Shiloh - Northern Church (Early)

The text contains at least two quotations. Lines 1-2 paraphrase the words on one of the two thieves crucified with Jesus: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42), to which Jesus answered: “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise (Luke 23:43), a promise of salvation that made this verse particularly dear to the faithful and the most frequently cited of the Gospels in inscriptions: Felle counts 22 cases, including three in Palaestina, to which we can add, besides the present case, also SEG 43:1063, from the Armenian monastery near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem. The phrasing in our inscription is also reminiscent of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, 1:5, εἰς τὸ καταξιωθῆναι ὐμᾶς τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ, “that you may be made worthy of the kingdom of God.” Lines 5-6 are a quotation from Ps. 33:6 in the Septuagint version (Ps. 34:5 of the Masoretic text, which is slightly different: “Look to Him, and be radiant”). The same quotation, in Latin, appears in a baptistery at Cuicul in Numidia (Jemila in Algeria); in Greek in the eighth-century Church of the Courtyard at Umm er-Rasas in Jordan, and on stones found out of context in Phrygia and Athens. In the Church of the Courtyard the inscription was painted on a slab seemingly belonging to the ceiling, so, at least in theory, the exhortation to “look up to God and be enlightened” may just point to the function of the slab, perhaps as a sill or lintel of a clerestory or a skylight, for the Church of the Courtyard, enclosed all around by other churches, could receive the daylight only from above. However, there is a baptistery about 15 m from the spot where the inscription was found. The baptismal connection of this verse is made obvious by the fact that one of the meanings of φωτίζειν in patristic Greek is “to baptize,” φώτισμα means “baptism” and φωτισρήριον “baptistery.” In most occurrences of the term “baptistery” in Greek inscriptions in our region, the Greek word is φωτιστήριον, and rarely βαπτιστήριον.

Lines 3-4 contain the names of the men responsible for establishing the baptistery, Eutonius the bishop and Germanus the chorepiscopus or country bishop. Was the latter the same Germanus that bears the title of presbyter in the chancel mosaic? This cannot be taken for granted. The name Germanus was fairly common in Byzantine Palestine, and it is conceivable that the different titles identified two different men of the same name. The chorepiscopus assisted the bishop by visiting and supervising the rural communities. On occasion he probably helped them build or renovate their church by providing instruction, technical assistance, and perhaps financial support, for in several building inscriptions in fifth and sixth-century churches his name is mentioned after the bishop’s name and before the name of the cleric in charge of the church. In the first centuries of Christianity, however, chorepiscopi were bishops in charge of rural districts, as opposed to city bishops; they lost their episcopal function in the course of the fourth century. Possibly, towards the end of this century, there were still rural communities that gave their priest the honorific title of chorepiscopus, especially if he served a number of surrounding villages that did not have a church and priest of their own. Considering that the complex under discussion is one of the earliest surviving ecclesiastical buildings in which inscriptions were found, it cannot be ruled out that Germanus the priest and Germanus the chorepiscopus were one and the same person, the latter title being attached to his name in the monumental baptistery, where he probably baptized catechumens from the surrounding area.