ΧΡΙΣΤΙΑΝΙΚΗ ΑΡΧΑΙΟΛΟΓΙΑ

What exactly was the appearance of a doctor during the Hellenistic years? Information is given by a wonderful wall painting in Pompeii (79 AD) from the life of Aeneas, who is treated by the Trojan doctor named Iapyx. The healer has very narrow sleeves on his ochre-colored tunic, so that he can work with his hands free. Kneeling before the wounded Aeneas, he tries to remove an arrow from his leg. The depiction of the Christian physician and martyr Panteleimon (martyred at the beginning of the 4th century) with a dalmatian above his tunic, paenula and orarium, refers to the attire of Byzantine ministers of “diakoniae”, and not of the physicians of Panteleimon's time. In other words, they painted the saint as a Byzantine servant of the sick and poor. First photo: Fresco from the Aeneid, Pompeii, AD 79. Second photo: Fresco from the Monastery of St. Panteleimon, Nerezi, near Skopje, 12th c. +E. G . ------------------------------------------- Πώς ακριβώς ήταν το παρουσιαστικ...

The third Book of Kings of the Old Testament mentions the Canaanite god Baal, the official deity of Israel's queen Jezebel. This god and his priests were defeated by the prophet Elijah, causing fire from heaven, which consumed the makeshift altar that Elijah made. Baal is a deity of storm, rain and by extension fertility. He is associated by some archaeologists with the Akkadian-Sumerian god Haddad, who is depicted in art wielding lightning bolts, like Zeus, sometimes with the face or horns of a bull. Ba'al ( בַּעַל ) means “the one who owns”, the “Lord”, we could relate it to the Greek “Pantokrator”. The name “he who owns” can easily be contrasted with the name “he who is” ( ο Ων ), of the God of Elijah and the Israelites. Baal's relationship with rain is also important, since the prophet Elijah punished the Israelite people with a drought for three and a half years, proving that the rain god Baal is powerless to provide them with rain, so the ancient God of Israel...

  The Grec 1208 manuscript of the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris is a 12th-century codex from Constantinople containing the homilies of the monk James the Kokkinovaphus to the “Theotokos Maria”. In one of his miniatures a young man is represented fixing the glass candles hanging in a church. The tool with which he lowers the candles, the so-called "candlestick holder", is invariably used to this day in the monasteries of Mount Athos. In the first photo the 12th century miniature. In the second photo, my sketch of a modern "candlestick holder", from my book “Hagioritikon Typikon tis Ecclesiastikis Akolouthias”, Kastaniotis pub., 1995. +E. G . -------------------------------------------- Το χειρόγραφο Grec 1208 της Εθνικής Βιβλιοθήκης των Παρισίων είναι ένας κώδικας του 12 ου αιώνα από την Κωνσταντινούπολη με τις ομιλίες του μοναχού Ιακώβου του Κοκκινοβάφου προς την «Θεοτόκον Μαρίαν». Σε μία μικρογραφία του παριστάνεται ένας νεαρός νεωκόρος που διορθώνει...

Rictius Varus (Ρίκτιος Ούαρος or Βάρος, in Greek), military Vicar of the Province of the Dioecesis Galliarum (District of Gaul) at the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th century, appears in many martyrological texts as the judge who sentenced Christians of Gaul to death during the persecution of Diocletian (303-311). The names known today of the Christians of ancient France and Germany who were martyred by order of Rictus Varus are: Valerius and Rufinus, Quentinus, Crispinus and Crispinianus, Fulcianus, Gentianus and Victoricus, Donatianus and Rogatianus. At Augusta Treverorum (present-day Trier), the seat of the Praefector of the Administration of Gaul, Maxentius, Constantius, Crescentius, Justinus and others, Palmatius and his company and the Bishop of the city, Alexander, were martyred by order of Rictius. However, tradition wants the persecutor Rictius to be converted to Christianity by the martyr Lucia from Campania and to be decapitated with her. Along with the two mar...