DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4680#0459
NOTES ON PART II. 789
(3) As is shown in Cli. XII, it is natural and necessary that a Chr.
inscr. about a. d. 200, which was intended to be public, should be so
expressed as not to offend the sense of the pagans, i. e. it must be capable
of being read by the ordinary observer without its Chr. origin being
obvious. But it is unnatural and without parallel that a pagan inscr.
about a. d. 220 should be expressed in language which could be under-
stood to express the deepest facts and inmost mysteries of the Chr.
religion by scholars of such high training and such diverse character
as Pitra, Lightfoot, De Rossi, Zahn, Duchesne, and a host of others.
Dietrich does not even attempt to face this insuperable difficulty, or to
defend it by any analogy \ A pagan of that period, when the opposi-
tion to Christianity was strongly accentuated, would never have written
in such terms that his religion might readily be taken as Chr.; whereas
it was the recognized duty of a Chr. to use carefully veiled language.
The double character and relations of the inscr. are unintelligible on the
one theory, but natural on the other2.
(4) Our conception of the character of paganism c. 200-220 must be
revolutionized in many respects, if Dietrich were right: see p. 711 on
Ficker's kindred but less ingenious theory.
(5) According to Dietrich a leader of a strange pagan sect, named
Aberkios, nourished in Hieropolis about a. d. 150-220, while a leading
Christian named Avircius Mareellus, co-presbyter with Zoticus of Otrous,
flourished in the same district about 190. Thereafter the western name
Abirkios or Aberkios or Abelkios became common among the Christians
of Central Phrygia, as is shown on no. 672, 673. These facts are strange
on Dietrich's theory, but natural on our view.
/3<i(n\f;ai<, but accept nla-ris. This is licit, dassgerade da ein "fatales Versehin"
unscientific. As I have pointed out Ramsays voiiiege ?' (p. 22).
on p. 725, Sterrett and I, knowing its ] He merely says that the inscr.
immense importance, copied the stone reveals a sect of pagans from which the
with scrupulous and jealous care in Christians borrowed the idea that the
1883, when its edges were more perfect Fish was a symbol of the Saviour, also
than they are now. My copies of apparently the use of bread and wine
numerous inscr. stand before the world, in the Sacrament, and the other ideas
most of them taken under difficulties, of lines 13-16 ! Dietrich's own words
hastily, at a brief halt in a fatiguing rise to the mind of his reader, ' dass ein
journey, often in bad light and un- so vortreffiicher Philologe ivie' Dietrich
favourable position (e.g. with the letters 'filr moglicli halten Icann u. s. w., geh&rt
upside down) : they are the guarantee filr mich zu den Rdtsehi des Menschen-
of my power to copy correctly at full lebens,' p. 49.
leisure and on more than one occa- 2 Prof. A. Harnack saw clearly this
sion an inscr. which, as I knew, would double relationship, and framed his
be regarded by the world as the most theory so as to explain it; and no
important that I had ever found. To theory which does not explain it has
use Dietrich's words, ' ist es icahrschein- any claim to be called scientific.
(3) As is shown in Cli. XII, it is natural and necessary that a Chr.
inscr. about a. d. 200, which was intended to be public, should be so
expressed as not to offend the sense of the pagans, i. e. it must be capable
of being read by the ordinary observer without its Chr. origin being
obvious. But it is unnatural and without parallel that a pagan inscr.
about a. d. 220 should be expressed in language which could be under-
stood to express the deepest facts and inmost mysteries of the Chr.
religion by scholars of such high training and such diverse character
as Pitra, Lightfoot, De Rossi, Zahn, Duchesne, and a host of others.
Dietrich does not even attempt to face this insuperable difficulty, or to
defend it by any analogy \ A pagan of that period, when the opposi-
tion to Christianity was strongly accentuated, would never have written
in such terms that his religion might readily be taken as Chr.; whereas
it was the recognized duty of a Chr. to use carefully veiled language.
The double character and relations of the inscr. are unintelligible on the
one theory, but natural on the other2.
(4) Our conception of the character of paganism c. 200-220 must be
revolutionized in many respects, if Dietrich were right: see p. 711 on
Ficker's kindred but less ingenious theory.
(5) According to Dietrich a leader of a strange pagan sect, named
Aberkios, nourished in Hieropolis about a. d. 150-220, while a leading
Christian named Avircius Mareellus, co-presbyter with Zoticus of Otrous,
flourished in the same district about 190. Thereafter the western name
Abirkios or Aberkios or Abelkios became common among the Christians
of Central Phrygia, as is shown on no. 672, 673. These facts are strange
on Dietrich's theory, but natural on our view.
/3<i(n\f;ai<, but accept nla-ris. This is licit, dassgerade da ein "fatales Versehin"
unscientific. As I have pointed out Ramsays voiiiege ?' (p. 22).
on p. 725, Sterrett and I, knowing its ] He merely says that the inscr.
immense importance, copied the stone reveals a sect of pagans from which the
with scrupulous and jealous care in Christians borrowed the idea that the
1883, when its edges were more perfect Fish was a symbol of the Saviour, also
than they are now. My copies of apparently the use of bread and wine
numerous inscr. stand before the world, in the Sacrament, and the other ideas
most of them taken under difficulties, of lines 13-16 ! Dietrich's own words
hastily, at a brief halt in a fatiguing rise to the mind of his reader, ' dass ein
journey, often in bad light and un- so vortreffiicher Philologe ivie' Dietrich
favourable position (e.g. with the letters 'filr moglicli halten Icann u. s. w., geh&rt
upside down) : they are the guarantee filr mich zu den Rdtsehi des Menschen-
of my power to copy correctly at full lebens,' p. 49.
leisure and on more than one occa- 2 Prof. A. Harnack saw clearly this
sion an inscr. which, as I knew, would double relationship, and framed his
be regarded by the world as the most theory so as to explain it; and no
important that I had ever found. To theory which does not explain it has
use Dietrich's words, ' ist es icahrschein- any claim to be called scientific.