A case against revenge

[Bill the Cat]

https://earlychurchhistory.org/milit...nt-roman-army/Megiddo-Mosaic.jpg

[Adrift]

https://earlychurchhistory.org/milit...nt-roman-army/

I don't know where that website got the idea that that very long quote comes from the inscription on that funerary stele, but that's not what the stele says. Rather it refers to someone named Licinia Amias, and it reads "fish of the living", then below the fish and anchor it reads, "Licinia Amias well-deserving lived ...", and it wasn't found in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, it was found near the Vatican necropolis under St. Peter's Basilica.


The quote about the soldier named Theodulus is copied from a book called "Footprints in Parchment", which was written by a professor of parapsychology (I didn't know one could actually be such a thing) at Allegheny Community College, named Sandra Sweeny Silver. As far as I can tell, she doesn't give a source for the inscription, nor a date for when it was written. In my little bit of online research I couldn't seem to find anyone named Theodulus who was a soldier in the Callixtus/Callistus Catacombs. There was a soldier named Theodulus who was named among the 40 martyrs of Sebaste (modern day Turkey) who were martyred in 320 AD for openly confessing themselves Christian. You can read about that here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Martyrs_of_Sebaste

[ATTACH=CONFIG]23331[/ATTACH]

The current view is that this wasn't a church proper, but likely a personal residence connected with the military. It could have been an early home fellowship dating to the 3rd century, but some archaeologists are not convinced that it's possible for it to date so early. There are a number of archaeological indications that it dates to a period post-Constantine, but one of the biggest tells may be that it is associated with the Roman military.

Source: The Ancient Church at Megiddo: The Discovery and an Assessment of its Significance by Edward Adams

1.3. The Date of the Building and the Christian Meeting Room

© Copyright Original Source

[One Bad Pig]

I don't know where that website got the idea that that very long quote comes from the inscription on that funerary stele, but that's not what the stele says. Rather it refers to someone named Licinia Amias, and it reads "fish of the living", then below the fish and anchor it reads, "Licinia Amias well-deserving lived ...", and it wasn't found in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, it was found near the Vatican necropolis under St. Peter's Basilica.

The stele has a fair amount of symbolism that could be taken as Christian, which makes it plausible that he was one (it was, after all, about the limit of what could safely be done), but it's not definitive. There were a number of soldier-martyrs pre-Constantine; some of them were converted while participating in the martyrdom of another Christian, but many were not.

[Adrift]

The stele has a fair amount of symbolism that could be taken as Christian, which makes it plausible that he was one (it was, after all, about the limit of what could safely be done), but it's not definitive.

Oh, I think there's little doubt that it's Christian. I just don't think it has much to do with soldiering.

There were a number of soldier-martyrs pre-Constantine; some of them were converted while participating in the martyrdom of another Christian, but many were not.

Yeah, I think we discussed this a bit in this thread: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...e-early-church