Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. A social media post drew my attention to this article in The Sun:
AN ANCIENT mosaic with the inscription “God Jesus Christ” is being dubbed the greatest find since the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The massive discovery “confirms” Jesus’ divinity about a hundred years before the Council of Nicea – fundamentally changing our knowledge of early Christianity.
I confess that I thought that this had to be a hoax. The pictures did not reassure me. But it seems that it is not. The mosaic in question was discovered in 2005, and a preliminary publication was made in Y. Tepper, L. Di Segni, Leah, with contribution by Guy Stiebel, “A Christian Prayer Hall of the Third Century CE at Kefar ‘Othnay (Legio): Excavations at the Megiddo Prison.” Israel Antiquities Authority, (2005). This is online here.
and does indeed have such a text on it. According to this rather more sensible site, the mosaic dates to 230.
The reason that the story has appeared is that the mosaic has been lent recently to the Museum of the Bible in Washington, and material about it appears on the website here, complete with photographs of the inscriptions. These highlight various words, but not, curiously, the “God Jesus Christ” stuff.
The inscriptions mention the man who commissioned the inscription: Gaianus, also called Porphyrius, centurion, our brother, has made the mosaic at his own expense as an act of generosity. Also named is Brutius the workman who did the actual work, a woman who paid for the table in the centre of the room, and four other women.
The so-called “Akeptous inscription” is the one in which we are interested.
Προσήνικεν
Ἁκεπτοῦς
ἡ φιλόθεος
τὴν τράπε-
ζαν Θ(ε)ῷ Ἰ(ησο)ῦ Χ(ριστ)ῷ
μνημόυνον.
“The god-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.”
This image comes from the Museum of the Bible website and highlights the word “Akeptous”.
Much more interesting is the abbreviated words on the last line but one:
…. ΘΩ ΙΥ ΧΩ
= Theō Jesou Christō
Greek inscriptions are not my thing. So I was rather grateful to find an article online by Christopher Rollston, “A Stunning Trio of Early Christian (3rd century) Inscriptions from Biblical Armageddon: ‘God Jesus Christ,’ Five Prominent Named Women, a Named Centurion, a Eucharist Table, and Two Fish” which examines in detail and transcribes exactly all the inscriptions. It is very dry, as it should be, but excellent and very useful.
I’d like to end with a linguistic query. “Ἁκεπτοῦς” looks to me like a 3rd declension genitive. My Greek is sufficiently feeble that I cannot see what the nominative would be. Would anybody like to comment on this, and the syntax of the sentence?
Some bits are clear enough:
Προσήνικεν (3rd Aorist active, it was set up) … Ἁκεπτοῦς … ἡ φιλόθεος (nominative singular feminine, the god-loving) … τὴν τράπεζαν (accusative singular feminine, direct object, “the table”) …. Θεῷ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ (dative singular masculine, “to God Jesus Christ”) … μνημόυνον (accusative singular, the second accusative, “as a memorial”).
But can Ἁκεπτοῦς be a nominative female name?
It’s a perfectly acceptable female name in nominatve. H. Solin wrote about it (in German, AI translated):
Akkeptoûs: AE 2008, 1546 = SEG LVI 1900 (Maximianopolis in Palestine) Akeptoûs, the God-loving, from Christian times.1 Clearly a female name. Despite the spelling with one κ, it can hardly be understood as anything other than belonging to the name group Acceptus. This was a popular cognomen, though admittedly rarely attested in the Greek East (ICret IV 224). If it is to be connected to Acceptus, then we have here the first clear example of the Greek female name suffix -οῦς attached to a Latin stem. Cf. however Δομνοῦς from Emesene in Syria (IGLS 2113), and Arctos 39 (2005) 168; perhaps, however, this formation is better considered as Semitic. This suffix was quite productive in Greek naming in the Hellenistic and especially Roman periods.2 Thus, we can confidently add this remarkable case to the findings of Greco-Roman onomastic interrelations, alongside many other formations, such as the numerous male names formed from Latin stems using the Greek suffix -ᾶς.
Footnote 1: The first editor L. Di Segni dates the inscription to the 3rd century for archaeological reasons, which is questionable. I would consider a slightly later period. Doubts are also raised by Chr. Markschies, ZAC 11 (2008) 435-7. The claim by K. Hallof in Markschies 437 note 47, ‘Aceptous seems to be the regularly formed genitive of the name *Akepto (omega with acute accent), like Sappho etc.’ is to be rejected.
Footnote 2: Vgl. z. B. O. Masson, BCH 103 (1979), 367. Onomastica Graeca selecta III, Genève 2000, 155–7.
“Analecta Epigraphica”, in Arctos 45 (2011) p. 143
https://journal.fi/arctos/issue/view/5808
As to the suffix, many female names of a similar form are listed under A alone:
Ἀγασικράτους, Ἀγυφοῦς, Ἀγχαροῦς, Ἀδεριοῦς, Ἀθαβοῦς, Αἰθιοποῦς, Ἀλεξοῦς, Αμαρους, Αμμαρους, Ἀμμωνοῦς, Απλαρους, Ἀπλωνοῦς, Ἀπολλωνοῦς, Ἀπολωνοῦς, Απφαρους, Αραυους, Ἁρεντοῦς, Ἀρηνοῦς, Ἀρητοῦς, Ἁρλιλοῦς, Ἀρτεμοῦς, Ἀσκλοῦς, Ἀσπιδοῦς, Ἀφροδοῦς, Αφφαρους.
https://glg.csic.es/NombresGriegosDePersona/ListasNombres/NombresDePersona_A.html
Very interesting – thank you! I appreciate the input.
Acceptus… that’s believable. A Latin name.
Interesting idea about a somewhat later date. Also believable.
If this were a third-declension genitive, the nominative would be ‘Ἀκεπτής on the model of Θεμιστοκλής. I suppose it could mean Philotheos the wife of Akeptes. But Akeptes is not an attested Greek name, male or female, that I know of and certainly not normal name formation. More likely, especially given its provenance, ΑΚΕΠΤΟΥΣ is the nominative of a Semitic name rendered in Greek script like ΙΗΣΟΥΣ. I can’t speak to the possible Aramaic nature of the name.
More important, I think, than the JesuChrist God part of the inscriptions is the naming of so many prominent women in the site.
Oh, I defer to Diego’s very insightful comment. It indeed could be Acceptus, an interesting use of the masculine for a woman’s name.
Rοger,
“Ἁκεπτοῦς” is
1. 2nd Declensiοn Nοun Accusative Plural. It cοuld be Masculine οr Feminine. .
2. 3rd Declensiοn Neuter Genitive Singular.
I’ll gο with this οne since we are dealing with a name that is mοst likely a Feminine since the next wοrd, φιλοθεος, has the Feminine article, “η (ē).”