Resumen de Wandering Wombs, Inspired Intellects: Christian Religious Travel in Late Antiquity
[...]these women's travels have been foundational for important modern studies of late antique Christian pilgrimage, for example, those of Daniel Caner, Susanna Elm, and Georgia Frank, as well as for the analysis of travel practices in the late antique Mediterranean basin more generally.1 Despite these excellent studies, however, the heightened scrutiny afforded prominent Christian women travelers can unintentionally lend to the impression that pilgrimage was a disproportionately female phenomenon. Of particular note is the fact that the contours and boundaries of pilgrimage as an identifiable phenomenon are inherently unstable. [...]as Ian Rutherford and Jas Elsner remind us, disciplinary divides and modern assertions about Christian distinctiveness continue to obscure the fluidity of the phenomenon and construct artificial boundaries, both between Christians and other religious groups and amongst Christians themselves.2 In the second part, I consider the prevalence of women within the narratives we disproportionately depend upon to examine pilgrimage. [...]Theodoret's monks are also points of divine contact, from whom miracles pour forth, and they consequently attract the attention of individuals who travel to gain cures and material benefit from them.26 Moreover, locations could-and did-acquire a sense of sacrality through the holy individuals attached to them. [...]pilgrimage to figures like Symeon the Stylite, reputed to have cured visitors to his pillar during his lifetime, continued after their deaths.27 Georgia Frank cautions us not to make too strong a distinction between journeys to holy people and those to holy sites, for, as she rightly argues, "too narrow a focus on the destination runs the risk of obscuring other elements, including the pilgrim. According to Wilkinson, Basil "rejected the whole notion of pilgrimage," for the bishop demonstrated a remarkable disinterest in the holy places and preferred to visit the ascetics "with the object of learning the secrets of their holy lives.
