CHRISTIANIZATION AND ITS CHALLENGESof ‘Hellenic medicine’. The various collections of miracle stories also engaged
in sectarian disputes, and during the sixth century there was evidently a ration-
alizing challenge to this burgeoning resort to the powers of saints, with several
works written in the late sixth century to defend the idea that souls, especially
the souls of saints, continued to exercise power after death. One such work
was written by Pope Gregory the Great, who had spent time in Constantino-
ple before he became pope and engaged in the debates going on there.^81
Pilgrims also took home souvenirs – lamps, tokens, bottles for water from
the River Jordan or earth from the Holy Land. The many surviving examples
of such items are often dated to around the sixth century, and are an indica-
tion of the extent of the pilgrim trade experienced in Palestine and elsewhere
at that period, including the shrine of St Menas not far from Alexandria in
Egypt.^82 Clay tokens from the shrine of St Symeon the Younger, south-west
of Antioch, offer another sixth-century example. These tokens often carried
images of the saint, and are one manifestation of what came to be a growing
veneration of holy images alongside the relics that were essential to the pil-
grim shrines (Chapter 9). The experience of pilgrims when they visited these
centres was complex, and no doubt exciting.^83 A pilgrimage centre would typi-
cally have one or more churches, with other buildings for the reception and
care of pilgrims; such sites were also often the location for the major market
and fair held in the area. Monasteries, too, built all round the Mediterranean,
were sometimes on a big scale and included facilities for visitors, and many
other hospices for travellers (xenodocheia) and hospitals for caring for the sick
were founded by wealthy Christians and imperial patrons.^84
The church and wealthAs the institutional profi le of the Christian church became more and more
pronounced, tensions arose between its increasing wealth and its ideals of
poverty and charity. Almsgiving had been a principle of the early church, and
widows and orphans had been maintained by individual congregations since
the second and third centuries. This took concrete form in the foundation of
buildings fi nanced for the very purpose. Through almsgiving, and through
the fi nancing of such institutions, the church, bishops, or, as often, individual
wealthy Christians were effective in redistributing wealth; at the same time,
through church building and other forms of patronage, these agencies took a
major part in changing the appearance and the economic basis of urban life
(Chapter 4). But though there was a clear relation between classical benefac-
tions (euergetism) and Christian patronage, the aims and motivation of the latter
also drew on other roots, in particular the Scriptural injunction to renounce
wealth and give to the poor (Matt. 19:21). Unlike classical benefactions, Chris-
tian charity was, at least in principle, aimed at the poor, of whom indeed the
Roman elite had been barely aware. Now, ironically, the poor acquired vis-
ibility.^85 Naturally, not all rich Christians were inclined to give up their luxuri-
ous lifestyles, as we learn from the sermons condemning them for continued