Journal of CopticTHE Studies REDISCOVERY 11 (2009) OF 71–114 THE ORIGINAL EPISCOPAL THRONE 71 71 doi: 10.2143/JCS.11.0.2044700 THE REDISCOVERY OF THE ORIGINAL EPISCOPAL THRONE OF THE ALEXANDRIAN SEE OF ST. MARK B Y S T E P H A N H Ü L L E R By the ninth century a simple but quite beautiful alabaster chair was transferred from Alexandria to Venice. For centuries thereafter it un- doubtedly languished in the crypts beneath the newly built Basilica di San Marco. When it resurfaced again in 1534 it was identified as the original Episcopal throne of St. Mark and erected with this title behind the high altar of the basilica1. The Jesuit scholar Giampietro Secchi wrote a 390 page study of the object entitled La cattedra Alessandrina di San Marco evangelista e martire justifying this idenitification. The relic has been identified as the Cattedra di San Marco or the Sedia di San Marco ever since. Secchi’s interpretation of the throne stood essentially unchallenged until the Byzantine art scholar Andre Grabar’s 1954 article entitled “La ‘Sedia de San Marco’ à Venise” argued that the object was really an Alexandrian reliquary from the sixth or seventh century. Grabar’s study was widely influential until 1989 when another art histo- rian, Mab van Lohuizen-Mulder, essentially argued on behalf of the original claims for the object — viz. that it was an Alexandrian Episco- pal throne. In essence then scholarship has now come full circle. Van Lohuizen- Mulder argued that that the throne must have originally resided in the martyrium of St. Mark in the Boucolia, a region just beyond the eastern walls of Alexandria (p. 175). There is some dispute about the original meaning of the name but it is usually translated as ‘cow pasture.’2 Van Lohuizen-Mulder identifies the martyrium of St. Mark was the beating heart of Egyptian Christianity. Pilgrims continued to come to this site even until after the Islamic conquest3. While ultimately declining to give an exact date for its manufacture, van Lohuizen-Mulder concedes that it is likely as old as the Boucolia church itself which she tentatively 1 Buckton, The Treasury of San Marco, 105. 2 There is great variation in the spelling (Baucalia, Boucalis etc.). We will assume throughout that all refer to the same place. 92690_JCoptSt_05_Huller 71 02-16-2010, 9:49 72 STEPHAN HÜLLER assigns to the beginning of the fourth century but allows some flexibility in her dating4 (p. 176). Indeed van Lohuizen-Mulder’s establishing the fourth century as the earliest date for the throne is almost entirely based on literary evidence — philology being a field essentially outside her area of expertise5. Her argument relies heavily on one literary tradition in particular — the texts associated with the martyrdom of Peter I the 17th Patriarch of Alexandria in 311 C.E. There are several versions of the Martyrdom of Peter (Passio Petri)6. Most of these texts infer that a single cathedra was used by the first Patriarchs of Alexandria down to the time of Peter I’s death7. Van Lohuizen-Mulder’s limiting the earliest possible dating of the Cattedra to the fourth century is inconsistent with her supposition that the chair and the shrine were established at the same time. As Christopher Haas notes, while “the martyrium of St. Mark is attested as early as the fourth century … it is likely that some sort of shrine existed at an earlier date.”8 Van Lohuizen-Mulder bases a lot of her work on the research of Otto Meinardus so it is again very puzzling that she should assign such a late date for the Cattedra given that Meinardus accepts traditional Alexandrian claim that a shrine of St. Mark was first estab- lished sometime in the early first century and adds that “in 311 A.D., at the time of the martyrdom of Peter, the 16th Patriarch of Alexandria, the relics of St. Mark were kept at Bucalia.”9 3 Cf. Palladius, The Lausiac History, transl. by R.I. Meyer, 123. 4 Ibid. van Lohuizen-Mulder says that the throne could be from as late a date as the eighth century but leans in favour of the earlier date. 5 It has to be noted that most of the scholarship that has been written on the Cattedra di San Marco has been advanced by art historians. The way that art historians assign dates to things is through a comparison of stylistic elements with other known and firmly datable objects. The difficulty with employing this methodology with regards to our Alexandrian throne is that we have precious little Egyptian Christian art from the 3rd and 4th centuries. 6 Vivian, St. Peter of Alexandria, 67. Devos, “Une Passion grecque”, 157-187. The English translations of Devos’ text used in this article are taken from Vivian’s English translation in St. Peter of Alexandria. 7 Devos, “Une Passion grecque”, 18, infers that Peter’s successor Achillas was en- throned on the cattedra before it was buried with Peter. Severus of Al’Ashmunein’s History of the Coptic Patriarchs does not explicitly mention the burial of the throne with Peter. 8 Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity, 213. 9 Meinardus, Christian Egypt, 165. Neale, The Holy Eastern Church, 7 says that dur- ing the time of St. Mark’s ministry “the first church in Alexandria is said to have been built, at a place called Boucalia, near to the seashore, and thence called Boucalis or Baucalis.” Strabo (17.1.19) says that the name arose because it used to be used as pasture for cattle. Some claim Clement of Alexandria (Hypotyposes fragment in Zahn, Forschungen iii, 70) represents our earliest witness to existence of St. Mark’s tomb at Boucalis. 92690_JCoptSt_05_Huller 72 02-16-2010, 9:49 THE REDISCOVERY OF THE ORIGINAL EPISCOPAL THRONE 73 So while it is very difficult to squeeze any more information out of the surviving Christian sources to help establish the earliest possible date for both the Church and the throne of St. Mark, an interesting possibility emerges from rabbinic sources which we must also consider. Haas notes that “the martyrium of St. Mark [was] located just outside the eastern wall close to the Mediterranean shore” and his understanding is sup- ported by most other scholars10. Yet this would place the Church in almost the exact place that the most prominent synagogue in the Delta district originally stood11. This synagogue is remembered for its massive double stoa or “a stoa within a stoa” structure described in Tosefta Sukkah 4:6 where a basilica (i.e. royal stoa) is described as standing on one end of the building. It is noteworthy that cathedrae (Aram sing. qathedra) were said to have been prominently displayed in this building down to at least the 2nd century C.E12. While it is impossible to establish a source which helps identify who manufactured this remarkable relic we might be better served develop- ing an understanding for how the Cattedra made its way to Venice. Both Secchi and Grabar have argued that our throne was taken from Alexan- dria by the Emperor Heraclius at the twilight of Roman rule in Alexan- dria and made its way to Venice by way of the nearby city of Grado. Yet this entire reconstruction of history is so dependent on legendary narratives that one could by the same token infer the existence of dragons owing to the fact that knights are said to be so often engaged 10 Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity, 213. Harry E. Tzalas has written an article on the underwater surveys of the Greek Mission with finds related to the Martyrium St. Mark “Greco-Egyptian underwater archaeological survey near Alexandria”, Towards inte- grated management of Alexandria’s coastal heritage, Coastal management and small island papers 14, Unesco, Paris 2003, 76. There are also a number of articles on the two old maps showing the location of St. Mark Martyrium. “The Two Ports of Alexandria, Plans and Maps from the 14th century to the time of Mohamed Ali” Focus on Alexandria, Underwater Archaeology and Coastal Management, Coastal Management Source Books 2, Unesco, Paris, 2000. “The Codex Urbinate 277 and the Plan of Simancas, Two of the Earliest Maps of Alexandria.” In: Tradition and Transition, Proceedings of a Conference held in October 2007 at the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at the A & M University of Texas in honor of George Bass and K. Van Doorninck [under press]. 11 Cf. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue, 92: “this rabbinic tradition immediately calls into mind the large Alexandrian synagogue that Philo describes in his narrative of events of 38 C.E. and it is quite plausible that rabbinic tradition and Philo refer to the same building.” Pearson, Gnosticism, 110 agrees and adds that “the beach(es) referred to by Philo and by the author of the Acts of Mark are the very same location.” 12 The fact that ‘seventy one’ cathedrae are identified as being present in the building is glossed over in most accounts. The number of seats in a Sanhedrin was seventy. The extra seat necessarily implies a seat for Moses which would have been left empty and thus the other seventy seats were probably also left empty and represent the presence of the seventy elders. 92690_JCoptSt_05_Huller 73 02-16-2010, 9:49 74 STEPHAN HÜLLER in combat with them13. Garrucci points us in a much better direction when he suggests that the Cattedra was probably stolen with the body of St. Mark during the Venetian operation in Alexandria in 828 C.E14. Van Lohuizen-Mulder points to underlying similarities in the accounts of Italian and Coptic sources to support her theory and notes that “the Cattedra has been in Venice from 828 onwards … but was not given the prominent place that was due to it, but a secret one [because] Venice was afraid of ‘pious robberies’ - the very sort of ‘pious theft’ which had brought the throne from Alexandria to Venice in the first place!” (p.