Neon
CONCERNING HOLY NEON, C. 450–73 . Neon, the eighteenth bishop. He had a beautiful appearance , a most holy and spiritual life. He was the builder of the above-mentioned Petriana church, only part of which his predecessor had constructed from the foundation , whence it was necessary for the successors to complete the work for their predecessor. Thereupon, after all the buildings were built and the renovations of the temple were completed, he had it painted with different colors. He decorated the baptistries of the Ursiana church most beautifully : he set up in mosaic and gold tesserae the images of the apostles and their names in the vault, he girded the side-walls with different types of stones.1 His name is written in stone letters:2 Yield, old name, yield, age, to newness! Behold the glory of the renewed font shines more beautifully. For generous Neon, highest priest, has adorned it, arranging all things in beautiful refinement.3 . Within the episcopal palace of the Ursiana church he built from the foundations and brought to completion a structure which is called the Five Couches.4 On each side of the dining hall he built wondrous windows, and there he ordered the pavement of the dining hall to be decorated with different types of stones. The story of the psalm which we sing daily, that is, “Praise ye the Lord from the heavens,”5 together with the Flood, he ordered to be .This decoration still survives; see Deichmann, Ravenna .:– and .:, and Nauerth, Agnellus von Ravenna, Untersuchungen, –. . Testi-Rasponi, CPER, , n. , suggests that “letters” refers to the monogram for Neon episcopus dei famulus (Neon the bishop, servant of God), which still survives, but since the phrase introduces a poetic inscription, it is better to see it used in the same way as “letters” in the same context, to refer to the “words” of the inscription. . For similar dedicatory inscriptions in churches in Rome andTebessa, see Deichmann , Ravenna .:. .The name quinque accubitas, “five couches,” refers to the number of dining couches the room would hold, and possibly to its appearance; see Glossary, s.v. triclinium. For more on this dining hall, see de Angelis d’Ossat, “Sulla distrutta aula,” and Miller, The Bishop’s Palace, –. . Ps. :. This psalm would make a good illustration because it lists all of the various parts of creation praising God. painted on the side wall flanking the church; and on the other side wall, which is located over the stream,6 he had it adorned in colors with the story of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he fed so many thousands of men from five loaves and two fishes, as we read. On one side of the interior façade of the dining hall he set out the creation of the world, in which daily we read these verses written in hexameter:7 At the beginning of the shining world in its first origin, when the swift power of the Father and the might of his Son made the sea, the earth, the bright kingdoms of heaven, and when the new sun, moon, day, dawn shone forth, from that light the star-bearing heaven shone []. One man in the new world, made from the virgin earth, leapt up from the soil, innocent in sense and in body. He alone deserved to be called the image of God, for the love of the supreme Progenitor produced man as his likeness in the world, and made him its master []. The all-powerful Begetter, richest in things, Himself endowed him with manifold wealth for the future: at the same time he yielded him all the gifts of the forests, he ordered the earth to produce fruits for eternity . His were the snowy-white sheep, gleaming cows at grass [], his the high-maned horses and tawny lions, his everywhere the deer with branching horns, and the winged flocks of birds, and fishes in the waves. For God gave all things to man, whatever He had produced, and made them equally subject to his word []. He ordered him, however, in the first heavenly admonitions, to observe his law and vital things in time to . Rizzardi, “Note sull’antico episcopio,” , connects this passage, where the dining hall is located between the church and the Fossa Amnis, with another passage in c. , in which Archbishop JohnVI is said to be sitting “at the table, behind the apse of the church above the uiuarium.” Rizzardi shows that an area between the Ursiana and the...
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