THE FIRST GOLDEN AGE
Galicia’s first golden age--From Galicia to Palestine--The father
of Spanish historians--His birthplace--_Civitas Limicorum_--An
amusing story--Early life of Idatius--Arianism--St. Jerome--Paul
Orosius--King Alfred’s translation--St. Augustine and
Orosius--Orosius travels to Jerusalem--Roman pilgrims--Etheria--A
plucky abbess--Her visit to the holy places--Gamurrini discovers
the manuscript--Not Silvia but Etheria--A curious
coincidence--Unpublished manuscripts
It was in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries of the Christian era
that Galicia reached her first zenith as a centre of learning and
literary fame. During this period her intellectual development and
culture far exceeded that of the whole of the rest of Spain: she was
freely acknowledged to be the _Magistra Litterarum_. The writings of the
men who made her famous are many of them preserved intact to this day;
they are all, without exception, the work of monks or church
dignitaries. Outside the Church learning was practically non-existent.
But the monks and bishops of those days were anything but mere
bookworms, mystics, or recluses; they were men who helped to make
history as well as to chronicle and record it. Many a Spanish bishop had
earned a name for bravery on the field of battle before his elevation to
a See, and was, as Lopez Ferreiro has remarked, a soldier at heart, and,
what is also worthy of notice, a married man--with a large family. Many
a monk in those days was a bold and fearless traveller, who had seen
many peoples and many lands, and enlarged his mental horizon by much and
wide observation. We moderns are apt to think that travelling for
purposes of education is a comparatively recent invention, but that is
not the case. From Galicia in the fourth century young men of spirit and
religious zeal--ay, and even young women--started forth to visit
far-distant lands and gather for themselves the flowers of learning and
piety from their native meadows.
Jerusalem was a great meeting-place for leaders of religious thought at
that date, so that it had a double attraction for young Gallegans fired
with spiritual ambition and a Celtic love of enterprise. Many found
their way thither, and each on his return to Galicia became in himself
an influence of culture in his diocese or monastery as the case might
be. The journey from Galicia to Palestine, in spite of its difficulties
and dangers, seems to have been undertaken by the pious as readily in
those days as a journey from London to Rome is in our own. Monasteries,
which were in reality schools of higher culture, had already become
numerous throughout the province. Most of the parochial churches had
already been established before the end of the first half of the fourth
century; they were almost all dedicated to martyrs, and erected over
some spot sanctified by the presence of holy relics.[39] Young men of
noble family invariably took up the profession of arms or entered the
Church; consequently, clergy and monks abounded in the land. “Fifteen
centuries separate us from that epoch,” says Ferreiro, “and twice has
the chain which connects with our own time been broken, first by the
invasion of barbarians, and then by that of the Saracens. Yet the stars
of that period still shine.” Perhaps the brightest of these stars is
Idatius, the father of Spanish historians.
Bishop Idatius, the celebrated author of the earliest chronicles of
Spanish history, was born in Galicia, in a town, now non-existent, which
took its name from the river Limia, and was called _civitas Limicorum_,
or “the city of the Limicos.” Very little was known about this city till
an eminent local archæologist, Dr. Marcelo Macias, began to devote time
and study to the deciphering of some inscriptions that had been found
upon certain stones on the shores of the lake of Antela close to the
spot where the Limia rises. Dr. Macias has recently found the site of
the city, and is now convinced that it was once populous and wealthy,
not a Roman but a Gallegan town, and the birthplace of eminent men--a
city respected and feared during the later centuries of the Roman
Empire.[40] Until Dr. Macias discovered the site, the Portuguese were in
the habit of claiming that Portuguese soil had given birth to the famous
Idatius, who in his youth had visited Jerusalem and knew St. Jerome, and
who in his old age wrote the famous _Chronicles_--a priceless treasure
as regards the early history not only of Spain but also of Spanish
Catholicism. Ptolemy mentions this city as φορος λιμιχῶν, and
the _Ravenate_ calls it Limia or Limæa, and mentions it as the first
halting-place on the road leading from Braga to Lugo, by way of Tuy. Dr.
Macias has satisfactorily proved that this city once stood in the
province of Orense, near what are now the little towns of Lodoselo and
Nocela de Pena, two miles to the south-east of Ginzo de Limia; he has
proved this from inscriptions discovered in that neighbourhood in the
middle of the eighteenth century, which are dedications, the one to
Hadrian and the other to Antoninus Pius, by the city of the Limicos
(_Civitas Limicorum_). Till now, most Spanish writers, confounding the
Forum Limicorum of Ptolemy with the Limia of the Itinerary, have
asserted erroneously that it was the Ponte de Lima in the neighbouring
kingdom of Portugal. Florez and Hübner both helped to make the
inscriptions known, but it was left to Dr. Macias to interpret their
significance to students of Spanish history. They now stand in the
museum of local antiquities at Orense.
The story of their arrival there is amusing. These stones had been
employed in the building of a hermitage erected on the spot where they
had been found[41] in honour of St. Peter; they had been built into the
porch in such a manner that their inscriptions could be read by those
who entered the church, and it was here that a neighbouring abbot
noticed them, and, about the year 1775, drew the attention of Florez to
them. In 1835, at the taking down of the hermitage, another abbot
brought them into the town with several other Roman tablets. He had a
stone cross made of them and placed in the open space before the church.
As time went on the ignorant peasants got the idea that the cross
protected them and their cattle from hailstones, and so strong was their
superstition that they did not like strangers to approach the cross even
to copy the inscription. The stones were at length presented to the
Orense Museum by the bishop of the diocese, and in November 1897 three
of the leading members of the Orense Archæological Society--Dr. Macias,
the late Arturo Vazquez, and Señor Benito F. Alonso--started out to
fetch them. Although the Abbot of Nocela had assured them that the
peasants of the neighbourhood would offer no objection to their taking
the stones,--adding that he had continually preached to them on the
folly of their superstition,--these gentlemen thought it prudent to be
ready for all emergencies, and took along with them some half-dozen
policemen from Ginzo. Thanks to this precaution, they did not return
home with battered skulls and broken noses, nor were they stoned to
death on the road; yet one or the other fate would certainly have
befallen them had they ventured on that expedition unprotected, for the
men and boys of Nocela, having got wind of their purpose, gathered
together before the porch of the little church and protested against the
removal of the stones, while their womenfolk set up an outrageous
hullabaloo at the corners of the village streets; and one urchin,
thinking to get the better of the policemen, climbed the church tower
that he might deliver a surprise attack upon the common enemy. No effort
on the part of the archæologists to bring the people to reason met with
the least success. “_As pedras son nosas_,” they cried (“The stones are
ours”), and even tried to offer bodily resistance. When at length the
stones had been taken possession of, there was not a single yoke of oxen
to be found in the village, and a cart had to be brought from the
neighbouring town of Lodoselo; but even then the peasant driver,
terrified by the threats of the people standing round, begged with tears
that he might be released from his bargain, and there was nothing for it
but to let him go. Finally, the policemen themselves fetched a pair of
oxen from the fields and harnessed them to a cart; the stones were put
into it, and an old man was persuaded to drive it. Thus, at nightfall
the party set out for Ginzo, the wife and daughter of the driver
following the cart and tearfully entreat him to return. The rest of the
people, who would have thrown stones but for their fear of the police,
accompanied their departure with prolonged howls and hisses. Dr. Macias
relates this story in order, he explains, to warn future archæologists
that the modern citizens of the Forum Limicorum are as superstitious as
were the Romans who refused to cross the river Limia at the command of
Brutus.
In the prologue of the chronicle of Idatius we read these words:
“Idatius Provinciae Gallaeciae natus in Lemica Civitate,[42] mage divino
munerequam proprio merito summi Praesul creatus officii,” etc. “Neither
in his prologue nor in the years 431 and 462 of his chronicle,” says Dr.
Macias, “where he speaks of himself as a bishop, does he once mention
the name of his diocese; neither is it given us by St. Isidore or by
Rodrigo, Archbishop of Toledo, when they speak of Idatius.” Dr. Macias
reminds his readers that the fact of Idatius’s having been a native of
Limica in no way proves that he was ever a bishop of that city. He is
generally mentioned as “a bishop of Galicia” simply.
Idatius gives no clue in his chronicle as to the date of his own birth,
but we know that it was towards the close of his life that he
sorrowfully wrote, _lacrymabile propriae et vita tempus_--and _ut
extremus plagae, ita extremus et vitae_. These words were written by him
in connection with the events of the year 469, the last year of those
included in the chronicle. Dr. Macias adds that if he was about eighty
years of age when he finished his chronicle, he must have been born
about the year 390. The Portuguese writer Jorge Cardoso states in his
_Hagiologio_ that Idatius was of the race of the Sueves; but, as it
happens, these people did not invade the Peninsula till twenty years
later. Dr. Macias is sure, moreover, that the fact of the name being
foreign to the Latin tongue indicates that he was not a Roman but a
_Limico_ of the Hispano-Galaic race.
While still young--_adhuc infantulus_, or, as he says in another place,
_et infantulus et pupillus_--he was taken to the East, either by his
father or some other member of his family, and there he met St. Jerome,
St. John, St. Eulogius, and St. Theophilus (bishops respectively of
Jerusalem and Alexandria). His pilgrimage, as he calls it, could not
have lasted longer than the year 402, when he was about twelve or
fourteen years old, for he says he cannot give the dates of the deaths
of St. Jerome and the other Fathers--among whom he mentions St.
Epiphanius, who, we know, died in 402.
In his shorter chronicle, _Cronicon pequeño_, we read that Idatius was
converted to Christianity in the year 416,--“Idatii ad Dominum conversio
peccatoris,”--and that eleven years afterwards he was elected bishop.
Macias, like Florez, explains that the words _conversio ad Dominum_ do
not mean that he was converted from heathendom to Christianity, but
that, till then a layman, he now entered the Church.
The stipulated peace between the natives of Galicia and the Sueves[43]
having been broken, the former commissioned Idatius to represent their
case to the general Aecius. He set out for Gaul upon this errand in the
year 431, and returned to Galicia the following year, accompanied by
Count Censorius, the ambassador sent by Aecius to try and induce
Hermanricus II to make a fresh peace. But Censorius being called to Rome
by the Empress Placidia before this had been accomplished, the
negotiations were left in the hands of Idatius and several other
bishops. “Great,” says Dr. Macias, “were the services which upon this
critical occasion Idatius rendered to his country”, but this is not by
any means his only title to honour. Galicia was at that juncture not
only overrun by barbarians but perturbed by heretics, and Idatius played
no mean part in the struggle that was sustained between Arianism[44] and
the Sueves, and which was more serious against the doctrines of
Priscillian, which had by that time taken such deep root in Galicia, “a
struggle obscure but heroic,” said Menendez y Pelayo, “which must have
left some records behind it; but the torments endured by human thought
and by the conscience are those which are the least reflected in the
pages of history. What long accounts of conquests and battles, what
innumerable catalogues of dynasties would we not gladly relinquish that
we might know when and how the heresy of Priscillian disappeared from
among the people of Galicia!”[45] But we will leave the subject of the
persecution of the Priscillianists to another volume, and turn our
attention at present to the writings of Idatius. The greatness of his
name is due to the chronicles he left behind him,[46] and not to his
religious zeal. Historians have pronounced them to be a literary
production of the greatest importance, not only because they are the
oldest historical documents possessed by Spain and because they testify
to Spain’s having been one of the earliest among the nations to
cultivate history, but also on account of the quality of the facts
recorded. Florez calls them “an original source from which we may learn
the events connected with the entrance of the Vandals, the Alanes, and
the Sueves into Spain.” The fifth century would indeed be, historically,
almost blank but for the light that is thrown upon its events by the
chronicles of Idatius. St. Jerome, the translator and continuer of the
history begun by Eusebius of Cæsarea, did not get farther than the year
378, everything having been thrown into confusion by the invasion of the
barbarians. This, says Macias, was the point at which Idatius took up
the thread. His chronicles begin with the following year, 379, the first
year of the reign of Theodosius, and end in the year 469, thus embracing
the events of ninety-one years. Idatius witnessed and took part in many
of the events he recorded. Being, as he himself said, cognisant of all
the calamities of his unfortunate epoch, he relates with truthfulness
the invasion of Galicia by the Sueves, and paints their methods of
raiding the country with the most lively colours. But for him the
Spaniards would to-day be in ignorance of many of the facts which later
historians--St. Isidore, and Rodrigo, Archbishop of Toledo, and
others--have handed down, for they constantly copied word for word from
the chronicles of Idatius.
Until the year 1615, historians possessed only fragmentary editions of
the chronicle, bearing the title _Chronographia ex Idatio collectore
quodem Caroli Maequali_. But about that date a more complete and a more
correct parchment copy was discovered in a monastery at Metz, and from
this editions appeared in Rome, Paris, Leyden, Amsterdam, Frankfort, and
other places. There is also his second chronicle, called _Cronicon
pequeño de Idacio_, because it is practically an extract, or _résumé_,
of the first. It begins twenty-six years later and terminates a hundred
years later. In spite of its brevity, it contains several facts that are
not included in the larger one, as, for instance, the conversion of
Idatius above alluded to. Another document, _Fastos Consulares_ (from
the year 45 B.C. to A.D. 468), has been called, by the Jesuit Sirmondo,
_Idacianos_, though it bears no author’s name; but Florez has proved in
his _España Sagrada_ that Idatius was not the author, and that it must
have been penned by some Spaniard of the sixth century. “Truth to say,”
concludes Dr. Macias, “Idatius can dispense with this new mark of
literary fame. Great enough is the honour due to him as a writer for
having traced, in the midst of such calamitous times, the first page of
our mediæval history, a gloomy picture indeed, but one of rugged
grandeur, in which his own venerable personality stands clearly forth, a
glory to Galicia and an honour to the city of the Limicos.”
Another Gallegan star of the fourth century was Paul Orosius, also an
historian. In the time of King Alfred Orosius was so well known that his
name was commonly used instead of the title of his work. This is evident
from the first sentence of Alfred’s translation--“Here beginneth the
book which men call Orosius.” Joseph Bosworth, whose literal translation
of King Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon version appeared in 1854, said in his
preface, “The compendious history of the world from the creation to the
year A.D. 116, written by Orosius, continued to be held in high esteem
from the days of Alfred till the invention of printing, for it was
selected as one of the first works to be committed to the press. The
first edition appeared in Germany as early as 1471. After this numerous
editions were published by the most celebrated printers”; and this
writer adds, “It must be interesting to know the origin of a work that
has attracted so much attention and been highly valued for so many
ages,--a work chosen by the first man of his age, our glorious King
Alfred, as a book worthy to be translated by him into Anglo-Saxon,--the
English of his day--to teach his people history.”
For centuries it was erroneously believed that Orosius was a native of
Tarragona, on the shores of the Mediterranean, but Florez and others
have now satisfactorily proved that he was a native of Braga in Galicia.
Orosius himself stated that his _patria_ was _ab oceani littore_ (on the
ocean shore), and that it was overrun by barbarians. He was born before
the year 395, in which Arcadius and Honorius ascended the throne. It
seems that he received his education and was ordained to the priesthood
at Braga, for he was already a presbyter[47] when he started on his
travels.
It appears from the testimony of both St. Augustine and Orosius that the
latter left Braga by ship, without any definite intention of going to
see St. Augustine, but that, on finding that his ship touched upon the
African coast, he felt himself impelled by some hidden power to break
his journey there and visit St. Augustine at Hippo. Priscillian’s heresy
was then widely spread throughout Galicia; our historian’s own writings
tell us that he was still in Spain at the time of the entrance of the
Sueves and the Vandals,[48] and that he was far more afflicted by the
heresies that had crept into his beloved church than by the invasions of
the cruellest enemy. “Dilacerati gravius a doctoribus pravis quam a
cruentissemis hostibus sumus,”[49] and it is probable that he was glad
of an opportunity to seek Augustine’s advice and counsel as to the best
means of bringing about the extirpation of the above-mentioned heresy.
He also consulted St. Augustine “on several abstruse points of
doctrine,” and discussed with him the nature and origin of the reasoning
mind. He wrote, about that time, his _Consultatio sive commonitorium ad
Augustinum de errore Priscillianistarium et Origenistarium_, in answer
to which Augustine published his _Ad Orosium contra Priscillianistas et
Origenistas_. These are both included in the works of St. Augustine.
About A.D. 414, St. Augustine advised Orosius to proceed to Palestine to
study the heresy of Origen on the spot, and at the same time to consult
St. Jerome on some of his difficulties as to the origin of the soul. St.
Jerome was then living at Bethlehem, engaged in translating the
Scriptures into Latin from the Hebrew and Greek originals. That
translation is the present Vulgate or Authorised Version of the Roman
Catholics, which is now (1909) being revised with the sanction of the
Pope. Orosius was not himself acquainted with the Greek language.
He carried with him to Palestine a letter of introduction to St. Jerome,
in which St. Augustine wrote of him as follows: “Behold there has come
to me a religious young man in Catholic peace, a brother,--in age, a
son; in rank, a co-presbyter,--Orosius; of active talents, ready
eloquence, ardent application, etc.” While Orosius was in Palestine,
Pelagius was disseminating his new doctrine with great zeal, and our
historian was called on to oppose him before a synod held at Jerusalem
in July A.D. 415, and presided over by John, the bishop of that city. It
was then that Orosius wrote his celebrated treatise, which he modestly
called _Apologia contra Pelagium de arbitrii libertate_. It is appended
to his History.
The sacking of Rome had afforded the Romans a pretence for accusing
Christianity of being the cause of the ruin which had befallen the
Empire, and for asserting that Christianity had been injurious to
mankind. St. Augustine wrote his celebrated treatise to show the
absurdity of this assertion, “and to prove, by historical facts, how
much the world had been ameliorated by revelation.” Orosius wished to
prove, from the history of the world, what Augustine had proved from the
history of the Church, and the result was the great work for which he is
famous. It is written on Christian lines and is in reality a defence of
the Christian religion. Orosius undertook the work at the request of St.
Augustine, to whom it is dedicated. King Alfred, in translating it into
Anglo-Saxon, introduced much new matter. Here is a paragraph relating to
the history of our own land:--
“The Romans gave Caius Julius (Cæsar) seven legions, to the end that he
might wage war four years on the Gauls. When he had overcome them, he
went into the island of Britain, and fought against the Britons, and
was routed in the land, which was called Kentland, and they were routed.
Their third battle was near the river, which is called Thames, near the
ford called Wallingford.
“After that battle the king came into his hands, and the townspeople
that were in Cirencester, and afterwards all that were in the
island.”[50]
Another remarkable traveller who started out from Galicia was a woman.
“Jerome had been the leader,” says Montalembert, “of that permanent
emigration which, during the last years of the fourth century, drew so
many noble Romans and Christians of the West towards Palestine and
Egypt.” “In proportion,” he adds, “as souls were more penetrated with
the truths of the faith, and gave themselves to the practice of
Christian virtues, they experienced an attraction more and more
irresistible towards the countries which were at once the cradle of the
Christian religion and of monastic life. Then were seen beginning those
pilgrimages which ended in the Crusades.” The writer has given us an
account of many Romans, both men and women, who undertook pilgrimages to
Palestine in the fourth century, but the story of Etheria--the
illustrious Spanish lady who travelled to the Holy Land from distant
Galicia about 385 A.D.,[51] and who wrote a book about her journey, the
original manuscript of which is still in existence, quite escaped his
notice. Florez, writing towards the end of the eighteenth century,
believed that of this interesting lady no other record had been
preserved than that which he found in the works of the Abbot Valerius,
and which he published for the first time. Florez devoted several pages
of his volume on Galicia to this plucky abbess, or nun, whichever she
might be, because he felt sure that she was a native of that province.
Long after his day the discovery of her own writings (in 1883), and the
research of which she has since been the subject, has proved beyond all
doubt that she was indeed a native of Galicia. Florez begins his account
by a disquisition upon her name; he tells us that Morales spoke of her
as Echeria, that Tamazo called her Eucheria, and that the Toledo
manuscripts have her name as Egeria and Etheria. Florez had the same
manuscript to go by as Morales had had two centuries earlier--that of
the Cistercian Monastery of Carracedo in Bierzo, so he decided to adopt
the name Echeria in writing of her. As, however, it is now agreed that
her right name was Etheria, we will adopt that in preference.
A certain monk, Valerius, wrote a letter in Latin, in the second half of
the seventh century, to the monks of the Bergidensis, telling them about
the pilgrimage of Etheria, and holding her up to them as a model of
fortitude and perseverance. He spoke of her as “the most blessed
Etheria,” and related how, fired with religious enthusiasm, she had
undertaken a perilous journey to the East, in order that she might see
for herself the sacred land where her Saviour had lived and suffered for
the redemption of the world. He told of the difficulties she had faced
and the risks she had encountered in that long and fatiguing journey
over sea and land, over river and mountain, to Palestine and Egypt. She
felt that, like Abraham, she had received a call, and neither the
weakness of her body nor the love of her home could hinder her from
answering it, that is, from setting out on what, in those days, was, for
a woman, an unheard-of journey. Etheria crossed seas and ascended
mountains, no obstacle, no difficulty, no hardship could stop her till
she reached at length that holy spot where Christ was born, suffered,
and rose again. On her way Etheria visited the tombs of many martyrs and
prayed beside them, often going considerably out of her way to do so.
She carried with her as her guide both the Old and the New Testaments.
To reach the places mentioned in the Bible, she boldly crossed the most
dangerous deserts, and travelled by the most perilous roads; she visited
many isolated monasteries, and conversed with the most inaccessible
hermits in their cells.[52] She refreshed her soul, says Valerius, with
the sweet teachings of these seraphic beings. She also studied with
particular care the Book of Exodus, and followed the very road that the
Children of Israel took when they set out for the Land of Promise. She
reached at length the spot where Moses drew water from the rock, and
there she refreshed herself with the Water of Life. She came to the
desert, where the manna fell and where the foolish multitudes had sighed
for the flesh-pots of Egypt, being weary of their celestial food; here
she fed her spirit with the precious word of God. The pillar of cloud
by day and of fire by night which led the Israelites through the desert
did not prevent them from remembering all that they had left behind them
in Egypt. But Etheria had but one desire, to reach Mount Sinai. On
arriving at the foot of that mountain, she mounted to its summit, and
stood where Moses had stood to view the Promised Land, and then she fell
upon her knees, offering up her heart in praise and fervent prayer.
Thence she passed to Mount Tabor, whence Moses viewed the Promised Land,
and the mountain on which Christ Himself had prayed.
Etheria took several years to accomplish this pilgrimage, and all the
time she thought with longing of her far-off home. “It is marvellous,”
cries Valerius, “how much she endured and how much she went through”; it
is a story to confound the proud, a story to show how God chooses His
weakest vessels, passing by the strong, to show what the human breast
can endure when filled with the love of Christ. The world itself was the
theatre of her undertaking; seas, rivers, and mountains were the steps
she trod. “What,” he asks, “must have been the force of that love which
so many waters failed to quench? with what firm hope did Etheria pass
through all those different countries with their different races and
different customs, and many of them barbarians! What must have been the
faith that could have preserved her intrepid to the end!” “_Usque in
finem irrevocabili audacia procul dubio perpetravit._” This, according
to Florez, was Etheria’s greatest triumph, and Valerius said in his day
that, not desiring to have rest in this world, but rather to enter into
eternity palm in hand, she even maltreated her own body that she might
prepare her soul for heaven and make it spotless. She made herself “a
pilgrim upon earth, that she might rest in heaven and stand with the
choir of virgins round their glorious Queen.” Valerius does not say
where she died, but he adds that she reached her house in safety. He
related all this to the monks, that, at the thought of such heroic
virtue on the part of one of the weaker sex, they might be ashamed of
their own half-heartedness and shortcomings, and beware lest, at the
coming of the Bridegroom, Etheria’s lamp might be found brightly trimmed
and their own be extinguished for lack of oil.
Florez based his conjecture, as to Etheria having been a native of
Galicia, on Valerius’s statement that she was a native of territory in
the west bordering upon the Ocean. “_Extremo occidui maris Oceani
littore exorta._” But nearly a hundred years after the death of Florez,
an Italian, M. Gamurrini,[53] made a very interesting discovery. He
found in the year 1883, in an Arezzo manuscript, part of a long account
of Etheria’s pilgrimage written by herself. Three years later he
published it in book form under the title of _Sanctae Silvae Acquitanae
peregrinatio ad loca sancta_. This manuscript, written in the second
half of the fourth century, had till that moment remained unknown to any
but a small circle of devotees to early Christian literature.
In 1888, M. Gamurrini published a second and more carefully prepared
edition. A year later a translation of this appeared in Russian at St.
Petersburg, accompanied by the Latin text. It was not till the year
1891, that the Palestine Pilgrims Tract Society published, in London,
the original text, accompanied by an English version made by John H.
Bernard, an introduction and notes. The English title was as follows,
“The Pilgrimage of St. Silvia of Acquitaine to the Holy Places about 385
A.D.” In 1898 a learned edition was published at Vienna by Herr Paul
Geyer.[54]
The manuscript of Arezzo is incomplete,--having neither beginning nor
end, and it has no author’s name. Now the question that naturally arises
in our minds is, How did M. Gamurrini know that the writer was Silvia of
Acquitaine? What autobiographical details did the manuscript reveal? It
certainly revealed that its author was a lady of distinction, and that
she was a native of a western province of the Roman Empire, bordered by
the ocean. After the discovery of the manuscript there was a great deal
of discussion as to who could have been its author. Some thought she
must be Silvia, sister of Rufinus; Kohler thought she was Galla
Placidia, daughter of Theodosius;--it will be remembered that this
emperor was born in Galicia; but now the date of the pilgrimage is known
to have been much earlier than that of the birth of Theodosius, so that
the pilgrim could not have been his daughter. In October 1903, Father
Marius Férotin, a learned French monk of the Benedictine Order,
published an article in the _Revue des Questions Historiques_, entitled
“Le Véritable auteur de la _Peregrinatio Silvae_. La vierge Espagnole
Etheria.”[55] This student says that the first sentence of the
manuscript shows us the intrepid lady traveller already far from her
native land--at the foot of Mount Sinai. “Dans un Latin vulgaire plein
de simplicité, j’allais dire de bonhomie, mais qui ne manque pas de
charme et où déborde à chaque page un saint enthusiasme pour les
souvenirs bibliques.” She tells her readers that she is in haste to see
everything. “Ego, ut satis curiosa” (_satis_ is here used for _valde_),
and the number of questions she asks prove that she has not exaggerated.
When she came to where the city of Sodom once stood, she wrote: “The
place where there was once an inscription about Lot’s wife was shown to
us, which place we read of in the Scriptures. But, believe me, venerable
ladies (the nuns of her convent in Galicia), the pillar itself is not
visible, only the place is shown. The pillar is said to be covered up in
the Dead Sea. We certainly saw the place, but we saw no pillar; I cannot
deceive you about this matter. The bishop of the place, that is, of
Segor, told us that it is now some years since the pillar was
visible.”[56]
It is evident that it was Etheria’s own account of her journey which
gave rise to Valerius’s letter to the monks. The date, as well as the
departure and the various stages of the journey, all tally with those
given by Valerius, and he even makes use at times of the identical
expressions used by Etheria. As Father Férotin truly remarks, although
history is known to repeat itself, it has never done so to such an
extent as to give us two such women and two such journeys to Palestine!
Greek names were rare in Spain in the fourth century. Etheria is the
Greek equivalent for Céleste. The name of Etheria in its masculine form
is found in Spain in the eighth century,--it was the name of a
bishop--St. Etherius. “La liturgie wisegothique faisait grand usage de
l’épéthète etheria.”[57] Férotin gives the whole of the Latin from the
original manuscript, the _Codex Escurialensis_ of Valerius’s letter to
the monks, which ends with the exhortation: “_Ideo fratres dilectissimi,
cui non erubescimus, qui uribus corporis et integretate salutes
consistimus, mulierem patriarchi Abrahe sanctum complesse exemplum, qui
femineum fragile sexum_,” etc., of which I have given Florez’s free
translation above.
Férotin reminds his readers that the greater part of this interesting
and important manuscript has yet to be discovered, but that we now know
for certain the name, the native land, and the rank of this illustrious
lady of Galicia, which a short time since were supposed to have been
lost for ever. Father Férotin does not think, like Gamurrini, that she
was an abbess, though the catalogue of Limoges gives her that title.
It has fallen, then, to the lot of a Frenchman to discover that the
manuscript published by an Italian (Gamurrini) is the original from
which the Spanish abbot Valerius drew the account of Etheria’s journey
which he sent in his letter to the Bergidensian monks. But perhaps the
most interesting point in connection with that discovery is the fact
that in Lemberg another monk, of yet another nationality, made the same
discovery at the very same time, and would have published it had not he
accidentally learned that Férotin had anticipated him by a few days.
Father Férotin tells us that while his article was in the press he
received a letter from Father A. Lambert of Lemberg, dated 8th July
1903, in which the latter informed him that he too had made the same
discovery, and had been on the point of publishing it when he saw that
of Férotin announced in the _Review_ in which it afterwards appeared;
and he adds: “La découverte de la lettre de l’abbé Valerius ad monarchos
Bergidenses m’avait amené sur l’origine de la _Peregrinatio_ a une
resultat identique, mais par une route differente.” “I found it,” he
adds, “by noticing a sentence that occurs in three of the catalogues of
the manuscripts of St. Martial, J. Limoges (thirteenth century). I found
that mention was made of a journey made by the Abbess Etheria,
_Itinerarium Egeriae Abbatissae_, the identification of which with that
of the account above mentioned is beyond all doubt.” Father Férotin
published the whole of the letter at the close of his article, that his
readers might see for themselves how two persons quite unknown to one
another had made the discovery simultaneously.
Etheria wrote, as we have seen, the story of her travels for the
religious edification of the nuns of her convent. It was of quite a
private nature, and this probably accounts for the fact that no other
writer besides Valerius seems to have had his attention drawn to it.[58]
The archives of Spain’s convents and churches teem with unread and
unpublished manuscripts which await the student of the future. Among
them may perhaps, some day, be discovered the lost part of Etheria’s
_Journey to Jerusalem_, or possibly it may lie hidden in some dusty
parchment roll at Florence, or in the Vatican.