Pilgrimage. 66
discipline does not consist in them, but they are the means to bring us unto that end."
Pilgrimage 1. Religious pilgrimage got footing after Constantine's time, about the year of grace 320, and yet was not as then used by all, but only by the vulgar; Nor undertaken for any worship of God, or merit's sake, but only for confirmation of faith. "It is a part of faith," says Jerome (Epist. 154),
"to worship the ground whereupon Christ's feet did tread." Severus Sulpitius (Historia, lib. secundo) and Paulinus (Epist. ad Sever) say that men's minds do draw them to Jerusalem for no other cause, but only to see and to touch the places wherein Christ was corporally present.
And before Constantine's time, it is told as a rare thing of Alexander, and a wonderful thing, that he hasted unto Jerusalem to worship and visit the holy places, as Eusebius records (lib. 6, cap. 10). But mark there that all this was done by a vision.
2) Afterward, succeeding times changed these pilgrimages into part of God's worship and religion. But yet the most orthodox fathers in that respect did always condemn it. So Nyssenus, in an epistle of his, affirms that it adds not one iota unto piety, and that God is present to those that call upon His name in every place alike. "The Lord says not," says Augustine (Serm. de Mart. 3, inter Serm. de Sanct.), "go into the east and seek justice, or sail into the west to receive pardon.
Forgive your enemy, and you shall be forgiven. Do not seek ought of yourself, without yourself. God directs you unto yourself, and your own conscience."