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The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity


from its origins to circa AD 700, across the entire Christian world


Latin graffito with an invocation of the holy spirits of unnamed martyrs, probably the souls of popes and martyrs buried in the cemetery of Callixtus. Found in the lower part of that cemetery, via Appia, Rome. Probably late 4th-early 5th c.

Evidence ID

E04683

Type of Evidence

Inscriptions - Graffiti

Archaeological and architectural - Internal cult fixtures (crypts, ciboria, etc.)

rogo asspirit[a]
sancta ma[r]tures
[in mente] abete pro Salutium

1. p]eto a spirita sancta de Rossi, rogo asspirit[a] Ferrua

'I ask you, O holy spirits, martyrs, keep [in mind] Sallustius!'

Text:
ICVR, n.s., IV, no. 9533.

Cult Places

Burial site of a saint - cemetery/catacomb

Non Liturgical Activity

Prayer/supplication/invocation
Pilgrimage
Visiting graves and shrines

Protagonists in Cult and Narratives

Other lay individuals/ people

Source

Graffito in cursive script. Letter height 9 cm. Scratched in the plaster, on a wall in Area A4 in the lower part of the cemetery of Callixtus.

First published by Giovanni Battista de Rossi in 1867. Revisited, and published again by Antonio Ferrua in 1964.


Discussion

The inscription certainly invokes popes and martyrs, buried in the cemetery of Callixtus. Other similar invocations usually address just the 'holy spirits.' Here they are additionally described as 'martyrs.'

Dating: Antonio Felle (in EDB) dates the graffito to the late 4th-early 5th c.


Bibliography

Edition:
Epigraphic Database Bari, no. EDB17809, see http://www.edb.uniba.it/epigraph/17809

De Rossi, G.B., Ferrua, A. (eds.)
Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae Septimo Saeculo Antiquiores, n.s., vol. 4: Coemeteria inter Vias Appiam et Ardeatinam (Vatican: Pont. Institutum Archaeologiae Christianae, 1964), no. 9533.

Diehl, E.,
Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres, vol. 1 (Berlin: Apud Weidmannos, 1925), comments to no. 2347.

de Rossi, G.B.,
La Roma sotterranea cristiana, vol. 2 (Rome: Cromo-litografia pontificia, 1867), 385, and Tav. XXXI.


Record Created By

Paweł Nowakowski

Date of Entry

25/01/2018

Related Saint Records
IDNameName in SourceIdentity
S00060Martyrs, unnamed or name lostCertain
S00518Saints, unnamedCertain


Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Paweł Nowakowski, Cult of Saints, E04683 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E04683