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Nor is this the only door with which the watch of the virgins may be epigraphically [handwritten: mx] related. There is a church in Nawa in northern Syria, built in 598. This church resembles our room (52) in that there were two doors in the south wall and two in the north. In the east wall, however, there was only one door. The two doors on the south opened into a portico and probably some sort of enclosed court, whereas the other three opened directly to the outside. Above all doors were inscriptions, parts of each of which have been preserved. In content, all were quotations from either the Psalms or the Song of Songs. Although the position of these inscriptions is not positive, it is very probable that the quotations from the Psalms were on the north and east sides, and those from the Song of Songs on the south. Now because the Psalms quoted are parts of certain [handwritten: baptismal] baptismal services, the church must almost surely have been connected in some [handwritten: way] with baptism. Now the Song of Songs was thought to be an epithalamion of the wedding of Christ and the [handwritten: church] church, [handwritten: as] a symbol of Christ's baptism. It thus becomes symbolic of baptism in [handwritten: the] general
Handwritten: to
and of the entry [handwritten: of] heaven of those who had been baptized. The inscription on the west lintel of the south side of the church at Nawa reads as follows,
65 figures hard to readstruck struck outadded written in above” jug ditto, and what it repeatsword reading not certain
