The Late Antique church at Qausîyeh reconsidered: Memory and martyr-burial in Syrian Antioch

BIBLIOTHECA EPHEMERIDUM THEOLOGICARUM LOVANIENSIUM

CCXLI

MARTYRDOM AND PERSECUTION IN LATE ANTIQUE CHRISTIANITY

FESTSCHRIFT BOUDEWIJN DEHANDSCHUTTER

EDITED BY

J. LEEMANS

UITGEVERIJ PEETERSLEUVEN – PARIS – WALPOLE, MA

2010

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII

GENERAL INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XI

BIBLIOGRAPHIA ACADEMICA Professor Dr. Boudewijn Dehandschutter,compiled by Leo KENIS – Carla NICOLAYE . . . . . . . . . . . XVII

Pauline ALLEN (Brisbane)Loquacious Locals: Two Indigenous Martyrs in the Homilies of Severus of Antioch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Gerard J.M. BARTELINK (Nijmegen)Martyr und Martyrium bei Gregorius dem Grossen . . . . . . 15

Theofried BAUMEISTER (Mainz)Ägyptische Märtyrerhagiographie im frühen Mönchtum Palästinas 33

Jan DEN BOEFT – Jan N. BREMMER (Leiden – Groningen)Notiunculae martyrologicae VI: Passio Perpetuae 2, 16 and 17 47

Geoffrey D. DUNN (Brisbane)The Reception of the Martyrdom of Cyprian of Carthage in Early Christian Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Anthony DUPONT (Leuven)Augustine’s Anti-Pelagian Interpretation of Two Martyr Sermons: Sermones 299 and 335B on the Unnaturalness of Human Death 87

Anton HILHORST (Groningen)‘He Left Us This Writing’: Did He? Revisiting the Statement in Martyrdom of Pionius 1.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Taras KHOMYCH (Leuven)A Forgotten Witness: Recovering the Early Church Slavonic Version of the Martyrdom of Polycarp . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Johan LEEMANS (Leuven)Hagiography and Historical-Critical Analysis: The Earliest Layer of the Dossier of Theodore the Recruit (BHG 1760 and 1761) . 135

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X TABLE OF CONTENTS

Wendy MAYER (Washington D.C.)The Late Antique Church at Qausiyeh Reconsidered: Memory and Martyr Burial in Syrian Antioch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Bronwen NEIL (Brisbane)From tristia to gaudia: The Exile and Martyrdom of Pope Martin I 179

Tobias NICKLAS (Regensburg)Die Leiblichkeit der Gepeinigten: Das Evangelium nach Petrus und frühchristliche Märtyrerakten . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

László PERENDY (Budapest)“Deum qui fecit caelum et terram”: Identifying the God of Christians in the Acts of Martyrs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Geert ROSKAM (Leuven)The Figure of Socrates in the Early Christian Acta Martyrum . 241

Jörg RÜPKE (Erfurt)Fasti und Sanctorale: Religiöse Kreativität und Historisierung von Religion in der Spätantike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Gilbert VAN BELLE (Leuven)Peter as Martyr in the Fourth Gospel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Peter VAN DEUN – Ilse DE VOS (Leuven)The Panegyric of Polycarp of Smyrna Attributed to Metrophanes of Smyrna (BHG 1563) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Jan Willem VAN HENTEN (Amsterdam)The Christianization of the Maccabean Martyrs: The Case of Origen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Joseph VERHEYDEN (Leuven)Pain and Glory: Some Introductory Comments on the Rhetorical Qualities and Potential of the Martyrs of Palestine by Eusebius of Caesarea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Jonathan P. YATES (Villanova)The Use of the Bible in the North African Martyrological Polemics of Late Antiquity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

INDEX OF AUTHORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

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THE LATE ANTIQUE CHURCH AT QAUSIYEH RECONSIDERED

MEMORY AND MARTYR BURIAL IN SYRIAN ANTIOCH

When Glanville Downey and Jean Lassus sought to identify the cruci-form church at Qausiyeh on the completion of their excavation of the site in 1935 their attention focused on the stone sarcophagus that they found sunk into the floor in the north-west corner of the central chamber (fig. 1). The sarcophagus was cut from a block of stone and set into the founda-tions in such a way that its lid would have been flush with the pavement. That particular tomb (2.25 m long × 1.13 m wide × 1.05 m deep at the exterior; 1.95 m × 95 cm × 82 cm at the interior) was distinct from the

Fig. 1: Distribution of tombs, Church at Qausiyeh. Copyright Wendy Mayer

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162 W. MAYER

1. J. LASSUS, L’église cruciforme Antioche-Kaoussié 12-F, in R. STILLWELL (ed.), Antioch On-the-Orontes. II. The Excavations of 1933-1936, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1938, 5-44, p. 11.

2. Ibid.3. See LASSUS, L’église cruciforme (n. 1), p. 14 (description of tombs, north arm), p. 16

(west arm), p. 18 (south arm), and p. 19 (east arm). Note that in the case of the two tombs situated in the north arm, both were set close to a metre below the surface of the mosaic pavement.

other tombs discovered in the church in that 43 cm from the bottom a ledge 4 cm in width at the ends and 7 cm on the sides encircled it, pro-viding the means for dividing the tomb into two compartments each of sufficient height for a body, one below the other. Three notches in each of the side ledges allowed for the placement of beams across the tomb, which most likely supported a dividing panel, probably also of timber (fig. 2)1. The sarcophagus was set apart not only by its central location but by its construction. A second tomb located in the north-east corner of the central chamber was constructed of brick. Its depth could not be determined but its interior measurements were 1.99 m long × 69 cm wide (26 cm narrower than its partner) (fig. 3). Lassus believed that it would have been set below the pavement, covered with flagstones, and the floor then repaved in mosaic to match2. This second approach was repeated in a further sixteen tombs scattered throughout the four arms of the church (see fig. 1)3. The unique character and size of the double stone sarcophagus,

Fig. 2: Detail of sarcophagus, NW corner of central chamber. Print 2217, copyright Antioch Archive, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ


THE LATE ANTIQUE CHURCH AT QAUSIYEH RECONSIDERED 163

4. G. DOWNEY, The Shrines of St. Babylas at Antioch and Daphne, in STILLWELL (ed.), Antioch On-the-Orontes. II (n. 1), 45-48. See the reappraisal of his findings in W. MAYER – P. ALLEN, The Churches of Syrian Antioch (300-638 CE), Leuven, Peeters, forthcoming, Part One, Babylas, St, Church of.

5. For our conclusion that the double stone sarcophagus in fact contained the bodies of three children martyred at the same time as Babylas, in addition to that of the saint, see ibid. That reading of the archaeological details locates Meletius’ body in the single tomb in the north-east corner of the same chamber.

combined with a dated inscription in the north arm that indicated that its mosaic paving had been completed in 387 CE, and the location of the church (across the Orontes from Antioch) led Downey to identify it as the church built by the Antiochene bishop Meletius (360-381) in honour of St Babylas4.

What I wish to do in this article is not to dispute Downey’s identifi-cation, which on the basis of the evidence carries a reasonable degree of probability, but rather to shift the focus of attention away from the stone sarcophagus thought to have contained the bodies both of Babylas and Meletius towards the rest of the tombs located in the church5. All of them are sub-pavement burials and, if Lassus is correct in his belief that a number of them were cut into the floor after the mosaic pavement had

Fig. 3: Tomb, NE corner of central chamber, facing west. Print 2204, copyright Antioch Archive, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ


164 W. MAYER

6. See the introduction to W. MAYER (with B. NEIL), John Chrysostom: The Cult of the Saints, New York, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2005.

7. MAYER – ALLEN, Churches, Part Three, Liturgical Organization and Corporate Use. Our findings are contrary to those of Downey and Lassus, who believed that the church was to be interpreted as a martyrium and that all of the liturgical activity took place in the central chamber.

been laid and the mosaic pattern subsequently repaired, then the possi-bility must be entertained that what we see in those instances is a form of damnatio memoriae. What caused these differences in the pattern of burial? Why was at least one tomb set at pavement level, so that its lid would have been exposed, while others were set into the floor more deeply so that their presence would have been concealed? These are important questions when we consider that key elements in martyr burial are the perpetuation of memory, veneration (and therefore easy identification of and access to the relics) by the living, and sanctification by the relics of the place in which they lie6. Even the practice of the burial of ordinary persons ad sanctos is ineffective unless by a visual cue the memory of that individual is sustained. Under ordinary conditions concealment is thus antithetical to every kind of intra-church burial associated with the cult of the saints. In what follows it will be argued that a possible solution to this puzzle lies in another church at Antioch, the so-called Martyrium at Romanesia. At the very least this martyrium offers a paradigm for what took place in the Church at Qausiyeh. At the extreme, there exists the possibility that the Martyrium at Romanesia and the Church at Qausiyeh were in fact one and the same.

Before entertaining this argument, however, it is important first to con-sider the archaeological evidence for the sub-pavement burials in the Church at Qausiyeh in greater detail. Are there any means of determining the date at which the various tombs were constructed? Does this have any bearing on the character or identity of the burials? Of the nineteen tombs located by Lassus and his team in addition to the double stone sarcophagus in the central chamber, one was located immediately outside the north wall near the western end of the west arm and therefore lies outside our discussion here, since it was not located beneath the church’s floor. All of the tombs located at the eastern end of the east arm will also be excluded from the present discussion on three grounds. They are less regular than the other burials (fig. 4), they are situated where the mosaic flooring has been extensively damaged, and are located in an area that we have argued must have been the sanctuary of the church7. If they existed prior to the destruction of the church, they would most likely have been located beneath a raised platform on which the altar was situated



and therefore would have been obscured from sight. Burial next to or underneath the altar usually indicates the attachment of particular impor-tance to the relics. Yet the most important relics, those of Babylas (and the three children), are to be found not in the east arm, but in the central

Fig. 4: Tombs along east end of east arm, facing south. Print 2212, copyright Antioch Archive, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ


166 W. MAYER

8. Ibid.9. LASSUS, L’église cruciforme (n. 1), p. 11.10. Ibid., p. 14.

chamber near the U-shaped bema. Another possibility is that these par-ticular tombs were added after the church fell into ruin in the persistence of the belief that burial ad sanctos or in a formerly holy place bestowed some benefit or prestige8. This would then have taken place at a time in the seventh century or later when the bulk of the stone that comprised the walls of the building had been spoliated and the sanctuary platform had been stripped away and that section of the foundations exposed. Under either circumstance it is difficult to interpret these tombs and they are better set aside from consideration.

What remains, then, are eleven tombs located in the west (7), south (2), and north (2) arms, and the brick tomb located in the north-east corner of the central chamber. Of these, as already noted, Lassus believed that the latter tomb would have been set below the pavement, covered with flagstones, and the floor then repaved to match. The tomb itself is poorly preserved and it is on the basis of its similarity to the tombs that are better preserved that he draws this conclusion9. All of the tombs had been plundered. He further notes that all of the tombs, with the exception of the stone double sarcophagus, appear to have been constructed after the mosaic had been laid. In the case of the tombs set into the floor of the north arm, the one situated next to the eastern wall had been almost completely destroyed, but the one oriented east-west and situated in the south-west corner was preserved to the point where he was able to cal-culate that once the limestone slabs had been set across its mouth and cement laid over the top, the level would have matched that of the orig-inal mosaic pavement. Lassus was able to ascertain that no attempt had been made to repair the mosaic pattern and instead observed the remnants of a border in mosaic composed of a black line on a white background at the north-east corner of the tomb and along the east side a 4 cm band with three cubes decorated with a chequer-work pattern of white and black. This led him to speculate that the black border enclosed an inscrip-tion of some kind, the loss of which he bemoaned without speculating whether it identified the occupant of the tomb10. Of the two tombs nestled against the north-western corner of the west arm, the one closest to the wall was likewise covered with flagstones that were cemented over, but in this case Lassus observed fragments of mosaic that indicated that the pattern in the border was continued. Marble fragments with lettering on them were found in the tomb itself, which could as easily have been identified as the remnants of ex-voto plaques attached to the wall as plaques



11. Ibid., p. 16.12. Ibid., p. 18.13. Ibid., p. 11.14. For this argument see MAYER – ALLEN, Churches, Babylas, St, Church of, Decorative

program.

that had been set into the pavement11. The only point of note in regard to the tomb set next to it is that the mouth had been covered with a single slab of stone as opposed to the flagstones laid side by side that had been used to cover its partner and the better preserved tomb in the north arm. Lassus was unable to speculate as to how the double tomb in brick set into the south-eastern section of the south arm had been covered12.

To sum up, only three tombs out of a total of thirteen (12 brick + the stone sarcophagus) showed any clear evidence as to how they had been covered over once the tomb had been constructed. The stone sarcophagus had been set into the floor in such a way that the lid would have been level with or extended above the floor, rather than being covered by pavement. The flagstone lid of the tomb in the south-west corner of the north arm had been built up with cement to the level of the original mosaic pave-ment, but the pattern of the original mosaic interrupted. The mosaic rec-tangle that covered it may have contained an inscription. In the case of the tomb in the north-west corner of the west arm, the original mosaic had been repaired so that the border pattern continued without interruption. With the exception of the stone sarcophagus in the central chamber, all of the tombs are assumed to have been cut into the floor after the mosaic had been laid, although this is not absolutely certain. The stone sarcophagus, on the other hand, had been set into the foundations and can therefore be presumed to have been inserted at the time that the original cruciform building was constructed13. On the basis of inscriptions set into each of the pavements of the north, west, and south arms, we can be certain that the paving of the three arms was completed in 387 CE. The wording of each, which is almost identical, indicates that work began on the floor of the west arm, then moved to the south arm, and finally the north arm14.

Êpì toÕ ägiotátou êpiskópou ™m¬n FlaouianoÕ, kaì êpì toÕ eûlabestátou Eûsebíou oîkonómou kaì presbutérou, Dwruv ö pre(s)búterov kaì taútjn t®n êzédran, eûzámenov, t®n cjf⁄da êplßrwsen. Mj(nòv) Dústrou toÕ eluˆ ∂tou[v].

Under our most holy bishop Flavian and under the most venerable adminis-trator and priest Eusebius, the priest Dorys, in fulfilment of a vow, completed the mosaic paving of this exedra [= arm] too, in the month of March of the [Antiochene] year 435 [= 387].(Inscription, north arm)


168 W. MAYER

15. DOWNEY, The Shrines of St. Babylas (n. 4), p. 48, argued that construction took place between 379 and 381.

16. On the chronology of the Church of St Babylas see MAYER – ALLEN, Churches, Babylas, St, Church of, Identification.

17. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, In ascensionem (PG 50, 443).

Because of the state of the church when it was excavated it is unknown whether a similar inscription was situated in the floor of the east arm and thus whether the pavement of the east arm was laid in sequence at this same time following completion of the pavement of the south arm. We thus have one tomb that we know dates prior to 387, perhaps by as much as a decade15, while the remainder were set into a mosaic floor that was completed in that year.

It is here that the evidence offered by the Martyrium at Romanesia comes in. Whereas the natural assumption is that the bulk of the tombs postdate the mosaic pavement and could therefore have been constructed at any time from the last decade of the fourth century through to the end of the sixth16, the evidence offered by a sermon preached by the Antiochene presbyter John “Chrysostom” ostensibly in that martyrium on the feast of Ascension, opens a window on another mode of interpretation. In the course of the homily John points out to his audience recent modifications to the tombs inside the building that had been initiated by Flavian:

For if, even before this present occasion, we ought to have run off to these noble athletes of piety (i.e. martyrs), when they lay beneath the pavement, we ought to do this even more so now when the pearls are by themselves, when the sheep are free of the wolves, when the living have been separated from the dead. … (the Nicene martyrs suffered no harm from the previous arrangement) … But our people endured extraordinary harm from the situa-tion: although they raced off to the martyrs’ relics, they performed their prayers with ambiguity and poor discrimination because they couldn’t iden-tify the tombs of the saints and didn’t know where the true treasures lay. … So, when our wise shepherd and common teacher (Flavian) recognized this … what did he do? … He poured out and fenced off the destructive and foul-smelling streams below and situated the martyrs’ pure fountains in a pure location. … He displayed humanity towards the dead by not moving their bones but leaving them in place, while he honoured the martyrs by freeing them from that evil proximity17.

Flavian is the same bishop under whom the mosaic paving of the Church at Qausiyeh had been completed. The two projects – the laying of the mosaic pavement at the one church and the rearrangement of the martyr burials at another – are thus contemporary.

Like analysis of the sub-pavement burials in the Church at Qausiyeh interpretation of precisely how the tombs in the Martyrium at Romanesia



18. For a neat outline of the history of factionalism at Antioch in relation to the bish-ops Meletius and Flavian see A.J. QUIROGA PUERTAS, Elementos hagiográficos en las ‘Homilías de las estatuas’ de Juan Crisóstomo, in Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 4 (2007) 145-146.

19. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, In ascensionem (PG 50, 443.33-6): Perì mèn toùv katoixo-ménouv filan‡rwpían êpedeízato, m® kinßsav aût¬n tà ôst¢, âllˆ âfeìv êpì toÕ tópou ménein·

were re-arranged is not entirely straightforward. As is usually the case in a homily, John is preaching to an audience standing in the location in question and therefore familiar with the different arrangement that has been effected. Because those present can see with their eyes what has taken place and are familiar with the previous arrangement, John need do no more than allude to the changes. The thrust of his argument, moreover, determines the aspect of the change that he emphasises, leading him to include some details and to omit others that might have been useful. We can nonetheless tease out some of the details. In effect one of the few facts that we can be sure of is that prior to Flavian’s intervention all of the martyrs in this particular Antiochene church were buried beneath the floor. This put Nicene and heterodox martyrs on parity, which suggests both that the interment of “martyrs” within that particular church is a practice that spanned possession of the church by at least two different Antiochene Christian factions and that the mode of interring and of per-manently marking the location of the martyr beneath and in the pavement of the church remained consistent regardless of which faction had been in possession of the building. At the point that John is preaching, the church was in the possession of the faction led by Flavian, the larger of two separately-worshipping Nicene communities in existence at that time in Antioch18. The history of the building must thus extend back at least into the reign of Valens (364-378), under whose reign Flavian’s predeces-sor, Meletius, had been twice exiled for extended periods (365 and 371) at which time the churches of the city were handed over by the emperor to the homoian faction.

To solve the “problem” that this changing possession but continuing practice posed, Flavian initiated a change that would ensure that visually the identity of approved martyrs would henceforth be obvious. The pure were separated from the impure. It is precisely how he effected this separation that is unclear. A second fact of which we can be certain, however, is that he did not remove from the church the bones of the unapproved (heterodox) martyrs. John insists that Flavian did not dishon-our the bodies, but allowed them to remain in the church in their same sub-pavement locations19. By some means or other, however, he fenced


170 W. MAYER

20. PG 50, 443.28-9. 21. These classically Syrian stone reliquaries typically have a hole in the lid and

another in the body of the casket for the pouring of oil over the bones. The oil was col-lected and used by visitors to the saint to anoint themselves. That reliquaries of this kind were in existence at Antioch during Flavian’s episcopate is indicated by JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, Hom. in martyres (PG 50, 664), where he enjoins his audience to embrace the martyrs’ chests at the martyrium in question and to anoint themselves with the holy oil. For the possible location of the martyrium along the Daphne road see W. MAYER, The Homilies of St John Chrysostom – Provenance. Reshaping the Foundations (Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 273), Rome, Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 2005, p. 400.

them off below (âpéfraze kátw)20. When we look to the practice observed in the Church at Qausiyeh, the simplest and cheapest means of blocking off unapproved tombs, while preserving the identity of those that were approved, would have been to leave the unapproved tomb in its current location, but open it up, lower the height of the brick walls to the point where the original cover of the tomb would now sit below the pavement level, seal it back up, cement over the top and repair the mosaic paving. In this way the covers of tombs visible in the pavement would be only those whose occupants were approved, while the location of unapproved martyrs would rapidly be lost to memory. This may not be the only action that was taken, since the language of the passage in which John describes this event suggests that the approved tombs were not left undisturbed, but were elevated in some way, which may indicate the introduction to the church by Flavian of stone reliquaries of the kind typically found in northwest Syria during the late antique period (fig. 5)21. If that was the case, the bones of approved martyrs would have been disinterred and relocated, perhaps on the same spot, into these specially prepared receptacles. Whatever the case, the actions described here in regard to the unapproved martyrs offer the first satisfactory explanation as to why at the Church of Qausiyeh over certain sub-pavement tombs the original pattern in the mosaic pavement was repaired, leading to that tomb’s concealment.

A final tantalising possibility remains to be explored. Given the con-temporaneity of the evidence and the distinctive character of the practice, is it possible that the Church at Qausiyeh and the Martyrium at Romane-sia are in fact one and the same? The martyrium at Romanesia is men-tioned in only two surviving sources. The first is the title to the previ-ously mentioned homily on the feast of the Ascension.

Eîv t®n ânáljcin toÕ Kuríou ™m¬n ÎjsoÕ XristoÕ· êléx‡j dè ên t¬ç marturíwç t±v ¨Rwmanjsíav, ∂n‡a martúrwn sÉmata, üpò tò ∂dafov keímena êggùv leicánwn aïretik¬n, ânjnéx‡jsan, kaì ãnw katˆ îdían êtáfjsan·



22. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, In ascensionem (PG 50, 441-2).

On the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, delivered in the martyrium of Romanesia, where the bodies of martyrs that lay beneath the floor next to the relics of heretics were raised up and entombed by themselves above22.

The second is the fifth chapter of the Dialogue of Palladius in which the author describes the manner in which the author of that homily, John, was informed of his election to the episcopate of Constantinople. Palladius is at pains to impress upon his audience that John had no idea that he had been put forward as a candidate and that because of his popularity at Antioch his transferral from his home city to Constantinople was con-ducted with the utmost secrecy.

Fig. 5: Examples of Syrian stone reliquaries. Copyright Wendy Mayer


172 W. MAYER

23. PALLADIUS, Dial. 5 (SC 341,114.59-64).24. On the degrees of reliability of information preserved in titles, see MAYER, Homilies

(n. 21), pp. 315-321.25. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, In ascensionem (PG 50,441-2).26. On this martyrium see MAYER – ALLEN, Churches, Part One, Koimeterion.

A.-M. MALINGREY – P. LECLERCQ, Palladios: Dialogue sur la vie de Jean Chrysostome (SC, 341), Paris, Cerf, 1988, p. 114 n. 4, are mistaken in their claim that the homily De coemeterio et de cruce (PG 49, 393-8) was delivered at the same location as In ascensionem and therefore in the Martyrium at Romanesia.

27. Regarding the fictive nature of Palladius’ account of John’s years pursuing monas-ticism see M. ILLERT, Johannes Chrysostomus und das antiochenisch-syrische Mönchtum:

ÁOv êzaut±v dezámenov tò grámma parakale⁄ aûtòn ∂zw t±v pólewv genés‡ai méxri t¬n marturíwn pljsíon t±v púljv kalouménjv ¨Rwmanjsíav kaì êpibibásav aûtòn djmosíwç Åjdíwç paradídwsi t¬ç âpostalénti eûnoúxwç sùn t¬ç stratiÉtjÇ toÕ magístrou.

As soon as [the comes of Antioch] received the letter, he requested that [John] be outside the city at the martyria near the Romanesian Gate and he put him on a public carriage and entrusted him to the eunuch who had been dispatched along with the magistrate’s guard23.

Neither source is entirely reliable. The quality of the information in the titles to John’s homilies varies substantially and is dependent on when the title was appended and the degree of independence of data contained in the title from the contents of the homily24. In this instance the identity of the martyrium at which John is delivering the homily cannot be inferred from the contents of the homily. This increases the degree of reliability. On the other hand, even if we accept that the Martyrium at Romanesia is a label attached to one of the churches at Antioch extant in the last decades of the fourth century, this does not mean that we know precisely where it was situated and whether it was known by more than one name. Depending on when the title was attached to the homily in the process of transmission the identification could in fact be mistaken or the label anachronistic, representing a name by which the church was known at a later time. All that the prooimion to the homily tells us about the location is that it is a place where martyrs are buried and that it lies out-side the city walls25. In the opening sentence an analogy is drawn with the synaxis held at the Koimeterion on Good Friday, a common mar-tyrium situated to the south-west of the city walls near the road to Daphne and the Daphne gate26. This suggests that the Romanesian martyrium had been selected for a similar reason, namely that it contained the relics of a number of martyrs rather than just one.

The data supplied by Palladius’ Dialogue is even more problematic. It occurs in the section of chapter 5 that details John’s career prior to arrival in Constantinople. As has been argued elsewhere a large part of this section is either fictitious or deliberately misrepresents the facts27. At the very



Studien zu Theologie, Rhetorik und Kirchenpolitik im antiochenischen Schrifttum des Johannes Chrysostomus, Zürich – Freiburg, Pano Verlag, 2000, pp. 102-104; and W. MAYER, What Does It Mean to Say that John Chrysostom Was a Monk?, in Studia Patristica 41 (2006) 451-455. Concerning the claim that John knew nothing about his election to the episcopate as a modesty topos see W. MAYER, John Chrysostom as Bishop: The View from Antioch, in Journal of Ecclesiastical History 55 (2004) 455-466.

28. The title kómjv Ântioxeíav is otherwise unattested. MALINGREY – LECLERCQ, Dialogue (n. 26), p. 114 n. 1 assume that Palladius refers to the comes Orientis, which is reasonable as the comes Orientis supervised a much larger jurisdiction than the consularis Syriae and was the highest civil imperial official resident in the city.

29. See D. KATOS, Socratic Dialogue or Courtroom Debate? Judicial Rhetoric and Stasis Theory in the Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom, in Vigiliae Christianae 61 (2007) 42-69.

30. On the date and provenance of the Dialogue see MALINGREY – LECLERCQ, Dialogue (n. 26), p. 19.

31. See C. BAUR, John Chrysostom and His Time, II, Westminster, MD, Newman Press, 1960 (= Eng. trans. of C. BAUR, Johannes Chrysostomus und seine Zeit, II, München, Hueber, 1930), p. 16 n. 14; G. DOWNEY, A History of Antioch in Syria from Seleucus to the Arab Conquest, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1961, p. 411 n. 83; MALINGREY – LECLERCQ, Dialogue (n. 26), p. 115 n. 4.

least it is certain that Palladius had never spent any time in Antioch and was therefore unfamiliar with its landmarks and had no first-hand knowledge of John’s life before their encounter in Constantinople. At this point in the story he throws in as much detail as possible to persuade the audience of the historical veracity of his account. Imperial letters are sent to the comes of Antioch (the comes Orientis[?] or perhaps he means the consularis Syriae[?])28, who orders John to meet him outside the city at the martyria (plural) situated near a specific gate, where both an impe-rial eunuch and military guard wait to escort him off to Constantinople via the cursus publicus. These are high honours indeed, which does not mean that this is what actually happened. The Dialogue is first and fore-most a forensic document, the intent of which is apologetic29. That is, Palladius sets out to defend John’s status as bishop of Constantinople even in exile and to show that he was wrongfully deposed. It is in Palladius’ interests to show both that John was enormously popular at Antioch and that, as the best possible candidate for the episcopate, he was accorded the highest possible honour from the very start. For his purposes, then, he is as likely to have plucked the location from the title to In ascen-sionem (if we assume that the title is original, rather than added later, and that the homily had been published before 408 in Constantinople, or in Egypt where Palladius appears to have written the Dialogue in exile)30. By converting Romanesia into a city gate, he floats the idea, taken up by Downey and scholars before and after him31, that the martyria and gate are situated at the beginning of the route from Antioch to Constantinople. The gate has typically been identified as that from which the road to


174 W. MAYER

32. Ibid.33. See fig. 6, nos 24-25.

Seleucia as well as Alexandretta led32, situating the martyrium (or mar-tyria) at the bottom end of the campus martius on the same side of the Orontes as the Church at Qausiyeh (fig. 6). There is some archaeological support for this location in that a number of burials, suggesting a second-ary cemetery, were found at the time of excavation in the 1930s33. The association at Antioch between the main cemetery and the development of martyria, as seen in the Koimeterion, is self-evident and it is to be remem-bered that in the opening lines to the homily delivered on the feast of

Fig. 6: Map of excavations by Princeton expedition, Antioch. Copyright Antioch Archive, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ



34. See G. FEDALTO, Hierarchia ecclesiastica orientalis 2: Patriarchatus Alexandrinus, Antiochenus, Hierosolymitanus, Padua, Messaggero, 1988, pp. 681-682.

35. DOWNEY, The Shrines of St. Babylas (n. 4), p. 47.

Ascension the same rationale that was offered for the holding of a synaxis at the Koimeterion on Good Friday is supplied for the siting of the fes-tival at the Martyrium at Romanesia. In the end, however, the evidence is more tenuous than we might like and since there is no way to deter-mine objectively whether a Romanesian gate existed at Antioch or indeed where a district called Romanesia might have been situated, the possibil-ity that the evidence supplied by Palladius is fictitious and that the title to In ascensionem refers to a location situated other than near the road to Alexandretta remains.

If we cannot determine where the Martyrium at Romanesia was located and therefore whether it was distinct and situated some distance from the Church at Qausiyeh, the question can be approached from the opposite direction. Can it be proved that the Church at Qausiyeh does not conform to all of the details described in In ascensionem and therefore cannot be the same church? Here the question of date is an important criterion. As we noted above, in regard to the Martyrium at Romanesia for it to contain “mixed” burials one of the few facts of which we can be certain is that the church must predate Meletius’ return to Antioch from his third exile. That is, it was old enough to have been used by at least one local heterodox Christian community prior to its possession by the Nicene faction led by Flavian. Meletius resumed his episcopate at Antioch for the third and final time in late 378 or early 37934. Downey argued that precisely because of the “continual contest for the possession of the churches at Antioch” between the homoian and the two Nicene Christian communities that took place between 360 and 381, Meletius is unlikely to have undertaken work on the construction of a new church until the position of his faction was secure35. Although the decree that restored the possession of churches to Nicene communities was not issued until February 381, Downey argued that Meletius and his faction would have taken back possession of the churches of Antioch almost immediately upon Meletius’ return. Were this the case, there would be no question that the Church at Qausiyeh (= the Church of St Babylas) and the Mar-tyrium at Romanesia were two different churches. The possibility none-theless remains, however incredible it might seem, that even if the Church at Qausiyeh is the Church of St Babylas and its construction initiated by Meletius, that he embarked upon his building program early rather than late in his episcopal career. When he returned from exile the first time


176 W. MAYER

36. FEDALTO, Hierarchia (n. 34), pp. 681-682.37. See MAYER – ALLEN, Churches, Part Two, Phase Two.38. See nn. 17 and 22.39. See MAYER – ALLEN, Churches, Part One, Babylas, St, Church of, Literary sources

and Koimeterion.40. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, De s. Babyla (SC, 362, 312.31-8): “He copied their life, he was

an enthusiast of their courage, through every action, in so far as he could, he preserved in himself the martyrs’ image. Consider! They gave up their bodies to slaughter. He mortified the components of his flesh that are on earth. They stood firm against fire’s flame, he quenched the flame of his will. They fought against the teeth of wild animals, but he quelled even the most savage of the passions in us – rage”.

41. See THEODORET, Historia religiosa 10.8 and 13.19 (SC 234, 450 and 508), who indicates that the ascetics Theodosius, Macedonius, and Aphraat were buried in the tombs of the martyrs in proximity to the relics of St Julian.

after the emperor Julian’s decree of February 36236, Meletius did not know that he would be exiled for another two terms. In fact, between 362 and 365, when he was exiled a second time, he may well have believed that his tenure of the see of Antioch was secure. If he embarked upon construction of the Church of St Babylas at that time, he could well have made sufficient headway that it remained only for the homoian (Arian) bishop who inherited the main churches of the city in 365 to set the finishing touches to the church and/or translate Babylas’ remains. This would make it necessary to explain why the mosaic pavement in the church was laid only in 387, but it would help to explain the presence of a num-ber of sub-pavement burials in addition to the central stone sarcophagus that predated the existence of the mosaic pavement. When Julian ordered the removal of Babylas’ remains from the martyrium in Daphne c. 362 it was the homoian community who claimed the body and translated it with fervour37. It would have been natural for that same community either to have seen to the retranslation of his body from the Koimeterion to the church newly built in his honour or to have encouraged the burial of its saints for the periods that they had possession of it in proximity to Babylas’ body. Although the reference in the homily In ascensionem and in its title is to martyrs38, and the last known literal martyrs at Antioch were the soldiers Juventinus and Maximinus who were killed under Julian and who were not buried in the Church of St Babylas, but it appears in the Koimeterion39, there is another valid explanation for the use of this term. The presbyter John himself styles Meletius as a virtual martyr in that through his ascetic practices he imitated the martyr acts40. At the same time Theodoret indicates that during this period the more famous of the ascetics who lived in the proximity of Antioch were buried in its churches in proximity to the relics of certain martyrs41. It is pos-sible that the heterodox martyrs to whom the homily In ascensionem



refers, then, are local ascetics who had been buried in the floor of the church between 365 and 387 by the homoian and Nicene communities successively because the church contained the relics of St Babylas.

These arguments are highly speculative, but it must be admitted that the possibility, however remote, cannot definitively be discounted that the Church at Qausiyeh and the Martyrium at Romanesia are one and the same. If this is not the case, then another interesting possibility is raised. If the two are distinct churches, the evidence can perhaps be read as witness to a systematic program undertaken by Flavian to sanitise and catholicise the cult of the saints at Antioch. In light of the constantly changing possession of the city’s churches throughout the period from 325 to 381, it would have been natural that this took place during Flavian’s episcopate when sufficient time had passed that the (Nicene) Theodosian dynasty was seen to be established securely and it was evident that trans-ferral of the churches of Antioch from the hands of the Nicene commu-nity was unlikely to recur. If nothing else, this is sufficient to suggest that interruption of the mosaic pavement at the Church at Qausiyeh is not necessarily an indicator that a tomb postdates the pavement. In the end, what the evidence illustrates is an interesting episode in the development of the cult of the saints, where at Antioch in Syria in the final decades of the fourth century factional Christian interests led to the discreet erasure of the memory of selected saints.

Centre for Early Christian Studies Wendy MAYER

Australian Catholic UniversityPO Box 456 Virginia 4014Australia


The Late Antique church at Qausîyeh reconsidered: Memory and martyr-burial in Syrian Antioch

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