Dura Europos

[StephenGoranson]

Clark Hopkins, apparently, became convinced about Christian painting because of the accumulation of evidence as the excavation continued.

I dug at Sepphoris, Galilee. We dug up a heavy metal rectangle. I kept it with the coins that I was assisting with. It took us--thanks to someone more knowledgeable than me about such things--several days to know that it was a market weight used in scale weighing of grain and such. In other words, there is digging and there is good interpretation, which is not always on the same day.

If I may, I recommend two new (new to this thread) things:

a) Read rabbinic literature about images. For example, was it ok to bathe in a bath house where there was also a statue? One of the views was that it's ok as long as you don't worship the statue.

b) Read a book by the late Prof. and Rabbi Kalman Bland, one of my teachers. I apologize for not having a copy at hand from which to quote, but if I may suggest, the following publisher blurb may signal its relevance.

The Artless Jew: Medieval and Modern Affirmations and Denials of the Visual
Kalman P. Bland (Princeton U. P., 2001)

"Conventional wisdom holds that Judaism is indifferent or even suspiciously hostile to the visual arts due to the Second Commandment’s prohibition on creating “graven images,” the dictates of monotheism, and historical happenstance. This intellectual history of medieval and modern Jewish attitudes toward art and representation overturns the modern assumption of Jewish iconophobia that denies to Jewish culture a visual dimension.


Kalman Bland synthesizes evidence from medieval Jewish philosophy, mysticism, poetry, biblical commentaries, travelogues, and law, concluding that premodern Jewish intellectuals held a positive, liberal understanding of the Second Commandment and did, in fact, articulate a certain Jewish aesthetic. He draws on this insight to consider modern ideas of Jewish art, revealing how they are inextricably linked to diverse notions about modern Jewish identity that are themselves entwined with arguments over Zionism, integration, and anti-Semitism.


Through its use of the past to illuminate the present and its analysis of how the present informs our readings of the past, this book establishes a new assessment of Jewish aesthetic theory rooted in historical analysis. Authoritative and original in its identification of authentic Jewish traditions of painting, sculpture, and architecture, this volume will ripple the waters of several disciplines, including Jewish studies, art history, medieval and modern history, and philosophy."

[billd89]

Interesting and timely to my subject.

Final Report. p.229

Jan 22, 1932: Letter to M.I.R. from Clark Hopkins

Suddenly ,... "there was the boat scene, several people holding up their arms, the upper part of a man below. I took away the dirt to the left and saw a man on a bed, another carrying a bed and the god on the cloud above. Of course the Bible story of the sick man picking up his bed and walking occurred to me, but I thought it was more likely someone who had been saved from shipwreck and had erected the chapel displaying the escape and his cure by the god."

"Report of Clark Hopkins, Field Director, to President [[of Yale U.]] James Rowland Angell from Dura, dated Feb. 10, 1932. Unpublished. [[that is, unpublished until the 1967 Kraeling/Welles Final Report: The Christian Building, pages 231-233, here 232, col. 2:]]

"The scene is obviously that of Christ walking across the water toward his disciples in the boat. Peter, apparently the figure on the right, has left the boat and advances to meet Christ with outstretched arms."

Of course, Michael I. Rostovtzeff was in contact w/ Johns Hopkins colleague W.F. Albright; Albright is credited in the 1929 Excavation summary. Between 1932 and 1938, news of this discovery was certainly reviewed at Hopkins, where Ludwig Edelstein (Albright's friend, 1934- ) was well-appraised of more detailed discussions over varying interpretations of the symbolism. See Samuel Mercer, Horus: Royal God of Egypt [1942], p.134: "In Ptolemaic times Horus was worshipped under the forms Harbaithos (Klio XII, 365), Harmais (Preisigke, Sammelbuch gr. Urk., 2610), Harmotes (Berliner Gr. Urkunden, 1216), and Herakles (Hondius, Suppl. Epigr. Gr., VIII, 546). [...] Rostovtzeff holds that Hauron was a creation of the Ptolemies, a military Serapis."

I can easily see (in the deity's characteristics presented) how the Edelsteins -- synthesizing Hermetic & Philonic works, perhaps seeing Horon in Serapis -- cryptically adopted Albright's Canaanite-Egyptian "Horon" for the "Higher Power" of their 1938 Rockefeller book. However, the cluster of literary allusions cited below point to the Dura Europos (Clark Hopkins') Discovery as another hot-topic the Edelsteins wanted to address obliquely, anonymously. Horon was a kind of bridge?

Theoretically, this was the Therapeuts' underlying Judeo-Egyptian 'Great Power' and thus taught to Jesus in Alexandria; = Baal Zeboul in Mark 3:22–27, Matthew 12:22-37, and Luke 11:15, as Wiki tells us "In the Ugaritic texts, Hauron appears as a deity associated with magic and exorcisms." Horon is a god against poison, alcohol is a poison, the Therapeutae abstained, etc. Perhaps Horon could also have been a god of the Rechabites?) This highly syncretistic god is therefore suggested as 'The Father God' of the Aletheian Anthropoi ('Jewish' wise men, descended from Chaldaean Asaphim, as itinerant Judeo-Egyptian healers, aka "Sethians"? in healing chambers of the Serapion), and we can grasp why Philo Judaeus would be evasive about all this.

Somewhat less certain to me -- despite the single Late Delos inscription -- is how Hauron was taken for a Savior god by cosmopolitan Semitic sailors & travelers, or conflated w/ his (nemesis?) Agathodaimon. Presumably, these separate gods were twinned over time in Rhakotis/Alexandria (c.800-300 BC), then fully subsumed by the later (Serapis-Isis?) Hermetic cult c.250-50 BC. I've previously summarized many tantalizing possibilities here, but particulars of this relic god relevant to Alexandria c.25 BC still remain speculative. Rostovtzeff's thesis (Serapis = Hauron) is especially intriguing, but I have not yet examined that more closely. The Edelsteins were obviously well-aware of the Alexandrian Serapis cult, which competed w/ their Ascelpius. So we can only explain intuitively but not prove w/ hard evidence that Horon >>> Serapis in Alexandria c.300 BC: on this basis, the Judeo-Hermetic scribes recorded aspects of a late stage (First C. AD pre-Christian precursor) Judeo-Pythagorean theology which the Edelsteins sought to reconstruct in their 1938 therapeusis.

A few possible Dura Europos allusions in the 1938/9 text:

But the ex-alcoholic who has found this solution, who is properly armed with facts about himself, can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours. Until such an understanding is reached, little or nothing can be accomplished.

That the man who is making the approach has had the same difficulty, that he obviously knows what he is talking about, that his whole deportment shouts at the new prospect that he is a man with a real answer, [...] these are the conditions we have found most effective. After such an approach many take up their beds and walk again.

We are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck when camaraderie, joyousness and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to Captain's table. Unlike the feelings of the ship's passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways.

Being wrecked in the same vessel, being restored and united under one God, with hearts and minds attuned to the welfare of others, the things which matter so much to some people no longer signify much to them.

We, in our turn, sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men.

But this was a man who had experienced many years of frightful drinking, who had had most all the drunkard's experiences known to man, but who had been cured by the very means I had been trying to employ, that is to say the spiritual approach.

The head of the house has spent years in pulling down the structures of business, romance, friendship, health—these things are now ruined or damaged. It will take time to clear away the wreck. Though old buildings will eventually be replaced by finer ones, the new structures will take years to complete.

[schillingklaus]

Harmotes gives raise to Harmozel, one of the four illuminating angels in NHC texts like the Gospel of the Egyptians.

[billd89]

Harmotes gives raise to Harmozel, one of the four illuminating angels in NHC texts like the Gospel of the Egyptians.

If so, that's another 'Egyptian' god the 'Jews' adapted. Armozel (or Harmozel) as a Jewish Angel would likely appear in Egypt after 250 BC among syncretistic Sethians. These "Egyptians" were relic or descendent Judeo-Phoenician Semites. And Semitic Horon was ancient, from Canaan, so presumably a transition occurred over +500 years? Horon >>> Horus of- / Har-Meten >>> Harmozel. Logically, a fading or problematic Healer/Destroyer God (c.600 BC) was demoted to a Destroyer Angel (c.100 BC) in Egyptian Jewish tradition. His healing role is more complex, I suspect, but an original dual nature would still be obvious c.25 BC - 25 AD.

For the god Harmotes/Harmotnis, Horos of Meten, particularly venerated in the eastern part of the Fayum, see LÄ II (1977), cols. 998–999 (J. Quaegebeur). For theophoric names with Harmotnis, see 6.508 n.91.

The eastern Fayum was notably Jewish, esp. Philadelphia/ Meten. So it's really not surprising that the myth of Horit and Horus of Medenu (Harmotes or Harmotnis) recalls the Baby Moses story. Furthermore, the lineage is complicated, w/ multiple Horuses, much like Philo's 3-Chronoses. Philo could have written his odd 3-God explication for just such a heterodox synagogue in the Fayum. He attempts to rationalize and recall an older, divergent, alternative system to the 'normative Judaism' of his current politics & theology. So discrepancies in these 2-, 3- and even 4-Power mythologies alluded to in Philo Judaeus are thereby understood as regional and folk-cultic differences in the Diaspora (although probably in Egypt); he was writing to communities of 'Jews' with very different traditions.

Personally, I have never believed/understood/agreed with the theory that Ialdabaoth is the Jewish god YHWH, yet this makes more sense. A much older secondary folk god, (Judeo-Egyptian) Hauron/ Humehen, becomes the later Gnostics' abortion-god Ialdaboath, Son of the lamenting Sophia Achamoth.

Of Humehen, Quack (Orientalia 77, 2008, p.109) suggests the possibility of reading ‘Hauron' instead of ‘Humehen’ here), the first child conceived by Osiris upon Horit, the text tells us little except that Horit was a virgin (“her first time”, §24 [X, 2]), that she “lamented” the event, and that Humehen was ‘born’ in unusual fashion. The text is unclear, but Horit either deliberately aborts or spontaneously miscarries [X, 3]

Conceptually, Hauron also fits into the garble of Genesis (c.300 BC), etc. as the Shadow-side or 'buddy god' (Second Power: Cosmic Creator) who is sometimes jealous, fickle, temptuous, flawed. (Apparently, Horon was largely subsumed/suppressed officially by 300 BC; Jamnia his origin/homeland continued a veneration somewhat later.) Likewise, Philo's 'Two Powers' rationalization could also be the fully synthesized dual-natured god (i.e. Yahu-Horon) represented to a more intellectual audience. Folk distinction(s) persisted in different evolving forms in odd corners, however. Folk Jews still wanted him on their side, so placated this Cosmocrator for Good Luck or maintained his memory for reasons uncertain to us now.

Ancient Egyptian evidence speaks more clearly of this foreign god; by the Ptolemaic period, Horon was largely invisible.


In Egypt, Phoenician Horon eventually becomes associated w/ Herakles (Elder Horus) and his Second (Younger Horus), the 'Young God' (variants: Eshmun/(Baal) Rimmon/Harpocrates/Iolaos) responsible for or practically effecting/demonstrating the senior God's (Osiris/Zeus of Kasios/etc.) Resurrection power. I suppose this cult was mostly 'Sethian Jews' but it was heterodox and perhaps more diverse in its folklore and range; it was a major precursor to (Egyptian) Christianity.

Horon/Baal-Zeboul (a Jewish interpretation of Serapis?) is the occult God of the Big Book, in at least 15 peculiar characteristics. That cannot be coincidental & wasn't: Ludwig Edelstein was engaged in the Hopkins topical 1935-6 Hauron debate w/ his friend W.F. Albright, presumably. And if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck ... it's not an ostrich or platypus. The possibility that the Ναζωραίων αἱρέσεως, First C. offshoot of the Judeo-Egyptian Sethians, held some form of Horon/Baal-Zeboul as a secret god/power is still very challenging and highly uncertain for me, however (accepting the definition of Jesus as a Nazorean and Mark 3:22–27, Matthew 12:22-37, and Luke 11:15 held aside). Maybe it really is that simple: Theos Ourounos (i.e. On) is the Unseen Father God, 'Horon' (by whatever names) is his mediating power. Melchizedek's possible connection to Horon would also be logical, though speculative (and unsupported by evidence, as far as I know). Most likely, it's merely analoguous: 'Mechizedek' was a different tradition from a rival town. How these and other Semitic patron gods may have been blended in a proto-Jewish pantheon (c.350 BC), intentionally generalized in Egypt over hundreds of years before, we cannot say. The OT bears witness to prior Semitic polytheism, certainly.

None of this is relevant to the catholic mural at Dura Europos, obviously.