Christen, Juden und Soldaten im Gerasa des 6. Jahrhunderts

Abstract

During the 2015 campaign of the Danish-German Jerash Northwest Quarter Project the western part of a monumental rectangular building in the immediate vicinity of the so-called Synagogue-Church was found. A corridor ran through this part of the sixth-century building from north to south and led to the front court of the so-called Synagogue-Church. On both sides of this integrated corridor, mosaic inscriptions were found. These inscriptions from 576 and 591 respectively bear witness to a numerus Electorum Iustinianorum, his diakon as well as a hitherto unknown official with the title ἀργυροποδέκτης (Latin equivalent: argenti susceptor). In one of the inscriptions a room or possibly the entire building is termed κέλλιον. This article focuses on the contextualisation of the mosaics in the local mosaic traditions, discusses the military units stationed in Gerasa, and finally gives an overview of ‹Military clerics› and ‹Military churches› in Late Antiquity. Furthermore it also discusses the new termini by placing them in context of the other evidence from the region and beyond.