Greek inscription with an invocation of God and *Mary (Mother of Christ, S00033), asked to help a presbyter. Found at Deir Rehšān near Antioch on the Orontes (north Syria). Probably late antique.
Evidence ID
E01803
Type of Evidence
Inscriptions - Formal inscriptions (stone, mosaic, etc.)
+ Κύριε καὶ ἁγία Μαρία, βοήθισον Μαρᾳ πρε[σ]β(υτέρῳ)
'+ Lord and the holy Mary, help Maras, the presbyter!'
Text: IGLS 2, no. 489.
Cult Places
Cult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivityPrayer/supplication/invocation
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - lesser clergy
Source
A stone lintel, reused over the southwest doorway of a private house at Deir Rehšān. There is no published detailed description and image.First published by René Mouterde and Louis Jalabert in 1939, from a copy by Froment, a French officer stationed in Syria and mapping the Syrian interior in cooperation with Mouterde.
Discussion
The inscription is a simple invocation of God as the Lord and Mary, asked to help a presbyter, Maras. What is noteworthy is that here God and the saint are invoked as equal partners. For similar cases, see: (E00786 (7): God and *John the Evangelist in Ephesos; EXXXX; $EXXXX). Frank Trombley suggested that this lintel came from a church built by our presbyter, and dedicated to Mary. If so, we can suspect that another lintel bore the proper dedicatory inscription with a dating formula, which is not present in our text.Dating: this kind of short invocation with the βοήθει/'help!' formula is usually dated to the later 5th or the 6th-7th c. Trombley places the inscription precisely in the 6th c., but his arguments refer mostly to the superficial description of the forms of letters by Mouterde and to the fact that the cult of Mary started only in the mid-5th c.
Bibliography
Edition:Mouterde, R., Jalabert, L., Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, vol. 2: Chalcidique et Antiochène: nos 257-698 (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1939), no. 489.
Further reading:
Trombley, F.R., Hellenic Religion and Christianization c. 370-529, vol. 2 (Leiden, New York, Cologne: Brill, 1994), 267.
Record Created By
Paweł Nowakowski
Date of Entry
10/08/2016
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00033 | Mary, Mother of Christ | Μαρία | Certain |
|---|
Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Paweł Nowakowski, Cult of Saints, E01803 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E01803