The Angels of Miletus

At some point in its history angels protected the city of Miletus in Asia Minor.  We know this because at some point in Late Antiquity someone inscribed a prayer to seven angels on the external wall of the theater in this city.

Rangar Cline who is a long-time reader of this blog, expert on Late Antique angels (here’s his book), and all around good guy has recently published an article in the Journal of Late Antiquity on this inscription.  He argues that the traditional Justinianic date of this inscription is probably wrong. This is significant to me because scholars have tended to compare this inscription to the two Justinianic inscriptions from the Isthmus. Indeed, Rangar has made this comparison.

Both inscriptions call on divine powers to protect the city and those living within it. Moreover, both texts it would seem echo something like liturgical language. The final phrase in the Miletus text is sometimes compared to the language of the diptychs in the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. It finds parallels in both the texts from the Isthmus as well as a text from Philippi (see p. 9-10 here for references).

Of course, the possible echo of the liturgy is not what attracted attention to this text. As Rangar points out, this inscription features the use of out the combination of magic letters or sounds presented in the form of a “vowel rotation”. These otherwise nonsensical letters are set into circles which Rangar sees as representations of amulets or designed to evoke other objects associated with personal protection. He also points out that personal objects sometimes featured liturgical language comparing the text from Miletus to an amulet found elsewhere in Asia Minor which features the sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy).

The Justinianic date of this inscription is based largely on the argument that the theater became part of a re-fortification of the city in the 6th century.  Scholars saw the text as part of an effort to invoke supernatural protection to complement the physical protection of the fortifications. Recent archaeological work on the cities of Asia Minor, however, has pushed the date for the refortification of Miletus into the 7th century.  Rangar, in turn, argues based on letter forms, comparanda, and the ambiguous Christianity of the text, that this inscription should probably be dated to earlier than the 7th century.  As a result, he suggests that the text should no longer be regarded as Justinianic in date, but rather returned the more chronologically ambiguous milieu of Late Antique spirituality.