Church/Monastery name:
Jerusalem (Old city) - Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Anastasis)
Inscription number:
3
Selected bibliography:
586, no. 51 (ed. pr.) |
Epigraphical corpora:
CIIP I.2 (2012): 789 (ph.)
Inscription type:
quotation
Location:
In the northwestern corner of a cistern (St. Helena’s cistern of the Latins) located northwest of the rotunda of the Anastasis, in the Franciscan convent of the Holy Sepulchre. The cistern is not accessible.
Physical description :
A round medallion with a double frame decorated with ivy leaves encloses a large cross with a two-line Greek inscription in relief across the arms; the medallion is made of plaster on the plastered surface of the wall, just under the vault. Ornate oval letters, w-shaped omega.
Text:
Φωνὴ Κ(υρίο)υ ἐπὶ
τῶν ὑδάτων.
Translation:
The voice of the Lord (is) upon the waters.
Apparatus:
Κυ(ρίο)υ Tinelli; Κ(υρίου) all other eds.
Date:
6th-7th cent.
Summary:
Psalm quotation in plaster on the wall of St. Helena’s cistern of the Latins.
Citations from LXX / NT:
Ps. 29 (28): 3
Epigraphical Abbreviations:
horizontal stroke over nomen sacrum
Quotation from Ps 29 (28),3. The cistern (29 m long, 19 m wide and 8 m high) is roughly rectangular, with steps descending down to its bottom. These, and also the quotation, which is part of the baptismal and Epiphany liturgies, led some scholars to assume that it was used for baptism or provided water for a baptistry. A Byzantine font was found nearby: see Tinelli 95-103. They associated it with the “balneum … ubi infantes lavantur”, seen in 333 by the Pilgrim of Bordeaux, behind the Anastasis Church (It. Burd. 594,4, ed. Geyer - Cuntz 17). This identification is rejected by other scholars and, in any case, the inscription is probably to be dated to a much later period, although it belongs to the first stage of the church. The cistern itself may well be dated in the Constantinian period and the inscription may have been added later, when it was re-plastered. The palaeography points to a date in the late 6 c. or in the 7 c.; thus, the work may have been done during Modestus’ restoration after the Persian conquest. The list of dead buried by Thomas the Deacon, included in the Expugnatio Hierosolymae, reports thousands of bodies drawn from cisterns of the Holy City (J.T. Milik, MUSJ 37, 1960/61, 133 nos. 3, 17, 32). Cleaning and replastering would have been a necessary job not only from the point of view of hygiene, but also from that of purity, after a cistern in a church had been defiled by bloody and decomposing bodies. If so, this inscription could be dated ca. 616-626.