“It is truly remarkable and I believe that without the Grace of God it would seem average, even being taller than the rest.”
— Egeria.
Back in the 4th century, between the years 381 and 384, an educated woman from the late Roman elite undertook a journey that would take her around three years to travel through the Holy Places. I learned about the story of this traveler—Egeria—in a workshop, thanks to a comment by an Argentine writer specializing in travel literature (Christian Kupchik). Sometime later, driven by curiosity, I set myself the task of searching for her itinerary translated into Spanish; I found a version on a history website which, without providing major specifications, ended up being my only reading source for the itinerary. I complemented that reading with a few academic articles about her and her journey.
Today it occurs to me to address this chronicle from a skeptical perspective on travel. With the little I know, the help of artificial intelligence, and my penchant for intertwining history, its facts, and the views of various thinkers, I delve into this topic.
The intersection between Late Antique pilgrimage literature and the skeptical epistemological tradition: reading Grace not as an ontological given, but as a perspectival operator (a constitutive bias or a "disposition" in the sense of Sextus Empiricus) transforms Egeria’s pious account into an involuntary treatise on the limits and conditions of judgment.
I. The Sentence
In Chapter II of the Itinerarium, after describing Sinai and comparing it to the surrounding mountains, Egeria writes:
“It is truly remarkable and I believe that without the Grace of God it would seem average, even being taller than the rest.”
It is a short, almost unnoticed sentence, and yet it contains in germ everything that the skeptical tradition—from Pyrrho to Hume—would say about the relationship between perception, belief, and judgment. Egeria does not say that the mountain is remarkable: she says that it seems remarkable to her because of Grace. She states, without intending to, the central thesis of skepticism: we do not know things as they are, but things as they appear to a subject disposed in a certain way.
The sentence admits a rigorously hypothetical reading: if Grace is removed from it (a counterfactual hypothesis that Egeria herself formulates), the mountain “would seem average.” That is to say, the remarkable height is not in the mountain, but in the eye of the beholder. Pyrrho would have nodded.
II. The Two Mountains: Sextus Empiricus and the Modes
A few paragraphs earlier, Egeria describes the same landscape twice. Before ascending, the surrounding mountains “seemed high,” and Sinai cannot even be seen “until reaching its very base.” After ascending, those same mountains “gave the impression of being below us and of being humble hills,” and from the summit, “Egypt, Palestine, and the Red Sea can be seen in an incredible manner.”
This is, point by point, the doctrine of the modes of Aenesidemus and Sextus Empiricus:
1. The Mode of Relativity (pros ti): Nothing is high or low in itself; the mountain is high “compared to the valley” and humble “compared to Sinai.” Egeria registers the same object with opposite predicates depending on the observer's position.
2. The Mode of Dispositions or States of the Subject (diathesis): The mountain changes its nature depending on who looks at it—the weary traveler, the resident monk, the faithful who knows that the “majesty of God” descended there. Sextus would call this the tropikē dynamis, the disposition from which that which appears is grasped.
3. The Mode of Frequency and Habit: Egeria notes that the Pharanites cross the desert at night “with as much diligence and safety... as others might do on flat roads.” What is impossible for an outsider (there is no road, everything is sand) is trivial for the accustomed. Habit constructs worlds.
What is remarkable is that Egeria accurately describes the skeptical mechanism without drawing the skeptical conclusion. She sees that her judgments are relative, and instead of suspending them, she celebrates them.
Up to this point, Egeria acts as an impeccable phenomenological-skeptical observer: she describes what appears to her without attributing absoluteness to her initial impression. It is the inverse case of Sextus: where the skeptic says “I cannot judge,” Egeria says “for that very reason I give thanks.”
The "Leap" of Faith: The Refraction of Desire and the Category Mistake
What does Egeria do with that perception, and how does she deliberately break away from the skeptical conclusion?
Egeria does not only apply the modes to physical geography (mountains that shrink or grow larger depending on the observation point), but to affective geography. For the skeptic, affection (pathos) is the only undeniable data, but it does not authorize any assertion about the underlying nature of the object (physis). Egeria commits the categorical “error” that Pyrrho would denounce: she confuses the intensity of her internal affection (devotion, awe) with an intrinsic property of the mountain (its “remarkable height”).
Where Sextus Empiricus would say: “Since the mountain seems high from below and low from above, I suspend judgment (epochē) on its true height (physis),” Egeria introduces affective geography:
1. Affection (pathos) as proof: Egeria feels a devotional awe. For Sextus, pathos is real as an internal experience, but incapable of demonstrating anything about the external object.
2. The Pyrrhonian "error": Egeria projects the intensity of her inner faith onto inert matter. For her, the mountain is not “remarkably high” due to a metric measurement, but because it is imbued with the “majesty of God.” She transforms a subjective experience into an objective, theological truth.
3. Loss of ataraxia through grace: The skeptic seeks the suspension of judgment to achieve peace of mind (ataraxia). Egeria does not seek ataraxia (unshakeable tranquility), but spiritual enthusiasm. The relativity of the world does not paralyze her or turn her skeptical; it dazzles her.
Synthesis: The “Hermeneutics of Wonder.” The analysis converges by demonstrating that Egeria uses the tools of ancient skepticism as catalysts for Christian theology:
• Phenomenological level: Egeria perceives the world with the sharpness of a skeptic. She registers how position and habit alter judgments.
• Ontological/affective level: She deliberately betrays the skeptical method. Finding no fixed truth in physical geography, she does not fall into doubt, but reinterprets it through the geography of desire and faith.
Egeria disarms the skeptical trap by converting the relativity of the physical world into a demonstration of divine greatness. For her, the fact that a mountain changes shape depending on where you stand does not prove the impossibility of knowing the truth, but rather the infinity of the God who created it.
III. "Just as I Already Knew": Montaigne and Experience as Memory
The most unsettling confirmation arrives when Egeria descends from the mountain and notes:
“You see it head-on, something that could not be done before ascending, just as I already knew from references by the brothers before reaching the mountain of God, and after arriving I sufficiently verified it.”
Montaigne would have underlined this line. In the Apology for Raymond Sebond, he contends that experience is never pure: we approach things with the text already written inside us and call the act of recognition “verifying.” Egeria discovers nothing at Sinai: she verifies. Her entire pilgrimage is structured this way—she herself confesses that the monks showed her “every site that I had found by reading the Holy Scriptures.” The landscape is a commentary on a prior text; reality functions as a gloss. Montaigne would say that Egeria suffers from the commentators' affliction: she does not travel to see the world, but to check whether geography conforms to her footnotes.
It is Montaigne’s “Que sais-je?” in reverse. Where Montaigne discovers that he does not know what he thought he knew, Egeria proves that she knows exactly what she wanted to know: her trip is designed so that the outcome is guaranteed in advance. Nothing she sees can refute what she believes, because they only approach places that confirm Scripture. It is the opposite method of the essay (essai: attempt, test that can fail).
Montaigne and the Hermeneutic Circle
By this I refer to the way in which empirical experience (what we see, touch, or travel to know) is always mediated and conditioned by a prior reading. “All of it was punctually written down, because it was impossible to retain so many things in memory” (Chap. V—the text as a substitute for a memory that no longer trusts itself: an involuntary skeptical touch). This reinforces the Montaignian rift: Egeria herself mistrusts the stability of her own mind. The written text replaces fluid empirical judgment, petrifying experience before forgetfulness or doubt can alter it.
It is worth noting, however, a Montaignian crack in Egeria's favor: in Haran, when the bishop cannot answer where he knows about Nahor and Bethuel from, she accepts without discomfort that there are texts that do not reveal everything. Here we find a counterpoint. Her curiosity exceeds dogma. It demonstrates that Egeria’s faith is not a blind, closed dogmatism, but a devout empiricism where intellectual curiosity sometimes overflows dogma. Montaigne's skepticism is also that: a curiosity that is not appeased by the first answer.
The hermeneutic circle describes the idea that we cannot understand the whole without understanding the parts, but we cannot understand the parts without already having a prior notion of the whole.
Applied to the experience of the traveler or reader:
• We do not go out into the world with a blank mind (as a tabula rasa).
• We set out with a mental framework, a text, a culture, or a prior expectation.
• When we encounter reality, we do not “discover” it cleanly; rather, we interpret it so that it fits into the map of what we already knew or expected to find. Reality functions as a confirmation or gloss of the prior text.
Montaigne's Perspective (Essays)
Michel de Montaigne, especially in his famous essay "Apology for Raymond Sebond" (Book II, Chap. 12), maintains a radical skepticism regarding the “purity” of human experience and knowledge:
• We interpret interpretations: Montaigne observes that we spend our lives commenting on what others have already commented on. We rarely face the thing itself; we face the opinions, prejudices, and texts about the thing.
• The text projected onto the world: For Montaigne, the human mind is a projective instrument. We carry the story within, and we call “verifying” or “discovering” the simple gesture of recognizing externally what was already engraved in our intellect or faith.
• Experience is not neutral: There is no direct, impartial contact with facts. The subject always judges from a position, a habit, or a previous reading.
How does it operate in the essay on Egeria?
When the essay applies this intersection to the 4th-century pilgrim, it reveals the mechanism of her journey:
1. The prior text: Egeria travels with the Holy Scriptures in her mind (and in her hands). The monks and guides show her places saying: “here occurred this which you read.”
2. Verification as an illusion: Egeria does not travel with an attitude of scientific or tentative exploration ( the Montaignian essai, where the test can fail and refute belief). She travels to verify.
3. Closing the circle: Her gaze recognizes the landscape because the landscape was already “written” in her faith before leaving Europe. Sinai is tall, sacred, and overwhelming not only because of its geology, but because it is the mountain of the Exodus. Physical reality operates as a marginal comment to the Bible.
In summary, “the hermeneutic circle” designates that mental structure according to which we never travel toward the unknown, but toward the confirmation of what we already knew, converting the experience of the world into a circular reading where the text validates the sight, and the sight ratifies the text.
IV. Hume: The Testimony of Those Who Wish to Believe
The second part of the Itinerarium—the liturgy of Jerusalem—is perfect material for Hume’s essay Of Miracles. Egeria describes crowds who “believe they have incurred serious sin if they do not attend” the solemnities, and people who gather “from everywhere... to enjoy such great joy.” For Hume, no testimony of a miracle is sufficient when it comes from people with an intense desire for it to be true and a willingness to believe in a group.
And here the decisive sentence of the text, perhaps the best in the entire Itinerarium to read through Hume, is written by Egeria on her way to the land of Job:
“It can be said that it is not a laborious task when a person sees that their desire can come true.”
She wrote it to describe her own effort, and without realizing it, she defined the psychology of Humean testimony: fulfilled desire anesthetizes scrutiny. Whoever desires to see the burning bush does not evaluate the bush; they give thanks for the bush. Hume would say: the vivacity of the desire is transferred to the belief, and the vividly felt belief is reported as evidence. Egeria is the perfect witness to the miracle precisely because she is the witness least capable of testifying.
It shows how desire eliminates epistemic friction: physical effort erases intellectual doubt. For Hume, belief is an idea conceived with a particular vivacity; Egeria demonstrates that the fatigue of travel and religious expectation are the optimal fuels to raise that vivacity to the degree of indisputable evidence.
“As soon as he said it, we decided with great desire to go there.” (Chap. IX—the guide’s suggestion as an epistemic engine). The phrase perfectly illustrates the mechanism of the guide's suggestion. The authority of another’s word ignites the affective inclination before any empirical verification.
Furthermore, her text is a chain of testimonies: the monks show her “the large stone” where the tablets were broken, Elijah’s cave, Aaron’s altar—places identified because someone, at some point, said they were those. Each “they deigned to inform me” is another Humean link between fact and belief.
V. The Contrast: Epochē vs. Gratia
It is best not to turn the text into a skeptical pamphlet, because the final contrast is the most interesting aspect.
The skeptical gesture is epochē: suspending judgment when faced with that which appears in opposing ways. Egeria’s gesture is the exact opposite: faced with every appearance, she asserts as soon as possible, gives thanks, blesses. She formulates her anti-program herself: “once the desire is satisfied, you descend from there, and you see it head-on.” For Sextus, suspension produces ataraxia (tranquility); for Egeria, affirmation produces gratia (gratitude). Two opposing therapies for the same discomfort: the instability of a world that always appears in another way.
Yet both share a diagnosis: that things are not given to us directly, but through desire, habit, position, and story. The skeptic concludes therefore I do not judge; Egeria concludes therefore I give thanks. The Itinerarium is thus a unique document: the first-person account of how the mind works from the inside, which the skeptics could only describe from the outside. Where Sextus gives us the anatomy of belief, Egeria gives us her private diary.
To consolidate the parallelism between epochē and gratia, the closing can gain strength by contrasting the figure of the skeptic and that of the pilgrim as two divergent ways of inhabiting the same phenomenon of the world's expandability:
The skeptic and the pilgrim contemplate the same fissure: the unavoidable fact that things are not as they are, but as they appear to us. But where the skeptic sees in that distance a reason to refrain from judging and protect themselves from error, Egeria discovers a chink through which meaning seeps in. Epochē demands neutralizing the gaze so as not to be deceived by the mirage; gratia accepts the mirage as the only human way of inhabiting the sacred. Sextus Empiricus seeks ataraxia by deactivating judgment; Egeria finds peace by saturating it with gratitude.
VI. Working Bibliography
• Egeria, Itinerario (texto de la edición consultada, caps. I–VII y segunda parte)
• Sexto Empírico, Hipotiposis pirrónicas, I (los modos de Enesidemo y Agripa)
• Michel de Montaigne, Ensayos, II, 12 ("Apología de Raimundo Sabunde")
• David Hume, Investigación sobre el entendimiento humano, sección X ("De los milagros")
• Egeria (viajera) — Wikipedia https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egeria_(viajera)
• Itinerario de Egeria — Wikipedia https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itinerario_de_Egeria
• Itinerario de Egeria. Clásicos de Historia. http://clasicoshistoria.blogspot.com.es/
• Pascual, Carlos. Egeria, la Dama Peregrina. Arbor CLXXX, 711-712 (Marzo-Abril 2005), 451-464 pp.
• Gallego Franco, Henar. Mujeres y élite social en la Hispania tardoantigua: la evidencia epigráfica (SS. V-VI). HAnt XXIX-2005, 215-223.
• Cid López, Rosa María. Egeria, peregrina y aventurera. Relato de un viaje a Tierra Santa en el siglo IV / Egeria, pilgrim and adventurer. A report of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the 4th Century. Arenal 17:1; enero-junio 2010, 5-31.
• Castro Hernández, Pablo. "La peregrinación de Egeria. Una aproximación a la geografía sagrada y los sucesos milagrosos en Tierra Santa (s. IV d.C.)", Revista Historias del Orbis Terrarum, Anejos de Estudios Clásicos, Medievales y Renacentistas, ISSN 0718-7246, Vol. 11, Santiago, 2016, pp. 23-52.
• Real Torres, Carolina. El Itinerarium de Egeria. Crónica de una peregrinación a Tierra Santa. Actas de los Congresos Internacionales Diálogo Fe-Cultura de 2012 a 2018. Año 2019.
• Durán, Laura Carolina. Mujeres viajeras de la Antigüedad. Los relatos de Egeria y otras peregrinas en Tierra Santa. Patristica et Mediævalia 40.1 (2019): 103-104. Reseña del libro de Eduardo Otero Pereira (2018). Salamanca: Sígueme. 238 pp.
This essay was developed with the support of artificial intelligence tools: Mistral and Gemini.
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