The Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University

Citation of Books Detail

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Author Quoted 
Title QuotedPilgrimage of Etheria / translation of Peregrinatio Aetheriae
Date (Year/Month/Day)1963/12/05
Imprint[S.l.] : [s.n.]. 1919
QuotationAnother Spanish writer-fourth-century Egeria (Etheria, "Sylvia") and her amazing Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Egypt, Sinai and Mesopotamia [Peregrinatio Aetheriae (The Pilgrimage of Etheria), 1919]. I love her. Simplicity, practicality, insatiable curiosity, and tremendous endurance as long as she is riding her mule (laments a little when she has to go "straight up" the side of Sinai-any influence on St. John of the Cross?). All the holy women she meets-they must have been delighted with her and overwhelmed. This is a really marvelous book, one of the greatest monuments of fourth-century literature, and too few know it. Two English translations, the most recent being 1919. I am tempted to do it-but better not! Is she Spanish? Sounds like a Spaniard, with the simplicity, mixture of hope, humor, idealism and endurance. Or maybe some day she will turn out to have been Irish!
Quotation SourceDancing in the Water of Life: Seeking Peace in the Hermitage. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 5, 1963-1965.; Edited by Robert E. Daggy. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1997, p. 43
Letter to 
Notes 
Link to Merton's Copy  

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