Microsoft Word - Cadwall.doc Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 48 (2008) 319–338 © 2008 GRBS The Reverend Dr. John Luke and the Churches of Chonai Alan Cadwallader HE CHURCH of St. Michael at Chonai in south-west Turkey was one of the most famous pilgrimage centres through the entire Byzantine period.1 “Chonai” was a successor name2 and was repeatedly cited in direct connection with the ancient site of Colossae—its name “from of old”—by Byzantine writers.3 Their references convey no sense of sep- arate revival or displacement such as has become a common- place among contemporary interpreters. Modern authors have been influenced to a significant extent by nineteenth-century travellers disappointed by the impoverished remains of what they took as Colossae and by its (3 km) distance from the town of Honaz (the modern Turkish derivative of Chonai).4 1 C. Foss, “Pilgrimage in Medieval Asia Minor,” DOP 56 (2002) 129–151, at 131–132. 2 Probably name rather than location; see G. Peers, Subtle Bodies, Represent- ing Angels in Byzantium (Berkeley 2001) 163. It is possible that the name “Chonai” was used parallel with “Colossae” at a popular level for some time before its official adoption. 3 Nic. Chon. Chron. 178.19 (ed. van Dieten), Const. Porph. De them. 3.24 (ed. Pertusi 68.36–37); cf Mich. Chon. Enc.Nic.Chon. 39 (ed. Lampros I 35.28–36.10). One manuscript of the story of the miracle St. Michael of Chonai gives it the title “The Miracle by the Archangel Michael that hap- pened in Chonai in Colossae of Phrygia”: AnalBoll 21 (1902) 396 no. 3. Early modern writers brought the two together; see for example C. Stengel, S. Michaelis Archangeli principatus, apparitiones, templa cultus & miracula (Augsburg 1649) 209. J. Bonfrère claimed that Chonai was the vernacular (vulgo) name for Colossae: Onomasticon urbium et locorum Sacrae Scripturae (Amsterdam 1711) 232. 4 See A. Cadwallader and M. Trainor, “The Rise and Fall of the Euro- pean Recovery of the Ancient Site of Colossae,” in International Symposium on the History and Culture of Denizli and its Surroundings (Denizli 2007) II 73–79. T 320 JOHN LUKE AND THE CHURCHES OF CHONAI It is clear however that in the twelfth century Chonai was a vibrant urban centre able to sustain a huge multitude of travel- lers, merchants, and pilgrims. There had been a rapid recovery from the vicissitudes of Turkish ambitions that had beset the city and its central symbolic focus in its recent history.5 The magnificent church of St. Michael the Archangel6 and the salvific reputation of its icon7 and nearby holy waters annually welcomed an immense panegyris—long established as the 6th September.8 One of its most famous literary and ecclesiastical sons, Michael Choniates (ca. 1140–1220), when he was Arch- bishop of Athens,9 waxed eloquent in an encomium on the life of Metropolitan Nicetas (“the eunuch”) of Chonai about the numbers and range of peoples that attended. He claimed all the while that he was not embellishing the facts of the matter (95 [I 56.12–18 Lampros]): There is in the general area related to the sanctuary and the miracles associated with it a festal gathering and it is a hugely attended celebration, indeed massively populated.10 For it at- 5 John Scylitzes Hist. 2.686–687 (PG 122.413D–416A). 6 Even allowing that the church was given an elaborate description (such as by Choniates Chron. 178.19) according to the developed rhetorical topos of the time, the sheer prominence of both church and cult in pilgrim stories, e.g. Vit.Laz.Gal. 6–8, 29 (ed. R. P. H. Greenfield, The Life of Lazaros of Mt. Galesion [Washington 2000]), Vit.Pet.Atr. 13.20 (ed. E. V. Laurent, La vie merveilleuse de Saint Pierre d’Atroa [Brussels 1956]), suggests that a sizeable mea- sure of reality undergirded the description; see Helen Saradi, “The Kallos of the Byzantine City: The Development of a Rhetorical Topos and Historical Reality,” Gesta 34 (1995) 37–56, at 47. 7 Vit.Cyr.Phil. 18 (ed. Sargologos). There is also a suggestion that a famous wonder-working cross might be part of the miraculous paraphernalia of the cultic centre: J. and B. Hamilton, Christian Dualist Heresies in the Byzantine World (Manchester 1998) 218 n.10. 8 Already in the Menologion of Basil II. See also the numerous references in A. Ehrhard, Überlieferung und Bestand der hagiographischen und homiletischen Literatur der griechischen Kirche I–III (Leipzig 1937–1952). 9 For a brief overview of his life, see Kenneth M. Setton, “A Note on Michael Choniates, Archbishop of Athens (1182–1204),” Speculum 21 (1946) 234–236. 10 The text is in fact a little in dispute as to how many times πολυάν- θρωπος occurs. Whatever the case, Michael’s repetition is clearly intended for stylistic as well as descriptive effect. There may be a compounded ALAN CADWALLADER 321 tracts, and this without exaggeration, all the neighbouring cities and yet more from further afield: Lydians and also Ionians, Carians and Pamphylians and Lycians, even those from among the barbarian Iconians, for the sake of selling and buying. The annual panegyris however was not the only time that pil- grims, merchants, and travellers were drawn to the city and made use of its provisions. Clive Foss reflected upon how pilgrims would be accommo- dated, a practical consideration related to attendance at such a site, but restricted his observations to a brief illumination pro- vided in one text.11 He suggests however that huge numbers of business people established themselves for the trade fairs on the “ancient site of Kolossai”12 (presumably the hüyük west of the traditional site of the remains of the church of St. Michael). Although this carries a trace of the old axiom of scholarship that divides Colossae and Chonai, it does recognise the sheer enormity of the task of accommodating the influx. Com- parative archaeological evidence suggests that a massive urban infrastructure would have been necessary to sustain this traffic, one that probably encroached significantly on and changed the features of the former classical layout of the city.13 One further observation of Foss tends to confirm and com- plicate this sketch of the extent and importance of Chonai in the mid-to-late Byzantine period. With the incursions of Arab marauders from the east in the seventh century, the centre of defensive operations and its administrative underpinnings necessarily swung away from the eastern Mediterranean seaboard on the western line of Asia Minor. The Byzantine theme or province of Thrakesion supplanted the older Phrygia ___ stylistic intent through an allusive comparison, given that the word πολυ- άνθρωπος had become the standard descriptor for a πανήγυρις: Lucian Peregr. 1, Greg. Naz. Or. 32.1, schol. Pind. Ol. 6.111c. 11 Foss, DOP 56 (2002) 148. 12 Foss, “Chonai,” ODB I (1991) 427. 13 See T. Lewit, “Stories in the Ground: Settlement Remains and Ar- chaeology as Narrative in the Fourth- to Sixth-Century Eastern Mediter- ranean,” in J. Burke et al. (eds.), Byzantine Narrative: Papers in Honour of Roger Scott (Melbourne 2006) 475–480, at 478–479. 322 JOHN LUKE AND THE CHURCHES OF CHONAI Pacatiana in which Colossae/Chonai had been a “listed city.”14 Thrakesion covered a larger expanse of territory and was de- signed to facilitate bureaucratic and military control over river valleys and the Mediterranean coastline to the south and west. Foss advanced the importance of Chonai for the theme, initially speculating and then more confidently asserting that Chonai not Ephesus was its bastion and probably the capital.15 It is the intent of this essay to review and supplement the evi- dence that undergirds this assertion. Foss relied on the texts of Arab geographers, most especially the synthetic collection in the Geographical Gazetteer of Yacut (1224), who distinguished between the name of the city, Qâniyûs, and the name given to the fortress, al-Wârithûn. Foss was undoubtedly correct in seeing the former as the early form that yields modern “Honaz,” just as Yacut’s Kuniya (for Iconium) yields modern Konya. Yacut himself acknowledged that the spelling of the names of places was fluid and that some changes had occurred.16 Even during the burgeoning Euro- pean contact with the site, the spelling of the name varied considerably (Khonos, Chonai, Khonas, etc). J. A. Cramer, for example, provides the alternative “Khonas or Kanassi,”17 and a bibliophile and traveler in the area in 1841, Francis C. Brooke, recorded the name as Khonasis in his journal.18 The differences may reflect the legacy of an ongoing mixed pop- ulation of Turks and Greeks in the area or a tenacious survival of different forms even in the local dominant tongue. The significance of the city for the theme may also be 14 C. Foss, “Archaeology and the ‘Twenty Cities’ of Byzantine Asia,” AJA 81 (1977) 469–486 (repr. History and Archaeology of Byzantine Asia Minor [Hampshire 1990] II), at 471. 15 Foss, ODB 427, and Ephesus after Antiquity (Cambridge 1979) 195–196; he is supported, more by way of summary than by any additional demon- stration, by E. Kountoura et al., Asia Minor and Its Themes [in Greek] (Athens 1998) 223. 16 E. W. Brooks, “Arabic Lists of the Byzantine Themes,” JHS 21 (1901) 66–77, at 74 and 77. 17 J. A. Cramer, A Geographical and Historical Description of Asia Minor (Ox- ford 1832) II 45. 18 F. C. Brooke, BL [= British Library] Add MS. 62144, f. 299b. ALAN CADWALLADER 323 inferred from the description of the administrative regions by Constantine Porphyrogenitus. When he lists the cities of Thra- kesion he blithely rattles off the requisite names but when he comes to the twelfth, Chonai, he not only pauses to give its alternate ancient name (Colossae) but also takes time to add a further description, thereby underscoring the city’s significance for him, beyond others in the list: “Colossae the place now called Chonai, where there is a famous shrine of the archangel Michael.”19 The conjunction of religious and civic admini- stration on matters of imperial control and organization is a constant accent of Speros Vryonis;20 it is particularly evident in a reference to the iconoclastic collaboration of church and state focused at Chonai in 819 mentioned in a letter of Theodore the Studite.21 I return to the significance of this conjunction below. The theme itself boasted a huge contingent of soldiers. Yacut provided the numbers of soldiers for each of the 14 themes; Thrakesion along with Chaldia (bordering the Pontus) con- tained the largest (10,000 men), others averaging around 4,000–6,000.22 Foss noted that the remains of the fortress at Honaz had never been studied,23 and this has not been cor- rected by the project to survey the array of Turkey’s Byzantine fortresses.24 However, quite apart from a reasonable inference that the bulk of Thrakesion’s troop allocation would have been stationed at Chonai if it was the capital or at least the most important strategic post in the theme, there are indications that the fortress was immense and powerfully placed for the defence of the valley. The Reverend John Hartley, a Church Mission- ary Society member, who accompanied Arundell in 1826, de- scribed the garrison as set on “an almost impregnable rock.”25 19 De them. 3.24 (68.32–40 Pertusi). 20 The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor (Berkeley 1971). 21 Theod. Stud. Ep. 2.63 (PG 99.1282–1284). 22 Brooks, JHS 21 (1901) 73–76. 23 Foss, ODB 427. 24 C. Foss, Byzantine Fortifications: An Introduction (Pretoria 1986); H. Barnes and M. Whittow “The Survey of Medieval Castles of Anatolia (1992–96),” in R. Matthews (ed.), Ancient Anatolia (London 1998) 347–358. 25 However, he described the fortress as a “Turkish fortification,” which may be an indication not of its construction but its continued use: Researches 324 JOHN LUKE AND THE CHURCHES OF CHONAI Although the current unexcavated remains of the fortress can only give a hint of its dimensions, there are some other frag- ments of evidence that point to its dominance of the slopes of Honazdagh (Mt. Cadmus). In a detailed work on the geog- raphy and history of Asia Minor in 1832, another English trav- eler and academic, J. A. Cramer, noted that the ruins of the fortress can be traced along the contour of the mountainous slope for nearly a mile.26 This coheres with the dramatic etch- ing in Pitton de Tournefort’s 1718 publication27 which is far less “ruinous” in its representation than that recorded 100 years later by the etcher (L. Haghe) for the travel account of another Levant Company chaplain, Francis Arundell.28 Even so, Arundell’s fortress is far more extensive in its remains than at the present day. Indeed, it appears that the vast garrison sur- vived in secure and reasonably habitable integrity at least into the mid-eighteenth century. Robert “Palmyra” Wood, who passed through the area in 1750–1751, wrote in his diary that the castle had been “made famous by Solibey Ogle.”29 This rebel aga, Soley Bey (killed in 1739), is recorded by a number of European travelers to the area around the time as having armed the fortress with eleven cannons30 and having used the arsenal as the base for his men and the spring of their in- cursions. The ardent Irish traveler, the Venerable (later Bishop) Richard Pococke, wrote that his following numbered 4000,31 ___ in Greece and the Levant (London 1833) 265. 26 Cramer, Geographical and Historical Description II 45. 27 P. de Tournefort, Relation d’un voyage du Levant (Amsterdam 1718), plate facing p.320. I am grateful to my colleague Dr. Michael Trainor for this reference. 28 F. V. J. Arundell, A Visit to the Seven Churches of Asia Minor (London 1828), sketch facing p.164. 29 Entry 28th September 1750: R. Wood, “Journals” 1750, F67, MS. held by Joint Library of the Hellenic and Roman Societies, University of Lon- don. 30 R. Pococke, Description of the East (London 1745) II 78; R. Chandler, Travels in Asia Minor and Greece3 (London 1817) 240. T. Milner appears to have repeated their reports: History of the Seven Churches of Asia (London 1832) 357. 31 Pococke, Description II 69. ALAN CADWALLADER 325 no mean force to accommodate. Of some significance in assessing the size of the fortress is Richard Chandler’s comment that within the walls of the castle lay a church.32 His report is based on the Latin diary of An- tonio Picenini who in 1705 passed through the area with the British consul of the Levant Company at Smyrna, William Sherard, and a number of others.33 Picenini reckoned that there were about 40 Greek families at Honaz under the care of a priest supplied from Cyprus.34 The remains of the church are still clear on the slopes of Honazdagh, and the building, though now separated a little from the visible remains of the fortress, is still called the kilise (church) by the local inhabitants. It is clearly of Byzantine form though its precise date is undetermined at present. Whether this was a church of St. Panteleemon at Co- lossae mentioned in a letter written in 1826 by a local Greek inhabitant to Francis Arundell is unclear.35 The publisher John Murray’s 1895 Handbook to Asia Minor even suggested that the church in the castle above “Khonae” was the Church of St. Michael.36 Arundell has never been accused of accuracy in his topographical descriptions and, in wanting to prove the ver- acity of Herodotus’ mention (7.30) of a subterranean interrup- tion to the visible flow of the Lycus River at Colossae, he seems to have mistaken the meaning of a letter from a Greek in- habitant of Denizli as referring to the river.37 However, the 32 Chandler, Travels 240. 33 See BL Add 6269 f. 38. 34 Cf. also Hartley, Researches 264. 35 Arundell, Seven Churches 318–319. 36 Maj. Gen. Sir C. Wilson (ed.), Handbooks for Travellers: Asia Minor (Lon- don 1895) 105. The Handbook is either confused—it also asserts that the ruins of the church “can still be seen East of Colossae” “on the right bank of the Lycus”—or suggesting a second church of St. Michael. In 1874, the Rev. Edmund Davis described it as “a deserted mosque”; this may be an indication of its alternate use or simply be a mistake. Davis’ eye, as revealed in his sketch of the “Style of a Tombstone at Colossa,” was decidedly English. Perhaps his ability to perceive a Byzantine formation was also eth- nocentrically restricted. 37 Arundell includes both the Greek text of the letter and a translation: Seven Churches 318–320. His understanding of the text is shown in his Discov- eries in Asia Minor (London 1834) I 179. 326 JOHN LUKE AND THE CHURCHES OF CHONAI letter nowhere equates St. Panteleemon with a river and in fact suggests that it may be connected with another holy site—men- tioning a massive rock above St. Panteleemon at Mt. Cadmus, with two caves over which inscriptions had been carved.38 The connection of such a church with a nearby miracle-working spring would not be unusual, given that the saint’s particular beneficence lay in healing,39 and that churches dedicated to him had gained imperial support through Justinian’s example (Procop. Aed. 1.9.11.). Arundell assiduously conveyed the reports of three churches in the vicinity,40 and Hartley transmitted a report from the local Greek population of the remains of a monastery ded- icated to the holy taxiarch St. Michael41 though this may have been a confusion with the traditional remains of the great church. The recovery of a long-forgotten manuscript now extends this list threefold. Accordingly, Foss’s thesis about the importance of Chonai in the Byzantine period has one further crucial piece of corroboration to add to the textual and artefactual material surveyed so far. To this we turn. In the second half of the seventeenth century, European interest in “the seven churches of Asia Minor” received a con- siderable boost from the curiosity and initiative of members involved in commercial and diplomatic ventures at Smyrna and Constantinople. Credit is usually given to the Reverend Dr. Thomas Smith (1638–1710), who was the chaplain to the English Levant Company at Constantinople for almost three years (1668–1671).42 Chaplains were appointed to serve the religious and moral needs of members of the company. The role was none too arduous. A number began to gain confidence from accumulated European knowledge of the environment 38 Arundell, Seven Churches 319–320. 39 See G. Vikan, “Art, Medicine and Magic in Early Byzantium” DOP 38 (1984) 65–86, at 65. 40 Arundell, Discoveries 169–170. 41 Hartley, Researches 49. A very similar reference occurs in Arundell, Dis- coveries 179. 42 He is called “the father of the Apocalyptic travellers” by William Flem- ing, A Gazetteer of the Old and New Testaments (Edinburgh 1838) 194. ALAN CADWALLADER 327 and astuteness in dealing with Ottoman practices to allow their time to be spent exploring antiquities that abounded in the area.43 “Tograi” Smith, as he was sometimes called when he returned to Oxford University, published first a Latin (1672) and then in 1678 a slightly curtailed English compilation of his travels, Remarks upon the Manners, Religion and Government of the Turks. Together with a Survey of the Seven Churches of Asia as they now lye in their Ruines: and a Brief Description of Constantinople. He ac- knowledged that the “pious zeal and a justly commendable curiousity” of predecessors had carved the general lines of his exploration and focus,44 although he was caustic in his personal criticisms of some of their published work.45 Smith himself had visited Colossae, but his report was distinctly unfavourable. His description has been taken as the first European insight into the city, and it substantially coloured subsequent assessments (249): Colosse, by the Turks called Chonos, is situated very high upon a hill, the plains under it very pleasant; but we were no sooner entered into it, but we thought fit to leave it; the inhabitants being a vile sort of people; so that we doubted of our safety among them. There still remain some poor Christians notwith- standing those horrid abuses they are forced to endure: but with- out any Church or Priest: poor miserable Greeks, who amidst that ignorance and oppression they labour under, retain the profession of Christianity still, though they have forgotten their own language and speak only Turkish. Smith says that he made a hasty retreat, which doubtless un- dermines the surety of most of his assessments. Curiously, the wording of his account of this part of his 1671 journey is virtually identical to that recorded by Jerome Salter in his unpublished journal. Salter was a “factor” (merchant) of the Levant Company for a number of years and joined many of the expeditions launched from Smyrna to ancient sites. Salter 43 “more went out under the impulse of that great interest in the classical world and its antiquities which animated successive generations bred up in the culture of Greece and Rome”: A. C. Wood, A History of the Levant Com- pany (Oxford 1935) 224. 44 Remarks (London 1678) 206. 45 S. P. Anderson, An English Consul in Turkey: Paul Rycaut at Smyrna 1667– 1678 (Oxford 1989) 220–221. 328 JOHN LUKE AND THE CHURCHES OF CHONAI (also) wrote “we thought fit to leave it doubting of our safety amongst those barefoot of people.”46 His experience (and per- haps that of Smith) doubtless influenced the plans of later trav- ellers, who were content to discover what they could from the seemingly safer quarters of neighbouring Denizli. One of those travellers, the Reverend Doctor John Luke (1633/4–1702), has frequently been confused as having fol- lowed Smith’s visit, since he is described in a later publication by one consul, Sir Paul Rycaut, as an enjoyable companion and useful assistant.47 Certainly George Wheler’s 1682 work gives credit to this chaplain for raising the “Devotions” of many of the merchants at Smyrna to support and join with himself and the Levant Company consul in their autumnal expeditions.48 Luke appears to have supplied Rycaut with ma- terial from his own journals for at least one of his books49—this may explain why the journals have had little exposure.50 Luke in fact served two terms as Chaplain to the Levant Company in Smyrna (1664–1669 and 1674–1683).51 The end of the first ap- pointment is of most interest to us. The Reverend Dr. John Luke had added a knowledge of 46 “A Brief Relation of the Travels of Jerom Salter,” held in the Bodleian Library, Eng. Msc. e. 218, f. 67. The journal begins with a date of Sep- tember 1668 but covers travels through to 1680. It is uncertain quite where this particular entry belongs and how to assess the near identity of language between his entry and Smith’s published account. I am grateful to Dr. Marie Turner for her pursuing this manuscript. 47 P. Rycaut, Account of the Greek and Armenian Churches (London 1679) 80. 48 G. Wheler, A Journey to Greece (London 1682) 230. Wheler’s book, as he explains in the preface, was issued in part as a corrective to the book in which he was named as co-author by Jacob Spon, Voyage d’Italie, de Dalmatie, de Grece, et du Levant (Lyon 1678). This however may well be a diversion, as Wheler and Spon fell out over the former’s plagiarism: Anderson, An English Consul 223. 49 Anderson, An English Consul 218. 50 They are mentioned by F. W. Hasluck, “Notes on Manuscripts in the British Museum Relating to Levant Geography and Travel,” BSA 12 (1906) 198–215, at 209–212. 51 J. B. Pearson, A Biographical Sketch of the Chaplains to the Levant Company maintained at Constantinople, Aleppo and Smyrna 1611–1706 (Cambridge 1883) 28. ALAN CADWALLADER 329 Arabic to the traditional intellectual armory of an English gentleman cleric. His journals (BL Harl MS. 7021) are dotted with the Ottoman names for towns, expressions, Osmanli in- scriptions, and the like written in Arabic script.52 His eastern experience and Cambridge connections persuaded the author- ities to make him the fourth holder of the newly created chair in Arabic at the University (1685–1702). Doubtless because the endowment of the chair was insufficient to cover the needs of his many children, he combined this office with the living of the parish of Holy Trinity, Rayleigh (1692–1702).53 P. M. Holt wrote somewhat inaccurately as to the length of his service if not the extent of his ability, that he seemed to have brought little more to the office than “a seven years’ sojourn in Smyrna.”54 Luke left “no recorded impress” according to one historian of the Cambridge school of Arabic;55 a single, strange poem56 written in “Hendecasyllabi Turcici” survives with his name in Genethliacon, an honorific volume for the Duke of Cornwall. A public auction of his library a decade after his death is the last contemporary notice.57 Luke’s journals of his travels are now held in the British Library. Sonia Anderson has recognised that about ten folios of the manuscript were a copy in the hand of Jerome Salter, who was one of the party that included Rycaut and Luke and with whom Luke made a number of other journeys.58 Anderson surmises, correctly in my view, that this supplanted a section of Luke’s journal that was retained by Rycaut for his book on the churches in Turkey. However, she leaves us with the intimation 52 See for example f. 354b (10th Aug. 1670), f. 355 (28th Sept. 1669). 53 R. E. I. Newton, “Rectors of Rayleigh,” Notes and Queries 196 (1951) 407–409. 54 P. M. Holt, “The Study of Arabic Historians in Seventeenth Century England: The Background and the Work of Edward Pococke,” BSOAS 19 (1957) 444–455, at 444. 55 A. J. Arberry, The Cambridge School of Arabic (Cambridge 1948) 13. 56 The judgement is Geoffrey Roper’s: “Arabic Printing and Publishing in England before 1820,” Bulletin of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies 12 (1985) 12–32, at 20. 57 The Guardian March 14, 1712–13. 58 Such as to Colophon, in 1678: BL Add 22910 f. 182. 330 JOHN LUKE AND THE CHURCHES OF CHONAI that this is the sum total of the Luke manuscript related to a 1669–1670 expedition.59 In fact, the hand and ink changes at f. 367, as also the date, and there is a change back to the Salter hand at f. 377, which repeats some of the previous entries. This shifting, and other indications such as the inconsistent chron- ological order and multiple, different page/folio numbers, show that the manuscript has been mined in much earlier times but not systematically collated. This task remains. The folio of great interest for my purposes is the very first of the manuscript as presently ordered (f. 354). It appears to be a page of notes on the recto in Luke’s hand; the verso begins a more recognizable journal, and received the date “Aug 10, 1670” and provided Arabic names for towns in the vicinity of Ephesus. The date on the recto “Oct 26 1669” confirms that the recto as currently numbered was used for notes at another time, for it provides details about “Colosso” hitherto unknown and not recorded in Rycaut’s books. If Rycaut had seen this page, given his desire to describe the Greek and Armenian churches of Turkey, he would have done so. Luke’s notes that show greatest conformity with Rycaut’s Greek and Armenian Churches are dated as January 1668. The discrepancy may be accounted for by recognizing that Rycaut, after he had re- signed his commission and turned to a literary output, simply amalgamated various reports. Certainly however, Luke’s plen- tiful mentions of snow and cold confirm this section of the jour- nal as from a winter journey (an unusual practice). Of interest is a curious “vid. alibi” in the margin to the entry for Sunday January 19 1668 (f. 378r), which reports that time prevented further efforts to explore the Lycus and Laodiceia. The Latin is probably a later scholion referring to folio 360v—in Salter’s hand—which is dated October 12th 1669. The problem is that the journal here places Luke back in his “aboad” on October 18th (f. 362v), that is, before the date given to the notes (that is, f. 354r) dated “Oct 26 1669.” There is a curious introduction to this date on the folio, however, a date which comes after two lines of writing that provide the Arabic spelling of Colossae’s then current names. The introduction opens with Greek Ανθω 59 Anderson, An English Consul 218, listing folios 357–367. ALAN CADWALLADER 331 and adds the word “speaks.” Whether this was a self-conscious literary allusion60 or the (abbreviated?) name of a correspon- dent is unknown. The “pappas” (priest) at Denizli had, with a number of Greeks, earlier that season welcomed the party into a wedding celebration whilst they stayed there (f. 377v). Folio 354 begins with two related names for Colosso used by the Turks. The following is my hand copy of Luke’s rendering: These related forms of the name are Haunah and Hunaz, the forerunners of today’s “Honaz,” and were derived from the Greek word for “funnel(s)” (χώνη/χῶναι).61 The variability in form resembles the variations in spelling and structure that later travellers recorded, as seen above. In this paragraph, Luke also notes that there are thirty families of Greeks in the town. Following the parenthesised “Ανθω speaks Oct 26 1669,” Luke briefly records in Greek (using the genitive) the names of ten churches located at Colossae/Chonai. Two are noted as “kept in repair”: that of the Panhagia (that is, the Blessed Virgin) and that of St. Constantine (that is, the Great). Eight other churches are recorded as in ruins: Sts. George, Theo- dore, Catherine, Michael the Archangel, Panteleemon, De- metrios, John, and a second Panhagia. To this list are added two further notes. The first, that there are “More ruins in Hierapolis than Colosso,” which is probably a general state- ment rather than an indication of more churches or more ruins of the churches that remain. The second notes “No Pappas resident in Col. Except for a time from Philadelphia.” The ab- sence of a priest did not however mean the end of the church. 60 Plut. Rom. 3. 61 Sometimes the masculine χῶνος occurs. The punning on the name is a prominent part of Chonai’s most famous story, the Miracle of St. Michael the Archistrategos, in two of its retellings: the anonymous Narration and Reve- lation of our holy father Archippos 12, and Simeon Metaphrastes’ The Story of the Wonder that Happened with the Archistrategos Michael in Chonas 8: in M. Bonnet, Narratio de Miraculo a Michaele Archangelo Chonis Patrato (Paris 1890). The pun was retained in the summary entry of the late-tenth/early-eleventh century Menologion of Basil II (PG 117.33D). 332 JOHN LUKE AND THE CHURCHES OF CHONAI The continued operation and maintenance of these churches would have been enabled by an epitropos or steward.62 He was probably authorised from Smyrna to maintain votive prayers and offerings to various saints presented through icons in these churches; in the Chonai churches, these would include at least icons of the All-holy Theotokos and of Holy Constantine—and of course the epitropos collected the material support that en- abled such offerings to be made. The significance of this list of churches cannot be over- estimated. It confirms in substantial measure Foss’s thesis about the importance of Chonai in the political and ecclesial ad- ministration of the Byzantine empire. Ten churches point to a substantial population at some period. Chonai became an archbishopric around 850,63 probably a reward (and protec- tion) for returning to the iconophile fold64 as well as a recog- nition of its growing strategic importance. A metropolitanate followed in the next century,65 and the Choniates brothers both testify to the importance and size of the city (even allowing for rhetorical flourish).66 Accordingly, the demographic justifica- tion for such a number of churches can certainly be found in the period from the ninth to the twelfth centuries; the ninth, as Clive Foss has noted, was “a time of reorganisation and ex- pansion.”67 Whether this general date for the importance of Chonai can be pushed earlier is harder to discern from the scant textual evidence available, although the first notice of a conjoined name (that is, Colossae-Chonai) comes from the 62 Daniel Colnaghi, who accompanied Charles Newton on a number of his archaeological expeditions in Lycia and Miletus in the 1850s, reported briefly on the operations of such an epitropos. See his manuscript “Travels in Levant,” BL Add 59502, f. 162. 63 Life of Ignatius, PG 105.516B. 64 Cf. M. Kaplan, “Les saints en pèlerinage à l’époque mésobyzantine,” DOP 56 (2002) 109–127, at 124. 65 K. Belke and N. Mersich, Phrygien und Pisidien (DenkschrWien 211 [1990]) 133. 66 Nic. Chon. Chron. 178.19; Michael Chon. quoted 320 above. 67 C. Foss, “The Survey of Medieval Castles of Anatolia, 1982–1984,” in Matthews, Ancient Anatolia 359–366, at 363. ALAN CADWALLADER 333 eighth century.68 Foss’s extensive work on the medieval fortifi- cations of Anatolia has demonstrated that the seventh into the eighth century was a period of severe recession.69 Nearby to Chonai, the city of Hierapolis “shrank to no more than a vil- lage.”70 Whether Chonai was as adversely affected cannot at present be concluded. Certainly the growth of prosperity in the Maeander and Lycus valleys in subsequent centuries saw Cho- nai’s importance, in conjunction with other factors, enhanced far beyond its radiant neighbour. Its importance as a critical pilgrimage destination (and station on the journey to Jerusa- lem) has been clearly demonstrated.71 Its housing of a signifi- cant military force is highly probable, and now we see an ex- pansive list of churches. These three groups of evidence testify to a sizeable demographic, the necessity for a large urban infra- structure. It remains to test the members of Luke’s list. John Luke, along with the members of his party, showed repeated interest in the churches of the cities and towns they visited. Rycaut himself noted:72 St George the Cappadocian is in like manner highly reverenced by this People, there being scarce a Town where are two Churches, but one of them is dedicated to this Saint, of whom they recount many and various tales; and what is most strange they believe them all. Similarly, all of the church dedications in Luke’s list are well known throughout the Byzantine Empire. The manuscript now independently corroborates that the letter to Arundell from his Greek correspondent refers to the church of St. Panteleemon, not a christianized name of the river Lycus! The church of St. Michael the Archangel is well attested from an early period.73 68 M. le Quien, Oriens Christianus (Paris 1740) I 816 (Mansi XII 148D), Χωνῶν ἤτοι Κολοσσῶν. 69 See for example Foss, Byzantine Fortifications 131–132. 70 Barnes and Whittow, in Matthews, Ancient Anatolia 349. 71 Foss, DOP 56 (2002) 129–151; Kaplan, DOP 56 (2002) 120; A. W. Carr, “Icons and the Object of Pilgrimage in Middle Byzantine Constan- tinople,” DOP 56 (2002) 75–92, at 76. 72 Rycaut, Account 145. 73 Theod. Cyr. Comm.Ep.Col. 2.18 (PG 82.613B, cf. 620D–621A). 334 JOHN LUKE AND THE CHURCHES OF CHONAI James Skedros claims that the shrine of St. Michael contained a miraculous icon of the Mother of God.74 I have, however, been unable to find any warrant in Byzantine writings for this assertion. The icon venerated by St. Cyril Phileotes is quite clearly that of the archangel.75 Moreover, the icon of the miracle of St. Michael of Chonai held in the Belgrade National Museum is especially significant in this regard. The familiar large church fronted by Archippos is presented in such a way as, unusually, to highlight an icon of the very archangel who, outside the shrine, is engineering the famous rescue of the site from flood waters.76 This is not to assert that Chonai was bereft of an icon of the All-holy Virgin. Indeed the evidence of de- votion to her is ubiquitous in the empire and she is frequently combined with all the saints mentioned in John Luke’s list.77 Luke’s list, whilst sufficiently varied (e.g. two to the Virgin) to overrule any suggestion that a stereotypical compilation has occurred, yet is thoroughly “Byzantine” in the churches’ dedi- cations. There may be one further piece of evidence. A Byzantine in- scription in the area was found in house-steps at Honaz early in the twentieth century. William Calder reasonably presumed it to be from Colossae though no information about its precise original location is known.78 The inscription was cut on a piece of decorated marble cornice inverted and therefore apparently appropriated from an older (and important) building.79 The in- 74 J. C. Skedros, “Shrines, Festivals, and the ‘Undistinguished Mob’,” in D. Krueger (ed.), Byzantine Christianity (Minneapolis 2006) 81–101, at 91. 75 Vit.Cyr.Phil. 18.1 (p.94 Sargologos). 76 M. Tatić-Djurić, Image of the Angels, transl. G. H. Genzel and H. Rosen- wald (Vaduz 1962), plate facing p.56. Here is not the space to explore the significance of this icon. 77 See as but one example an invocation to both the Theotokos and St. Panteleemon in one seventh/eighth century inscription from Thrace: A. Dumont and T. Homolle, Mélanges d’archéologie et d’épigraphie (Paris 1892) 62. 78 MAMA VI 49 with pl. 10.49. 79 There was a significant destruction of pagan temples in many parts of the empire in 408, the culmination of a series of decisions adverse to even minor pagan memorialisations: W. M. Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia (Oxford 1897) II 551. ALAN CADWALLADER 335 scription was published in MAMA VI in 1939, but Calder’s 1933 notebook records that the house at Honaz also held the right-angle continuation of the cornice of approximately the same length (that is, just over a metre).80 The stone is no longer known to be extant. Calder assigned no date, simply recording it as “re-used upside down in Byzantine days.”81 The relatively unadorned simplicity and use of curvilinear shapes in the letter forms indicate a date in the fifth or sixth century.82 Calder regarded it as a complete iambic line, though other scansion is possible. As minimally reconstructed, it reads τῷ φερονύμῳ τῶν θείων δωρημ[άτων, “for the one well-named from the divine gifts.” Implicitly the use of verse in an in- scription, however short, adds a gravity and importance,83 though stone-cutters frequently worked mechanically from established formulae.84 The quality of the stone (even though re-used), the dedication in verse, and the lexicographical choices indicate the significance attached to the function of the stone. Indeed, there may even be a suggestion of triumphal 80 See my “Revisiting Calder on Colossae,” AnatSt 56 (2006) 103–111, at 106. 81 MAMA VI p.18. 82 Compare the letter forms with those similarly dated to the fifth or sixth century in D. Feissel, Recueil des inscriptions chrétiennes de Macédoine (Athens 1983) nos. 14, 24, 40, 51 (with plates), and the cruder but nevertheless com- parable letter forms of a brief “place of Theodore” inscription from Aphrodisias dated in the period late fourth to sixth century (C. Roueché, Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity [Leeds 1989] 192, pl. xlii). Foss (History and Archaeology II.484 n.83), initially at least, considered the inscription either “late-antique” or Byzantine, but the evidence and arguments presented here fully support a late-antique ascription. One inscription from Hisarköy (Amorium) of similar lithographic style bears a date (= 591/2): MAMA VI 386; cf. IGLSyrie II 654 (= 395). It is unlikely, given the lack of embellished forms, to be later; indeed some of the letter forms are known on Roman inscriptions: see D. French, Roman, Late Roman and Byzantine Inscriptions of Ankara (Ankara 2003) nos. 24, 32, 70. 83 J. Strubbe, “Cursed be he who moves my bones,” in C. A. Faraone and D. Obbink (eds.), Magika Hiera (New York 1991) 33–59, at 41. A longer metrical inscription is known from Colossae: JHS 18 (1898) 90, no. 26. 84 A. Petrie, “Epitaphs in Phrygian Greek,” in W. Ramsay (ed.), Studies in the History and Art of the Eastern Provinces (London 1906) 119–134, at 134. 336 JOHN LUKE AND THE CHURCHES OF CHONAI overturning of the pagan past of the stone.85 The phrase θεῖα δωρήματα “divine gifts” clearly indicates an ecclesial or monas- tic setting86 and, in the context of a highly decorated, fine piece of marble, suggests either that the stone itself was part of a specific offering or that it participated in a larger construction. Calder took the line as referring “to St. Theodoros or St. Dorotheos or to some man or building named after either.” It would seem that the combination of elements (metre, language, type and decoration of stone) alerted Calder to the allusive punning involved in θεῖα δωρήματα. Whilst the conjunction of these words or cognates (in singular or plural) can occur without any punning or allusion being intended, the use of φερόνυμος87 shows that in this case it was. A number of those named Theodore and Theodora prompted such verbal play,88 but the probable date of this inscription is significant. The “holy great-martyr St. Theodore,” “the Recruit,” had figured prominently in a post-mortem appearance to bring about respite in Constantinople from the ravages of Julian the Apostate. He had quickly thereafter become eulogized by a succession of writers. Consistently but variously, the name was broken into its etymological derivatives that played with the evocation of the gift of God. Archbishop Nectarius of Constan- tinople (d. 397) in a panegyric for an already-established feast- day of St. Theodore (fixed later as February 17th) described him “as truly a gift of God (θεοῦ δῶρον), given (δωρηθέντα) for the salvation of our faith.”89 A much later kontakion falsely at- 85 For a detailed exposition of the re-use of stone to reinforce an ideology rather than mere material pragmatics, see J. Moralee, “The Stones of St. Theodore: Disfiguring the Pagan Past in Christian Gerasa,” JECS 14 (2006) 183–215, 208 on the upturning of stones as one technique of the display of Christian triumph (though here of an upturned, inscribed bomos). 86 See, for example, Didym. Caec. Fr. in Ps. 886.11 (ed. Mühlenberg). 87 For φερώνυμος. Although this is the only instance of the orthography for this word that I know, the change of ω to ο is a familiar epigraphical habit in the Byzantine period. See Feissel, Recueil p.275. 88 E.g., Feissel, Recueil p.65 (on the punning in a fifth-sixth century in- scription for an abbess, Theodora); ὄντως θεοῦ δώρημα (of Theodore II Lascaris) in Niceph. Blem. Ad Ioh. 2.115 (p.119 Heisenberg). 89 Nectarius De festo S. Theod. 11 (PG 39.1829C). ALAN CADWALLADER 337 tributed to the sixth-century Romanos the Melode interwove a similar etymological punning: δώρημα θεῖον δεδώρησαι, τὸν γενναῖον τοῖς ἄθλοις Θεόδωρον, “because you have given the divine gift, the noble Theodore, to those who struggle.”90 It is clear that such pietistic punning was alive in the fourth to sixth centuries and continued thereafter. It found its way as readily into stone as onto vellum.91 Although Calder was judiciously cautious in his suggestion, in the light of John Luke’s reference, we are invited a little more confidently to rec- ognise that, in the early Byzantine period, a church dedicated to St. Theodore probably existed at Colossae/Chonai. To be sure, Calder’s caution must be kept in mind, but Luke’s manu- script increases the probability that in this re-used marble cor- nice we have a record of a church dedicated to St. Theodore, not St. Dorothy or some person named after either. This is all the corroborative pieces of evidence I can find for the list in Luke’s journal. The churches of Sts. Michael, Pan- teleemon, and Theodore have some independent corrobora- tion in text, icon, and material artefact. The remaining seven, all hitherto unknown, simply cohere with familiar Byzantine dedications. For my purpose of arguing for Foss’s promotion of the importance of Chonai in the mid-late Byzantine period, John Luke’s list is an important piece of evidence to add to the references surveyed above. It is worth comparing the numbers of churches found in other ancient cities visited in the seven- teenth century. Space precludes a detailed analysis, though it is perhaps significant that Luke himself was interested in just this question as he moved around sites of interest. He noted St. Mark’s, St. John’s, St. Paul’s, and a “Pantolomonia,” plus other unnamed ruins at Ephesus (f. 359r), one church at Sardis (362r); at Pergamum he found St. Sophia “turned into a Turkish 90 Cant. 82 “On St. Theodore II” strophe 1.2: P. Maas and C. A. Try- panis, Sancti Romani Melodi Cantica: Cantica Dubia (Berlin 1970) 156, who de- scribe the canticle as a dull, drawn-out hagiography of inferior quality. 91 A sixth-century votive inscription from Paphlagonia plays with “the city of Theodore” (a designation that apparently existed long before its official naming) by declaring θεῖον ναὸν δωροῦμαι: G. Doublet, BCH 13 (1889) 294; the editor makes no mention of the pun in his commentary (297–298). 338 JOHN LUKE AND THE CHURCHES OF CHONAI Moschita,” St. John and St. Nicholas in ruins, another very large church plus one more that was still used by the Greek population (363v–364r); at Iconium the church of Soteria was then a mosque but he found also a church of Sts. Amphilochius and Paul (397). Needless to say this is less than a thorough sur- vey. Today, archaeological excavations have credited Ephesus as having more than twenty churches (although this includes chapels in its number).92 The argument however does not rest on comparative pre- cision. Rather, it simply affirms that in the late seventeenth century, a European traveller found or was told of ten churches at Chonai compared with nothing like that number (apart from Ephesus) in other ancient sites he visited or enquired about. Even with allowance for some decline of Chonai in the middle Ottoman period,93 the legacy of its Byzantine prominence re- mained in both memory and material legacy. An early chap- lain of the Levant Company at Smyrna has therefore overcome the ignominy of negative assessments of his Arabic to provide a crucial piece of corroboration for the thesis of Clive Foss that Chonai occupied an eminent place in the Thrakesion theme of Byzantine administration.94 April, 2008 School of Theology Flinders University Adelaide SA 5001, Australia Alan.Cadwallader@flinders.edu.au 92 P. Scherrer, “The City of Ephesos: From the Roman Period to Late Antiquity,” in H. Koester, Ephesos, Metropolis of Asia (Valley Forge 1995) 1– 25, at 23. 93 L. T. Erder and S. Faroqhi on the basis of an analysis of Osmanli tax registers estimate that there were 400–999 taxpayers in Honaz, which on their reckoning makes for a population of between 1200–1600 and 3000– 4000.: “The Development of the Anatolian Urban Network during the Six- teenth Century,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 23 (1980) 265–303, at 273. 94 Research for this essay was assisted by Small Grant from Flinders Uni- versity and the generous support of the Society of the Sacred Mission. I am grateful for comments on a draft made by Dr. Michael Trainor and the anonymous reader and the editor of the journal.