DeConick A.D

253
SPIRITUAL AVATARS
Gnostic Tombstones
In the southeast quarter of the suburbs of second-century Rome, a group
of Valentinians congregated. They have left behind physical evidence of
their presence in the form of two remarkable tombstones, our earliest
archaeological evidence of Gnostics, let alone Christians. Stones like these
tell stories, often uncensored. These particular stones tell us about the
death and redemption of two Valentinians.
One of the tombstones is fragmented, so we do not know the name
of the deceased. This tombstone is called NCE 156 and is housed in the
Capitoline Museums in Rome (see Synder 2011). The baptism of the deceased
is described in terms of a wedding banquet attended by brothers,
the groomsmen of the bridal chamber. The person is transported to the
bridal chamber where the Father and the Son are praised, where Silence
and Truth flow. Without doubt, the Valentinian redemptive rite of second
baptism is being described here (my reconstruction and translation):
For my baths, the brothers of the bridal chamber bear the torches.
In our chambers, they hunger for banquets.
They praise the Father and glorify the Son.
There is [a flow] of solitary [Silence] and Truth in that place.
The second person we know by name. She is Flavia Sophe, whose husband,
also a Valentinian, immortalized her faith in stone (see McKechnie
2001; Synder 2014). This tombstone (CIG 4:9595a) is housed in the National
Museum of Rome, near the Diocletian Baths (figure 8.2). On the
front side (epigraph 1), her tombstone reads (my translation):
Sophe, my dear sister and bride, you yearn for the light of the Father.
You have been anointed with immortal holy oil in the baths of Christ.
You have sought eagerly to gaze upon the divine faces of the aeons,
Upon the great angel of the great counsel, the true Son.
You have gone to the bridal chamber and ascended to the house of the Father.
Her husband considers Sophe his sister and bride in Christ. They are
companions in faith and sacred marriage. Her Valentinian initiation,