House Church of Dura Europos

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Coordinates: 34 ° 45 '  N , 40 ° 44'  E

Domus Ecclesiae: location of the church
Church plan. Above right the baptistery

The house church of Dura Europos is the oldest archaeologically proven church to date . It dates to AD 232/233 and was located in Dura Europos on the Euphrates . The ancient city in the east of Syria belonged to the Roman province of Syria Coele . The paintings in the baptistery are of particular importance as they are among the earliest Christian images. The church was uncovered in two excavation campaigns by a French-American excavation team in the city from 1931 to 1932. The paintings were removed from the wall shortly after they were found and are now in the Yale University Art Gallery .

The construction

The mud brick house in which the church was located probably served as a normal residence for a few years before it was converted into a church. Excavations under the house show that there has been a house here since the birth of Christ that was abandoned at some point. The square remained undeveloped for a long time until a new house was built. The new building was about 17.40 m long and 19 m wide. The house is close to the city wall and is only separated from it by a street. It consisted of a peristyle with the living rooms on all four sides. In the north is the entrance, from which one reaches an anteroom and from there into the peristyle, which had two columns on the east side. Some rooms were 5.22 m high, other rooms were probably about 4 m high. The residents seem to have been comparatively wealthy. There is a staircase to the roof. There was a small basement. One room was decorated with a stucco molding depicting Dionysian scenes. This observation is important as it can be assumed that the last residents were not among the poorest when the building was converted into a church.

The house was rebuilt around 232/233. The date is known from an inscription in the plaster, although various authors also see it as the construction date of the house. The plaster was still wet when the inscription was applied. During this renovation, two living rooms of the house were combined into a 13 × 5 m hall. There was a podium on the east side of the hall. There were no benches in the room, as is often the case in religious buildings in the city. In the previous phase there were benches along the walls, but these were leveled during the renovation. In 241 (according to a coin that was passed in the attic), another room in the house was converted into a baptistery ( baptistery ). Here was a stone basin with a stone canopy . There were also numerous wall paintings in this room. The paintings were relatively well preserved when they were found. They are made in a style that is in the tradition of Parthian art, although their quality is significantly lower than that of the Dura Europos synagogue and suggests that the city's Christian community was nowhere near as financially strong as the Jewish community. The house is also small and modest compared to the synagogue. The whole house would have space in the assembly hall of the synagogue.

The paintings have been preserved because the city wall of Dura Europos was raised in 256 and the surrounding houses were filled with sand. After their partial transfer to Yale University , they were severely damaged due to unsuitable storage.

The paintings

The Good Shepherd , Adam and Eve

Christening niche

Only the baptistery was decorated with wall paintings. The ceiling of the room can be reconstructed using plaster fragments. It was painted flat and dark blue with bright stars. The actual baptismal font was on the west side, a short side of the room. Here was a brick canopy with a vaulted ceiling and two pillars at the front. The pillars are painted dark green with black veins, certainly to imitate marble. The front over the arch of the niche shows fruits in various fields. The ceiling inside the niche is blue with bright stars. Inside the niche was the baptismal font. There are figural paintings on the back wall. Here you can see the Good Shepherd on the left carrying a ram on his shoulders. The figure is about 40 cm high. A flock of sheep is shown in front of him, in the middle of the field and on the right. The exact number of sheep and rams can no longer be determined today, it was probably once thirteen, but perhaps up to sixteen. It is also no longer possible to make out how many sheep and how many rams were depicted. Grass is reproduced. The sheep on the far right are drinking water, although this part of the scene is unsafe. The large number of sheep is rather untypical for comparable presentations. Adam and Eve are shown below the shepherd , with both figures apparently being a later addition. The whole picture was found to be poorly preserved and was found in fragments that had to be put back together. It is uncertain whether the number of sheep had a symbolic meaning. The representation of the Good Shepherd was extremely popular in ancient times. It is always a picture of a young, beardless man in a short skirt with a sheep on his back.

Women on the north wall

Representation of women

The main part of the east and north walls is taken up in the lower half by a single scene, which is only partially preserved. On the east wall, when the paintings were found, the feet of five women who were walking to the left could still be seen. The scene continues on the north wall, where the remains of a painted, half-closed door are located, which was exactly opposite the main door of the room and was therefore the first to be seen when entering the room. The following part of the representation, to the left of the door, has been completely destroyed, whereupon the representation of two women is well preserved. Only a few remains of a third female figure have survived; two other figures could have been in the destroyed part of the paintings. The women hold torches in one hand and a vessel in the other. They are dressed in white, wear a veil and stand in front of a white box-shaped object. The representation was obviously extremely important as it took up the main field of two walls. Your interpretation is controversial. Older interpretations often came to the conclusion that women are depicted here at the grave of Jesus. Other studies, however, come to the conclusion that the parable is presented here of the wise and foolish virgins , whose story is narrated in the Gospel according to Matthew (25: 1–13). Ten virgins go to their bridegroom, carrying lamps with them. Five of the women also bring oil. In the middle of the night the bridegroom came and the virgins set up their lamps, the foolish virgins asking the others for more oil as the lights threatened to go out. The wise virgins, however, said they should buy oil, which is where they set off. The wise virgins then went into the wedding hall, the door of which was closed behind them, so that the virgins arriving later could not enter. The white object therefore represents the wedding hall or a wedding tent. The door to the wedding hall is on the far right on the wall, while the five foolish virgins were on the east wall, in front of the door. Baptism was viewed in the Eastern Church as a kind of marriage between the baptized and Jesus, which explains the importance of the scenes. In the eastern church, the ten virgins were the brides of Jesus.

Miracles of Jesus

Healing of the paralyzed

Above the main field of the wall with the depictions of women there were several scenes in smaller fields, but only two of them have survived (the scenes are about 90 cm high and in the lower part 1.9 m wide, if preserved). In the lower third there is the representation of water and it is possible that this was a connecting element of all scenes. There were probably various miracles performed by Jesus here. On the north wall there are three figures in the upper register on the left. Standing in the middle and above the others is a man who is probably Jesus. Below you can see a man lying on a bed on the right. On the left you can see a man walking away with a bed on his shoulders. There is consensus among research that this is the story of the healing of the paralyzed man (Gospel according to Mark, 2, 1–12), although there are other opinions on the interpretation of the scene.

Wall painting from the baptistery: Jesus and Simon Peter walk on the water

To the right of it there is another scene. It shows two men walking on water. It is the story of Jesus walking on water, as attested in the Gospel according to Mark 6: 45–61 and in the Gospel according to Matthew (14, 22–34). The scene is only partially preserved, as the wall was torn down at this point in ancient times. It's about Jesus and Simon Peter. In the background you can see a large ship with the apostles on board, who watch the two men. Five figures are still preserved.

Woman at the fountain and garden

Wall painting from the baptistery: The Virgin Mary at the well

The south wall has two doors and a niche, so there was less space for paintings. On the south wall near the main niche there is a figure of a woman standing by a fountain. She turns to the left and wears a long robe with a rosette on her chest. In front of her is a well, into which she drops two ropes. There are two lines on their backs that come from heaven. The woman was interpreted in older literature as the Samaritan woman at the well, sometimes also as Rebekah . However, recent considerations make it more likely that the Virgin Mary is depicted here . If the identification as the Virgin Mary is correct, it is the oldest image of Mary known to date. In the Proto-Gospel of James there is the record that the preaching of the Lord took place at a well. The Proto-Gospel of James was particularly popular with Christians in the Orient.

A garden was painted above the woman at the well in the upper part of the wall next to the canopy. The scene has only come down to us in descriptions and a bad photo.

David and Goliath

On the south wall under a niche between the two doors there is another depiction, unfortunately not well preserved. Here David and Goliath are depicted, as the inscriptions on the figures clearly attest. Above the scene there is a Greek inscription: “τὸν Χ (ριστὸ) ν Ἰ (ησοῦ) ν ὑμεῖν. Μν [ή] σκεσθε [... Πρ] όκλου "(" Christ Jesus (be) with you, remember [the Pr] oklos "). It is unclear whether the inscription is connected to a foundation on the part of the aforementioned Proclus or whether it was added in his memory after his death. David stands on the right and hits Goliath. However, both figures are hardly preserved. It is interesting that David appears as a Roman soldier, but Goliath in the costume of a Persian, who were the enemies of that time. The depiction of David in a baptistery may come as a surprise, but in the minds of the Eastern Church, David was the prototype of an anointed man. Anointings also took place in the baptistery, whereby baptism was also viewed as a kind of anointing.

graffiti

Various graffiti and drawings were found on the walls of the house. A Greek inscription on the west wall of the assembly hall is important for the building history. She names the year 545 of the Seleucid era , which corresponds to the year 232/3 AD. The Greek alphabet is found several times, once the Syriac alphabet . Also noteworthy are two line drawings, each depicting a tab.

Comparable buildings

The ruins of the oldest house church made of stone blocks, which were built at the beginning of the 4th century through the renovation of a residential building, are located in Qirqbize in northwest Syria . In the nearby village of Fafertin stood the oldest church building planned as such, which is inscribed and dated to the year 372.

gallery

  • From the inner courtyard to the remains of the rooms to the west. In the background the city wall

  • House ruin isometric drawing

  • The leftovers today

  • Modern reconstruction of the canopy in the baptistery

literature

  • Arne Effenberger : Early Christian Art and Culture , Leipzig 1986, pp. 87-89 ISBN 3-7338-0010-9
  • C. Hopkins: The Christian Church. In: The excavations at Dura-Europos: conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters. Preliminary Report of the Fifth Season of Work, October 1931-March 1932. Yale University Press, New Haven 1934, pp. 238-288
  • Carl H. Kraeling with a contribution by C. Bradford Welles: The excavations at Dura-Europos: conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Letters, Final Report 8 Part 2, The Christian building , New Haven: Dura-Europos Publications, Locust Valley, New York, 1967
  • Ulrich Mell , Christian House Church and New Testament . The iconology of the Baptistery by Dura Europos and the Diatessaron Tatians, NTOA 77, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2010. ISBN 978-3-525-53394-9
  • Annabel Jane Wharton: Refiguring the post classical city: Dura Europos, Jerash, Jerusalem and Ravenna . Cambridge 1995.
  • Michael Peppard: The World's Oldest Church, Bible, Art and Ritual at Dura-Europos, Syria , Yale, University Press, New Haven, London 2016, ISBN 978-0-300-21399-7 .

Web links

Commons : Dura Europos domus ecclesiae  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kraeling: The Christian building , 7-32
  2. ^ Charles B. McClendon: The Articulation of Sacred Space in the Synagoge and Christian Building at Dura Europos , in: Lisa R. Brody and Gail L. Hoffman (Eds.): Dura Europos, Crossrodas of Antiquity , Boston 2011, ISBN 978- 1-892850-16-4 , p. 157
  3. ^ Kraeling: The Christian building , 43-44
  4. ^ Kraeling: The Christian building , 44-45
  5. ^ Kraeling: The Christian building , 50-57
  6. ^ Peppard: The World's Oldest Church , p. 100
  7. ^ Kraeling: The Christian building , 190-197; Peppard: The World's Oldest Church , p. 111
  8. ^ Sanne Klaver: The Brides of Christ: 'The Women in Procession' in the Baptistery of Dura-Europos , in: Eastern Christian Art , 9 (2012-2013), pp. 63-78; Peppard: The World's Oldest Church , p. 119
  9. ^ Sanne Klaver: The Brides of Christ: 'The Women in Procession' in the Baptistery of Dura-Europos , in: Eastern Christian Art , 9 (2012-2013), pp. 69−70
  10. ^ Klaver, in: Eastern Christian Art , 9 (2012-2013), p. 67
  11. ^ Kraeling: The Christian building , 57-61
  12. ^ Kraeling: The Christian building , 61-65
  13. ^ Kraeling: The Christian building , 186-188
  14. ↑ Dominic Serra: The Baptistery at Dura-Europos , in Ephemerides Liturgicae , 120 (2006), 161-177, 186-188
  15. ↑ Is This the Oldest Image of the Virgin Mary? , in: New York Times Jan. 30, 2016
  16. ^ Kraeling: The Christian building , 65-66
  17. ↑ On the inscription see Peppard: The World's Oldest Church , p. 68; L. Michael White: The Social Origins of Christian Architecture. Volume 2: Texts and Monuments for the Christian Domus Ecclesiae in its Environment (= Harvard Theological Studies. Volume 42). Trinity Press, Valley Forge 1990, ISBN 1-56338-180-X , pp. 131 f.
  18. ^ Peppard: The World's Oldest Church , pp. 46-85
  19. ^ B. Welles, in: Kraeling: The Christian building , 90
  20. ^ B. Welles, in: Kraeling: The Christian building , 91