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A Greco-Christian Inscription from Aila

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

M. Schwabe
M. Schwabe
Affiliation:
Jerusalem (Israel)
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Extract

Professor N. Glueck has discovered a good deal of evidence for the existence of a large Byzantine settlement at Aila on the Gulf of ‘Aqabah. Some fragments of a marble screening belong to the remnants of a Byzantine church, which now lies hidden underneath the gardens on the shore of the gulf. Two Byzantine capitals which can now be seen in the police-station of ‘Aqabah also seem to belong to a Byzantine church of Aila. On the one, St. Theodore is represented in relief in his full armor and above him ΘΕΟΔΩΡ can be read. The other represents a saint, also in his full armor with breast-plate, shield, and spear, and above him the letters ΟΓΓΙΝΣ can be recognized. Professor Willoughby emphasizes that the martial character of the saints and of the archangels who are seen on the capitals is a sign of the military assistance of which this outlying frontier-post of Byzantine Christianity and the Empire stood in need.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , January 1953 , pp. 49 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1953

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References

1 Cf. AASOR, vol. XV, p. 47 and vols. XVIII-XIX (1937–39) Explorations in Eastern Palestine III by Nelson Glueck, pp. 1 sq., cf. BASOR, no. 65, p. 12.

2 Cf. Glueck, AASOR, XVIII-XIX, ibid., pp. 1 sq.; also the photograph figs. 1 and 2.

3 See the interpretation of the relief and of the inscriptions by Professor H. R. Willoughby, which Professor Glueck prints ibid., pp. 1–3. Of the missing Λ a remnant of the right hasta seems to me to be visible on the photograph; after N we find the Byzantine siglum ς. We can thus read Λoγγῖν(oς). Contrary to Professor Willoughby, I consider this reading as certain.

4 Professor Glueck has been kind enough to leave the publication of the inscription to me.

5 Cf. Lefèbvre, Recueil des inscriptions grecques-chrétiennes d'Égypte, p. XXX.

6 Cf. Lefèbvre, ibid., p. XXX. But the information he gives about the formula ἐλέησον τὴν ψυχήν is incomplete.

7 I give the names of the places where the inscriptions were found wherever possible, in order to enable us to draw conclusions, if feasible, from the occurrence of the formula about connections between Christian communities.

8 No. 233: ϕύλαξ[oν] τòν δοῦλóν σου. It is not certain whether we are dealing with a funerary inscription here; no. 234; Κ(ύρι)ε δ θ(εò)ϛ ϕύλαξ(oν) τòν δοῦλóϛ σου 'Αρών (certainly a funerary inscription). The ϕύλαξον — formula of Psalms 121, 7 (Κύριοϛ ϕυλάξει σε ἀπò παντòϛ κακοῦ, ϕυλάξει τήν ψυχήν σου) usually serves for inscriptions on buildings and is applied to the living. As concerns the dead, cf. Kaufmann, Handbuch der altchristlichen Epigraphik, p. 158 sq., on a chambertomb from Kertsch. Φύλαξον τήν δούλην σού Σε(ο)υηρίναν is found on an armband from Jerusalem, cf. Thomsen, Inschriften von Jerusalem, no. 207.

9 QDAPI, pp. 103 sq.

10 The fragment of an inscription from Khirbet 'Alya (?), or at any rate from the vicinity of Acco (Avi-Yonah QDAP III, p. 105), contains the formula ἐλέησον κ(αὶ) ἀνὰ[παυσον τòν δοῦλó]ν σου which has been completed with a considerable degree of certainty.

11 In Alt's collection only no. 149 from 'Abde has ἀνάπανσον τήν ψυχήν αὐτοῦ.

12 The root of the name is determined by Wuthnow, Semitische Menschennamen, p. 90, as being —.

13 Cf. Alt, Palaestina Tertia, nos. 16; 22; 23 (from Be'ersheb'a); 55; 56; 61 (from Chalasa); no. 142 (Sbêta). All these instances have the genitive form spelled out. Alt was right in filling the gaps and in abbreviating the names of the months, cf. e.g., ibid., nos. 134; 136; 138/9; however, such instances as μη(νὶ) Δύστρῳ κέ (no. 27) are also found. But the difference between the form of the genitive and that of the dative, which was dying out, is very small in these late times and is sometimes only a matter of orthography. In Christian inscriptions from Egypt we find simply the name of the month with a number side by side, with μηνί and the name of the month, also ἐν μηνί or ἐπὶ μηνóς with the name of the month. The same usage occurs in Christian inscriptions from Nubia (cf. Lefèbvre passim).

14 The era is that of the province of Arabia (cf. Alt, Pal. III, pp. 47 sq.) which begins on the 22nd of March 106 A.D. 105 + 450 = 555. Indictio 3 begins on the 1st of September 554 (cf. Alt, ibid., no. 79) and lasts until the 31st of August 555 A.D. The first Artemisios of the indictio falls on the 21st of April 555 A.D. (cf. Alt, ibid., no. 22). Adding 25 days we get the 15th of May 555 A.D. as the date of the inscription.

15 Cf. A. Harnack, The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries (translated by J. Moffatt, New York, 1905), vol. II, p. 259.

16 Cf. Mansi, VII, col. 32.

17 Ibid., vol. VIII, col. 1175. For the material for the history of the Christian community of Aila, see Dictionnaire d'histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques by Baudrillart-Vogt-Rouziès, vol. I (1912), p. 47/8, s.v. “Aela.” Cf. et Albrecht Alt, Die Bistümer der alten Kirche Palästinas, Palästinajahrbuch 29 (1933), pp. 67 sqq., especially p. 78.

18 A. Alt, Die Inschriften der Palaestina Tertia, no. 19.

19 Ibid., no. 36.

20 Cf. ibid., note 3 and the references to literature on this connection given there.

21 Sur la date du Monastère du Sinaï in Bull, de Corresp. Hellénique XXXI (1907), pp. 327 sqq.

22 Ibid., pp. 333–4.

23 Cf. N. Glueck AASOR, vols. XVIII-XIX, p. 18. There a photograph of the inscription is given in fig. 10 and the attempt at a first reading by Iliffe. It was again discussed by Oliver, J. O. in AJA, vol. 45 (1941), pp. 542–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I here confine myself to point out this testimony for a Christian settlement in the vicinity of Aila. The place is situated about 25 km. to the north-east of Aila in Wadi-el-Yitm; cf. map 10 in Glueck, ibid. I shall return to this inscription at a later occasion.

24 Cf. Bell. Pers. 1, 19, 3.

25 Cf. Choricius Gazaeus, ed. by R. Foerster-E. Richtsteig (Teubner 1929), oratio III, 67 (p. 65, 21). Ibid., 68 (by mistake 67 in the text), p. 66, 2, we read: ἒστιν αὐτóθι νεὼϛ ίδρυμένοϛ, ἒνθα νομίξεται τοῦ θεοῦ τὴν μητέρα τὴν παρθένον τιμᾶσθαι. — As to the question with which of the islands Iotabe is to be identified, cf. the article by Tkač in RE IX 2, p. 2000 s.v.

26 Cf. Johannes Moschos (Pratum Spirituale, PG vol. 87), c. 62–66. 134. The founder of the monastery is ὁ ἀββᾶϛ 'Αντώνιοϛ ὁ ἠγούμενοϛ τῆϛ Λαὐραϛ τῶν Αίλιωτῶν (ibid., c. 66) and in c. 62 a ἀββᾶ Στεϕάνου πρεσβυτέρου τῆϛ λαύραϛ τῶν Αίλιωτῶν is mentioned.

27 Procopius of Caesarea, loc. cit. (see n. 24), calls the place πóλις Αίλάϛ or in the genitive Αίλα πóλεωϛ.

28 Migne, PL, vol. 23, c. 18, pp. 29 sqq.

29 Already M. Avi-Yona in BJPES II, p. 7, pointed out this passage.

30 Cf. ibid., Vita Hilarionis, c. 3, p. 31.

31 Ibid., p. 29.

32 Cf. Alt, Inschriften der Palaestina Tertia, p. 35; cf. et Alt, , Palästinajahrbuch 29 (1933), p. 89Google Scholar.