The Pilgrimage of Egeria (Itinerarium Egeriae)
Patristic · Letter · c. 381–384 · Latin
A woman from the western edge of the empire — Gallaecia or Aquitaine — walked to Sinai, Egypt, the Jordan, Edessa and Mesopotamia, and wrote home to the sisters of her community about what she saw and, in the second half, about how Jerusalem prayed. That second half is the earliest detailed description of a liturgical year anywhere: the daily offices at the Anastasis from before cockcrow, the Sunday vigil with the Resurrection gospel, Epiphany and its octave, the eight weeks Jerusalem kept before Easter, the Great Week day by day, the fifty days to Pentecost, how the catechumens were taught and examined, and the Encaenia. She describes rather than prescribes, which is what makes her useful: she is a westerner noting where Jerusalem differs from home, and so she records both. The diary survives in one incomplete eleventh-century manuscript found at Arezzo in 1884, and it is damaged at three places — the opening, the head of the Epiphany section, and the end. Every passage stored here says which side of a gap it stands on.
One manuscript: Codex Aretinus 405, of the eleventh century, from Montecassino, found at Arezzo by G. F. Gamurrini in 1884 and published by him in 1887. It is acephalous and ends mid-sentence, and the author's name is not in it — she is identified with the Egeria whom Valerius of Bierzo praises in a seventh-century letter. The Latin critical text is Geyer, Itinera Hierosolymitana, CSEL 39 (1898), registered here as geyer-itinera; the English stored here is McClure and Feltoe, SPCK 1919.
To: the sisters at home
The text
The daily offices at the Anastasis
Now that your affection may know what is the order of service (operatio) day by day in the holy places, I must inform you, for I know that you would willingly have this knowledge. Every day before cockcrow all the doors of the Anastasis are opened, and all the monks and virgins, as they call them here, go thither, and not they alone, but lay people also, both men and women, who desire to begin their vigil early. And from that hour to daybreak hymns are said and psalms are sung responsively (responduntur), and antiphons in like manner; and prayer is made after each of the hymns. For priests, deacons, and monks in twos or threes take it in turn every day to say prayers after each of the hymns or antiphons.
The earliest description of a daily office anywhere: a night vigil kept from before cockcrow by monks, virgins and laypeople together, with the clergy taking the prayers in turn.
The Sunday vigil
But on the seventh day, that is on the Lord's Day, the whole multitude assembles before cockcrow, in as great numbers as the place can hold, as at Easter, in the basilica which is near the Anastasis, but outside the doors, where lights are hanging for the purpose. And for fear that they should not be there at cockcrow they come beforehand and sit down there. Hymns as well as antiphons are said, and prayers are made between the several hymns and antiphons, for at the vigils there are always both priests and deacons ready there for the assembling of the multitude, the custom being that the holy places are not opened before cockcrow.
Sunday is kept as a small Easter, and the crowd waits outside locked doors for the cock: the resurrection gospel is read at the place of the resurrection, at the hour of it.
Epiphany: the return from Bethlehem
And on arriving there, the bishop and all with him immediately enter the Anastasis, where an exceedingly great number of lights are already burning. There a psalm is said, prayer is made, first the catechumens and then the faithful are blessed by the bishop; then the bishop retires, and every one returns to his lodging to take rest, but the monks remain there until daybreak and recite hymns.
A leaf of the manuscript is wanting immediately before this section, so the Epiphany account begins mid-sentence and the night station at Bethlehem is lost. This passage stands after the gap, not across it.
The eight weeks before Easter
And when the Paschal days come they are observed thus: Just as with us forty days are kept before Easter, so here eight weeks are kept before Easter. And eight weeks are kept because there is no fasting on the Lord's Days, nor on the Sabbaths, except on the one Sabbath on which the Vigil of Easter falls, in which case the fast is obligatory. With the exception then of that one day, there is never fasting on any Sabbath here throughout the year. Thus, deducting the eight Lord's Days and the seven Sabbaths (for on the one Sabbath, as I said above, the fast is obligatory) from the eight weeks, there remain forty-one fast days, which they call here Eortae, that is Quadragesimae.
The arithmetic that shows a fast is a reckoning and not a length: Jerusalem keeps eight weeks to reach the same forty-one fast days that the West reaches in six, because it will not fast on a Sunday or a Saturday.
The Great Week: the Saturday before Palm Sunday
Now when the seventh week has come, that is, when two weeks, including the seventh, are left before Easter, everything is done on each day as in the weeks that are past, except that the vigils of the sixth weekday, which were kept in the Anastasis during the first six weeks, are, in the seventh week, kept in Sion, and with the same customs that obtained during the six weeks in the Anastasis. For throughout the whole vigil psalms and antiphons are said appropriate both to the place and to the day. And when the morning of the Sabbath begins to dawn, the bishop offers the oblation. And at the dismissal the archdeacon lifts his voice and says: "Let us all be ready to-day at the seventh hour in the Lazarium." And so, as the seventh hour approaches, all go to the Lazarium, that is, Bethany, situated at about the second milestone from the city.
The Great Week begins at Bethany on the Saturday, the day before the palms — the earliest witness to keeping the events of the last week on the days and at the places they happened.
Pentecost: the station at Sion
And when the dismissal has been made at the martyrium, all the people, to a man, escort the bishop with hymns to Sion, so that they are in Sion when the third hour is fully come. And on their arrival there the passage from the Acts of the Apostles is read where the Spirit came down so that all tongues were heard and all men understood the things that were being spoken, and the dismissal takes place afterwards in due course.
The reading is timed to the hour the text names — the third hour, as Acts says — and read in the place the tradition assigns to it.
How those to be baptised are enrolled
Moreover, I must write how they are taught who are baptised at Easter. Now he who gives in his name, gives it in on the day before Quadragesima, and the priest writes down the names of all; this is before the eight weeks which I have said are kept here at Quadragesima. And when the priest has written down the names of all, after the next day of Quadragesima, that is, on the day when the eight weeks begin, the chair is set for the bishop in the midst of the great church, that is, at the martyrium, and the priests sit in chairs on either side of him, while all the clergy stand.
The catechumenate as an examination with witnesses: the bishop asks the neighbours of each candidate about his life before the teaching begins.
The Encaenia
Those are called the days of dedication when the holy church which is in Golgotha, and which they call the martyrium, was consecrated to God; the holy church also which is at the Anastasis, that is, in the place where the Lord rose after His Passion, was consecrated to God on that day. The dedication of these holy churches is therefore celebrated with the highest honour, because the Cross of the Lord was found on this same day. And it was so ordained that, when the holy churches above mentioned were first consecrated, that should be the day when the Cross of the Lord had been found, in order that the whole celebration should be made together, with all rejoicing, on the self-same day.
The dedication of Constantine's two Jerusalem churches and the finding of the Cross are kept on one day, deliberately — the reason the feast of the Cross falls where it does.
The Encaenia: where the text breaks off
Now on these days of the dedication the adornment of all the churches is the same as at Easter and at Epiphany, also on each day the procession is made to the several holy places, as at Easter and at Epiphany. For on the first and second days it is to the greater church, which is called the martyrium. On the third day it is to Eleona, that is, the church which is on that mount whence the Lord ascended into heaven after His Passion, and in this church is the cave wherein the Lord used to teach His Apostles on the Mount of Olives. But on the fourth day . . .
This is where the manuscript ends — mid-sentence, on the fourth day of the octave. What Jerusalem did on the remaining days of the dedication is not known from Egeria.
McClure & Feltoe, SPCK (1919) · M. L. McClure and C. L. Feltoe · The Pilgrimage of Etheria
Authors
- Egeria author