Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Jack Finegan on the venerated grottoes under the Church of the Annunciation

 

On the plaster remaining on one column, along with many crosses a partially preserved inscription incised in large letters contains the words, “under the holy place of M . . . I wrote . . .” (ΥΠΟ ΑΓΙΩ ΤΟΠΟ Μ . . . ΕΓΡΨΑ . . .). Here, asking for remembrance in this holy place, some pilgrim probably wrote the pilgrim’s own name and/or the name(s) of some dear one(s), as the Anonymous of Piacenza did at Cana, where the pilgrim said, “I, unworthy though I am, wrote the names of my parents” (Geyer p. 161; LPPTS II-D, p. 4; CCSL CLXXV, p. 130; WJP p. 79; cf. No. 57). As for the holy place of M . . .,” where only the initial letter “M” of the personal name survives, it is at least possible and even probable that the name was Mary. At any rate that name is very plainly found in the inscription on the base of another column: ΧΕ/ΜΑΡΙΑ.” This abbreviation in the first line is often used for χριστε as an address to “Christ” (Mt 26:68), but in the present context the excavator very convincingly thinks it stands for χαιρε, “hail,” and is intended to repeat the angelic salutation to Mary in Lk 1:28 (Bagatti, Excavations Nazareth, pp. 156-158; and Church from Circumcision, pp. 62f., 125f.; Briand pp. 22f.)

 

Together the architectural elements and the graffiti just described allow the conclusion that we see here the remains of a pre-Byzantine synagogue-Church dating in the third-fourth century (Strange in ATR 65 [1983], p. 17) and continuing in use until replaced by the Byzantine church in the early fifth century. (Jack Finegan, The Archaeology of the New Testament: The Life of Jesus at the Beginning of the Early Church [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992], 49-50)

 

Further Reading:


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