Earliest Christian Inscription

1.

The other cities of the Pentapolis were Brouzos, Otrous, Eukarpia and Stektorion.

2.

The fragments were found 2.5 miles south-southwest of Koçhisar.

3.

The Greek language changed considerably between the classical period of the fifth century B.C.E. and late antiquity. By the late Hellenistic and Roman periods, accents rarely indicated pitch (a musical tone) to Greek speakers, but rather signified stress (presumably emphasis and volume). Likewise, in Greek speech vowel quantities (long and short vowels) lost their oral and aural significance, no longer indicating differences in sound (phonetics) or in time quantity (long vowels having originally taken more time to enunciate than short vowels). This disconnected the literature of Greek poetry from the spoken language, since meter was dependent on the phonetic and quantitative differences between long and short vowels. Through much of the Roman period most literate Greeks still understood the significance of vowel quantity in Greek meter, but by the fourth century C.E. this comprehension had declined by a considerable degree. The Life of Avercius indicates a hagiographer whose knowledge of Greek quantitative meter was substantially less than that reflected in the original text of the Avercius inscription and thus must have been written at a much later date.

4.

I am preparing a critical commentary that will update many of the readings in my Ph.D. dissertation; see Laurence Kant, “The Interpretation of Religious Symbolism in the Graeco-Roman World: A Case Study of Early Christian Fish Symbolism” (Yale Univ., 1993), pp. 761–764. My work stands on the shoulders of giants such as Sir William Ramsay and A. Abel (“Étude sur l’inscription d’Abercius,” Byzantion 3 [1926], pp. 321–411).

5.

In his Ecclesiastical History (5.16.1–5), Eusebius refers to an anonymous anti-Montanist writer who sent a treatise to one Avircius Marcellus. (Montanism was a second- to third-century Christian prophetic movement centered in Phrygia.) Eusebius also refers to “our presbyter, Zoticus of Otrous,” that is, a fellow presbyter of the anonymous author and possibly also of Avircius Marcellus. Given that Eusebius mentions Otrous—almost certainly the Phrygian Pentapolis city—in the same passage in which he writes about Avircius (whose epigraphic namesake comes from the same area), it is probable that the man named Avircius Marcellus is identical with our Avercius of Hierapolis. The two references to two very important early Christian individuals—each involved in some way with church affairs, living in the same time period, bearing virtually the same name, and most likely living in the same region of Phrygia—suggests that they are one and the same. A date of 192/193 C.E. would be the earliest possible, since Avercius probably received the anti-Montanist treatise of the anonymous author at the same time. (The difference in spelling—Avercius or Avircius—is minor. Eusebius’s addition of Marcellus, a Roman cognomen, simply makes this a Roman-style name.)

6.

Two inscriptions with images of fish carved on them from the Catacomb of Saint Sebastian in Rome may well date to c. 150 C.E., but their date and their Christian identity are not as certain as those of the Avercius inscription. The vast majority of attempts by historians, archaeologists, art historians and epigraphers to find archaeological evidence of Christianity from 40 to 165 C.E. have foundered for lack of critical evidence, though not for want of desire or effort.

7.

Apparently, Ramsay so wanted to describe Avercius visiting a particular emperor and empress that he translated the Greek for “kingdom” as “king.” Ramsay claimed that he originally saw the letter eta on the stone at the end of the verse, that this letter was somehow broken when the stone was shipped from Turkey to Rome, and that he lost his original squeeze of the inscription. But in fact, the stone shows no indication of breakage in that spot, and the on-site notes and drawings by Ramsay’s colleague prove that there never was an eta.

8.

Growing up in the city of Emesa, in Syria, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus served in the priesthood of the sun deity known as Elagablus. After defeating Emperor Macrinus, Antoninus set off to Rome, taking with him a conical black stone (perhaps a meteorite), a cult symbol of the sun god that is depicted on various coins of the period. The historian Herodian wrote: “This stone is worshiped as though it were sent from heaven.” Envisioning himself as the incarnation of the god, Antoninus called himself Elagablus. The new emperor built a temple on the Palatine, where he made daily sacrifices of cattle and sheep to the god, whom (much to the consternation of the Roman people) he tried to establish “before Jupiter himself.” Antoninus/Elagablus went on to offend more Romans by marrying and deflowering one of the Vestal Virgins, Aquilia Severa. In 219 C.E., apparently after an unsuccessful attempt to marry the Roman statue of Pallas (Athena, which Aeneas was said to have carried to Rome from Troy), Elagablus officially married the moon goddess Urania (Carthaginian Tanit, more or less the equivalent of the Mesopotamian fertility goddess, Ishtar). The bride was probably represented in the form of an aniconic stone imported from Carthage.

In judging the character and actions of Elagablus, we need to remain aware of the prejudices of the ancient writers who criticized him (primarily Herodian, Dio Cassius and Aelius Lampridius). Indeed, they do not provide us with an evenhanded portrait either of the emperor or of Syrian religion. In any event, stories of the sun god may well have influenced Avercius, especially given the reference to a shepherd who (like the sun) sees everywhere.

9.

While laos almost certainly means “people” in verse 9 (see n. 11), it is indeed possible that some who heard the Greek word would also have associated it indirectly with an aniconic stone deity (since laos can occasionally substitute for laas, which means “stone”). In the same verse, the word “seal” (sphragis), which can also refer to a precious gem or stone for a ring, would seem to suggest this. Likewise, its modifying adjective, “radiant,” could implicitly describe the sun or a sun god. Yet Avercius does not refer explicitly to a stone, the sun or a sun god. And further, Avercius would likely not have referred to Antoninus/Elagablus, since the inscription dates before 216 C.E., and Antoninus/Elagablus became emperor in 218 C.E. On the other hand, given the language of our poem and the prevalence of sun worship during this period, Avercius may well have used Greco-Roman religious vocabulary that, for some readers and listeners, would have obliquely and subtly evoked images of the sun god and this stone.

10.

The term “Gnosticism” describes a broad movement that could incorporate many different groups and perspectives, some of which we might regard as orthodox. Probably an outgrowth of Jewish Gnosticism, Christian Gnosticism emerged in the second and third centuries C.E. as a major movement throughout the Mediterranean region, particularly in the Near East. Emphasizing the Platonic duality of body and soul, as well as of matter and spirit, the Gnostics preferred to focus on the divinity of Christ and on the inherent inferiority of the material world. Denying that the God of the Hebrew Bible was the One God, the Gnostics developed a mythic system (including male-female pairs, or “syzygies”) that explained the origins of physical creation and humanity. According to the Gnostics, the visible world resulted from the actions of higher spiritual beings who mistook or misinterpreted the One God (also the “All”) and, in so doing, turned away and created an inferior realm of matter. Human beings need to acquire self-knowledge (gnosis) to learn the story of their true origins, and that is what the Gnostics sought to provide.

11.

Several factors point against pagan identification: There is no mention of Cybele or of a statue; verse 7 does not mention a “king,” but rather a “kingdom”; there is no citation of the sun; the attempt to interpret the Greek term for “people” (laos) as “stone” (laas) is very strained and based on occasional usage; there is no reference to a priest; and while Dietrich argues that Attis’s priests could eat the sacred fish of the Syrian goddess Atargatis, all of Avercius’s compatriots eat the fish. The identification of Attis as a “holy shepherd” is possible, but the connection to Jesus is suggested more decisively, as in Clement of Alexandria’s hymn to Christ (Instructor 3), which not only mentions Jesus as a holy shepherd but also cites holy fish!

Furthermore, the use of laos for “people” is much more common in Jewish and Christian epigraphic contexts than in pagan ones. Though the combination of fish, bread and wine is indeed possible in a non-Christian context, the religious ritual character of this meal fits a Christian context much better than a pagan one. The connection of a “disciple” to a “shepherd” more likely than not alludes to Christianity. In addition, the language of the inscription corresponds rather closely in places to language used in other Jewish and Christian texts, such as the inscription of Maritima in the Catacomb of Priscilla and several passages in Books Five and Eight of the Jewish— and, in places, Christian-influenced Sybilline Oracles. On the Maritima inscription, see Kant, “Fish Symbolism,” appendix 5, chart 2.1.33. Three passages mention a “holy virgin” in the Sybilline Oracles: 8.270, 8.290–91 and 8.357–58. Sybilline Oracle 5.434–37 also uses the following words that match (or closely resemble) words in the Avercius inscription: “universal” (or, literally, “prevailing in all cities”), “mountains,” “large,” “kingdom,” “golden-sandalled,” “golden” (twice) and “Euphrates.”