As they dug they at first discovered a cave, then, following it in for about a hundred paces they suddenly came upon a stone. When they had thoroughly uncovered it, they found carved on its cover [the name] of that very JOB. So at once they built this church which you can see to Job. They did not remove the stone with the body, but left them where the body had been found, and so arranged things that the body should rest beneath the altar. I believe that this church was built by some tribune or other, and it stands today, though till now it remains unfinished. (7) The next day in the morning we asked the bishop if he would make the offering. He kindly did so, and when he had blessed us, we went on our way. So, receiving communion, and continually giving thanks to God, we returned to Jerusalem.'


Text: Franceschini and Weber 1965, 54 and 57-58. Translation: Wilkinson 1971, 108 and 112-113, lightly modified.

History

Evidence ID

E05221

Saint Name

Job, Old Testament Patriarch : S01191

Saint Name in Source

Iob

Type of Evidence

Literary - Pilgrim accounts and itineraries

Language

  • Latin

Evidence not before

381

Evidence not after

384

Activity not before

381

Activity not after

384

Place of Evidence - Region

Palestine with Sinai

Place of evidence - City name in other Language(s)

Caesarea Maritima Καισάρεια Kaisareia Caesarea Kayseri Turris Stratonis

Major author/Major anonymous work

Egeria

Cult activities - Liturgical Activity

  • Eucharist associated with cult

Cult activities - Places

Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave

Cult activities - Non Liturgical Practices and Customs

Visiting graves and shrines

Cult Activities - Miracles

Miracle after death Apparition, vision, dream, revelation

Cult Activities - Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Women Foreigners (including Barbarians) Ecclesiastics - bishops Ecclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits

Cult Activities - Relics

Bodily relic - entire body Discovering, finding, invention and gathering of relics

Cult Activities - Cult Related Objects

Inscription

Source

Egeria's work survives in a single eleventh-century manuscript, copied probably at Monte Cassino, which lacks both its opening and its close (where she might have told us something about herself). Consequently even her name is a little uncertain, though she was almost certainly 'the most blessed Egeria', whose dedication and devotion on pilgrimage was praised in a letter written in the mid-seventh century by Valerius of Bierzo (or Vierzo, near Léon in north-west Spain). She was unquestionably a woman of some means (given her ability to travel for several years) and she belonged to an association or community of religious women, since her work takes the form of a letter to these women sent from Constantinople during her journey home, and since she addresses them periodically throughout her account: in Itinerary 3.8, for instance, she asks these dominae venerabiles sorores, 'ladies, venerable sisters', to pay particular attention to her description of Mount Sinai. Exactly where she travelled from is unknown, though it was certainly somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean in the far west of Europe: in 18.3 she compares the flow and size of the Euphrates with the Rhône, which she presumably crossed on her journey; in 19.5 she was greeted by the bishop of Edessa as having journeyed de extremis porro terris, 'from the far ends of the earth'; and Valerius of Bierzo (who was certainly better informed than us) describes her as extremo occidui maris Oceani litore exorta, 'coming from the Ocean's western shore' (Gracia 1910, 393-394). It is therefore certain that she came from the western seaboard of the Atlantic; probably from Galicia, since Valerius was from near Galicia and he is likely to have selected her to write about because he saw her as a compatriot. Her work is a detailed, and highly informative, account of her pilgrimage, and it is a great pity that much of it is lost - what survives opens, in mid-sentence, with an account of her visit to the holy sites of Sinai and on to the Egyptian delta, but she tells us that this was her second visit to Egypt (and that on her first visit she had travelled as far south as the Thebaid and as far west as Alexandria), and she had certainly already spent much time in the Holy Land. After reaching Egypt, she headed back to Jerusalem, and from there made two journeys out: the first eastwards to the Jordan and Mount Nebo; the second a long journey up the Jordan valley to Lake Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee), before striking East to Carneas, to visit the grave of the Old Testament patriarch Job. Some time after returning to Jerusalem from this second expedition, 'since it was already three full years since my arrival in Jerusalem, and I had seen all the places which were the object of my pilgrimage' (Itinerary 17.1, Wilkinson 1999, 113), Egeria started for home, but from Antioch took a long detour eastwards into Mesopotamia, to Edessa and Carrhae. Returning to Antioch, she then crossed Asia Minor to Chalcedon (but not before again detouring, to Seleucia and the shrine of Thecla), and so to Constantinople, from which she despatched the account of her travels. Although heading home, she still planned to visit Ephesus and the shrine of John the Apostle and Evangelist at Ephesus. Although much of Egeria's text is missing, it was available in the early twelfth century to Peter the Deacon, a monk at Monte Cassino, when he compiled a work about the Holy Land, and, from Peter's text it is possible reconstruct the parts of her journey that are now lost (see Franceschini and Weber 1965, 93-103; Wilkinson 1999, 179-210). Egeria, whose enthusiasm and energy appear to have been boundless, visited mostly biblical sites, but she was also interested in monasteries and martyr shrines (for instance detouring to visit Thecla's at Seleucia). The second part of her Itinerary contains a description of the Easter liturgy in Jerusalem (which has no references to the cult of saints). Thanks to the places, persons, and buildings which are mentioned by her, her travels can be dated with some confidence to the two last decades of the 4th century. A more exact dating, generally accepted, is based on the observation by Devos (1967) that 384 was the only year in this period in which it was possible to arrive in Carrhae (in Mesopotamia) for the feast of St Helpidius (23 April) having spent Easter in Jerusalem, which Egeria tells us she did on the first leg of her journey home (having already told us that she had spent three years in the Holy Land). As with all the pilgrim texts from the Holy Land, it has been difficult to decide what to include, and what to exclude from our database, focused as it is on the 'cult of saints'. We have necessarily excluded the vast number of sites associated exclusively with the life and miracles of Jesus, and have, of course, included all obvious references to cult sites of Christian saints: their graves, churches, and references to important places in their lives, such as their place of martyrdom. A problem, however, arises when our pilgrims write about sites associated with figures from the Old Testament, since in time many of these certainly acquired Christian cult, but it is generally impossible to tell whether our pilgrims regarded these figures as saints in the Christian tradition, whose power and aid they might invoke, or whether they record the holy sites associated with them through a broader and looser biblical curiosity and veneration. The compromise position we have taken with regard to these Old Testament figures is to include all references to places associated with them where our Christian writers record miraculous occurrences or where there was a church or oratory, and also all references to their graves (though with these latter there is often no explicit reference to Christian cult).

Discussion

This account of the discovery of a holy body, the building of a church over it and of a pilgrimage to visit it, would perfectly suit a saint of the Christian era, but here applies to a 'saint' from the Old Testament. The only thing lacking is any reference to miracles occurring at the church.

Bibliography

Text: Franceschini, A. and Weber, R. (ed.), Itinerarium Egeriae, in Itineraria et alia geographica (Corpus Chistianorum, series Latina 175; Turnholti: Typographi Brepols editores pontificii, 1965), 27-90. Text, French translation and commentary: Maraval, P., Égérie: Journal de Voyage (Itinéraire), Sources Chrétiennes 296 (Paris: Les éditions du cerf, 1982). English translation and commentary: J. Wilkinson, Egeria's Travels (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 3rd edition, 1999). Dating: Devos, P., "La date du voyage d'Égérie", Analecta Bollandiana 85 (1967), 165-194. Hunt, E.D., "The date of the Itinerarium Egeriae", Studia Patristica 38 (Leuven: Peeters, 2001), 410-416. Further reading: Maraval, P., Lieux saints et pèlerinages d'Orient, (Paris: Les éditions du cerf, 1985).

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    Evidence -  The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity

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