The Ante-Nicene Church · AD 180–313
Akeptous
fl. c. AD 230 · Donor of the communion table at Kfar Othnay · Kfar Othnay, by the camp at Legio
The Ante-Nicene Church
Who Akeptous was
She gave the table. The inscription on the west side of the southern panel of the Megiddo mosaic floor — the **Akeptous Inscription** — records that **“the God-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial”**, and the base of that table was found in the centre of the room.
**Three things make her page one of the most significant in this archive.** The first is what she calls him. “God Jesus Christ” stands at the end of the fifth line, written in contracted form under a supralinear stroke — ΘΩ for ΘΕΩ, ΙΥ for ΙΗΣΟΥ, ΧΩ for ΧΡΙΣΤΩ — the *nomina sacra*, the scribal reverence usually seen in manuscripts, here set in stone. **This is the earliest known inscription identifying Jesus as God**, about a century before Christianity was legalised.
The second is her vocabulary. The text uses **μνημόσυνον** for the memorial and **προσφέρειν** for the offering — words uncommon in ordinary dedications of the period and familiar from the New Testament.
The third is that she is a woman, named alone as the donor of a eucharistic table, in a room whose floor names five women out of seven people. Her name is Latin, adapted into Greek.
Nothing else about her is known: no family, no death, no later mention. The floor is her whole record, and it is a considerable one.
The Akeptous inscription of the Megiddo mosaic, c. AD 230 — one epigraphic attestation. No literary source names her, and the archive holds her on the object alone.
Also listed in women.
Common questions
When was Akeptous active?
Akeptous is dated fl. c. AD 230 in the archive, which places Akeptous in the Ante-Nicene Church (AD 180–313). The dating is traditional and approximate; the archive marks it as uncertain rather than fixing a year the sources do not give.
Which early sources mention Akeptous?
Akeptous is named in 1 primary-source passage catalogued here, drawn from Akeptous. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.
Where was Akeptous from?
The archive associates Akeptous with Kfar Othnay, by the camp at Legio. The sources record more than one location, so the places are listed in the order the record moves through them.
Who were Akeptous’ contemporaries?
The archive links Akeptous to 7 other figures, including Jesus of Nazareth, Gaianus, also called Porphyrius, Brutius and Primilla. Each connection is drawn from a source that places them together, not from inference.
Primary-source mentions (1)
Every passage below is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.
The Megiddo Mosaic — the Akeptous Inscription
c. AD 230“The God-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.” [The words “God Jesus Christ” stand at the end of the fifth line in contracted form beneath a supralinear stroke — ΘΩ = ΘΕΩ, ΙΥ = ΙΗΣΟΥ, ΧΩ = ΧΡΙΣΤΩ — the *nomina sacra* of the manuscript tradition, set here in a floor. The **earliest known inscription identifying Jesus as God.** The table it names is the communion table whose base was found in the centre of the room; μνημόσυνον and προσφέρειν are both New Testament words rather than ordinary dedicatory ones.]Akeptous · Greek inscription, west side of the southern panel
Object. The Megiddo Mosaic — floor of a Christian worship hall at Kfar Othnay, beside the Roman legionary camp at Legio, c. AD 230. Excavated by Yotam Tepper for the Israel Antiquities Authority during salvage work on the grounds of Megiddo Prison, 2003–2005; the inscriptions edited by Leah Di Segni. Lifted in 2024 in ten pieces and exhibited at the Museum of the Bible, Washington DC, 15 September 2024 – 6 July 2025, then returned to Israel. Three Greek panels name seven people; five are women.
Connected in the archive
People
Events in this lifetime
- AD 177 · Persecution at Lyon and Vienne, AD 177
- AD 180 · The Scillitan martyrs, AD 180
- AD 190 · The Quartodeciman controversy, AD 190
- AD 202 · Perpetua and Felicity martyred, AD 202
Place
Places served
The one place the sources put Akeptous.