Two pieces of linen with a latin inscription from the Biblical and Oriental Museum of Leon

Abstract

The present article is a study of two linen fabrics that have an inscription in cursive Latin of very high interest. Both tissues are preserved in the Biblical and Oriental Museum of Leon and have an uncertain origin. The two pieces, which are decontextualized, have the same measure, 17 cm wide and 34 cm high. The text is Christian but has certain gaps. It is a repeated invocation to Jesus, who presents Him as the Beginning and the End of all, and qualifies Him repeatedly as Holy. These attributes are proper to God (Apocalypse 1,4; 1,8; 4,8), and being assigned to Jesus, seem to deny the human nature of Christ, which makes us think of a text of heretical character with a clear relationship with Monarchianism or Sabellianism (II-III centuries AD). Sabellianism spread through Libya and Egypt from the third century onwards, which can approximate the text dating between the third and fifth centuries. A technical analysis of both the linen and the ink in which papyrus remains have been found entangled, was performed, indicating that it comes from a workshop in which linen or papyrus was made indistinctly, something that was common in the workshops of Egyptian craftsmen. A textual analysis was also performed enhancing the links with some passages of Apocalypse.