medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Stella Rock had asked:
>> can anyone shed some light upon the reference to 'cooking semidalin' in
>> canon 79 of the Council of Trullo (Quinisext Council)? [692]
and John Briggs wrote:
>'Semidalin' seems to be Greek for 'fine flour', so the thing would have been
>symbolic, but I suppose you can see why they might want to stamp down on it.
I'm sorry to say I'm unsure what Dr. Briggs thinks the flour is
symbolic of, although I can see three or four questionable
associations for it:
1) SEMI/DALIS was offered to sacred animals by the Egyptians,
providing a pagan connection. (Diodorus Siculus ap. Eusebius _Prep.
Gospel_ 2.1)
2) This was the usual LXX word for the principal ingredient of baked
cereal offerings in the OT (e.g. Lev. 2:4f), providing a connection
to a superceded Jewish practice. (Justin Martyr's _Dialogue_ 112)
3) Anastasius of Sinai (_Hodegus_ 10) and John of Damascus (De Haer.
86) both wrote of SEMIDALI=TAI, an alternate name for a Monophysite
sect called the Barsanuphites, akin to the Gaianites and the
Theodosians. It's possible there's some association between that
group and fine flour which made its use suggestive of heterodoxy.
Also potentially symbolic would be the location of the single use of
the word in the NT, in Revelation 18:13, where it's listed as part of
the luxurious cargo which the merchants will no longer be able to
sell to Babylon.
However, I think an explanation from the context of the canon is far
and away the likeliest.
The key to understanding it is in the first sentence quoted:
"As we confess the divine birth of the Virgin to be without any
childbed ... we subject to correction those who through ignorance do
anything which is inconsistent therewith."
This is elaborated on in the notes immediately following the canon in
the URL Dr. Rock cited in her original query:
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-136.htm#P7069_1491013
Although it's not clear in what form the SEMI/DALIS was prepared -
perhaps something like a semolina pudding? - it appears to have been
considered appropriate nourishment for a woman who had taken to bed
after a conventional labor. Since Mary was miraculously preserved
from this by virtue of the nature of her conception and the child she
bore, the exchange of the special puerperal food on the day after
Christmas, although ostensibly in her honor, implied disagreement
with this teaching about her preservation from labor pains. Note in
particular the quote from John Zonaras (11th-12th c. Byzantine
chronicler and commentator on the early canons) at the URL above.
I suspect there may be something in histories of Mariology, but I've
run out of time to check.
John
--
*** John McChesney-Young ** [log in to unmask] ** Berkeley,
California, U.S.A. ***
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