Images: Princeton (Antioch 3581-P346; a1105-P1909); Spurlock Museum (no. 1922.01.0207); Yale (no. 1913.592); British Museum (1883,0808.1)
Clavis number: ECMA 100
Other descriptors: none
Category: Ampullae
Related literature: Acts of John, Acts of John by Prochorus, Acts of John (Latin)
Featured characters and locations: Ephesus, John (apostle), Prochorus.
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: ceramic
Size: aprox. 7 × 5.5 × 2.2 cm
Image: a roughly spherical flask with pierced shoulders on opposing sides. The red ceramic vase has both the back and front of the flask etched with a figure who may be John the Evangelist as the main focus (Zalesskaya 1986 suggests the seated figure may be Prochorus). The front of the ampulla shows a man seated and writing and the back shows a figure standing and holding a book with a cross on it. This may be the cross of St. Andrew.
Date: 6th/7th cent.
Provenance: the ampullae were discovered on sites on the west coast of Turkey (Aphrodisias, Sardis, and Phocaea).
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
The ampullae were flasks for sacred uses such as holding holy oil. The ampullae are associated with St. John due to the fact that they were found in the region of Ephesus, the cult center of St. John the Evangelist. Likely they were used by pilgrims to collect and take home a substance related to veneration of the saint. Late antique and medieval sources report that visitors to John’s tomb on the saint’s feast day (May 8) would witness manna (Greek: konis) being “exhaled” by the evangelist (believed to be still alive) from holes in the floor, just in front of the altar.
The earliest tradition about John’s death is found in the Acts of John, which tells how John instructed his disciples to dig a trench and then laid down in it, and “yield[ed] up the ghost” (111–115; trans. J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993]); additions to the text state that on the following day, only John’s sandals could be found and the earth was “springing up like a well.” The Latin Acts of John (Virtutes Iohannis) adds that after his death, “forthwith manna issuing from the tomb was seen of all, which manna that place produceth even unto this day” (trans. M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament [1924; repr., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953], p. 270).
Augustine may be the first to mention this phenomenon: “And they relate of John (this is found in certain Scriptures, albeit apocryphal) that when he ordered his sepulcher to be made he was present [at the grave] alive . . . and that he indicates his being alive by a flow [or spring] of dust. This dust is believed to be pushed [up] by the breath of the one who sleeps there, so that it ascends from the bottom to the surface of the tomb” (In Iohannis Evangelium tractatus, PL 35, 1970–71, commenting on John 21:22–23). Other accounts follow—including Gregory of Tours (De gloria martyrum, PL 71.730), On the Assumption of the Virgin by Pseudo-Jerome (PL 30.127), Ephrem of Antioch (reported in Photius, Bibliotheca, PG 103:986–87), and Symeon Metaphrastes (Synaxarium 665; PG 117:441)—with the most recent in the fourteenth century by Ramón Muntaner (Chronicle 206).
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, William. “An Archaeology of Late Antique Pilgrim Flasks.” Anatolian Studies 54 (2004): 79–93.
Duncan-Flowers, Maggie. “A Pilgrim’s Ampulla from the Shrine of St. John the Evangelist at Ephesus.” Pages 125–39 in The Blessings of Pilgrimage. Edited by Robert Ousterhout. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990.
Gessel, Wilhelm M. “Die Johannestradition aus dem Ayasoluk im Lichte der apokryphen Johannesakten.” Pages 108–13 in Lingua restituta orientalis: Festschrift für Julius Assfalg. Edited by Regine Schulz and Manfred Görg. ÄAT 20. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1990.
Maeir, Aren M., and Yael Strauss. “A Pilgrim Flask of Anatolian Origin from Late Byzantine/Early Ummayyad Jerusalem.” Anatolian Studies 45 (1995): 237–42.
Pülz, Andreas. “Archaeological Evidence of Christian Pilgrimage in Ephesus.” Herom 1 (2012): 225–260.
__________. “Ephesos als christliches Pilgerzentrum.” Mitteilungen zur Christlichen Archäologie 16 (2010): 71–102.
Vikan, Gary. Early Byzantine Pilgrimage Art. 1982. Rev. ed. Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Collections Publications 5. Washington, DC: Dunbarton Oaks, 2010 (pp. 34–36)
Weitzman, Kurt, ed. Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979 (pp. 576–78).
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
“Ampullae.” Wikipedia.
Hassett, Maurice M. “Ampullae.” Catholic Encyclopedia.
Entry created by Alexis Halushak, under the supervision of Tony Burke, York University, 6 April 2021.