Christian fabrications

INSCRIPTIONES FALSAE VEL ALIENAE:

CIL II 233* (p. 26*, under XII. CLVNIA (Clunia)); cf. the CIL Database:

diocletiano caes. aug. galerio in oriente adopt. superstitione christi ubiq. deleta et cultu deor. propagato

http://cil.bbaw.de/test06/bilder/datenbank/PH0002993.jpg
Note that this does not match CIL II 233* exactly.

My own highly inexpert transcription of the image associated therewith (to the right):

DIOCLETIANO CÆSAR
AVGUSTI GALER[IO]
IN ORIENTE ADPTATO
SVPERTITIONE CHRISTI
VBIQ DELETA
CVL[T]VS DEORUM PROPAGA

CIL II 234* (p. 26*, under XII. CLVNIA (Clunia)); cf. the CIL Database, which, like CIL in print, cross references CIL VI 3550*:

diocletian. iovius maximian. herculeus caess. augg. amplificato per orientem et occidentem imp. rom. et nomine christianor. deleto qui remp. evertebant

CIL II 236* (p. 26*, under XII (CLVNIA (Clunia)); cf. the CIL Database:

iiii. invicti. caesaris | matri. deum | sacello | in. durii. amnis. ancone | instructe | sub. magnae. pasiphaes. numine | privatum. dianae. sacrum | fordam. vaccam. albam | immolavere | ob. christianam | eorum. pia. cura | suppressam. exstinctamque | superstitionem | dioclec. | maximian. | galerius | et. constantius | imper. augggg. perpetui

I have also seen CIL II 234*/236* (?) cited as:
. . . extincto nomine christianorum. . . .

CIL VI 3550* (p. 245*, under Inscriptiones falsae reliquae, a subsection of pars V, Inscriptiones falsae urbi Romae attributae); cf. the CIL Database, which, like CIL in print, cross references CIL II 234*:

DIOCLETIANVS IOVIVS ET

MAXIMIAN HERCVLÆVS CÆS AVGG

AMPLIFICATO PER ORIENTEM

ET OCCIDENTEM

IMPER ROM

NOMINE CHRISTIANORVM

DELETO QVIREMP

EVERTERANT

I don't know how comprehensive it is, but presumably the fact that I haven't been able to get any of these to appear in Hispania Epigraphica is yet further confirmation of their inauthenticity.

There are some 63 hits on "ancient find spot" "Colonia Clunia Sulpicia" (="modern find spot" "Peñalba de Castro") in the Epigraphic Database Heidelberg at present, though none on "Literature" "CIL 2", and none on "christianor" (CIL II 234*) (though there are many on "christi").  But keep checking back as "The total number of records rises continually", and each record comes with a Bibliography.

Check also the Epigraphic Database Falsae.

Bibliography

(in progress; fill in with the references at CIL II, p. 26*)

1553:  Jacobus Strada, Epitome thesauri antiquitatum, p. 169, 12; p. 170, 1  Cf. the French of that same year:  Epitome du thrésor des antiquitez.  Source:  CIL II, p. 26* + p. IX, 14.  Unfortunately, I have yet to locate nos. 233* and 234* on these two pages.

1588/1607:  Cesare Baronius, Annales ecclesiastici, vol. 2 (1609), col. 830:

Dioclet. Iovivs. Maximi. Hercvlevs Caess. Avgg. amplificato per orientem et occid. impe. Rom. et nomine christianor. deleto qvi remp. evertebant

Diocletian. Caes. Avg. Gallerio in oriente adopt. svperstitione Christi vbiq. deleta cvltv deorvm propagato

1781:  Joseph Milner, Gibbon's account of Christianity considered, 101-102.  Milner brings this sort of thing in against Gibbon!

1862:  Eduard von Wietersheim, Geschichte des Völkerwanderung, vol. 3 (1862), p. 481.  A defense?

1876:  Arthur James Mason, The persecution of Diocletian:  a historical essay (Cambridge:  Deighton Bell and Co., 1876), pp. 217-218 and 217n1.  Note that Mason says it was Westcott who first called his "attention to the spuriousness of these inscriptions".  Did Westcott say something about this in print somewhere?

1882:  Philip Schaff, History of the Christian church, new edition, thoroughly revised and enlarged, vol. 2 (New York:  Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884), p. 69-70 and 69n3.

1886:  "Monumental evidences of Christianity" (a review), Church quarterly review 22 (April-July 1886):  406-407 (381-409).

1987:  Pedro de Palol and José Vilella, Clunia II:  La epigrafía de Clunia, Excavaciones arcqueologicas en España (Madrid:  Ministerio de Cultura, 1987):  CIL index makes no reference.

1996:  Simon Corcoran, The empire of the Tetrarchs:  imperial pronouncements and government, AD 284-324 (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1996):  CIL index makes no reference.

2001:  Wolfgang Kuhoff, Diokletian und die Epoche der Tetrarchie:  Das römische Reich zwischen Krisenbewältigung und Neuaufbau (284-313 n. Chr.) (Frankfurt am Main:  Peter Lang, 2001).  CIL index makes no reference.

2012:  G. González Germain, “CIL II 815:  Una inscripción falsa (más) de Cáparra,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 183 (2012):  304n46:  “A Clunia se attribuyen, como mínimo, tres epígrafes falsos (CIL II 233*-[2]35*)”.

     With thanks to ATLA colleague Eric Benoy and his Provost for the question that prompted this research.

"the question of the sacraments IS the question of the church drawing its life from Christ."

     "Why did Barth, a modern ecumenical theologian par excellence, not pursue the significance of the eucharistic liturgy as a decisive event in the becoming and being of the church?  Was it because he wanted to establish Jesus-history as 'the one and only sacrament' from which the church draws its life?  Though we cannot quarrel with this as a motive, it fails completely as an explanation, for the question of the sacraments is the question of the church drawing its life from Christ."

     Douglas Farrow, Ascension and ecclesia:  on the significance of the doctrine of the ascension for ecclesiology and Christian cosmology (Grand Rapids, MI:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 251.

"Age . . . has done more for my morals than Methodism ever did."

     River Bill Thacker, in Wendell Berry's Jayber Crow, chap. 23 (Washington, DC:  Counterpoint, 2000), 256).

"remember the Church in Syria"

"Remember me in your prayers, that I may attain to God, and remember the Church in Syria, of which I am not worthy to be called a member.  For I need your united prayer in God and your love, that the Church which is in Syria may be granted refreshment from the dew of your Church."

μνημονεύτέ μου ἐν ταῖς προσευχαῖς ὑμῶν, ἵνα θεοῦ ἐπιτύχω, καὶ τῆς ἐν Συρίᾳ ἐκκλεσίας, ὅθεν οὐκ ἄγιός εἰμι καλεῖσθαι·  ἐπιδέομαι γὰρ τῆς ἡνωμένης ὑμῶν ἐν Θεῷ προσευχῆς καὶ ἀγάπης, εἰς τὸ ἀξιωθῆναι τὴν ἐν Συρίᾳ ἐκκλησίαν διὰ τῆς ἐκκλησίας ὑμῶν δροσισθῆναι.

     St. Ignatius (d. c. 107), Magnesians 14, trans. Kirsopp Lake.  Cf. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443537404577579473069060742.html, as elsewhere.

"faith 'sees' to the extent that it journeys, to the extent that it chooses to enter into the horizons opened up by God’s word."

"The word spoken to Abraham. . . . is a call to leave his own land, a summons to a new life, the beginning of an exodus which points him towards an unforeseen future. The sight which faith would give to Abraham would always be linked to the need to take this step forward: faith 'sees' to the extent that it journeys, to the extent that it chooses to enter into the horizons opened up by God’s word."

     Pope Francis, Lumen fidei 9.

Tocqueville on the origin of the Sublime

     "When skepticism [(le doute)] had depopulated heaven, and the progress of equality had reduced each individual to smaller and better-known proportions, the poets, not yet aware of what they could substitute for the great themes that were departing together with the aristocracy, turned their eyes to inanimate nature.  As they lost sight of gods and heroes, they set themselves to describe streams and mountains."

     Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America II (1840).I.xvii ("Of some sources of poetry among democratic nations"), trans. Henry Reeve, with revisions by Francis Bowen and Phillips Bradley ((New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), vol. 2, p. 73);  =II.I.xvii in Œuvres, ed. André Jardin (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade), II (De la démocratie en Amérique), ed. Jean-Claude Lamberti and James T. Schleifer (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1992), 585.
     Yet this "belongs only to a period of transition."  For

in the end democracy diverts the imagination from all that is external to man and fixes it on man alone.  Democratic nations may amuse themselves for a while with considering the productions of nature, but they are excited in reality only by a survey of themselves. . . .In Europe people talk a great deal of the wilds of America, but the Americans themselves never think about them; they are insensible to the wonders of inanimate nature and they may be said not to perceive the mighty forests that surround them till they fall beneath the hatchet.  Their eyes are fixed upon on another sight:  the American people views its own march across these wilds, draining swamps, turning the course of rivers, peopling solitudes, and subduing nature [(pp. 73 and 74)].

     How then to account for the resurgence of interest in the Sublime at the turn of the last century? 

"in crowning their merits, you crown your own gifts."

It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation,
always and everywhere to give you thanks,
Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God.

For you are praised in the company of your Saints
and, in crowning their merits, you crown your own gifts
     [(et eorum coronando merita tua dona coronas)]....

And so, with the Angels and Archangels, and with the great multitude of the Saints,
we sing the hymn of your praise,
as without end we acclaim:

Holy, Holy, Holy. . . .

     Preface I of Saints, all italics mine.  This Preface and the sentence that I have italicized derive from prayer no. 1258 in (on p. 289 of) the Missale Parisiene of 1789 (also a Preface of Saints), where the sentence in question appears in a slightly different word-order:  "et eorum coronando merita, coronas dona tua."  I don't know how far back this prayer goes in the Parisian tradition, but according to pp. 445-450 of The Prefaces of the Roman Missal, by Ward and Johnson, where it is Preface no. 69, the sentence in question derives from De gratia and libero arbitrio 15 (PL 44, 890-891) and Tract. in Ioannem 3.10 (PL 35, 1401) of St. Augustine, where the wording is very similar.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church cites (at the head of the section on Merit, i.e. just before #2006, on p. 541n59) also En. in Ps. 102.7 (PL 37, 1321-1322).
     Here the new translation certainly did improve things.  For the old one read more ambiguously, "You are glorified in your saints, for their glory is the crowning of your gifts."