Christian building inscriptions and invocations
created: Transcription (Reynolds).
source date: 539 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/

Bibliography

[...], with illustration; [...] no. 21.III, whence [...], 1961.835, [...] 18.768.m, n, o, whence [...] 324465; [...], 146, C. whence [...] 30.1787.C, whence [...] 324535; [...], 283.C; mentioned [...], 133 and following.

κύριοϲ τῶν δυνάμεων μεθ’ ἡμῶν ἀντιλήμπτωρ ἡμῶν ὁ Θεόϲ Ἰάκωβ ὁ Θεόϲ ὁ μέγαϲ ὁ αἰώνιοϲ ὑπερασπιϲτήϲ γένου τοῦ δούλου σου Θεοδώρου διακόνου νέου

ἐγένετο καὶ τοῦτο τὸ ἀγαθόν ἔργον ἐπὶ Θεοδώρου τοῦ ὁσιωτάτου νέου ἐπισκόπου ἰνδικτιῶνος γ

τὰ μαρτύριά σου ἐπιστώθησαν σφόδρα τῷ οἴκῳ σου πρέπει

Translations

[i]: Lord of the hosts be (or, you are) with us, our succour, God of Jacob, mighty God, eternal God, be (or, you are) the shield of your servant Theodoros, the deacon

[ii]: This good work also came into being in the time of Theodoros, the most holy new bishop, in indiction 3.

[iii]: Your witnesses were trusted; that greatly adorns your house

Commentary

For a more precise date see M.134

i, lines 1-3: Septuagint, Psalm 45, verses 8 and 12; for the full citation in inscriptions see IGLS 1428, 1687, available at PHI, 243673, 243940; there are also many partial references.

i, line 6: Theodoros: probably also in M.137. If the abbreviation in this title is correctly resolved, he must have begun work in this room immediately after his appointment as deacon and finished it soon after his appointment as bishop, see ii.7.

ii, line 7: Clearly Theodoros succeeded the Makarios of M.134 as bishop, but the style of the mosaics sponsored by the two men is indistinguishable so that the third year of an indiction cited by both is probably the same year, i.e. CE 539.

iii:The text is from the Septuagint, Psalm 92,5: τὰ μαρτύριά σου ἐπιστώθησαν σφόδρα·τῷ οἴκῳ σου πρέπει ἁγίασμα, κύριε, εἰς μακρότητα ἡμερῶν; for an example of the second part of the text in another mosaic dedication see SEG 37, 1472, from Ashdod, at PHI 320220. It may be that the ἁγίασμα is understood, although there was no room for the word.