Shiloh - Northern Church (Early)

Church/Monastery name: 
Shiloh - Northern Church (Early)
Inscription number: 
1
Selected bibliography: 
186 (ph.)
168-169, figs. 5-8 (phs., drs.)
209-210, no. 1 (dr.) (ed. pr.)
127, no. 183
Abbreviation for Journals and Series
Epigraphical corpora: 

SEG 62 (2012): 1686

Inscription type: 
invocation/prayer
Location: 

In the mosaic pavement in front of the doorway that leads into the northern aisle from the passage or narthex (L104) along the northern church wall.

Physical description : 

The inscription is framed in a tabula ansata enclosed in a rectangular panel (149×61 cm). The panel containing the inscription measures 118×61 cm. The frame and the characters are of black tesserae on a white background. The triangles flanking the handles of the tabula ansata are pink and enclose smaller white and black triangles. The letters, 7.5 to 12.5 cm high, belong to the square alphabet; they are well spaced, rather squat, and present two very early characteristics: the omicron is rhomboidal, and one of the two alphas has a horizontal middle stroke. Both characteristics appear in the mosaic inscriptions of the Christian prayer hall discovered in the Megiddo prison, dated to the first half of the third century; there, however, the early date is proclaimed by the pronounced apices of the letters, absent in our inscription. The rhomboidal omicron, rarely seen in our region, appears in the Sheikh Zuweid mosaic, dated by most scholars to the fourth century, as well as in epitaphs engraved in stone from the necropolis of Ghor es-Safi (ancient Zoar) and dated to the mid- and late fourth century, where it is accompanied by a rhomboidal theta, as in the present inscription. The alpha with a horizontal middle stroke is no longer seen after the end of the fourth century or the very beginning of the fifth. The abbreviated nomina sacra marked with a horizontal stroke already appear in papyri of the third and fourth centuries, as well as in one of the inscriptions in the Megiddo prison. A horizontal line also marks the last two letters of l. 4, a qoppa and a theta. The two characters here have a numerical value, qoppa of the Greek alphabet representing 90 and theta, 9: together, 99. This is a well-known isopsephon, that is, a figure representing the numerical value of a word or a sequence of words: 99 corresponds to the numerical value of Ἀμήν.

Text: 

Κ(ύρι)ε Ἰ(ησο)ῦ Χ(ριστ)έ, ἐλέησο-

ν Σιλουν καὶ

τοὺς αὐτῆς

οἰκήτορας. (Ἀμήν).

Translation: 

Lord Jesus Christ, have pity on Shiloh and its inhabitants. Amen.

Commentary: 

The inscription preserves the ancient name of the village, which is reflected in its medieval name, Casale Seylon, and in the modern Arab name of the site, Kh. Seilun. The accepted forms of the toponym in the Septuagint are Σηλω, Σηλωμ and, more rarely, Σηλων (pronounced Silo, Silom, Silon, according to the rule of iotacism), Silo in the Vulgate. Writers referring to the biblical text used the toponym in one of its scriptural forms. Silèm and Shlèm appear in Testamenta Patriarcharum, a Jewish pseudo-epigraphic work whose final recension probably dates from the second century CE, and in Vitae prophetarum, a collection of legendary traditions concerning the burial places of the prophets, believed by some scholars to have been compiled by Christians in the fourth century, by others to depend on a Jewish text of the Second Temple period. Eusebius in the Onomasticon and Jerome in its Latin translation use the scriptural form Σηλώ/Selo. The toponym is Silo in other writings by Jerome, which all deal with the site in a scriptural context, as the place, visited by Christian pilgrims, where the Ark of the Covenant was located. The Spanish pilgrim Egeria, who probably visited Shiloh in 383, also calls it by its scriptural name, Silo or Sylo. However Josephus, as a native well acquainted with local geography, follows this pattern only in part. In his summary of biblical events in Books V and VIII of Jewish Antiquities, he uses Σιλώ, undeclined, in genitive and accusative several times (Ant. V, 170, 343, 357; VIII, 206, 267); but he also uses the accusatives Σιλοῦν (Ant. V, 68, 70, 72, 150) and Σιλοῦντα (Ant. V, 79)—both attesting a form of the toponym that did not depend on one of the accepted forms in the Septuagint but probably reflected the contemporary name of the site. This is now confirmed by the inscription; additional confirmation is provided by the Latin pilgrim Theodosius, who in the early sixth century refers to the place as Silona (ablative). Jewish sources also attest to a name change in the time of the Mishnah and the Jerusalem Talmud, from Shiloh, used especially in contexts involving the biblical past of the place, to Beth Shiloh or Beth Siloni, with reference to the contemporary village, home of scholars of the Tannaitic generations. The latter form apparently reflects the Greek Κώμη Σιλοῦν. In fact, the expression τοὺς αὐτῦς οἰκήτορας, “its inhabitants” (with a feminine pronoun in Greek) implies the attachment of a feminine noun to the toponym, which cannot be but κώμη, “village.” Κώμη, the equivalent of Hebrew Kefar, is part of many village names in inscriptions.

Summary: 

Invocation of the Lord within a tabula ansata, in the mosaic pavement in front of the doorway that leads into the northern aisle.

Contents
Geographical names: 
Silo
Epigraphical formulae: 
Lord/Christ, have mercy...
amen
Epigraphical Abbreviations: 
horizontal strokes over nomina sacra, ϙθ´ = 99 for ἀμήν