Ecclesiastical Geography and Topography of the Christian World - Chapters III

World map, Babylon, 6th century. B.C. The oldest known geographical map.

(Attention to the inhabited territory and the surrounding ones must have appeared very early, even at the dawn of humanity. What we know for sure is that already at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. some peoples of the Mediterranean and the Middle and Far East possessed elementary geographical knowledge and rudimentary cartographic techniques.)

Chapter III

The study of Ecclesiastical Geography: 
Groups of typical sources 
for Antiquity and the Middle Ages 

Chronological scope and the history of the discipline

            Ecclesiastical geography in general can be divided into the historical one and the one that studies the present situation of the Church, that is, its geographical distribution and the external and internal organization. Historical ecclesiastical geography is divided into ancient, medieval and modern ecclesiastical geography. In our course we want to take a broad look at the ecclesiastical geography, retracing the whole history of Christianity from the geographical perspective - from the first Christian community in Palestine up to our times.

The history of the discipline

            To understand our subject well we will follow the history and development of ecclesiastical geography.

           Modern geography and together with it ecclesiastical geography as a scientific discipline was born only in the sixteenth century, this does not mean that before the Renaissance era, there was no geographical knowledge and works that described the earth's surface.

          The attention to the inhabited territory and the neighbouring ones must have appeared very precociously, even at the dawn of humanity. What we know with certainty is that already at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, some peoples of the Mediterranean and the Middle and Far East possessed elementary geographic knowledge and rudimentary cartographic techniques. Scientific geography was born in the context of classical Greek culture and was manifested both with theoretical speculations on the shape, dimensions and representation of the Earth, and with detailed descriptions of countries and peoples: the Ionian philosopher Anaximandro elaborated the first design of the known world; the Pythagoreans sensed the sphericity of the Earth; Aristotle faced various problems of physical geography; Hecataeus of Miletus and Herodotus outlined effective frameworks of visited regions. In the Hellenistic age, Eratosthenes emerged, to whom we owe the construction of an ecumene card and the measurement of the degree of meridian; in the Roman period, it was still the Greeks, and not the Latins, who made progress on geography, especially with Strabo, author of a vast work of descriptive geography, and with Ptolemy who elaborated a series of papers and wrote an explanatory introduction.

                                        Reconstruction of Anaximander's globe (c. 610 – 546 BC)

The world designed by Hecataeus of Miletus (550 – 476 BC)

            Even Christians from the beginning had a concept and a geographical awareness of the world in which they lived. Above all they were aware of living in a large political body - the Roman Empire that facilitated the dissemination of their religion but also the contacts between individual communities, travel, correspondence, etc. Some Christian authors pointed out that the fact that the Christian religion was born in the Roman Empire was a sign of divine providence because in this way Christian ideas could circulate and spread throughout the then-known world.

(Pax Romana) Roman Empire at its greatest extent, 117 A

           The so-called Pax Romana favoured the spread of Christianity, as well as other Eastern religions because everyone could move in an immense area without frontiers, as if it were the territory of a single city. To remind him of the people, Agrippa, a minister of Augustus, had a large map of the streets that crossed the Empire erected on the field of Mars, and a century later Saint Irenaeus could write: Thanks to the Romans, the world enjoys peace, we move without fear through the streets and cross the sea to go where we want. At the beginning of the fifth century Rutilio Namaziano [In Latin Claudius Rutilius Namatianus, 414-415 AD; He was a Roman poet and politician; Namaziano is chronologically, the last author of the literary world and Latin pay. From the ideological point of view, Rutilio is an aristocratic pagan who does not accept the new times, since He rejects the Christian cults, which he considers east rary tradition of Rome], he is returning to his Gallic homeland, exclaims: "You have made for one people a single homeland: it was a great fortune for barbarous people to be annexed to your dominion. While you offer the losers to participate in your right, you have made the city what the world was before". Therefore the Christians were aware of the possibilities and advantages that they gained from living in the Empire, despite numerous difficulties and persecutions.

                                                    Spread of Christianity 1st-2nd century

        From the beginning, Christians were also interested in the spread of their communities in the Empire. Already the Acts of the Apostles contain numerous names of the cities, of the provinces; they describe in detail the missionary journeys of St. Paul, and they give us the names of the places where new communities were founded. We could call the Acts of the Apostles the first "compendia or ecclesiastical geography."

           Moreover, Christianity was a missionary religion par excellence, therefore in constant movement. The first diffusion of Christianity was the so-called itinerant missionaries, travelling missionaries like Saint Paul, who went from one place to another according to the commandment of Jesus to go and make disciples of all peoples. Not all missionaries went in the same direction, but went to different regions. Because of their mission in lands 'distant' from their usual horizons, they had to have notions of the geography of the time, of the roads of connection, of the populations and of the cities to be evangelized. 

            Jerusalem was a privileged place for observation and information because pilgrims flowed there from many regions. The Acts of the Apostles offer a geographical breakdown of people present in Jerusalem: "Then there were Jews in Jerusalem, observers of every action that is under heaven [...] We are Parthians, Medes, Elamites and inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, of Pontus and of Asia, of Phrygia and of Pamphylia, of Egypt and of the parts of Libya near Cyrene, foreigners of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs and we hear them announce in our tongues the great works of God " (2,5-11). However, the missionaries did not have maps in the sense of today, as we are used to. These, for the antiquity, when they were depicted, were not traced according to the physical and human configuration of the earth's surface - as is done today for the maps - but according to the traveller's perspective, that is, relation to the practicability and its position in the horizons. The existing maps described do not represent physical geography but present the ways to go. Moreover, cartographic representation and perception are very different from ours, because we are used to maps and to the representation of the physical territory. 

            The perception of the geographical space of the ancients is according to the ethnographic criterion, according to the peoples who inhabited the near and far territories. These people are described according to their customs and their way of life (food, clothing, funeral rites, houses, and their language). The Romans, with the construction of the roads marked by the milestones, which signalled the distances from the cities of reference ( caput viae ), gave the sense of the distances from one place to another with great precision. Outside of this space built by the Romans, the sense of distance was given by the travel time. The authors say: two, three, or four days of walking. The measurement of geographical space and distances is very relative, because speed, depending on the instruments used, can change enormously.

            Christianity, in its birth and in its long history, is closely connected with geography, both physical and human. The study of any type of ecclesiastical history must take into account the geography, first of all the physical one: of the land, river, and sea roads, possible journeys, of communications between the various churches. According to the geography, the communities and the relations between them are organized.

In what sources do we find the first traces of ecclesiastical geography?

          Eusebius of Caesarea - Ecclesiastical history is known in Latin as Historia Ecclesiastica or Historia Ecclesiae. It is the founding text of the history of Christianity that put together every piece of information, legend or rumour that could be found on the origins of the nascent Christian movement of the fourth century. In this work, Eusebius, according to what is clear in the introduction, wants to present the history of the Church from the time of the apostles up to his days, particularly as regards these aspects: the episcopal successions in the most important places; the history of Christian theologians; the history of heresies; the history of the Jews; the relationship with the people; the martyrs.

            Other Christian writings and works by the fathers of the Church that give us information on the diffusion and organization of Christian communities:

            The Didache or the Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles - a work written in the Syrian environment towards the end of the first century, and therefore immediately after the apostolic writings, is the first non-apocryphal Christian writing with a pastoral character. It is a catechism in synthesis addressed to Christian communities, urges the respect of moral obligations and devotes much space to the celebration of the Eucharist.

           The Didascalia of the Apostles was composed by a Syrian bishop around the year 220. It is directed to a community of Christians converted from paganism. It contains a series of ecclesiastical provisions for married couples, bishops and widows.

            The Apostolic Constitutions are 8 books that collect documents of the primitive Church, mostly of a legal-liturgical nature but also prayers and formulas for different occasions. They reproduce entire paragraphs of Didache and Didascalia. Ecclesiastical buildings say that they must be facing east and that on both sides of the presbytery, there must be two sacristies. They were probably written around 380 in Syria.

            St. Ignatius of Antioch - suffered martyrdom in Rome around 110. We can assume that he occupied the headquarters of Antioch in the year 80. During the journey to martyrdom from Antioch in Rome he wrote 7 letters to different Churches, in which he reveals the passionate soul of Christ and provides precious information on the Church of his time.

            Origen - (185-254) is considered one of the leading Christian writers and theologians of the first three centuries. A Greek family, he was the director of the "catechetical school" of Alexandria (Didaskaleion). He interpreted the transition from pagan philosophy to Christianity and was the creator of the first great system of Christian philosophy. Author of numerous doctrinal, philosophical and apologetic works. Above all the latter tells us a lot about the organization of the Church in the third century: Contra Celsum, Exhortation to martyrdom.

        Pope Cornelius (about 180 - June 253), in his letter written about the year 251 informs us about the organization of the Church of Rome.

        Tertullian - Quinto Settimio Fiorente Tertullian (Latin: QuintusSeptimiusFlorensTertullianus; Cartagine, about 155 - about 230), known simply as Tertullian, was a Roman writer and Christian apologist, one of the most famous of his time. In his apologetic works we find information on the life and organization of Christian communities, eg: Adnationes, Apologeticum, and many others, in total 30 works of Tertullian of apologetic-theological character have been received in our time.

         Other Christian authors: San Giustino, Melitone di Sardi, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Minucio Felice, Saint Cyprian of Carthage, Novatian, Lactantius, Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Saint Hilary of Poitiers, Saint Basil the Great, Saint Gregory Nazianzen, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Ambrose of Milan, Saint Augustine of Hippo. Already the origin of these authors tells us a lot about the geographical spread of Christianity in the first centuries.

Pagan authors: 

        We also have some writings by non-Christian authors (pagans) who write about Christians and Christianity, often critically, but they give us important information on the Christian communities of the first centuries: Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Josephus, Epictetus, Luciano, Aristide, Galeno, Lampridio, Dione Cassio, Imerio, Libanio, Ammanio Marcellino, Eunapio and Zosimo.

            Tacitus (Gallia Narbonense, 55-58 ca - Rome, 117-120 ca), giving mention (in his Annals) of the persecution of Nero against the Christians in Rome, around the year 64, incidentally testifies that Jesus was sent to death as an evildoer by Pontius Pilate, under the reign of Tiberius; that he was the founder of the Christian sect; this was born in Judea and spread despite the ignominious death of Christ and, given thecionono 's hatred and the price at which it met in the emperor so that a Christian was cruelly' great multitude killed in Rome. Tacitus clearly states that those Christians were completely innocent of the crimes attributed to them by Nero, who set fire to the city to enjoy the spectacle of the fire of Troy, and then, make the Christians responsible Tacitus also makes a valuable testimony to the 'fulfilment of the prophecy of Christ around the destruction of Jerusalem and the ruin of the people ebraico (Book V of his history).

            Pliny the Younger was a contemporary of Tacitus and of the emperor Trajan. In a lively letter written to Trajan, about the year 107, he testifies of the rapid expansion of Christianity in Asia Minor - at that time - among all classes of society; and describes the moral purity and firmness of his followers, albeit between cruel persecutions; highlights the way and time of their worship; of their adoration of Christ as God; he cites the observance "of an established day" - which is undoubtedly the day of Sunday and other important facts for the history of the early Church. The Rescript of Trajan, in response to Pliny's investigation, clearly demonstrates the innocence of Christians. He does not take any charge against them, except for their contempt for idols and forbids them to deal with them.

            In the fourth century, the mass pilgrimage movement began, especially to the Holy Land, to the places linked with the life of Jesus, but also to other places and sanctuaries linked to the lives of the apostles, to the first place the city of Rome. At that time began the production of works of a geographic-devotional nature (Itineraries) that give us much information on the holy places, on the lives of the apostles, martyrs and Christian traditions. The Holy Places are intimately linked to the phenomenon of pilgrimage, a medieval word therefore not ancient, which in the late Roman-Byzantine era was expressed with the expression "go to pray in a sanctuary" which characterizes the pilgrimage as an act of piety and of devotion to gather in prayer on a place considered holy. The visit to the Holy Places is documented continuously as a mass phenomenon from the fourth century onwards in the pilgrimage literature (Itineraries or reports of the journey to the Holy Land).

Some examples of itineraries:

- Itinerarium Burdigalense (dated 3 33 AD, Dalmatio et Zenophilo consulibus) from Bordeaux to Jerusalem with a visit to the city and to the biblical sites.

- Itinerarium Egeriae (dated for internal criteria 381-384). A colourful description of the journey of a Roman noblewoman who came probably from Galicia and visited the Holy Land, Egypt and Mount Sinai, Mount Nebo in Arabia, Syria-Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. The itinerary is a multi in Palestine, which was mentioned by Pietro Diacono of the Abbey of Montecassino in his work De Locis Sanctis (XII century).

- Epitaphium Paulae in which Jerome describes the pilgrimage in which he accompanied his deceased friend (epistula 108).

- De Situ Hierosolymaeepistula to Faustumpresbyterum of Eucherius probably from the 5th century. A brief description of the city and some places in Judea.

- Breviarius de Hierosolyma. A short guide to the use of pilgrims dating from the end of the fifth to the beginning of the sixth century.

- De Situ Terrae Sanctae of Theodosius. This too is a rather confusing guide that can be dated to the same period.

- Itinerarium Antonini Placentini. The longest of the 6th-century itineraries of an anonymous pilgrim from Piacenza who visited the Near East around 570 AD

- De Locis Sanctis. A description of the Holy Places written between 679 and 688 by Adamonaus Abbot of Iona in Ireland using the memories of the Arculfo pilgrim supplemented by other writings.

Between the end of antiquity and the early Middle Ages, an important source for ecclesiastical geography was Rationesdecimarum. The Ratio Decimarum was the register of tithes that were collected by ecclesiastical bodies. This register therefore allows us to have a lot of information both on the parishes and on the individual countries, containing the historical data on the existence of the same. The Rationesdecimarum together is a sign of the strengthening of the territorial conception of the episcopal government and a detailed tool for the knowledge of the diocesan geography.

            Since the end of the tenth century drafted numerous documents - first by the Imperial, then above apart papal with whom the highest offices of Christianity took under its protection the local churches, specifying more or less pre precision the territorial areas of reference and listing churches and places from time to time relevant (eg: in 962 Ottone I granted the municipal powers to the bishop of Reggio Emilia with a diploma in which he pointed out the diocesan space with lots of cardinal points, topography, hydrography, fortifications, in 998 Ottone III confirmed the rights of the bishop of Arezzo minutely listing all the churches of the diocese, similar letters were sent to the bishops of Savona, Mantua, Chieti, Massa Marittima and many others). This type of documentation can be defined as maps of the patrimonial and jurisdictional rights of the bishops. In the records of the papal chancery, we find numerous documents concerning the Christian territories with geographical references and descriptions of the lands that recognized papal authority.

Cosmology and Symbolism - Medieval Theological Geography

                In the Middle Ages, there are also cosmologies, ie religious narratives, in this case, Christian, on the origin of all things and on the order of the world. The geographic-cosmological maps of a symbolic nature are also elaborated. The basis for the elaboration of cosmologies was the Bible, cosmology is also called «Christian topography». The most famous is the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes (Constantine of Antioch), who was a merchant, philosopher and cartographer Syriac who lived in the sixth century.

           Christianity has long believed that the Bible contains a cosmology, and as we said a "Christian topography " which opposed the Ptolemaic cosmology. Christians imagined the physical universe, in the manner of the ancient Jews, as a flat surface, covered by a hemisphere in which they move the Sun and the Moon, and not as a sphere around which would turn the sun. The registration of the biblical narrative in space can also be read in cartography. Historians of this discipline explain that scientific cartography, begun by the Greeks, momentum resumed only with the Renaissance. The clerics of the Middle Ages knew to project their faith only by drawing, for example, terrestrial globes in which the earth, represented by a circle, was divided into three continents then known through a grande, who remembered the Trinity.

Three-lobed World, Evesham, (1390 ca)

            During the Middle Ages and early modern Christians commonly used symbolic maps depicting the three continents' lobes joined the centre in Jerusalem - the so-called "world three lobes'. Such a representation of the world with simple geometric forms does not mean that early mapmakers were ignorant or incompetent, because they already had full capacity to design high-precision maps for boaters. Rather, these maps expressed a higher truth: Jerusalem was the centre of the world, the natural place for the act of self-sacrifice and redemption accomplished by Christ. These images also reflected a world in which Christianity had a strong presence in Asia and much of North Africa.

           Finally, and above all, human geography in the Bible was his first source. The indications of ethnographic Josephus, which in Jewish Antiquities commented on the table of nations contained in Chapter 10 of Genesis, are taken up and developed in medieval encyclopedias and then also from the sixteenth and seventeenth-century scholars.

Gallery of Geographical Maps, Vatican

                Medieval geographers, however, had difficulty recognizing the identity of the people protagonists of the great migrations. Starting from the passage of Luke's Gospel (Lk 2,1) on the census of all the earth ordered by Caesar Augustus imagined that the new peoples arrived in Europe were the same people known by the Romans that they had changed name.

                In the twelfth century, the image of the earth was a reflection of the feudal society and obviously had a limited view. The major issue was the sacredness of the space which was expressed on the occasion of the dedication of a church by some candles fixed to the wall, every foundation village was accompanied by the erection of crosses. The boundaries of the known world reminded Christians that this was their private place and the threshold not to cross. The boundaries of human space also marked the time in human history that went from the world's creation to the last judgment. So the era of geography has a strong symbolic and theological character based on the Bible.

            Hugh of St. Victor (ca 1096 - 1141) in his work De Ark Noemystica draws a globe with all the elements necessary for understanding, through a harmonious range of similarities, that the cosmos is nothing but an image of divine beauty. Around the ark of the Church, it has traced the oval of the earth, from east to west, from Paradise to the Judgment, with the north hell, where reigns eternal cold. Inside are space men, sorted by three poles: the south, Egypt, the mother of the arts and the Law; North Babylon, the land of exile; Jerusalem at the centre, the centre of the universe. Overlooking the ocean around the Earth, Ugo draws in a second circle, the winds and the seasons so useful to men and vegetation of the temperate zone. Finally, in a third circle, that etere [air, sky; according to the ancient Greeks cosmologists, the highest part, pure and bright space; in Aristotelian physics, the fifth element, incorruptible, they are made of the spheres and the heavenly bodies, from the sky of the moon at the heaven of fixed stars]. He has the months and signs of the zodiac, and it is this starry sky that concludes the description of the Universalis (universe). The representation of Hugh of St. Victor is typical for the Medioevo where scientific geography is not yet born and the knowledge of the Earth's surface is mixed with theology and philosophy then. He gave the visual and pedagogical approach: the world is a theatre of the kingdoms, and the globe has to demonstrate to people the proximity of the Last Judgment and encourage them to strive towards their Creator, from the visible to the invisible. The Word in the world is invisible, her figure is veiled by seraphim, but its perfectly perceptible work leads to Him. (To be Continued)

Fr. Nicholas Macedon OCD

Carmelite Priory, Oxford.            

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