Elagabalus - Roman Emperor: 218-222 A.D. -
Bronze 23mm (15.3 grams) Struck at the city of Neapolis in Samaria
Reference: Sear GIC 3122; B.M.C. 27.60,96
AVT. K. M. AVP. ANTWNINOC - Laureate, draped and cuirassed bust right.
ΦΛ. ΝЄΑС ΠOΛ. СVΡ ΠΑΛ. - Mount Gerizim, consisting of two rocky masses; that on
left surmounted by temple approached by steep stairway, the other with altar on
summit.
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Mount Gerizim (Samaritan
Hebrew Ar-garízim,
Arabic جبل جرزيم Jabal Jarizīm,
Tiberian Hebrew הַר גְּרִזִּים Har Gərizzîm,
Standard Hebrew הַר גְּרִיזִּים Har Gərizzim) is one of the
two mountains in the immediate vicinity of the
West Bank
city of Nablus
(Biblical
Shechem),
and forms the southern side of the valley in which Nablus is situated, the
northern side being formed by
Mount Ebal.
The mountain is one of the highest peaks in the West Bank, as well as being
higher than most mountain peaks in
Israel, and
rises to 2849 feet (881 meters) above
sea level,
228 feet (69.5 meters) shorter than Mount Ebal. The mountain is particularly
steep on the northern side, is sparsely covered at the top with shrubbery, and
lower down there is a
spring with a high yield of fresh water.
Two villages are situated on the mountain ridge,
Kiryat Luza (Samaritan),
and
Har Bracha (Jewish).
The mountain is sacred to the Samaritans who regard it, rather than
Jerusalem's
Temple
Mount, as having been the location chosen by
Yahweh for a
holy temple. The mountain continues to be the centre of Samaritan religion to
this day, and over 90% of the worldwide population of Samaritans live in very
close proximity to Gerizim, mostly in Kiryat Luza, the main village. The
passover is
celebrated by the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim, and it is additionally considered
by them as the location of the
near-sacrifice of Isaac (the
masoretic and
Septuagint
versions of
Genesis state that this happened on Mount
Moriah
which Jews traditionally identify as the Temple Mount). According to
classical rabbinical sources, in order to convert to Judaism, a Samaritan
must first and foremost renounce any belief in the sanctity of Mount Gerizim.
Biblical
account
Old city of
Nablus
and Mount Gerizim in background
In the
masoretic text of
Deuteronomy and the
Septuagint
version of the same, an instruction is given to build an altar on
Mount Ebal,
constructed from natural (rather than cut) stones, to place stones there and
whiten them with
lime,
to make peace
offerings on the altar, eat there, and write the words of this law on
the stone. According to the
Samaritan Pentateuch version of Deuteronomy, the instruction actually
concerns Mount Gerizim, which the
Samaritans
view as a holy site.
An instruction immediately subsequent to this orders that, once this is done,
the Israelites should split into two groups, one to stay on Mount Ebal and
pronounce curses, while the other goes to Mount Gerizim and pronounces
blessings. The tribes
of Simeon,
of Levi,
of
Judah,
of Issachar,
of Joseph, and
of Benjamin were to be sent to Gerizim, while those
of Reuben,
of Gad,
of
Asher,
of Zebulun,
of Dan,
and
of Naphtali, were to remain on Ebal. No attempts to explain this division of
tribes either by their Biblical
ethnology
or by their geographical distribution have been generally accepted in academic
circles.
The text goes on to list twelve curses, which were to be pronounced by the
Levite
priesthood and answered by the people with
Amen.
These curses heavily resemble laws (eg cursed be he who
removes his neighbour's landmark), and they are not followed by a list of
blessings described in a similarly liturgical framework; scholars believe that
these more likely represent what was written on the stones, and that the later
list of six explicit blessings, six near-corresponding explicit curses, were
originally in this position in the text. The present position of these explicit
blessings and curses, within a larger narrative of promise, and a far larger
narrative of threat (respectively), is considered to have been an editorial
decision for the post-exilic second version of Deuteronomy (Dtr2), to
reflect the
deuteronomist's worldview after the
Babylonian exile had occurred.
In the
Book of Joshua, after the Battle of
Ai,
Joshua built an altar of unhewn stones there, the Israelites then made peace
offerings on it, the law of Moses was written onto the stones, and the
Israelites split into the two groups specified in Deuteronomy and pronounced
blessings and curses as instructed there. There is some debate between
textual scholars as to whether this incident in Joshua is one account or
spliced together two different accounts, where one account refers to Joshua
building an altar, and making sacrifices on it, while the other account refers
to Joshua placing large stone slabs there that had been whitened with lime and
then had the law inscribed on them. Either way there are some who believe
that the sources of Joshua predate Deuteronomy, and hence that the order to
build the altar and make the inscription is likely based on these actions in the
sources of Joshua, rather than the other way round, possibly to provide an
aetiology for the site acceptable to the deuteronomist's theology.
Much later in the Book, when Joshua was old and dying, he gathered the people
together at Shechem, and gave a farewell speech, and then wrote these words
in the book of the law of
Yahweh, and
set up a stone as a witness, placing it next to the sanctuary of Yahweh,
under the oak tree. Depending on the way in which the sources of Joshua
were spliced together, this may just be another version of the earlier narrative
Joshua placing the whitened stones slabs with the law inscribed on them,
and some scholars believe that this narrative may have originally been in an
earlier location within the Book of Joshua.
Scholars consider it plausible for the sanctuary to have been pre-Israelite.
It is possible that the name of the mountain is indicative of this, as it is
thought that Gerizim may mean mountain of the Gerizites, a tribe
in the vicinity of the Philistines that was conquered by David. A straitforward
etymology for Gerizim would give the meaning of mountain cut in two.
According to the narrative about
Jotham in the
Book of Judges, Shechem was a site where there was a sanctuary of El-Berith,
also known as Baal-Berith, meaning God of the covenant and Lord
of the covenant, respectively; scholars have suggested that the Joshua story
about the site derives from a covenant made there in Canaanite times. In the
narrative of Judges, the pillar that was in Shechem is seemingly
significant enough to have given its name to a nearby plain, and this pillar is
thought to be likely to have been a totem of El-Berith; the Joshua story,
of a stone being set up as a witness, simply being an attempt to provide an
aetiology in accordance with later Israelite theology.
In the Biblical narrative, the oak tree, seemingly next to the
sanctuary, was evidently in existence as early as the time of the Patriarchs, as
Jacob is
described in the
Book of Genesis as having buried the idols of strange gods (formerly
worshipped by his household) beneath it. According to a midrash, one of these
Idols, in the shape of a
dove, was later recovered by the Samaritans, and used in their worship on
Mount Gerizim.
Post-exile
history
After the end of the
Babylonian Captivity, a large
schism between the Samaritans and
Judaism
developed, with the Samaritans, but not the Jews, regarding Mount Gerizim as
the holy place chosen by God. Subsequently, the Samaritans built a temple
there, arguing that this was the real location of the Israelite temple which had
been destroyed by
Nebuchadnezzar, probably in the 5th or 4th century BCE. Though it had been
destroyed by his time,
Josephus
plainly states that the temple on Gerizim was similar to
that in Jerusalem (prior to the
Herodian expansion of the latter), and that it was surrounded by
fortifications.
The religious tension between the Jews and the Samaritans lead to the temple
on Gerizim being destroyed by either
John
Hyrcanus in the 2nd century BC (according to Josephus) or by
Simeon the Just (according to the
Talmud), who
was permitted to do so by
Alexander the Great, the land at that time falling under Alexander's empire.
However, the mountain evidently continued to be the holy place of the
Samaritans, as it is mentioned as such by the
Gospel of John and coins produced by a Roman
mint
situated in Nablus included within their design a depiction of the temple;
surviving coins from this mint, dated to 138-161 CE, show a huge temple complex,
statues, and a substantive staircase leading from Nablus to the temple itself.
In Jesus'
discussion with the Samaritan woman he revealed his feeling about
worship
there: "Jesus
said to her:
“Believe me, woman, The hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor
in Jerusalem will YOU people worship the Father. YOU worship what YOU do not
know; we worship what we know, because salvation originates with the Jews.
Nevertheless, the hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshipers
will worship the Father with spirit and truth"
-John
4:21-23a.
Eventually, when
Christianity became the dominant religion in the
Roman
Empire, Samaritans were barred from worshiping on Mount Gerizim. In 475 AD a
church was built on its summit. In 529 AD,
Justinian
I made Samaritanism illegal, and arranged for a protective wall to be
constructed around the church. As a result, the same year,
Julianus ben Sabar lead a pro-Samaritan revolt, and by 530 AD had captured
most of Samaria,
destroying churches and killing the priests and officials. However in 531 AD,
after Justinian enlisted the help of
Ghassanids,
the revolt was completely quashed, and surviving Samaritans were mostly enslaved
or exiled. In 533 AD Justinian had a castle constructed on Mount Gerizim to
protect the church from raids by the few disgruntled Samaritans left in the
area.
Archaeology
Mount Gerizim; archaeological research
As a result of the fortified church, and previous Samaritan temple, extensive
ruins still exist at the somewhat plateau-like top of Gerizim. The line of the
wall around the church can easily be seen, as can portions of the former castle,
and initial archaeological study of the site postulated that the castle built by
Justinian had utilised stones from an earlier structure on the site (probably
being the Samaritan temple). In the centre of the plateau is a smooth surface,
containing a hollow, which archaeologists consider to be reminiscent of
dolmens found
in southwestern Syria,
and which Samaritans consider to be a portion of their former temple.
A more substantial archaeological survey was undertaken in the middle of the
20th century, while the site was in the possession of
Jordan, in the
region of the mountain known as Tell el-Ras, situated on the northernmost
peak at the end of the northern ridge. This excavation, which continued under
Israel's jurisdiction, uncovered
Corinthian columns, a large rectangular platform (65m by 44m) surrounded by
2m thick and 9m high walls, and an 8m wide staircase leading down from the
platform to a marbled
esplanade.
The complex also has a series of cisterns in which Late Roman ceramics were
found. These discoveries, now named Structure A, have been dated to the
time of Hadrian,
due to
numismatics and external literary evidence, and are believed to be a temple
dedicated to Zeus.
Underneath these remains were found a large stone structure built on top of
the bedrock. This structure, now known as Structure B, nearly half cubic
(21m by 20m in width and length, and 8.5m high), consists almost entirely of
unhewn limestone slabs, fitted together
without any binding material, and has no internal rooms or dividing walls.
The structure was surrounded by a courtyard similar to the platform above it
(being 60m by 40m in size with 1.5m thick walls), and was dated to during or
before the Hellenic era by ceramics found in a cistern cut into the bedrock at
the northern side. The excavating archaeologist considered Structure B to
be the altar built by the Samaritans in the 5th or 6th century BC.
See
also
Elagabalus
(pronounced El-uh-GAB-uh-lus, c. 203 – March 11, 222), also known as
Heliogabalus or Marcus
Aurelius Antoninus, was a
Roman
Emperor of the
Severan dynasty who reigned from 218 to 222. Born Varius Avitus Bassianus,
he was
Syrian on his mother's side, the son of
Julia Soaemias and
Sextus Varius Marcellus, and in his early youth he served as a priest of the
god
El-Gabal at his hometown,
Emesa. Upon becoming emperor he took the name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
Augustus, and was called Elagabalus only a long time after his death.
In 217,
the emperor
Caracalla was murdered and replaced by his
Praetorian prefect, Marcus Opellius
Macrinus.
Caracalla's maternal aunt,
Julia
Maesa, successfully instigated a revolt among the
Third Legion to have her eldest grandson, Elagabalus, declared as emperor in
his place. Macrinus was defeated on June 8, 218, at the
Battle of Antioch, upon which Elagabalus, barely fourteen years old,
ascended to the imperial power and began a reign that was marred by infamous
controversies, to put it mildly.
During his rule, Elagabalus showed a disregard for Roman religious traditions
and sexual taboos. He was married as many as five times and is reported to have
prostituted himself in the imperial palace. Elagabalus replaced
Jupiter, head of the
Roman pantheon, with a new god,
Deus
Sol Invictus, and forced leading members of Rome's government to
participate in religious rites celebrating this deity, which he personally led.
Amidst growing opposition, Elagabalus, only 18 years old, was assassinated
and replaced by his cousin
Alexander Severus on March 11, 222, in a plot formed by his grandmother,
Julia Maesa, and members of the
Praetorian Guard. Elagabalus developed a reputation among his contemporaries
for eccentricity, decadence, and zealotry which was likely exaggerated by his
successors and political rivals.
This propaganda was passed on and, as a result, he was one of the most reviled
Roman emperors to early historians. For example,
Edward Gibbon wrote that Elagabalus "abandoned himself to the grossest
pleasures and ungoverned fury."
"The name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others" because of his
"unspeakably disgusting life," wrote
B.G. Niebuhr.
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