ARAM, 18-19 (2006-2007) 381-401. doi:L. DI 10.2143/ARAM.19.0.2020736 SEGNI 381

ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN CULT SITES ON TOMBS OF THE PERIOD

Dr. LEAH DI SEGNI (The Hebrew University of )

Early Byzantine sources handed down to us a number of reports of inventiones, that is, miraculous discoveries of tombs that preserved the bodies of figures of the Old and New Testaments, or of Christian saints. These inventiones were frequent especially between the late fourth and the mid-fifth century, and they all follow the same pattern. Someone – sometimes a member of the clergy or a monk, sometimes a mere layman – has a dream (or, more rarely, sees a vision), in which the holy person reveals the place of his burial and requires that it be made known to the faithful. The dreamer reports to the local bishop who orders to dig at the spot indicated, and brings to light an an- cient tomb; or sometimes it is the dreamer himself who pursues the search and reports the discovery of the tomb to the ecclesiastical authorities. The body that lies in the grave is identified through an inscription or other signs, and the next step is usually the erection of a church on the tomb. “specialized” in personages known from the Scriptures, but the phenomenon of inventio was not restricted to the . Miraculous dis- coveries of martyrs’ remains occurred in the late fourth century, in the fifth and in the early sixth century also in Phoenicia, , , Minor, and in the West in Italy, Gaul, and , where the Third Council of Car- thage in 397 found it necessary to deplore the indiscriminate erection of altars as a result of dubious dreams and visions.1 In , the monk Shenuti in the mid-fifth century complained that his fellow-countrymen would find martyrs’ bones under every heap of stones.2 The reason for this lack of enthusiasm is understandable: the multiplication of inventiones did not always enhance the

1 Some of the inventiones are reported by written sources: at Orthosias in Phoenice, Lucas, Phocas and Romanus, ca. 490; at Zoraua in Arabia (Ezra in southern Syria), George in 515; at Gindaropolis in Syria Prima, Marinus in 529; in Emesa, the head of St. , in 452; in Cyprus Barnabas, St. Peter’s disciple, in 458; at the Forty Martyrs of Sebastia, in 434-437; at Skepsis in Hellespontus, Cornelius the centurio (Acts 10), ca. 425; in Gaul various martyrs, from ca. 390 to the first half of the sixth century, in Italy various martys in Rome under Pope Damasus (366-384), in Milan and Bologna under Bishop Ambrosius (d. 397). For Africa specific stories are not forthcoming, but the ecclesiastic condemnation at Carthage (Mansi, Conc. III, col. 971; C. Munier, Concilia Africae A. 345-A. 525 [CCSL 149, Turnhout 1974], pp. 204- 205) shows that inventiones were all too frequent. See H. Delehaye, Les origines du culte des martyrs (Bruxelles, 1912), pp. 86-107. 2 G. Zoega, Catalogus codicum copticorum qui in museo Borgiano Velitris adservantur (Rome, 1810), p. 424; Delehaye, Les origines, p. 107.

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reputation of the Christian faith. A hint of this uncomfortable feeling is ex- pressed by St , who flatly rejected the relocation of the tomb of James, Jesus’ brother, following the pretended discovery of the bodies of James, Symeon the Elder and Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father, in a cave on the western slopes of the .3 The tomb of James, says Jerome, was already well known to and Christians alike: located it just un- der the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount, quoting the second-century writer Hegesippus.4 Since in the process of inventio the initiative always lay with a private person, the Church had to apply caution in sanctioning it, for implausible discoveries discredited her, not to mention the fact that the exist- ence of two or more rival tombs of the same venerated figure lowered the chance of each place to become an attractive focus of .5 3 The story of the inventio in 351, by a hermit called Epiphanius, is preserved in a Latin ver- sion published by F.-M. Abel (“La sépulture de saint Jacques le mineur,” RB 28 [1919], pp. 480- 499; text at pp. 485-487), as well as in a Georgian version: cf. G. Garitte, Le Calendrier Palestino-Géorgien du Sinaiticus 34 (Xe siècle) (Subsidia hagiographica 30, Bruxelles, 1958), p. 228. Abel identifies the hermitage of Epiphanius with the tomb of Bene Hezir. A notable of Eleutheropolis called Paul built a chapel in front of the cave, and the commemoration of James, Symeon and Zechariah was celebrated in this building (Garitte, Calendrier, pp. 227-228). The tomb on the slopes of the Mount of Olives was seen also by the pilgrim Theodosius (ca. 530: De situ Terrae Sanctae 9, ed. P. Geyer, in Itineraria et alia geographica [CCSL 175, Turnhout, 1965], p. 119) and by Gregory of Tours (late sixth century: In gloria martyrum I, 26, ed. B. Krusch [MGH Script. Merow. I, 2, Hannover, 1885], p. 53), who ascribed its erection to St. James himself: evidently they speak of the ancient tomb, not of the later foundation where, ac- cording to the Latin and Georgian accounts, the bodies had been translated. J.T. Milik (“Notes d' épigraphie et de topographie palestiniennes IX. Sanctuaires chrétiens de Jérusalem à l'époque arabe (VIIe-Xe s.),” RB 67 [1967], p. 561, no. 32) locates the chapel built by Paul in front of the “Tomb of Zechariah,” where remains of a Byzantine chapel with a crypt were discovered in 1959-60: see H.E. Stutchbury, “Excavations in the ,” PEQ 93 (1961), pp. 101- 113; V. Corbo, “La mort et la sepulture de S. Jacques le Mineur,” in S. Jacques le Mineur, pre- mier évêque de Jérusalem (Jerusalem, 1962), pp. 61-77; id., “Dans la vallée de Josaphat, le culte de saint Jacques et le tombeau des Beni Hezir à Jérusalem,”, et Terre Sainte 56 (Mai 1963), pp. 20-23. In a recent article Puech rejected Milik’s identification of the Bene Hezir monument as the place where the tomb of the three would have been discovered. He locates the traditional tomb of James in the “Tomb of Zechariah” and identifies the tomb of Zechariah and Symeon with a separate monument, the “Tomb of ,” based on an inscription above the entrance of the upper chamber (E. Puech and J. Zias, “Le tombeau de Zacharie et Siméon,” RB 110 [2003], pp. 321-335). This hypothesis contradicts the report of Epiphanius’ inventio and is not really supported by the inscription, for the reading is not very reliable and in any case it is impos- sible to determine its age. 4 Eusebius, HE II, 23, 18, ed. E. Schwartz (GCS 9 i, Leipzig, 1903), p. 170; Jerome, De viris illustribus liber 2, ed. E.C. Richardson (TUGAL 14, Leipzig, 1896), p. 8. According to this tradi- tion, James was buried beside the Temple, in the same place where he was killed, after he was thrown from the pinnacle, and Jerome says that until Hadrian’s time the tomb was marked by a stele. J. Wilkinson ('s Travels to the Holy Land [2nd ed., Jerusalem, 1981], p. 183, n. 3) maintains that the place “beside the Temple” might be the same that is pointed out today, be- tween the tombs of Absalom and Zechariah, but this is rather the place of the relocation, on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. Both Jerome and the pilgrim Theodosius clearly indicate that the new place of the tomb was different from the place of James’ death and contradicted the old tra- dition. 5 In fact, the account of the inventio of St. James and his companions stresses the disbelief and even the distaste of Bishop vis-à-vis the hermit’s announcement of his dream. Only when Epiphanius forced his hand by enlisting Paul’s support did the bishop recog-

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The stories we hear from the written sources are of course the successful ones. The earliest documented inventio is the afore-mentioned inventio of St. James and his companions in Jerusalem, in 351. A hermit called Epiphanius had a dream in which St. James revealed to him that he was buried in Epiphanius’ cave, together with Symeon and Zechariah. The hermit reported to Bishop Cyril but was driven away as an impostor. He enlisted the help of a notable from Eleutheropolis called Paul, who paid for the excavation and un- covered the saints’ remains. Then the bishop accepted the authenticity of the relics and brought them to the Holy Sion. Paul had a chapel built in front of the cave, and the bishop deposed the bones under its altar. The church became the focus of the cult of St. James in Jerusalem and seemingly a monastery was established beside it.6 An inventio of John the Baptist must have taken place before the reign of Julian, for during the anti-Christian disorders under this em- peror the remains of the Baptist, who had died at Machaerus, suddenly make their appearance in Sebaste, in the traditional tomb of Elisha. No extant source tells us how the body came to be found there, but many relate how pagan rioters took the remains out of their resting place and dispersed them. Some monks from Jerusalem salvaged the relics and sent them to Alexandria, and from that moment they seem to multiply, for we hear that they were deposed in Jerusa- lem on the Mount of Olives, at Nola in Italy and at Cyrrhus in Syria; the head was brought to Constantinople in 391 and also discovered in Emesa in 452. And all the time the pilgrims continued to attest that the body of the Baptist was buried at Sebaste in the same tomb where Elisha and Obadiah rested.7

nize the authenticy of the discovery and of the relics. Even Epiphanius himself at first did not believe his dream was true, and James had to make a second apparition to the hermit and another to Paul in Eleutheropolis, in order to convince them to excavate and look for his bones. 6 See above, n. 3. The monastery of St. James near , said to have belonged to the Ar- menians in the seventh century, was possibly established in Epiphanius’ old hermitage. The “house of St. James” in the is mentioned in various sources up to the ninth century: see Abel, “La sépulture,” pp. 493-495. 7 For the Jewish tradition on Elisha’s tomb, see J. Jeremias, Heiligengräber in Jesu Umwelt (Göttingen, 1958), pp. 30-31; Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, p. 201. For the episode of 362, see Rufinus, HE XI, 28, ed. Th. Mommsen (GCS 9 ii, Leipzig, 1908), pp. 1033-1034; Theodoretus, HE III, 7, 2, ed. L. Parmentier (GCS 19, Leipzig, 1911), p. 182; Philostorgius, HE VII, 4, eds. J. Bidez and F. Winkelmann (GCS, Berlin, 1972), pp. 80-81; Chronicon Paschale, ad annum 362, ed. L. Dindorf, PG 92, col. 740. On the various depositions of the relics, see Palladius, Historia Lausiaca 44, ed. E. C. Butler (Cambridge, 1898-1904), p. 131 (Mount of Olives); Paulinus of Nola, Carmen 27, 403, ed. G. de Hartel (CSEL 29, Vienna, 1882), p. 280 (Nola); Sozomen, HE VII, 21, eds. J. Bidez and G. C. Hausen (GCS 50, Berlin, 1960), pp. 333-334 (Con- stantinople); Theodoretus, Historia religiosa 21, PG 82, col. 1444 (Cyrrhus); Inventio a Marcello archimandrita Spelaei, AASS (3rd ed.), V, pp. 623-627; PL 67, cols. 424-430 (Emesa); Antonini Placentini Itinerarium 46, ed. P. Geyer, in Itineraria et alia geographica [above, n. 3], p. 153 (Emesa). For the evidence about the relics in Sebaste, see Petrus Diaconus, Liber V 6, eds. I. Fraipont and R. Weber, in Itineraria et alia geographica, p. 99 (a passage from Egeria); Jerome, Ep. 108, 13, ed. I. Hilberg (2nd ed., CSEL 55, Vienna, 1996), p. 323; id., In Oseam I, 1, 5; In Micheam I, 1, 6, ed. M. Adriaen (CCSL 76, Turnhout, 1969), pp. 12, 427. See also Delehaye, Les origines, pp. 98-100. The tomb is found among the remains of a Byzan- tine church that were included in the Crusader church; it appears to date from the second-third century CE: see R.W. Hamilton, Guide to Samaria-Sebaste (Amman, 1953), p. 40.

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The Western pilgrim Egeria describes the discovery of the tomb of in the city of Carneas in Hauran. A hermit in the nearby desert saw a dream and announced it to the local bishop; the bishop and his clergy excavated in the spot indicated and uncovered a sarcophagus on which was engraved the name Job. This was not moved but a church was erected around it, so planned that the sarcophagus rested beneath the altar. A private donor, a tribunus (i.e., the commander of a regiment), paid for the building.8 This occurred some time before Egeria’s visit in 384, for the bishop who uncovered the tomb was not the same that received the pilgrim; but the church was not many years old, since Egeria saw it unfinished. In about the same period, around 394/5, Bishop Zebennus of Eleutheropolis discovered the body of Habakkuk at Kela and that of Micah at Morasthi.9 Eusebius, writing at the end of the third century, re- ported two different traditions about the tomb of Habakkuk, one at Gabatha, 12 Roman miles northeast of Eleutheropolis,10 the other at Kela, biblical Qeilah, about 7 miles east of Eleutheropolis;11 the inventio clinched the latter identification. Jerome, translating Eusebius’ Onomasticon about 389-391, has nothing to add to this double identification, nor does he mention the tomb of Habakkuk in his account of Paula’s pilgrimage in 385.12 Jerome’s silence is apparently a symptom of his disapproval, for in the same account he does

8 It. Egeriae XVI, 5-6 eds. E. Franceschini and R. Weber, in Itineraria et alia geographica (above, n. 3), pp. 57-58. Carneas, ancient Ashtaroth Qarnaim, is identified with es-Sheikh Sa’d (map ref. 247/249) near Naveh in the Hauran (G. Schmitt, Siedlungen Palästinas in griechisch- römischer Zeit [Wiesbaden, 1995], pp. 212-213). The name of the town does not appear in any list of bishoprics: probably the bishops mentioned in Egeria’s story had their seat at nearby Naveh (Nawa, 247/255). Bishops are attested in Naveh since 451: G. Fedalto, Hierarchia Ecclesiastica Orientalis II (Padova, 1988), p. 752. 9 Sozomen, HE VII, 29, 2, GCS 50, p. 345. Sozomen dates the two inventiones simply in the reign of Theodosius (379-395), but Beda (ed. Th. Mommsen, Chronica minora [MGH AA XIII, Berlin, 1898], p. 300) records the event immediately after the accession of Arcadius and Honorius to the throne, and Theophanes (Chronographia, ad annum 5885, ed. C. de Boor [Leip- zig, 1883], p. 73) notes the inventio in the same year of the defeat of Eugenius by Theodosius (September 6, 394), in the year preceding the emperor’s death (January 17, 395). The New Year coincided with the beginning of the indiction, which at that time was on the 23rd of September. 10 Eusebius, Onomasticon, ed. E. Klostermann, Das Onomastikon der Biblischen Ortsnamen, mit der lateinischen Uebersetzung des Hieronymus (GCS 11 i, Leipzig, 1904), p. 70, ll. 23-25. Gabatha is identified with Jaba’, map ref. 157/120: TIR, p. 127, s.v. Gabatha in Judaea. 11 Eus., On. p. 88, ll. 26-28; p. 114, ll. 15-18. Kela is identified with Kh. Keila, map ref. 150/ 113: TIR, p. 102, s.v. Cela. 12 Jerome, Liber locorum, ed. E. Klostermann, Das Onomastikon, pp. 71, ll. 24-25; 89, ll. 26- 28; 115, ll. 16-18. Paula’s pilgrimage took place in 384-385 and is described in the eulogy that Jerome composed at the death of the Roman matron in 404 (Ep. 108, CSEL 55, pp. 306-351). Jerome himself had accompanied Paula in her pilgrimage. Egeria passed this way in 383-384 (for the date of her visit in these parts, see Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, p. 29). The passage in her Itinerary is lost, but a paraphrasis appears in Petrus Diaconus’ Liber de locis sanctis, V 8 (CCSL 175, p. 99). Here the tomb is located in “loco Bycoyca”, that is, Habakkuk’s place, “in (the area of) Eleutheropolis”: probably this points to the tomb at Kela, although Gabatha too may have been in the territority of Eleutheropolis. However, the discovery of the prophet’s body had not yet taken place.

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mention Morasthi with the words: sepulchrum quondam Micheae prophetae, nunc ecclesiam. Unlike Habakkuk, Micah’s burial place was known on good authorities – Eusebius, as well as late Jewish and early Christian tradition;13 thus Jerome – always extremely wary of monkish tales – had no scruples about accepting the inventio as authentic.14 Twenty years later, under the same bishop, the steward of a privately owned village, Caphar Zacharia in the terri- tory of Eleutheropolis, discovered the tomb of Zechariah the prophet. This time there was no inscription to help identifying the body, and the word of a mere layman – and a rather unsavoury character at that – would not have car- ried conviction, but for the fact that a child in royal attire was buried in the same tomb, and the abbot of the monastery of Gerar was able to quote an an- cient Hebrew apocryph that described how king Joash, after killing the prophet, had been punished by the death of his own son and had buried him in Zechariah’s grave.15 In 415 Lucianus, a priest of Caphargamala in the territory of Jerusalem, dis- covered near his village the remains of , the first martyr, and ran to announce the event to the bishops assembled in council at Lydda. The proc- ess of the inventio was the usual: the dream is announced to the bishop who allows the excavation, which results in the discovery of a tomb with inscrip- tions identifying the bones as those of Stephen, Gamliel, Abibos and Nico- demus.16 In this case, however, instead of building a church on the tomb, the relics were removed to Jerusalem and later dispersed to various destinations.17

13 Jerome, Ep. 108, 13, CSEL 55, p. 324. Morasthi was Micah’s place of birth (Micah 1:1; Jer. 26:18), where he had also been buried: see Eus., On., p. 134, ll. 10-11; Th. Schermann, Prophetarum vitae fabulosae (Leipzig, 1907), pp. 17-18, 28, 56, 81, 101); Petrus Diaconus, Liber de locis sanctis V 8 (CCSL 175, pp. 99-100, paraphrase of a lost passage of Egeria). For the Jewish tradition and the identification of the site, see Jeremias, Heiligengraber (above, n. 7), pp. 82, 86. For more sources and the location, at Khirbet el-Bassal east of Eleutheropolis (map ref. 140/114), see TIR, p. 189, s. v. Morasthi, Birat Sati, Cariatsati. 14 For Jerome’s reservations about identification of holy places by his fellow monks, see above, n. 4, and also Jerome, In Mattheum IV, 23, 35, eds. D. Hurst and M. Adriaen (CCSL 77, Turnhout, 1969), p. 220. 15 Sozomen, HE XI, 17, GCS 50, pp. 407-408. On the episode, see also L. Di Segni, “The Territory of Gaza: Notes of Historical Geography,” in B. Bitton-Ashkelony and A. Kofski (eds.), Christian Gaza in Late Antiquity (Leiden-Boston, 2004), pp 51-52. 16 The discovery is described in an epistle, purportedly written by the same priest Lucianus. The epistle is preserved in Greek, Latin, Armenian, Georgian and Slavonic MSS: see A. Charbel, “Fonti e sussidi per lo studio della identificazione di Caphargamala con Beit-Jimal,” Salesianum 40 (1978), pp. 911-944. The Latin version is in PL 41, 807-817; for a critical edition see S. Van- derlinden, “Revelatio Sancti Stephani (BHL 7850-6),” Revue des Études Byzantines 4 (1946), pp. 178-217. Later sources mentioning Caphar Gamala in connexion with St. Stephen are all based on Lucianus' epistle: some are cited in TIR, p. 98, s. v. Caphar Gamala. See ibidem for the identification of the village, Jemmala northwest of Jerusalem or Beit Jimal southwest of the same. The former is the more likely, for Beit Jimal, favoured by the Salesians who own the place, in all likelihood was not included in the territory of Jerusalem but in that of Eleutheropolis. For a sketch of the polemics between the supporters of the two different identifications, see B. Bagatti, Ancient Christian Villages of Judah and the Negev (Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, Collectio minor, no. 42, Jerusalem, 2002), pp. 135-136. 17 For the story of the relics, see Delehaye, Les origines (above, n. 1), pp. 68, 97-98.

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Some inventiones date from a later period, in the sixth century. One, in 515/ 6, is known through an inscription engraved on a lintel in the church of St. George at Ezra’ in the Hauran, ancient Zoraua. According to the text, the church was erected on the site of a pagan temple after St. George had appeared in a vision to a local man, John son of Diomedes. He built the church and de- posed the body (tò leícanon) of the martyr in it.18 Another story, from the second half of the sixth century, appears in John Moschus’ Pratum Spirituale. In this case the holy man who reveals the place of his burial is a hermit called Peter – at that late time personages from the Scripture must have been all “taken” – who appears in a dream to a monk busy erecting a chapel for a farm belonging to his monastery, St. Theodore, at Phasael in the Valley.19 As a result of the dream the monk enlarged the plan of the church to include the spot where Peter was buried, and having uncovered the body, lay it to rest in a splendid grave in the southern aisle. This story shows that inventiones were still acceptable in the sixth century; they still followed the same pattern and still had the same aim: sanctifying a church not by the mere deposition of rel- ics – by that time an obligatory part of the dedication of churches – but by the actual participation of a venerated figure in the choice of the spot. The pres- ence of a venerated grave sanctioned the location of the church and trans- formed it into a holy place. Except for the late case of the discovery of the hermit’s tomb, all the other known inventiones in Palestine pertain to figures of the Old and New Testa- ments, unlike the inventiones in the other parts of the Roman Empire, which pertain almost exclusively to Christian martyrs. Personages from the Scripture were of course scarce outside the Holy Land; on the other hand, Palestine did not lack martyrs: yet if tombs of martyrs were discovered there through the process of inventio, nobody took the trouble to hand down the story to us. But the monopoly held by Scriptural figures has a corollary: all the tombs identi- fied for veneration had to be ancient. They usually were tombs of the Second Temple period, sometimes even of the Iron Age, but in any case they had to be recognizable as ancient by the Christians who chose them for veneration. As yet, in no case was it possible to archaeologically verify any story of inventio told by the Greek and Latin sources. Of the churches built on the site of an inventio, only the one dedicated to Micah has been tentatively identified at Khirbet el-Basal near Beth Govrin, but it has not been excavated, as far as I

18 W.H. Waddington and P. Le Bas, Voyage archéologique en Grèce et en Asie Mineure: In- scriptions et explications II (Paris, 1870), p. 569, no. 2498. Seemingly the temple had been dedi- cated to the Arab god Theandrios, as is indicated by another inscription in secondary use in the same church: Waddington, Voyage, p. 567, no. 2481. On the cult of Theandrios, see D. Sourdel, Les cultes du Hauran à l’époque romaine (Paris, 1952), pp. 78-81. 19 Joannes Moschus, Leimonarion seu Pratum spirituale 92, PG 87 iii, cols. 2949-2952.

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know.20 The most famous case, that of the tomb of St Stephen, has raised a controversy that still awakens from time to time to this day, but the Salesian fathers, who excavated the Byzantine church of Beit Jimal and maintained they had discovered a burial cave of the Second Temple period underneath, took good care to blast it with dynamite to create a larger crypt, so that their claim about the date of the tomb can no longer be checked, and their identifi- cation, never well grounded, now lacks all archaeological support. The martyrium of St. George, which anyway is in Hauran, not in Palestine proper, is known but has never been excavated, for the Byzantine building still stands and functions as a church. According to Waddington who visited Ezra’ in the 19th century, the tomb, located in the main apse, was venerated by Christians and Muslims alike.21 On the other hand, the inventio was not the only process by which a church could be associated to an ancient and venerated tomb. Many early churches were erected on holy places – and particularly on tombs – the memory of which had been preserved in Jewish or early Christian tradition. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre can be considered the prototype of this class. According to tradition, the location of the tomb that had held Jesus’ body had not been for- gotten and Constantine only had to clear away the pagan temple that had been built over it for the burial cave to appear, and the rest of the story is known. Eusebius and the Pilgrim of Bordeaux mention several places where tombs of famous figures of the Old Testament were pointed out.22 On most of them, churches were erected between the late fourth and the fifth century. Some of them have been excavated or at least examined and the relation of the church to the tomb is clear. One good example is the earliest church at the Lazarium in . Eusebius and the Pilgrim of Bordeaux only knew it as a burial cave, but Jerome in his translation of the Onomasticon adds that the place was

20 The church was located by J. Jeremias, “Moreshet-Gath, die Heimat des Propheten Micha,” PJb 29 (1933), p. 52; cf. A. Ovadiah and C.G. de Silva, “Supplementum to the Corpus of Byzantine Churches in the Holy Land, III,” Levant 16 (1984), p. 130, no. 3. 21 Waddington, Voyage, p. 570, note to no. 2498. See also M. Restle, “Les monuments chrétiens de la Syrie du sud,” in J.-M. Dentzer and W. Orthmann (eds.), Archéologie et histoire de la Syrie II. La Syrie de l’époque achémenide à l’avènement de l’Islam (Saarbrücken, 1989), pp. 380-381, Fig. 103. 22 E.g. Eusebius, On., pp. 6, l. 12 (tomb of at Hebron), 42, l. 12 (tomb of and his father Jesse in Bethlehem), 58, l. 17 ( at Bethany), 70, l. 20 and 100, l. 3 (tomb of Joshua near Thamnatsare), 70, ll. 24-25 (tomb of Habakkuk at Gabatha), 80, l. 13 (tomb of Rachel at Ephratha, near Bethlehem), 86, l. 15 (tomb of Amos at Thecoa), 88, ll. 27-28 and 114, ll. 17-18 (tomb of Habakkuk at Kela), 112, l. 11 (tomb of Miriam, Moses’ sister, at Kadesh Barnea), 132, l. 17 (tomb of the Maccabees); Itin. Burdig. 587, 5-588, 1 (tomb of Joseph near Shechem), 595, 2-4 (tombs of the prophet Isaiah and of king Hezekiah in Jerusalem), 596, 2 (tomb of Lazarus at Bethany), 598, 4-5 (tomb of Rachel), 7-9 (tombs of David, his father and other members of his family, in Bethlehem); 599, 8-9 (tombs of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sara, Rebecca and Leah in Hebron) (CCSL 175, pp. 13-14, 18, 19-20).

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now marked by a church, and the description of the celebrations held there at the time of Egeria’s visit (381-384) shows that the church was already there. It was erected just in front of the tomb, which opened in a corner of the atrium (Fig. 1).23 Usually these churches were located within or near a city or village and the local population can be considered responsible for preserving the tradition and later transforming the venerated tomb into a Christian cult place that served their own need, even before it became a focus of pilgrimage. To this group we can assign the above-mentioned tomb of Elisha at Sebaste, that of Amos at Thecoa, and others, in areas with a predominantly Christian population. In other areas, where Christians were not a majority or at least had to contend with strong minorities, the taking over of the holy places may have been less than peaceable, as it seems to have happened with the tomb of Joseph at Shechem; or the shrine continued to be held in common by two religious groups, as was the case with the tombs of the patriarchs at Hebron.24 Yet, several churches have been uncovered in which the Christian building was erected over a Second Temple period tomb and joined with it, without a known tradition or a reported inventio to justify the fact. Unlike the churches built on traditionally venerated tombs, these are often located in isolated spots and were not erected to serve a community, but expressly because of the tomb that was discovered there and was believed to belong to some holy figure. Usually we cannot even guess at the story that popular religion connected to the tomb, but the way it was placed into the church building, the isolation of the church, and often other finds, all make it clear that the tomb had developed into a focus of pilgrimage, if only on a local scale. A classical example of this type is the church of Hagia Salome at Horvath Qazra southeast of Beth Govrin (Fig. 2).25 Originally it was a rock-cut burial cave of the 1st-2nd centuries, con- sisting of an antechamber leading into three inner chambers, two with kokhim, 23 S.J. Saller, Excavations at Bethany (1949-1953) (Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, Collectio maior, no. 12, Jerusalem, 1957), pp. 30-33, cf. Fig. 2 at p. 6; Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels, p. 52. 24 The tomb of Joseph was a holy place of the Samaritans (Epiphanius, De gemmis. The Old Georgian Version, ed. and transl. R.P. Blake [Studies and Documents 2, London, 1934], pp. 191- 192; R. Pummer, Early Christian Authors on Samaritans and Samaritanism [Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 92, Tübingen, 2002], p. 180), and according to Samaritan sources it was taken over by the Christians by force under Marcianus (450-457): see The Kitab al-Tarikh of Abu’l Fath 52, transl. P. Stenhouse (Studies in Judaica 1, Sydney 1985), pp. 236-239; E.N. Adler, “Une nouvelle chronique samaritaine,” REJ 45 (1902), pp. 234-235; A.D. Crown, The Samaritans (Tübingen, 1989), pp. 69-70. As to the tombs of the patriarchs in Hebron, Jews and Christians still shared the building at the time of the visit of the Piacenza Pilgrim in 570: Antonini Placentini Itinerarium 30, ed. P. Geyer, in Itineraria et alia geographica, CCSL 175, p. 168. 25 Map ref. 1431/1053. A. Kloner, “The Cave Chapel at Horvat Qastra,” ‘Atiqot (Hebrew Series) 10 (1990), pp. 129-139 (Hebrew), 29*-30* (English summary); L. Di Segni and J. Pa- trich, “The Greek Inscriptions in the Cave Chapel of Horvat Qastra,” ibidem, pp. 141-154, 31*- 35*.

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the third used for storing ossuaries. Later on the latter was transformed in the prayer hall of a church, or rather a chapel, by hewing out of the soft rock an apse and chancel to the east and a diaconicon to the north. The passage from the antechamber was widened into an arched entrance and adorned with a Greek dedication to St. Salome. Several other inscriptions, in Greek, Palestin- ian Aramaic and , are scratched on the walls, showing that pilgrims vis- ited the chapel until the eighth century at least. Although we have no written tradition about the place, it is easy to guess the story: the discovery of the tomb and probably of an ossuary inscribed “Shalom” – as a personal name or as a blessing – led to the identification of the cave as the burial place of Salome, the midwife who gave evidence of Mary’s virginity after Jesus’ birth, according to the Protoevangelium of James. In some versions of the story, which was widely known in the early Byzantine period, the midwife was Mary’s handmaid who followed the Holy Family in its flight to Egypt.26 As the cave is located along the road leading from Bethlehem through Hebron to Eleutheropolis, and hence to Gaza and Egypt, the faithful could easily imagine that the maid had died and been buried on the road, a well-know literary topos.27 The church of St. John the Baptist at ‘En Karem was built in an area dotted with tombs, both of the Second Temple period and of the Iron Age. One, at the eastern end of the church, is a rock-cut chamber located under the presbytery and identified by a Greek inscription as a memorial of the martyrs. It formed the heart of the early church and is probably its raison d’être.28 The “martyrs” can probably be identified with the Holy Innocents, the babies slaughtered at Herod’s order after he heard from the Magi that a king had been born to the Jews (Matt. 2:1-16). The gospel of Matthew located the slaughter in the region of Bethlehem, but the local tradition, derived from the Protoevangelium of James, pinpointed ‘En Karem as the site of the killing and of the miraculous rescue of John, the future Baptist.29

26 Protoevangelium Jacobi 19-20, ed. C. de Tischendorf, Evangelia Apocrypha (Leipzig, 1876), pp. 35-39; Pseudo-Matthaei Evangelium 13, ibidem, pp. 76-79; Di Segni and Patrich, “The Greek Inscriptions,” pp. 145-147. 27 E. g. Deborah the nurse of Rebecca (Gen. 35:8); Gaeta the nurse of Aeneas (Virgil, Aeneid. VII, 78); Nysa, the nurse of Dionysus (Pliny, NH V, 74; Solinus, Polyhistor 36). 28 S.J. Saller, Discoveries at St. John’s, ‘Ein Karim, 1941-1942 (Studium Biblicum Francis- canum, Collectio maior, no. 3, Jerusalem, 1946), p. 72, Pl. 6:2, Plan III: 61-62. Another tomb of the Second Temple period is located beyond the southern wall of the Byzantine complex, just in front of an opening in the wall: pp. 62-69, Pl. 5:1, Plan III: 87. This tomb too was clearly linked to the shrine of the Byzantine period. 29 Protoevangelium Jacobi 22, 3, ed. Tischendorf, pp. 43-44. On this legend and its localiza- tion at ‘En Karem, see D. Baldi, Enchiridium locorum sanctorum (Jerusalem 1982), pp. 86-87; L. Di Segni, “Greek Inscriptions from Area XV,” in E. Mazar, The Temple Mount Excavations in Jerusalem 1968-1978 directed by Benjamin Mazar. Final Reports II (Qedem 43, Jerusalem, 2003), pp. 121-123.

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In several other cases the link of the sacred building with the tomb is architecturally clear, but we have no clue as to the reason why a shrine was erected on it. This is the case, for instance, of the chapel at Qasr Antar, east of Theqoa. It is a small building, built over an underground burial chamber accessed through a shaft that opens under the northern wall of the apse (Fig. 3). Its complete isolation shows that it was nothing but a memorial site.30 A church located on a high hill overlooking the village of Beit ‘Anun (biblical Beth Anoth, Roman-Byzantine Bethennim) was also located far from the set- tled area, in an ancient graveyard. It was built on a Second Temple grave, which was transformed in the crypt of the church (Figs. 4-5). The crypt had two entrances, one (B) from the south, opening outside the walls of the church, and the other (A) from the west, through a stepped passage leading into the narthex.31 Interestingly, also a second church near Beit ‘Anun, at Khirbet Abu Rish south of the village, was built on a cemetery of the Second Temple period (Fig. 6). Two of the graves were placed in a prominent position within the walls of the church; one, in the centre of a room belonging to the first building stage, was covered by the mosaic pavement and marked by a Greek inscription mentioning pilgrims who brought offerings to the site; the other, under the prayer hall of the second stage, was transformed in a crypt accessed from the outside.32 An underground chamber was discovered under the pavement of the church of St. Nicholas at Beit Jala. The modern church was erected on an an- cient one, probably Byzantine, which in its turn had been built over a burial cave, apparently late Roman. The tomb, located in the eastern part of the church, was accessed through a stepped passage starting under the apse (Fig. 7). The ancient shrine was dedicated to St. Andrew – probably the general rather than the apostle – and preserved his relics, but no known tradition con- nected the martyr to this place.33

30 Map ref. 1719/1150: Y. Hirschfeld, “Memorial and Venerative Sites of Saints in the Vicin- ity of Chariton’s Monastery,” in D. Jacoby and Y. Tsafrir (eds.), Jews, Samaritans and Chris- tians in Byzantine Palestine (Jerusalem, 1988), pp. 118-120 (Hebrew); id., “List of the Byzantine Monasteries in the Judean Desert,” in G.C. Bottini, L. Di Segni and E. Alliata (eds.), Christian Archaeology in the Holy Land: New Discoveries (Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, Collectio maior, no. 36, Jerusalem, 1990), p. 78. 31 Y. Magen, “A Byzantine Church at Beit ‘Einun (Beth ‘Anoth) in the Hebron Hills,” in Christian Archaeology in the Holy Land, pp. 275-285. 32 Y. Magen and Y. Baruch, “Khirbet Abu Rish (Beit ‘Anun),” Liber Annuus 47 (1997), pp. 339-355; V. Tzaferis, “The Greek Inscription from Kh. Abu Rish,” ibidem, pp. 355-358. 33 F.-M. Abel, “Une crypte Byzantine à Beit Djala,” RB 32 (1923), pp. 261-272. On Beit Jala, a village in the Byzantine period, see also TIR, p. 128, s. v. Galim, Galla. In this village, in the Byzantine period, the liturgical calender of the Church of Jerusalem commemorated the depo- sition of St. Andrew and the dedication of his church on October 9: see G. Garitte, Le Calendrier Palestino-Géorgien du Sinaiticus 34 (Xe siècle) (Subsidia hagiographica 30, Bruxelles, 1958), p. 352; Milik, “Sanctuaires chrétiens de Jérusalem,” RB 67 (1960), p. 576, no. 62. On St. Andrew, a Roman officer martyred with his soldiers in in 305, see Passio by Symeon Metaphrastes, PG 115, cols. 596-609); G.D. Gordini, Bibliotheca Sanctorum I, cols 1127-1129. A church was dedicated to him in Jericho: Y. E. Meimaris, Sacred Names, Saints, Martyrs and

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In some cases, an ancient tomb is connected to a monastic church. In this case there are two possible reasons for the erection of the church in that par- ticular spot: one is a local tradition identifying the tomb as that of some vener- ated figure, as in the case of the memorial churches discussed above; the other may be a practical one. Hermits often chose to live in a burial cave or monu- ment, which offered them a ready-made dwelling. If disciples gathered around the hermit, a monastery would be erected around his hermitage, which often became the tomb of the founder and was attached to the church. This may be the case of the Georgian monastery at Bir el-Qut, where a tomb of the Second Temple period was located beside the monastery to the east.34 At Khirbet Burj el-Haniya, or Horvat Hani, a small nunnery was recently excavated by U. Dahari and Y. Zelinger. Under the chancel and part of the prayer hall of the church was an arcosolium tomb that was accessed from the outside, through an opening in the eastern wall under the apse, blocked with a rolling stone. The tomb had been arranged as a burial crypt for the monastery and several female skeletons were found in it (Figs. 8-9).35 The monastery was located far from the settled area, an unusual choice for a nunnery, and the Arab name of the site led the excavators to suggest that it preserved the memory of a holy woman, possibly Anna the prophetess, mentioned in the Gospel of Luke (2:36-38), or of a woman hermit, who might have been buried in the tomb. However, an in- scription at the entrance of the church invokes St. John, probably the Baptist; therefore the name of the site may derive from the Arab form of Johannes rather than from the female name Anna. The excavations revealed that the church was built before the monastery, but it is impossible to guess whether it was a memorial church erected on the tomb, and later provided with a commu- nity to serve the pilgrims, or whether the tomb became the dwelling of a her- mit, perhaps a woman, was provided with a church, and later became the nu- cleus of a monastic community. Other examples could easily be found and will certainly appear in future. What is clear is that the “archaeological” process of discovery of ancient tombs had a particular effect in Byzantine Palestine, namely, the foundation of memorial churches, some of them in a very early phase of the Christianization of the country: churches that were nor erected to serve a community but as pilgrim sites, to focus the Christian cult on potentially non-Christian holy places throughout the land.

Church Officials in the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri Pertaining to the Church of Palestine (Athens, 1986), p. 116, no. 625. 34 V. Corbo, Gli scavi di Siyar el-Ghanam (Campo dei Pastori) e i monasteri dei dintorni (Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, Collectio maior, no. 11, Jerusalem, 1955), p. 129. 35 U. Dahari, “The Excavation at Horvat Hani,” Qamoniot 36 [126] (2003), pp. 102-106 (He- brew).

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ABBREVIATIONS

CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, Turnhout. CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, Vienna. GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte, Kirchenväter Kommission der königlichen Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Leipzig. Mansi, Conc. J.D. Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, Venice 1758-1798 (Graz 1960). MGH AA Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Auctores antiquissimi, I-XV, Berlin, 1877-1919. PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly. PG J.P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, Series graeca, Paris, 1857-1886. PJb Palästinajahrbuch des deutschen evangelischen Institute für Altertumswis- senschaft des Heiligen Landes zu Jerusalem. PL J.P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Latina, Paris. RB Revue Biblique. REJ Revue des Études Juives. TIR Y. Tsafrir, L. Di Segni and J. Green, Tabula Imperii Romani. Judaea- Palaestina. Maps and Gazetteer, Jerusalem, 1994. TUGAL Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Altchristlichen Literatur, Leipzig.

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Fig. 1. Bethany: early church at Lazarus’ tomb (from Wilkinson, Egeria's Travels, p. 52)

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m.

Section 1-1

Section 2-2

Section 3-3

Fig. 2. Horvat Qasra: Hagia Salome (from {Atiqot 10 [1990], p. 130)

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Section A-A

Fig. 3. Qasr Antar: plan, section and reconstruction (from Hirschfeld “Memorial,” pp. 119-120)

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Fig. 4. Beit ‘Anun: plan of the church (from Magen, “A Byzantine Church,” p. 276)

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Section A-A

Section B-B

Fig. 5. Beit ‘Anun: plan and sections of the crypt (from Magen, “A Byzantine Church,” p. 284)

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Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

Fig. 6. Khirbet Abu Rish: plan of the church (from Magen and Baruch, Liber Annuus 47 [1997], p. 342)

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Fig. 7. Beit Jala: plan of the church and section of the crypt (from Abel, RB 32 [1923], pp. 263, 271)

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Fig. 8. Horvat Hani: plan of the monastery (courtesy of the Antiquities Authority)

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Fig. 9. Horvat Hani: entrance of the crypt (from Dahari, Qadmoniot 36 [2003], p. 105)

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