Record | The Cult of Saints

Theodosius, On the Topography of the Holy Land/'De situ terrae sanctae', 2

Extract from an itinerary from Jerusalem to Panias, beyond Lake Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee):

De Bethsaida usque in Samaria, quae dicitur modo Neapolis, milia XVIII. Ibi est puteus, quem fabricavit Iacob, ibi sunt ossa sancti Ioseph. De Samaria usque in Sebastea milia VI, ubi domnus Iohannes decollatus est. De Sebastea in Scitopolim milia XXX; ibi domnus Basilius martyrizatus est.

'From Bethsaida to Samaria, which is now called Neapolis, 18 miles. The well which Jacob constructed is there. The bones of the holy Joseph are there. From Samaria to Sebastea, 6 miles, where lord John was beheaded. From Sebasteia to Scythopolis, 30 miles; our lord Basilius was martyred there.'

Text: Geyer 1965, 115.
Translation: Bryan Ward-Perkins.

Cult Places

Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave

Non Liturgical Activity

Pilgrimage
Visiting graves and shrines

Relics

Bodily relic - entire body
Bodily relic - bones and teeth

Source

Nothing certain is known about Theodosius beyond his name, which is preserved with the title of his work in some of its manuscripts; in its present form the work lacks any kind of introduction or postscript that might shed light on him and his purpose in writing. However, as he wrote in Latin, we can safely assume that he came from the West. The only possible clue to a more precise geographical location comes in §14 (E07925), where he refers to Arianism as religio Wandalorum, 'the religion of the Vandals', which might point to his being from Africa.

The date of his text can be placed with some confidence between the years 518 and 540. This is because Theodosius mentions two completed major building projects by the emperor Anastasius (r. 491-518) - a church at the site on the Jordan where John baptised Jesus (§20, see E07914), and military works at Dara (§29) - and tells us in §28 (E07934) that the praepositus Urbicius died sub Anastasio imperatore, 'under the emperor Anastasius', a phrasing that would be very strange if Anasatasius were still alive; but, at the same time, Theodosius does not mention any of the building-projects of the emperor Justinian (r. 527-565), such as his great church, the Nea, in Jerusalem, dedicated in 543. The reference to 'the religion of the Vandals' might point to a date before 534 (the fall of their kingdom in Africa).

The work is held together by its interest in sites that would interest a pious Christian; but is otherwise chaotic. It opens with a number of itineraries in the Holy Land, all starting out from Jerusalem, listing the distances between places, noting why they would be of interest, and all involving several days travel (§1-5); it then moves to a listing of sites in and around Jerusalem itself (§6-11). Thereafter, and for the rest of the book (§12-32), any semblance of structure disappears: in §12-16 we are transported without warning to a seemingly random collection of distant holy places (such as the Crimea, and Memphis in Egypt); in §17-22 some sense of order briefly returns, with chapters about sites in and around Jerusalem and eastwards to the Jordan valley; but from §22 onwards it is hard to see any logic in the ordering of the chapters. Sometimes we are back in Jerusalem, but most of the time we are flitting across the east Christian world, as far afield as Ephesus and Persia.

In some passages, particularly those that describe sites in Jerusalem and down into the Jordan valley, there is enough detail to show that Theodosius had almost certainly himself visited the places he describes, but this is certainly not the case in his literary forays to distant places, and much less clear in the itineraries that open the work (§1-5), which are little more than lists of places, with the distances between them and a brief reference to the biblical events that took place there. These itineraries have been studied in detail by Tsafrir (1986), who suggests that they were constructed with the help of a map specifically created for Christian pilgrims. [Tsafrir's article, though focused on the itineraries, offers an excellent introduction to Theodosius' overall text, and has very helpful maps to illustrate the itineraries.]

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

Theodosius is confusing here because his Bethsaida is in fact Bethel; Neapolis (modern Nablus) was biblical Schechem (not biblical Samaria); and it is Sebastea/Sebaste that was biblical Samaria. But, despite this confusion, all the places and people mentioned in this extract are readily identified.

Joseph is the patriarch whose body was carried out of Egypt by the Children of Israel and buried at biblical Shechem (Joshua 24:32).

That John the Baptist was beheaded and originally buried at Samaria/Sebastea was widely believed. It is striking, however, that Theodosius does not mention a tomb here. The grave had been disturbed under Julian the Apostate (E04196), but even after this, at the end of the fourth century, Jerome still believed that John's bones rested at Samaria (E05274, E05278, E06327). Theodosius' silence, supported by the silence of the Piacenza pilgrim (who visited Samaria in the later sixth century, E00449), suggests that by the sixth century this was no longer believed.

Basilius/Basileios is a somewhat obscure martyr, but his cult at Scythopolis is also attested elsewhere (E06468).

Bibliography

Edition:
Geyer, P. (ed.), Theodosii De situ terrae sanctae, in Itineraria et alia geographica (Corpus Chistianorum, series Latina 175; Turnhout: Brepols, 1965), 113-125. [A reprint of Geyer's edition for Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Wien 1898.]

Translation:
Wilkinson, J., Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, 2nd ed. (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 2002), 103-116.

Further reading:
Tsafrir, Y., "The Maps Used by Theodosius: On the Pilgrim Maps of the Holy Land and Jerusalem in the Sixth Century C. E.",Dumbarton Oaks Papers 40 (1986), 129-145.

ID	Name	Name in Source	Identity
S00020	John the Baptist	Iohannes	Certain
S00277	Joseph, Old Testament patriarch	Ioseph	Certain
S01150	Basileios, martyr of Scythopolis (Palestine)	Basilius	Certain

The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity

from its origins to circa AD 700, across the entire Christian world

E07913

Literary - Pilgrim accounts and itineraries

Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave

Pilgrimage
Visiting graves and shrines

Bodily relic - entire body
Bodily relic - bones and teeth

Source

Discussion

Bibliography

Bryan Ward-Perkins

21/6/2020

E07913

Literary - Pilgrim accounts and itineraries

Burial site of a saint - tomb/grave

Pilgrimage Visiting graves and shrines

Bodily relic - entire body Bodily relic - bones and teeth

Source

Discussion

Bibliography

Bryan Ward-Perkins

21/6/2020

Pilgrimage
Visiting graves and shrines

Bodily relic - entire body
Bodily relic - bones and teeth