Bible Lexicons

This word has become very familiar to students of the papyri owing to the lengthy correspondence regarding the grievances of the Serapeum Twins, Thaues and Thaus or Taous, that has come to light. Their story has been reconstructed by Kenyon, P Lond I. p. 2 ff. For a specimen of their petitions see P Par 26 (B.C. 163–2), reproduced in Selections, p. 12 ff. It opens—Βασιλεῖ Πτολεμαίῳ καὶ Βασιλίσσῃ Κλεοπάτρᾳ τῇ ἀδελφῇ, θεοῖς Φιλομήτορσι, χαίρειν. Θαυὴς καὶ Ταοὺς δίδυμαι, αἱ λειτουργοῦσαι ἐν τῷ πρὸς Μέμφει μεγάλῳ Σαραπιείῳ κτλ. From ib..12 f. καὶ ἐκ τούτων καὶ τῶν προτοῦ γενηθεισῶν δ [ι ]δύμων κομισαμένων τὰ ἑαυτῶν καθ᾽ ἡμέραν δέοντα, we learn that the Twins were there ex officio as twins, in connexion with some Dioscuric cultus : see Rendel Harris Boanerges, p. 272. From later documents it will be enough to quote P Oxy III. 533.15 (ii/iii A.D.) εἴπατε καὶ τοῖς διδύμοις ὅτι προνοήσ [α ]τε τοῦ κερματίου, ";tell the twins also to be careful about the small change"; (Edd.). The frequency of Didymus as a proper name is curious : we compare the Latin Geminus and Gemellus (cf. for the latter the farmer whose correspondence at end of i/A.D. is preserved in P Fay), but it is much less prominent than Δίδυμος becomes in Hellenistic Egypt—after iii/B.C., if we may judge from the almost complete absence of Dioscuric names from the indices of P Petr and P Hib. There is a diminutive Διδυμάριον in P Lond 901.16 (i/ii A.D.) (= III. p. 24), the name of a woman. In P Lond 604 B.387 (c. A.D. 47) (= III. p. 86) we find two brothers named Castor and Didymus, which suggests that Didymus is a surrogate for Polydeuces. The index of proper names in this volume is suggestive as to the prevalence of Dioscuric worship in Egypt. There are 28 Castors, 9 (or 11) with the name Polydeuces, 28 with Didymus (Didyme and Didymarion once each), 49 with Dioscorus or Dioscurides. It is also noteworthy that names of this class tend to recur in families, and that six of them are linked with an Isidotus, Isidorus or Ision. One Didymus is the son of Amphion, which takes us into another Greek twin–cultus. Since Ἀμφίων is short for ἀμφιγενής, as Dr Harris points out, the classical pair Zethus and Amphion are named exactly on the same principle as our Castor and Didymus above. One of a pair had a name of his own, and his brother was nothing but ";Twin."; The Apostle Thomas no doubt was ";Judas the Twin;"; but if the well attested ";Judas"; were rejected, the name by which we always know him was entirely capable of standing alone. Whether every Didymus really was a twin may be questioned. Like Dioscorus and the rest, it might often only imply a cult relation : Pollux was the ";patron saint";—to describe the practice in terms of its mediæval derivative.

In BGU I. 115.12 (A.D. 189) (= Chrest. I. p. 238) Wilcken conjectures a hitherto unknown compound δ [ι ]δυμαγεν [εῖς, which is confirmed by ib. II. 447.10 (A.D. 173–4) (= I. 26).