Medaba

MEDABA. - City (Heb. Mēdhhbā'; Septuagint Mᾶᾶᾶᾶ and Mᾶᾶᾶ; Vulgate Medaba; stele of Mesha: Mhab') in Jordan, 8 km southeast of Heshbon (v.). It is mentioned for the first time in a victory song of the Amorites over the Moabites (Num. 21:30), together with Heshbon and Dibon, so that it already seems to be a place of importance. After the region was conquered by the Hebrews, Moses gave the city to the tribe of Reuben (Is. 13:9, 16). In the war of Ammon against Israel, during the reign of David, the Aramean army called in by the Ammonites encamped near M., but was defeated by Joab (I Par. 19:7). Mesha (lines 7-8) boasts of having taken it from the Israelites, who had occupied it under Omri. It was under the Moabites at the time of Isaiah, who predicts its misfortunes (Is. 15:2).

John Maccabeus, having gone to the Moabites to seek support there in the war against Bacchides, was killed by the sons of Jambri, a powerful family of M. Jonathan and Simon avenged the affront on the occasion of a solemn wedding that was being celebrated in the surroundings of M., at Nadabah, probably the present-day et-Tejm (I Mach. 9:36-

42). Hyrcanus, around 128, took the city after a siege of nearly 6 months (Fl. Josephus, Antiq. Jud., XIII, 9, 1). A sepulchral inscription from the time of King Aretas (7 B.C.-A.D. 40), now in the Lateran Museum, makes known a Nabatean governor of the city.

The identification of the ancient city with the modern one, reoccupied in 1886 by the Christians, is certain because of the name that has always remained, the position that agrees well with the literary data, and the remains that have been found.

Bellarmino Bagatti

ARCHAEOLOGY

The explorations in the city of M. have brought to light a group of Christian buildings.

In the northern part of the city a first church was found, divided into three naves by Corinthian columns and preceded by a narthex: the one that revealed a floor mosaic representing a map of Palestine accompanied by 140 explanatory legends in Greek, according to the Onomasticon of Eusebius of Caesarea; the mosaic has been attributed to the Justinianic age (M.-J. Lagrange, La mosaïque géographique de M., in Revue biblique, 6 [1897], pp. 165-84; E. Stevenson, Di un insigne pavimento in musaico esprimente la geografia dei luoghi santi scoperto in una basilica cristiana di M. nella Palestina, in Nuovo Bull. di arch. crist., 3 [1897], pp. 45-102; J. Germer-Durand, La carte mosaïque de M., Paris 1897; H. Lammens, M., la ville des mosaïques, in Etudes, 73 [1903], pp. 721-736; 74 [1898], pp. 44-61; A. Jacoby, Das geographische Mosaik von M. Die älteste Karte des heiligen Landes, Leipzig 1905). A second church was found along the Via del Foro, in a characteristic form with a rotunda and apse: it was dedicated by the city of M. to the Blessed Virgin Immaculate for the salvation and reward of all the living and deceased benefactors of the Sanctuary, as the mosaic inscriptions found there teach (G. B. De Rossi, Conferenze di archeologia cristiana, in Bull. arch. crist., 5th series, 3 [1892], p. 245; M. Séjourné, Médebu, in Revue biblique, 1 [1892], p. 640; E. Michon, L'inscription en mosaïque de Médebu, et la mosaïque de Kabr-Hirom, in Bulletin de la Société nationale des antiquaires de France, 1896, pp. 96-98). A third church dedicated to St. Elijah was also found a short distance from the preceding one; it had a rectangular plan, with three naves and an apse inscribed within the interior of the rectangle; it was provided with a crypt and decorated with a mosaic floor; in the apse area two gazelles approach the tree of life; in the rest, among geometric decorations and animals, three medallions contain three mosaic inscriptions. In the floor of the church a large mosaic epigraph was found. From the epigraphs it is gathered that the works were completed at the end of the 6th century under the care of the presbyter of the Elianic church, Sergius, and in the time of Bishop Sergius.

The church of St. Elijah was restored at the beginning of the 7th century by a presbyter Leontius, as an inscription attests (M. Séjourné, L'Eliane de M., in Revue biblique, 6 [1897], pp. 652-94; E. Kalinka, Inschriften aus Syrien, in Jahreshefte des Österreich. archäologischen Institutes, 3 [1900], p. 22). To the east of the Elianic church a fourth building appeared, with three naves, provided with an atrium, apse and pastophoria. To the west of the Elianic church, remains of a raised apse, now demolished, were found, together with one of the side walls. To the south of the Via del Foro, the remains of a sixth building with an apse, with perimeter walls and Corinthian capitals, were recognized. To the south of the acropolis, among the vestiges of a basilica, a decorated slab belonging to an enclosure was found.

Also to the south of the acropolis, an eighth basilica was identified, measuring 36 x 21 m, with columns, large Corinthian capitals, pilasters, architraves and traces of mosaics. Near this building an epigraph was found in Nabataean script and language containing the date of the reign of Aretas, mentioned by St. Paul (II Cor. 11:32). The epigraph is today in the Pio Lateranense Christian Museum (G. B. De Rossi, Iscrizione in scrittura e lingua nabatea trovata in M., in Dissertazioni della Pontif. Accad. rom. di arch., 2nd series, 5 [1893], pp. 449-454). Not far from the monumental remains of this great church, a Greek mosaic inscription recalls the same presbyter Leontius of the Elianic Basilica, who is said to have carried out works in the building in the year 603-604 (R. Savignac, Nouvelle inscription grecque de M., in Revue biblique, 9th series, 8 [1911], pp. 437-40). For these churches see G. Manfredi, Piano generale delle antichità di M., in Nuovo Bull. di arch. crist., 5 [1899], pp. 149-70 and plate 7. Another church of M., in honor of the Sts. Apostles, was completed in the time of Bishop Sergius in 578-79, as a mosaic inscription reveals (H. Vincent, Nouvelle mosaïque à inscription à M., in Revue biblique, 11 [1902], pp. 426-28; id., L'église des Saints-Apôtres à M., ibid., p. 599).

Among the bishops of M. are known Gaianus I, ca. 451; Gaianus II, ca. 458, and Sergius, known from two inscriptions, one of 578-79 and the other of 595-96.

Enrico Joni