Greek building inscription for a church dedicated to *Mary (Mother of Christ, S00033). Found at el-Hazime/Al-Hazim to the east of Apamea on the Orontes and Ḥamāh/Amathe (central Syria). Dated 390/391.
Evidence ID
E01888
Type of Evidence
Inscriptions - Formal inscriptions (stone, mosaic, etc.)
Archaeological and architectural - Cult buildings (churches, mausolea)
+ αὐλὶ τῆς ἁγίας Μαρία[ς].
Σώπατρε· ἔτος βψʹ η[..]
'+ Hall (aula) of the Holy Mary. (Built by?) Sopatros. In the year 702 [- - -].'
Text: IGLS 4, no. 1825.
Cult PlacesBequests, donations, gifts and offerings
Protagonists in Cult and Narratives
Cult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivityBequests, donations, gifts and offerings
Construction of cult buildings
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesOther lay individuals/ people
Source
Stone lintel, probably found in situ, over the entrance to a church reportedly dedicated to Mary in modern times. Broken and lost at the right-hand end. Preserved dimensions: H. 0.50 m; W. 1.60 m; letter height 0.08 m. Decorated with a carving of a cross within a circle, with the letters Α and Ω, and flanked by two peacocks.First recorded by Jean Lassus in the 1930s and published by him with the aid of Enno Littman. Republished by René Mouterde in 1955, based on Lassus' edition.
Discussion
The highlight of this text is certainly its early date for the explicit dedication of the sanctuary to Mary, as churches dedicated to saints were still infrequent in the 4th c. East. Ignacio Peña notes that this is also the earliest attested sanctuary of the cult of Mary in the Near East (for a somewhat earlier sanctuary of unnamed martyrs, see: E00714). Unfortunately, as there is no photograph of the lintel, we cannot verify the key letters of the inscription, and must trust the editor that the reading of the dating formula is correct. We must, however, bear in mind that in two other cases churches, dedicated to *Sergios (E01650) and *George (E00839), allegedly in the 4th c. appear to be in fact mid-6th c. structures, with the erroneous dating the result of misread dating formulas or wrongly identified local eras.The date in our text, given in line 2, is almost certainly computed according to the Seleucid era (year 702), which corresponds to AD 390/391. In favour of an early date is the fact that Mary is named here ἡ ἁγία Μαρία/'the Holy Mary', and not Θεοτόκος/'the God-Bearer', an epithet which spread rapidly after the council of Ephesos 431.
The sanctuary is named αὐλή/'aula', which resembles the phrasing of early 4th c. inscriptions from Rome, naming Christian sanctuaries (see: Trout 2015, 263, note 13).
The name of the founder, Sopatros, is probably given in line 2 in the vocative form (instead of nominative), probably under the influence of the Syriac language (as noted by Littmann).
Bibliography
Edition:Jalabert, L., Mouterde, R., Mondésert, Cl., Inscriptions grecques et latines de la Syrie, vol. 4: Laodicée, Apamène (BAH 61, Paris: Librairie orientalise Paul Geuthner, 1955), no. 1825.
Lassus, J., Inventaire archéologique de la région au nord-est de Hama (Documents d'Études Orientales 4, Damascus: Institut français de Damas, [1935-1936?]), vol. 1: Text, 163, no. 93, fig. 166.
Further reading:
Lassus, J., "Syrie", DACL, col. 1936.
Peña, I., Lieux de pèlerinage en Syrie (Milan: Franciscan Printing Press, 2000), 11.
For the term 'aula', see:
Trout, D.E., "Vergil and Ovid at the tomb of Agnes: Constantina, epigraphy, and the genesis of Christian poetry", [in:] J. Bodel, N. Dimitrova (eds.), Ancient documents and their contexts: First North American Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy (Brill studies in Greek and Roman epigraphy 5, Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2015), 268, note 13.
Images
)
Drawing. From: Lassus 1935-1936, 163.
Record Created By
Paweł Nowakowski
Date of Entry
03/10/2016
| 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, E01888 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E01888