Reliquary in the form of a church or shrine,

6th–7th century

The rapid growth of pilgrimage in early Christianity was a movement that, surprisingly, had neither precedent in the Bible nor mandate among the early Church Fathers. Pilgrims from every stratum of society were driven by the same conviction: that the sanctity of holy people, objects, and places was in some measure transferable through physical contact. Jerusalem, which claimed the most significant shrines in Christendom—the places of Jesus’ death and Resurrection—became in effect one vast pilgrim complex, with an established circuit of sites, churches, and relics. Shown here is a stone reliquary in the form of a colonnaded building, possibly representing the tomb of Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Returning pilgrims would take with them eulogiae (“blessings”), usually containing a small quantity of some common substance like oil or water that had been sanctified by contact with a relic, and thus, the Divine. To judge from the wealth of surviving clay ampullae, or pilgrim flasks, from the shrine of Saint Menas in Egypt, it must have been one of the most visited holy sites. The ampulla displayed here is typical of these containers, with an image of the saint on either side. Holes in marble reliquaries, like the miniature sarcophagus here, allowed oil or water to pass over the relic within and emerge at bottom, providing eulogiae that might cure sickness or avert demons. Small bronze reliquary crosses are too numerous to have contained pieces of the True Cross, on which Jesus was believed to have been crucified, and instead probably held cloth or earth that had been in contact with it.