Church/Monastery name:
Ḥorvat Beer Shem'a; Birsama - St. Stephanos
Inscription number:
9
Selected bibliography:
82*-83*, no. 10, fig. 10 (ph.) (ed. pr.) | |
597-598, no. 659 (Feissel) | |
43, no. 49 |
Epigraphical corpora:
SEG 46 (1996): 2011
Inscription type:
invocation/prayer
Location:
In the mosaic pavement in the central entrance of the nave.
Physical description :
Damaged six-line (?) mosaic inscription within a tabula ansata. The first two or three lines are entirely missing. The letters remaining in the middle of the last damaged line do not allow any clear reading.
Text:
[- - - - - - - - - - - -]
[- - - - - - - - - - - -]
[- -]ΔΕΙΖ[- - - - - -]
4 τῖχος ἀκαταμάχητον [- - -]
ψυχῶν καὶ σωμάτων ἰατὴ[ρ - - - -]
ἀρχιδιάκ(ων) καὶ πρωτομάρτυς Στέφαν[ε - - -].
Translation:
... wall (fortification) irresistible, healer of souls and bodies, o archdeacon and first-martyr Stehpanos. (Tzaferis)
Summary:
Damaged six-line mosaic inscription with invocation of Saint Stephen the protomartyr, in the central entrance of the nave.
Epigraphical Abbreviations:
horizontal stroke over kappa for ἀρχιδιάκ(ων)
Saint Stephen is called "archdeacon" because, according to Acts 6-7, he was the first of the seven deacons chosen to serve the first Chrisitan community of Jerusalem. (Tzaferis)