re-awakening their spiritual zeal. He sets before them as an example the Virgin Etheria, who with what he calls an irrevocabili audacia,' braved the perils of a long journey in order to visit the sites associated with the Old and New Testaments and to trace the footsteps of the Patriarchs and Apostles. The usual arid style of Valerius is, in this epistle, so transformed that we are led to believe he had before him as he wrote a text of the Arezzo Peregrinatio. Some of his phrases, indeed, are almost identical with those of that MS., and the route described is practically in the order there given. Florid as is the praise which Valerius lavishes on this woman, whatever the orthography of her name may be, we can scarcely call it exaggerated, for even in this twentieth century, when athletic women are the fashion, and lady travellers rush into print, her energy and endurance seem to us astounding. For example, she makes the ascent of Mount Sinai on foot, and, moreover, fasting, in order that she may communicate at the chapel on the summit; she seems indifferent to the omission of her breakfast, and in lieu of it is content with a little fruit given her by the monks after the service, which could not have been over till nearly noon. Then, apparently without waiting to rest, she descends from the peak, climbs Horeb, and continues her visitations of the holy sites till the late afternoon, when she partakes of a light meal' only, gains a few hours' sleep, to rise soon after daybreak on the morrow and resume her journey. Such is her energy that we are quite relieved to find she is human, and to note that on emerging from the mountain group of Sinai and reaching Faran, she remarks, We had to stay there two days to recruit our strength.' It is this ascent of Sinai which particularly excites the enthusiasm of Valerius in his letter, and is one of the main points which decided Dom Férotin in the identification of the traveller. Even in that age of heroic pilgrims the ascent of Sinai was unusual, for Posthumianus, a monk from Gaul who made the same journey within a few years of Etheria, gave up the attempt as impossible; and that it was not without risk from other causes is shown by the fact that a few years before, in 373, this part of the peninsula had been the scene of a Saracenic raid in which all the monks in the neighbourhood of Mount Sinai had been pitilessly slaughtered."

Mere curiosity was not the motive which prompted Etheria to brave such dangers. Whenever she arrives at a site connected with the Biblical narrative, the passages from Holy Scripture bearing on it are read aloud, and a short prayer is offered, sometimes with the addition of an appropriate psalm. For,' she remarks, it was our custom that whenever we were enabled to approach the desired

4 I have availed myself of Dean Bernard's translation throughout this article, adopting here and there a reading suggested by more recent critics.

Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, vol. vii., 2nd edition, p. 262.

places, a prayer should first be offered, then the lection read from the book, then an appropriate psalm said, and finally another prayer. This custom we always held to, God commanding us, whenever we arrived at the desired places.' The prayers seem to have been extempore and to have been said by the monks or clergy who accompanied Etheria, or those who came out to meet her and act as her guides to the churches and sites at which she stopped.

The most interesting part of her diary to us is the account of her visit to Jerusalem, and indeed it is with this part of her pilgrimage alone that we have space to deal.

To understand Etheria's description we must rapidly survey the changes through which the Holy City had passed since its destruction by Titus in A.D. 70. After the burning of the Temple a ploughshare was drawn over its site as a sign of perpetual interdiction. Sion was deserted and the vacant space of the lower city was filled with the public and private edifices of Hadrian's new colony of Ælia, which spread itself over the adjacent hill of Calvary. The holy places were polluted with monuments of idolatry, and a shrine to Venus was raised on the spot consecrated by the Passion and Resurrection of our Lord.6 Three hundred years later, when Constantine abjured Paganism and the Empire became nominally Christian, the Emperor commanded the Chapel of Venus to be demolished, and on the removal of the soil and rubbish, Eusebius tells us, the Holy Sepulchre was exposed to view. The Empress Helena, having also visited the spot, caused further excavations to be made, which resulted in the alleged discovery, or, as it has always been called, the Invention of the Cross, an event commemorated almost from this time forward throughout Christendom, two festivals in connection with it still being retained in our present Prayer Book Calendar.8 On the area embracing the sites of the discovered Tomb and Cross, Constantine erected two churches: one called the Anastasis or Church of the Resurrection, built over the cave of the Holy Sepulchre, the other an adjacent basilica called the Martyrium or Memorial, on the site of the Crucifixion, a building which it was the Emperor's intention to make the finest in the world. It was, as Eusebius tells us, ' an extraordinary work, exhibiting a spectacle of surprising beauty,' the internal roof being so overlaid with radiant gold' that it made the whole Temple as it were to glitter with rays of light.' Between these two churches was the Sanctuary of the Cross, where, Etheria tells us, the Cross found by the Empress was shown at the Good Friday services. The Bishop

St. Jerome, Epist. ad Paulinum LVIII,

'Eusebius, Life of Constantine, iii. 25–47, 51–53.

The 3rd of May and 14th of September, though since the time of Heraclius the 14th of September has been associated with the recapture of the Cross by the Persians, and not with its discovery by St. Helena.

of Jerusalem in Etheria's time lived near the Holy Sepulchre, close to the Anastasis, although the primitive Church or Cathedral of Jerusalem was situated on Mount Sion on the traditional site of the 'Upper Room' mentioned in the Gospels.

Outside Jerusalem, St. Helena had built over the cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem, a basilica, which Constantine after her death re-decorated, as Eusebius tells us, 'with lavish expenditure, honouring it with imperial offerings, with treasures of gold and silver and with embroidered curtains, thus immortalising the memory of his mother, who did such good service to mankind.' The Empress also built on the Mount of Olives a church called the Eleona, on the traditional site of our Lord's discourses with His disciples before His Passion. Higher up on the mount she also raised on the site of the Ascension a sanctuary which Etheria refers to as the Imbomon," while beyond this, in the village of Bethany, was the Lazarium or Church of the House of Lazarus. All these buildings had been erected about the years 330 to 335, but between this age of church-building and the time of Etheria's visit, Jerusalem had witnessed a period of trial and persecution. Not only had the successors of Constantine encouraged the Arian heresy and deprived the Catholic bishops of their sees, but under Julian the Apostate a direct and bitter onslaught on the Christian faith was made. Pagan shrines were restored, Christians were forbidden to teach in the schools of the Empire, and a flood of iniquity was let loose over the Holy City, which was hardly stemmed even with the accession of the Emperor Theodosius, who was baptised into the orthodox faith, for St. Jerome, who resided at Bethlehem while engaged on his great work of preparing the text of the Vulgate, deplores the terrible vice then prevailing in Jerusalem. Julian's impious attempt to rebuild the Jewish Temple on Mount Moriah was frustrated, and his death in the Persian campaign followed soon after. When Etheria reached Jerusalem, however, peace had been restored to the Christian world, and we are enabled to follow with her the rites and practices of a Church unhampered by persecution and untinged with heresy.

She first describes the week-day services in Constantine's churches; these we find are practically the Hours,' since stereotyped in the Breviaries of Christendom, and condensed in our present Prayer Book. The most popular service seems to have been that of Vespers, or, as she styles it, 'Lucernaria,' which was so called because all the lamps and tapers were lighted, as the service was not over till dark. The congregations at these daily services were mainly composed of 'monks and virgins,' of whom there seem to have been a great number in Jerusalem. A considerable impulse had been given to the religious life there by the advent of St. Jerome and some of his most distinguished disciples. Failing to be elected to the Papacy on the death of Pope

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Damasus, to whom he had been secretary, St. Jerome retired to Bethlehem, where he lived the life of a recluse and devoted himself to his great task of Bible revision. Rufinus, the ecclesiastical historian and an intimate friend of Jerome, had founded a monastery on the Mount of Olives, and Melania, a noble Roman lady, had established a religious house for women not far from it. Paula, a descendant of the Scipios and the Gracchi, who had been left a widow with immense wealth, gave up, under Jerome's influence, her palace at Rome to found a Community for ladies at Bethlehem. As both she and her daughter were women of cultivation, speaking and writing Greek and Hebrew, Jerome was glad to avail himself of their daily help in translating and collating MSS. for the completion of the Vulgate and for his revision of the Psalter. Such was the religious society in and around Jerusalem about the time of Etheria's arrival. She does not tell us where she took up her abode, whether with the Proconsul at the Prætorium, or more probably in a religious house on the Mount of Olives or in one of the many cells or inns for pilgrims which Paula had taken three years to build.10

It was not, however, the 'monks and virgins' alone who filled the churches. Although those were the days of few books, we must not suppose that the faithful laity were unable to take an intelligent share in the services of the Church. Part of their preparation for baptism, as Etheria tells us, consisted of a course of teaching which took up three hours a day for five weeks, and was given by the bishop himself, the parents and many of the faithful also being present. That the instruction was deeply interesting we may gather from the fact that, though the doors of the Church were closed lest any unauthorised person should enter, the voices of those applauding the teaching of the bishop could be heard outside the building.

The Eucharist was offered on Sundays and Holy days and on the Wednesday and Friday of each week, and in Lent on Saturdays. The liturgy and all the offices appear to have been said in Greek, but Etheria tells us that when the lessons are read, in case there should be those present who understood Syriac only:

A man stands by who interprets in Syriac, that the people may receive instruction; and that the Latins, who know neither Syriac nor Greek, may not be saddened, an explanation is also given to them in Latin by those brothers and sisters present who understand both Greek and Latin.11

This care for the Westerns touches us closely, for St. Jerome tells us that among the pilgrims who flocked to Jerusalem were some who had come even from Britain."

10 St. Jerome, Pilgrimage of Paula, A.D. 382.

Paula, in her letter to Marcella at Rome, A.D. 386, says of the pilgrims at Jerusalem: Their speech differs, but their religion is one.

many choirs of psalm-singers as there are different nations.'

There are almost as

12 The Briton, separated from our world, if he has made any progress in religion,