Epigrams on Works of Art 189Jewish extraction in the Old Testament epigrams. The subject of the Gentiles,
the non-believers, is clearly of great concern to the poet. In a most unusual
epigram he explains why this is the case: no. 63 (on Hagar)
\Ex ™qn0n kaò èAgarº t5 dê 4ggeloß; Ñ t5 tñ Œdzr;
™x ™qn0n kaò ™gwº toÊneken o¾da t1de.“Hagar, too, is of the Gentiles. But what is the angel? Or what is the water?
I, too, am of the Gentiles, therefore I know these things”. The second verse
comes as a great surprise. As far as I know, there are no other examples of
Byzantine poets claiming to be one of the Gentiles. In a Christian context, this
curious confession can mean only one thing: the poet was born into a family of
pagans. Since he evidently was a true believer when he wrote this epigram, he
had been converted to the Christian faith and had been baptized later in life.
It is absolutely impossible to tell what form of religion he adhered to prior to
his conversion. Was he a pagan pre-Islamic Arab (as the reference to Hagar
possibly indicates), a Zoroastrian, one of the few heathens who still worshipped
the ancient gods, a Manichaean or a Gnostic?
The epigram refers to the well-known story of Hagar, the slave of Sarah
and concubine of Abraham, who, heavily pregnant, fled to a nearby water well
because she could no longer stand the sly harassments of her jealous mistress.
There the angel of God appeared to her and told her that she should return to
her former servitude. He comforted her by saying that she would give birth to
a son, Ishmael, untamed like a wild donkey and at odds with the rest of the
world. Then she praised the Lord who had presented Himself to her: Sá Ö qeñß
Ö ™pidwn me (in the Septuagint version, Gen. 16: 13), “you are the God that has
watched over me”. This phrase provides the answer to the rhetorical question
the poet puts forward in the epigram: “What is the angel?” Since Hagar
recognizes God himself in the messenger whom He sends, the answer can only
be: God. But what about the water? “What is the water?” Once again, the
answer is quite simple. In the New Testament the trinitarian God presented
Himself in the water of the river Jordan, where He, that is to say: the Son in
His hypostatic union with God the Father, was baptized while the Holy Spirit
descended upon Him. The water is the water of Baptism. It is with this water
that all those who belong to the Gentiles but are converted to Christianity, like
the poet himself, are to be baptized. Once we understand the paramount
importance of the concept of Baptism, we cannot fail to notice that “water”,
“dew”, “fluids”, “wells”, “rivers”, and the like, are crucial words in the vocab-
ulary of our poet: see nos. 47, 53, 58–59, 61–64, 70, 72 and 74–76.
“Blood”, “slaughter”, “sacrifice”, “bread”, “wine”, and the like, are also
among the poet’s favourite words: see nos. 43, 53–54, 57, 65–66, 72 and 76. All
these words refer to the Eucharist. See, for instance, no. 53 (on Easter): “Christ
abolished the Lamb of the Law and provided an immortal sacrifice, Himself