taught in its sacred scriptures, hence the importance of the Land of Israel, and in particular the shrines associated with Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael, to both Jews and Muslims. For Christians, however, there is no such emphasis or requirement. Jesus taught that the sacred is located not in a place, but in the body of the believer, and worship is something to be offered to God anywhere and everywhere (John 4:21-23). Therefore, in the earliest days of the Christian Church, there does not appear to have been any perceived benefit from undertaking a journey of pilgrimage, and, most Christian visitors to Jerusalem for the first 300 years after Jesus was crucified were more interested in coming to the land of the Bible to learn about it firsthand and meet with its small Christian community, than in visiting sites. It was a historical destination for them, more than a spiritually significant city. Despite this attitude and approach, the natural desire to visit the scenes associated with the birth, life and death of Jesus was part of early Christian culture as well, and it became a popular custom among Christians, from early on, to remember Jesus and feel His presence by visiting places consecrated by His having been there - Bethlehem,
Nazareth, Capernaum, Jerusalem, and elsewhere. Christians traveled to Jerusalem as early as the second century, and Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem stated around 350 AD, that: “Others only hear but we both see and touch.” St. Jerome went on a Holy Land pilgrimage not long afterwards, and he spent the last 34 years of his life in a monastery in Bethlehem. Although he called the Holy Land “the fifth Gospel,” and wrote that: “Nothing is lacking to your faith although you have not seen Jerusalem,” Jerome also agreed with Cyril, writing that a pilgrimage to the Holy Land assists believers in understanding the revealed word of God and arguing that it is part of the Christian faith “to adore where His feet have stood and to see the vestiges of the nativity, of the Cross, and of the Passion.” Despite the costs, hazards and arduous nature of such a journey, pilgrims increasingly sought out the Holy Land; it had become the inheritance of the Church in Byzantine times and, according to Byzantine law, was perceived as the land made holy by Jesus. Most pilgrims came to stand in the presence of those sites associated with the life, death and resurrection of their Savior and to protect the land and its Christian population and sites. Others, however, came - or were obliged to come - to do penance and to obtain redemption from serious crimes. From the ninth through the 11th century, parricides were obliged to go on pilgrimage to
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