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A Symbol of Hope From Thessalonica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Bradley P. Nystrom
Bradley P. Nystrom
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
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Extract

A fourth-century inscription from Thessalonica includes an enigmatic symbol for which no explanation has been offered. The symbol appears on a stone marking the graves of a certain Σαμβάτιϛ and, presumably, his wife, Mαξήμα, and represents three intersecting staffs.

Type
Notes and Observations
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 74 , Issue 3 , July 1981 , pp. 325 - 330
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1981

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References

1 Inscriptiones Graecae (=/G; Berlin: de Gruyter) 10/2.1 352. The text reads: ”Here lie Sambatis and Maxima.” The inscription was first published by Struck, A. (“Inschriften aus Makedonien,” Athenische Mitteilungen 27 [1902] 308–9)Google Scholar who substituted the Labarum () for the three staffs. The reason for this discrepancy is difficult to determine with certainty, although it is my guess that it resulted from a publisher's error. Dr. Eberhard Erxleben of the Zentralinstitut fiir Alte Geschichte und Archaologie der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR kindly examined Struck's original drawings at my request and determined that, with the exceptions that the rectangular and round versions of the symbol as given in the IG are slightly larger and that their positions should be reversed, the two representations of it given there are correct.

2 Ezra 10:15; Neh 8:7; 11:16.

3 Cowley, A., Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1923)Google Scholar 163 no.

4 For a brief discussion of these see Tcherikover, V., “The Sambathions,” Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1957–64) 3. 44Google Scholar.

5 Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1923-) XXIII no. 435Google Scholar.

6 IG 2/2 no. 7931.

7 Creaghan, J. S. and Raubitschek, A. E., Early Christian Epitaphs from Athens (Woodstock, MD: Theological Studies, 1947) nos. XXIII and 13Google Scholar.

8 Grégoire, H., Recueile des inscriptions grecques chretiennes d'Asie mineure (Paris: E. Leroux, 1922) 1. no. 138 bisGoogle Scholar.

9 V. Tcherikover, Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum 3. 43–56 and “The Sambathions,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 1 (1954) 78–98Google Scholar.

10 Adnationes 1.13.

11 De vita Mosis 2.216.

12 Satires 14.96–107.

13 CII no. 68.

14 CII nos. 63 and 71. See also Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum 3.45.

15 IG 10/2.1 332 Δωρóθεοϛ; nos. 332, 333, 348: εoδώρα; no. 334: 'Iωάννηϛ.

16 IG 10/2.1 332 and 333, for example.

17 IG 10/2.1 350. See also Daniélou, J. (The Theology of Jewish Christianity [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964] 117–146)Google Scholar for his comments on Gabriel, Michael and angelology in general.

18 On Exodus 7.

19 Weil, G., Biblische Legenden der Musselmänner (Frankfort, 1845) 140Google Scholar.

20 While no explicit identification of the staffs of Moses and Aaron is made in the Exodus narrative, a careful reading demonstrates that a single staff was used alternately by Moses (Exod 4:3; 9:23; 10:13 and 14:21) and Aaron (Exod 7:10, 20 and 8:6, 17). For a survey of the legendary material concerning the staff see Ginzberg, Louis, The Legends of the Jews (7 vols.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1946–61) 6. 106 n. 600Google Scholar.

21 Ginzberg, Legends, 2. 291–294, and 5. 412 n. 95.

22 Yal. Shim'oni 869 (to Ps 110:2). That this tradition predates the inscription with which we are concerned is indicated by the fact that a comment by R. Levi, who lived ca. AD 300, is appended to it here.

23 b. Ta'an. 5b.

24 Sifre Deut. 357; Midr, Tannaim 224; b. Sola 13b. These sources mention the opinion held by “some who maintain that Moses did not die, but continues to administer above.” Josephus (Ant. 4. 8.48) attempts to refute this view.

25 For Moses, see Deut. Rab. 11.5; for Aaron, Yal. 1. 787. Aaron is also reputed to have then locked the Angel of Death in the Tabernacle (Tg. Yer. Num 17:12–13).

26 b. B. Bat. 17a, where it is stated that Abraham and Isaac also “died” in this manner.

27 Ginzberg, Legends, 4. 148.

28 Aggadat Shir (ed. Schechter, S.; Cambridge, 1896)Google Scholar 7.44.

29 Goodenough, E., Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (New York: Pantheon, 1953) 2. 99, 100Google Scholar.

30 Goodenough, Symbols, 3. figs. 640, 748 and 749.

31 Testa, P. E., Il Simbolismo dei Giudeo-Cristiani (Jerusalem: Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, 1962) 317 fig. 133Google Scholar. See especially nos. 10, 11, 12, 13, and 15. Waw is the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Testa thinks that the Jewish Christians identified the waw-staft with the Egyptian Hamt: “Un'altra contaminazione di segni è avvenuta tra il waw-bastone giudeocristiano e la Hamt degli Egiziani. Questo segno geroglifico è un idiogramma formato da un bastone con due volute in cima, per indicare l'utero della Vacca sacra, la vulva, custode e fonte della vita…. Fu perciò facile ai giudeo-cristiani idenificarlo con il wau-bastone di Mosè che custodì e fece rivivere Israele; che protesse e diresse il Popolo santo, secondo le ‘Testimonia’, passate nel NT. a significare la vitalita del Legno-Croce.”

32 Testa, Simbolismo fig. 133 no. 15. See also DACL 10.2, 1552, fig. 7603.

33 I Cor 16:22.