Itinerarium ad Loca Sancta (selection and commentary by Lourdes Muñoz Montagud)
The text of Egeria has not survived in its entirety, but it is possible to reconstruct the entire journey using the Roman Empire's own road infrastructure, other documented journeys of the period and Valerius' letter.
Egeria departs from some point in the province of Gallaecia, follows the Via Domitia, crossing Aquitaine and the Rhone, and arrives in Constantinople by sea. She then follows the military road through Bitania, Galatia and Cappadocia, continues through Tarsus, Antioch, Sycamina (Haifa) and Nicopolis (Emmaus) until arriving in Jerusalem at Easter in the year 381. From there she goes on excursions that keep her on the road for months at a time. The first departure is to Egypt, the second to Samaria and Galilee. These would be the routes that were supposedly described in the initial and lost part of the codex. The text that has come down to us begins when, on a third outing, Egeria and her companions are about to climb Mount Sinai.
Capitulum I
[multa desunt.]
1.-... ostendebantur iuxta scripturas. Interea ambulantes peruenimus ad quendam locum, ubi se[x] tamen montes illi, inter quos ibamus, aperiebant et faciebant uallem infinitam, ingens, planissima et ualde pulchram, et trans uallem apparebat mons sanctus Dei Syna. Hic autem locus, ubi se montes aperiebant, iunctus est cum eo loco, quo sunt memoriae concupiscentiae (cf. Num. 11, 34).
2.- In eo ergo loco cum uenitur, ut tamen commonuerunt deductores sancti illi, qui nobiscum erant, dicentes: «Consuetudo est, ut fiat hic oratio ab his qui ueniunt, quando de eo loco primitus uidetur mons Dei»: sicut et nos fecimus. Habebat autem de eo loco ad montem Dei forsitan quattuor milia totum per ualle illa, quam dixi ingens.
(Much is wanting.}
THE APPROACH TO SINAI
… were pointed out according to the Scriptures. In the meanwhile we came on foot to a certain place where the mountains, through which we were journeying, opened out and formed an infinitely great valley, quite flat and extraordinarily beautiful, and across the valley appeared Sinai, the holy mountain of God. And this place, where the mountains opened out, liesnext to the place where are the graves of lust. Now on reaching that spot, the holy guides who were with us told us, saying : " The custom is that prayer should be made by those who arrive here, when from this place the mount of God is first seen." And this we did. The whole distance from that place to the mount of God was about four miles across the aforesaid great valley.
- Text in Latin:
Silviae vel potius Aetheriae peregrinatio (1908). W. Heraeus (ed.). Bibliotheca Augustana, (27-02-2022), <http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost04/Egeria/ege_it00.html>
- Text in English:
The pilgrimage of Etheria (1919), M.L. McClure and C. L. Feltoe (ed. and trans.). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, (27-02-2022), <https://archive.org/details/pilgrimageofethe00mccliala>. PDF here.