Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/103

Rh PILGRIMAGE curious episode of the temple of Heliopolis in Egypt), or to revive it in Jerusalem itself, where, even now, the syna gogues and colleges of the Sephardim and Ashkenazim are entirely separate and independent organizations, and show no tendency to coalesce into the nucleus of a national system. Hence, as the political and religious motives for the pilgrimage to Jerusalem have both dropped into abey ance, the custom itself is no longer regarded as binding, and, though it is not obsolete, inasmuch as a visit to the Holy City is considered a meritorious act, yet it has now, like the pilgrimage to Hebron, more of an emotional and historical character than a ceremonial one, so that it is not in the strict sense a pilgrimage any longer. Although the Mohammedan pilgrimages are much later in chronological order than the Christian ones, it will be more convenient to consider them briefly first. They con sist, then, of two main classes, which may be distinguished conveniently by Latin theological terms, as those of &quot;obligation&quot; and those of &quot;devotion.&quot; There is properly only one Moslem pilgrimage of obligation, that to Mecca, which still often draws an annual contingent of from 70,000 to 80,000 pilgrims (see MECCA). It is in truth a pagan survival which proved too powerful for extirpation by Mohammed. The Kaaba had been constituted the national sanctuary of Arabia about 100 B.C., and. contained, besides the famous Black Stone, some three hundred and sixty idols of various Bedouin tribes, united in one pan theon, exactly as with the Capitol of Rome ; and, though it was possible to sweep the idols out of the Kaaba, it was not so easy to deconsecrate the spot, but far more convenient to give it a new sanction. The Mohammedan pilgrimages of devotion are very numerous, and are chiefly connected with the saint- worship which has overlaid and obscured the original strict mono theism of Islam. Chief amongst the sacred shrines of this second class stands the tomb of Mohammed at MEDINA (q. v.}, but, holy as it is considered, and meri torious as a visit to it is accounted, it is in no sense bind ing on a Moslem s conscience, and only about one-third of the Meccan pilgrims proceed thither. Other sanctuaries abound in all Mohammedan countries, of which a few, like Abraham s tomb at Hebron, are honoured by all Mohammedan sects, while others are peculiar to the Sun- nites and Shiites respectively, and others again, such as Kairwan in Tunis, and &quot;Wazan in Morocco, and still more the tombs and oratories of merely local saints or welis, found in almost every Moslem town or village, are restricted to a comparatively small body of votaries. The most famous, after the Pan-Islamic pilgrimages, are the great Shiite sanctuaries, of which there are three : Meshed in Khorasan, with the tomb and mosque of Imam Riza, said to attract almost as many yearly pilgrims as Mecca itself; Khoum in Irak Ajemi, where Fatima, wife of Imam Riza, is buried ; and, yet more sacred than either, Kerbela in Mesopotamia, in the Turkish dominions, about 28 miles north-west of the ruins of Babylon, where is the tomb and mosque of Imam Hosein, grandson of Mohammed (see KERBELA and MOHAMMEDANISM). There is a passion-play performed there at the yearly commemoration, which draws enormous crowds from all parts of Persia and other Shiite regions, and the title hajj attaches to all who make the journey. Some idea of the multiplicity of minor pilgrimages amongst Moslems may be gathered from the fact that in the city of Damascus alone there are one hundred and ninety-four places of resort by pilgrims, and fourteen more in the environs. A great reaction against the whole system, inclusive of the invocation of saints, took place under the Wahhabis in the last century, in the course of which countless welis or tombs of Moslem saints were destroyed, including even those of Hosein and Mohammed himself ; but, on the overthrow of the fanatics by Mohammed All, the customary practices were restored, and have continued in full vigour ever since. Christian pilgrimages were at first limited to Jerusalem Christian. and its immediate neighbourhood, including Bethlehem. It is probable enough that the local church of Jerusalem regarded the various scenes of the gospel history, and notably of the Passion and Resurrection, with special reverence, and would guide the steps of visitors to the most sacred localities while the city yet stood, and point out the sites, as nearly as possible, after the work of Titus had been completed by Hadrian, and a vast mound of earth, on whose summit rose a temple of Venus, had been raised over the Holy Sepulchre. But this is matter of conjecture rather than of knowledge. There is no actual proof of very early Christian pilgrimage to the holy places, though the belief was already current at the close of the 4th century that the custom had prevailed unbroken from apostolic times, as is distinctly asserted by Paula and Eustochium in their letter to Marcella (Epist. Hieronym., xvii.), written in 386, wherein they state also that of which they are more trustworthy witnesses, that pilgrims then flocked from Armenia, Persia, India, Ethiopia, and even Gaul and Britain, to visit the cradle of Christianity. But in point of fact the earliest pilgrim of whose visit as a religious act we have definite proof is Alexander, a Cappadocian bishop, who came to Jerusalem in consequence of a dream (212), and was elected coadjutor to Narcissus, then bishop of the diocese (Euseb., E. ff., vi. 11). Origen, who was a friend of Alexander, is another early example, but his own words (Comm. in Evany. Joann., vi. 24) imply that he came rather in the modern spirit of devout scholarly inquiry than as a pilgrim in the strict sense. He paid a short visit in 216, and returned in 231, to settle down for a time at Csesarea, where he opened a school of theology in 238. It is not till after the pilgrimage of the empress Helena (the first quite unquestionable event of the kind) about 326 or 328, that the fashion set in, accompanied with the desire to bring back some relic, either inherently sacred or at least hallowed by contact with certain venerated spots. That the temper of the time was not a very critical one is sufficiently proved by the casual mention by St Chrysostom of a pilgrimage as commonly practised to Arabia in order to see the dunghill on which Job sat, and that by visitors from the very ends of the earth (Horn. v. de Statuis). But another kind of pilgrimage, destined to be more powerful than that to Jerusalem, began to be popular nearly at the same time, that to the tombs of distinguished martyrs or confessors. In the present day, the passionate admiration of the Christians of the 3d, 4th, and 5th centuries for the martyrs as a class seems somewhat dis- proportioned to the part they actually played in the history of Christianity, which was more effectually propagated and maintained by the eminent teachers and divines of the ancient church. But the truth is that they supplied just the element of enthusiasm which was needed to sus tain the courage and endurance of the humbler Christian laity under the stress of recurrent persecutions ; and, when peace was finally secured under Constantino the Great, there were so many families which counted one or more martyrs amongst their kindred, and viewed such kinship as a patent of nobility, that everything favoured the rapid development of pilgrimages to places in which so many had a direct personal, as well as a corporate religious, interest. So much did the notion begin to prevail that pilgrimage was almost a necessity of religion, and that prayer could be heard more assuredly in particular places, that warnings against error of the kind were uttered by