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Ἔτι οὖν καὶ εὐλογήθη ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ τὰ ἐκ τῶν ὑδάτων γενέσθαι, ὅπως ἡ καὶ τοῦτο εἰς δεῖγμα τοῦ μέλλειν λαμ- βάνειν + μετάνοιαν καὶ ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν διὰ ὕδατος καὶ λουτροῦ παλιγγενεσίας, πάντας τοὺς προσιόντας τῇ ἀληθείᾳ καὶ ἀναγεννωμένους καὶ λαμβάνοντας εὐ- λογίαν παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ. 65
This blessing or εὐλογήθη means the announced decision of God when He saw that the birds and the fishes were good, that they should be fruitful and multiply. 66 In other words, because these animals were created out of water and because the Lord decided to preserve them, their present existence the Lord who created us has decided is a symbol or proof that the Lord who created us has decided to save us through water and baptism. This blending of Hellenistic thought as represented by the story of animals with that of Hebrew as represented by the classification of the creation of the birds and the fishes from Genesis is a characteristic of Byzantine civilization. 67
Now the cruciform shapes in the panels of the mosaic were probably meant to be crosses-Christian crosses. At about the time of the building of this bath, Christian crosses were depicted on floor mosaics. 68 In the second quarter of the fifth century, the depicting in floor mosaics of
65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain