Universitätsbibliothek HeidelbergUniversitätsbibliothek Heidelberg
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Ramsay, William Mitchell
The cities and bishoprics of Phrygia: being an essay of the local history of Phrygia from the earliest time to the Turkish conquest (Band 1,2): West and West-Central Phrygia — Oxford, 1897

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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4680#0215

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546 XII. CHRISTIAN INSCRIPTIONS OF S.W. PHRYGIA.

the early Church was not confined to members, but was extended to the
needy and poor among the pagans. Tertullian says with his usual sar-
casm that the Christians are not well enough off to help both pagan
men and pagan gods, and must confine their relief to the men l; and
Julian complained that the pagans left their poor to be cared for by
the Galilaeans 2.

As Lightfoot says, ' one of the earliest forms which Christian benevo-
lence took was the contribution of funds for the liberation of slaves3
.... the Gospel regarded the weak and helpless from whatever cause,
as its special charge, extended its protection to the widow, the orphan, the
sick, the aged, the prisoner/ and (as we may add) exposed and abandoned
infants. We ask then if exposure was so common in Asia Minor that
a' foundling home' was likely to be needed in Hierapolis. This is a large
question. The word dpeppa or dpenTos is used, not merely in the sense
of foundling [alumnus), but also in the sense of (i) adopted child or foster
child (alumnus), (a) vema, slave born in the household.

(i) At Nysa we find Kaudkiov 'UpaKkeih-qv, to whom KaiKiXtos Evrvxris
6 Operas erects a statue (apparently on his tomb, as he is ijpooa) : the
Opeirros here is a citizen of position and rank. In those cases where foster
parents and natural parents unite in burying an alumnus, the latter is
probably to be understood as adopted or foster child4. But no. 38 shows
a case in which an exposed child is recovered by his natural parents; and
it would in that case be reasonable that they should unite with the foster-
parents in burying the child.

(2) The sense of vema is hard to distinguish from that of foundling
child, for the latter were in many cases brought up as slaves. But the
probability always is greater that a dpeTrros or Qpeppa is a foundling rather
than a vema ; and I am not able to quote a case in which BpcnTos certainly
is vema. In the inscr. of Italy we find many cases in which a grave is
erected to dpe-iiros, as in Latin inscr. to alumnus; but there is not a cor-
responding number of cases where the grave is made for a vema. See
pp. 350 add. 30, and 147 no. 37. It is probable that in cases in which

1 Apol. 42 -non sufficimus et liominibus atxpn^i>Tovs, 8«rpiovs, kt\.

et diis vestris mendicantibus, etc. 4 -D- M. P. Petronio P. F. Pal. Candido

2 Ep. 49 ad Arsac. Sozom. V 16. ......Baebia Celerina alumno etPetro-

3 In his edition of Colossians and nius Candidus et Caecilia Dumea fil[io)
Philemon p. 324. He quotes Ignatius karisshno (Fabretti Inscript. Antiq. p. 353
PohjC. 4/ji? eparaa-av Atvo roO koivov i\(v- no. 57), child of seven years. D.M. M.

6epovaSai, and Apost. Constitutions IV 9 ValerioDaphnico......fecerunt ValeH(a)

to. c'£ a\iTi>v, cos iTpo£ipr)K.apev, c\6poi£6peva Hedone alumno et Daplmic(us) Julianus

Xprpj-ara hiaraaane tSiaKovovvres eir dyo- filio (Fabretti p. 354 no. 65), child of

pacrpovs tcov dyicof, pvopc-voi SovXovs Koi five years.
 
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