On the origin of votive lights

A while back I had a correspondence regarding votive lamps in early Christian churches.

This started with an enquiry regarding a text in II Enoch 45: “If anyone makes lamps numerous in front of the face of the Lord, then the Lord will make his treasure stores numerous in the highest Kingdom.”

I couldn’t shed a lot of light on this text, but more generally I observed that whereas lights are brought in for any Graeco-Roman meal lasting into the hours of darkness, thinking of Traditio apostolica and of Tertullian Apol. 39 inter alia, the burning of a perpetual light is something different.

I was able to cite a few texts; Tertullian (Apol. 35) didn’t think much of burning lamps during the day, and the same attitude persists in the Synod of Elvira c34 forbidding burning candles in cemeteries during the day: Cereos per diem placuit in coemeterio non incendi, inquietandi enim sanctorum spiritus non sunt. Qui haec non observaverint arceantur ab ecclesiae communione. Whereas this applies to cemeteries, and not churches, it does tell us that lights were burnt in cemeteries. This may relate to burial at night, (note that in the Acta of Cyprian the body is borne to the cemetery by the light of candles and torches) but may also indicate that lights were kept lit in the cemeteries beyond the time of burial and that burial might be accompanied by lights even during the day. The accompaniment of candles to the grave of Macrina (Greg. Naz. Vit. Macr. 994C) is less obviously taking place at night.

Things are much clearer towards the end of the fourth century. Paulinus refers to lights burning night and day (De S. Felice natal. 3) (PL61.467), and there is dispute between Jerome and Vigilantius (Jerome adv. Vigilantium) in part over the very issue of burning lamps in the martyria. This leads me to suspect that the votive lamp in churches originated in the martyria, and that this in turn originated from the custom of burning lights in the cemeteries. Dix (Shape of the liturgy, 419) states that “perpetually burning lights at the martyrs’ tombs are found before the end of the fourth century”, but gives no reference for this (unless he is mindful of Jerome, whom he cites in the following pages.) I would not put much confidence in the report of Anastasius Bibliothecarius that Constantine provided a massive pharum to burn before the tomb of Peter (PL127 1518-19), but it is significant nonetheless that this perpetual light is placed before a martyr’s tomb.

I was reminded of this reading an apocryphal Vita of Herakleidios from (6^th century?) Cyprus, where it is said that “The Father Mnason, arriving at the same time as us, prayed a great prayer, and taking oil from the un-extinguished (ἀσβέστου) lamp he put it on the father Heracleides and anointed him entirely (συνήλειψεν αὐτὸν ὅλον.)”

On this F. Halkin, “Les actes apocryphes de Saint Héraclide de Chypre, disciple de l’Apôtre Barnabé” Analecta Bollandiana 82 (1964), 133-170, at 165, comments: “Une lampe á huile qu’on n’éteint jamais, voila une attestation rare, sinon unique, de usage des « veilleuses » ou lampes du sanctuaire. Je ne trouve rien sur cet usage dans le Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, ni dans le vieux Thesaurus de Suicerus, ni á l’article ἄσβεστος du Patristic Greek Lexicon.” Hopefully this goes some way to filling the void.

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An agraphon in Testamentum Domini

An article by Dominic White OP, “’My mystery is for me’: a saying of Jesus?” Scripture Bulletin 44 (2014), 27-42, draws attention to the appearance of an agraphon in Testamentum Domini 18: “For my mysteries are given to those who are mine”. This agraphon appears elsewhere, notably in Clement Strom. 5.10, ps-Clement Rec. 19.19, and in Chrysostom Hom. in I Cor. on I Cor. 2:6-7.

It is also attributed to Isaiah by Theodoret of Cyrus In Psalmos on Ps 24 (25):14 (PG80.1041), where the text reads τὰ μυστήρια μου ἐμοὶ καὶ τοῖς ἐμοῖς, and again with reference to Ps 65 (66):16 (PG80.1369), though here it is not attributed. It is also attributed to Isaiah (probably) by Jerome Ep. 48.13 (he attributes it to “the prophet”): “My mystery is for me,” says the prophet; “my mystery is for me and for them that are mine.” This reference is unobserved by White.

Isaiah 24:16b in the Vulgate reads: “Et dixi: Secretum meum mihi, secretum meum mihi.” Jerome further notes at Comm. in Is. 8.24 that the reading is attested by Theodotion. This reading is attested in one LXX stream with the reading: “και ειπεν το μυστηριον μου εμοι το μυστηριον μου εμοι”. One MS extends this with “και τοις εμοις.” The Hebrew text rendered is רזי לי, so it would seem that this MS has extended the text by citing the agraphon as received, rather than as found in the text. Even so it is noteworthy that when Jerome cites the passage he does so in a fuller form than that found in his version of Isaiah, again indicating that he had independent knowledge of the statement.

It is thus hard to say whether the agraphon was received by the redactor of Testamentum Domini (this passage certainly being redactional) as from Jesus directly or as from him through Isaiah, though given that it is in a fuller form, it seems more probable that it was received as from the direct testimony of Jesus. What is noteworthy is that here, as in the second citation from Theodoret, the saying is joined to Matt. 7:6. The clear intention of the redactor is to limit the instructions here received from Jesus to a select group, the ascetics of the Testamentum community.