Christian invocation
created: Transcription (Reynolds).
source date: End of fifth to seventh centuries CE
language: ar; en; fr; de; grc; grc-Latn; el; he
availability: Creative Commons licence Attribution UK 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/) All reuse or distribution of this work must contain somewhere a link back to the URL http://inslib.kcl.ac.uk/

[...]; reported by [...], 413.

Ἐμμανουήλ

Ἄλφα Ὠμέγα Χριστὸν Μαρία γεννᾷ

Translations

Emmanuel God with us

Alpha and Omega

?M(ary) b(ore) Ch(rist)

Stucchi believed that Emmanuel was the name of the owner; but Emmanuel is rare as a name in the epigraphic record of the appropriate date. Instead, it is explained as having its biblical meaning, "God with us", μεθ’ ἡμῶν ὁ θ(εό)ς in several texts: e.g. RIChrM 274, available at PHI 151678 TAM IV,1 369, available at PHI 279191, with Feissel in BullEp 1996.606. it is more usual for an inscription in this kind of position to be apotropaic and that is how it is interpreted by Catani. For a very full discussion see Catani, art.cit.