DJEMILA (ARABO ĜEMILAH)

DJEMILA (Arabic Ĝemilah). — It is the ancient Cuicul, a city of Numidia near the border with Mauretania. At the site, already inhabited by indigenous population groups, Nerva established a colony of veterans, which flourished rapidly so as to become, by the mid-2nd century, an urban center of some importance; excavations have brought to light a considerable part of it, so that today it may be considered one of the major archaeological fields of Roman Africa.

Christianity must have been preached there during the 2nd century and made many converts: by the mid-3rd century an episcopal see was already established; a Cuiculitan bishop, Pudentianus, indeed took part in the Council held at Carthage in 256 under the presidency of Cyprian; another bishop, Elpidophorus, was present at the Carthaginian Council of 348. In the interval the Cuiculitan Church must have felt the effect of the persecutions; in various inscriptions of the city nine martyrs are commemorated: a Claudius, celebrated on October 1st; seven others: Arensius, Aurelius, Donatus, Emilianus, Sophia, Theodotus, and Victoria on March 5th or May; and finally a Pascensius, whose feast day is unknown. Since none of them is mentioned in the martyrologies, it cannot be ruled out that some were Donatist martyrs. Cuicul was indeed troubled by the schism: in 411 the Catholic bishop Cresconius, whose name is linked, as will be seen, to the construction of various buildings, declared at the Council of Carthage that his Donatist adversary had recently died. Another bishop of Cuicul, Victor, appears among the victims of the persecution of Huneric in 484; the last of whom there is record is Crescens, who took part in the Council of Constantinople in 553. How long the Christian community of the city survived is unknown, but it is likely that, as in most of the rest of Africa, it perished soon after the first Arab invasions of the second half of the 7th century.

Christian buildings, as often happened, arose outside the center of the city, already occupied by the two forums, the older one and the one added in the time of the Severans, and their annexes. Of two churches, one to the northwest and the other to the east, only traces remain: of the former in the inscription of the seven martyrs already mentioned, of the latter in some architectural fragments, also marked with the names of martyrs; near the latter there may also have been a cemetery.

To the southeast, however, an entire extensive and notable complex of buildings has been uncovered, consisting of two basilicas, a chapel, a baptistery (and perhaps also traces of an older baptistery), and a large house, which was probably the residence of the bishop; it is one of those complexes of which similar examples are found both in other cities of Africa (Tébessa) and outside (Salona, Cimitile).

The buildings did not all naturally arise at the same time. The oldest is the Basilica that may be called, because of its dimensions relative to the other, the Minor Basilica: it has three naves divided by columns, is 35 m long (including the apse) and 16 m wide, with its façade facing west; the last part of the central nave was enclosed for the choir, slightly raised above the level of the rest of the church; this was decorated with mosaics and geometric and figured motifs (animals), and inscriptions recalling those who had contributed to the decoration; among them appear a sacerdotalis and two tribunes. A staircase at the end of the left nave allowed access to the crypt beneath the apse, 3.50 m lower, and connected, by means of a corridor, to the crypt of the nearby Major Basilica. The construction of the church can be dated to the 4th century.

The second basilica, adjacent to the first to the south but separated from it by a kind of narrow open esplanade, is much larger: 39.50 x 28 m; it has the same orientation but is divided into five naves by piers, to which columns were attached in the central nave; beneath the apse was the crypt, which could be accessed, in addition to the aforementioned corridor, by a staircase at the end of the first nave on the left. The floor of this church was also decorated with mosaics; between the columns were figures of wild beasts, hunting scenes, vases, columns under arcades of foliage, etc.; elsewhere animals within panels or circles framed by braids and acanthus leaves. At the end of the central nave was the choir, enclosed by balustrades: beneath a later mosaic was an earlier floor, on which, also in mosaic, a long metrical inscription contained the record of Bishop Cresconius: how he dedicated the basilica, depositing in it the relics of the ancient bishops (iusti priores) and martyrs, which crowds of pilgrims came to venerate, rejoicing in the end of the (Donatist) schism; the last part of the text is the epitaph of Bishop Cresconius himself. The singular fact is that the inscription is a reproduction, adapted with appropriate variations, of two metrical inscriptions from Tipasa: to this city, famous for the shrine of St. Salsa, other elements of the Cuiculitan complex also refer. From Cresconius’s inscription the basilica is dated to the first decades of the 5th century, when peace was restored to the African Church.

Separated by a street from the Major Basilica but with a different orientation and turning its apse toward the first, stands the chapel, a modest building 19 x 11.50 m, with three naves, very poorly preserved: other structures have appeared beneath it, including a stretch of circular wall, which may perhaps be recognized as the remains of an older baptistery.

In excellent condition, however, is the baptistery, which stands facing the Minor Basilica with the same orientation, though not exactly on its axis: this position might suggest that its construction should be linked and considered contemporary with that of the Minor Basilica rather than the Major Basilica, as is commonly believed. It is connected to a small but complete bath building, intended for the use of catechumens: the only other known example of such a union of baptistery with baths in Africa is that of Tipasa.

The actual baptistery consists of a rotunda between two rectangular porticoed wings. The first, built of brick lined inside with plaster and stucco ornaments, has a diameter of about 11.50 m and includes a circular corridor with two vestibules and a central chamber containing the baptismal font, square in shape and covered by a baldachin; in the walls of the corridor were some niches; the floor was everywhere of mosaic: on the edge of the font, also in mosaic, was an inscription alluding to Baptism.

To the southwest of the Major Basilica extends what is thought to have been the bishop’s residence, a large building accessible from a broad porticoed street, and inside which the rooms were arranged around two atria.

The entire complex of buildings was interspersed and connected by streets and staircases, which, while compensating for the differences in level of the strongly uneven terrain, facilitated access and movement of the crowds in the different parts, evidence of the frequent attendance of the faithful, to which the aforementioned inscription alludes.

Among the objects found in the excavations are two bronze patens with a monogram and one with the acclamation Deo gratias, and a bronze vessel, perhaps a holy water stoup.

### DŁUGOSZ, *Jan (Johannes Longinus)*

Historian, born at Brzeźnica in 1415, died at Cracow on 19 May 1480. Secretary to the bishop of Cracow, Zbigniew Oleśnicki, and ordained priest in 1440, he carried out diplomatic missions for his bishop and for King Casimir IV, by whom he was appointed archbishop of Lviv, though he died before taking canonical possession. Długosz is the most celebrated Polish medieval historian.

In Italy he had relations with humanists and brought back to Poland manuscripts of Latin classics. A diligent collector of sources, he was not always critical in using them, and his patriotism sometimes prevailed to the detriment of impartiality. Among his works the principal are: *Annales seu cronicae inclyti Regni Poloniae*, 12 books, written between 1455 and 1480 (Leipzig 1711-12); *Liber beneficiorum dioecesis Cracoviensis* (3 vols., written between 1470 and 1480).

**

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### D. M. S.

This abbreviation is read as *d(is) M(anibus) s(acrum)* and is rarely written out in full; usually the third element *s(acrum)* is omitted. The meaning is always the same: that the burial, the tombstone or monument is consecrated to the *Manes* gods and placed under their protection against possible violation. The corresponding Greek formula is θ(εσίς) χ(αραχθονίς) or χ(θονίς).

It is customary to place this formula at the top of the inscription as a title. It came into use already during the 1st century AD, but became truly common and standard practice in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, naturally in the burials of pagans.

Nevertheless, this formula also appears on a considerable number of certainly Christian (and in some Jewish) epitaphs, particularly in Rome and elsewhere in Italy at Chiusi, and in Africa in the fuller form D. M. S. Great efforts were made by past scholars to explain these abbreviations in a Christian sense (e.g., *D(eo) M(agno)*, *d(igno et) m(erito)*, θ(εσίς) χ(αραχθονίς*), but in vain. It must be said that these abbreviations, through usage, had become devoid of their specific pagan meaning, serving only to indicate that it was a funerary inscription; for many their true reading was even unknown, e.g., for that freedman who translates it as *donis memoriae spiritantium* (m) (CIL, VIII, no. 2078).

On many tombstones, alongside and within the D. M., specifically Christian signs or words were inscribed. It has been said that Christians, buying a tombstone already prepared with that wording, wished in a certain way to annul the pagan sense of the D. M. with those additions. This cannot be true in general, because those tombstones are either the work of Christians or clearly show the same handwriting of the same person.

It must therefore be concluded that even in this case the juxtaposition of such heterogeneous elements shows that the proper significance of D. M. was no longer understood. The same is demonstrated by certain strange forms such as D. I. B. M., D. O. M. and the association with the monogram of Christ, all of which lead to the suspicion that those who wrote read these abbreviations in a manner quite different from their true meaning.

It may be thought that certain later Christian epitaph titles such as B. M. (very common) and B. M. S. (in Calabria) derive through certain lines of descent from D. M.

**

D.M.S. — Funerary inscription placed in memory of the husband M. 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Three Aeons proceed: Tree, Leaf, Fruit, which, multiplied by 10 (which is the perfect number), form 30. Each of these 30 Aeons, giving the best part of itself, contributed to forming Christ, the image of God. He was not born of the Virgin Mary, even though He came forth from her, because His body, which fell from Heaven, merely passed through the Virgin’s body without taking anything from her. Christ accomplished the events recounted in the Gospel, but at the moment of His Baptism He assumed the appearance of another body. When the great archon, or chief of the evil angels, condemned Him to the cross, He allowed His first hylic body to be affixed to the gibbet, but with His other pneumatic body, received at the Baptism, He overcame the great archon and frustrated his wicked designs.

7) The unknown author of the Gospel of Peter, an apocryphal book against which Serapion, bishop of Antioch (190–203), warned the faithful of Rhossos (Cilicia).

8) The Bardesanites attributed to Christ an astral body and a fictitious birth. Their sect, which lasted until the 5th century, was erroneously said to appeal to the authority of Bardesanes, b. in Edessa in 154 and d. in 222.

9) The Manicheans, with their dualistic theory of the Good, which is Spirit, and the Evil, which is Matter, were compelled to deny Christ a body. To preserve, however, the reality of the Passion, they split Jesus into two, distinguishing a passible Jesus and an impassible Jesus.

10) The Paulicians of Armenia denied the reality of Christ’s birth. They imagined that the one about whom the disciples of John asked Jesus whether they should expect Him (Lk. 7:20) was an angel who would actually come and suffer. For this reason, they worshipped not the Cross but the Gospel.

11) The Slavic Bogomils believed that Jesus entered Mary through the ear and took on in her a “likeness” of body.

12) In the West, the Council of Orléans in 1022 anathematized 13 Cathar heretics who denied that Christ had lived and died in reality.

13) Since such an error lends itself to the vagaries of the imagination and profits from the boundless credulity of simple folk, docetism has not exhausted the range of its fantasies, and in the theosophical or spiritualist circles of our own time it vies with the most tangled absurdities of ancient Gnosticism.