Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: ‘secularity’
- I The crisis of identity
- II Kairoi: Christian times and the past
- III Topoi: space and community
- 10 Holy places and holy people
- 11 City or Desert? Two models of community
- 12 Desert and City: a blurring of frontiers
- 13 The ascetic invasion
- 14 Within sight of the end: retrospect and prospect
- Sources referred to
- Secondary literature referred to
- Index
10 - Holy places and holy people
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: ‘secularity’
- I The crisis of identity
- II Kairoi: Christian times and the past
- III Topoi: space and community
- 10 Holy places and holy people
- 11 City or Desert? Two models of community
- 12 Desert and City: a blurring of frontiers
- 13 The ascetic invasion
- 14 Within sight of the end: retrospect and prospect
- Sources referred to
- Secondary literature referred to
- Index
Summary
If it was in their history that Christians saw themselves as distinct from all others, their geography was the projection of this history on the ground. Here was a sharp departure from Late Antique religiosity. The classical world was full of holy places. A traveller in the region of Corycus in Asia Minor wrote of a cave he visited there:
Inside it there is a space which inspires such terror that nobody dares to advance further; so it has remained unexplored. The whole cave is venerable and truly sacred; it is worthy to be a habitation of the gods, as it is, indeed, generally held to be. There is nothing there that is not venerable, that does not in some manner manifest divine presence.
This profound sense of holiness associated with a particular place is not one that received much encouragement from Christianity. How could it?
He who hears [your prayer] dwells within. Turn your eyes not up to the hills, do not lift your face to the stars, the sun or the moon. Do not think you will be heard when you pray to him over the seas; rather, let this sort of prayer be detested. Clean out the chamber of your heart; wherever you wish to pray, that is where He will abide. He who hears you is within you.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The End of Ancient Christianity , pp. 139 - 156Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991