Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/841

 SICCA

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SICHEM

of Frederick I. He also composed an important work on the liturgy, "Mitrale, seu de officiis ecclesiasticia eumma", in nine books; and a "Summa Canonum", or handbook of canon law, based on the so-called ' ' Decretum Gelasianum ' '.

MiQNE, P. L., CCXIII; MuRATORi, Remm Ital. Script., VII; see Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, II, 315-27; KoMOROWSKi, Sicard Bischof von Cremona (Konigsberg, 1881).

Patrick J. Healy.

Sicca Veneria, a titular see in Africa Procon- sularis, suffragan of Carthage. Sicca was an ancient important town in the kingdom of Numidia, very probably of Phoenician origin, on the Bagradas, on the road from Carthage to Hippo Regius and from Musti to Cirta. It got its name from a celebrated temple of Venus. It was to Sicca, after the first Punic War, that the Carthaginians sent the Mer- cenaries whose discontent they feared. Included later in the proconsulate it received from Augustus the title of colony. It had moreover been colonized by the Sittians of Cirta, whence the name Colonia Cirta Nova and Colonia Julia Veneria Cirta Nova lulia; it is sometimes even called simply Cirta. Arnobius taught rhetoric there under Diocletian. Six of its bishops are known : Castus, at the Council of Carthage, 255; Patritius in 349; Fortunatianus mentioned in 407, present in 411 at a conference of Carthage and spoken of by St. Augustine, "Re- tractationes" XLI; Urbanus in 418, mentioned in 429 by St. Augustine, "Epist." ccxxix; Paul towards 480; Candidus in 646. The town commanding the principal natural roads leading from Algeria to Tunis preserved a great strategic importance till the French occupation; the Arabs called it Shikka Benar, or Shak Banaria, but it is better known as Le Kef (rock). It is the chief town of a civil "con- trole" in Tunis, contains 6000 inhabitants, and is connected with Tunis by a railroad. Its only in- teresting monuments are two mosques and the fortress. Among the Roman ruins are baths, cis- terns, the remains of a temple (of Augustus?) ; some of the inscriptions discovered are Christian; the most curious ruins are however those of the Basilica Kasr el-Ghoul, 1^7 M feet by 52 feet ending in an apse; the flooring was in mosaics; the baptistery of Dar el-Djir; a monastery below Ain Hadjima; and especially the Basilica of St. Peter of Dar el-Kous, of which the narthex is at present used as a church: it measures 139^ feet by 54^, the naves are roofless, but the apse is intact.

Smith, Diet, of Greek and Roman Geog. s. v.; Muller, Notes d Ptolemy, ed. Didot, I, 646; Toulotte, Geog. de I'Afrique chrelienne. Proconsulaire (Rennes, 1892), 241-6; Diehl, V Afrique byzantine (Paris, 1896), passim.

S. P^TRIoilS.

Sichem (A. V. Shechem), an Israelite city in the tribe of Ejjhraim, the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel. Its position is clearly indicated in the Bible: it lay north of Bethal and Silo, on the high road going from Jerusalem to the northern districts (Judges, xxi, 19), at a short distance from Machmethath (Jos., xvii, 7) and of Dothain (Gen., xxxvii, 12-17); it was in the hill-country of Ephraim (Jos., xx, 7; xxi, 21; IIIKings, xii, 25; I Par., vi, 67; yii, 28), immediately below Mount Garizim (Judges, ix, 6-7). These in- dications are completed by Josephus, who says that the city lay between Mt. Ebal and Alt. Garizim, and by the Medaba map, which places 2ux^M, also called l,iKlfia between the Tour Gobel (Ebal) and the Tour Garizin (Garizim). We may therefore admit un- hesitatingly that Sichem stood on (St. Jerome, St. Epiphanius), or very close to (Eusebius, "Onomast.", Sux^m; Medaba map), the site occupied by the town of Nabl^, the Neapolis, or Flavia Neapolis of early Christian ages.

That the city of Sichem, the name of which (Heb. shekem — shoulder, saddle) appears to have been sug-

gested by the configuration of the place, existed in the time of Abraham is doubted by a few who think it is referred to in Gen., xii, 6, by anticipation; but there can be no question touching its existence in Jacob's time (Gen., xxxiii, 18, 19); it is certainly mentioned in the El-Amama letters (letter 289), and is probably the Sakama of the old Egy-ptian traveller Mohar (fourteenth century b. c; Muller, " Asien u. Europ.", p. 394, Leipzig, 1893). Owing to its central position, no less than to the presence in the neighbourhood of places hallowed by the memory of Abraham (Gen., xii, 6, 7; xxxiv, 5), Jacob (Gen., xxxiii, 18-19; xxxiv, 2, etc.), and Joseph (Jos., xxiv, 32), the city was des- tined to play an important part in the history of Israel. There it was that, after Gedeon's death, Abimelech, his son by a Sichemite concubine, was made king (Judges, ix, 1-6); but the city having, three years later, risen in rebellion, Abimelech took it, utterly destroyed it, and burnt the temple of Baal- berith where the people had fled for safety. When and by whom the city was rebuilt is not knowTi; at any rate, Sichem was the place appointed, after Solomon's death, for the meeting of the people of Israel and the investiture of Roboam; the meeting ended in the secession of the ten northern tribes, and Sichem, fortified by Jeroboam, became for a while the capital of the new kingdom (III Kings, xii, 1; xiv, 17; II Par., X, 1). When the kings of Israel moved first to Thersa, and later on to Samaria, Sichem lost its im- portance, and we do not hear of it until after the fall of Jerusalem (587 B. c; Jer., xii, 5). The events con- nected with the restoration were to bring it again into prominence. When, on his second visit to Jeru- salem, Nehemias ex-pelled the grandson of the high priest Eliashib (probably the Manasse of Josephus, " Antiq.", XI, vii, viii), who refused to separate from his alien wife, Sanaballat's daughter, and with him the many Jews, priests and laymen, who sided with the rebel, these betook themselves to Sichem; a schismatic temple was then erected on Mount Garizim and thus Sichem became the "holy city" of the Samaritans. The latter, who were left unmolested while the orthodox Jews were chafing under the heavy hand of Antiochus IV (Antiq., XII, v, 5) and wel- comed with open arms every renegade who came to them from Jerusalem (Antiq., XI, viii, 7), fell about 128 B. c. before John Hyrcanus, and their temple was destroyed ("Antiq.", XIII, ix, 1).

From that time on, Sichem shared in the fate of the other cities of Samaria: with these it was annexed, at the time of the deposition of Archelaus, in a. d. 6, to the Roman Province of Syria. Some, no doubt, of its inhabitants (whether Sichar of John, iv, 5, is the same as Sichem or a place near the latter we shall leave here undecided) were of the number of the "Samaritans" who believed in Jesus when He tarried two days in the neighbourhood (John, iv), and the city must have been visited by the Apostles on their way from Samaria to Jerusalem (Acts, viii, 25). Of the Samaritans of Sichem not a few rose up in arms on Mt. Garizim at the time of the Galilean rebeUion (a. d. 67); the city was very likely destroyed on that occasionbyCerealis("Bell. Jud.", Ill, vii, 32), and a few years after a new city, Flavia Neapolis, was built by Vespasian a short distance to the west of the old one; some fifty years later Hadrian restored the temple on Mt. Garizim, and dedicated it to Jupiter (Dion Cass., xv, 12). Neapohs, like Sichem, had very early a Christian community and had the honour to give to the Church her first apologi.st, St. Justin Martyr; we hear even of bishops of Neapolis (Labbe, "Cone", I, 1475, 1488; II, 325). On several occa- sions the Christians suffered greatly from the Samar- itans, and in 474 the emperor, to avenge an unjust attack of the sect, deprived the latter of Mt. Garizim and gave it to the Christians who built on it a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin (Procop., "De