The Natural World in Early Christian Pilgrimage: An Investigation of Earth, Water, Air, and Animals in Jerome's Letter 108 and the Piacenza Pilgrim's Itinerarium
(2025) TRVM50 20251Centre for Theology and Religious Studies
- Abstract
- This study examines how the natural world – earth, water, air, and animals – function in Jerome's Letter 108 (c. 404 CE) and the Piacenza Pilgrim's Itinerarium (c. 560-570 CE). Both late antique Christian pilgrimage narratives have been extensively analyzed for their political, architectural, and hagiographic dimensions. However, their ecological perspectives have been consistently overlooked. Using ecojustice hermeneutics and new materialist approaches, this study focuses the fundamentally ecological perspectives in these texts. Initially, Jerome appears to deny the earth agency. The earth needs God's permission to be fertile. Water requires Christ for redemption. Landscapes serve as locations for scriptural memory. Upon closer... (More)
- This study examines how the natural world – earth, water, air, and animals – function in Jerome's Letter 108 (c. 404 CE) and the Piacenza Pilgrim's Itinerarium (c. 560-570 CE). Both late antique Christian pilgrimage narratives have been extensively analyzed for their political, architectural, and hagiographic dimensions. However, their ecological perspectives have been consistently overlooked. Using ecojustice hermeneutics and new materialist approaches, this study focuses the fundamentally ecological perspectives in these texts. Initially, Jerome appears to deny the earth agency. The earth needs God's permission to be fertile. Water requires Christ for redemption. Landscapes serve as locations for scriptural memory. Upon closer investigation, however, moments in the heart of the work reflect a deep ecological gaze. The Piacenza Pilgrim, by contrast, approaches the natural world with sustained wonder. He calls the earth's fertility paradise. He sees water healing without biblical foundations. He describes air as an active participant in rituals. Moreover, the Piacenza Pilgrim's consistent use of vivus (living) across multiple elements – living soil (terra viva), living water (aquam vivam), and living rock (petra viva) – suggests a worldview in which the natural world has agency. The diversity within these accounts challenges scholarship, such as Lynn White Jr.'s critique of Christianity, that claims Christianity is anthropocentric. This study reveals real diversity in ecological views within early Christian pilgrimage. Pilgrimage literature contains multiple, complex voices and perspectives of the natural world that deserve careful attention. By reading these texts and seeing as the pilgrims saw, readers may discover new ways of seeing that can change the religious environmental debate. Finally, this study contributes new insights in Byzantine pilgrimage studies by connecting scholarship to environmental hermeneutics and highlighting how pilgrimage texts contain rich ecological thought. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9199815
- author
- Mutschler, Brodie Stuart LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- TRVM50 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Jerome Letter 108, Piacenza Pilgrim, natural world, nature in Christianity, nature in pilgrimage, living elements, agency, environmental theology, paradise, wonder, Byzantine pilgrimage, Christian pilgrimage literature, eco-hermeneutics, late antique Palestine
- language
- English
- id
- 9199815
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-16 08:48:18
- date last changed
- 2025-06-18 15:36:39
@misc{9199815,
abstract = {{This study examines how the natural world – earth, water, air, and animals – function in Jerome's Letter 108 (c. 404 CE) and the Piacenza Pilgrim's Itinerarium (c. 560-570 CE). Both late antique Christian pilgrimage narratives have been extensively analyzed for their political, architectural, and hagiographic dimensions. However, their ecological perspectives have been consistently overlooked. Using ecojustice hermeneutics and new materialist approaches, this study focuses the fundamentally ecological perspectives in these texts. Initially, Jerome appears to deny the earth agency. The earth needs God's permission to be fertile. Water requires Christ for redemption. Landscapes serve as locations for scriptural memory. Upon closer investigation, however, moments in the heart of the work reflect a deep ecological gaze. The Piacenza Pilgrim, by contrast, approaches the natural world with sustained wonder. He calls the earth's fertility paradise. He sees water healing without biblical foundations. He describes air as an active participant in rituals. Moreover, the Piacenza Pilgrim's consistent use of vivus (living) across multiple elements – living soil (terra viva), living water (aquam vivam), and living rock (petra viva) – suggests a worldview in which the natural world has agency. The diversity within these accounts challenges scholarship, such as Lynn White Jr.'s critique of Christianity, that claims Christianity is anthropocentric. This study reveals real diversity in ecological views within early Christian pilgrimage. Pilgrimage literature contains multiple, complex voices and perspectives of the natural world that deserve careful attention. By reading these texts and seeing as the pilgrims saw, readers may discover new ways of seeing that can change the religious environmental debate. Finally, this study contributes new insights in Byzantine pilgrimage studies by connecting scholarship to environmental hermeneutics and highlighting how pilgrimage texts contain rich ecological thought.}},
author = {{Mutschler, Brodie Stuart}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{The Natural World in Early Christian Pilgrimage: An Investigation of Earth, Water, Air, and Animals in Jerome's Letter 108 and the Piacenza Pilgrim's Itinerarium}},
year = {{2025}},
}