medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Monday, February 7, 2011, at 3:55 am, Terri Morgan sent:
> Moses (d. c. 372/389) Moses was an Arab hermit who lived a long time
> as a
> hermit Mediterranean coast of the Sinai Peninsula (modern El-Arish)...
The monastery dedicated to St. Moses the Egyptian (Mar Musa al-Habashi) near near An-/Al-Nabk (a.k.a. Nebek) in Syria is first attested from the sixth century. Its present church, erected in the later eleventh century, contains, in varying states of preservation, numerous frescoes dating from that time until the early thirteenth century. A brief, English-language account of the church and its frescoes is here:
http://www.deirmarmusa.org/page/monastryeng.HTM
and an even briefer one, together with two views of the church's frescoes, occurs near the end of this page:
http://www.medievalart.org/htm/immerzeel.html
An English-language Wikipedia account (also illustrated):
http://tinyurl.com/6klcc2v
A set of views of the frescoes (mostly those in the nave) begins here:
http://tinyurl.com/6ymn5b4
A set of views of the apse frescoes:
http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/MarMusaapsePaintings.html
> Luke the Younger (d. 946/955)...
A set of expandable views of the earlier eleventh-century mosaics (restored betw. 1953 and 1962) of the katholikon of L.'s monastery (Hosios Loukas) near Distomo in Phokis:
http://tinyurl.com/y9z45qa
Today (7. February) is also the feast day of:
Augulus of Britain (?). A., whose name could equally well be Augulius (we have it only in the genitive singular), is a spectacularly obscure saint first recorded in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology. Under today's date the latter's earliest witness, fols. 2-33 of the earlier eighth-century Paris ms. Latin 10837, representing an older state of the text than that found in the other manuscripts, is reported as saying, _brittania civitate Auguria natale Auguli episcopi et martyris_... ('In Britain, in the town of Auguria, the feast of Augulus, bishop and martyr'). As a British Augulia is unknown, some have proposed _Augusta_ instead, meaning London (cf. Ammianus Marcellinus, 17. 8. 7). Pointing in that direction are some early witnesses of the (ps.-)HM's younger recension that instead read _agurta_ or _augurta_ here.
_Augusta_, moreover, is the reported reading of the manuscripts serving as the base for the standard modern editions of the ninth-century martyrologies of St. Ado of Vienne and Usuard, whose entries for A., also under today's date, derive, with Usuard altering Ado's text, from a version of the (ps.-)HM that with the younger recension reads _In Brittaniis_ at the outset but that unlike that recension retains _et martyris_ at the end. But even assuming _Augusta_ to be the (ps.-)HM's true reading rather than just a plausible early conjecture, this doesn't get us very far. The only attested bishop of London before St. Mellitus in the early seventh century is the Restitutus who participated in the synod of Arles in 314. In the absence of other known bishops into whose order Augulus might be inserted, it is impossible to arrive at an approximate _floruit_ for him, let alone a probable occasion for his martyrdom.
That Augulus' entry in the (ps.-)HM includes the specification _episcopi et martyris_ suggests that it belongs not to the (ps.-)HM's late antique Italian substratum but rather to the later sixth or seventh century when the martyrology as we have it was put together somewhere in northern Gaul. Yet it is striking that we have no evidence from early medieval Britain for a cult of Augulus, whereas we do from at least the sixth century onward for England's traditional protomartyr St. Alban. Even the Anglo-Saxon continental missionary center at Echternach that produced, in an insular hand, the earliest witness of the (ps.-)HM appears not to have celebrated Augulus liturgically: the same manuscript also contains (fols. 34-41), in a different insular hand, a liturgical calendar lacking any mention of this saint (the so-called Calendar of St. Willibrord, to whom is ascribed the marginal notes on fol. 39v).
Prior to its revision of 2001, when it dispensed with him altogether (the Augulus of 30. April is a different saint), the Roman Martyrology commemorated Augulus on this date, adopting as its own Usuard's entry for him. Some English-speaking Orthodox communities now celebrate him today. This is Augulus' first notice in this list's 'FEASTS'/'saints of the day'/'Feasts and Saints of the Day'.
Best,
John Dillon
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